"Spark of the Revolution" by Megan Soja

What a lovely book!

Spark of the Revolution follows a young British woman named Patience who arrives in Colonial Boston in 1773, escorted by her brother William.  Their mother has died, and Patience is eager to be reunited with her father, who has been living in Boston ever since an injury meant he was unable to continue making his livelihood at sea.

Patience is shocked to discover that her father has remarried already, and now she has a stepsister as well as a stepmother.  She struggles especially much because she was hoping that she and her father could grow closer as they grieved for her mother and adjusted to their new life together, but now he has already moved on and seems to not be interested in getting to know her better.

Will finds work at a Boston printing office and makes friends with some young men who are secretly part of the Sons of Liberty organization leading the boycott of Britain's taxes on tea and so on.  One of his new friends is Josiah, a blacksmith who catches Patience's eye as well.  Josiah is struggling with his Christian faith and with loneliness.  Will and Patience bring friendship and eventually love into his life, and Josiah grows and changes the most of anyone over the course of the book.

While there is a romance central to this book, the themes of sibling friendship and family love are basically just as strong as the romance, and I loved that.  The historical details of pre-Revolutionary Boston are fantastic, and "seeing" the Boston Tea Party happen made me bounce with joy.  The writing is fluid and enjoyable, and the characters are delightfully believable and real-feeling.  I'm so glad there are two more books out in this series already, and a fourth coming before the end of the year!

Particularly Good Bits:

But it had been a decade since she'd spent more than a handful of months at a time in her father's company, and nearly three years since she had seen him at all.  Not enough time to plant any new memories in the garden of her heart (p. 22).

The whole of Boston seemed poised and tense, like a barn cat crouching low and steady, barely twitching her tail before she pounced on her prey (p. 138).

"Each day is one the Lord has made, a gift from Him that we give back by living in obedience and trust.  To know tomorrow is His place, not ours" (p. 185).

Mama would forever be a part of her, woven tightly into the fabric of Patience's life, and as time passed and the sharpness of the pain dulled, the joy of those memories grew and flourished (p. 295).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for some discussions of violence, though it is pretty well kept off-page.  No cussing; no smut.

This has been my third book read from my #RevolutionaryWarReads list!

"The Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Thief" by Maurice LeBlanc

What fun!  I had honestly never heard of Arsène Lupin before I bought this book.  I bought it because I really love the MacMillan Collector's Edition books, which are elegant pocket-sized hardcovers with delightful dust jackets.  I check every now and then to see what books they have released lately in case any are of interest to me, and this one looked like fun.  Sort of a precursor to The Saint books by Leslie Charteris, in a way. 

Arsène Lupin steals expensive things from rich people. Along the way, he often solves a crime or clears up a mystery.  Sometimes, though, the story is really just all about a clever heist he pulls of.  He's a gentleman thief, after all, not a detective.

Of the nine short stories in this collection, my top favorites were:

"The Seven of Hearts," in which Lupin not only executes a daring burglary, but solves an old crime.

"The Escape of Arsène Lupin" because I always enjoy prison-escape stories.

"Holmlock Shears Arrives Too Late" because it was really funny, and didn't so much poke fun at Sherlock Holmes as play with his character like this was a fanfic story (which it basically is).

I liked this book so much, I have asked my mom for a boxed set of the complete collection (there are like 8 or 9 more books, though not all in these editions, alas) for my birthday.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for a little violence here and there, plus obviously themes of theft and robbery.  No cussing; no smut.

This has been my third classic book read and reviewed for my fifth Classic Club list.

"The Mysterious Affair at Styles" by Agatha Christie

My sister-in-law sent me a copy of The Mysterious Affair at Styles as part of a little book box last year.  She sent it to me to cheer me up when I was having a really stressful time, and it definitely worked!  Even though it took me a few months to read the book itself, having it to look forward to was a definite morale booster, as were the neat goodies that came with it.

This is not only the first book featuring the great detective Hercule Poirot, it's Agatha Christie's debut novel.  It's full of all the elements you would expect from a Poirot mystery:  a seemingly unsolvable crime, lots of suspects, some red herrings, and a solution that eventually makes sense.  Plus, we get to see Poirot and Hastings become friends, which is so fun!  

Is this my favorite Poirot mystery?  Don't think so, but it doesn't have to be.  I enjoyed it a lot, and I'm glad I've finally read it!

Particularly Good Bits:

"You gave too much rein to your imagination.  Imagination is a good servant, and a bad mater.  The simplest explanation is always the most likely" (p. 84).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for murder and the tiniest bit of strong language.

This is my second book read and reviewed for my fifth Classics Club list.

"Sitka" by Louis L'Amour

Basically, Sitka is an origin story for the state of Alaska.

I'm not even joking.

Jean LaBarge grows up in the swamps of Pennsylvania before heading off into the wilderness and ending up a young man on the California coast.  He spends a lot of time on sailing ships.  He gets big and tough and true-hearted, like all the best L'Amour heroes.  He keeps in touch with his childhood best friend, who stays in the East and becomes an important politician.

And he obsesses over Alaska.

Now, having been obsessed with Alaska myself since I was 11 years old, I understand that last bit.  There's something kind of magical about even just the name.  Alaska.  

I actually bought my copy of this book while in Alaska last August.  (I bought it in Skagway, not Sitka, but that doesn't matter.)  It took me thirty-four years to get there -- quite a bit longer than it takes Jean LaBarge.  He gets there while it still belongs to Russia and helps to open up to the possibility of Russia selling it to the United States.  He also spends several months crossing Russia from the Pacific to the Atlantic.  He falls in love with a Russian princess, with a sort of classic Medieval courtly love, since she's already married to a really great guy.  He makes enemies and defeats them.  Lots of really exciting stuff happens in the best style of L'Amour's sweeping epics.

It took me six months to read the first 60 pages of this book, and three days to read the last 250.  Make of that whatever you want.

Particularly Good Bits:

It gleamed there on his calloused palm, heavy as sin in the heart of a man.  "If that isn't gold, what is it?" (p. 55).

To a fool time brings only age, not wisdom (p. 78).

It was a pity, he reflected, that the men of good will are so poorly armed, for at times it was a handicap not to hate (p. 169).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-10 for some brawling and other non-gory violence, some references to bawdy houses, alcohol consumption by adults, scenes of children in peril, and mild innuendo about men's intentions toward women.  

This is my first book read and reviewed for my fifth Classics Club list!

Did Someone Say "FREE Audiobook"???

I did, it was me.  I said free audiobook, and I meant FREE!!!

ONE Audiobooks, which has produced all of my audiobooks, picks one title from their catalog each month to let people listen to for free.  And, in March, that book is Dancing and Doughnuts, my Twelve Dancing Princesses retelling!

All you have to do is go to the OneAudiobooks website and follow the directions.  Once you save Dancing and Doughnuts to your account, you will have until June 1 to finish listening to it.

It's kind of like borrowing a book from the library, where you have a certain number of weeks to read it, and then you return it.  You don't get to download and keep the book for free, but you get to experience it for free within a certain timeframe.

If you're new to my books, I write cozy Christian westerns.  My Once Upon a Western series retells fairy tales as clean YA historical fiction.  These are non-magical westerns with no cussing or smut, containing sweet PG-level romances and mild violence only (think an old John Wayne movie from the 1950s).  

Dancing and Doughnuts is about a Civil War veteran trying to find work in a small Kansas town.  He takes a job trying to figure out who is spiking the refreshments served at a family-run dance hall.  Twelve sisters, uncountable doughnuts, rowdy cowboys -- nothing can stop our hero from solving this mystery and helping the family resolve some bigger problems in the process.

The audiobook version is read by Steve Corona, whose narration of my book One Bad Apple won a SOVA last year.  Steve has been my ideal narrator for Dancing and Doughnuts since the idea of audiobook editions for my books first entered my head, and he absolutely knocks this narration out of the park. Do yourself a favor and listen to it for free while you can!

"The Greatest Lawyer That Ever Lived: Patrick Henry at the Bar of History" by George Morrow

This is a slim volume containing two essays about Patrick Henry, both by George Morrow.  In both essays, the author contends that Patrick Henry is essentially a mystery to us today for two reasons.  

First, Patrick Henry wasn't obsessed with writing things down OR with keeping records of his writing and speeches for posterity.  He was very gifted as a defense attorney and as a public orator, but his speeches had a strange ability to make people agree with him at the same time as not be able to remember exactly what he said.  So even the speeches we think we know he made, George Morrow says are probably just vague approximations of what he said because Henry didn't keep the speeches he wrote and no one else could remember more than the basic gist of them.  Yes, including the famous "Give me liberty, or give me death speech."

Second, George Morrow makes a convincing case for Thomas Jefferson being virulently envious of Patrick Henry for decades because Henry was a much more accomplished lawyer than Jefferson and a much better public speaker.  Morrow contends that, after Patrick Henry's death, Thomas Jefferson began systematically and effectively erasing Patrick Henry's good qualities from public and private memory alike and replacing them with the idea that Patrick Henry was a mediocre lawyer who got a lucky day in court now and then, was a lazy and cowardly state governor, and so on. 

If nothing else, these two essays have convinced me I need to read more about Patrick Henry and not rely on my memories of what my high school history books said about him thirty years ago.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  Nothing scandalous or untoward here.

This has been my second book read from my #RevolutionaryWarReads list!

"Daniel Boone's Own Story" by Daniel Boone and "The Adventures of Daniel Boone" by Frances Lister Hawkes

How weird that these two short books have never crossed my path before this!  Especially considering what a big fan of Daniel Boone I have been since I was in single digits.  I've read so many junior biographies about him, so many articles... but never his own short account of how he helped open Kentucky for settlement?  Not sure how it escaped me before now.

Well, Daniel Boone's Own Story is the bold adventurer's own recounting of how and when and why he explored Kentucky with his brother and a few friends, how he returned to lead surveyors there, and why he brought his own family with a larger group to settle there.  This all happened before and during the American Revolution, but had little to do with the Revolution except to mention Lord Dunmore a couple of times (he who was Royal Governor of Virginia until the Revolution began) and to talk about refusing to surrender to British authority even as a possible escape from being held captive by a hostile tribe.  

I loved how Daniel Boone expresses himself in this.  He's straight-forward, modest, thoughtful, a little funny here and there, and can turn a pretty phrase.  And he repeatedly credits God with blessing his efforts, helping him and others out of difficulties, and making the beautiful wilderness land that Boone so cherished.

The Adventures of Daniel Boone by Francis Lister Hawks obviously draws on Boone's book, but fleshes the narrative out more.  It talks about Boone's life before and after the opening of Kentucky, which is nice.  I didn't learn much new from it that I hadn't read in other books, but I enjoyed the refresher anyway.  Hawks has a high-flown, old-fashioned writing style that makes Boone seem doubly plainspoken and uncomplicated by comparison.  But I didn't dislike the book just because his prose got a little purple here and there.  

Particularly Good Bits:

So much does friendship triumph over misfortune that sorrows and sufferings vanish at the meeting not only of real friends, but of the most distant acquaintances, and substitute happiness in their room (p. 4, Daniel Boone's Own Story)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for discussions of torture, some of which would be very disturbing for people with vivid imaginations.

Since these are so short, I am counting them together as my 50th book read for my 4th Classics Club list.  Which means I have finished my list!  Again!  Since January of 2014, I have read and reviewed 200 classic books :-D

(Actually, I've read more classics than that in those ten years, because I only count a book once for the Classics Club, and if I read it again after that, it doesn't count for my lists.)

I'll be making a fifth list soon!  Stay tuned for that...