Showing posts with label historical fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label historical fiction. Show all posts

Monday, May 18, 2020

White Elephant


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White Elephant is a 2019 historical fantasy novel by V. E. Ulett. It is the second novel in the Code Black series. While it’s a part of a series, the story itself is a stand-alone novel. I was provided with a free copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.

The novel follows Miriam, a crew member on the airship Nonesuch. In order to keep her place on board, she must complete a mission for Lord Q and persuade the first white rajah of Sarawak to become loyal to the British Crown once more. When Nonesuch crash lands on the coast of Borneo, Miriam’s mission changes to one of survival. In order to rescue the crew of the Nonesuch, she must trek through the jungle guided by a team of elephants to the would-be empire builder’s capital. The jungle has it’s own laws, however, and Miriam may not emerge with her mission and loyalties unchanged.

Before I get into my review, I wanted to point out a few topics/themes this book deals with. There are multiple mentions of rape and allusions to it. There are scenes involving animal cruelty. There are a few scenes where medical discussions happen, and the description of some of the injuries and conditions might make the reader squeamish.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this novel, especially since it is the second book in a series and I hadn’t read the first Code Black book Golden Dragon. Thankfully, the novel works as a stand-alone book and I was easily able to follow the story without getting confused by the dynamics between characters. I suspect Golden Dragon provides a little more detail about Miriam’s backstory and fleshes out the character of Lord Q a bit, but doesn’t impact this novel beyond that.

I enjoyed the characters in this story a lot. Miriam, the main character, was smart, while also having an edge to her that I liked. She’s a Muslim woman from Tehran and her education and resourcefulness is why Lord Q recruited her. Her behavior and attitude were very realistic for the setting of the story and I enjoyed the journey she went on as a character. My second favorite character was Maximus Thorpe, Miriam’s lover and the captain of the Nonesuch. While most of the story is told through Miriam’s eyes, there are chapters told from Maximus’s as the story begins to come together and the truth about the white rajah starts to become clear. Maximus is very intelligent, and I appreciated the fact that he was skeptical of information he was being told and went with his instincts, on more than one occasion, rather than simply believe what others told him.  This novel has a very diverse cast of characters, including some transgender characters, which was surprising read as historical novels tend to focus on white characters with very few non-white characters included in the background or they’re written as one-dimensional. This is the first historical novel I’ve read to include a trans character.

While the novel is not intended to be an action or adventure story, the actions scenes are well-written and the author maintains the tension through all of the fast-paced action scenes throughout the book without making things seem repetitive. Each scene is unique and each fight feels just as intense, if not more intense, than earlier ones. The novel as a whole is very well-written. The story kept me engaged and the author clearly did a great deal of research in writing it. I was especially impressed when it came to how much information about elephants and their behavior patterns was included. While the elephants start as being just a mode of transportation, they soon become characters in and of themselves. One of the book’s subplot involves the plight of the wild elephants and their treatment at the hands of both the native population and the British hoping to colonize Borneo.  

While I enjoyed the novel overall, I do have a few criticisms. The dialogue can be a bit hard to follow, given that it’s written in vernacular English. For characters who either don’t speak English well or have a strong accent, their dialogue is written to imitate how they’d actually sound. For example, “Miriam” and “England” are spelled like “Maryam” and “Inglang” respectively on several occasions. It’s hard to follow at the beginning, but the more you read of the book, the easier it is to follow. This style also applies to Maximus, who’s Scottish and his dialogue is written to emulate a Scottish accent. I wasn’t a big fan of the climax of the story, due to the way it unfolds. I don’t want to spoil anything, but the reader isn’t able to witness as much of it as I’d hoped. Similarly, the antagonist is described as having gone mad, but the reader isn’t shown enough evidence of this. The reader is shown evidence of him being a terrible person, but the madness, the urgency of Miriam’s mission, really isn’t delivered on. Lastly, there are a few in-universe things that Miriam does that don’t completely make sense. Perhaps I wasn’t pay close enough attention, but for some events, I felt like a little more insight on Miriam’s thought process or feelings would’ve gone a long way.

Overall, I enjoyed White Elephant. It was an engaging read, which I ended up liking a lot more than I expected to. While there are some kinks that need to be worked out and things the author can improve upon, it’s a good novel. I might go back and read the first novel in the series now that I’ve read this one.


Rating: 3.4 Stars

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Tuesday, November 12, 2019

November TBR

Hello everybody!

I know that I'm a little late to be doing my monthly TBR, but in my defense, the first week of November was a little crazy. Could I have foreseen the craziness? Yes, but for some reason I didn't and I'm now dealing with the consequences. Anyway, let's just get straight into all of the books I plan to (hopefully) read this month.


The Books
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Days of Rock and Roll by Kelly Holm

Ariana is a very talented photographer who agrees to photograph her ex-boyfriend Zak’s band, Dark Horses, for Sound Trip magazine. Zak is thrilled and plans to use the occasion to win her back. However, when Ariana arrives, she catches Zak in a very compromising situation with Hollywood starlet Josie Winters, who wants Zak for herself.


Before Zak can explain to Ariana that what saw was a complete misunderstanding, Ariana mysteriously disappears in the middle of the night, and Zak is filled with guilt and wonder. When he realizes that she has been kidnapped, he’ll stop at nothing to find her. Will Zak find Ariana before it’s too late? 



Beneath a Scarlet Sky


Beneath A Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan
Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He’s a normal Italian teenager—obsessed with music, food, and girls—but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior.
In an attempt to protect him, Pino’s parents force him to enlist as a German soldier—a move they think will keep him out of combat. But after Pino is injured, he is recruited at the tender age of eighteen to become the personal driver for Adolf Hitler’s left hand in Italy, General Hans Leyers, one of the Third Reich’s most mysterious and powerful commanders.
Now, with the opportunity to spy for the Allies inside the German High Command, Pino endures the horrors of the war and the Nazi occupation by fighting in secret, his courage bolstered by his love for Anna and for the life he dreams they will one day share.



The Body In Question by Jill Climent

The place: central Florida. The situation: a sensational murder trial, set in a courthouse more Soviet than Le Corbusier; a rich, white teenage girl—a twin—on trial for murdering her toddler brother.

Two of the jurors: Hannah, a married fifty-two-year-old former Rolling Stone and Interview Magazine photographer of rock stars and socialites (she began to photograph animals when she realized she saw people “as a species”), and Graham, a forty-one-year-old anatomy professor. Both are sequestered (she, juror C-2; he, F-17) along with the other jurors at the Econo Lodge off I-75. As the shocking and numbing details of the crime are revealed during a string of days and courtroom hours, and the nights play out in a series of court-financed meals at Outback Steak House (the state isn’t paying for their drinks) and Red Lobster, Hannah and Graham fall into a furtive affair, keeping their oath as jurors never to discuss the trial. During deliberations the lovers learn that they are on opposing sides of the case. Suddenly they look at one another through an altogether different lens, as things become more complicated . . .

After the verdict, Hannah returns home to her much older husband, but the case ignites once again and Hannah’s “one last dalliance before she is too old” takes on profoundly personal and moral consequences as The Body in Question moves to its affecting, powerful, and surprising conclusion.


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Dune by Frank Herbert

Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the "spice" melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known universe, melange is a prize worth killing for...

When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul's family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad'Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.


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Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert

Dune Messiah continues the story of Paul Atreides, better known--and feared--as the man christened Muad'Dib. As Emperor of the Known Universe, he possesses more power than a single man was ever meant to wield. Worshipped as a religious icon by the fanatical Fremens, Paul faces the enmity of the political houses he displaced when he assumed the throne--and a conspiracy conducted within his own sphere of influence.

And even as House Atreides begins to crumble around him from the machinations of his enemies, the true threat to Paul comes to his lover, Chani, and the unborn heir to his family's dynasty...



Of the five books I've mentioned, only one is a reread. I read Dune years ago and I've decided to reread it since there is a film adaptation coming out in 2020. Five books is more than I normally read in a month, but I decided to challenge myself. We'll see how it goes.

What's on your TBR?

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