THE BEHOLDER by Anna Bright

Rating: An epic score played by a world class symphony on the deck of a tall ship.

Highlight of note: A well imagined alt-Earth setting and a swashbuckling crew of sailors.

Will you read more in this series? Absolutely!

Selah is the heir to the nation of Potomac. In her world, England gave up its unprofitable North American colonies when rebels on the other side of the world forced the Empire into a war. I spent a while puzzling as to what went differently in her world and ours. Obviously, the colonies that became the US failed to rebel, or to join together after being released from English rule. There are some things I pegged as different, but overall I think the theme that small things can make big changes is the relevant thing to cite. (I never figured out why England is still England. All the other nations mentioned have alternate names in this world. That didn't dampen my enjoyment of the novel though.)

Despite her deep worry about her father's health, teenaged Selah is sent on a European tour for her after the marriage proposal she offers her local friend is refused. (Europe is still called Europe. I'm not sure why.) During this tour, Selah is tasked with finding a husband to return with. She is to go to at least four places, and this book only covers the first two. The tales at the two stops covered are a bit more like two novellas than two halves of one novel. When the open ending of the book is taken into account, I get the impression that the first (only? Is this a trilogy or a duology?) two books in this series are more accurately described as a series of four novellas. Selah and the crew of The Beholder stay the same, but each court visited comes with a new cast and plot.

I liked Selah quite a bit. She grows over the course of the book and really learns a lot, although she still has a way to mature. The love interests are all interesting as well and the crew of the ship are a lot of fun to read about.

The ending of the book is very much not an ending but a stoppage of narration. Sailing from Norge really didn't feel any more concrete than sailing from England, which happened halfway through the book. There is a solid call to action for the next installment, though, and I'm eager to get started on it.

I entered the book thinking it was a romance. I does have several strong romantic arcs, but by the end of the book, it's the political intrigue that drives my desire to see what will happen next.

Overall, I loved this book much more than I expected to. (I had actually forgotten why it was in my queue and considered not reading it so that I can focus on getting the most of the three months of Kindle Unlimited I purchased on the cheap in December.) What exactly I love so much about it is hard to pinpoint, but it had me enchanted by the time the ship landed in England. My library still lists the second installment as unpurchased, but I've requested it and will probably be right at the start of the line for it when they hopefully buy it.

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Below you'll find the notes I took as I read. Clearly, they contain major spoilers.

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Notes

2% She calls her stepmother her "smother" I love it.

3% I love that they are deviated with wreaths for Arbor Day. I frequently feel we should do more for Arbor Day.

7% So apparently in this world, India flight back harder against the British, which cost England enough money that they abandoned Potomac as unprofitable. Clearly not the only difference in our worlds though as they abandoned Potomac rather than Maryland or Virginia... Also, the Raj was established in the mid 1800s and Potomac seems more like it came of Maryland in the 1600s, so the timeline may have been reversed? England occupied India prior to America?  Except that would have likely resulted in someone else conquerimg the Mid-Atlantic area... This says all of the empires of Europe turned inward when England went broke, but I can't imagine why that would be. So there are several differences in our worlds, but I'm not sure what they all are.

7% Hold on. There are no slaves. Without slavery most of the states south of PA wouldn't have been profitable colonies. So maybe the slaves were freed without a civil war, but maybe they were never there. Which would make the world a better place, for sure, but would also explain why the imperialism didn't work as well in our world and would mean their European North America is little like ours.

7% Where the heck is Totunkheym? Egypt? ... Tsarytsya. Russia then?

7% I wonder why England is called England and Europe is called Europe but nowhere else has the same name as it does I'm our world... ... Except New York, apparently.

8% Maybe it's the word "protocol" being in his description, but Sir Perrault reminds me of C3PO. I assume he is not the Love Interest. And the navigator is too old even if Selah does trust him on sight. I'm guessing Captain Lang is the Love Interest via process of elimination and based on an assumption that he'll be someone who is around the entire book rather than a guy she meets on stop number five of this European tour. So unless Peter comes with them, it would seem like the captain is the guy.

9% Hmm... Godmother send to the the stepmother influenced Peter to reject the proposal. That would make sense. I was wondering why he would do that and was wandering between he loves another and/or he's gay, but he was bribed or threatened would also work.

13% Captain Lang is clearly a good guy who didn't understand what he was being hired for. He is a suitable Love Interest. And one assumes someone who is a Captain at such a young age in a world like that one is a suitable match for her if Peter was good enough. Of course, this assumes he is a Captain and not secretly the last prince on the tour. After all, I noticed that he said he'd never sailed across the Atlantic, not that he'd never been to Europe.

15% These suitors sound like the sort of people who wouldn't leave their homelands... Which I would guess is part of the point.

16% And the Captain has Selah's lost shoe. I'm case the Cinderella vibe hadn't taken yet.

23% Ah. And Selah has figured out that none of these suitors would take her home to Potomac.

24% I too wonder what Anansi (friend of Homer... What's with these names?) didn't say about the state of things in England. I guess we'll find out soon. I wonder if it's related to why there's no picture or age listed for their prince in the portfolio.

25% He knows how to read a map. :: Swoon ::

27% Lang is very confident he'll manage to get her home. There hasn't been much support for the theory that he's secretly one of these suitors (either one without a picture or one who has been lied about) although I haven't seen much to counter it either. He's never said where he's from, never mentioned his family, never implied how much money he has. And he's obviously the Prince Charming to her Cinderella, so why not be a literal prince?

31% I'm not sold on Bear just being a guard. Could he be Prince Bertilak's son? He seems to have lost his mother and apparently Bertilak is a widower. And Bertilak II would lend itself to the nickname Bear ... Lang could be his brother, although they'd probably look enough for that to be mentioned unless they're only half-brothers... It occurs to me that the reason Lang isn't on this field trip could well be that he didn't trust he wouldn't be outted. If the court is in on it, he could be seen there, but they couldn't tell the whole country.

37% ok, so Selah is starting to crush on Bear. Who i continue to think is not just a guard. I wonder what Lang is up to.

41% Yes, a mere guard scooping the crown prince's intended would be treasonous. So either Bear is an idiot or more than a guard.

42% An oddly familiar look between Bertilak and Bear. Yeah, totes family.

44% Wait... Igraine isn't Bertilak's sister. She's his wife, isn't she?

50% So Lang is with the mysterious cowslip people and has presumedly been off doing cowslip things. They seem to the be the ones who want to fight the evil empire rather than hide from it. Which explains why he's willing to sail into it.

51% Yep, Igraine is Bertilak's wife. Bear's their son. ... And Selah is not talking being manipulated well.

57% The King of Asgard has an eyeoatch. He's taking the Odin connectiom pretty far, isn't he?

58% And Torden (which sounds a lot like Thor) has a dark haired adopted brother who was born to enemies and describes himself as trouble.

67% Yeah, I really can't imagine this guy moving to Potomac. Plus, we haven't actually established who inherits here. That he's the head if the running stuff implies to me Torden is the heir.

73% I have a bad feeling about these summer rites.

76% Long hours of the night? In Scandinavia just before midsummer?

77% So he's not heir. He just convinced everyone to let him be the suitor because he worried about a shy bookish girl having to live with his brother. That kind of sweet.

78% Ok... That sweet. What's the catch? That he won't go to Potomac? That he dies in the rites? Or will the Beholder crew just kidnap her for the next leg of her tour?

80% So there's a psuedoRussian plot. Maybe it will kill the older brothers and make Torden heir.

85% Poor Aleksei. It totally wasn't his fault.

86% Yeah, he won't leave. And really wouldn't thrive well in Potomac anyway.

91% Ouch. They're willing to compromise but his daddy won't allow it. And Torden probably won't accept being disowned. Also, the king is an asshole.

93% The ship is gone? I wasn't expecting that.

98% Viva la restitance!

THE END Love it! Can't wait for the next book!

LOVELY WAR by Julie Berry

Rating: An enormous heart-shaped box of gourmet chocolates suitable for the goddess of love Herself.

Highlight of note: The two mortal love stories in this novel are expertly narrated by Aphrodite as she testifies before her husband, with occasional sections where the narrative is taken over by another deity. Aphrodite is an omniscient narrator who blatantly interferes with events from time to time as part of her mission to spread romance through the mortal world.

Will you read more by this author? I absolutely intend to.

Favorite Quote: "Marriage was simpler, he realizes, when the game plan was 'catch her in a net.'"


The Canaanite goddess Astarte, often seen as a predecessor of Aphrodite, was a goddess not only of love but also of war. So it's not really news that romance and war are often linked, nor that love stories in times of war have poignancy and power.

This tale starts in a hotel in New York during World War II, where Hephaestus catches his wife, Aphrodite, with his brother Aries, the god of war. Apollo and Hades are both brought in as witnesses. As the goddess begins to explain herself, Aphrodite delves into the stories of two mortal couples who met during the last year of the first World War. The deities provide a chorus-like commentary throughout the novel, but also have their own story. Aphrodite is the principal narrator for the mortal tale, but the duty of storytelling shifts in some sections to Apollo, Hades, and Ares, who take turns when things delve more into their realms.

The four members of the two mortal couples are all interesting and vibrant characters. James and Hazel are young and English. They'd hoped the war would be over before they were old enough to deal with it, but it wasn't. They meet just before James ships off to France and, with some meddling by the goddess of love, embark on a romance that stretches through his time in service. The other pair are Collette, a survivor of the German invasion of Belgium that slaughtered most of her hometown, and Aubrey, an African-American jazz musician who fights not only the Germans but the appalling racism of his era. They realize fairly quickly that they belong together, but the reality was that an interracial relationship in 1918 was something that could be met with a life-threatening level of intolerance. For a good part of the book I was worried not that the Germans would kill Aubrey but that a white American would.

The deities are all characters I was highly familiar with and I feel they're portrayed excellently. At one point Hephaestus is described as not knowing whether to laugh or smash a window, which is exactly what I imagine being married to Aphrodite is like. In another spot, Aries puts on a shirt to recognize the solemnity of the occasion, but doesn't button it because he doesn't want to deny the world the sight of his abs.

I can't say enough about how effective Berry's writing is. I laughed, yes, but I also cried on multiple occasions. Usually, I don't particularly care for books making me cry, but with this one, the tears just seemed part of the art.

The voice of this book is something I can't really describe but absolutely adored. It's serious and full of beauty, but also contains large amounts of whimsy and clever turns of phrase. I'm definitely eager to read more from Berry.

In short, I adored this novel.

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Below you'll find the notes I took as I read. Clearly, they contain major spoilers.

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Notes
6% We open with Aphrodite being caught in a hotel room with Aries by Hephaestus. She declares that she can neither love not be loved. She is now going to explain by telling two stories. This is a truly fascinating start. I love the deities and the concept but also the voice.

8% Okay, I am absolutely loving the way Aphrodite is telling this story as an omniscient witness. And I love that some humans can see her.

12% These few paragraphs that focus on Hephaestus are interesting. He compares Aphrodite's work to his craft and seems to really be respecting it.

20% Oh, man. Called in early to the war without having kissed the girl because he was supposed to do that the morning he was supposed to leave. My heart hurts. This is really well told.

24% Ares puts on a shirt because "a court appearance demands decorum." He doesn't button it though.

35% I'm liking the Aubrey / Collette romance. And adoring Aubrey in general.

40% I'm rather worried the racist southern asshats are going to kill Aubrey before the Germans get a chance...

50% Oh. Wow. Aubrey's declarations to Collette really reasonate emotionally. This is remarkably effective writing.

51% Ah, shit. Did they just kill Joey?

53% Dangit. Joey's afterlife scene made me cry.

57% This book keeps making me cry! This time it's the scene in the church were they light candles for the Germans James shot.

67% I am literally sick to my stomach with worry about Operation Michael. I remember it being ultimately unsuccessful but that more Alliea died than Germans.

68% It's unfortunate that decades after these events someone would make a sci-fi film where the bad guys, who wear silly face-covering helmets and can't hit a target to save their Empire, are called storm troopers because it makes what was very tense and terrifying sound a little silly to someone of my generation or younger because the narrative keeps going on about the storm troops swarming the lines.

70% Poor broken James... But he seems to have survived. That's something.

77% I feel that maybe I should be upset at James for  refusing to see Hazel, but I hurt for him. I wonder what the sister is going to do. There's no way she's following her mum's order not to interfere.

78% I love Aphrodite and her meddling.

86% Aphrodite says we can end here, with both our couples happy. I kind of want to, especially as it's Ares who wants the stories continued.

87% Holy shit. Exploding train. I'd somewhat foolishly figured the girls were safe.

89% Saved by Aphrodite's pleas to Hades. Literally a deus ex machina. And I'm okay with it.

91% The gods are crying. Even Area took a handkerchief. Can't say I blame them.

92% What a beautiful ever after story for Hazel and James. <3

93% So sad about Jim Europe. Note to self: research if he was real. The bit about being the first black man to have a funeral from the City of New York makes me think he was.

94% Not as much a happy story for our other pair. Thank you, American racism. But I'm happy they had each other even if they were having to deal with hate and ridiculousness from others.

95% Aphrodite using her boon to ask Hades to protect the children of our couples in the new war made me cry again.

96% Aphrodite cracks me up. I knew the frame story was also a romance, so I should have realized she was behind the entire set up.

"He doesn't know whether to laugh or smash a window." ROFL. Yeah, that sounds like what being married to Aphrodite would be like.

"Marriage was simpler, he realizes, when the game plan was 'catch her in a net.'"


THE END
An amazingly sweet ending. Aphrodite and Hephaestus are going to meet up some morning for coffee and lemon cake, just like Hazel and James. And I'm very happy for them.

97% HISTORICAL NOTE
Jim Europe was, in fact, real. He's credited for starting France's love of jazz, whiich means he's indirectly responsible for the fact that one of the few things I know how to say in French is "I listen to Jazz records."