New Release: The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane

My favorite books by first time authors are those that you would never know were first novels. Katherine Howe has accomplished this feat with her first novel, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. With the encouragement of her friend, author Matthew Pearl, Howe has imagined a glimpse into the history of American witchcraft.

Connie is a graduate student at Harvard who specializes in colonial America. When she is asked by her mother to go through her deceased grandmother's possessions and clean her house for sale, Connie is unwittingly drawn into a mystery from the past. She finds a key in an old bible and rolled inside the stem of the key is a slip of paper with the name "Deliverance Dane" on it. After some research, she finds that Dane may have left behind a "physick book" or book of spells after her execution in Salem. Connie sees the book as her chance for an amazing doctoral dissertation but it turns into a quest for so much more.

In my opinion, this book was really successful because of Howe's inclusion of scenes from the past with Dane, her daughter and her granddaughter. They give the reader information that Connie would never have been able to find through her research. This allows for a sense of completeness to the story that wouldn't have been there if it was strictly written from the modern perspective.

My only problem with the story were the few times that I seemed to piece together the clues faster than Connie did -- and she was supposed to be a semi-expert in the subject! I don't know if she is supposed to have been clouded by her anxieties and stress or if I just have the advantage by being a semi-expert in mystery novels. ::wink:: Otherwise, this is a strong novel about a very interesting (though dark) period in American history.

This book will be released next week (June 9).

Looking for the magic in everyday life,
K


Buy The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane on Amazon or find it at your local library.

New Release: Sherlock Holmes in America

It has probably been a decade since I read through all of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories so it was nice to revisit the character in the newly released Sherlock Holmes in America. With a foreward by Daniel Stashower and also including a dinner speech about America from Conan Doyle himself, this collection of short stories about Holmes is literally all over the map ... of America.

Some stories in this book feature Holmes by himself, some with Watson, a couple with his brother Mycroft and one story even stars a young Harry Houdini picturing himself as Sherlock Holmes. The stories take place in such varied places as San Diego, Salt Lake City, San Antonio and Boston. Some of the stories are based on previously written Holmes stories and others are completely new. Most of the mysteries are somewhat simple but the characters are complex and interesting. Even if you haven't read any Sherlock Holmes stories before, this book stands alone fairly well.

One of the prevailing themes is that America is a country of action and of survival. In Conan Doyle's words:

These things are the romance of America, the romance of change, of contrast, of danger met and difficulty overcome, and let me say that we, as your kinsmen, upon the other side, exult in your success and in your prosperity ...

This book is chock-full of award winning American writers and the variety of styles and themes is refreshing and fun.

Enjoying the marriage of two worlds,
K


Buy Sherlock Holmes in America on Amazon or find it at your local library.

New Release: The Last Dickens

After my recent disappointment with Dan Simmons' Drood, I was excited to see that an author that I enjoy had also just written about Dickens' final unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood. This book is The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl, released last week by Random House.

The main character in this book is the non-fictional James Osgood, a Boston publisher with Ticknor and Fields (which later became Fields, Osgood, & Company). This was the publishing house for such notables as Whitman, Longfellow, Emerson and later Mark Twain. They had the American publishing rights for Charles Dickens' later works and this novel concerns the time when, after hearing of Dickens' passing, Osgood and a female bookkeeper are forced to travel to England to search for the possible remaining parts of the story of Edwin Drood. They are in a race against time as the Americans don't respect British copyrights so as soon as other firms (in this case the Harper brothers) get copies of the Drood manuscript, they will begin printing their own competing copies of the novel. Osgood and Miss Sand are also being thwarted and menaced by an unknown villain who is seeking the same manuscript for his own personal reasons.

This book is a fascinating look into the publishing industry in America and is also a very compassionate and compelling look at the final years of Dickens. The mystery presented in this book is strong and I appreciated that there was no supernatural element in the story, as there was in Drood. This book also addresses the entry of women into the workforce and the hurdles they faced both in and out of the workplace. All of the historical information in this novel is incorporated seamlessly and it has a very authentic feel. I really enjoyed this book and was only disappointed that it mentioned Wilkie Collins in passing but did not have him as a character.

I recommend this book and if you haven't read Pearl's other novels, The Poe Shadow and The Dante Club, they are also books that feature authors as characters and are very well researched and written.

Wishing that no novel was left unfinished,
K


Buy The Last Dickens: A Novel on Amazon or find it at your local library.