Secret Societies and the Readers Who Love Them

So you may have heard of this author, Dan Brown?  He wrote this relatively successful novel called The Da Vinci Code, all about this professor who chases down ancient conspiracies about Jesus and Mary Magdalene to solve a modern day mystery.  I guess they made a movie about it or something...

Obviously Dan Brown's best-selling novel was more than relatively successful.  Say what you will about Brown's writing, he seemed to have tapped into a part of our cultural consciousness that believes in conspiracies and secret societies and vaguely impossible sounding alchemical magic.  And it's didn't start with Dan Brown, of course.  Indiana Jones was searching for lost artifacts in the jungles of the world at least 20 years before Dan Brown published The Da Vinci Code.  I'm not sure why we as a society are so intrigued by the shadowy figures that we somehow fear are secretly running the world...perhaps it helps us make sense of the senseless, you know, like debt ceiling agreements or Donald Trump's hair.

Since every single literary phenomenon apparently needs its clones, there have been plenty of Da Vinci Code copycats.  I've read a few, and liked a few of those, but I had always avoided the novels of one of the more successful ancient mystery/secret society authors to compete with Dan Brown, James Rollins.  Something about his Sigma Force felt too militaristic and male to  be of much interest to me.  After all, I prefer even my mystery/thrillers to have female detectives.  Sexist of me, probably, but that's a topic for another post.

Well, wouldn't you know, Audible.com had a James Rollins book, Map of Bones, available FREE the last time I was looking for something to listen to on a roadtrip.  And who doesn't love free?!?  So, over 13 hours later, I can tell you that my concerns about Sigma Force were unfounded.  I was completely drawn into the world of Gray Pierce, Rachel Verona, and the mystery of the ancient mages they were trying to keep from the Imperial Dragon Court.

Map of Bones begins with a massacre in a church in Cologne, Germany.  Armed men dressed as monks unleash some sort of device that cause people to be electrocuted in their seats.  They also steal the scared relic of the cathedral-the supposed bones of the biblical Magi. Sigma Force is called upon by the Vatican to help them determine exactly who stole the bones and what their plans for them are.  Gray Pierce and his team are sent to the Vatican, and much mayhem ensues.

The upside to this kind of book is that the action is pretty non-stop, and there are lots of twists and turns to keep you engaged along the way.  And actually, there is some character development here, which you don't always find in this kind of action/adventure story.  The downside of this type of story is the enormous amount of historical exposition the author must try to work in around the gun fights, bombs, and car/boat chases.  Like most books of this types I've read, occasionally it felt slightly more like a history text than a novel, but Rollins actually does a decent job of having these little lesson occur in contexts that make sense-not, for instance, while standing over a dead body like one scene in Da Vinci Code.  All in all this was a fun, satisfying use of 13 hours in the car!

The Violets of March, Sarah Jio

One of the recurring themes in literature is the way that the past can come back to haunt us.  Things that happened long ago can reverberate through our lives and our families until they touch us, without us even knowing.  Secrets long held can be devastating when revealed-or they can lead to redemption, closure, and the ability to move forward in life.  All of these ideas are explored in The Violets of March, a novel by Sarah Jio coming out in April.

Emily Watson thought she had it all.  A best selling book, a handsome husband, a glamorous life in New York.  Then the writer's block set in, her husband had an affair, and her fabulous social life dwindled as her fame fell.  Ten years later, on the day her divorce becomes final, she accepts an invitation from her Aunt Bee to visit her on Bainbridge Island, where Emily spent many happy summers as a child.  There, Emily reconnects with an old boyfriend, Greg, and meets Jack, who her aunt warns her away from.  She also find a red velvet diary, and gets drawn into a tragic mystery that happened fifty years earlier.  She soon comes to believe that the diary is connected to her in some way, and that she was fated to find it and bring her family's secrets out into the light at last.

I love books about islands.  I have always wanted to live on an island-to be that close to the sea, to be a part of a close knit community just seems idyllic to me.  I was immediately drawn by Jio's description of the island, and the way that the sea matched what was happening in the story at the time.  I was also immediately drawn in by the mystery.  Whose diary had Emily found?  Why was her aunt so tight-lipped about it?  And why was she supposed to stay away from the gorgeous and interesting Jack?  Emily finds that she cannot complete her own healing process, or move forward in her own life, until she uncovers the mystery around the women in her family.  She also finds that she cannot go back to her old life in New York with thoughts of Jack in her head.  The Violets of March is an imminently readable, thoroughly enjoyable book about love, family, and moving foward.

(Thank you to Penguin Group USA for the  free review copy)

I Should Not Have Been Fearful of Her Fearful Symettry

Her Fearful Symmetry is the second novel by author Audrey Niffenegger, author of the much admired The Time Traveler's Wife.  As someone who read and loved, loved, triple loved TTTW, I was a little nervous picking up Her Fearful Symmetry.  What if her second novel couldn't live up to the mind-bending, mind-blowing amazingness of the first?  Well, I should have had more faith in Ms. Niffenegger (sorry, Audrey-maybe we could meet at Uncle Julio's for margaritas and I can make it up to you!).  Her Fearful Symmetry, while a completely different sort of novel, is in fact pretty amazing itself.

Her Fearful Symmetry tells the story of two different sets of twins, and the people who love them.  The first set, Elspeth and Edie, have not seen or spoken to each other in nearly 20 years.  When Elspeth finds that she is dying of cancer, she leaves all of her possessions, including her flat in London, to Valentine and Julia, the twin daughters of her estranged sister.  The only condition is that they have to live in the flat for one year to inherit anything.  Little does Elspeth know when he makes that condition that she will be there with them.  After her death she finds herself an insubstantial ghost in her flat, unable to leave.  Valentine and Julia have their own issues.  Julia is fiercely insistent that the girls stay together always, even though Valentine feels smothered by her sister's constant presence and yearns to break free.  It is this desire that leads to a decision that changes everything, for everyone, living or dead.

It is fitting that a central feature of the novel is Highgate Cemetery in London, a rather famous Victorian era cemetery.  There is much about this novel that reminds me of Victorian-era stories.  Their fiction tended to be almost as cluttered as their mantelpieces and pianos.  Lots of characters, lots of plot lines, lots of intrigue.  The relationship between the twins borders on creepy, and you can feel Valentine's restlessness and claustrophobia quite clearly.  Her relationship with her dead aunt's lover is also a little creepy, though he is frankly the most likeable character in the book.  The big family secret that underlies a great deal of the book drives the story, making it a page turner.  When the big reveal finally comes, I thought I had it all figured out-and I was wrong.  I love that, when  a book can surprise me.  And then surprise me again with what happens in the aftermath of the truth.  Valentine's fate is the very definition of cruel irony.  All in all, this novel lives up to my very high expectations for Ms. Niffenegger's writing, if not being quite as engaging a story for me as her first, amazing novel.