Book Review: The Beast's Garden

From Goodreads: A retelling of The Beauty and The Beast set in Nazi Germany
The Grimm Brothers published a beautiful version of the Beauty & the Beast tale called ‘The Singing, Springing Lark' in 1819. It combines the well-known story of a daughter who marries a beast in order to save her father with another key fairy tale motif, the search for the lost bridegroom. In ‘The Singing, Springing Lark,' the daughter grows to love her beast but unwittingly betrays him and he is turned into a dove. She follows the trail of blood and white feathers he leaves behind him for seven years, and, when she loses the trail, seeks help from the sun, the moon, and the four winds. Eventually she battles an evil enchantress and saves her husband, breaking the enchantment and turning him back into a man.
Kate Forsyth retells this German fairy tale as an historical novel set in Germany during the Nazi regime. A young woman marries a Nazi officer in order to save her father, but hates and fears her new husband. Gradually she comes to realise that he is a good man at heart, and part of an underground resistance movement in Berlin called the Red Orchestra. However, her realisation comes too late. She has unwittingly betrayed him, and must find some way to rescue him and smuggle him out of the country before he is killed.
The Red Orchestra was a real-life organisation in Berlin, made up of artists, writers, diplomats and journalists, who passed on intelligence to the American embassy, distributed leaflets encouraging opposition to Hitler, and helped people in danger from the Nazis to escape the country. They were betrayed in 1942, and many of their number were executed.
The Beast's Garden is a compelling and beautiful love story, filled with drama and intrigue and heartbreak, taking place between 1938 and 1943, in Berlin, Germany. 

Thoughts: Kate Forsyth is definitely becoming one of my favourite authors. I suspect that much like Tim Winton she will not write anywhere near quick enough to sate my appetite, but obviously good books take time to write! In August I was lucky enough the meet Kate Forsyth when she visited the library I work at. Not only was she incredibly interesting to listen to, she was lovely, spending significant time talking to adults and children alike and signing books. She signed my copy of The Beast's Garden which is now so precious to me it will not be lent to anyone!

While this book is being publicised as a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, it is actually based on a variation known as The Singing Springing Lark. Regardless, it is a beautifully written with meticulous research into both the fairytale world and the real world. Forsyth weaves her characters into the real life horror of Berlin during World War II. Her characters interact with those who, in real life, actively opposed Hitler and his regime - putting themselves in great danger in an attempt to let Berliners and the international community know what was happening. Ava's involvement with this group while married to a man who is part of the Abwehr - the arm of the Nazi party responsible for providing spies - gives the reader access to the going ons of both the party and the resistance. 

Just like the fairytale, the beast turns out to not be so beastly and it's at that point of the story that Ava and Leo's love story truly begins to blossom.

Forsyth's writing brings to the fore the fear and tension of the time. In a place where one misstep easily lead to death, I found myself on tenterhooks for the characters constantly. In an area of fiction that has been mined for stories since the reality of Nazi Germany became clear, Forsyth manages to come at it with something new and original. I have read reviews where people have an issue with portraying Nazi officers as something other than evil, but the reality is there were Nazi officers who actively worked against Hitler and his regime - who did not believe the party line and risked their lives to save lives and bring about Hilter's downfall. Aren't those tales just as important to tell?

I loved The Beast's Garden. It is beautifully written, engrossing and enchanting. 

Book Review: Bitter Greens

From Goodreads: An utterly captivating reinvention of the Rapunzel fairytale weaved together with the scandalous life of one of the tale's first tellers, Charlotte-Rose de la Force.
Charlotte-Rose de la Force has been banished from the court of Versailles by the Sun King, Louis XIV, after a series of scandalous love affairs. She is comforted by an old nun, Sœur Seraphina, who tells her the tale of a young girl who, a hundred years earlier, is sold by her parents for a handful of bitter greens...
Selena is the famous red-haired muse of the artist Tiziano, first painted by him in 1512 and still inspiring him at the time of his death, sixty-four years later. Called La Strega Bella, Selena is at the centre of Renaissance life in Venice, a world of beauty and danger, seduction and betrayal, love and superstition, retaining her youth and beauty by the blood of young red-haired girls.
After Margherita's father steals a handful of parsley, wintercress and rapunzel from the walled garden of the courtesan Selena Leonelli, he is threatened with having both hands cut off unless he and his wife give away their little red-haired girl. And so, when she turns seven, Margherita is locked away in a tower, her hair woven together with the locks of all the girls before her, growing to womanhood under the shadow of La Strega Bella, and dreaming of being rescued...
Three women, three lives, three stories, braided together to create a compelling story of desire, obsession, black magic and the redemptive power of love. 

Thoughts: Kate Forsyth has become one of those authors I immediately recommend to people who ask me for something new. Her writing is fluid, magical, provoking strong images and emotions. Her female characters are flawed but strong and compelling. And when the blurb tells you it's "three stories, braided together" it speaks true - the stories are interwoven, each strand clear and engrossing but so precisely interlocked with the others the change over is seamless. The women have lives that are complicated and intriguing. They are living in a time when their sex can be such a disadvantage, yet all of the rise against this and carve out a life of their own - not perfect, but theirs. Still their paths cross and their stories overlap and parallel. It's a bit like seeing an intriguing pattern come to life with words instead of lines.

Add to this Forsyth's incredible detail of King Louis XIV Versailles court, her attention to detail in her research shining through and you have a book well worth exploring. Much like the court itself, Forsyth's descriptions are rich, but there is an undertow of seediness as well.  You can see the tightrope the court walks on to maintain the favour of the king, knowing full well how devastating the drop will be if you fall. 
Bitter Greens is a book to immerse yourself in. It is a book that will make you fall in love with fairytales all over again.

Bitter Greens gets 5 stars

*        Did not like it
**       It was OK
***      Liked it
****    Really liked it
*****   It was amazing

Book Review: The Puzzle Ring

From Goodreads: Hannah Rose was not quite 13 years old when she discovered her family was cursed. . . .
The arrival of a mysterious letter changes Hannah’s life forever. One day she is an ordinary teenage girl. The next day she discovers she is heir to a castle in the Scottish highlands—a castle that was cursed more than four hundred and forty years ago.
The curse has haunted her family for generations, culminating in the disappearance of Hannah’s father the day after she was born. A prophecy tells of a Red Rose who will save a Black Rose, solve the puzzle ring, and break the curse. Red-haired Hannah is determined to be the one.
Yet, to break the curse, she must go back in time to the last tumultuous days of Mary, Queen of Scots . . . a time when witches were burnt and queens were betrayed and the dark forces of wild magic still stalked the land. . . .

Thoughts: My love affair with Kate Forsyth began with The Wild Girl. It is still the first book I mention when people ask for a suggestion.  I am slightly embarrassed to admit I did not realise she was such a prolific children's writer. I am not surprised that the beautifully crafted writing I discovered in The Wild Girl is also present in The Puzzle Ring.

The Puzzle Ring is the type of book I would have devoured as a child. It is magical and mysterious, with real danger and evil for our characters to face and defeat. Forsyth takes one child's ordinary life and weaves in faeries, magic and time travel in such a way any young child reading it would instantly believe this could happen to them. I loved the how Hannah and her friends went back in time and were shown the reality of living during the days of Mary, Queen of Scots. It was cold and dirty and the food was not particularly nice. If you travelled you did so on foot and slept rough. You needed to keep your wits about you at all times, especially if you could be accused of being a witch!

If you have a child with a love of Narnia or Spiderwick get them onto Kate Forsyth, I don't think they will be disappointed.

The Puzzle Ring gets 4 stars.

*        Did not like it
**       It was OK
***      Liked it
****    Really liked it

*****   It was amazing

Book Review: Dancing on Knives

From Goodreads: A damaged family and their generations of dangerous secrets
At twenty, Sara is tormented by an inexplicable terror so profound she hasn't left her home in five years. Like the mermaid in the fairytale her Spanish grandmother once told her, Sara imagines she is Dancing on Knives, unable to speak. She feels suffocated by her family, especially her father – the famous artist Augusto Sanchez – whose volcanic passions dominate their lives.
Then one stormy night, her father does not come home. His body is found dangling from a cliff face. Astonishingly, he is still alive, but the mystery of his fall can only be solved by the revelation of long-held family secrets.
At once a suspenseful murder mystery and a lyrical love story, Dancing on Knives is about how family can constrict and liberate us, how art can be both joyous and destructive, and how strength can be found in the unlikeliest places. 

Thoughts: I ended up doing a bit of extra work shelving at a different library the other week. It's the largest library in the network I work in and it interesting to see how such a big space works. While shelving I came across this. I'd never seen or heard of it before so my immediate thought was it was brand new Kate Forsyth. I loved The Wild Girl so I immediately put it to one side to check out. 

Sitting on the train later I pulled it out, read the author's note and the apprehension started. Basically Dancing on Knives is an old book of Forysth's and has undergone many reincarnations in it's life. The scribblings of a sixteen year old, the thesis of a twenty six year old, a published novel under a different title. My misgivings came from the fact that when I've often gone back and read the earlier works of an author it becomes apparent why that book was not their break out novel. In fact it is often incredibly disappointing. Nevertheless, I resolved to give it a go.

First things first. If you have read and loved The Wild Girl, don't expect the same type of book. Dancing on Knives is completely different. Having said it's good. Not Wild Girl good, but worth reading. It's storyline follows Sara, a twenty year old held hostage by her inability to leave the house and by the family where she has been the mother figure since her own mother died. Her father's unpredictable mood swings clash with her older brother's need to provide some stability, leaving Sara in the middle trying to keep the peace and the family together.

Forsyth writes rich characters. You can see Sara's fears and apprehension, feel the tempest in the house when Augusto is raging, hear the tiredness and weariness in Joe's voice. At different stages through out the book you want to slap each of them, plus the other characters. 

Forsyth's writing is lyrical. poetic. 

Sara has often thought that most people seemed to live their lives only splashing about in the shallows. But she...she was dragged down into the fathomless depths again and again, where no light struck and hideous monsters of the deep swam. She tried so hard to stay where she could touch the sane with her feet. But always she was swept out, always she was sucked under.

You do start to despair of this family ever untangling itself, but Forsyth slowly and painfully brings them to a point where you can glimpse a possible happy future, if only they will grab it.

Dancing on Knives gets 3 stars!

 *        Did not like it
**       It was OK
***      Liked it
****    Really liked it
*****   It was amazing

 

Book Review: The Wild Girl

From Goodreads: Dortchen Wild fell in love with Wilhelm Grimm the first time she saw him.
Growing up in the small German kingdom of Hessen-Cassel in early Nineteenth century, Dortchen Wild is irresistibly drawn to the boy next door, the young and handsome fairy tale scholar Wilhelm Grimm.
It is a time of War, tyranny and terror. Napoleon Bonaparte wants to conquer all of Europe, and Hessen-Cassel is one of the first kingdoms to fall. Forced to live under oppressive French rule, the Grimm brothers decide to save old tales that had once been told by the firesides of houses grand and small all over the land.
Dortchen knows many beautiful old stories, such as 'Hansel and Gretel', 'The Frog King' and 'Six Swans'. As she tells them to Wilhelm, their love blossoms. Yet the Grimm family is desperately poor, and Dortchen's father has other plans for his daughter. Marriage is an impossible dream.
Dortchen can only hope that happy endings are not just the stuff of fairy tales.

 Thoughts: Dark, disturbing, harsh, haunting, emotional. All of these words are repeated often in reviews of The Wild Girl, and they are all correct. Kate Forsyth's historical book about Dortchen Wild and Wilhelm Grimm is spectacular. You will experience the full range of emotions as you read about their love, the barriers put up by Dortchen's father, all against the tumultuous backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars.
Forsyth does not protect her reader at all from the harsh realities of life, or the darker side of human nature. She pulls no punches, softens no blows, but leads the reader down dark paths, dangerous alleys into terrifying situations. At one stage she leaves you with little hope for her characters. At times the despair is almost suffocating, but you are pulled back as you want to know, need to know, if this can be resolved. For me, I was so connected to Dortchen, so concerned for her that I felt I had to read on, if only to see her out of the darkness. I felt that if I closed the book, I left her there, hanging, waiting for me to continue to lead her (hopefully) somewhere safer, quieter, lighter. 
I also now want to go and read all of Grimm's fairytales again.
I was so taken with this book I'm going to go out on a limb here and put it on par with Markus Zusak's The Book Thief. Yep, it's that good. Not often will I say a book is a must read - but this is a must read. In years to come when they put out those "50 books you must read" or "50 books to change your life" this will be on it. It will stand the test of time and like The Book Thief will become a classic. Don't miss it - read it now.
I must also say thanks to Eclectic Reader, whose review of The Wild Girl is what prompted me to read it.

Challenges: Aussie Author Challenge