Read Something! AFFINITY by Sarah Waters

AFFINITY 
Sarah Waters

Historical fiction / literary fiction / horror

Surfacing from a deep depression brought on by her father's death, Margaret Prior takes a family friend's advice and volunteers as a "lady visitor" at Millbank, a women's prison, where she hopes to become a positive influence on some of the inmates. In those dreary surroundings she meets the spiritualist medium Selina Dawes, sentenced to Millbank after a seance gone wrong resulted in a woman's death. Margaret and Selina are drawn to each other, but does Selina really talk to spirits? And what really happened in her past? Alternating passages from Margaret and Selina's diaries bring us closer and closer to the truth of the night that drastically changed Selina's life - and to a night that will forever change Margaret's. This is a dark, psychological novel about loss and grief, and about living in a world into which one will never quite fit neatly.

Slight warnings for mentions of attempted suicide, some nonexplicit but non-"vanilla" eroticism.

Readalikes:

• The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters - similar slightly spooky atmosphere, unreliable narrators; both stories are deliberately vague as to the reality of the ghosts/spirits (at least for most of the narrative); both set in Britain in times past; both very focused on characters' psychology
• "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman - potentially unbalanced female narrators, similar time setting, themes of entrapment/imprisonment and haunting, atmospherically similar
  

Read Something! _The American Heiress_ (Daisy Goodwin)

The American Heiress
DAISY GOODWIN
2010
Historical Fiction, Romance

Summary

Cora Cash is the wealthiest of Gilded Age New York's eligible young ladies, and her mother is determined to secure for Cora through marriage the one thing money can't buy: an aristocratic title. True to expectations, Cora makes an enviable match to an English duke. But the straightforward American heiress soon finds that English society is rife with unspoken social codes, secret alliances, and duplicitous betrayals. Set adrift in an unexpectedly unwelcoming new life, Cora must mature from a spoiled rich girl to a woman capable of making her own way in society.

Appeal Characteristics

• Characterization: multiple strong female characters
• Characterization/Frame: dark, brooding, mysterious love interest
• Frame: sex mentioned but not really shown
• Frame: lots of historical detail
• Frame: some parts are from the points of view of servants instead of the socially elite main characters
• Frame: some parts are briefly from the point of view of minor characters who we never see again
• Frame: excellent descriptions make it easy to visualize characters and setting
• Plot/Frame: love triangles
• Plot/Frame: lots of politicking/characters trying to one-up each other for social standing
• Plot/Frame: the state of affairs is pretty clear to the reader early on; we watch the main character figure it out
• Plot: the "right" people are together at the end; a happy ending
• Plot/Characterization: book is more focused on plot than on developing finely drawn characters
• Pacing: midlength chapters broken into somewhat shorter sections

Readalikes

•  The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton? - Wharton is suggested as a readalike on the jacket copy. Age is much more serious, a social novel rather than romantic fluff, but both books center on a love story, contain lots of historical detail from the same time period, and address the differences between European and American Gilded Age societies by throwing a person primarily from one society into the other
• Regency romances - This book is only slightly less fluffy than a romance, and is perhaps slightly more about Cora herself than about her romantic relationships... but barely. Julia Quinn (the only romance author I read) is perhaps not a great match except that both she and this book have strong women and lots of period detail; American Heiress seems a little less unabashedly light-hearted than Quinn.
• Rules of Civility by Amor Towles? - I haven't read it but it just came across my desk as a new book and it could be a match. It's a historical novel (albeit set in the 1930s) featuring a plucky girl who needs to find her own way in a wealthy society with which she is unfamiliar, as well as navigating a romance (and possibly, like Cora, being torn between two men).

Read Something! _The Secret Speech_ (Tom Rob Smith)

The Secret Speech
TOM ROB SMITH
2009
407 pp.
Thriller/Suspense, Historical Fiction
Sequel to Child 44

Summary

Having solved the serial murders of 44 children, Leo Demidov has been put in charge of a secret, newly created department to investigate homicides. But life is not easy. Leo struggles to win the affection of his two adopted daughters, in whose parents' death he played a role. Then a secret speech given by Khrushchev, Stalin's successor, is distributed to the entire nation. The speech portrays Stalin's regime as tyrannical, casts blame on those who supported it, and promises change.

At the same time, someone starts killing off former officers and collaborators from Stalin's regime. And the culprit has a particular interest in Leo, and in what he might be forced to do -- or to endure -- for the sake of a daughter who hates him.

Appeal characteristics

• Frame: Lots of historical/period detail; clearly thoroughly researched
• Characterization: Relationships between characters are very important/emphasized
• Characterization: Strong female characters
• Plot: Some subplots/parallel plots, but they tend to tie back in to the main plot somehow
• Plot: Elaborate plot with lots of twists and turns
  
• Pacing: Fast-paced; short chapters/sections

Other notes

• There is violence, but it is not extremely graphic
• My Noting: Books entry on The Secret Speech: http://notingbooks.com/users/hbackman/readings/6199-The-Secret-Speech

Readalikes

• ???

Read Something! -- _Child 44_ (Tom Rob Smith)

Child 44

TOM ROB SMITH
2008
439 pp.
Historical Thriller / Suspense
Sequel: The Secret Speech

Summary

Leo Demidov is an investigator for Stalinist Russia's State Security Force. Idealistic and loyal to the state, he has always performed his job well. But a botched case, a scheming underling, and doubts about the system he's always worked within put Leo's family, career, and life in jeopardy.

Exiled and demoted, Leo discovers a series of murdered children who begin to form a disturbing pattern. In Soviet Russia, crime is officially nonexistent. But Leo knows he is on the trail of a serial killer. He and his wife must work against time and the State to find the murderer before he strikes again. And as they get closer to the killer, they approach a revelation about Leo's past that will change the face of the case entirely.

Appeal characteristics

• Characterization: Plot-focused book; character development does occur over the course of the story but typically happens for plot purposes
• Characterization: Characters' motivations and internal states are generally not explored beyond the superficial
• Characterization: Some minor characters, but they largely matter only for their relation to Leo or the case
• Frame: An atmospheric book that strongly evokes the feeling of living in a totalitarian society
• Frame?: Explores questions of morality and ethics -- what is worth doing in the name of the greater good? What if you begin to doubt that the greater good is truly good?
• Pacing: Fast-paced plot -- something big happens in each chapter
• Pacing: The magnitude (significance, dangerousness, ...) of events increases swiftly toward the end of the book, along with the pace
• Plot: No substantial subplots
• Plot: Happy ending
• Plot?: Possibility of a sequel is left open (though there are not substantial loose ends)

Other notes

• There are some disturbing scenes, including moderately explicit torture and murder.
• Plausibility is somewhat sacrificed to the needs of suspense and thrill in later chapters (especially the twist regarding Leo's identity); readers who have trouble suspending their disbelief may take issue with the last quarter to third of the book. (The storytelling is quite compelling, however, and may enable readers to gloss over the improbabilities while they are still reading.)
• My Noting: Books entry on Child 44: http://notingbooks.com/users/hbackman/readings/5621-Child-44

Readalikes

• Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell): similar strongly evoked atmosphere of repression and totalitarianism, with a few characters who dare to covertly or semi-covertly resist an oppressive government; similar plot arcs in terms of how the main character develops (from agreement/collaboration to uncertainty to disagreement to arrest to release...)?; Nineteen Eighty-Four does not have a happy ending and is generally much more hopeless in tone
• Further reading listed at the end of Child 44 in an appendix -- these books are nonfiction, used by the author for research, and provide a further window into the time period and subjects covered in the novel for those who are interested in learning more
• Eye of the Red Tsar (Sam Eastland): similar subject matter (disgraced investigator in Stalinist Russia investigating cases that have been or are being shrouded in secrecy by the state), similar concern with the main character's past; however, all other elements of style and tone are very different -- Eye does not concern itself with the repressive atmosphere or with the ethics of working for the Soviet state, is much more interested in the characters than in the case they're solving, emphasizes its main character's past much more than Child 44 (in Eye it is integrated through the story rather than a twist), is (frankly) better written stylistically (author has a better grasp of language, imagery, style that flows instead of jerks along)
• [ETA 7/27/10] John Grisham books? I have not read any Grisham but the Novelist description of his appeal suggests similar interest in ethical conflicts, similarly idealistic characters wrestling with whether they should go against the system, similar fast pace. Grisham notably does not have explicit sex and violence; the more disturbing elements of this book might present a barrier to enjoyment for some Grisham fans.