All Clear by Connie Willis

This is the spectacular sequel to Black Out, the story of three historians from 2060 who have gone back to World War II to observe events.  Eileen, on her first mission, is sent to the country to be a maid at an estate that takes in children sent from London to stay in the country for their safety.  There she meets the poor, dirty, demon children, the Hobbins.  After she finds out her drop to take her back to 2060 is closed, she heads to London to try to find Polly, whom she knows was spending the Blitz working as a shop girl.


Mike, who thought he missed his chance to witness the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1939, goes to sleep on an unseaworthy vessel and finds himself halfway there, with a teen and his great-grandfather going there to do their bit.  While there he saves the boy, the boat, and a soldier who would later save over 500 men, and Mike damages his foot.  His drop is now not working either, so once he gets out of the hospital, he heads to London to also find Polly, hoping that her drop will work.


Each of these historians had slippage during their drop.  The scientists have always believed that this was due to being unable to land in the designated area at that time due to such things as a person being in the vicinity who might see them.  But the slippage has become a real problem.  They are losing days instead of hours.  By the time Polly arrives in London, the Blitz has been going on for a week.  At first, she receives a frosty welcome from those at the air raid shelter, but a kind gentleman, Sir Geoffrey, an older man, and famous stage actor, who develops a crush on her and sees her as Violet from Twelfth Night.  Soon the group begins to put on performances for those avoiding the bombs in the subways.  Polly knows where the attacks are coming up until the end of 1942 and in December of 1943, she has already been in England elsewhere working as an ambulance driver.  If she does not get out before this date, a paradox will occur and she will die.


The group remembers that another historian is supposed to be there around the time of St. Paul's bombing on December 29, 1942.  When they arrive, they are immediately swept up in the events happening around them.  Mike finds himself helping the fire brigade and saving two men from a collapsing building.  Eileen takes over an ambulance when the driver is hurt and with the help of the Hobbins' kids takes the wounded to various hospitals and saves many lives.  Somehow, however, they miss the historian and his drop.  Not knowing what else to do, they fall back on the time-honored way of communicating with the future historians who may be looking for them by placing ads in the personals of the papers with secret messages letting them know where they are.


In a surprise twist, it turns out that Mr. Humphries, the man in charge of the historians was the last person to be able to make a drop where they were, but his drop no longer works.  Worse, he has news from the future.  The time slippages are likely the historical time line trying to correct itself.  Everyone these historians have met is in danger of being killed just for having come into contact with them.  It seems that they may have changed history and the Allies might not win the war.  Their only hope is the young man Collin, who as a teenager had a crush on Polly and swore to her that he would rescue her if she ever needed it.  Mr. Humphries also has a deadline and it's only a few months away.


Not all of them live or make it out of London.  This book is truly fascinating in its details of the time of the Blitz of London during World War II and the effects it had on the British people.  It also makes you think of the impact you have on others in this life and how everything can change on a dime and turn out differently than planned.  These are the dangers of playing with time travel and how it can cause a whole world to unravel.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/All-Clear-Connie-Willis/dp/0553592882/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473426620&sr=1-1&keywords=all+clear

Blackout by Connie Willis

Connie Willis, an inductee into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, has received six Nebula and ten Hugo awards for her writing and this book is an fine example why.  This book takes place mostly in the years 2060 and 1940.  In the year 2060 there are a group of historians who have learned from past historians and no longer try to change the past, but just observe the lives of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances throughout history.  They study, use implants to store memory or change an accent, and do all the things necessary to fit in. 

Something weird is going on.  The head of this organization, Mr. Dunworthy, is changing everyone's schedule around, so their jumps are in different orders and on different days in their time.  There are two ways to time travel: real time and flash time.  Flash time means that no actual time has past in the year 2060.  Real time, means that actual time has passed in 2060.  You are dropped down in a net to a place where no one would see you, or the light that shines when you drop.  When you check in every so often, you go to the same place.  Sometimes there is some slippage, which is what happens when you do not arrive at the exact time or place you planned, usually because someone was there at the spot preventing it.

This book focuses on three people: Eileen, a first year historian who was sent to the country to observe the sending of the children from London to the country during 1940; the second is Michael who is sent to 1939, in the hopes of seeing the English fishermen rescuing the British military from Dunkirk; and the third is Polly who is supposed to be a shop girl in London in 1940.  Polly has memorized the times of the bombs and where they occur in London, in order to protect herself. 

Soon, the three find that their drop site is no longer working and they have no way back to 2060.  Is something going on back home and that is why Mr. Dunworthy was acting weird and changing assignments?  Or did Michael accidentally change time by being at Dunkirk and saving a soldier's life.  Polly has not told them, but her time is limited.  You can not be at the same time period and Polly is in London in 1945 for V-E Day and it could kill her if she is still there at that time.  Also, she only knows the bomb drops for the year 1940.  After that, they are on their own.

This book combines the excitement of World War II with the wonderment of technology from the future.  Sadly, it is not one book.  Once you finish it, you must go out and hunt down the next book All Clear, which is what I am in the process of doing, because I can not just leave them hanging in a world they know only so much about, and that from history books.  Things are not happening the way they are supposed to be happening and the three are scared they might have caused England to lose the war.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Blackout-Connie-Willis/dp/0345519833/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1472480149&sr=1-4&keywords=blackout

As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales From The Making Of The Princess Bride by Carey Elwes with Joe Layden

First and foremost, I am a huge fan of the Princess Bride.  I discovered it in 1988 when it came out on VHS, like most people.  I can quote entire passages to this movie, which is totally faithful to the book, probably since Goldman wrote the script.  After the book came out there was a demand for a movie, so Goldman, a screenwriter of such hits as Marathon Man and All the President's Men calls this work his best and favorite.  Many famous names tried to make a movie out of it, including Robert Redford, but none succeeded until Rob Reiner came along and got backing from Norman Lear.  This was early in his career, but he was a hot ticket and this book was near and dear to his heart.

Reiner wanted a mostly English cast and automatically signed up his friends Christopher Guest to play Count Rogan and Billy Chrystal to play Miracle Max.  Someone suggested this unknown actor, Carey Elwes who had just been in a movie called Lady Jane Gray, about the ill-fated Queen of England.  Elwes, who had loved the book, himself, for years, was thrilled but scared of screwing up the audition.  He had nothing to worry about, though, Rob loved him.  Robin Wright, whose step-father is British, raised her on British comedy, and she developed a natural English accent.  Luckily they were able to borrow her from the soap Santa Barbara to play the part.

Andre the Giant was an easy cast and a good one.  He was a very kind man, who suffered severely from his disease that caused him to be so tall and big.  He ate and drank alcohol (for the pain in his back) like a horse, but rarely got drunk and he always paid for others.  Wallace Shawn was told that Danny DeVito was supposed to be in the movie as the Sicilian and spent the whole movie scared to death that he was going to be replaced, no matter what Reiner said to him.  In the battle of wits scene, Reiner had to help him through it.  He says he was 40% Reiner, 40% DeVito, and 20% him.

Mandy Patikin and Carey Elwes were going to have to do all of the sword fights themselves, rather than have stunt doubles to some of the harder stuff, like most movies do.  They spent every waking moment practicing with two of the best fencers in the business: Peter Diamond (who worked with Errol Flynn and Burt Lancaster, was the stunt coordinator on the Star Wars trilogy, played the Tusken Raider that surprised Luke in New Hope, he was a German soldier in the Raiders, as well as stunt coordinator in that movie, and worked on Highlander) and Bob Anderson (Olympic winner, coached Errol Flynn, choreographed scenes for several Bond movies and the Star Wars trilogy, as well as playing Vader during his fight scenes and working on the Lord of the Rings trilogy).  The book describes the Sword Fight as the "Greatest Swordfight in Modern Times". Peter and Bob intended to do their best to make this so and train them hard to not only fight but fight both handed.  I'll leave the story of the filming of the swordfight for you to discover.

Elwes got injured twice during the filming of this movie and both were his fault.  He broke his toe on the day they were to spend one day at the site of the giant hill where Wesley talks about being the Dred Pirate Roberts and what happened to Wesley, which contains one of my favorite lines: Life is pain.  Anyone who tells you differently is trying to sell you something.  If you watch as they walk across the top of the hill you can tell he is careful about his left foot.  Also, after they reach the bottom of the hill and run off, he is more hopping than running.

The second time, was when Christopher Guest was supposed to hit him over the head with his sword, which was a real medieval sword hilt and knock him out.  Guest, the nicest guy ever, was scared of hurting him, so he came nowhere near Elwes' head when he struck, which meant that Elwes was falling at the wrong time.  Finally, Elwes tells him to just tap him on the head with it.  Guest does more than tap it on his head.  When Wesley falls down unconscious, he really was unconscious.  He woke up in the hospital with stitches in his head.  Later on, when he has to knock out Patinkin with his sword, he does it from the back, so the camera does not show him not touching his head.

In the fire swamp, they have to do a stunt, where Buttercup falls into Lightening Sand and Wesley goes in to save her.  For safety sake, they wanted him to jump in feet first.  There was a hidden trap door and a short drop onto Styrofoam and two people to help catch you.  Cary was not satisfied with this.  It was not heroic enough.  Flynn would not do it this way.  No hero would.  He wanted to dive head first.  After a very lengthy discussion, Cary finally convinced Reiner.  After carefully practicing it with stunt doubles who showed Cary how to do it, it was done in one take.

This book is one of the best I've read all year.  I could go on and on about all of its hidden secrets, but that would spoil it for you, the reader.  Making this movie, was a great highlight to many who worked on this film.  Sadly, when it came out, Fox did not know how to market it.  The poster pictured Fred Savage and Peter Faulk on it, leading people to think it was a kiddie movie, which it was not, really.  They had no trailer, no print ads, and no TV ads.  If the internet had been around, perhaps it would have been more successful in theaters.  Everyone was disappointed in the response.

Later, when people started catching it on VHS, everyone, including President Clinton, who told him it was his and Chelsea's favorite movie and Pope John Paul II who, in a chance meeting, told him how much he loved it.  People began to quote lines to the actors on the street.  Reiner tells the tale of when he went out to a restaurant Gotti went to, who happened to show up that night.  When Reiner stepped outside for a moment, one of Gotti's men looked at him and said "You killed my father. Prepare to die."  For a moment Reiner froze and was scared out of his mind before he realized what the man was talking about.  It has become a phenomenon and a classic that will be loved down through the ages, even without CGI special effects that might have made the ROUSs look more real, but would have ruined the movie.  Beware, after reading this book, you will want to immediately grab the movie and watch it again with new eyes as you look for the secrets hidden within.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/As-You-Wish-Inconceivable-Princess/dp/1476764026/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1467033088&sr=1-1&keywords=as+you+wish+inconceivable+tales+from+the+making+of+the+princess+bride

Monday Mourning by Kathy Reichs

Unlike the Bones in the TV series, this forensic anthropologist, Tempe Brennan, has a college-aged daughter, is a recovering alcoholic (a fallout from the end of a twenty-year marriage), and spends her time between working in Charlotte, North Carolina and Quebec.  This is an excellent series.  I have loved ever book I have read so far, but I don't know if I can tell you to read this one or not, because, even though I only read it maybe a month ago, I remember very little of the book.  This does not say much for the book, or my memory.  So you're on your own.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

First of all, let me say that this book has been lauded in many reviews as a great book and is still on the New York Times best-seller list.  That said, I have to confess, that after two weeks and only getting through half of it, I gave up.  That is not to say that I will not try to read this book again.  I just might give it another chance later on.  That is what I did when I did not like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and see how that turned out.

This book is set in during World War II and involve two sixteen-year-olds, Marie-Laure, a blind French girl who lives with her father, who works at a Paris museum.  He buys her on her birthday each year a book in braille and builds a puzzle box of the city of Paris, in scale, so she can find her way around it in her mind.  The museum is home to many priceless art pieces, but one in particular is worth more that the others.  It is the Sea of Flame, a cursed gem, that is said to provide immortality to its owner.  When the Nazis invade France, the French box up the valuables and send them off to be hid.  The gem, however, they make three copies of it and send two of the copies along with the real one, off to different points to try to keep it safe.  Marie-Laure's father is one who is given a stone and they set off on a journey to find the man they are to give it to, who will get it out of the country.  By the time they arrive, he has left his home.  It is not far to her great-uncle's house in Saint-Malo.  Her uncle, an eccentric who never got over World War I, has a housekeeper who works for the underground.

Soon, Marie-Laure's father is sent back to Paris, but he leaves the stone and a puzzle box of the streets of Saint-Malo with her in the care of her Uncle and the housekeeper.  The book bounces back and forth between time periods and at one point, she is alone in the house, when a Nazi, whose purpose is to hunt down Europe's treasure's for Hitler, goes to the house to find the stone, with only Marie-Laure in the house that we know of, because she has heard from no one and is hiding with the stone.

The other teenager, is Werner, an orphaned German boy who, with his sister, Jutta, live with a sweet French woman and other children.  Werner is a self-taught intelligent young man, who figures out how to fix radios.  He learns math and mechanics from an old book, that is eventually taken from him by the Nazis, because the book was written by a Jew.  He builds a radio and the children all spend their evenings listening to it.  He can even get stations as far away as France, which how he and Jutta learn of what the Germans are doing to the French.  Jutta is against this.  But Werner does not know what to think.  His bleak future consists of working in the mines when he turns sixteen, but chance intervenes.  A Nazi official hears about his prowess and sends for him to fix his fancy radio, which he does, easily.  This official gets Werner enrolled in a Nazi boy's school where he is taught how to be a soldier as well as spending special time with a professor who is trying to make a better radio for the war.  His best friend, Fredrick, is a rich kid who, because of his position in society is sent to this school, even though he is as blind as a bat and cheats the eye exam to get in.  He is a dreamer who  loves birds and looks out for the unfortunate.  He is smart, but weak, and his ideals get him into horrific trouble that Werner cannot seem to protect him from, though he feels as though he should.  In one of the flash forwards, we see that Werner and two other soldiers are under a building with a broken radio in Saint-Malo, with the Americans coming and no way out.  It is here that his life intersects with Marie-Laure somehow.  I never got that far.

Don't let the fact that I didn't finish this book effect your idea of whether or not to read it.  Like I said before, it has garnered incredible reviews and maybe I was just not in the mood to read a book like this now.  If this overview of the book interests, by all means pick it up and give it a whirl.  I myself just might one day finish it too.

Valley of Silence: Book Three of the Circle Trilogy by Nora Roberts

This is the final book in the Circle Trilogy and I have to say they saved the best for last.  Maybe its because I can really relate to the bookish and curious nature of Moira and the cynical, sarcastic, been-there-done-it attitude of Cian.  This book will culminate in the ultimate battle against Lilith on the Valley of Shadows, where blood is soaked into the ground from when the gods battled against each other ages ago.

The people of Gael watch as Moira pulls out the sword of destiny, which determines if that person will be the ruler.  When she pulled it out, a streak of wild lightening flashed up her arm and through the sword into the sky, which heightens Moira's small amount of magical powers.  She works with Glenna to make them even stronger as the others continue to practice fighting.  At her coronation ceremony feast, one of Lilith's half-vampires shoots an arrow at her and Cian pushes her down and gets stabbed instead.  She declares, much to his discontent, that he is now Sir Cian.  It helps to cement the people to like and trust Cian more.  They decide to use the friendly dragons in the area, who have never had much to do with the people of Gael, but whom Larkin can talk to.  They plan to reign fire bombs and fire arrows from the skies.

Moira, tired of waiting for Cian to come to her goes to him and seduces him into taking her virginity, something he has refused to do, since they have no hope for a future.  He will live on after her and can not provide her with children.  They only have this short period of time together, before he will leave and go back to his world where he belongs. 

Lilith, meanwhile, sends her six-year-old vampire child, Davey, to have his first hunt.  He is protected from steel and wood by her magician's spell and goes out and convinces one of her men to leave the encampment to try to save him, only to be viciously killed.  Moira is having a hard time with her role as queen as she has to offer comfort to the families who have lost loved ones.  So, when her ladies-in-waiting demand to go and fight alongside their men, she gives in and lets them.

On a side note, there is one of the most sexy love scenes I have ever encountered in either a romance or vampire book and it involves mirrors.  I'd have never thought of it.  Hats off to you Nora Roberts for thinking outside the box.

The end of the book culminates in the battle and the secret weapon the six are planning to use to hopefully wipe out all of the vampires.  This was truly a satisfying read and a wonderfully grand ending to a very enjoyable trilogy.  These books, and this one in particular, will take you far away from your own world, into a magical one where anything is possible. 

A Marked Man by Barbra Hamilton

In this second mystery set in Revolutionary  Boston and featuring Abigail Adams, the Boston tea party has just happened and the colonists are awaiting the king's reprisal.  Abigail notices in the paper that a slave girl named Bathsheba has gone missing, leaving behind a young babe and a toddler.  Abigail knows in her heart that this woman would never leave her children behind and must be dead.  She is soon distracted from this by the arrest of Henry Knox, a bookstore owner and printer of seditious material, for the death of an Army officer and friend of the Governor's.  It is said that Henry and Lucy Fluckner, from the first book, whose maid was a target for a madman, were meeting and in love.  Sir Jonathan Cottrell tried to touch Lucy in a very inappropriate manner, in order to dishonor her into a marriage with him so he could get a lot of land in Maine from her father.  Henry gave him a black eye and threatened to kill him if he touched her again.

Cottrell, then went to Maine to oversee Mr. Fluckner's properties and try to get the people off the land to make way for new people.  The night he got back he was supposed to go to the Fluckner's ball where Lucy's father was going to announce her engagement to him, against her wishes, but he never showed up.  Instead, his body is found beaten and frozen on the ground outside the house the next morning.  Mr. Fluckner, not realizing the gravity of the situation and just wanting Henry away from his daughter, has one of his employees say they saw Henry in the alley that night with the scarf that was found on the scene.  Henry is to be tried in military court after being questioned on the Sons of Liberty and everything he knows, and then likely found guilty of murder and hung.  Luckily the weather is keeping the ship from arriving, giving Abigail Adams and her sleuth in arms (sort of) Lieutenant Coldstone.

Abigail, with the help of Lucy and her chaperone, Mrs. Sandhayes, help to figure out who was in the ball where and when in order to see who could have slipped out of the house to kill Cottrell, but this gets them nowhere.  Cottrell's servant, who didn't go with him to Maine because he was too ill, is found to have been poisoned by two actors from Barbados, where Cottrell was stationed and sullied a girl's reputation, who had committed suicide, and had to buy off her parents.  Needless to say, everywhere he went, Cottrell made enemies, but sorting through them and finding the killer is going to be tough.

As Abigail and Coldstone get closer their lives are threatened.  Coldstone is lured to a secret place and is shot and Abigail interrupts an intruder set on poisoning her food stores.  Cottrell is said to have been seen at a house rented by a mysterious Mr. Elkins, whom no one can find.  An inspection of the house results in the sense that someone has died there, but there is no proof of this, only an empty well in the cellar, used to keep wine cooled.

As time grows close for Henry's departure, Abigail finally realizes who the killer is, but may be too late to save her life or Henry's, as the most ingenious nemesis steps forward and shocks the reader with their identity.  I did not see the ending coming.  This book was a really great read and kept me on the edge of my seat.  As I flew through the last pages of the book, I was hoping for the killer to  be caught and taken in.  The ending will surprise you.  This series really delves into what life was like at that time in history (including the use of a French version of a chamber pot in church because the sermons are so long and having to deal with frozen laundry) and lets a woman, who in today's time could have been a lawyer like her husband John, or anything she wanted to be, but is put into the part of mother and wife.  This series lets her spread her wings and become something extra and lets her use her sharp mind to unmask killers.   By the way, Henry Knox and Lucy Fluckner were real people.  They will marry and have a ton of kids and fight in the war.  Fort Knox and Knoxville is named after Henry.

Quotes:

Honestly, I understand why ladies are never the heroines of anything, they simply cannot get away from their kitchens long enough to rescue anyone.

--Barbara Hamilton (A Marked Man p 281)

Link to Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Marked-Man-Abigail-Adams-Mystery/dp/0425237087/ref=sr_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475501257&sr=1-17&keywords=a+marked+man