Tuesday 17 December 2019

Queen Of The Flaming Diamond by Leroy Yerxa + #FreeBook


Queen Of The Flaming Diamond by Leroy Yerxa
Published in Amazing Stories in America in January 1943.

Q for my 2019 Alphabet Soup Challenge

How I got this book:
Downloaded a free copy via Project Gutenberg

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


He succeeded in dragging his charge up the three low steps that led toward the coat room. A silvery crash of music drowned out Puffy's voice with the suddenness of striking lightning. He dropped his arm from Drake's waist and pivoted, surprise on his broad face. Something weird and lovely about the sound turned them both toward the stage. His chin dropped in delight. This wasn't Lardner's usual nightly feature.

With only a few weeks remaining in 2019, I had thought about abandoning my Alphabet Soup challenge with five letters still unread (J, Q, X, Y and Z). However, leaving such things unfinished rankles with me, probably far more than it should do, so I've been scouring Project Gutenberg for suitable books. Queen Of The Flaming Diamond's lurid cover art caught my eye.

This 64-page story is a curious blend of crime caper and shapeshifting fantasy. It reads like a pulp novel which makes sense as that's exactly what it is, so there's no great depth to any of the character portrayals or logical explanation to the bizarre events that unfold. That doesn't really matter though and it's probably for the best that the narrative races over its many gaping plotholes! For all my literary complaints, Queen Of The Flaming Diamond is good fun. I happily read in on a cold, rainy afternoon and was transported to a Bugsy Malone-style world of mobsters, nightclubs, diamond thieves and shapeshifting foxes. As you do! If you fancy an entertaining escapist read, this story will do the trick.


Etsy Find!
by Villa Sorgenfrei in
Berlin, Germany

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Books by Leroy Yerxa / Short stories / Books from America

Sunday 8 December 2019

The Rival Queens by Nancy Goldstone


The Rival Queens: Catherine de' Medici, her daughter Marguerite de Valois, and the Betrayal That Ignited a Kingdom by Nancy Goldstone
Published in the UK by Weidenfeld And Nicolson in 2015.

One of my 2019 Mount TBR Challenge reads

How I got this book:
Won a paperback copy in a publisher giveaway

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Paris, 1572. Catherine de' Medici, the infamous queen mother of France, is a consummate pragmatist and powerbroker who has dominated the throne for thirty years. Her youngest daughter, Marguerite, the glamorous 'Queen Margot', is a passionate free spirit, the only adversary whom her mother can neither intimidate nor fully control.

When Catherine forces the Catholic Marguerite to marry the Protestant Henry of Navarre, she creates not only savage conflict within France but also a potent rival within her own family. Treacherous court politics, poisonings, international espionage and adultery form the background to a extraordinary story about two formidable queens, featuring a fascinating array of characters including such celebrated figures as Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots and Nostradamus.

The Rival Queens is a fascinatingly detailed portrait of the lives of Catherine de Medici and her youngest daughter Marguerite de Valois. These two women lived and ruled in France at the same time as Elizabeth the First so to me, as an English-speaking reader, they have been eclipsed by the English monarch, however I now discover that their reigns resound just as powerfully through European history as Elizabeth's. The sixteenth century could indeed be seen as the Age of Queens and I very much appreciated how Nancy Goldstone actually tells Catherine and Marguerite's own stories, frequently in their own words (rather than the more usual historical method of describing of the surrounding men, leaving the woman as somewhat of a vacuum at the centre of 'her' story!).

Centuries of intermarriage and the aristocracy's traditional lack of naming imagination does mean that The Rival Queens does get baffling at times although Goldstone does an admirable job of differentiating her Henris. I more often felt as though I was reading a novel because of her skill in bringing these people back to life in a very believable way so I could understand their political shenanigans and personal weaknesses, even while their actions grew increasingly more desperate and bizarre. However dysfunctional one's own family might seem, this brood of power-hungry backstabbers would certainly give them a run for their money, albeit most of it in the form of debts and IOUs.

I'd had The Rival Queens sat unread on a shelf for months and am now kicking myself for not having got around to this book sooner. I loved Goldstone's style and being able to immerse myself in history of a familiar period, but with so many new-to-me-people and events to discover. I now have a wider understanding and am keen to delve further into these tumultuous years, especially as seen through women's eyes.

Etsy Find!
by Marquise De Montespan in
California, USA

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Books by Nancy Goldstone / History books / Books from England