Mary Roberts Rinehart

A week or two ago I was at Salvation Army, and found an interesting-looking book entitled The After House. I had never heard of it or the author before, but it looked like a good read, in decent condition, and only $0.50. Plus, even if it turned out lousy, the cover was nice and could be used in some Old Book Decor. ;)
Well, I went ahead and started reading The After House that night, and stayed up waaay too late so I could try and finish it! The story line is about this young man named Leslie, fresh out of medical school, who finds work on a yacht headed out to sea. On the boat is a wealthy man and his wife, her sister, and two friends of that family. Also there is a pair of maids, a valet/butler, and the boat crew. The yacht sails a few days out, then, in the dark of the night, a man is murdered! Leslie is the one who discovers him, and ends up being the one who has to take charge of the vessel and bring it back to shore. The scary part is....the murderer is still on board!
A very intriguing book. I stayed up an hour later than I meant to, trying to get to the end, to find out WHO did it, and finally had to just set it down because I had another 100 pages to go. =( Well worth the fifty cents spent on it.

Yesterday I looked up the author, Mary Roberts Rinehart, to see what else she wrote. According to Wikipedia, she lived a Really Interesting life! She lived from August 12th, 1876 to September 22nd, 1958, and wrote close to fifty books! She's the person who the phrase "The butler did it!" was inspired by, because in one of her murder mysteries, they find out at the end that.....the butler did it. Bob Kane accredited her supercriminal, The Bat, as one of the inspirations for Bat Man (although he obviously changed The Bat from criminal to good guy!).
Mary Roberts Rinehart also was the first female war correspondent during World War 1! AND she helped her sons start Farrar & Rinehart Publishers. This was one busy lady!

I reccomend her book The After House. I can't tell you to read any others, since I haven't read them myself, but that one is good!

~Kiwi~

A Highly Entertaining Book

Okay, I have something to say now, and I feel like writing it, too! Yay! ;)

I just finished a highly entertaining book (hence the blog title) called The Season by Sarah MacLean. It is supposed to be a romantic drama, but it kinda turned out more of a sickly-romantic comedy. If you want to read it for yourself and not have me spoil it, please either skim over my summary or skip it. I plan to give away the whole plot, and include excerpts from the book itself, mingled with my commentary on it. =) This'll be fun.
And don't worry, you could still read it and enjoy it for the comedic side!

Okay. The Season takes place in 1815 England. The main character, Alex(andra), and her friends Vivi(an) and Ella (Eleanor), are the daughters of a duke, an earl, and a marquess, respectively. Alex has three brothers, Vivi has a twin brother mentioned by name at the beginning of the book and then never again, and Ella is the oldest in a family of girls. The three girls and Alex's brothers are good friends with Gavin So-and-so, [accidental] Earl of Blackmoor. I say 'accidental' because his father died unexpectedly in what appeared to be an accident several months before the opening of this book. Except, the author foolishly made it obvious that the former Earl was actually murdered by writing the first two pages from the murderer's point of view. [She shouldn't have done that. should have let us figure it out ourselves, but oh well.] Some other more prominent characters in the book are Gavin's uncle Lucien, the Baron Montgrave [he escaped from France during the revolution. Remember, this is while they're fighting Napoleon.], and Alex's parents.
The Season is the time of year when girls [about 17 or so] came out into society for the first time. Or, as Alex puts it [she's quite the feminist], a girl was "paraded like a piece of horseflesh in front of every unattached male in London who happened to have a sizable inheritance and an acceptable title. Her mother's goal was to have Alex married off by autumn."
Neither Alex nor her friends are excited by the whole marriage thing, but they must at least go along with their mothers.
At the first ball, Alex spots a guy who was so tall that he towered above the women around him. "The way he was positioned made him impossible to recognize, but Alex couldn't help but notice his broad shoulders and blond hair falling attractively over the collar of his waistcoat.....His shoulders were broader still than they had seemed when she was spying on him. ...She noted with appreciation the way his tailor had fitted his black jacket to them like a second skin....his hair...was a more golden shade of blond than she had first thought." A second skin?? Really? =P
I wish I had time to quote the entire book on here, or at least great big portions of it, since it is hilariously sappy, but I don't think the author would appreciate that. I mean, quoting chapters of the book would be one thing, but making fun of the chapters I quote? Somehow I doubt she would like that. But I'll give you one or two more portions.

Alex and Gavin fall in love. SURPRISE!!! Didn't see that one coming, did you? Well, they go to a ball together, him as her chaperone. Although technically they shouldn't have done that because he's not her brother, father, or trusted older male relative, like a chaperone was supposed to be.
ANYway, they have an argument at the ball because he was being to older-brother-ish and telling her to stay away from this one guy, so they went home early.
Later That Evening....
"'You have to stop thinking of me as your sister, Gavin.' [I think she meant, stop pretending you're in authority over me.]
"He offered her a half smile. 'That seems to be the singular problem.' Confusion clouded her emerald eyes as he continued, 'You see, I haven't been thinking of you as my sister. In fact, the way I've been thinking when it comes to you is the very opposite of brotherly.' [italics are in the book. "clouded emerald eyes." how very descriptive.]"
blah blah blah blah...
"'You needn't worry. I'm not going to act on my feelings.'
"'Why?' Alex asked the question without thinking."
blah blah blah sappy sappy sappy...
"'Instead of the feelings dissipating as I spent time in your company'--he slashed a hand through the air in frustration--'they only seemed to grow stronger.' [An example of 'absence makes the heart grow fonder', eh? Italics in that sentence are mine.]
"Alex looked up at him, meeting his frustrated grey eyes. [okay, so far we have 'clouded emerald eyes' and 'frustrated grey eyes...'] 'Not why are you feeling the way you are, Gavin. Why aren't you going to act on those feelings?'"
sappy sappy sappy...
"'There are a dozen reasons why I shouldn't act on them.' He lifted his hands to cradle her face between them. 'A hundred reasons why I should turn around and walk out of this room.' He leaned down until he was a hairbreadth away from her. 'But I'm through listening to them.' And, with that, he kissed her."
BLEAH!! It's not that I don't like romance: I don't mind romance one bit! Some romances are very sweet to read, or watch as movies. I like romances. IN MODERATION! This book is...
I expected it to be more adventurous than it was. I mean, the cover says "[Alex] manages to get entangled in her biggest scrape yet." And yes, the cover suggests teen romance novel, but the description sounded a bit better than that, and besides, my favorite series (The Goose Girl, by Shannon Hale) was changed to have a teen romancey cover, but it's still a good book.

Oh, oh oh, at the end, Gavin is (of course) put in a tough spot by the villain *SPOILER ALERT!* who is his uncle. The uncle sticks a gun against Alex's neck and starts talking about how "Oh, your father had it sooo easy as Earl! And then he had a perfect family and he got everything that should have been mine, and then when he died his Earlship went to YOU, a mere child [about 20 or so], instead of me....oh poor me...I'll take from you the one thing you care about, since you don't deserve to be so happy!" Alex catches him monologuing!!! Isn't that the oldest thing in the book? He talks about how Gavin doesn't deserve to be happy, and about how he (the uncle) deserves more, and then looses his grip on Alex, who stomps hard on his foot, making him lose his balance and hop around the room, holding his toes.
Wow.

I know, I'm poking some fun at this book, but it's fun to poke fun, and it was also a very entertaining book. Sappy and sticky-sweet, but fun. =)

~Kiwi da Critic~ ;)

New Background

I decided it was time for a change in backgrounds. I got bored with the other one. It was too wintery. Why should I have a winter template during winter? It just reminds me how cold and dreary it is outside. (okay, it's not all that dreary, it's actually quite sunny, but cold, yes!) In the winter, one should have a Spring or Summer template to help one remember how warm it used to be, and how warm it will be again. Having a cold-paletted Winter background just increases one's awareness as to how cold it is, whereas warmer colors help cheer and warm one up! Come Summer, I might stick a cold, snowy picture on here to cool you down.

I had all these quotes from books I've read recently to show y'all, but left my notebook with the quotes in it at home. (I'm at the library. And yes, I'm just that lazy!) =P So that'll be my next post on here: book quotes! Perhaps I'll have y'all try to guess what book each quote is from...make it into a contest.

~Kiwi~

Earth's Enigmas

My friend loaned me an...interesting...book the other day, and I thought I'd share a few parts of it with you-all. The book's title is Earth's Enigmas, by Charles G. D. Roberts, and was published by L. C. Page & Company in May, 1903. Here's the "prefatory note." (everything in red is my input)

"Most of the stories in this collection attempt to present on or another of those problems of life or nature to which, as it appears to many of us, there is no adequate solution within sight. Others are the almost literal transcript of dreams which seemed to me to have a coherency, completeness, and symbolic significance sufficiently marked to justify me in setting them down. The rest are scenes from that simple life of Canadian backwoods and tide-country with which my earlier years made me familiar.
This edition (the book was published twice, the first time was in 1895 by Lamson, Wolffe and Company) is enlarged by the inclusion of three new stories, entitled "The House at Stony Lonesome," "The Hill of Chastisement," and "On the Tantramar Dyke;" and what is more important, it is enriched by the drawings of Mr. Charles Livingston Bull, for whose sympathetic interpretations I take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude.
C. G. D. R.
New York, April, 1903"

Now, I will not type out the whole book for you, or at least I won't do that today, but I will share a story or two. Let me warn you, though, that they are mildly morbid! Just a little on the weird side. I'll start with one of the ones I am pretty sure was a "transcript of [a] dream."

In the Accident Ward

The grass was gray, of a strange and dreadful pallor, but long and soft. Unbroken, and bending all one way, as if to look at something, it covered the wide, low, rounded hill that rose before me. Over the hill the sky hung close, gray and thick, with the color of a parched interminable twilight. Dew or a drop of rain could not be thought of as coming from such a sky.

Along the base of the low hill ran a red road of baked clay, blood red, and beaten with nameless and innumerable feet. I stood in the middle of this road and prepared to ascend the hill obliquely by a narrow footpath, red as blood, which divided the soft gray bending of the grasses. Behind me the road made a sharp turn, descending out of thick clouds into a little blood-red hollow, where it was crossed by an open gate. In this gate, through which I had somehow come, stood two gray leopards and a small ape. The beasts stood on tip-toe and eyed me with a dreadful curiosity; and from somewhere in the little hollow I heard a word whispered which I could not understand. But the beasts heard it, and drew away through the open gate, and disappeared.

Between the footpath (which all the time gleamed redly through the over-gathering grasses) and the rounded brink of the gulf there seemed to be a fence of some sort, so fine that I could not quite distinguish it, but which I knew to be there.

I turned my eyes to the low summit of the hill. There I saw a figure, all gray, cleaving the grasses in flight as swift as an arrow. Behind, in pursuit, came another figure, of the color of the grasses, tall and terrible beyond thought. This being, as it seemed to me, was the Second Death, and my knees trembled with horror and a sort of loathing. Then I saw that he who fled made directly for me; and as they sped I could hear a strange hissing and rustling of their garments cleaving the grasses. When the fleeing ghost reached me, and fell at my feet, and clasped my knees in awful fear, I felt myself grow strong, and all the dread left my soul. I reached forth my right hand and grasped the pursuing horror by the throat.

I heard the being laugh, and the iron grip of my own strong and implacable fingers seemed to close with a keen agony upon my own throat, and a curtain seemed to fall over my eyes. Then I gasped for breath, and a warm pungent smell clung in my nostrils, and a white light swam into my eyes, and I hear a voice murmuring far off, but in an accent strangely familiar and commonplace, "He's coming round alright now."

I opened my eyes with a dim wonder, and found myself surrounded by the interested faces of the doctors and the clean white walls of the hospital ward. I heard a sound of someone breathing hoarsely near by, and a white-capped nurse with kind eyes stepped up to my pillow, and I perceived that the heavy breather was myself. I was lying with my head and neck swathed in bandages, and a sharp pain at my throat. Then flashed across my memory the crash and sickening upheaval of the collision. I wondered feebly how it had fared with my fellow-passengers, and again I saw that instant's vision of wild and startled faces as the crowded car rose and pitched downward, I knew not whither. With a sense of inexpressible weariness, my brain at once allowed the terrible scene to slip from its grasp, and I heard a doctor, who was standing at the bedside watch in hand, say, quietly, "He'll sleep now for a couple of hours."

The End.

Different, isn't it? That sounds just like a dream; confusing. I think that maybe he could have let up a bit on the details of his surroundings at the beginning. I would go ahead and type up another story, but I think two dream sequences in one post would be a little confusing, don't you? And my fingers are getting tired. So I don't think I shall type up much more tonight.
so how are you-all doing? I haven't been getting many comments lately...*cough*...so I don't know what y'all are up to, or what you think of my blog, or anything! Speak up! :D
And I'll leave it at that. There ought to be a picture post on my photo blog within the hour; go check it out!
~Kiwi~