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~ ;)