5 comments about Counterfeit Lady.

1. I read this book years ago. It had a great plot but it got a bit silly in parts. Read it if you don't have anything better on hand. It was okay.



2. I have mixed feelings about Counterfeit Lady -- the first installment in the James River trilogy. On one hand, this novel is very emotionally moving with lots of twists and turns coupled with beautiful descriptions of late eighteenth century Virginia. On the other hand, the hero got on my nerves and Jude Deveraux throws political correctness out the window big time here. But more on that later. The year is 1794. Plantation owner Clayton Armstrong is madly in love with an English young woman called Bianca Maleson. Tired of her excuses for not marrying him, he hires men to kidnap her and arranges a marriage by proxy during the long voyage to America. Imagine his surprise when instead of getting plump, blue-eyed blond Bianca he gets a petite, beautiful and exotic Frenchwoman named Nicole Courtalain. Clayton is outraged when he learns that she was forced to marry him during the voyage and he agrees with Nicole to have the marriage annulled as soon as possible. It appears that his men kidnapped the wrong woman. A refugee from her homeland during the French Revolution and daughter of aristocrats, Nicole was Bianca's personal maid before she was kidnapped and brought to America. Her attraction and feelings for Clayton grow deep in a matter of days and she hopes that he will soon see her as more than just a second choice. But Clayton's feelings for Bianca run deep, for she reminds him of an old unrequited love. However, he may be in for a very rude awakening. There are many twists throughout the novel.
   
   As said earlier, I have mixed feelings about this first installment of the series. The story is riveting and moved me to the core. I felt Nicole's sorrow of having endured the pain of losing her family during the Revolution and then trying to pick up the pieces in England. I also felt her pain when her love for Clayton wasn't reciprocated. Clayton irritated me big time. As other reviewers had stated, he was too stupid to live at times. How could he "love" a spiteful, hateful creature like Bianca? He makes Nicole miserable whenever she witnesses his blind, undying devotion to Bianca. I wanted to strangle him at times. He reminded me of Gavin Montgomery from The Velvet Promise, for he also fancied himself in love with another woman. I know that is the whole point of the novel and that this is the central plot and intrigue, but I must say that it is my least favorite. Anyway, one thing I loved about this novel was the backdrop of late eighteenth century south. I pictured the beautiful plantations, the clean air, the high-waist dresses and parasols, and all of the other wonderful descriptions Deveraux provided for us. This is a beautiful time period and I look forward to reading more novels set during this period. One thing I found unnecessary and no doubt offensive to many readers was the emphasis on Bianca's weight. For a while I thought, "Okay, she's fat, I get it. Now let's move on." I thought Bianca was a horrible, spoiled, self-centered, unredeemable villainess and I hated her. Her hefty figure was the least of my problems with her. I appreciate any author's attempt at realism (because making fun of a fat person, regardless of his or her personality, is an unfortunate common thing), and Deveraux does have a wonderful sense of humor, but not when it's gratuitous, and I thought it was definitely gratuitous here, not to mention excessive. And so, I give Counterfeit Lady three stars. I both loved and hated this novel as I read it. Novels that move me while reading it is definitely a good thing, but I nevertheless cannot overlook the faults in this effort enough to give it a higher star rating.



3. Nicole Courtalain is the daughter of a French aristocrat who is forced to flee France to escape the French Revolution. She is all alone. Her family, as far as she knows, has all been killed. An English gentleman and his daughter, Bianca, take in Nicole to serve as Bianca's maid. Bianca is a spoiled, self-centered girl who is engaged to an American, Clayton Armstrong. Despite Clay's pleas for Bianca to travel to America so they can be married, Bianca offers excuse after excuse to delay her travel plans. He finally hires men to kidnap her but the kidnapping plans go awry. Instead of Bianca, Nicole is taken. She is put on a ship sailing for America and also forced to marry Clay by proxy. Once Clay discovers the mistake, he, of course, initiates plans to have the marriage annulled. There are some twists to the plot that will delay the annulment plans, but by that time, Nicole is more than willing to put the marriage behind her and forget about Clay.
   
   This was such an excruciating book to get through. Clay and Nicole go through such a difficult time that I was hard-pressed to rush through the book and get to the end. Bianca is a memorable villain. She is clever, manipulative and conniving and there is no end to the lengths she will go to in order to keep Clay and Nicole apart. The story is beautifully woven but I didn't like the ending. Because of the intensity of the story, I would've preferred a gradual winding down to the end. Instead, the ending was abrupt, a lot like watching a movie at the height of its climactic intensity and then suddenly the electricity goes out.



4. Maybe it's just me but doesn't the main character lack any heroic qualities whatsoever. I never fell for this guy. He was weak and kinda sick in the head. This weird fixation (Bianca) on the image of his past weird fixation (brother's wife) really seemed on the verge of insanity. The only one who I was endeared to was Nicole. She stayed strong and in most cases wore the pants in this book.
   
   I truly felt sorry for the spoiled, Bianca. Nobody deserves to be treated so nasty but most especially it should not be made out to be a good thing to call people some pretty aweful names. In the beginning of the book she was just a spoiled, pampered brat but after being ridiculed and verbally abused. Even the children were allowed to treat her badly.
   
   I just didn't care much for this book. I can honestly say it was not a bad read but I felt I was disagreeing with the author the entire time.



5. The premise for this book is what caught my attention but the story itself disappointed, especially as a huge J. Deveraux fan. I liked Nicole's character and the contrasting view of the very bloody French revolution with 18th century revolutionary America and, because of it, I think this story could have been something so much more... but the character development and the relationship development was uneven AND voluminous... sometimes less is more.

1 comments about Peter and the Troll Baby.

1. We love this storybook, set in Sweden. You get a sense of what things are like there--vacationing in a sod-roofed house, arrived at by fjord--while magical things happen that illustrate a brother's love, and frustration with, his baby sister. We are sorry it's out of print!

No comments about The Street Smart Book.

No comments about Crimen.(casos de secuestro, México)(TT: Crime.)(TA: kidnapping cases, Mexico): An article from: Proceso.

No comments about Wilberger suspect pleads in N.M. case.(Courts)(Joel Courtney may face charges later this year in the Oregon woman's slaying): An article from: The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR).

No comments about Artemis Fowl.

1 comments about LONG WAY FROM HOME CL.

1. Bringing together adoptive mother, birth mother, recalcitrant daughter, pawn grandchild and throwaway father, Busch seems to suggest that abortion has adoption beat hands down in this passionate but disjointed novel.
   
   As the story opens, Sarah has abandoned her familywithout explanation. Distraught, her husband, Barrett, leaves son Stephen with Sarah's adoptive parents and heads for Santa Fe because Sarah liked the pottery. But Sarah is on a quest to meet her birth mother. Shifting viewpoints speed the plot and explore character.
   Busch's depiction of 6-year-old Stephen is heart-rending. Outwardly calm, he is terrified. His grandparents, Lizzie and Will, cope as always, putting their private concerns on hold.
   
   Sarah's quest unfolds as one long harangue and Barrett's search degenerates unreasonably. Gloria, the birth mother, is crazed -- because she gave up her child? It's hard to care what happens to any of them.
   
   There are also some simple plot problems. Sarah heads home and Gloria, bent on kidnapping, follows. Hours behind, lost and without a map, Gloria still manages to beat Sarah. Then Lizzie and Sarah take off after Gloria and Stephen -- without a thought of informing the police and simply having her stopped.
   
   Only Busch's writing could keep this turgid plot going. The words tumble and run, the characters steer by venal desires and lofty intentions. Yet Lizzie and Sarah -- apparently hurtling toward an explosive or illuminating climax -- banter as if their pursuit of Gloria is a cathartic girls' night out.
   
   An odd book which gripped me until the last page when I picked it up and threw it against the wall -- figuratively of course.

No comments about Colombia's Kidnapping Industry.

5 comments about The Secret Adversary: A Tommy & Tuppence Mystery (Unabridged).

1. Great light beach reading in this little known series of Agatha Christie's Young Adventurers. In this first appearance, the soon to be husband and wife team of Tommy and Tuppence cast off their post-war boredom by hiring themselves out as adventurers.
   
   They soon find themselves Britain's only hope against an unbelievable collection of thugs, unionists, and socialists bent on destroying the empire in ways that can only be spoken of in whispers. The chrismatic yet unknown Mr. Brown is behind all of this, and no one knows who he is. Join our heroes as they chase him down with several false leads and misidentifications. After almost a century this tale still holds up well. The sinking of the Lusitania and other events of the Great War play a prominent role as Victorian life provides our setting.



2. Tommy and Tuppence were sparkling creations by Agatha Christie (and their ability to transfer deliciously to the small screen is also a proven fact.) But sadly they were never given as strong mystery material as Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot were and have, therefore, languished on the literary sidelines to a great extent. Their first appearance, in the Secret Adversary, is a good example of this problem. Christie is weakest when politics are involved and the story is hopelessly naive with the fate of the world being controlled by one man, Mr. Brown, who ultimately is rather easily bested by those two crazy kids of the flapper Twenties, Tommy and Tuppence. The author never, ever, succeeded in achieving anything remotely approaching a spy thriller. Still, this book will hold interest for anyone wanting an early glimpse of the crazy duo who are always a pleasure to spend some time with.



3. I've been an avid Agatha Christie fan for decades now, but had yet to read one of Ms. Christie's novels with the characters of Tommy & Tuppence until now that is....
   
   Tommy & Tuppence are a nice, refreshing change from Miss Marple & Hercule Poirot. They are young upstarts in this novel looking to earn a decent living in an era where the economy isn't great.... So, Tommy & Tuppence, whom have been life long friends, decide to embark on a new career as the young adventurers in search of new adventures.
   
   They end up doing under cover work, off the record, for the British Government, in search of some important documents lost in World War I. These documents if recovered by the enemy, could have dire consequences for the allies now that the war is over.
   
   The Secret Adversary is a nice, tightly written novel by Ms. Christie and this novel keeps you guessing until the very end which character is the bad guy.



4. Although I read a great number of Agatha Christie books as a child, I never came across any from her "Tommy & Tuppence" series on my mother's bookshelves. So I thought that it might be fun to try the first of them to see what Christie's "other" series was like. And this first in the T&T series is like is a strange mix of John Buchan and P.G. Wodehouse -- it's an espionage story, but often reads like a parody of one. The title's play on the Joseph Conrad novel hints at a certain tongue in cheekiness, as does the use of every possible spy adventure cliché.
   
   The story opens with a prologue aboard the sinking Lusitania in 1915, as a mysterious man entrusts a secret diplomatic packet to an American teenage girl. We then leap forward to 1919, where we meet Tommy and Tuppence, a pair of lovely young adults who are somewhat adrift and broke following their wartime experiences. Running into each other in London, the childhood friends cook up a scheme to advertise themselves as "Young Adventurers" for hire. Thanks to a wildly improbable coincidence (a snatch of overheard conversation), they find themselves in the midst of a plot to destroy England.
   
   It seems that some secret mastermind has managed to unite all of England's enemies (Bolshevik Russians, defeated Germany, Irish Republicans, and the English working class) in common cause. All they need to do is provoke a general strike that will topple the government and unleash anarchy (exactly how or why this is the case is left murky) -- and the packet entrusted to the girl on the Lusitania is the key. Apparently it contains some kind of draft treaty whose contents are so explosive that public revelation would throw England into just the desired state of unrest (again, just how this old treaty would do that, or who the signatories are are left to the reader's imagination).
   
   In any event, Tommy and Tuppence take on these plotters on behalf of the British government (who presumably would have more qualified people for the job), and there's much tailing, eavesdropping, impersonation, and general thrills and chills as first Tommy, and then Tuppence are captured. Naturally, neither hero nor heroine are simply killed by their captors, as that would make too much sense. Amidst all this toing and froing, they come into contact with a cast of colorful characters including an energetic young American millionaire, a crafty lawyer, a sinister society lady, a spunky kid helper, and Inspector Japp from the Poirot series. Since the reader knows full well that the plot will be foiled, the real mystery is the identity of the unknown mastermind, Mr. Brown. Alas, careful readers will realize less than halfway through, that barring some kind of "locked room" shenanigans, the identity of Mr. Brown must be one of two people.
   
   So it's rather an odd book, perhaps best read as parody, but enjoyable as an old-fashioned ripping yarn with two engaging leads -- who naturally fall in love. Definitely left me curious to read further adventures of Tommy and Tuppence.



5. "The Secret Adversary" is the very first adventure of Tommy and Tuppence, Agatha Christie's pair of amateur sleuths, and what an adventure they have. Tommy Beresford and Prudence 'Tuppence' Cowley manage to solve a threatening international crisis, by luck and intuition it would seem, rather than more ordinary methods of detection. As an introduction to the pair, who would have further adventures after their marriage, "The Secret Adversary" is fast-paced and intriguing.
   
   Having met each other once again by chance, Tommy and Tuppence, old childhood friends, decide to advertise themselves as "Young Adventurers" who will take any charge that's well paid, no matter the danger. But before they can even post their ad, they are drawn into a mysterious web of intrigue regarding a missing draft of a peace treaty and a young girl named Jane Finn. By what seems like sheer coincidence and luck, Tommy and Tuppence, together or apart, are able to come across clues as to where Jane Finn may be, and what knowledge she has about the missing treaty. As they uncover clues, they also uncover danger that threatens their lives and friends who may just turn out to be the very adversary they are searching for.
   
   As usual with an Agatha Christie mystery, just when you think you've figured out the final twist, she throws even more at you. "The Secret Adversary" is a smart, well-plotted thriller, a testament to Christie's brillance, as this was only her second published novel. While the book may seem dated in language and certain expressions, it is only at a surface level due to the very real nature of the modern intrigue that moves the plot.

5 comments about The Zigzag Kid.

1. Though I read it in the Hebrew, the story was so rich and intriguing that the translation sure transmits the wonder and excitement of this book. Through style and story, Zizag Kid is a success.



2. Just thought I'd point out that the kid's name is actually Nono... (I read the book in hebrew..)



3. Grossman has changed my life totally. Because of him (particularly 'See under: love') I have even been learning Hebrew. There was something about this book though that made me leave it on the shelf - dunno what, maybe the cover, some inbuilt snobbiness about a book about children - and it stayed there for years. More fool me...

   I started it and didn't stop until the last page. Absolute perfection. Possibly the most uplifting read I have ever read, and I always had a snidy pessimistic view towards sentimentality. Again, more fool me...

   This cat's like a personal tutor to me, and I cannot imagine life without his (and Nabokov - my other fave's) books.

   ....




4. you could get in touch with DG via the Guardian newspaper in London. I know it has an anti-Israel image in israel, but that's a crock. Anyone who knows DGs work knows he would never involve himself with an anti-Israel paper. (he writes for them regularly).

   Incidentally, the myth of Israel being a target of the Guardian has been propogated by Conrad Blacks' Jerusalem Post. Black owns the Guardian's competition in the UK - coincidence?

   Black also is one of those messianic christians who is busy befriending jews until the day he and his chums expect Jesus to rise again - when one third of all jews will convert and the other two thirds will be "forced into the see". Who is the real friend of the Israeli people I ask...




5. I teach 8th grade literature at a Jewish Day School, so I am always looking for high quality literature that will speak to 13 year olds, and if it has some Jewish content, all the better. This is by far my students' favorite book of the year. We read it at the end of the year as they are getting ready to transition into high school, and it offers great discussion opportunities. But it is by no means a children's book--I loved reading it in its own right, as did my principal. In fact, another teacher walked into the Teacher's Lounge and saw it and said, "Oh, you're reading that! He's one of my favorite authors!" She was surprised to learn I was teaching the book. What a joy to find a book that speaks to young adults and adults alike!