I swear, I haven't given up on reading

It's just that I'm part-way through a whole bunch of books, so actually finishing one isn't happening very quickly.

I did finally finish one last night, though - Mary Malloy's Devil on the Deep Blue Sea: the Notorious Career of Captain Samuel Hill of Boston (2006). I read this one because a while ago I read and enjoyed a semi-historical mystery novel that she had written. And this one, a non-fiction book about a ship captain whose career spanned the first quarter of the nineteenth century, was really good. At least, it was interesting, and written in an extremely accessible and readable way. But, my GOD, Malloy was poorly served by her publishers. Or maybe it was her fault, but the book was terribly edited. One of the msot egregious problems was that clearly her original manuscript was written in an old version of Word or something, and lots of words at the end of lines were broken off. Then when the text was typeset, you had lines like "and then someone did a lazy job of ed-iting and didn't catch huge, glar-ing mistakes." Okay, in fairness, I think there was ever only one word break in a line, but still. How did nobody catch that and fix it? It happened all throughout the book. There were a lot of random grammar and spelling mistakes that just frustrated me so much, because the book deserved better.

And since I'm mostly writing this because I'm procrastinating working on the big homework assignment I have do, I am just going to copy the book description:

"Had he not been a madman, Captain Samuel Hill would likely be remembered as one of the great maritime adventurers of the early nineteenth century. He was the first American to live in Japan, and was in the Columbia River basin at the same time as Lewis & Clark. He rescued men held captive by Indians and pirates, met King Kamehameha of Hawaii and the missionaries who arrived soon after the King's death, was captured as a privateer during the War of 1812, witnessed firsthand the events of the Chilean Revolution, and wrote about all this persuasively. He was also a rapist and murderer. In all his contradictions and complexities, Samuel Hill represented the fledgling United States during its first wave of expansion. At home he appeared civilized and sensible, but as he sailed into the Pacific Ocean the mask slipped away to reveal the recklessness, ambition, and violence that propelled the United States from coast to coast and around the world."

I mean, SOUNDS interesting, right? It was good. I just think it could have been better.

Siena,

and the Palio, is such a rich subject. And I feel like Anne Fortier's Juliet gave me everything I didn't get from the other Siena/Palio book I read a while ago, Daughter of Siena (Marina Fiorata) [also, HOLLER, system worked, I had no idea what that book was and then found it in the blog just now]. This was more of a Pink Carnation or Mary Malloy type book, with the action in the present and the (related) action in the past being interwoven together. And a kind of mystery. Not that Malloy and Lauren Willig have a monopoly on the style, it's just what I think of.

Anyhow, I really liked Juliet, as I said the other day. I had been getting another book from Lamont, and I saw Juliet down the shelf a couple books, and the spine was appealing. So I read the first page - an epigraph, as it happened - and liked THAT, so I checked it out. Finally got around to reading it during the blizzard weekend, wanting something lighter after I had been reading something heavier, but it was better than just a palate cleanser.

Basically a young American woman who is obsessed with Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet ends up in modern-day Siena where she finds out she's a descendant (and namesake) of the original inspiration for Juliet. She also needs to find the artifacts relating to the story, and the whole story, that were a part of her parents' mysterious deaths when she was a young child. And there's a hot Italian man, and lots of clothes and prosecco and gelatto. Lots of history, too, but handled well - respectfully (and hopefully responsibly/accurately, although it's NOT my period, so it could all be totally wrong for all I know) and lightly, so it's everywhere, but not overwhelming or artificial. Lots of my favorite things in any case.

A lot of it is predictable, especially the development of the "relationship" between our Juliet and the leading man, but still entertaining and the main character, while a bit obvious, is relatable and very engaging. The setting (both the city and the temporal setting too, when in the past) is handled quite well, and the worlds feel real while you're in them. Ugh, except now I really want to go to Siena!!!

Surprisingly good?

So, somehow I stumbled across a reference to a book written by a Harvard Extension Museum Studies professor / maritime studies somewhere else, Mary Malloy. I think it was a comment someone posted on a Harvard Magazine article about university novelists or something? Or an article about Extension authors? Anyhow, I figured out that Prof. Malloy had written a historical mystery type book featuring a historian from New England. And, as anyone who read this blog knows (so, hi, C, if you're still out there!), I am a sucker for anything along those lines. So I read it, and, honestly, when the book came from deposit and I saw the sort of garish, sort of generic cover I was like "uh-oh." And then the summary on the back made no sense, academically speaking - she (main character) studies 18th century Pacific explorations, but then the story ends up in the Crusades? She would not know the relevant source material!!!

BUT, then Malloy totally acknowledged that, worked it into the story, and also turned out a pretty legit book. The protagonist tackles a set of unknown papers and materials that literally had me drooling (it's the same as the Pink Carnation books - previously untapped archives are history nerd porn), that leads to an older, generations- & centuries-old family-based mystery (love those too), and THAT ended up with the Crusader stuff. There's also a little bit of romantic/sexual tension, decently well fleshed out secondary characters, and a more contemporary "mystery" that plays out well. Good stuff.

I'm definitely going to try to get my hands on the next book in the series, which I think just came out recently. It's not in Hollis, but the BPL in West Roxbury has a copy, so I'll head over there at some point - maybe stop in at the fire station down the street where a very nice man tried valiantly to cut the stuck-on ring off my swollen finger the other night, before the guys over at the Newton Centre station finally managed to finish the job...

Anyhow, the book is The Wandering Heart.