A Little In Love by Susan Fletcher

"We all leave something behind us. A bird in flight will lose a snow-white feather, and flowers in the hedgerows will drop their petals. And people? We leave memories. Footprints in the dust and fingerprints on everything we've touched, warmth in every hand we've held. We become stories that are spoken of, for always. And in this way, we carry on."

A Little In Love tells the story of the character, Eponine Thenardier from Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. Fletcher's story is loosely based on the events in the novel, although they occur in a somewhat different manner. The character of Eponine is one of the more popular in both the novel and the various musicals performed in recent years. She is often considered Hugo's most interesting.

The novel opens on the Rue de la Chanvrerie. It is June 5, 1832. Eponine lies in front of the barricades, having been shot in an attempt to save Marius from being shot.  With blood everywhere, she knows she is dying. She's remembering Marius and the first time she saw him. She's also remembering her childhood in Montfermeil, a small village outside of Paris.

Eponine was born in 1815 in a hayfield to Madame Thenardier while her father Luc fought in the Battle of Waterloo. Because Eponine's mother preferred girls she decided to keep the baby.  When her father returned home from war he was rich off the money and items he plundered from the dead. With that money her parents bought the damp inn on the ruelle du Boulanger in Montfermeil, naming it the Sergeant of Waterloo.

A sister, Azelma is born, soon after. Eponine is protective of her younger sister.  She loves to watch the rain from her bedroom window because rain meant their inn would be full of customers and offer a chance for her parents to get rich. Eponine's mother would send her to the main room to rob their patrons who would not suspect a small child of picking pockets.  When Eponine would return with jewelry, coins and  rings her mother would tell her she loved her.

The Thenardiers soon take in a young girl named Cosette whose mother pays for them to care for her daughter. Cosette is a beautiful little girl with blonde hair who believes that her mother will one day return for her when she has enough money. Feeling sorry for Cosette, Eponine places her in her and Azelma's bed. However, her mother is furious at her for doing this and orders Cosette to sleep under the stairs. Madame Thenardier tells Eponine that they will use the money from Cosette's mother to pay for nice dresses and meat while Cosette will wear rags and eat crusts.

Cosette's life is very hard as she does all the dirty, hard jobs: plucking chickens, scrubbing vegetables, cleaning windows and washing the floors. Eponine tries to be kind to Cosette but her mother tells her kindness will not help her in life. Because of this Eponine decides to be cruel to Cosette. After a trip to Paris by her mother, Eponine is given a new petticoat and a white fur muff, while Azelma receives a cape with green velvet trim. Eventually their money runs out, Cosette's mother stops sending the Thenardiers money and they must return to thieving as a means of living. Eponine steals too, because she wants to make her mother happy. However, Cosette makes Eponine feel guilty for stealing from a blind man.

When Eponine is eight years old, Madame Thenardier gives birth to a boy whom she immediately abandons. Eponine with the help of Cosette care for him and he is eventually named Gavroche. At Christmas 1823 a strange man wearing a yellow jacket comes to the inn. When Madame Thenardier is cruel to Cosette, this man whose name is Jean Valjean, intercedes for her and buys her the expensive doll Azelma desperately wanted from the stall in town. He stays at the inn and buys Cosette from the Thenardiers on Christmas Day, taking her away. Eponine is jealous and sad because she knows Cosette has been saved and will lead a comfortable life with someone who loves her.

By spring the Thenardiers are destitute once again and Eponine and Azelma are forced to steal. Everytime she steals, Eponine tries to do something good to appease her conscience. However, life for Eponine only gets harder when her father murders a man and the Thenardiers are forced to flee Montfermeil and head to Paris. The journey is exhausting and cold, with the family hiding in ditches along the way. They eventually find a boat, repair it and drift downriver towards Paris. However, Gavroche is left behind, much to the horror of Eponine.

In Paris, the Thenardiers stay with Monsieur Thenardier's friend, Babet on the rue de la Charcuterie. Eponine is now fifteen years old. Although the area where she lives is poor, she soon discovers the Paris of her dreams. "The houses were grander than any I'd ever seen and the shops sold wonderful things -- soap, flowers, china, sugared confectionary laid out like stars. As for the men, they wore top hats and had neat mustaches, and the ladies wore white curled wigs with their skirts rustling behind them..." However, fourteen-year-old Azelma likes the dark side of Paris, the alleyways and the stealing. Madame Thenardier loves the gang of clever thieves called Patron Minette, consisting of Babet, the enormous Gueulemer, the mute Claquesous, and Montparness who is young and well dressed. The Patron Minette ruled the Paris underworld. In order to escape the terrible house on rue de la Charcuterie, Eponine steals continuously. A key Eponine finds leads her father to rob a wealthy home allowing the Thenardiers to move to the Gorbeau tenement.

However, they continue to live in dire poverty. This leads Monsieur Thenardier to decide to write letters to wealthy Parisians begging for money. Eponine and Azelma go to the rue de Rivoli where they use the letters to solicit money. There Eponine meets Montparnasse whom she dislikes intensely. Fleeing from the troubling encounter with Montparnasse, Eponine runs into a handsome young man back at the Gorbeau. She learns from Madame Bourgon, who runs the tenement, that the man's name is Marius Pontmercy who rents Room four. It is this encounter that changes Eponine's destiny forever.

Discussion

In A Little In Love, Fletcher portrays Eponine as a girl whose basic character is good but because of her circumstances, often finds herself drawn into a life of thieving. This sets up an enormous source of conflict in Eponine's life which she must resolve. At first Eponine steals because it is what she's been taught from birth. "Before I could even talk, my mother taught me. When I was still a baby she showed me how to grasp a lady's collar and, like this, steal her diamond brooch. She told me to smile so that passersby paused to say, 'What a pretty baby!' "

Eponine soon recognizes that she is only praised and loved by her mother when she steals. Her mother tells her "How I love you when you bring me such gifts! When you steal so well!" Eponine longs to simply be loved by her mother as her daughter. This becomes even more apparent to Eponine when she sees how Cosette's mother loves her. "My sadness sat in my heart like a pebble -- hard and sore...It was that long, tight hug that Cosette's mother had given her, the way she'd pressed her face into the place between Cosette's neck and shoulders..." Eponine knows she is only "called pretty when I'd stolen things."

When Eponine wants to be kind to Cosette her mother tells her, "Kindness is a useless thing. Useless! Do you think that kindness stops the guillotine's blade or the gnaw of hunger in a belly...It is the kind people who are tricked and fooled and stolen from! It's the kind ones who are murdered..." This results in Eponine acting cruelly towards Cosette in an attempt to win her mother's "love" and it also leads to Eponine to focus on stealing to win that approval from her mother. However, when she steals the blind man's wedding ring, Cosette's surprise at Eponine's cruelty only serves to prick her conscience and she feels shame over what she's done. So she promises herself that she will go one day to Paris to find love and to stop stealing.

Once in Paris things worsen because her family becomes involved with a gang of thieves. While the rest of her family admires the gang, Patron Minette, Eponine realizes that "I ached for something else. For something good." Eponine continues to struggle with her deep desire to live a good life in the face of extreme poverty and while living with a family made up of disreputable characters who place no value on honesty. This is particularly demonstrated when Eponine meets Montparnasse who is the youngest member of the Patron Minette. Eponine asks Montparnasse if he wishes for something better asking him, "Don't you ever want to live a kinder life?"

Eponine hopes to believe in something higher.
"All I wanted was to believe in better, just a bit. A little light and love and hope. I wanted to shake Montparnasse, to shout out that his heart might be missing but mine was still beating, and my conscience was beating too...How could he ever be happy, murdering?" But Montparnasse has been made hard by poverty and injustice. He tells her that kindness will only make her poorer. Just when she's lost hope in the ideals of love and beauty she meets Marius.

When Marius gives Eponine a five franc coin, Eponine's family can't comprehend his action. "He must be a proper fool, that boy," said Papa." But Eponine recognizes his action for what it is - an act of kindness. With the five franc coin, Eponine's family is able to eat well for weeks, proving to her that kindness does matter. It is her love for Marius and the death of her mother that motivates Eponine in the end to "...do all the good, kind acts I've ever wanted to. I won't steal. I won't lie. I 'll make people's lives better whenever I can manage it. And I'll never, ever do cruel things again." Eponine becomes determined to make amends for the harm she's done to Marius, Cosette and Jean Valjean even if it costs her everything she has. Her acts of kindness in locating Marius for Cosette and bringing the two of them together also serve to demonstrate that kindness matters.

The novel's themes of redemption and forgiveness play out in the final scenes of the story between Eponine and Cosette, and between Eponine and Marius. In both cases Eponine asks the forgiveness of Cosette and Marius, bringing her peace and foreshadowing her death.

Fletcher does an admirable job of portraying life in France after the Napoleonic Wars and the French Revolution. After the Napoleonic Wars, France became a monarchy once again with the return of the brothers of King Louis XVI. This became known as the Bourbon Restoration and lasted until1830. While there were some positive changes out of the revolution, France continued to be plagued by widespread poverty, unrest and cholera outbreaks. The Thenardier family demonstrate the effect of poverty on families and on society in general, making them vulnerable to disease and crime.

Fletcher's novel takes its title from a line in Les Miserables where Eponine mentions that she was "a little in love" with Marius. This novel has a wonderful cover, the title letters in the tricolours of the republic. A Little In Love is a dark novel whose themes of kindness, redemption and forgiveness balance out the dark characters who live for only themselves. Fans of the musical, Les Miserables will enjoy this novel. Those who have never heard of Victor Hugo's story nor the musical which is based on the classic novel will enjoy this historical novel of unrequited love set in post revolutionary France.

Book Details:

A Little in Love by Susan E. Fletcher
New York: Chicken House 2015
227 pp.

The Wrath And The Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

"He murdered my cousin. And now he has Shahrzad. This is a man with nothing but evil in his blood. The only thing to consider when it comes to Khalid Ibn al-Rashid is how many times I wish he could die at my hands. And how unfortunate it is that the answer is only once."

Renee Ahdieh's debut novel is an imaginative retelling of the story of Scheherazade, a Middle Eastern folktale. Scheherazade was the Arabic (Persian) queen who told her husband stories to stave off being killed the next morning. In the story, known as the Arabian Nights, Scheherazade, the daughter of a vizier, volunteers to marry Shahryar a Persian King who has been taking a virgin bride only to have her killed the following morning. The King began murdering his brides out of anger over the unfaithfulness of his first wife and the infidelity of his brother's wife. Believing that all women are the same, he sets out to murder each wife. Scheherazade manages to stay alive for 1001 nights, each of those nights telling a story that leaves the King wanting to learn the ending and so sparing her life. When she no longer has any stories to tell her husband, her life is spared because by this time Shahryar has fallen in love with her.

The Wrath and The Dawn opens with the murder of yet another bride of the King in the early morning. Although not explicitly mentioned, this is Shiva, Shahrzad's best friend. General al-Khoury and his son, Jalal are on the rooftop terrace of the King's palace in Rey, Khorasan when they receive word that the King's bride has just been killed. It begins to rain and Jalal tells his father that the murders cannot continue as the people are rioting. The General indicates that they must if the kingdom is to stay safe, seeming to imply that the rain is a sign of this.

Sixteen year old Shahrzad has volunteered to be the King's next bride to avenge the murder of her best friend, Shiva. As Shahrzad is being prepared for her wedding night her father, Jahandar al-Khayzuran visits her, bringing a single budding rose. Her younger sister, fourteen year old Isra, has remained at home. Shahrzad comforts her father telling him this will not be her last sunset. Strangely, the rose he gives her begins to unfurl, releasing a strong scent, then withering and dying. Then Shahrzad is led to the throne room where she meets Khalid Ibn al-Rashid, the Caliph of Khorasan.

Meanwhile, Tariq and his friend, Rahim have been out riding, accompanied by Tariq's falcon, Zoraya.When they return home, Tariq's father tells him they received a letter from Shahrzad revealing that she has volunteered to marry the Caliph in an attempt to avenge Shiva's death. Tariq is in shock because he loves Shahrzad who is his childhood friend. His father tells him they must all deal with this and that Tariq will learn to love another woman. Furious,Tariq leaves determined to save Shahrzad.

Shahrzad awaits the Caliph's appearance in her bedchamber. After they make love, in a passionless manner, Shahrzad requests that she be allowed to tell him a story and in return for explaining why she volunteered to be married to him knowing she will die at sunrise. As expected, he is captivated by her story of Agib, a poor sailor and a thief who discovers a magical chalice. Accusing her of trickery he grants her one more night to finish her story. The next morning Shahrzad meets her handmaiden, Despina who tells her she has been sent to spy on her.Despina reveals that the Caliph is so taken with her that he has assigned a member of his personal bodyguard, the Rajput, to attend her at all times. Shahrzad is told that Khalid is an excellent swordsman, meaning he is likely a brilliant strategist as well, something she will have to take into account.

Shahrzad decides to explore the palace, and along with Despina, finds herself at the training grounds. There they encounter Jalal al-Khoury, Captain of the palace guards and son of the Shahrban of Rey. Shahrzad asks Jalal to help her learn how to shoot a bow and arrow. However, Shahrzad has been expertly trained by Tariq. As they practice, Jalal tells Shahrzad that he has known Khalid since he was a small boy, and was very close to his older brother Hassan who died. His father died a year after his brother and something terrible happened to his mother. Khalid was only fourteen when he became Caliph. Jalal tells Shahrzad that she has completely unnerved Khalid and that this is a good thing. He informs her that at one time Khalid was a kind, intelligent person but is now very broken and he asks Shahrzad to help him fix Khalid.

During this time Shahrzad's father, Jahandar, and her sister have fled their home for Tariq's family home in Taleqan. Before leaving Jahandar retrieves a special book which he keeps from Isra. At night Jahandar opens this ancient blackened book written in Chagatai and begins translating it so that he can uncover its secrets. This book contains black magic that will make him strong.

His daughter meanwhile meets Khalid for a second night. After making love once again, Shahrzad realizes that after one day of being his wife, she does not see evidence of Khalid as the blood-thirsty monster she thought he was. Shahrzad continues the story from the previous night about Agib, but when she tries to move on to the next part about Aladdin and the magic lamp it is already dawn. Convinced this is a new story, Khalid does not move at first to stop General al-Khoury who has come to take Shahrzad to her death. However, Khalid intercedes and introduces Shahrzad to the shahrban as his Mountain of Adamant - a reference to the mountain of the same name in her first story. Because of the magic in the mountain, it pulled ships towards it, causing their destruction. Once in the grasp of the mountain, sailors could never free themselves and their ships broke apart and sank, killing them. Khalid recognizes now that Shahrzad is his Mountain of Adamant or his undoing.

Tariq and Rahim journey to the city of Rey and stop at the compound of Reza bin-Latief. Reza's daughter, Shiva was killed by Khalid when she became his bride and his wife died three days later. Reza tells Tariq that Shahrzad is still alive and the city is filled with speculation and rumours as to how this has come about. Tariq tells Reza he has come to rescue Shahrzad. Reza decides that he will sell everything he has to help Tariq. Tariq will be the leader of the cause to destroy the Caliph. Reza will seek out others who might be willing to support their cause such as the Emir of Karaj.When Tariq mentions that he will return home to Rey with Shahrzad's family, Reza tells him that no one knows where they have gone. The next morning Tariq tells Rahim he will leave for the Badawi tribes along the border of Khorasan and Parthia and asks him to continue on to Taleqan.

On her third morning, Shahrzad learns from Despina that the King has never sought out any of his brides until her. Despina wants to take her to a new bath, but Shahrzad decides she wants to see the swordsmanship tournament. The two watch the tournament hidden and Shahrzad realizes that Khalid will not be easy to kill as he is very skilled with the shamshir. Their presence near the tournament leads to a run-in with General al-Khoury who tells her that he sees her as a threat to the Caliph and intends to eliminate her. That night Khalid does not come to her bedchamber and in the morning, Shahrzad is dragged from her bed by soldiers. A silk chord is placed about her neck as Shahrzad realizes she is about to be executed. However, Jalal and Khalid save her at the last minute and before he leaves for Amardha, Khalid tells her that he will see that she is not harmed again. He calls her his queen.

While Khalid is away, someone attempts to murder Shahrzad by poisoning the sugar used for her tea. Whether it was Despina or someone else, Shahrzad knows she can trust no one. As queen, Shahrzad receives Khalid's first tutor, Musa Zaragoza who has come to visit the palace.  Musa inquires as to what kind of man Khalid has become and Shahrzad tells him "A joyless one. A calculating one. A bitter one..." Musa tells her the story of Khalid's mother, Leila who was his father's second wife. Leila told stories to Khalid at night just as Shahrzad is doing. However, his happy childhood ended when Khalid's father discovered his mother involved with another man and slit her throat in front of the six your old boy. Musa encourages Shahrzad to love Khalid and to help him recover from this traumatic event in his life. Musa also reveals to Shahrzad that she has a special gift, unknown to her and tells her should she wish to learn more about it to contact him. He gives her the strangest gift, a tattered rug, telling her "It is a very special carpet. When you are lost, it will help you find your way,"

When Khalid returns from his trip, Shahrzad feels herself weakening in her purpose to kill him and decides she must take immediate action. That night Khalid tells Shahrzad that because of his mother's behaviour, his right to rule as Caliph of Khorasan is called into question by the Sultan of Parthia on a regular basis. His position as heir of the caliphate was also called into question by his own father. Shahrzad is shocked. She tells Khalid that he can make amends for the attempt on her life by allowing her to go out into the streets of Rey with him and without bodyguards. Her purpose is to poison the Caliph while they are out. However, things do not go according to plan when they are accosted by a group of drunken men. Despite having the opportunity to kill the Caliph, Shahrzad cannot. As she struggles to confront the conflict raging within her own heart, Shahrzad becomes determined to know why he killed all his other brides. The shocking truth hints at a terrible fate that will befall all of Rey. And against the advice of his Uncle Aref, Khalid decides to spare the life Shahrzad, no matter the cost to himself and the people of Rey.

Discussion

The Wrath and the Dawn is one of those novels so captivating, so exquisite a story it feels impossible to wait for the sequel. That is the mark of a wonderful writer. Ahdieh is a master story-teller, weaving a tale of love and revenge, of deception and betrayal, of curses and promises. Telling a story whose ending is mostly known is challenging because it's difficult to make the story fresh and engaging. However, Ahdieh succeeds brilliantly by weaving three narratives together and developing several themes in her novel. The dominate themes in this novel seem to be those of revenge and redemption, both of which are intricately related.

Shahrzad marries the Caliph solely to avenge her best friend's horrible death. This act in itself shows her to be courageous. To accomplish her revenge Shahrzad knows she needs to survive that first night. In doing so, she shows herself to be both resourceful and intelligent. However the unexpected happens. As she learns more about this enigmatic man, Shahrzad also becomes deeply conflicted. Her hate and anger begin to be replaced by pity and then by love.

Before Shahrzad even meets Khalid she refers to him as "The monster from my nightmares." When she does meet him on their first night together she describes him as cold and forbidding, "this boy-king, this murderer". She finds him callous and arrogant. When Shahrzad meets his friend, Jalal,  he tells her that Khalid has changed greatly from when he was a boy and that now he is broken. He asks her to help him heal Khalid. Expecting Khalid to a be a bloodthirsty monster, Shahrzad quickly realizes that she does not fear him because he is not as she expected. "In the single day she'd been his wife, she'd seen remarkably little of the bloodthirsty monster she'd expected."  When Khalid visits her,  after the attempt by the soldiers to hang her, his kindness towards her makes Shahrzad realize that she is attracted to him and wants to kiss him. "As he placed his palm against the side of her face, Shahrzad realized something horrifying. She wanted to kiss him...It was one thing to return his kiss; she'd been prepared for that. But it was another thing entirely to want his kiss...another thing entirely to desire his affections. To melt into the arms of Shiva's killer at the first sign of adversity."

Shahrzad is horrified to find herself developing an attraction towards Khalid. After she learns from Musa, his tutor, of the trauma Khalid endured as a child, she is encouraged by Musa to love Khalid. He tells her, "In my life, the one thing I have learned above all is that no individual can reach the height of their potential without the love of others. We are not meant to be alone, Shahrzad. The more a person pushes others away, the clearer it becomes he is in need of love the most."

As Shahrzad's heart begins to betray her and Shiva, she struggles with the contrasting emotions of shame and desire. "How can I desire him? After he killed Shiva? After he killed so many young girls, without explanation?" Following the passionate kiss in the souk, Shahrzad is forced to admit that her heart is beginning to betray her. "Caring about him meant he had real power over her. That he held sway over her heart." As her feelings for Khalid deepen, Shahrzad's conflict deepens. "She was not here to spend time troubling about her appearance. Such childishness was beneath her. She had come to the palace with a single-minded purpose: to discover her enemy's weakness and destroy him with it."

Because his actions towards her are inconsistent with his behaviour towards his previous brides, Shahrzad is determined to learn the reason he is murdering his brides. She is certain that "Khalid Ibn al-Rashid was not a madman from line of murdering madmen, hell-bent on a senseless brutality. He was a boy with secrets." Shahrzad promises herself she will "discover the truth and seek justice" for Shiva. When Shahrzad asks him to tell her his terrible secret while they begin making love, Khalid angrily refuses leading Shahrzad to know for certain that she is his one true weakness. But at this point she is still determined to learn the secret and destroy him.

When she discovers Khalid's terrible grief over the deaths of each of his brides and learns the number of women he has killed she is filled with horror. Shahrzad realises that she was hoping there would be a reason for the murders but when she cannot find one she is determined to follow through, despite her love for Khalid. 

When Shahrzad learns of Khalid's terrible secret sheis horrified. Khalid however is determined to protect her and his kingdom until he learns of Shahrzad's love for Tariq. When he offers himself to her so Shahrzad can accomplish what she came to Rey to do, she refuses. "Hate. Judgement. Retribution. As you said, revenge will never replace what I have lost. What you have lost. All we have is now. And our promise to make it better."

Central to this story is the character of Khalid who first appears as a cold, calculating young man who seems to have no compunction about dispatching a new bride. However, as the story progresses he is revealed to be someone much more complex. Captivated by Shahrzad who does not seem repulsed nor afraid of him, Khalid is also determined to understand why she volunteered to be a bride, knowing her life is forfeit.  In Shahrzad, Khalid discovers someone he wants to be worthy of and someone he cannot live without because it would be like being without air. Khalid attempted at first to do the right thing and not do what the curse of his father-in-law indicated. But in an attempt to save his people and his kingdom, he began to do what the curse asked. Far from the cold monster he seems on the outside,  each of the women whose death's he ordered have caused him deep grief. "And you should never forgive me for what I've done. As I will never forgive myself." When he learns of Shahrzad's reason for marrying him and the death of her best friend Shiva, Khalid offers himself to her while also giving her the opportunity to escape. He is willing to die to atone for Shiva's death.

The only weakness in this novel is the absence of a list of characters to help the reader keep track of who's who. This difficulty arises because of the way in which Ahdieh tells her story, revealing bits and pieces and having three different story threads.The first story thread involves Shahrzad and Khalid, the second involves the journey of Tariq and Rahim, and the third more minor one which has the most impact on the climax of the novel is that of Jahandar and Isra. So below is a list:

Cast of Characters

General Aref al-Khoury - Khalid's uncle and head of security at the palace

Captain Jalal al-Khoury - General al-Khoury's son and Khalid's cousin, Captain of the Palace Guard

Khalid Ibn al-Rashid - Caliph of Khorasan, eighteen years old

Shahrzad al-Khayzuran - young girl who marries Khalid and tells him stories each night in an attempt to save her life and avenge the murder of her best friend

Despina - Shahrzad's handmaiden who is Jalal's lover

Jahandar al-Khayzuran - Shahrzad's father, vizier for the previous Caliph

Irsa al-Khayzurn - Shahrzad's sister

Tariq Imran al-Ziyad - son of Nasir al-Ziyad, emir of the fourth richest stronghold in Khorasan

Reza bin-Latief -  Shiva's father and Tariq's uncle

Rahim al-Din Walad - friend of Shahrzad and Tariq

Shiva

Salim Ali el-Sharif -  Sultan of Parthia
Yasmine el-Sharif - daughter of Salim and childhood friend of Khalid

Omar al-Sadiq - sixth emir of Badawi

The Rajput - a member of the Caliph's personal bodyguard

Musa Zaragosa - Khalid's first tutor

Ahdieh does include a map showing the relative locations of Khorasan and Parthia to help her readers understand the setting. At the back is a glossary of the many Arabic words used throughout the story.

Readers who have loved the Arabian Nights and who enjoy a delicious romance paired with conflict and tension will want to read The Wrath and The Dawn. At its heart, is a love story filled with redemption, forgiveness and loss. The Wrath and the Dawn is really a love story which focuses on how love can redeem even the most horrible of people.

The sequel, The Rose and the Dagger is slated for publication in 2016. Cannot. Wait.

Book Details:

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons        2015
388pp.

Starry Nights by Daisy Whitney

Julien Garnier lives in Paris with his parents where he attends the Lycee d'Aile. Julien has a deep connection to art; his mother runs the Musee d'Orsay, an art museum that displays works from 1884 to 1914 and he also sketches. He works at the Musee d'Orsay where he runs tours after school. AS a result, he is allowed into the building whenever he wants. 

One night he sees a most astonishing sight - subjects in the paintings come alive before his very eyes. Dancers from the Degas paintings step out and pirouette, a peach rolls out from a Cezanne painting, and a black cat slinks down from Manet's Olympia. The art coming alive continues for several weeks before the beginning of his story.

Julien is not sure just yet what is happening to the art so he keeps what he has seen a secret. Meanwhile he is anxiously awaiting the arrival of Auguste Renoir's lost painting, The Girl In The Garden to the Musee d'Orsay. This painting surfaced a month ago in a family of high fashion designers, the Clemenceaus, who claim to have had the painting in their family for over a hundred years. Julien is desperate to view this lost treasure, so as an incentive, his mother tells him if he does well in his literature class he will be able to see the painting before it goes up in the gallery.

 A few days later, Julien's mother takes him to see the long lost Renoir at the Clemenceau's home on Montmartre. Mrs. Clemenceau's cross-dressing son, Bonheur, invites Julien to a surprise party for his eighteenth birthday on Friday evening. It is a surprise party because he will be giving away one of his strange ceramic creations, a five-legged calf, as a prize to the person who exhibits the best surprised expression during the party.
 
During his visit with Bonheur, Julien makes an interesting discovery in the Clemenceau home when he finds himself in the wrong room on the way to the bathroom. There he finds a chalk reproduction of half of Renoir's Dance at Bougival showing Suzanne Valadon who was also an artist herself and the first female painter admitted to an art school in France. Julien wonders what the connection is between the Clemenceau family and both Valadon and Renoir, and how the Clemenceau family came to have the missing Renoir.

Dance at Bougival 

While Julien's mother reviews the documentation attesting to the authenticity of the Renoir painting, Bonheur shows the recovered Renoir painting to Julien. Julien is immediately taken with the painting, that of a beautiful girl with blonde hair in a flower garden and feels inexplicably drawn to it.

Meanwhile, Julien continues to experience strange phenomena around artwork. When he is with Emilie, an aspiring ballet dancer, he hears strains of Giselle which leads him to encourage Emilie to work towards getting in to the Paris ballet. When Julien and his friends attend Bonheur's party, Julien sneaks down into the basement and can hear women's voices from below the basement floor. He later learns from Bonheur that these voices are those of the nine Muses from Greek mythology (Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia and Urania).

Julien learns that the house at Montmarte where Bonheur lives is the same house where Suzanne Valadon lived and that he is indeed distantly related to her. Bonheur tells Julien that The Girl in the Garden is not like other paintings and that his family has been entrusted to keep it safe. Bonheur allows Julien another chance to view the lost Renoir painting and during this viewing, he witnesses one slender finger from the beautiful girl slip out of the canvas, which shimmers with silver.

The strangeness continues when Julien is sent to the Louvre to check on sun damage on a Renoir painting. There his hand is burned by the candle flame in a La Tour painting, he notices the repaired Renoir painting is showing damage again, and Rembrandt's Bathsheba has a drooping stomach. At first Julien thinks that he's crazy, but when he returns the next day to the Louvre, he discovers more paintings have damage.

Bonheur tells Julien that art is made to come alive in museums and that he has been told by the Muses that only special people like Julien can see art come to life. Bonheur also reveals to Julien that he speaks with the Muses who exist below his home and that they have given him the silver dust that he places in his five-legged ceramic calves. Bonheur tells Julien that the paintings can only come alive in museums.

Sure enough once The Girl In The Garden is hung in the Musee d'Orsay, the beautiful girl comes out of the painting, revealing herself to Julien as Clio one of the nine Muses. Julien is entranced by Clio and they go on dates in the museum, since she cannot leave the building. When Clio goes back into the painting she lives in Monet's garden. Eventually she begins to take Julien into the paintings.

As the art begins to sicken, not only in the Louvre but in galleries and museums around the world, Julien begins to suspect that a terrible curse that involves Renoir and Clio might be behind the damage and that only he and Clio will be able to save the world's priceless art, at a cost that might mean losing everything that matters most to both.

Discussion

Starry Nights is a unique and fantastical love story about a boy who falls in love with one of the Greek Muses who has been trapped in a painting due to a curse placed by Renoir. In this imaginative novel, Whitney has Clio and Julien go on dates where they travel from painting to painting - through Monet's works many of which include the bridge in his famous garden. The author has packed her story with numerous facts about paintings and various artists, although the painting at the center of the story is in fact, fictional. Nevertheless, readers might be inspired to look up Van Gogh's Starry Night, Toulouse-Lautrec’s Dancing at the Moulin Rouge, or Manet's Olympia.

The principal characters in Starry Nights are well crafted.  Julien is a tender, romantic young artist who cares deeply about art as well as inspiring others to create art. Unlucky his first time in love, he finds his "soulmate" in Clio, the Eternal Muse who spends her time inspiring art. Bonheur, the cross-dressing son of the Clemenceaus is based on the real Rosa Bonheur who lived in the 1800's and was known for her portrayal of animals and for wearing men's clothing. He's a sweet soul who helps Julien recognize his ability to heal art as the only human muse and who believes in true love. It's unfortunate other characters in the novel were not more fully developed. Instead these characters such as Julien's friends, Simon and Lucy, were one dimensional and mostly uninteresting.

Readers may find the story line somewhat complex, fantastical and will have to make a careful reading of this novel, but they will be rewarded with a satisfying conclusion to this unique story.

Image credit: Dance at Bougival: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_at_Bougival#/media/File:Dance-At-Bougival.jpg

Book Details:
Starry Nights by Daisy Whitney
New York: Bloomsbury      2013
275 pp.

These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner

Lilac Rose LaRoux is the only child of Roderick LaRoux, the wealthiest and most powerful man in the universe. Lilac is traveling through dimensional hyperspace on the Icarus, one of her father's spaceships with a friend, Anna and her bodyguard, Swann, on her way home to Corinth. On the same ship is decorated war hero, eighteen year old Major Tarver Merendsen, heading home for his next posting. Men consciously avoid Lilac LaRoux, heiress to an unimaginable fortune, because even to be seen talking to her can have deadly consequences for a man.

Tarver is unaware who Lilac is when he first sees her. He moves to intervene in an altercation and manages to meet Lilac, whose beauty, red hair and straightforward manner appeal to Tarver. They spend a few minutes talking until Anna returns and Tarver understands he is supposed to leave. When they meet a few nights later on the observation deck of the Icarus, instead of a friendly encounter, Tarver finds he is dismissed abruptly by Lilac. Although Lilac finds she likes Tarver, she knows that he might be in danger from her father if they are seen together.

Their lives are suddenly thrown together again when the Icarus is ripped from hyperspace and begins to collapse. As Tarver is making his way to his escape pod he manages to save Lilac from the chaos of panicking crowds. They make it to a pod which aborts its launch due to a power failure but Lilac hotwires it and they escape the dying ship.  Tarver and Lilac are shocked to discover that they are near a planet on which they crash land. Both Tarver and Lilac are uninjured, but their communication array has been destroyed.

Tarver decides  to hike to the top of a nearby hill to get a look at the surrounding area. They appear to be on a terraformed planet, but Tarver notes that the vegetation is unusually uniform and very large, despite the planet's rich air. Lilac insists on accompanying Tarver, despite wearing a long gown and designer high heels. During their hike, they watch the destruction of the Icarus as it enters the planet's atmosphere and crashes beyond the mountains in the distance. Tarver tells Lilac that if they are to have a hope of being rescued they need to be where the Icarus crashed as that is where the rescue crews will search.

Most of the novel now recounts their journey towards the Icarus and the change in their relationship as they endure the hardship of survival on an alien planet. Their walk through the forest is slowed by Lilac's large dress and her unsuitable footwear which cause her feet to swell and blister. She is convinced that they should stay at the escape pod and this leads to an argument and the two of them separating with Lilac determined to return to the pod. It is at this time that Lilac begins to notice the background whispers of the forest; "Snatches of sound rise up from the awful, untidy forest all around me for a moment sounding just like voices, high and distressed." Lilac notes that Tarver doesn't seem to hear the voices or if he does, they don't seem to bother him.

 On her journey back to the pod, Lilac is immediately confronted by a large cat-like animal. When Tarver returns to rescue Lilac they continue their journey onward but things rapidly begin to change.  While waiting in the forest as Tarver scouts ahead, Lilac again notices "The forest is full of sound and movement I can't track, things that flicker out of the corners of eyes, vanishing before I can focus on them. The major doesn't seem to notice...But it's as though the forest is whispering all around us...".

From his scouting, Tarver finds an escape pod at the edge of the forest with all the occupants dead. He buries them but does not allow Lilac to see how many or who they are. He strips the boots off a dead woman and gives them to Lilac. She is horrified but agrees that if they are to make it to the Icarus she needs something more suitable to wear. When they arrive at the edge of the forest they make camp at the beginning of the plains. That night Tarver is awakened by Lilac who insists she can hear a woman crying - a woman whom she later realizes sounds like her. All-night searches by Tarver reveal no human presence.

As they journey across the plains, they see no signs of colonists, but Lilac insists she hears a man's voice. Worried, Tarver urges Lilac to rest, concerned that she is suffering from exhaustion and hallucinating. Because they are running out of the nutrition bars they have been surviving on, Tarver collects grasses for them to eat and also sets snares to catch small animals.

Lilac continues to hear the voices but now they are coming from the direction of the mountains and the Icarus wreck. She also notices for the first time, that what they thought was a second moon appears to be an array of lights in orbit. As they journey across the plains in a soaking downpour, Lilac hears heartbreaking sobs over the rain. Struggling to maintain her sanity, Lilac is further frightened when she goes to the river to get water and sees a group of people pointing towards the mountain pass leading to the wreck of the Icarus. Lilac however, doesn't believe she is going insane because she tells Tarver that one woman wasn't wearing boots and of the five people she saw, one was a soldier with dog tags and two were men in evening dress. She is convinced that these are the dead people from the escape pod and she knows she is correct by Tarver's reaction.

Their understanding of what is happening on the planet changes drastically when Lilac is warned by the voices to leave the cave they have sheltered in during a blizzard. Both Tarver and Lilac begin to realize that she is not going mad and they must consider "the possibility that she's receiving communications..." from something or someone. They are pushed further in this direction when both see the same vision of Tarver's home. When they arrive at the Icarus they work to unravel a startling mystery about the planet that will forever change their lives.

Discussion

These Broken Stars is a well-written novel with a unique and interesting story. The novel begins with two young people, a heroic soldier and a beautiful, wealthy heiress marooned on a strange planet. Initially they struggle to work together to survive. However, it quickly becomes apparent that something very strange is happening, when Lilac begins hearing what she describes as whispers and then seeing visions. 

The struggle to survive gradually begins to draw Tarver and Lilac closer together. The previous misconceptions they had about one another begin to dispel as they learn more about each other. They spend time talking about their lives and Tarver reveals that his mother is the famous poet, Emily Davis, whom Lilac happens to read. Lilac also learns that Tarver's older brother, Alec, was killed in action. For the first time since meeting Lilac, Tarver feels that she is finally seeing him as he really is, and not as a war hero or a lower class soldier. Similarly, Lilac begins to sense that Tarver is becoming more comfortable with her and that he considers her beautiful. As their relationship develops they work together to discover that Lilac's father's corporation is involved in the imprisonment and torture of a unique group of aliens, for personal and industrial gain. 

Lilac and Tarver come to realize that they are experiencing some kind of telepathic communications and they must now determine their origin. The mystery of the "whispers" and visions that Lilac is experiencing is gradually revealed throughout the remainder of the novel. The mysterious "whispers" eventually lead Lilac and Tarver to an abandoned station on the planet but not before Lilac dies and is brought back to life. At the abandoned base they are able to communicate with the "whispers" who confirm they are responsible for Lilac's recovery and they have been the source of the visions. In their search for the station's power source, they see the upside-down letter V of the lambda - the insignia of LaRoux Industries which once operated the station.

Lilac senses that there is something unusual in the station. This is confirmed by their discovery in the basement of the station, of a circular door made to dilate like the iris of an eye as they both experience strange shivers and a coppery taste. Documents at the station mention a dimensional rift and attempts to recreate the rift using the super-orbital reflectors around the planet as well as on another planet, Avon, which Tarver was stationed on a few months earlier. They also mention the "extraction of test subjects" from the dimensional rift which are described as having telepathic abilities and are "phased life-forms, energy based, noncorporeal". Lilac realizes that "these beings, experimental test subjects to my father's teams, have led us across the wilderness to this spot...I wish we knew what they want."

Lilac also understands that the "whispers" are able to temporarily convert energy which is what they did to make her come alive again and that she needs to get behind the door to help them and save herself.  Using her name as the password, she opens the door and gets the power to the base running to send out a weak distress signal. In the power control room they discover the rift but also realize that the "whispers" or creatures are the power source for the station and are trapped in the power grid. With Lilac beginning to fade, Tarver destroys the dampening field, allowing the "whispers" to speak to him using his dead brother, Alec's form. They tell him that they came to Tarver's world out of curiosity but were imprisoned, unable to enter this world or return to their own and then became unwilling test subjects. They are all interconnected but somehow, LaRoux was able to separate them, making them weak.  Tarver is told that Lilac's distress signal is weakening them so he shuts it down. To save Lilac, Tarver jumps into the dimensional rift thereby closing it, creating a large energy surge. This ends the rift for the "whispers" and saves Lilac.

Lilac and Tarver are rescued by one of her father's ships where they learn that fifty thousand souls died in the Icarus accident. They are separated, inspected, monitored and interrogated. But during interrogation, Lilac and Tarver each play their part, Lilac "a spoiled heiress, too traumatized to remember anything" and Tarver, "a big, dumb soldier." in order to protect what they found on the planet. Both have developed a mutual respect and maturity that enables them to take on Lilac's powerful father.  The only issue in this story is the age of the two major characters: they are far too young and would have been more suitable as young adults in their twenties.

Kaufman and Spooner tell their story in the alternating narratives of Tarver and Lilac. In between sections of this narrative is a short page featuring part of Tarver's debriefing by authorities post-rescue, which reveals to readers that the two are ultimately rescued and indicates that Lilac's father and the scientists know Tarver has not revealed what really happened on the planet. This seems to set up the next installment in this series, which is called Starbound. The second novel will be a companion novel which tells another related story but with different characters.  If it's as unique as the first novel, readers will be in for yet another treat from this wonderful writing duo.

Book Details:
These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
New York: Hyperion      2013
374 pp.