In a conquered land, starvation fells the youngest and oldest,memories and hunger gnaw at those who can still work,
who suffer under heavy taxes, hating their English overlords.
The Welsh nobles and working folk have been thrown out of their town, forced into damp stone huts, forbidden to gather in groups or carry weapons, and the spark of rebellion still burns.
Caernarvon Castle in the late 13th century is a mighty stone structure overlooking the river and town, garrisoned by the King of England’s soldiers for the past decade.
Torn away from the land where she was born, where people speak good English, not this “tongue-pull” sing-song Welsh, a young lady is aware of only what she wants to see in her new home, oblivious to the dangerous currents of local politics that may pull her under forever.
Jillian Anderson Coats’ debut novel illuminates a small slice of history through two unforgettable voices, as Cecily and Gwenhwyfar wish their paths had never crossed, but must carry their own burdens through to the end. You’ll find this May 2012 release now at your local library or independent bookstore.
**kmm
Book info: The Wicked and the Just / J. Anderson Coats. Harcourt, 2012. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book overview video] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My Recommendation: Cecily isn’t happy about moving from the family estates to Wales. Nor are the Welsh happy to have their homes taken over by Englishmen sent by the King to subdue them. So many tensions and such oppression… a tinderbox just waiting for a spark of rebellion.
If only her uncle hadn’t returned from the Crusades, then Cecily would have inherited Edgeley Hall from her father, ever staying near the grave of her loving mother. But as the younger brother, her father has no land now and jumps at the chance to rise in the King’s service. As a burgess in Caernarvon, he’ll be free from forced military service and heavy taxes imposed on the conquered Welsh. Better yet, Cecily will become lady of the house and perhaps find a suitable husband someday among its English nobles.
Gwenhwyfar is Cecily’s age, working dawn to night for the Edgeleys to earn enough to keep her younger brother and crippled mother alive. Agonizing as Gruffydd falls in with men who whisper plans of rebellion, the Welsh girl despises Cecily’s snooty manners as much as she longs to take the crusts that the English girl casts aside.
How bitter to be a servant in the house which truly belongs to Daffydd, a Welsh nobleman reduced to hauling quarrystones, to see that brat Cecily sewing in the parlour where she should be as Daffydd’s wife, to know that Welsh children are dying daily from starvation as the English burgesses hoard grain in the King’s castle above Caernarvon city…
Ten years is a long time to be conquered and spat upon, long enough to make bitter plans for revenge, desperate enough to rebel despite overwhelming odds – 1293 may be the worst of times to be English in Wales.
Told from two very different points of view, The Wicked and the Just takes readers to a little-noted historical era as the age-old struggle for power roars through town and castle.
(One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)
L for lamb to the slaughter? – Grave Mercy, by Robin LaFevers (fiction)
Handmaiden to death.
Fair assassin.
Death’s own true daughter.
At the convent of St. Mortain in old Brittany, Ismae finds her calling, her gift. She can see the Dark Lord’s mark plainly on those guilty ones she’s assigned to kill…and she can communicate with souls after death.
Her training at the convent has molded her into a subtle instrument of Death’s justice, yet she is unprepared for the intrigues of Anne’s court. Will her skills be enough to protect the young duchess from traitors?
I studied in Brittany years ago, land of ancient standing stones and long-held traditions, living down the block from Nantes’ massive cathedral where Anne must be crowned to keep Brittany independent (and just found my apartment balcony on Google Earth – wow). Folks in the countryside still identify themselves at Bretons before they say they’re French…
First in His Fair Handmaiden series, you can find this exciting tale at your local library or independent bookstore now.
Do you believe that relationships can persist despite mere distance…or death?
**kmm
Book info: Grave Mercy (His Fair Assassin, book 1) / Robin LaFevers. Houghton Mifflin, 2012. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]
My Recommendation: Smuggled in boats and hidden in wagons, Ismae escapes a forced marriage to arrive at a remote convent. Here, the sisters of St. Mortain are dedicated to the Lord Death, a cadre of assassin nuns trying to keep Brittany and the old gods from being swallowed by France and its intolerant Catholic priests.
Oh, death has long whispered around her, born with long red scars claimed by the herbwitch as the mark that Ismae was fathered by the dark Lord himself. She trains with other novices in deadly arts both subtle and sudden, preparing for her first test as an assassin who can see Mortain’s dark sign on her target, a sure signal that the person’s guilt has brought Death’s final justice.
As the French regent pressures Brittany’s young ruler to marry him, Ismae is brought into Anne’s castle to carefully remove disloyal nobles who would betray the twelve-year-old duchess before her coronation. Her protector amid the royal protocols and complex alliances is Duval, Anne’s older half-brother, born to a woman not their father’s wife. Information travels back and forth to the convent by raven, but can hardly convey the wisps of rumors sliding along the castle corridors.
When the Reverend Mother orders Ismae to kill Duval, she searches for Lord Death’s mark to show her the method of assassination, but finds none. How can this be? Every other victim has displayed a clear mark. Is someone intercepting the secret messages? Is there a traitor at the convent? Are her growing feelings for Duval clouding her most important gifts? Could Duval truly wish harm to the royal sister whom he’s sworn to protect?
This first book in His Fair Assassin series takes readers into the complex world of duchies and alliances, to the days when Brittany’s old gods still wandered its woodlands and rocky coasts. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
E for Elephant in the Garden, by Michael Morpurgo (fiction) – survival, love & an elephant inWorld War II
War means casualties and refugees.
Family ties are forged in trying times.
Marlene is a refugee, a member of the family, an elephant.
The new nursing home patient is ranting about her missing photo book, but the staff has never seen it. Is old Lizzie just imagining things? Luckily, nine-year-old Karl doesn’t care what the grownups say and visits her room to learn that her little brother was named Karl, too! And the stories that she tells about Karl’s magic tricks and her mother being a zookeeper are so real. Was the grieving young elephant who came to live with her family real, too?
This book tells parallel stories, with the present Lizzie’s tale in one typeface and young Elizabeth’s in another. Morpurgo says this book was inspired by the news story of the Belfast zookeeper who kept a young elephant at her home during threats of WWII bombings of the Irish city, as well as the heroic efforts of refugees helping and protecting children in many situations.
Find this unique book soon at your local library or independent bookstore so you can meet Elizabeth, Marlene, and their family on the cold and difficult journey toward safety.
**kmm
(p.s. Giveaway for ARC of Cat Girl’s Day Off continues here through 11:59 p.m. Monday, April 9, 2012.)
Book info: An Elephant in the Garden / Michael Morpurgo. Fiewel and Friends, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]
My Recommendation: Bombs falling through the winter night, thousands of people – and one elephant – flee Dresden as it burns. As the old lady talks in the nursing home, Karl and his mother at first wonder how much of the story is true, then marvel that anyone survived it.
Elizabeth grew up in Dresden, with her younger brother Karli who loved doing magic tricks, their mother who loved peace, and their father who loved his family more than anything. But the war changed everything, taking away their father, making their mother work to feed the family. Mutti became a zookeeper, caring for the animals, telling Elizabeth and Karli about their antics and the sadness of Marlene, the young elephant whose mother had suddenly died.
When it becomes clear that Germany is losing the war, the zoo director reluctantly decides that the animals must be destroyed so they can’t run wild through Dresden when bomb attacks open their cages. How could Mutti let Marlene be killed? She brought the elephant home to their garden where Karli fed her and comforted her, inside its tall brick walls.
But soon the Allied bombers came, and the city became an inferno. Mutti led them away from the flames, through the snow, toward her brother’s farm in the country. A noise in the barn where Marlene sleeps alerts the family to an intruder – an enemy soldier!
Can they trust this young Canadian man? How can they feed Marlene in the winter forest? How will they get to safety with Allied troops approaching and German forces retreating? (and is Ms. Lizzie’s story really true?)
As gently as the young elephant finds her way across the snowy hills with her adoptive family, this story of survival and love quietly flows from Lizzie’s memories into the lives of Karl and his mother in the present. Based on true history of the Belfast Zoo’s elephant during World War II. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
B is for Battle Fatigue, by Mark Kurlansky (fiction) – Vietnam War battles come home
Little-boy games turn into young men’s worries.
How can war injure someone without leaving a scratch or bruise?
Can history be right and current events still be terribly wrong?
Joel’s childhood memories – playing soldiers with his pals, cheering for the Brooklyn Dodgers to finally win before they move to LA, those blue numbers tattooed on the bakery lady’s wrist – form the backdrop to his anguished dilemma as his draft number comes up in the early days of the Vietnam War.
How can he reconcile becoming a Conscientious Objector with the sacrifices that his father and uncle made in World War II? How can he live with himself if he goes to fight a war that he deeply believes is wrong?
Noted nonfiction author and researcher Mark Kurlansky takes readers on a young man’s emotional journey in a work of fiction that rings truer than many biographies.
Look for Battle Fatigue at your local library or independent bookseller to discover where Joel lands.
**kmm
Book info: Battle Fatigue / Mark Kurlansky. Walker Books for Young Readers, 2011. [author’s website] [author interview video] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My Recommendation: Joel knows he’ll grow up and go to war to keep America free, like his dad and uncle did. But when a teen neighbor returns from Vietnam physically unharmed and mentally shattered, he begins to question whether every war is right.
Born on the 7th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, grandson of European refugees, Joel Bloom plays kids’ games with his pals and the souvenirs that their dads brought back from WWII. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, he and his junior high classmates practice diving under their desks for A-bomb drills (sometimes a chance to hold hands with sweet Kathy). He tries to teach a German exchange student how to act more American, but local memories of relatives lost in the Holocaust prove stronger than Karl’s willingness to be shunned. How odd that Karl’s only friend in Haley is the first Jew he’s ever met.
In November 1963, Joel turns to his diary as he tries to make sense of JFK’s assassination. High school means varsity baseball, a newfound love of chemistry, and afterschool fights that someone else starts; even his little brother gets challenged to fights because Joel never loses. Everything changes when President Johnson announces on TV that the USA is now fighting in Southeast Asia… and Joel realizes that he and his pals will fight and die in this war.
Dickie from next door enlists in the Marines and leaves for the war proud and tall, returning broken and haunted. College will keep Joel from being sent to Vietnam for four years… but will it be long enough? He doesn’t want to go – not because he’s afraid, but because it’s not right. Will he become a Conscientious Objector or enlist anyway or head to Canada? Big questions from a troubled time in our nation’s history and one young man’s attempt to answer them for himself. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)
The Book of Time (fiction) – time travel, conspiracy, danger
Time traveling… can anyone who finds the stone statue do it?
Will any coin in any sun-ray work?
Which way – and when – has Sam’s father gone?
Happy Leap Day as we leap through time and history with Sam on this World Wednesday.
Worrying about an upcoming judo tournament and the neighborhood bully should be enough for Sam to cope with in his small Canadian hometown. But his father has slipped into deep depression following the car wreck that killed Sam’s mom and has somehow vanished from his locked-tight bookshop!
Sam has no time to warn his cousin Lucy that he’s found a clue to his father’s trail and no way to know that it will send him hurtling through time!
First in a trilogy with many twists and turns, as Sam finds himself in places historic and obscure during his attempts to control his travels through time and find his father.
**kmm
Book info: The Book of Time / Guillaume Prevost, translated by William Rodarmor. (Book of Time trilogy #1). Arthur A. Levine Books, 2007 [author interview] [publisher site]
My Recommendation: Sam’s dad became more and more distracted after Mom’s death, but now he’s disappeared entirely! Searching for clues in Dad’s antique bookshop in Sainte-Mary, Sam uncovers a secret room in the basement and an ancient stone statue.
Hmm… a stone carved with slots in each sun-ray and a slot-sized old coin nearby. Just put that coin in that slot, and – whoosh – Sam is transported from the basement! But where?
The Canadian teen finds himself at the monastery of Iona in medieval Ireland! The monks are preparing for an attack by marauders intent on stealing their treasures. Somehow Sam can understand their ancient Celtic dialect, but will he be able to save their priceless books and relics?
Fitting another coin into the stone statue where he landed takes Sam to the French battlefields of World War I, then into an Egyptian pyramid during its construction! Meeting Ahmosis, son of Setni, gives him hope of returning home, as the young man tells Sam that his father was also a time-traveler and had discovered some rules about the way that the stone statues and coins work.
But can Setni’s advice help Sam find his father, whenever or wherever he is? What about getting home to his grandparents and cousin? Just how many more stone statues are scattered around the world, anyway?
Sam’s adventures continue in The Gate of Days (book 2) and The Circle of Gold (book 3), with Rodarmor skillfully translating all three thrilling books of the Prevost trilogy. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.
The Hittite (fiction) – an outsider inside The Trojan War
The face that launched a thousand ships,
Two kingdoms battling for years at the foot of Troy’s walls,
One mercenary who doesn’t care who wins as long as he can rescue his family.
So mighty that it could hire out entire legions to other kings, the Hittite Empire could not survive the assassination of its Emperor and the chaos that followed.
Lukka is determined to find his wife and sons, so he takes his small band of soldiers all the way to Troy, where they find themselves enmeshed in one of the most famous wars in history.
The people and events of The Iliad truly come to life in this exciting adventure.
For comparison, you can download the classic ode in its entirety here.
Look for The Hittite at your local library or independent bookstore to find out whether Lukka will ever see his wife and sons again. Oh, and to meet up with the Trojan Horse, too.
**kmm
Book info: The Hittite / Ben Bova. Forge, 2010 (hardback), 2011 (paperback). [author’s website] [publisher site]
My Recommendation: As a soldier, Lukka has seen how much civilians suffer when their rulers lust for power and land. But he thought his family was safe in the mighty Hittite capital city. Returning from a long war, he finds the city in flames, his house in ruins, his father dying. Worse yet, his wife and young sons have been taken by slave traders!
With no general remaining to command them, Lukka and his squad march west across the shattered empire in search of his family, following the trade routes across Greece, all the way to Troy.
War is there, too, as the Achaians are battling the Trojans, seeking the return of beautiful Helen. Perhaps Lukka’s wife and children are in the famous slave market of Troy behind those mighty walls; the squad has not found their bodies along the road.
The Hittites are famed warriors, so the squad could hire out as mercenaries to either side. Lukka visits with Agamemnon, high king of the Achaians, who sends him into Troy with a peace offer whose terms the Trojans will never accept – give up Helen.
On grinds this war, with daily skirmishes on the dust-choked battlefields below Troy’s towering walls, with Odysseos and Hector and Achilles fighting from their chariots. Lukka’s squad builds a siege tower so Achaian soldiers can get inside the walls. Startled Trojan guards mistake its horsehide covers for a real giant horse, sent by the gods against them.
The epic tale recounted in Homer’s The Iliad gains new dimension as we experience the hurly-burly of chariots and foot-soldiers, the smoke and roughness of army camp, the stress of a besieged city running low on supplies, Lukka’s worry that he won’t reach his wife and sons before it’s too late. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.
Eleventh Plague, by Jeff Hirsch (book review) – tough road in the future
Maybe some canned food is still hidden in that store,
Maybe they can pull some scrap iron from that bombed-out building,
Maybe the soldiers won’t capture them,
Maybe the slavers will.
Germ warfare on a global scale – China started it, but everyone was threatened by the virulent strain of flu. Only a third of the population survived that Eleventh Plague, and now living day to day is the hardest thing the survivors will ever face.
Granddad was tough on Stephen and Dad, but how else were they to survive after Mom died and the Quinns took to the salvagers’ ways? Anything not practical was useless in Granddad’s eyes, especially when they had to carry everything, so Stephen never let him see The Lord of the Rings book deep in his pack, nor the only photograph of his mother.
Is Settler’s Rest too good to be real? The school must have over a hundred books! Stephen can even play baseball, like Dad did in the pros before the war.
Yet many townspeople mock and despise Jenny, who was adopted from China years before the war began. And some still suspect Stephen and Dad of being spies, even after the teen works hard alongside the other kids.
Jeff Hirsch’s debut novel sends us along America’s deserted backroads and shattered shopping centers on this Future Friday, always watching for soldiers and slavers, always wondering if the P11 plague is truly gone.
**kmm
Book info: The Eleventh Plague / Jeff Hirsch. Scholastic Press, 2011. [author’s website] [author interview] [publisher site] [book trailer] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My Recommendation: Always moving, Stephen learns survival skills from his dad and granddad as they travel through ruined America. Searching for salvage on the way to the traders’ gathering, they stay clear of the old paved roads where soldiers and slavers travel. What was it like before the Chinese bombed the USA and two-thirds of the world’s people died of the Eleventh Plague, that deadly flu? What would it be like if Mom were still alive?
A chase, an accident, a long drop – now grumpy Granddad is buried, Dad is in a coma, and Stephen must keep them safe. When a group of teens finds the pair near the river, he reluctantly accepts their offer of help for Dad. After blindfolding, the group travels a winding trail to a town – a real town, with a school and houses with unbroken glass windows! So many people in one place, mostly refugees who have built a true community in this remote gated subdivision.
Stephen can hardly believe their luck, finding an actual doctor who can treat Dad. Violet even lets them stay in Jenny’s room since her rebellious adopted Chinese daughter moved into an old barn, away from the taunts about her birthplace.
But not everyone in Settler’s Landing thinks it’s a good idea to let strangers in their gates. Some think that Stephen and Dad are spies from Fort Leonard where soldiers are in charge, others worry that they’re an advance party for the region’s ruthless slaver gangs.
For the first time in his fifteen years, Stephen can attend school and play baseball, like Dad told him about. Sure, the town’s kids have chores afterward, but they can go swimming and there’s almost always enough to eat – the adults have worked so hard to keep the town and people safe.
Jenny is always the wild card, questioning their teacher during the few times she attends school, challenging her peers to think for themselves. When one of Jenny’s pranks gets out of hand, the small community jumps to the wrong conclusion. Perhaps Stephen really is a spy, they worry.
Now Settler’s Landing finds itself divided – do they launch an attack against outsiders or stay inside their town walls to defend it? What can the town council do to keep this hard-earned fragment of civilization intact? Will they even be able to survive if the slavers or soldiers march into their hidden valley?
A future that might be true, a future that we pray never happens, the only reality that Stephen knows – this is America after The Eleventh Plague. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)
Eona (fiction)
Dragons malicious,
dragons benign,
dragons untamed…
Are there any dragons who serve humankind?
As the Chinese New Year begins – the Year of the Dragon – return to that ancient land much like China, to a place where the Dragoneyes commune with the dragons of the zodiac compass points to keep the land and its people safe from violent weather and terrifying storms.
Yet one Dragoneye seizes his dragon’s power for personal gain instead of serving the Emperor and his people. As the only female Dragoneye in the realm, Eona must decide where she stands, as well.
If you haven’t read Eon yet, stop here! It’s impossible to introduce the plot of Eona without giving away some key surprises of the first book (reviewed here). Eona will be issued in paperback in April 2012.
**kmm
Book info: Eona / Alison Goodman. Viking, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]
My Recommendation: Only two Dragons remain in their celestial realms. Only two Dragoneyes to channel those immense powers to protect the land. Only one Dragoneye loyal to the Emperor. Now is war.
Eona dreamed that she could become a Dragoneye, never imagining that one of the 12 mighty Dragons was female – the long-absent Mirror Dragon. Few in the Imperial Court imagined that Lord Ido, the Rat Dragoneye, would help Sethon challenge the Emperor’s power; no one thought he would call on the darkest powers to slaughter 10 Dragoneyes and doom their Dragons to oblivion. Eona’s healing powers are being swept away as the ten masterless Dragons surge through the celestial passageways whenever she calls on the Mirror Dragon for help.
Without all the Dragons and their Dragoneyes to protect the Empire, its people are slammed with typhoons and earthquakes. Lord Ido and his assistant are using the stolen black folio to unleash its horrors on the new-crowned Emperor and his troops. Eona can taste the folio’s bitter magic, feel Ido use it to build Sethon’s mind-controlled army, sense the Rat Dragon’s will being twisted to evil purposes.
When young Emperor Kygo names Eona as his chief advisor, the few remaining palace nobles object. But the Mirror Dragon’s might and Lord Ido’s approaching army silence their protests. Eona searches for answers in the white folio, and her friends join her in spying missions and dangerous secret journeys. Why the Dragons ever consented to help humankind in the first place is still a mystery to her.
Can the Mirror Dragon overcome the black magic fueling the Rat Dragon’s attacks in the air? Can Eona’s friends and allies survive the battles on land? Can the land itself hold together as the darkest of evil forces strive to shake it to rubble and ash?
Eona’s 656 action-packed pages conclude the tale begun in Eon: Dragoneye Reborn in this far-distant place reminiscent of ancient China. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.
Away (fiction)
Leave your family behind…
Abandon all your technology…
Venture into an uncertain future…
Could you be as brave as Rachel? Could you live in the Unified States whose heartless government refused to rescue any of its citizens who were stuck on the other side of the Line when the crazybombs fell?
This compelling sequel to Hall’s first novel (review) takes us to the other side of The Line where “the Others” have lived a generation among ruined buildings with no electricity, scavenging what they can and trying to keep their children alive long enough for them to grow up. Perhaps these psychically gifted kids can help this fragile society survive attacks from ferocious mutant animals and equally ferocious humans who’ve embraced their savage side with a vengeance.
This couldn’t really happen in our future, could it?
**kmm
Book info: Away / Teri Hall. Dial Books, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site]
My Recommendation: Rachel knows she can never return home if she crosses the Line, but it’s the only way to save a man’s life. So she carries medicine into a primitive land – the land where the government stranded some of its own citizens when it sealed the country against enemy invasions when a terrible weapon was unleashed.
Seeing something – someone – on the other side of the Line’s energy field was amazing and dangerous for them both. Pathik asks her to find medicine to cure his father, and Rachel is amazed at her own willingness to risk sneaking anything past the government’s ruthless Enforcement Office.
After her dad Daniel was reported dead in the early fighting, Rachel and her mom were safe at Miss Vivian’s property away from the city. But even in little towns, the EO keeps tabs on everyone and wants to know why Rachel has run away from home and where she went.
Far away from the Line, Rachel finds a world of mutated animals and scant resources. Without the psychic gifts of the other teens here, she’s a liability to her new community until she learns survival skills. Each small village keeps to itself, and only a few Travelers dare to cross the barren land between settlements.
When they hear that Daniel the Traveler has been captured by a nearby village noted for its brutality, the leaders of Pathik’s village decide to rescue him. They reluctantly allow Rachel to go on the mission since only she knows how to use the modern tools she brought across the Line.
Could this Daniel possibly be her Daniel, her father sent unwillingly into battle across the Line? Rachel has to face the dangers to find out.
Can Rachel survive without the psychic gifts that everyone else has here? Can she really make it in a world without technology? What will the EO do to her mom and Miss Vivian since Rachel crossed the Line and went Away?
The dystopian future of Rachel’s life may be closer than we think, closer than we’d like to believe… sequel to The Line. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.
Who started THE VALLEY-WESTSIDE WAR? by Harry Turtledove (YA book review)
Why did it happen in one time-continuum and not the others? What made this time-stream different? If Crosstime Traffic seals off this alternate, will if prevent this blight from spreading to others where they trade undercover for resources?
Yes, it’s all about the money for Crosstime Traffic; researchers are allowed to travel to alternate time-streams if there’s a potential commercial advantage for the corporation.
That’s why Liz is spending her gap year between high school and college with her scientist parents in this fragmented L.A. time-stream, with its hippie-talk lingo and scavenged technology. But can she hide her intellect well enough to pass for a young woman of this era during a war between neighborhoods?
You can read the six Crosstime Traffic books in any order, as there are different teens traveling the alternate time-streams in each. The Disunited States of America (review) never saw the Constitution signed – alternate history is an interesting and dangerous place!
**kmm
Book info: The Valley-Westside War (Crosstime Traffic #6) / Harry Turtledove. Tor Books, 2008 (paperback, 2009). [author’s website] [publisher site] Personal copy; cover image courtesy of publisher.
My Recommendation: Nuclear bombs shattered the US in 1967, leaving pockets of survivors and halting technology development – on this parallel timeline. Sent there by Crosstime Traffic, Liz and her parents pose as traders as they try to discover why this Los Angeles is still a patchwork of neighborhood kingdoms at war with one another 100 years later.
In the nearly abandoned UCLA library lit by oil lanterns, Liz scans crumbling magazines and newspapers with her hidden data device, hunting for the war’s trigger point. She can’t visit the library too often, as women here are expected to run the household and stay quiet – women’s liberation never even got started before someone fired the first deadly missiles. Good thing she’ll be at the real UCLA in the home timeline in just a year, instead of fetching water from cisterns during the ongoing drought.
When the Westside City Council decides to charge a toll for wagons coming through Sepulveda Pass on the old highway, King Zev of the Valley declares war. So it’ll be arrows and knives in hand-to-hand combat, as usual – except someone has found an Old Time machine gun and made it work. As killing from a distance becomes possible for the first time in decades, the stakes are much higher for Dan and the other soldiers.
A chance meeting between Liz and Dan may put both their missions in jeopardy, as Dan invents reasons to visit the Mendoza hacienda in enemy territory so he can talk to her again. It’s hard to transmit data reports to the home timeline when Liz doesn’t know when Dan might show up. He is nice to talk to and look at, of course.
As long as the Mendozas act like regular traders and the locals don’t suspect there’s a time station hidden in their hacienda’s basement, everything will be fine… right?
Turtledove brings readers into another alternate strand of history with this exciting episode of the Crosstime Traffic series, asking “what if?” a single event could change everything we know. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)