historical – Page 2 – Lyndsey Hall

Review: Escaping from Houdini by Kerri Maniscalco

Review Escaping from Houdini Kerri Maniscalco Lyndsey's Book Blog

Excuse me while I do a happy dance, because this isn’t the final book in the series! I was absolutely expecting the series to come to an end at the conclusion of Escaping from Houdini, but I was wrong. According to Goodreads, book four will be the last, so we’re getting one more instalment, people!

Check out my review of Hunting Prince Dracula to find out what I thought of the previous two books in the series (I realised I never reviewed Stalking Jack the Ripper whilst writing my review for book two, but you can see how many stars I gave it!).

Also, spoilers ahead for books one and two, so stop right here if you haven’t read them yet. Seriously, don’t read any further.

You rebel.

TL;DR Audrey Rose and Thomas jump on a cruise liner to New York and their next case, but as per usual, murder and mystery follow them at every step. Entertained each evening by the Moonlight Carnival, guests begin dropping like flies in increasingly gruesome and theatrical ways. Can Wadsworth and Cresswell solve the murders before the killer’s grand finale?

This book had one of my biggest pet peeve tropes as a central plot point, but as you can see, that didn’t stop me loving it. (I won’t say which trope for spoilers’ sake, but if you feel the same, let me know in the comments!)

It starts off with Audrey Rose and Thomas completely smitten with each other, looking forward to a pleasant transatlantic cruise, chaperoned by Audrey’s uncle Dr. Jonathan Wadsworth and Mrs Harvey (and her notorious “travelling tonic”). Well, if you’ve been paying attention to this series so far, you won’t be surprised to hear that almost immediately people start being murdered.

Entertaining the guests every evening on board the ship is the Moonlight Carnival, a rag tag crew of contortionists, cartomancers, knife-throwers and fire-eaters, lead by a mysterious, masked man who calls himself Mephistopheles. If you weren’t lucky enough to read Faust at school, Mephistopheles is the name of the devil in the classic German novel. The ringmaster is a charming, manipulative and arrogant man with designs on our Audrey Rose, much to Thomas’s chagrin.

Only one member of the carnival doesn’t wear a mask at all times, and that’s the eponymous Harry Houdini. Unlike the rest of the performers who all seem to be hiding from someone or something, Houdini comes across as a fame-hungry young man. Does that make him a murderer, though? Or could one of his travelling carnival companions be hiding a dark past behind their glittery facade?

Like in the previous books, the stakes are pretty high for our leading lady, drawing her family and friends into the heart of the danger yet again. But none more so than herself, and in the end Audrey Rose goes through something that will change her forever.

I loved this book. I whipped through it at breakneck speed and it’s my new favourite of the series (I know I said that about Hunting Prince Dracula, because boarding school setting! But that’s been trumped by cruise ship setting. Sorry not sorry). Book four, you’ve got a lot to live up to!

I gave Escaping from Houdini 4.5 stars, there’s room for improvement – that flipping annoying trope, to be precise – but it’s such an enjoyable romp on the high seas. I still love Audrey Rose, she’s not perfect, but who of us is? And Thomas is just a dreamboat, flirting shamelessly with her one minute, and telling her he’ll never hold her back the next.

If you’ve enjoyed books one and two, or you’re just a fan of YA historical fiction, you’ll love this book. It’s full of illusions, romance, murder and kissing. What more could you want?

Lyndsey

Review: Hunting Prince Dracula by Kerri Maniscalco

Review Hunting Prince Dracula Kerri Maniscalco

Love historical fiction? Fan of dark fantasy? You’ve come to the right place! Today we’re talking about Kerri Maniscalco’s Stalking Jack the Ripper series, and more specifically book two, Hunting Prince Dracula.

(I just looked for my review of Stalking Jack the Ripper to see how many stars I gave it, and realised I never wrote one! Sorry about that, I gave it 4 stars on Goodreads, so it’s definitely worth a read before you dive into this one – although the way book two is written there are no spoilers for book one beyond who survives, so it’s up to you!)

Remember last week when we discussed ‘speculative fiction‘? This is a prime example of ‘alternate history’, taking well-known legends and giving them a completely new and fresh spin. Book three tackles the story of Harry Houdini, and I cannot wait to read it – I feel like I know the Jack the Ripper and Vlad the Impaler/Dracula stories reasonably well, and have read a few fictional takes on them, but I’m basically a newbie to Houdini. All I’ve heard is he was pretty good at disappearing.

Speaking of which, don’t you love how Maniscalco has twisted the book titles to show how the eponymous character operated in the original story, and how that’s been flipped on its head in her versions? STALKING Jack the Ripper, HUNTING Prince Dracula and ESCAPING from Houdini. I love that little hint of what’s to come from the author.

(According to Google, Houdini was born Erich Weisz in Budapest, Hungary, before moving with his family to Wisconsin, USA, so fingers crossed we see a bit of both countries in book three. I’ve always wanted to visit Budapest!)

Book two picks up a couple of weeks after book one ended, and Audrey Rose Wadsworth and Thomas Cresswell are on their way to Romania, where a school of pathology and forensic science has taken up position in the old castle where Vlad Dracula once lived.

Audrey Rose is running away from her problems, she’s having nightmares and hallucinations caused by the Ripper case, and hopes she can escape them by leaving London. Unfortunately, that’s not how life works, and her problems follow her to Romania. Not only that, but a whole crop of new problems arise on the way there, when a man is murdered on their train. His wounds look like the work of a vampire, but surely they’re the stuff of myth?

On arrival at the castle, we discover the deaths tie into the local myth of the ‘strigoi’, angry spirits of the dead that rise from the grave and drain their victims’ blood. As more victims are found, Audrey Rose and Thomas begin to question whether there’s a copycat killer on the loose, or if something more supernatural is afoot.

With the help of Thomas’s sister, the head teacher’s niece, and a castle maid, the pair hunt for clues and try to solve the puzzle before anyone else can be killed.

I gave Hunting Prince Dracula 4.5 stars, I enjoyed it even more than book one, there’s something about the boarding school environment that speaks to me (I went to a boarding school but I didn’t board as we lived 5 minutes away, and I’ve always loved YA in that setting, i.e. Harry Potter). The romance between the two main characters starts to heat up somewhat in this instalment, so I’m excited to see where that leads, and as always Maniscalco’s writing is beautiful and descriptive, with just the right amount of Victorian vocab mixed in.

If you’re into period dramas, alternate histories, dark thrillers with just a hint of the supernatural, then you’ll definitely love this series. My pre-order of Escaping from Houdini will be available to download in 5 days time, I’ll let you know how I find it!

Lyndsey

Review: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

I recently listened to the audio book of The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and really enjoyed it, it’s completely unlike anything I’ve ever read before. It’s an adult fantasy, almost magical realism, set in part in London, as well as various real cities across the world that the circus visits. It spans over a century, with the main story beginning in the mid 1800s and ending in the early 1900s.

TL;DR two magicians play a dangerous game, pitting their unwitting contestants against each other in a decades-long battle of talent and skill. A miraculous circus that only opens at night, a group of incredibly talented illusionists and performers, and an utterly fabulous clock all combine to make a spectacular fairy tale filled with magic and enchantment.

Where to start! This book has so many layers, so many subplots that combine to make a beautifully complex story. It begins with an introduction to the circus as though you yourself are visiting it right now, in modern day, describing what you see and smell.

Admittedly, the second person present tense was jarring at first, I’ve never read a book that was written that way, but only the framing parts are in second, the rest of the story is written in third. I’ve seen a few reviews where people DNFed because they couldn’t get into the book, and to be honest I can see why some didn’t persevere, but as I was listening to the audio book it was easier to push past the initially uncomfortable parts and just listen until I was completely absorbed by the story.

“The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.”

We start with Prospero and “the man in the grey suit”, or Alexander, two old friends and rivals who decide to each choose a pawn to play in a mysterious game. Prospero’s own daughter Celia has recently come to live with him after her mother committed suicide, and Prospero quickly realises that she has inherited his magical abilities, a natural talent for manipulating the world around her. Marco on the other hand, Alexander’s playing piece, is plucked from an orphanage and spends years learning how to create illusions, use charms and enchantments, and manipulate the perceptions of the people around him.

“People see what they wish to see. And in most cases, what they are told that they see.”

We then meet Chandresh Lefevre, who Alexander encourages to open a circus, providing them with a game board on which to play their pieces. Marco takes on the role of Chandresh’s assistant, and Celia auditions to be the circus’s illusionist. Neither is aware that the other is their opponent. Both use their own skills and abilities to manipulate the circus and those who are a part of it, including the proprietors and the performers, waiting for the day their challenge begins, unaware that it already has.

“Good and evil are a great deal more complex than a princess and a dragon . . . is not the dragon the hero of his own story?”

They each begin to add to the circus, creating new and spectacular attractions – an ice garden, a cloud maze, a wishing well. Eventually, they both work out who their competitor is, and recognising the beauty of each others’ magic, they fall in love.

“Everything I have done, every change I have made to that circus, every impossible feat and astounding sight, I have done for her.”

There’s a parallel story about a young boy called Bailey who visits the circus as a child and meets Poppet, one of the twins, Poppet and Widget, who were born the night the circus opened and possess magical abilities of their own. When the circus returns years later, he searches for Poppet and discovers a whole new destiny.

“You’re in the right place at the right time, and you care enough to do what needs to be done. Sometimes that’s enough.”

The book is incredibly descriptive, with some long sections that only describe the various tents and features of the circus, such as the amazing clock, rather than furthering the plot, but it is astonishingly beautiful and Morgenstern’s imagination is fabulous. Some of the characters could do with a bit more fleshing out, I would have loved to hear more backstory on some of them, like Tsukiko the contortionist, and Alexander – the most mysterious character in the entire book, but in some ways the lack of backstory adds to the overall mystery.

The origins and limitations of magic are never explained, leaving it up to the readers’ imagination – a lot of things are alluded to in the story and never fully explained. How Marco is able to study magic and learn to wield it, while Celia is born with natural abilities, is just one of the questions we’re left with.

I’m giving The Night Circus 4.5 stars because it was absolutely enchanting, with wonderful descriptions and a fairy tale like plot. The only reason it’s not a five star read for me is because of the confusing format, with changes in person and tense as well as time jumps that leave you wondering how long has passed if you’re not listening carefully.

The mountain of questions I was left with afterwards also stopped this from being five star, some of which are interesting and allow me to wonder, others make me wish there had been more explanation and back story. The ending was definitely unexpected, I’m not sure how I feel about it, I don’t think I would have ended it quite that way, but I don’t feel like I need a sequel, I think the story tied up neatly and didn’t really leave room, unless we focused on Poppet and Bailey’s story.

All in all, it was a lovely listen, and now I’m even more excited to download Caraval, which I’ve seen described as ‘The Night Circus for YA’! Have you read The Night Circus? What were your thoughts? I hear it’s been optioned for a film, but there’s been no announcements yet – I’d love to see it on screen! Who would you cast?

Lyndsey

I am a member of the Book Depository affiliate program, so if you click through and buy any of the books mentioned in this blog I might make a little commission, but I am not paid to review books and all reviews are my own opinions!