The Coral Thief: An Novel by Rebecca Stott

I picked this up because of it's historical setting, 1815 Paris, when Napoleon was on his way to St. Helena. The city is filled with political tension but also an exciting sense of academic discovery in the natural sciences. The main character is Daniel Connor, a young Scotsman who has come to study with Cuvier at the Jardin des Plantes. He is bringing valuable coral specimens and a manuscript from his tutor for Cuvier. Along the way he meets a mysterious older woman who steals his bag. From this, Connor is caught up in a world of philosophers and thieves. A lot of the philosophical discussions are between students of Cuvier's catastrophism and LaMarcke's evolutionary theories. Interspersed with this plot are short chapters on Napoleon's voyage to St. Helena. It was unclear to me why these were included as the author made no attempt to really tie these together. This is an interesting novel of ideas but for me it moved slowly, probably because I could not identify with the character of Daniel. He was naive but also a bit of a slow-top. I kept wanting to give him a good shake. Edit | More

Underground Time: A Novel by Delphiine de Vigan

I think I have rarely read a book that was so depressing and unsatisfying. Mathilde is a battered woman, although the abuse is in the workplace instead of at home. Her boss and mentor turns on her with incredible vengeance. Her initial reaction," this must be a misunderstanding, I'll try to talk to him", was understandable. But after he figuratively smashes her in the mouth each day for months, that gets a little hard to believe. Her behavior is really inexplicable. There is nothing in her background to indicate an insecure woman, an easy target of abuse. On the contrary, she was a very confident, competent career woman. Her story is paralleled with that of Thibault, a doctor who has just ended an unhealthy love affair and is suffering regret and loneliness. The reader expects their paths to cross with some kind of significant result. In fact, their paths cross so slightly that one wonders why the author even bothered with the second plot line.

Mr. Churchill's Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal

A young British woman, raised in America, has returned to London on family business. When war breaks out, she joins Churchill's staff as a typist. My initial impression was that the book was intended as an historical novel because early on the author includes many of Churchill's speeches and devotes some time to describing the work in his office. But the book is really a combination of historical novel and mystery and doesn't really measure up as either one. The characters are sketches to a large degree and the plot twists and turns are unbelievable and confusing. Our heroine encounters Nazi spies, IRA terrorists, long lost relatives, secrets involving her life which are being kept from her by British Intelligence. The story builds rather slowly but the last part heads in to a wild ride of crazy plot turns and unbelievable rescues.

Paris in Love: A Memoir by Eloisa James

Mary Bly is a Shakespeare scholar who writes Regency romances under the name Eloisa James. I thought it was interesting that she wrote this memoir under her pen name. After dealing with breast cancer, James and her Italian husband and two children pack up and move to Paris for a year to recover. The book is a series of short entries originally entered on Facebook. I was a little put off by the format initially but it actually worked quite well. Much of the memoir describes how her family adjusts to the new culture, especially her children in school, eating new food, visits by friends from the US and relatives from Italy. But she also meditates on French women, diet, clothes and other cultural differences with great insight and humor. One of the most memorable parts were her regular descriptions of the Parisian sky through her office window. The metaphors were beautiful and brought such a clear sense of what she was seeing. James writes with great humor and insight and, although I've not read any of her other books, I think I'll have a look.