THE ORCHARDIST by Amanda Coplin, 2012.
This debut novel is a lush period saga set in the Pacific Northwest at the end of the nineteenth century and it continues forward into the early decades of the twentieth, and depicts how several individuals brought together by circumstances are forged into a sort of family.
   The major character in this vividly written story is William Talmadge, who had moved into the valley during the Civil War, lost his family there, and then remained a fairly solitary figure, tending to and extending his orchards of apricot and apple trees, with help only from a roving band of horse herders. A gentle, quiet sort of man, he asked for little and remained a fairly self-sufficient person for many years. Until one day, when his peaceful existence is shattered by two scared young girls who steal his fruit in the town market and then follow him into the shelter of his orchards.
   Jane and Della are sisters, running from a drug and alcohol addict named Michaelson, and have been living some months in the wild. Talmadge cautiously takes them in and tries to protect them from whatever they have left behind.Their existence in the orchard is kept fairly quiet, except from the local midwife/herbalist, Caroline Middey, who kindly aids them over the course of the story in many ways.The girls, feral and distrusting even of Talmadge's kindness, uneasily hang around, and even give birth on his property, but Della's twins both die, while Jane's daughter, Angelene, survives.Then one day, the harmony in the valley is disrupted when Michaelson and his henchmen show up, leading to an unexpected tragedy that sets off a chain of events that changes all their lives.
  Coplin has written a very readable story about how the compassion in one man is awakened and he learns to care, to open himself to others and their problems, to realize what he's missed, and to live a fuller life with all its accompanying challenges and rewards. She does a credible job with her setting, with period description, adding good details about fruit picking and marketing, the coming of the railroad to the area, life in local prisons, provides a good glimpse of changing times in the Pacific Northwest. Her language is lush and flowing, the narrative moves along at a good pace, and she takes her time with developing her characters. At times it did seem somewhat slow and a bit too lengthy. However, Coplin's sensitive and realistic portrayal of the relationships between Talmadge, Della, Jane, and Angelene were well done and sympathetic, and the wise and motherly Caroline is a real standout. Dramatic and rich with emotion and power, Coplin's novel is an intelligent and engrossing character-driven story.

HEADING OUT TO WONDERFUL by Robert Goolrick, 2012.
Brownsburg, Virginia, in 1948 is a quiet and peaceful village nestled in the beautiful Valley of Virginia. Everyone knows everyone else and everyone knows their place in life. The world is slow paced here, meant to be enjoyed calmly and serenely.
   One day a stranger arrives, carrying with him two suitcases and not much else. One suitcase has personal items and a lot of money in it; the other contains a set of butcher knives. As the townspeople soon discover, the handsome and friendly man is Charlie Beale, and he wants to settle in their peaceful community. He becomes enamoured of some acreage along the river and wants it for himself, as well as employment, which he finds with the local butcher, Will Haislett. The Haisletts, Will and his schoolteacher wife Alma and their six-year-old son Sam, become a huge part of Charlie's life in the village.
   Charlie, a personable and charming character, adjusts to life in the community and learns his way around, helped along by the Haisletts. He enjoys the companionship of Sam, who becomes like a son to him, and Sam finds a kindred spirit in Charlie--they share a love of baseball, dogs, and being outdoors. Along with the dog Charlie purchases and names Jackie Robinson (for the baseball player), they become a familiar sight around town. However, their easy relationship changes from the time Charlie first sees the teenaged Sylvan Glass, wife of the richest resident of Brownsburg--he is certain that the two of them are meant to be together. Blonde and lovely and from a remote area of the county, Sylvan had been bought and paid for by Boatwright Glass, to be his wife and to live the sort of Hollywood/movie star life she's always dreamed about. But once Charlie enters her orbit, events are set into motion that will change the lives of those who dwell in Brownsburg and ultimately lead to a shockingly heartbreaking tragedy.
   Goolrick knows how to tell a story. With his nicely paced narrative, he pulls the reader into a deceptively simpler time that is no more and adroitly makes his characters come to life. His descriptions of Brownsburg and the surrounding landscape are wonderful and add so much to the telling of the story: details of cars, fashions, movies, buildings, the way the farmlands look, the old trees and the river, names of real places in the county, all meld together to create a meaningful atmosphere, a real sense of time and place. His characters are multifaceted and so human, easy to relate to and have feelings for, to be concerned about. I kept reading because I wanted to know what would happen to these people, I had to find out how their stories and conflicts would turn out. His principal characters are well done and believable as people: Charlie, with his desire to belong and his obsession with Sylvan; Sylvan's passion to live her life as something out of a movie; Boaty's greed and jealousy and vulgarity; Claudie Wiley (who deserves a book of her own), the solitary black seamstress who could almost magically sew anything and keep herself aloof; and young Sam, who practically hero-worships Charlie, who becomes a part of Charlie's and Sylvan's illicit affair and who ends up experiencing situations that no kid should.
   Emotional and satisfying, at times painful, part Gothic romance and part nostalgia, with unflinching language and beautiful description and involving characters, it's a tale that has it all: Power, money, grand ideas, golden dreams, lust, doomed love, suspense, growing up, acceptance, baseball. Personally, I found this novel a thought-provoking and moving story about life and relationships in a small town, and a very worthwhile read.
  

On the recommendation of a co-worker, I took home "My Boy Jack" (2007) from the library on DVD. Left it lay for a few days, and then decided to give it a try.
   Produced by the BBC, it contains the high quality that one expects from their productions. This was made for TV, but I was not familiar with it, had not heard of it at all.
   World War I practically decimated an entire generation of young men in Europe. This story, based on a poem by Rudyard Kipling, concerns Kipling's own family and the heartache the war brought to their lives. Kipling, already an established and well known author, lives with his family at Batemans, in the Sussex countryside. From the outset of hostilities in Europe, his almost 18-year-old son, John, known in the family as Jack, is anxious to join up and fight in Europe. Because of his myopia, Jack has been refused by the navy and the army. Jack, a young and somewhat naive sort, not only wants to fight for king and country, but he also longs to be out from under the "smothering" influence of his family, particularly his father. Rud, who serves on a British War Office think tank and is enthusiastic in his support for his only son's patriotic dream, eventually pulls strings to get "my boy Jack" into the Irish Guards. This is a nightmare for Jack's mother and his sister, Elsie.
   With Jack's departure from the family nest imminent, conflicts ebb and flow between the characters, and the film simply draws the viewer into their world and their emotional turmoil. Jack receives a short officer training course and is put in command of a platoon. He comes home to Batemans unexpectedly and reveals he is being shipped out to France, to his mother's horror. At the terrible battle of Loos, enormous losses are reported, and Jack is among the missing. His mother, Caroline, frustrated at not knowing the truth about her only son's fate, forces her husband to use his influence to help find out what happened to their son Jack, reminding Rud that he used his influence to send Jack to war; now he can use it to help find out where their son is.
   The parts are well cast all around, with Daniel Radcliffe giving a good picture of the uncertainties a young, inexperienced and enthusiastic soldier faced during that war; Kim Cattrall as Jack's American mother is marvelous, with her fierce determination and outwardly calm demeanor; Carey Mulligan's performance as Jack's understanding and supportive sister, Elsie, is quite touching, and David Haig gives an intense and imaginative portrayal as the celebrated Kipling, famous for the "Jungle Books," but who was also a father wracked by guilt who was ultimately forced to face the reality that war brings more death and destruction than glory.
   I found this a leisurely paced, unsentimental, entertaining and thought provoking depiction of the devastation caused to one particular family by World War I and their pain and anguish in trying to cope with their heartbreaking loss. The DVD includes interviews with Radcliffe, Cattrall, and Haig (who wrote the play the film is based upon and the screenplay), who provide interesting glimpses into their interpretations of their characters and the times, and how filming certain scenes at Batemans especially were very affecting to them. An excellent and underrated movie.

TWILIGHT AT MONTICELLO: the Final Years of Thomas Jefferson by Alan Pell Crawford, 2007.

  Richmond author Crawford has done a marvelous job of researching a variety of sources (including some never before used letters and documents), analyzing, distilling information, and weaving an interesting and intelligent account of Jefferson's final years at Monticello as a private citizen.
    Crawford's revealing portrait gives the reader a view of Thomas Jefferson that is a bit different from the icon most people are familiar with: an esteemed former president whose greatest desire seems to have been to live a life of quietly industrious and orderly retirement surrounded by loved ones. however, from his return to his home at Monticello in 1809 to his death in 1826, Jefferson found himself sorely tested and his life full of sadness and hearbreak.
   Jefferson's life at Monticello was not one of ease and luxury and pleasure. His surviving daughter, Martha Randolph, with her own troubles regarding her marriage and her relationship with her famous father, as well as with her brood of children, lived with members of her family with her father at Monticello; he enjoyed their company immensely, yet at the same time, they had myriad problems and issues which at times threatened to engulf Jefferson. His life became one of awful family squabbles, alcholism, violence, scandal, and lingering gossip concerning Sally Hemings; massive debts (his own and others) as well as crushing costs of maintaining his gorgeous but deteriorating mansion; illnesses; crop failures; troubles with his "Poplar Forest" plantation in Bedford County, and his own internal struggles with his deeply rooted opinions concerning government and the "hideous evil of slavery." Pell's descriptions of some of the medical treatments for some of Jefferson's health issues is almost nightmarish, and it is amazing that Jefferson managed to live and lead an active life for as long as he did with such care. Jefferson's shock heartache over his favorite grandson Jefferson Randolph's suffering from the attack of a drunk brother-in-law left him shattered and confused, and the reader can feel his anguish. Not at first told when his granddaughter Anne became ill, her death left Jefferson weeping and grief-stricken.
   And yet Jefferson, even burdened by such problems, still managed to be an active political force in advising his son-in-law, Thomas Mann Randolph, during Randolph's chaotic governorship of Virginia, in his exhausting work in establishing the University of Virginia, and in encouraging and aiding his good friend James Madison during his presidential term. He graciously received and lavishly entertained many visitors to his home, including the Marquis de Lafayette on his final visit to the United States in 1824. He kept up a busy correspondence with many old friends and colleagues, even happily re-establishing his friendship with the brilliant but quarrelsome John Adams, which continued until their deaths on the very same day, July 4, 1826. The eighty-three-year-old Jefferson's funeral was held on a rainy day and attended by over fifteen hundred people, including a seventeen-year-old Edgar Allan Poe.
   Pell's narrative is smooth, reads well, and is accessible to the general reader. He succeeds in making Thomas Jefferson a very human individual, without lessening the man's greatness. He was a man who lived and breathed life and liberty, encouraged others to do well, attempted to follow his principles to the end, but at the same time had faults and foibles like everyone else. At times Pell's writing moved me greatly to sadness for Jefferson in picturing him as aging and infirm and plagued with worries, and yet Jefferson never lost his indomitable spirit, his charm, and his intellectual mind, even as he lay on his deathbed.
   The author provides sources and notes at the end, but a chart of Jefferson and his immediate family would have been helpful. That said, I found this a splendidly done book and an informative and satisfying read about the last years of one of our nation's greatest founding fathers.
  

BRING UP THE BODIES by Hilary Mantel, 2012.

Henry VIII moved heaven and earth to get the fascinating Anne Boleyn-- divorcing Katherine of Aragon and becoming Head of the Church in England, even executing people. However, once he married Anne, made her his queen, and then she gave him a daughter instead of the much-needed son, he became disenchanted, her sharp tongue and strong personality no longer pleased him. He made up his mind to get rid of her and her scheming family. It falls to his right hand man, his chief minister and secretary Thomas Cromwell, to figure out how to make this happen for his monarch. It's hard to believe that any writer could take this old story and really make something fresh out of it, but I give Mantel high marks for doing so with imagination and creativity.

   A sequel to Wolf Hall, this novel, covering a much shorter period, 1535-1536, traces the series of events leading to Anne's downfall and how they occurred, as told by the now 50 year old Secretary Cromwell. This Cromwell has power and knows its uses, and the story really is about the power struggle between Cromwell and Anne Boleyn. The author provides us with a multi-faceted man, who can show single-mindness and cunning, as well as sympathy and care for those he loves, although I never felt I knew him very well. Mantel, though, knows her subject thoroughly and manages to bring well known Tudor characters to vivid life. Her writing style I found somewhat of a challenge--mostly because of her habit of not using Cromwell's name but "he" instead, which was confusing--but that didn't stop me from reading it.
   This is a dark and harrowing story, full of machinations and manipulations, grasping, greedy and mostly unlikeable people and dramatic, even sinister, events. The author's spin on just how Cromwell was able to oust Anne from the throne to make way for the meek and mild Jane Seymour is eye-opening, definitely informs the reader as to how dangerous and uncertain it was to be a member of Henry's court. It's absolutely fascinating and horrifying how by innuendo, threats, and insinuation that the case is constructed against Anne and the men she was alleged to be intimately involved with: Francis Weston, Mark Smeaton, Harry Norris, William Brereton, and her own brother, George Boleyn--all of whom paid the ultimate price for being associated with her. Even her powerful uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, is no match for Cromwell, and abandoned his niece to take care of damage control for the Howard family. Anne's own father distanced himself from her, as well as most of her court. Others, like the King's oldest friend, Charles Brandon, are happy the upstart Boleyns are being destroyed and watch closely. Friendless, desperate, and miserable, Mantel's Anne is brought down and destroyed. Cromwell has achieved the king's wishes, and he will get his rewards...
   An excellent, intelligent piece of historical fiction, well written and researched. I enjoyed it even more than Wolf Hall, and I will be interested to see how she treats the rest of Cromwell's story in the final volume of the trilogy.

"The Woman in Black" (2012) is one of those sort-of-horror movies that I find more suspenseful and creepy than scary, with a few chills thrown in here and there. I watched this the other night--by myself, even though the tagline says "don't watch it alone"--and I did enjoy it, although it definitely was not that scary to me.
   The story revolved around an old house, Eel Marsh, in a remote village in England that is basically being haunted. Daniel Radcliffe plays Arthur Kipps, a young, widowed lawyer with a young son. Kipps is sent to this house by his law firm to settle the estate of its last occupant, and of course, runs right into the whole haunted mess. He realizes that there is a secret in the village, no one wants to speak of it, and that there is someone in the house searching for something, but what? Who is it and what are they after?
   The movie has a fine Gothic atmosphere, great spooky sets, very evocative of old time horror movies, but the scares were very few, mostly involving loud noises. Once Arthur realizes something is wrong here and becomes involved in discovering the truth, it really does become more a suspense/thriller type of story with the audience wondering when he will finally piece things together and what the truth will turn out to be when it's revealed. Yes, there are deaths of children, lots of screams and wails and other noises, strange movements and shadows, scenes in graveyards, a local woman who has bizarre medium-like fits, a barking dog, and so forth, all of which add to the atmosphere of general unsettling creepiness and are in some cases disturbing, but not genuinely scary.
   The flick moved along at a decent pace, and I was interested in finding out the real story, but I did at times get impatient with Arthur at not being quite bright enough to figure things out quickly enough. With help from a local man who had lost his own son once to the woman in black, Arthur finally makes connections, discovers the truth, and tries to rectify the situation. Alas, even though he valiantly attempts to make things right, the end result has disastrous consequences. It was interesting to see Daniel Radcliffe in more of an adult role after all his success with the "Harry Potter" movies, and he does a commendable job with his part.
   This film reminded me of movies like the 1963 version of "The Haunting,""The Innocents," and "The Others."
  

LIONHEART by Sharon Kay Penman, 2011.
Sweeping chronicle of Richard the Lionheart's crusade to re-capture Jerusalem from the Infidel in 1190-1192, better known to history as the Third Crusade or the Kings' Crusade. Although Penman's novel is a dense, sprawling saga with an enormous cast of characters that could be very daunting to many, the author, using her impeccable research and flair for realistic dialogue and creating memorable characters, pulls it all together with her usual distinctive style and storytelling skills and provides the reader with a vivid and fascinating depiction of the era and those who lived it.
   Having read the author's previous novels on the Plantagenets, I was fully prepared for reading this one and anxious to see how she dealt with Richard I and his experiences in the Holy Land. Penman's narrative deftly moves from drafty castles in France to exotic palaces in Sicily to the hot plains of Outremer, giving the reader a wonderful sense of time and place. Her descriptions are lush and vibrant (you can hear the marketplace sounds, smell and taste the foods served at the banquets), she creates memorable scenes (the capture of Cyprus and the siege of Acre stand out), she makes each character an individual (although with such an amazing amount of names, I admit I did have to keep checking her cast list), and she quite remarkably manages to weave together her various plotlines into a whole tapestry. Not being a huge military history buff, I felt that she also kept a good balance between battle scenes and non-military manipulations and maneuvers.
   Penman knows her characters: she gives them foibles and flaws and human attributes, creating real flesh and blood people for the reader to care about. I enjoyed her portrayal of Richard--he strides magnificently through the story as a fascinating and truly multifaceted individual--a combination of courageous military man, caring husband, loyal son and brother, and strong leader who genuinely felt compassion for his soldiers, who led by example, and who believed that they were on God's mission to wrest the Holy Land back for the Christians. She shows him with a great sense of humor and playfulness, and I thought her depiction of his marriage to Berengaria of Navarre was handled very well. The lesser known character of Joanna of Sicily was interesting to me, as well as Henri of Champagne; Eleanor of Aquitaine's appearance was much too brief; Philippe of France does not come off very well, nor do any of the de Lusignans, but none of them are one note characters, she gives them depth and reasons for their actions.
   I learned quite a bit about the conflict in Outremer: between the Turks and the Europeans, the French and the English, the English and the Cypriots, etc. Quite a lot of information, but Penman informs the reader in a nice flowing narrative with a decent pace; I never felt overwhelmed by the amount of detail. Perhaps my only criticism would be that while the Infidel leader Saladin seemed ever-present, he never really came to life for me as a character, possibly because Penman kept him sort of off-stage. But this is a minor quibble. Overall, this was a vastly entertaining novel for me, and I'm looking forward to the author's next installment.