Deceiver

Writing a review for the 11th book of a beloved series, nearly two decades in the reading is probably not the most useful thing I could be doing with my time. If you've got to book 10 I doubt you are going to need much prodding from me to pick this one up. But I love this series too much not to want to just tuck the book away and move on without getting a few words about it out of my system. The politics is thick in this one. There's always quite a bit but this one seemed to have more than usual. I'm not much of a political animal so I'm glad Bren, our trusty paidhi, is on hand to keep track of the situation. Like the previous book, instead of the single Bren point of view we also get to see the world from the perspective of the precocious Atevi lordling Cajeiri. He's having a spot of bother with his new bodyguards who are showing no signs of forming manchi with him, that unquantifiable (at least on human terms) Atevi instinct that causes members of their race to form attachments. To their cost humans have confused manchi with the Human understanding of love or friendship, neither of which have any Atevi equivalent. Inter-species linguistic confusions caused the Atevi-Human war not long after the Humans first arrived. Peaceful co-existence was deemed too unstable and prone to further misunderstanding and the human survivors were ceded an island kingdom and a permanent separation from Atevi interaction. With one exception. Bren Cameron. He is the paidhi. A diplomat charged with interpreting all Human-Atevi contact. Things have moved on quite a lot since those early days and Bren is now paidhi-aiji. He's basically gone native, and become so valued by the Atevi high-muck-a-muck's he's been granted his own lordship, land and the loyalty of his own Atevi aishid (currently four Atevi bodyguards). Great characters, thorough world building, Cherryh's brilliant style of prose and restricted point of views make for fascinating and beguiling sci-fi. If you haven't tried a Foreigner book yet, do yourself a favour and go hunt out book one.

Henrietta

Camera Critters

Every time we come to the Tranquil Otter lodges we encounter a fair sized badelynge of Mallards. One of them, a female, has become a bit notorious. She's not shy. Mallards can easily live into a third decade if they can avoid getting nabbed by the local predators so we are pretty sure it is the same duck. She doesn't mix with the other ducks very well, is very loud, is prone to rushing about and doing all sorts of crazy stuff. We've taken to calling her Henrietta. I often read on the decking with nothing on my feet and Henrietta has been known to try to make off with my big toe. Debbie and Henrietta seem to get on quite well.
Here's my dad encountering her about six or seven years ago. He only went out for a smoke.

Circle ducks

Camera Critters

These little balls of fluff can't be long out of the egg. They are sticking together like they are magnetic. I hope they keep safe. Fingers crossed. They'll need it too. This was the view when I pointed my camera to the ground. Tilt the camera back and look up into the sky and it won't be long before the silhouetted deadly shapes of a pair of buzzards can be seen circling patiently.

The Observations

The heroine, and faithful scribe, of this tale is one Bessy Buckley, or so she introduces herself. She's a young Irish girl, running away from a mother who has ruthlessly exploited her from an early age. She arrives at a ramshackle mansion, somewhere near Edinburgh, where she is taken on as a housemaid by the mistress of the house, Arabella Reid. The 'missus' as she calls her soon has young Bessy confused and bewildered by a succession of seemingly random and mostly pointless requests. And every night she must write an account of the day's events along with her inner thoughts. Despite all this Bessy develops a fierce loyalty for her mistress and then she finds out, by the chance discovery of Arabella's in-progress book 'The Observations', what the object of her devotions is really up to and tellingly what her opinions of Bessy are.
What happens next is best left for the story to tell, but it is a fascinating read that weaves Bessy's dark past, the mysterious fate of her predecessor, Arabella's paragon of all house maids, Nora, and Arabella's own secrets into a startlingly engaging narrative mystery. Bessy is a wonderful character, who colours her tale with the most vivid and sometimes lurid slang and colloquialisms. I'm often put off by such inclusions, though in this case they are pretty much essential to the style and don't distract at all. Though being a native of northern England, where many of the expressions are still in common use or fondly remembered from use by my Grandparents, I could be more immune from irritation than the average reader. Bessy is also not averse to casting ridicule on the people she recounts by exaggerating or over annotating their speech patterns and accents. The more she despises them the more extreme the exaggeration. I think it's no accident that Hector, the sex obsessed Highlander, gets the brunt of it.
The Observations is an excellent début novel. I've read the latest book by Jane Harris, 'Gillespie and I', which appeared some 5 years after 'The Observations' - so if you enjoyed this book I'd recommend you look it up with all due dispatch.

Favoured places and favourite faces

I got back to one of my favourite holiday places this Summer - The Tranquil Otter lodges in Cumbria. This year was different though. It was a great favourite of Harry the Labrador. He adored chasing around the lawn, taking in the sounds, the sights and of course the smells. He was a true aqua-dog but this was one lake that was too wild and too inhabited by a myriad of birds and creatures for dipping his body into the water. Swimming would have been dangerous for both Harry and the wildlife. That didn't stop him setting sail in the little boat a few times though in years past. For me this place has many bright memories and Harry was one of the shinier ones. He's no longer with us anymore but he still walks happily through our minds.

Gillespie and I

I've never been the quickest of readers but this vibrantly written novel, weighing in at 500 plus pages, so engrossed me I devoured it in just 4 days. It seemed so innocent at first, beguiling me with its engagingly described cast of characters.
In 1933 Miss Harriet Baxter sits in her Bloomsbury apartment, tending to her caged finches and writing her memoir of the times she spent with Ned Gillespie over 4 decades earlier, an up and coming young artist, her dear friend, she dubs him, her soul mate even.
At once we are informed that her friend Gillespie and his young family are ill-fated, that the tale will end in tragedy, a tragedy so deep that the young man will destroy his life's work and take his own life. The first half of the book follows Harriet, then a thirty something spinster, as she relocates from London to Glasgow after the death of her Aunt, a woman who had brought her up after the death of her mother. In 1888 Glasgow hosts the first International Exhibition and Harriet decides to rent rooms nearby to take in the spectacle. A chance encounter, amusingly recounted through Harriet's memoir, brings her into the orbit of the Gillespie family, her timely extraction of half a set of dentures from the back of an old lady's throat, who turns out to be Ned's mother, is the first step on the road to what lies ahead. Over several months Harriet becomes almost part of the household, finding opportunity after opportunity to ingratiate herself among them.
Just as we start to get comfortable with the happy set up, Harriet reminds us that there are dark times ahead - a trial even, though what crime is looming and who is to stand accused is left unsaid. Although leisurely, the narrative at no stage bored me. Despite its length I was always either entertained or intrigued. I was fascinated by the complicated family dynamic, the Victorian detail, the depiction of Glasgow and its characters both fictional and historical, and of course, Harriet's colourful and often acerbic observations. It's fairly apparent that Harriet at times does resort to being manipulative, she's prone to bias and there's something quite off-kilter in some of her references to her stepfather and Ned, her so-called soul mate, but I still found myself liking her. The second half of the novel deals with the break down of the Gillespie family and the trial. I hold my hands up and admit I was completely wrong footed by how things progressed. I'll not say any more as I'd be risking straying into spoiler space. Suffice it to say that the conclusion doesn't disappoint.
I would heartily recommend this book as a great summer read, perfect for that sunny afternoon in the garden, though I must warn you that you may not notice the sun on your face, or the pleasant bird song in the trees, or the bees in the Buddleia - not if you sink as deep into Harriet Baxter's world as I did.
This review was from an Advance Reading Copy.

The Man Whom the Trees Loved

David Bittacy and his wife have been happily married for decades. Mr Bittacy has another love though. He loves nature. More specifically he loves trees. So when he discovers an artist who paints portraits of trees in a way that captures their individuality... their personality even, he decides to invite the artist to stay at his home. The two men are kindred spirits, both believing that trees have souls... that God is in the trees. Over a long night gazing at the trees that encroach his garden, with the deep wood close by, the two men venture to put into words a philosophical understanding of nature that frightens and disturbs Mrs Bittacy. Their words cause her to catch a glimpse of wild, potent, sentient impressions of the life that is a forest. It jars her deep religious convictions to the core.
Algernon Blackwood is brilliantly adept at this sort of psychological dance, playing the known world and its belief systems off against the limits of human knowledge and understanding. Blackwood's beautifully rich descriptions of nature, and his deft maintenance of disquiet are excellent. There are few writers, short of Mary Shelley in full Godwinian flow, who could keep that disquiet going while exploring a philosophical idea for over 70 pages and still retain the interest of the reader.These trees are on the hill where my house is built.