"Two Women in Love and War"

Jack and Eve, Wendy Moore  (2024 TBR)

I bought this book after hearing the author on the BBC History Extra podcast. It is the story of Evelyn "Eve" Haverfield and Vera "Jack" Holme, who met while working for suffrage with the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). Eve had been married twice and had two sons, while Jack's relationships were primarily with women. They fell in love, eventually moving in together into a house that Eve owned. They found a community of other queer women, and both sometimes had flirtations or affairs, Jack in particular. But their bond remained strong.

Eve was a friend and ally of Emmeline Pankhurst, and Jack became Mrs. Pankhurst's driver, one of the first women chauffeurs in Britain. When the Great War broke out, they began organizing women to serve on the home front and abroad. Eve and Jack then joined Dr. Elsie Inglis's Scottish Women's Hospital (SWH) group in Serbia, where they worked to set up hospitals wherever the Serbian forces were fighting. Like many of the SWH women, both became deeply attached to the Serbian people and their country, refusing to leave even as enemy forces pushed the Allied armies out. After a desperate retreat, Jack ended up in Russia as the revolution was breaking out. Once safely evacuated to England, both she and Eve continued to raise money for Serbia. Eve felt called to return after the war ended, to open orphanages for the thousands of children left destitute. Jack followed her, but after Eve's death in Serbia in 1920, she returned to Britain, where she lived until her own death in 1969.

This book fascinated me on so many levels, starting with Eve and Jack's work in the suffrage movement. Reading Constance Lytton's autobiography (and then a biography of her) introduced me to the inner circle of the WSPU and the Pankhursts. But I didn't know about the WSPU car that Jack drove all over Britain, carrying the movement's leaders to meetings and protests. Both she and Eve were accomplished equestrians, and they often led suffrage parades (riding astride rather than side-saddle). Eve was arrested with Emmeline Pankhurst after a London rally in 1909, and their trial made headlines around the world.

Eve and Jack took their experience and connections from the suffrage movement into their war work. I learned so much about women's work in the Great War, about women in medicine, and about the war on the Eastern Front (the subject of podcasts and articles in recent months, though not focused on women's work). Like many women in the Britain, Eve wanted to put her talents and energy to use in supporting the war effort. She had an absolute belief that women could do anything men could, including working with the armed forces. The British government could not have disagreed more strongly. With other like-minded women, Eve founded the Women's Emergency Corps (WEC), "to register and coordinate offers of help from women . . . Within two weeks more than 10,000 women had registered..." She then went on to set up the Women's Volunteer Rifle Corps, which could function as a home guard if needed. Next, she organized the Women's Reserve Ambulance Corps, known as the "Green Cross Corps," which would later send the first women's ambulance team to France.

Jack worked with her through all of this, but both of them wanted to do even more. When Eve heard Dr. Elsie Inglis speak on Serbia, raising funds to send a hospital unit, she was quick to volunteer. In September 1914, Dr. Inglis had offered to set up and run a military hospital, staffed by women. She was told, "My good lady, go home and sit still." Instead, she established the Scottish Women's Hospital organization. The governments of France, Belgium, and Serbia gladly accepted her hospitals and her staff. The time that Jack and Eve spent in Serbia is the largest section of the book. The SWH worked under incredibly difficult and dangerous conditions, often short of supplies and food. They dealt with epidemics of disease, in the civil population as well as the soldiers they treated. I did find the military aspect difficult to follow sometimes, particularly since the only small period maps included were in the photo sections. Wendy Moore also spends a lot of time on conflicts between the different members of the SWH, which made their work even more complicated.

Finally, this book explores queer women in Britain in the early 20th century, which is a subject I knew very little about. As Wendy Moore points out, we cannot know how people in the past defined themselves. Jack preferred male dress and re-named herself "Jack" in her early twenties, which is the name Wendy Moore uses (but refers to Jack as "she" and "her" since Jack did not present herself as a male person). She and later Eve were part of a circle of queer women, some of whom were settled domestic partners. Triangle relationships were also common, and after Eve's death Jack met two women with whom she shared a home and life for 32 years. From this book, I learned that there was little concern over women's emotional or physical relationships until the publication of Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness, which sparked an uproar over lesbianism and eventually an obscenity trial.

I had previously read Wendy Moore's No Man's Land, about "the trailblazing women who ran Britain's most extraordinary military hospital during World War I." I am happy to see that our library systems have several more of her books. I also want to find a biography of Dr. Elsie Inglis, who persisted despite the misogynistic dismissal of her work.

Reading through the winter storm

I was just out walking around the melting snow from our winter storm here in southeast Texas. It's been years since I've seen so much snow - even when visiting family up north. Family and friends who live in snow country have a hard time understanding how everything shuts down here with snow or ice storms. We don't have the infrastructure to deal with it, especially with the roads.

So with the Dr. Martin Luther King Holiday on Monday, I've been off work for five days. I spent some of that time getting my house as ready as I could (my pipes are pretty much mummified), and some of the time worrying. The last time we had a bad winter storm, in 2021, I lost power for four freezing days and nights. Thankfully, this time we had no issues with power in my area of the city.

I am still reading primarily fantasy and science fiction, though I have some interesting non-fiction books that will be due soon at the library. I did try one history of the Titanic disaster, a recommendation from Crimes and Survivors, but it was an indictment of Bruce Ismay, and I found that less than compelling.

Among the books I did finish:

Navigational Entanglements, Aliette de Bodard (library book). One of Tor's short books, a story of four young space navigators sent to represent their clans in the struggle to contain a deadly force threatening their systems (a Tangler). There are clashes between the clans - and so the women - tangled up in politics and trade. This is the first of Aliette de Bodard's books that I have read in print, and I enjoyed it very much. It led me to look for others of her work in print, because I've found ebooks of her stories hard to follow for some reason.

Falling Free, Lois McMaster Bujold (TBR, 2024). I recently re-read Diplomatic Immunity, where Miles and Ekaterin Vorkosigan are diverted from their delayed honeymoon to resolve a situation in Quaddie Space. I didn't like the book the first time I read it - I can't remember why now - and somehow I'm surprised by how good it is. "Quaddie space" is the homeworld for a gene-engineered people with four arms (and no legs) who live in free-fall environments. I was inspired this time to finally read their origin story, one of LM Bujold's earlier works. It's set 200 years before the Vorkosigan saga begins. It was interesting to read, if a little less polished than her later works.

The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (re-read). This is one of my comfort reads, so I picked it up as an antidote to storm anxiety. I will also be re-reading the two novellas that follow one of the characters in his work as a Witness for the Dead, before a third one comes out later this year. There is also another short novella set in this world coming out later this month, and both will be on my "52 books for 2025" list.

Point of Sighs, Melissa Scott (re-read). I love this fantasy series set in the city of Astrient, where one of the main characters, Nico Rathe, works as a pointsman (a city police officer). His lover Philip Eslingen, a former soldier, has held various jobs in the city and is now part of the new City Guard, resented by the points. There is a sixth book in this series coming out in March, which I need to pre-order. Melissa Scott has become one of my favorite fantasy authors, and I am still working my way through her back catalogue.

Grave Importance, Vivian Shaw (library book). This is the third book in her "Dr. Greta Helsing" series, where the main character is a doctor for creatures that most of the world doesn't believe are real. I actually started the series with this book, but I felt like I was missing too much backstory, so I went to read the others first. This one is set mainly at a clinic and spa for mummies, "Oasis Natrum," in the hills above Marseille. I loved all the Egyptology and mummy-ology in the story. But that's really a sideline to the main story, about an invasion from another dimension. There's a fourth and final book in the series coming later this year, which I'm also looking foward to.

I will probably have to go back to work tomorrow, which will cut into my reading time again. But at least the libraries should be open again too.

A trilogy became a quartet

Crimes and Survivors (2024 TBR) and "Unseen," short story (ebook version), by Sarah Smith

It has been years since I've re-read Sarah Smith's trilogy of Edwardian mysteries centered around a family from Boston. I was reminded of that last year, when they were among the books I had to move for my foundation repair work. I kept them on the shelves afterwards, unlike many that I decided I wouldn't re-read again. I must have had them in the back of my mind, because in December something suddenly made me check to see what else Sarah Smith has written. To my surprise, I found not just a fourth novel, but also a short story set between the first and second books. I was excited enough on finding new stories, but then I realized that the novel is set in part on the Titanic's fatal voyage. That had me clicking the order button and waiting impatiently for the book.

I've written before about the second and third novels, The Knowledge of Water  and A Citizen of the Country. As I said in one of those posts, these aren't mysteries in the "who done it" sense, they are more novels of suspense. The central mysteries have to do with identity. In the first three, it is the identity of Alexander von Riesden, a scientist and an Austrian baron who is shocked to discover how much he looks like members of an American family from Boston. In this fourth novel, it is his wife's identity that comes into question:

It's 1912. America is the land of Jim Crow, of lynchings and segregation. And a young white concert pianist has just discovered that the grandfather she barely knows may be black. She has a family. She has a child. She can't be black, because her brothers and sisters and son can't be. She can't be black, because she couldn't play the piano in America. She follows her grandfather onto the newest, safest, biggest ship in the world, to learn the truth--the right truth, the one that will save her family. But after the iceberg, she finds the truth is more complicated than black and white. More daring, more loving, and far more dangerous. And instead of a convenient truth, what she'll have to find is a different America. (cover blurb)

The central question is an absorbing one, and also very complicated. I was constantly surprised by the turns that story took, and I am still thinking about the ending. But running along side it, and intertwined with it, is a story of the Titanic's passengers. From the "Acknowledgements," which are also a bibliography, it is clear that Sarah Smith has thoroughly researched the Titanic, and I think she succeeds in bringing to life not just the voyage and the tragedy of its sinking, but also the effects on those who survived. I had a vague memory of silent film star Dorothy Gibson among the survivors, but I did not realize that she immediately set to work making a film about the sinking, filming in New York harbor (Smith's characters are drawn into the film).

The short story "Unseen" is set in 1906, in Paris. It is the story of how Reisden buys Jouvet Medical Analyses, which plays such a big part in the second and third books. He intends to close it down after the death of its director, but first he has to resolve a last open case, a mother accused of murdering her son.

The last chapter of Crimes and Survivors felt like an ending to the stories of these characters. I wondered if it might be the end of the series. But the novel was published in 2020, at the height of the Pandemic. The short story "Unseen" was published in October of last year, which gives me hope that Sarah Smith might still have more stories to tell in this world.

52 books project for 2024

It's that time of year, to make lists about books read and books to read. I've been thinking about what to put on my "Best Books of 2024" list, but I'm still working on that. I saw a list that was divided by category, which immediately got me re-ordering my draft. I may need a section for "favorite re-reads."

I've also been thinking about my "52 books project." This is the second year that I set myself the goal, or challenge, of only buying 52 books that I hadn't read. If I read a borrowed book, and I decide that I should add it to my library, that doesn't count against the 52, since my main goal is still to reduce the TBR stacks and shelves.

Again this year I met the goal, with only 44 new books. I was in Barnes & Noble the other day, looking for a calendar, and I realized I could still buy a book or two, but I wasn't even that tempted. I was tempted on other days, though. There was more impulse buying this year, primarily from the book sale shelves at my local library (ironically, often right after I dropped off a bag of books for the book sale shelves). I think that my neighborhood Barnes & Noble closing in January for renovations and staying closed all year has helped. It also helps that my neighborhood independent bookstore closes at 5 PM, so I can never get there on weekdays. On the other hand, I discovered how easy it is to order books from Blackwell's, so I don't have to wait for North American editions.

If I met the goal of buying fewer books, I still failed to read all of the books that I did acquire this year. I have 17 of the 44 still on a special 2024 stack (the ones on the list with no letter grade). The stack is just to my left as I'm typing this, to remind me.

I currently have 7 books on my 2025 planning list, though the publication of one isn't confirmed yet. I'm sure that list will grow, because there are always new or new-to-me books. And as always, the book people I follow on blogs or now on BlueSky will introduce me to new books and authors. That's something to look forward to in the New Year.

Reading through despair

I woke up the morning after the US election to disbelief and despair. I think I went through all the classic stages of grief - definitely anger and denial - in the first hour. I remember the morning after in 2016, but this was and is so much worse.

I talk a lot about "comfort reading," both in real life discussions and on-line. At this particular time in my life, I am reading science fiction and fantasy pretty much exclusively. I know this is a coping mechanism, and as I've said elsewhere, it is working for me right now. It's a mix of re-reading favorite authors and trying new ones. I want compelling worlds, with competent and above all morally good (or at least grey) characters, who recognize their shared responsibility to people and their worlds, and act on that. I am collecting all the recommendations I can find, and I also wander through the sci-fi/fantasy section of the library each week. It's probably just as well that my local Barnes & Noble is still closed for renovations, so I'm not out buying on impulse. I have been re-reading a lot, which is not cutting down the TBR stacks, but at least I'm not adding to them (much).

Here is a short account of what I read in November:

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi, Shannon Chakraborty (2023 TBR)  In this alt-medieval fantasy set in the Indian Ocean, retired pirate captain Amina Al-Sirafi is blackmailed into retrieving the kidnapped daughter of one of her old crew. For that, she needs to track down her remaining crew and claim her ship again. This was an amazing adventure set in a magical Muslim world. It's the first in a trilogy, and I am looking forward to Amina's next adventures.

Catalyst, Audrey Faye (2024 purchase)  This is the eleventh book in the Ghost Mountain series about a shifter pack in British Columbia. Audrey Faye self-publishes through Amazon, so her books are unfortunately only available there. The series begins with Alpha, where three wolves stumble on a pack that has been severely traumatized by evil leaders. One of the three, Hayden Scott, kills the alpha in a fight and assumes leadership, to find a small group of terrorized women and children. Over the books, the pack begins to come together, to heal, and then to thrive. The stories don't wallow in the trauma, this isn't torture porn. The reader learns only enough of what has happened to understand what a character is feeling or needs. These stories are an epitome of care and comfort and healing, and I re-read them regularly. In fact, I read seven of the previous books around this new one - in part because there are a lot of characters to keep track of (I made a chart).

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, Becky Chambers (re-read)  I turned to Becky Chambers earlier this year, when I was having foundation work done on my house. Her worlds and characters are compelling, and they also wrestle with ethical and personal questions, but most of all they take care, of themselves and others. I went on to re-read Record of a Spaceborn Few (for the second time this year).

Strange Practice, Dreadful Company, and Bitter Waters, Vivian Shaw (library books/ebook purchase)  I have seen these books recommended many times, and I finally went looking in the library. I found the third in the series (Grave Importance) on the shelves, but after reading about half, I felt like I was missing too much of the backstory, particularly the connections between the characters. I went back and started with the first instead, Strange Practice. In this series, Greta Helsing is a physician to supernatural creatures, with a Harley Street practice inherited from her father. Descended from Abraham van Helsing, the family turned from hunting "monsters" to protecting them. The books pull in (and slyly reference) characters and events from classic horror stories, which in this world actually chronicle true events but have been written over into fiction. The main characters includes vampires and vampyres, werewolves and mummies. I need to get back to the third, before the fourth and final comes out next year.

The Redoubtable Pali Avrampul, Victoria Goddard (re-read)  I picked up my first Victoria Goddard book, The Hands of the Emperor, in 2021. 738 pages later, I emerged with a new obsession, and eventually a shelf full of books. There are various connected series in Goddard's fantasy Nine Worlds. Pali Avrampul belongs to the second I read, the stories of the infamous Red Company, as her site says, "Friends by chance. Revolutionaries by accident. Folk heroes very much on purpose." After the Red Company disbanded, Pali went on to become a professor of history. This story begins with "Professor Black" preparing to take a sabbatical, which will involve meeting the Emperor. That leads to her to return to being Pali Avrampul and meeting up again with old friends. Goddard has just published the third book in a triology about Pali and her sisters, background stories to the Red Company. I have them in ebook, but since they are now available in print, I am adding them to this year's TBR. Victoria Goddard is also self-published, though not through Amazon, but I'm not sure her books are widely available in libraries.

I don't know what December will bring, reading-wise. I'm just grateful to have the comfort and distraction of good books, and fellow readers with whom to share books and recommendations.

An entertaining mix of cases

Mr Fortune's Trials, H.C Bailey  (TBR shelves, 2024)

After reading Mr Fortune, Please in September, I went looking for more reprints of H.C. Bailey's books. I struck it lucky with Mr Fortune's Trials, originally published in 1925. The six "Trials," as Bailey labels the cases that Reggie Fortune takes on, were the most entertaining I have read yet. Only two of them, the first and last, involve murder - or at least successful murder.

It makes sense that a book published in 1925 would include stories that are connected to events or the aftermath of the Great War. In "The Only Son," Wilfrid Hartford survived the war but lost his father and elder brother. He came home with "lung trouble" and (the reader understands) psychological trauma. His mother, desperate to help him heal, has found a doctor to care for him in England. But Reggie, who knows this doctor is a scientist, not a physician, is compelled to investigate that treatment. In the much less serious "The Hermit Crab," Miss Platt-Robinson, a tireless worker during the War, has been rewarded for her service with the position of superintendent of the Record Department of the Ministry of Social Welfare. There are rumors of conflict among the staff, and Miss Platt-Robinson has started to get threatening letters. Then she disappears. Reggie actually enjoys tracking her down.

My favorite "Trial" was the third, "The Furnished Cottage." The cover of the edition I read refers to this story, where Reggie is for once the victim. It's apparently taken from the cover of the original U.S. edition in 1926.

Reggie is set up for an accusation of theft, at an over-the-top reception to view bridal presents, where he is meant to be found with stolen emeralds. Even more astonishingly, he is kidnapped and left in the cellar of a vacant house, with a pitcher of poisoned water to tempt him to a quick death. I was quite impressed with his ingenuity in solving this case.

I have another book of H.C. Bailey stories on the TBR stacks, and I'll be keeping an eye out for more.

Cosy fantasy with jam and books

The Spellshop, Sarah Beth Durst  (TBR shelves, 2024)

I've been hearing a lot lately about romantic fantasy (especially under the new term "romantasy"), and cosy fantasy has also been getting some attention, particularly with Travis Baldree's Legends & Lattes and Bookshops & Bonedust (both of which I enjoyed). I saw this recommended as both, and I put it on my library list. The other night, I stopped at a newer Barnes & Noble and decided that I didn't want to wait out the long library queue for this. (The B&N near me has been closed most of the year for renovations, which has cut down considerably on my impulse book-buying.)

The Spellshop opens with a library burning. Revolution has broken out in the capital city of Alyssium, and the emperor has been defenestrated "in a rather dramatic display." The staff has fled the Great Library, except for one librarian: Kiela is sure it will be safe, that the revolutionaries will respect the

hallowed stacks [that] were filled centuries-old treatises, histories, studies, and (most importantly in Kiela's opinion) spellbooks. Only the elite, the crème de la crème of the scholars, were allowed to even view the spellbooks, as only the rarefied few were permitted, by imperial law, to use magic.

She has worked and also lived in the library for eleven years, tucked away in a wing with only a sentient spider plant named Caz and the occasional researcher for company. She and Caz have packed some books away, just in case. But the flames have nearly reached her section before Caz can convince her that they have to flee. They move the books down to docks in the lower level of the library, where there is a boat they can use to flee with city with the books. Kiela is intent only on escape, but she realizes they need a plan. She decides to sail back to the island of Caltrey. Her parents (who have since died) moved to Alyssium when she was a child, in search of opportunities and a life beyond their small community. If their old house is still standing, she can hide herself, Caz, and the books there.

What she and Caz find is an island that is slowly dying, because the Empire has abandoned the magics that keep the world safe. With the spellbooks that she has rescued, she and Caz decide to try casting some spells, to try and help. But since magic is still illegal - as far as they know - they will call them "remedies." And they open a shop selling jam, as a cover, because raspberries are growing everywhere, and there is a lack of jam on the island (the fishing on which the economy depends is dying, because necessary spells are wearing out and not renewed). Their research process of trying out spells is delightful, as is the community that Kiela and Caz slowly discover. This is a book that celebrates community, and the power of books and knowledge shared. It celebrates food as well - not just jam, but food shared too. I also enjoyed the magical creatures, particularly "cloud bears" that act as forest guardians. This was a joy to read, and I hope that Sarah Beth Durst has more stories to tell set in this world.