Tag: Harper Collins

Review: The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
The Perfume Collector by Kathleen TessaroFormat read: ebook provided by Edelweiss
Formats available: ebook, hardcover, paperback
Genre: Historical fiction
Length: 464 pages
Publisher: HarperCollins
Date Released: May 14, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Newlywed Grace Monroe doesn’t fit anyone’s expectations of a successful 1950s London socialite, least of all her own. When she receives an unexpected inheritance from a complete stranger, Madame Eva d’Orsey, Grace is drawn to uncover the identity of her mysterious benefactor.

Weaving through the decades, from 1920s New York to Monte Carlo, Paris, and London, the story Grace uncovers is that of an extraordinary women who inspired one of Paris’s greatest perfumers. Immortalized in three evocative perfumes, Eva d’Orsey’s history will transform Grace’s life forever, forcing her to choose between the woman she is expected to be and the person she really is.

My Review:

It’s not just perfume that is being collected in Kathleen Tessaro’s The Perfume Collector; it’s the collection of memories that are the ultimate prize in this interwoven tale of two women’s choices.

It is 1927. And it is 1955. Both are times of heady exuberance. Grace Monroe is summoned from London to Paris in 1955 because she has just inherited a small fortune from Eva D’Orsay.

Eva D’Orsay is a complete stranger. Grace feels compelled to investigate the reasons behind this mysterious bequest. It is a plus that her halting investigation provides her with an excuse to remain in Paris, away from her increasingly distant, and carelessly unfaithful, husband.

Stumbling through a past that Grace was not supposed to uncover, she finds a young woman forced to make her own way in the world. A woman who used the only talents at her disposal; her beauty, her incredible gift for feats of mathematics, and a surprising ability for captivating people.

Eva’s path crossed a great gambler who taught her how to make money at cards, and a great perfume maker, who taught her the essence of his craft. Eva was Charles Lamb’s apprentice, and Andre Valmont’s muse. But what were they to her? And what was she to Grace Munroe?

Why did she make her bequest to Grace with the words “the right to choose?”

Escape Rating B+: It’s been said that the past is another country; 1955 is over 50 years ago, the world was different, especially for women. Grace is expected to be a wife and a mother. She’s uncomfortable with the first and the second has become impossible. Her life is at a crossroads when Eva’s bequest is dropped into her lap.

1927 is an entire world away, and yet both eras were times of not just plenty, but intense joie de vivre: post-war booms, before the world went through fundamental changes; respectively the Great Depression and the upheavals of the 1960s.

Grace has been privileged and sheltered all of her life, Eva starts as a small-town girl who knows very little of life outside her tiny sphere and with very few advantages. In spite of their differences in time, place and background, they have a lot in common. They are both women in times when women are not supposed to have much agency in their world. Eva makes her own path, often at a high cost to herself. She has determined that Grace will have choices that she did not.

As Grace investigates Eva’s life, she takes possession of her own. The slow double-reveal makes for a marvelous story.

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: There’s Something About Lady Mary by Sophie Barnes

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Format read: ebook provided by Edelweiss
Formats available: Mass market paperback, ebook
Genre: Regency romance
Series: Summersby #2
Length: 270 pages
Publisher: Avon Impulse
Date Released: November 13, 2012
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

Mary Croyden lives a simple life . . . and she likes it. But when she inherits a title and a large sum of money, everything changes. Forced to navigate high society, Mary finds herself relying on the help of one man—Ryan Summersby. Determined not to lose her sense of self, she realizes that Ryan is the only person she can trust. But Mary’s hobbies are not exactly proper, and Ryan is starting to discover that this simple miss is not at all what he expected . . . but just might be exactly what he needs.

The outline for There’s Something About Lady Mary has some similarities to the first book in the Summersby series, Lady Alexandra’s Excellent Adventure. A man who thinks he is quite conventional but actually isn’t falls in love with a woman who is very unconventional. But because he thinks he is conventional, he spends much too much time trying to change the reasons that attracted him in the first place. Sparks, tension, and misunderstandings ensue.

The role reversal in Lady Mary’s story is that the conventional male is Lady Alex’s brother Ryan Summersby. After having grown up with Alex, he really should have known better than to think that a simpering society miss would actually suit him in the first place!

Ryan is tasked by a friend, the head of the Foreign Office, to keep an unofficial eye on Lady Steepleden, by any means necessary. Meaning that if he has to fake an affection, that’s just fine with Lord Percy. Lady Steepleden might be in danger.

The problem is that until Lady Steepleden returned to London, she had no idea that she was Lady Anybody. As far as she knew, she was just Mary Croyden, the daughter of an exceedingly excellent surgeon. She never knew that her father was the Marquess of Steepleden, or that he’d petitioned to have her inherit his title and his estate. All she knew she’d inherited was his medical instruments. Her father had taught her all he knew, even if she couldn’t be licensed as a surgeon in England. On the battlefields in Europe, no one had cared that she was female, only that she could save their lives. And she had.

But her father had more secrets than she knew. He was a member of the aristocracy. A wealthy and titled member of the aristocracy. And someone had murdered him for a secret that he kept, using the confusion of Waterloo to cover their tracks. Whoever killed him, now they sought Mary.

And Ryan discovered that his assignment was less onerous, and more dangerous, than he ever expected. He thought he’d be protecting some society chit he wouldn’t be able to stand to be around.

Instead he found a woman who challenged him at every turn. But one who couldn’t see through her own insecurities to believe that he might find her attractive, especially not when their initial relationship began on a foundation of lies

But before they can find a future, they have to figure out the past. If they live that long. And if they can keep their misunderstandings from tearing them apart.

Escape Rating B+: The author was very careful to include her historical precedents for Mary’s medical practice in her notes. She knew that the first question that would crop up would be whether a woman could or did practice during the Napoleonic era. Apparently the answer is yes. Along with a whole slew of other medical precedents. Just because something wasn’t regular practice didn’t mean it wasn’t known.

About the story, again, this was fun to read. The suspense angle kept the pace cracking along. Trying to figure out what Mary’s father had been investigating that had gotten him killed, and who had betrayed him, heightened both the drama and the pathos, as it was his friends and colleagues who  had turned on him.

Watching Mary and Ryan negotiate their relationship formed the core of the story. Ryan has to change his conventional attitude, but Mary has to compromise. Unlike Alex, Mary can’t continue doing exactly what she’s been doing–London is not a war zone. But Ryan has to find a way to bend, a lot, to make it work. The solution they find seems realistic, in the circumstances. They fit.

I’m looking forward to older brother William’s story, The Secret Life of Lady Lucinda. I can’t wait to see what sort of woman turns out to be his match!

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Lady Alexandra’s Excellent Adventure by Sophie Barnes

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Format read: paperback provided by the publisher
Formats available: Mass Market Paperback, ebook
Genre: Regency Romance
Series: Summersby #1
Length: 368 pages
Publisher: Avon Impulse
Date Released: June 5, 2012
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

It’s going to be a wild ride…

Lady Alexandra Summersby is not your average society miss. Not only is she more likely to climb a tree than she is to wear a dress, but she has also sworn off marriage. Alex loves taking chances, which is how she finds herself embroiled in a secret mission as she races across the country with the Earl of Trenton. But Alexandra is about to discover that the real danger lies not in duels, but in her completely unexpected reaction to Lord Trenton’s company.

Michael Ashford, Earl of Trenton, is a man of duty. Honorable, charming, and a hit with the ladies, he’s never had trouble staying focused—until now. Lady Alexandra is like no other woman he’s ever met, and suddenly the prospect of marriage seems far more appealing. Now, to convince Alexandra that a life together could be an adventure like no other…

Sophie Barnes specializes in creating Regency heroines who seem improbably larger-than-life, and then making their square-peg-in-the-round-hole characters seem, not just reasonable for their particular circumstances, but absolutely the right woman for whatever normally staid and conventional male starts out attempting to shave off the edges of their unique charms.

Take Lady Alexandra Summersby for example. Every male in her entire family seems to work for the Foreign Office. In other words, she’s the one female in an entire family of spies. Her mother is deceased, and if it wasn’t tragic, I’d say the poor woman died of fright.

But Alex was raised in the trade, so to speak. With every single member of her family in the secrets business, it is somewhat logical that she be able to defend herself. If anyone’s cover is blown, she’s a target. The only problem is that Alex is much too good at it. She’s a much better with the sword than either of her brothers. She’s much better at most of the “trade” than her brothers.

So when her oldest brother, William, is accused of colluding with Napoleon (instead of being the spy for the English that he really is), Alex gets herself attached to the investigation, with her father’s consent. Her younger brother Ryan goes along as chaperone.

The man leading the expedition, Michael Ashford, Earl of Trenton, thinks he is taking the two younger Summersby sons to France to investigate the case. Only when the party arrives in France does Alex reveal that she is Alexandra. Michael is angry, not only at the deception, but at the danger that a woman brings to the investigation. He does not see the possibilities.

Alex does not see that there is danger. She can defend herself. Very ably, too. But she has never dealt with the possibility that men will attack her, and in numbers, simply because she is a woman with a sword.

Michael tries to force her back into a conventional role, one that Alex cannot occupy. She loves herself as she is. She will never be a demure miss. No matter how much she has discovered she wants to attract Michael’s attention.

Alex is afraid to love. And it turns out that Michael will settle for nothing less. In the middle, there remains the question of Alex’s brother William. Exactly who is he working for in Napoleon’s court?

Escape Rating B: Spies never occupy a conventional role in society. So the idea that Alex might be as unconventional as she is in this story, while surprising, isn’t all that hard to swallow. It just made her more interesting to watch. Her naivete that her sword would protect her from all the problems of being a woman travelling as a man did seem just that, a bit naive.

In so many recent Regencies, in order to make the heroine a person that modern readers can identify with, the authors have resorted to using bluestockings as heroines. While I enjoy the bluestocking heroine as much as the next reader, being one myself, it is refreshing to see a story where the heroine is a woman of action. It’s a tad unconventional, but it works. There are always non-conformists. And spycraft is one of the oldest professions, one in which women have always taken part.

The emotional center is the relationship between Alex and her family, and then between Alex and Michael. Alex is afraid to love because her father sincerely loved her mother. He slid into a deep depression when she died, and left Alex to her own devices. Something that contributed to her tomboy tendencies. Alex is afraid to love anyone that much.

Michael needs a wife, but he also needs a partner. Someone who won’t bore him. Someone who understands his service with the Foreign Office. Alex challenges him. Her family also serves the Foreign Office. They can work together, if she can get past her fears, and if he can get past his conventionality to figure out that her very unconventionalness is what he really needs.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

9 Rings, 8 Planets, 7 Dwarfs, 6 Publishers

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Big 6 publishers

List the names of the Seven Dwarfs. Go ahead, do it.

If you’re like most people, you have to tick the names off on your fingers, and you’ll forget one or two, usually either Bashful or Doc, because they don’t fit the “-py” naming convention the rest of them do.

What about those “Big 6” publishers everyone is talking about? Can you name them?

Even in the library world, in spite of all the recent discussion about how the Big 6 are deciding whether and how to lend ebooks to libraries, most people can’t. Not because they’re not important, but because the names aren’t the way we know them. We don’t think of the publisher all that much until one of them withdraws their ebooks from the library market, as Penguin did late last week.

What we know are their books. When there is a title that patrons want, and we can’t buy it, that’s when we are reminded who the “Big 6” are.

This is one librarian’s guide to the “Big 6” publishers, based on the titles they publish.

1. Hachette Book Group

We never see the name Hachette. The names we see are the names of their imprints, particularly Grand Central Publishing and Little, Brown and Company.

Hachette dropped out of the library market in 2009, so their backlist is still in library ebook catalogs, but not their new books.

Current titles on the New York Times bestseller list from Hachette that are not available:

 

 

 

 

 

2. HarperCollins

HarperCollins is the publisher with the famous, or infamous “Rule of 26”. Every copy purchased after they changed their licensing terms to libraries last year is only available for 26 checkouts, then the library needs to purchase another copy. But some availability is perhaps better than no availability.

In addition to the publishing imprints with the name “Harper” in the title, HarperCollins also includes the publisers William Morrow and Avon.

Here are a few examples of current NYT bestsellers that are affected by the 26-checkout limit:

 

 

 

 

 

3. Macmillan

Macmillan has always just said “no” to libraries.

But it isn’t just the name Macmillan, because the name Macmillan covers St. Martin’s Press. And Henry Holt, Farrar Straus & Giroux and Minotaur. Also Tor, a highly respected science fiction and fantasy publisher, as well as Feiwel & Friends, a children’s publisher.

There have been many, many Macmillan titles that libraries have never been able to purchase, including these current titles:

 

 

 

 

 

4. Penguin Group

Penguin has just exited the library ebook marketplace. As of this writing, any titles licensed by libraries before Penguin’s departure on February 10, 2012 will remain available, but no new content will be added.

Penguin Group includes Penguin, Putnam, Prentice-Hall and Puffin, a childrens’ publisher. But also Viking Press and Dutton, as well as Ace and Berkley, two well-known mass-market paperback publishers.

Because Penguin stopped licensing new content to libraries in November 2011, the impact of their departure has already been felt with the unavailability of these titles:

 

 

 

 

 

5. Random House

Random House represents the “good guys” in the library ebook market. They have recently reconfirmed their commitment to license ebooks to libraries, although they have stated that there will be a rise in the price. This is possibly the first time that a price increase has been treated as good news, but we live in interesting times.

Update 3/3/12: That price rise turned out to be 300%. Not so good. In fact, very bad. Very, very bad. See Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud for more details)

Random House is a not just Random House, but also Knopf Doubleday, Delacorte, Bantam, and Crown.

Because Random House has stuck with libraries, these are titles that we have been able to offer:

 

 

 

 

 

6. Simon and Schuster is the last of the “Big 6”. They have remained a steadfast naysayer when it comes to libraries.

This is unfortunate. Not only is the Simon and Schuster imprint big, but Scribner is one of their major imprints. Atheneum and Aladdin are among their Childrens’ houses, and Pocket is one of the big paperback presses.

These represent some of the current S&S titles that libraries would love to offer, but cannot:

 

 

 

 

 

The notion of the “Big 6” publishers is a somewhat abstract concept, but the books they publish are not. However, these types of designations are subject to change.

Once upon a time business used to refer to the “Big 8” accounting firms. Now it’s the “Big 4”.

There used to be nine planets, then Pluto got demoted. Now there are eight.

In Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the One Ring ruled them all, but nine rings were given to mortal men. Those men were once proud kings, but they tried to seize more power than they were capable of holding.

Those kings ignored the warnings they were given about the danger represented by the rings.

Just like the publishers are ignoring the statistics that “50% of all library users report purchasing books by an author they were introduced to in the library”.  Those publishers also cast aside warnings that compare the current state of the publishing industry to the state of Kodak during the rise of digital photography, as well as those that compare how much better new authors can do for themselves than with a “traditional publisher”. Traditional, read “big 6” publishers, are increasingly being cut out of the equation and their purpose in the supply chain is being questioned.

Those kings who picked up the nine rings–no one remembers their names.

 

Why isn’t every book available as an ebook at the library?

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | ebooks

I’m writing this to help librarians explain to patrons why every single ebook available in Amazon is not available at the library.

At my LPOW, I was the person who handled all the downloadable stuff.  I selected all the ebooks, all the downloadable audio, I looked for new sources, I monitored trends in the market.  I also answered patrons’ questions about why we didn’t always buy what they wanted.  I did that a lot.  Not because I didn’t want to buy what they asked for, but because what they asked for wasn’t available.

Background stuff here.  My LPOW is a medium-sized public library in Florida and reasonably well funded.  They have also developed a very nicely responsible kind of human-powered Patron Directed Acquisitions.  I received 20-60 requests per week for ebooks and downloadable audio.  Every selector received that many requests for whatever they selected, I just said “no” more than anyone else.  Not because I wanted to, not because the library couldn’t afford to purchase what was requested, but because the material wasn’t available in the library marketplace for various weird reasons that were harder and harder to explain to colleagues, let alone patrons.

The Harper Collins issue has had one good side effect.  It has raised consciousness among librarians about the fact that two of the big six publishers, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster, are not available in the library lending space at all as far as ebooks are concerned.  On the April 1 online NYT best seller list for Fiction, two of the top 15 are from St. Martin’s, a Macmillan imprint, and not available to libraries.  The non-fiction list has two titles from S&S, likewise not available to libraries.

However, as loud as the outcry has been about Harper Collins sudden change regarding libraries, at least they are still talking to us.  Macmillan and S&S are not at the table.  How many libraries would jump at the chance to make the bestsellers and backlist from those publishers available at the same deal that is condemned from Harper?

The issues with making ebooks available are much more complicated than a simple yes or no based on publisher, HC notwithstanding.  Some “big name” authors from publishers that do operate in the library space do not make their latest works available until after the title is off the hardcover bestseller list.  It’s an observable pattern, one that I saw over two years of purchasing.  James Patterson’s latest two books, Toys and Tick Tock, are not available to libraries.  His earlier books are available.  The same is true for other authors.

The explanation to patrons that even though they can see on Amazon or Barnes and Noble that an ebookis available for them to buy, but the library can’t buy it to lend to them, can be a hard sell.  After all, libraries buy books and lend them to patrons all the time, why shouldn’t it be the same with ebooks?  At least from the patron’s point of view.

This all comes back to the belief that library lending costs publishers in their bottom line.  I’ve seen various statistics, all sliced and diced depending on who is trying to make which argument.  Libraries create readers.  Libraries hand-sell.  Libraries bring audiences to books and authors, especially new and mid-list authors.  Publishers want to talk about the bestsellers, and libraries want to talk about the totality.  This is an apples and oranges argument.

And no one brings up audio.  According to the statistics I’ve seen, libraries are the big market for unabridged audio.  Hasn’t anyone noticed that Harper Collins didn’t reduce the lending limit on their downloadable audio?

There are other issues surrounding the whole process of libraries making ebooks available to patrons.  The process with print books is pretty much worked out.  Libraries are able to order three months or more pre-publication, and users expect that a new book will be in the catalog three months or so before it comes out, and people who want to read it first (or second, or twenty third) place holds on it.  Three months out, it’s usually pretty certain that a print book is actually going to get published and be available.  Not 100%, but reasonably so.

Ebooks don’t work that way.  I couldn’t order three months ahead, even if I knew something was coming out, and I was reasonably certain it would be available.  A few things might be available pre-pub a week, or occasionally a little longer.  But, even though I could be almost certain that a given author’s ebook would be available on the print release date (J.D. Robb or Jonathan Kellerman), I had no way of being 100% certain, or ordering the title and making it available for holds.  There are no automatic order plans for ebooks the way there are for print books, or even for downloadable audio.  I had to wait, and so did the public.  I also had to explain.  And saying I know but I don’t know, or I’m pretty sure but not absolute sure, or I think so but our suppliers won’t tell us until the release date, makes the library look stupid by not getting a new supplier.  Except, of course, there is a paucity of suppliers for popular content in the library market space.

So, it’s not just the usability issues.  The end-user side is getting better, although it still has a way to go.  But the back-end functionality, and the issues surrounding it, and explaining them, to end users and to colleagues, is downright painful.