Many moons ago (er, last fall)... I signed up for the always fun annual R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril (RIP) Challenge. The selected book for the readalong was The Quick by Lauren Owen and since I typically am amazing at signing up for challenges, but horrible in completing them, I surprised myself when I started the book and then COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN. I did succeed in my usual pattern, however, by inadvertently forgetting to post a final review about it, so my apologies to the wonderful Estella Society. I will do much better this year! (I've gotten into a bad habit of not posting as frequently as I used to because of the events in this post; but Thank God, I am all good now.)

I chose to participate in this group read because of one important detail that was included in the intro. "For fans of The Historian and The Night Circus." Yep, I was in. Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian will always be one of my favorite books, and I've read it twice in the past ten years, even hosting a group readalong at On the Ledge Readalongs. The Historian was such a visual experience, incorporating overseas locations and unique meals with an unnamed narrator, that it launched my own interest in researching and posting pictures relevant to the pages our group read together. That was a ride of an adventure that I am always looking to replicate with another story.

Since it's been a few months since I read it, I'm opting to go with the below Goodreads synopsis so I don't miss out on anything, or give away too much.

London, 1892: James Norbury, a shy would-be poet newly down from Oxford, finds lodging with a charming young aristocrat. Through this new friendship, he is introduced to the drawing-rooms of high society, and finds love in an unexpected quarter. Then, suddenly, he vanishes without a trace. Unnerved, his sister, Charlotte, sets out from their crumbling country estate determined to find him. In the sinister, labyrinthine city that greets her, she uncovers a secret world at the margins populated by unforgettable characters: a female rope walker turned vigilante, a street urchin with a deadly secret, and the chilling “Doctor Knife.” But the answer to her brother’s disappearance ultimately lies within the doors of one of the country’s preeminent and mysterious institutions: The Aegolius Club, whose members include the most ambitious, and most dangerous, men in England.

While The Quick was much more action-packed than The Historian, the setting and the atmosphere, was equally intense, creating an eerie and contemplative feel that I so appreciate in Victorian/Gothic tales. I loved it. The characters and overall quest fit snugly into the category of Victorian horror and Owen's debut creatively demonstrates the challenge of combining present events with the epistolary genre of letters and diary entries into a distinctly peculiar and thoughtful story of unexpected love, loyalty, and of course, vampires. This was an absolutely fantastic story. The key to it are the characters, who fit a range of the unexpected and curiously hopeful, banded together for the ultimate goal. This is a wonderful story filled with secrets and turns, and one that is perfect for you to put on the list of creepy tales to keep close on cold winter nights. I'm eagerly awaiting the next work from Lauren Owen.

Just as a side note: The Quick was also ranked as one of the best books of the year by Slate.

Here's the original button that The Estella Society created. My apologies to them again that I didn't participate like I intended! But, I did read the book, loved it and will try much harder for the next RIP Challenge!

About the Author (from Goodreads)

Lauren Owen studied English Literature at St. Hilda's College, Oxford, before completing an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, where she received the 2009 Curtis Brown prize for the best fiction dissertation. The Quick is her first novel. She lives in Durham, England.

Visit the author:

• On Twitter
• On Goodreads
• On Penguin UK's author page

Quite a recap to put together on this subject!  And many a shout out and picture to share...please enjoy...

Few books draw me in as The Historian did, by Elizabeth Kostova.  Without a doubt, it is on my list of favorite books.

I hosted The Historian readalong on my other site On the Ledge Readalongs with my FABULOUS co-host Tedious & Brief.  How did the site start?  Read it by clicking here, or click the tab at the top of this page.

Bloggers who commented were (check out their sites!)
Peppermint, Ph.D,
Age 30+...A Lifetime of Books
Buttery Books
Desktop Retreat
Beachreader
Tell Me a Story
Geranium Cat's Bookshelf
Under the Boardwalk
Care's Online Book Club
Polishing Mud Balls
A Library of My Own
A Reader's Respite


This is my second reading of The Historian, and I definitely know it will not be my last. Written in a mostly epistolary format of letters, its pace is very Victorian-esque -- slow-paced at times, and then speeds up with incredible intrigue and page-turning anxiety.

The narrator, whose name we never learn, is a young sixteen-year-old girl in 1972, living in Amsterdam with only her father.  Her mother is gone from their lives, and her father, Paul, travels on business frequently.  Late one night, the narrator uncovers a book of incredible interest -- the pages are blank yet for a woodcut image of a dragon.  When her father returns, he is resigned and saddened by her discovery, and there begins the unfolding of an adventure to uncover the location of Dracula, Vlad Tepes of Wallachian history, the Impaler.

_________________________________________________________________________________________ But this book is about so much more than Dracula.  In this story, vampires are not sexy young people that are dreamy and moral.  Dracula and his minions are truly evil. _________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Few things also creep me out as the sight of a drawing of thousands of people that Vlad impaled.  The images that swirled in my mind as I read this book were eerie, freaky, horrifying.  Elizabeth Kostova weaves an incredibly layered story of fear, horror, and most of all, history.  What follows is a journey to so many places within Europe, and discussions about food, local customs, and cultures.  Not to mention, more than likely you may feel a sudden urge to immediately schedule a trip overseas.

At On the Ledge Readalongs, we had quite a fabulous group of followers -- twenty-four brilliant bloggers joined the fray, reading and posting responses to questions when they could.  Since it's a fairly large book of almost 700 pages, each week was broken into 100 pages and subsequent questions and discussion occurred.  Now, I'm no professional readalong coach, and people either love or hate a readalong, but oh man, for me, it was fun to read about all of the different pieces that were brought up in the book, like the amulet to ward off the Evil Eye, the food from different cultures (check out the post by clicking here), and the places that the characters visited!

The site thus evolved into each post listing a few questions, and then moving into a passage from the book that was incredibly descriptive in the location that the characters were traveling to, or a particular saint that was mentioned, or a meal that sounded so amazing that it was bound to make the reader drool -- so pictures were added to each post to help diversify the experience even more so and bring in our other senses along this reading experience.  The monasteries and amazing locations that the characters visited were even more incredible to learn that the actual places were even more jaw-dropping.  Check out the pictures by clicking here.  Below are some of my favorites, and I added the passages from the book so that you could see the stunning visual descriptions and how they correspond to the actual places.

__________________________________________________________________________________

"Some communications between us needed no interpreter, anyway.  After another glorious ride along the river, we crossed what I later learned was Széchenyi Lánchid, the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, a miracle of nineteenth-century engineering named for one of Budapest's great beautifiers, Count István Széchenyi.  As we turned onto the bridge, the full evening light, reflected off the Danube, flooded the whole scene, so that the exquisite mass of the castle and churches in Buda, where we were headed, was thrown into gold-and-brown relief.  The bridge itself was an elegant monolith, guarded at each end by lions, couchants, and supporting two huge triumphant arches."  (Chapter 39)

Széchenyi Chain Bridge

Guarding Lions at Széchenyi Chain Bridge

Topkapi Palace, Turkey 

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey

Interior of Saint Irine

"If my first glimpse of Stoichev's house had filled me with sudden hopelessness, my first glimpse of Rila Monastery filled me with awe.  The monastery sat in a dramatically deep valley -- almost filling it, at that point -- and above its walls and domes rose the Rila Mountains, which are very steep and forested with tall spruces."  (Ch. 61)

Rila Monastery, Bulgaria

"The great wooden doors of the gate were open, and we went through them into a sight I can never forget.  Around us loomed the striped walls of the monastery fortress, with their alternating patterns of black and red on white plaster, hung with long wooden galleries.  Filling a third of the enormous courtyard was a church of exquisite proportions, its porch heavily frescoed, its pale green domes alight in the midday sun.  Beside it stood a muscular, square tower of gray stone, visibly older than everything else in sight.  Stoichev told us that this was Hrelyo's Tower, built by a medieval nobleman as a haven from his political enemies.  It was the only remaining part of the earliest monastery on the site, which had been burned by the Turks and rebuilt centuries later in this striped splendor." (Ch. 61)

Rila Monastery Courtyard

I want to thank everyone who joined and participated ESPECIALLY Tedious & Brief!  If you haven't had a chance to visit his site, please do!!

Most of all, many had their first experience with this book -- and I encourage anyone who hasn't tried it to pick it up, and for those who tried and didn't like it -- give it another chance!  It might be even better by checking out the On the Ledge Readalongs site to help round out the experience!

And for those interested in another readalong -- hang tight, there might be another one around the corner...

Happy Reading!
Coffee and a Book Chick

Five years ago, I was traveling on a long trip to Washington, DC for business.  I got there in early October and I had a room at a hotel that soon became my apartment for three months.  The weather was getting colder in the area, and I was starting to feel that crisp sense of creepiness that comes about with shorter days and colder nights.

I hadn't had a chance to read a thing -- I was working so many hours that by the time I walked out of the office building to head back to the hotel on the second week there, I knew that I had to get something to read, or I would go crazy with another night spent watching boring television or poring over reports and paperwork.  I headed to the local bookstore and milled around, feeling that sense of being alive that all of us bookworms share.  The coffee roasting, the people eyeing the recommended books...ahhh.

And that's when I saw it.  The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, sitting on the shelves and beckoning me.  I picked it up, reading the book flap and instantly went to purchase without looking at another book.  I hurried back to the hotel, the night closing in on me, and I opened the book at my hotel desk, a cup of coffee to warm my chilled hands.  Within minutes, I was swept up and fearfully looked over my shoulder at every sound.  I had fallen in love.

Five years later, I was excited to connect with Tedious & Brief to co-host a read along.  This would be his first time reading The Historian, and it was on my shelf to re-read this year as well. And thus, On the Ledge Read Alongs was born...

The button is on my sidebar and we're hoping that anyone and everyone who wants to read (or re-read) The Historian will find some time to read about 100 pages each week starting September 20th for 6 weeks, ending on Sunday, October 31st for Halloween.  It should add well with any other creepy Halloween-esque challenge that you are participating in.  The schedule and overall vision is described on the welcome post.  All you need to do is jump onto the page, click on the "Follow" button to follow along, and pick up the book in time to start chatting by Sept. 20th.

So stop on over to On the Ledge Read Alongs...think about joining and reading 100 pages a week (or however many that you can) and participating in an ongoing weekly fireside chat to review all things spooky and debate the question on Dracula...is he myth?  Or is he...something more?

I hope you join!  We look forward to all of you jumping on board!

Join Me and Tedious & Brief!  It will be so much fun!

Coffee and a Book Chick