The Murdr of Mr Wickham

 by Claudia Gray

This book is a takeoff on Jane Austen, obviously.  The author has done a great job of writing in a similar style to Austen.  Apparently she is a Jane Austen fan and is shows.  The thinking and behaviour of the characters is very much in the style of Austen herself, with the class awareness, consciousness of social norms and not embarrassing oneself or ruining one's reputation.  Wickham, as portrayed in the book is very self-serving, deceitful and mean.

The story centres around a gathering at the home of the Knigtley's where characters from several of Austen's books have come to spend what they hope will be a pleasant month.  However, soon after the holiday starts Wickham shows up univited, as if gloating at the hatred the gathered people have for him, including the Darcys.  He takes special glee in having ruined or potentially financially ruined several of the families present who invested in a money making scheme of his which has been a disaster.  It seems Wickham has received money and many people still owe him money.

The Darcy's son Jonathan is one of the guests.  He seems to be a bit of a social misfit, perhaps a bit autistic.  She doesn't like social situatioins because he never knows what is expected of him.  There is a young lady in attendance also.  The two strike up a friendship.  The girl doesn't seem to mind all his quirks.

The weather is terrible, rain and storms so everyone is stuck inside for days.  Wickham's presence casts a pall over everyone.  One night he is found murdered.  As the book proceeds we find that most of the people in the house have reason to want him dead.  As the local offical tries to determine who killed Wickham, the two young people do their own investigating by listening and watching people.  They have to be careful to not be caught alone together as that would be scandalous.  Eventually they point out the actual murder weapon to the official and one of the guests admits that she killed Wickham because he made unwelcome advances to her. 

The magistrate decides that her actions were justified and it appears there will be no legal consequences for her.

It was an entertaining book and I was very impressed with how the author "channeled" Austin. 

Mansions of the Moon

 by Shyam Selvadurai

"the best people's souls- those Brhamins practising austerities and sacrifices in the forests - pass from the fires of cremation  into the air, rising to the moon where they dwell for six months in its mansions.  Then their Atmans continue upwards into the world of the gods and from theire into the Land of the Fathers.  Yet their journey does not end there dhara.  Soon a person who consites entirely of mind comes to lead them to the world of Braham, where they live in eternal bliss" pg 116.

This book is the fictional story of the life of Siddhartha, who became the Buddha, as told through his wife, Yasodhara.  I didn't really know anything about him other than that he was wealthy and left all this behind.

The story tells how Siddhartha, who is a disappointment to his father (uncle?), a raj, because he is not a good fighter and athlete.  Siddhartha goes away and gets acclaim as an administrator but when he comes back his father still doesn't like him and embarrasses him alot.  There are a couple other relatives who work with his father and seem to run things.  Siddhartha decides to marry a young girl he knew from childhood.  She is happy to marry him but shocked when instead of him getting a good job from his father he is sent to a distant outpost where they have no servants and must clean their own house and clothes, cook their own meals and even grow their own food.  His wife is at first distressed but finds she likes the manual labour and the joy that comes with growing things.  The people like Siddhartha because he is fair.  However Siddhartha does not like having to make judgements on people and he is attracted to teaching of ascetic monks.  He is visited by a former Raj, who gave everything up to become a monk, wandering the country.  Siddhartha is impressed by the man and his ideas and the fact he left everything behind.

A drought affects the countryside where Siddhartha and his wife live.  When the tax collectors come to collect taxes Siddhartha says they will give nothing because if they do the people will starve.  Shortly after his wife's brother comes and tells Siddhartha that because of his behaviour  he is being replaced.  The woman's brother is quite violent and has created alliances with some other local "tribes" because of the woman he has "married".

Siddhartha and his wife return to the family home in shame.  Siddhartha is appointed as a judge and seems to be doing a good job but he starts to go to visit some monks camped out outside the city.  His  wife announces she is pregnant thinking this will cause him to realize his responsibilities but shortly after the child is born he leaves his wife telling his wife that he has to follow his calling.  She is devastated.

Ten years after Siddhartha left rumours come that he is in the neighbourhood.  He has bome very famous for his teachings. His wife tells her son not to expect a visit from his father because his father has abandoned them.  Siddhartha does come to visit when he finds out his father is dying.  He meets his son and sees his wife again. When the Raj dies all the people in his household will have to leave their house.  The woman are worried about what will happen to them.  Siddhartha's wife asks him to intercede with the new Raj on behalf of his family of women.  He says he cannot do this as he would have.  She is further devastated when she finds her son has run off to join Siddhartha as have two cousins she was close to.

His wife decides that women do have the stamina to become wandering monks begging for a living.  She convinces many of the women to shave their heads, dress in white gowns and start to walk for 15 days to catch up with Siddhartha.  It is physically difficult but they are helped along the way.  When they catch up with Siddhartha the monks vote against women joining the order.  But the women persist and finally they are allowed to become monks with several restrictions on their behaviour basically making them subservient to the male monks.  The woman accept these rules knowing they will have little contact with the men.

Having read  up on the wife, Yasodhara, I learned that she lived to 78 years of age and Buddha died two years later.  Very long lives for those times.

Obviously very little is known about the real lives and interactions of Buddha and his wife, etc.  The author is a man.  He did a great job of presenting a story about what it might have been like, how difficult life was for women, so dependent on their males for their care and support.

Ayesha At Last

 by Uzma Jalaluddin

This is the second book I have read by this author.  I enjoyed it more than the first one.  It had more "meat".  The book is a bit of a homage to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

The story is about Muslim families living in the Toronto area.  The main character Ayesha is a modest devote Muslim who is struggling to get established as a teacher.  She has a cousin who is the popular one and a party animal, Hafsa.

Hafsa's goal in life is to get married.  Ayesha is in her late 20's but isn't too anxious to get married and her mother and grandparents, who live with her, are okay with her not wanting an arranged marriage.

The second story is about a very conservative, devote Muslim, Khalid.  Khalid has very set ideas about how a Muslim should behave and what a wife should be like.  He is getting grief from his new supervisor who has a hate on for Muslims based on her experience working in Saudi Arabia.  She doesn't like that Khalid won't shake hands and wears traditional Muslim attire and has a big bushy beard.  The supervisor is out to get him fired and finally decides to give him the job of setting up a website for an oversize women's lingerie business.  She figures this project will sink him.  She thinks this job will be for a tiny startup so it won't matter if the company loses the account.  She doesn't find out til later that the company makes multi-million dollars in sales per year.  Khalid is upset at this perceived demotion as he is an e-commerce consultant but he does what he is told.  The women from the lingerie company are supportive of Khalid because they see what his boss is doint to him.He is willing to have is Mother arrange a marriage for him.

The local Mosque is organizing an event for young Muslims.  Khalid, Ayesha and her cousin are recruited to help plan the event.  Hafsa wants to start an event planning business but also wants to meet a boy so she convinces Ayesha to say she is Hafsa.  Why Ayesha agrees to this I don't know.  Khalid and Ayesha spar alot because of their different views of Muslim acceptable behaviour but they are also attracted to each other.  Khalid's mother finds out about the attraction and hastily arranges an engagement between Khalid and Ayesha's cousin.  When Khalid hear's his future wife's name he is happy because he thinks it is Ayesha bu of course it is his cousin.

The mistaken identities is a plot taken from Shakespeare.  The angry mother who warns off a woman and the scene where Khalid tells Ayesha how much he loves her despite all her faults is straight out of Pride and Prejudice.

In the end Khalid says no to his mother and wants to marry Ayesha.  He is fired from his job, but a co-worker has evidence that will sink the boss.  He is okay with being fired because he has been hired by the women's lingerie company.

It was a light romance but I enjoyed how she developed the plot with references to Shakespeare and Jane Austen.

All the Queen's Men

 by SJ Bennett

I read the previous book by this author, The Windsor Knot, and found it quite entertaining.  Like the Windsor Knot this book involves Queen Elizabeth II discreetly employing some sleuthing techniques to find out if the death of a staff member was murder or an accident, how a painting she was fond of ended up in a Maritime Museum and who is sending poison pen notes to various employees of the Queen.

The book features the Queen and her Personal Assistant Rozie plus a number of additional characters.  As the book moves on we find that the woman who was murdered was a cleaner who was disliked by almost everyone.  On further investigation it is determined that she was acutally hired as an art restorer, curator, but got demoted.  The dead woman had unearthed some valuable works by a woman artist.  Later the paintings were determined to be copies.  It appears the originals were stolen and replaced with copies.  The investigation also turns up additional corruption with items owned or given to the Queen being sold off.

The book was a bit plodding, I didn't find it as engaging as the first one.