Review: All That I Am by Anna Funder

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Slow paced and political, this literary novel about German playwright Ernst Toller and German journalist Hans Wesemann during the lead up to WWII, won't appeal to everyone. It's half told from Toller's point of view, during his exile from Germany in New York during the 1930s, where he dictates his story and reminisces about the love of his life, activist Dora Fabian. The other half is told from the point of view of a pseudo-fictional character, the wife of Hans Wesemann and also the beloved cousin of Dora, Ruth. The story jumps around a lot (and doesn't always make clear from the start where in the timeline it's jumped to), from Ruth's old age in Australia of 2002, to her memories of the 1920s and 30s; and from Toller's exile in the 1930s to his own time in Germany in the 1920s. The four start out as friends, so their stories are entwined.

As it's told mostly in present tense, I struggled to get into it at first, but soon realized there was a logic and consistency to the choice of tense. Ruth's memories are told in past tense, while her present thoughts are naturally told in present tense. Toller's characters were a little more confusing since they are entirely told in present tense regardless of the time period. The story addresses this when his transcriber asks him why he dictates about the past in present tense and he explains his reasons, which I won't mention because I don't want to reveal to much.

Because of the way it was written and the way it jumps around in the timeline, it could be difficult to follow at times. On the up side, there were some really great moments. It's mostly about the relationships between these four characters (which are fabricated relationships but that doesn't cheapen the story), how they individually deal with the loss of their home land to the Nazi party, and how they secretly fight back with espionage-like methods to publicize the truth to the world.

It was a great story but sometimes the way it's told let it down a little bit. I wanted to love it more than I did but I was still glad I read it.

History Books Upcoming Releases

Our Man in Charleston: Britain's Secret Agent in the Civil War South by Christopher Dickey

Release Date: July 21, 2015

As tension in the United States over slavery and western expansion threatened to break into civil war, the Southern states found themselves squeezed between two nearly irreconcilable realities: The survival of the Confederate economy would require the importation of more slaves, a practice banned in America since 1807. But the existence of the Confederacy itself could not be secured without official recognition from Great Britain, who would never countenance reopening the Atlantic slave trade. How, then, could the first be achieved without dooming the possibility of the second? The South believed Britain would never risk losing the massive flow of cotton that fed British mills, and hoped this economic leverage would give it the bargaining chip it desperately sought.

The unlikely man at the roiling center of this intrigue was Robert Bunch, an American-born Englishman who had maneuvered his way to the position of British consul in Charleston, South Carolina, and grew in time to loathe slavery and the righteousness of its practioners. He used his unique perch and boundless ambition to become a key player, sending reams of dispatches to the home government and eventually becoming the Crown's best secret source about the motivations and plans of the confederacy. Doing so required living a double-life. To his Charleston neighbors Bunch was increasingly a pillar of Southern society, attending their galas and social events in presumptive agreement with their pro-slavery leanings. To the British government at Whitehall, though, he was a strident abolitionist, eviscerating Southern dissembling about plans regarding the slave trade.

In this masterfully told story of a unknown crusader, Christopher Dickey locates Consul Bunch as the key figure among Englishmen in America, determined to ensure the triumph of morality in the inevitable march to civil war. Featuring a cast of remarkable characters including the adventurer Richard Burton; legendary journalist William Howard Russell; and soldier of fortune Hugh Forbes, The Charleston Consul captures a decisive moment in Anglo-American history: the pitched battle between those who wished to reopen the floodgates of bondage and misery, and those who wished to dam the tide forever.

Satan and Salem: The Witch-Hunt Crisis of 1692 by Benjamin C. Ray

Release Date: April 17, 2015

The result of a perfect storm of factors that culminated in a great moral catastrophe, the Salem witch trials of 1692 took a breathtaking toll on the young English colony of Massachusetts. Over 150 people were imprisoned, and nineteen men and women, including a minister, were executed by hanging. The colonial government, which was responsible for initiating the trials, eventually repudiated the entire affair as a great "delusion of the Devil."

In Satan and Salem, Benjamin Ray looks beyond single-factor interpretations to offer a far more nuanced view of why the Salem witch-hunt spiraled out of control. Rather than assigning blame to a single perpetrator, Ray assembles portraits of several major characters, each of whom had complex motives for accusing his or her neighbors. In this way, he reveals how religious, social, political, and legal factors all played a role in the drama. Ray’s historical database of court records, documents, and maps yields a unique analysis of the geographic spread of accusations and trials, ultimately showing how the witch-hunt resulted in the execution of so many people—far more than any comparable episode on this side of the Atlantic.

Murder by Candlelight: The Gruesome Slayings Behind Our Romance with the Macabre by Michael Knox Beran

Release Date: August 8, 2015

Arguing that it is “less the quality of the crimes than the attitude of the age which determines the gruesomeness of its murders,” Michael Beran brings to life the ghastly ambiance of a vanished epoch, and gives us a terrifying glimpse of the horror beneath the seeming civility of the Victorian era.

In the early nineteenth century, a series of murders took place in and around London which shocked the whole of England. The appalling nature of the crimes—a brutal slaying in the gambling netherworld, the slaughter of two entire households, and the first of the modern lust-murders—was magnified not only by the lurid atmosphere of an age in which candlelight gave way to gaslight, but also by the efforts of some of the keenest minds of the period to uncover the gruesomest details of the killings.

These slayings all took place against the backdrop of a London in which the splendor of the fashionable world was haunted by the squalor of the slums. Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Thomas De Quincey, Thomas Carlyle, and Percy Bysshe Shelley and others were fascinated by the blood and deviltry of these crimes.

In their contemplations of the most notorious murders of their time, they discerned in the act of killing itself a depth of hideousness that we have lost sight of, now living in an age in which murder has been reduced to a problem of social science and skillful detective work. Interweaving these cultural vignettes alongside criminal history, acclaimed author Michael Beran paints a vivid picture of a time when homicide was thought of as the intrusion of the diabolic into ordinary life.

Elizabeth I and Her Circle Hardcover by Susan Doran

Release Date: April 26, 2015

This is the story of Elizabeth I's inner circle and the crucial human relationships which lay at the heart of her personal and political life. Using a wide range of original sources - including private letters, portraits, verse, drama, and state papers - Susan Doran provides a vivid and often dramatic account of political life in Elizabethan England and the queen at its center, offering a deeper insight into Elizabeth's emotional and political conduct - and challenging many of the popular myths that have grown up around her.

It is a story replete with fascinating questions. What was the true nature of Elizabeth's relationship with her father, Henry VIII, especially after his execution of her mother? How close was she to her half-brother Edward VI - and were relations with her half-sister Mary really as poisonous as is popularly assumed? And what of her relationship with her Stewart cousins, most famously with Mary Queen of Scots, executed on Elizabeth's orders in 1587, but also with Mary's son James VI of Scotland, later to succeed Elizabeth as her chosen successor?

Elizabeth's relations with her family were crucial, but just as crucial were her relations with her courtiers and her councillors. Here again, the story raises a host of fascinating questions. Was the queen really sexually jealous of her maids of honour? Did physically attractive male favourites dominate her court? What does her long and intimate relationship with the Earl of Leicester reveal about her character, personality, and attitude to marriage? What can the fall of Essex tell us about Elizabeth's political management in the final years of her reign? And what was the true nature of her personal and political relationship with influential and long-serving councillors such as the Cecils and Sir Francis Walsingham? And how did courtiers and councillors deal with their demanding royal mistress?

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Upcoming Releases in Historical Fiction

Balm: A Novel by Dolen Perkins-Valdez 

US Release Date: May 12, 2015

UK Release Date: May 26, 2015

The Civil War has ended, and Madge, Sadie, and Hemp have each come to Chicago in search of a new life.

Born with magical hands, Madge has the power to discern others’ suffering, but she cannot heal her own damaged heart. To mend herself and help those in need, she must return to Tennessee to face the women healers who rejected her as a child.

Sadie can commune with the dead, but until she makes peace with her father, she, too, cannot fully engage her gift.

Searching for his missing family, Hemp arrives in this northern city that shimmers with possibility. But redemption cannot be possible until he is reunited with those taken from him.

In the bitter aftermath of a terrible, bloody war, as a divided nation tries to come together once again, Madge, Sadie, and Hemp will be caught up in a desperate, unexpected battle for survival in a community desperate to lay the pain of the past to rest.

The Last Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl

Release Date: April 28, 2015

On the island of Samoa, a dying Robert Louis Stevenson labors over a new novel. The thought of one last book from the great author fires the imaginations of the bookaneers, and soon two adversaries—the gallant Pen Davenport and the monstrous Belial—set out for the south Pacific island. Pen Davenport—a tortured criminal genius haunted by his past—is reluctantly accompanied by Fergins, the narrator of our story, who has lived a quiet life of bookselling before being whisked across the world on his friend’s final caper. Fergins soon discovers the supreme thrill of aiding Davenport in his quest: to steal Stevenson’s manuscript and make a fortune before the new treaty ends the bookaneers’ trade forever.

Yet Samoa holds many secrets of its own, and the duo’s bookish concerns clash with the island’s violent destiny. A colonial war is afoot between the British, American, and German powers; even as Stevenson himself quietly supports native revolutionaries from high in his mountain compound. Soon Pen and Fergins are embroiled in a conflict larger, perhaps, than literature itself. Illuminating the heroics of the bookaneers even while conjuring Stevenson himself to breathtaking life, Pearl’s The Last Bookaneer is a pageturning journey to the dark heart of a forgotten literary era.

The Fifth Heart by Dan Simmons

Release Date: March 24, 2015

In 1893, Sherlock Holmes and Henry James come to America together to solve the mystery of the 1885 death of Clover Adams, wife of the esteemed historian Henry Adams--member of the Adams family that has given the United States two Presidents. Clover's suicide appears to be more than it at first seemed; the suspected foul play may involve matters of national importance.

Holmes is currently on his Great Hiatus--his three-year absence after Reichenbach Falls during which time the people of London believe him to be deceased. Holmes has faked his own death because, through his powers of ratiocination, the great detective has come to the conclusion that he is a fictional character.

This leads to serious complications for James--for if his esteemed fellow investigator is merely a work of fiction, what does that make him? And what can the master storyteller do to fight against the sinister power -- possibly named Moriarty -- that may or may not be controlling them from the shadows?

The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman

Release Date: August 4, 2015

Growing up on idyllic St. Thomas in the early 1800s, Rachel dreams of life in faraway Paris. Rachel’s mother, a pillar of their small refugee community of Jews who escaped the Inquisition, has never forgiven her daughter for being a difficult girl who refuses to live by the rules. Growing up, Rachel’s salvation is their maid Adelle’s belief in her strengths, and her deep, life-long friendship with Jestine, Adelle’s daughter. But Rachel’s life is not her own. She is married off to a widower with three children to save her father’s business. When her husband dies suddenly and his handsome, much younger nephew, Frédérick, arrives from France to settle the estate, Rachel seizes her own life story, beginning a defiant, passionate love affair that sparks a scandal that affects all of her family, including her favorite son, who will become one of the greatest artists of France.

Building on the triumphs of The Dovekeepers and The Museum of Extraordinary Things, set in a world of almost unimaginable beauty, The Marriage of Opposites showcases the beloved, bestselling Alice Hoffman at the height of her considerable powers. Once forgotten to history, the marriage of Rachel and Frédérick is a story that is as unforgettable as it is remarkable.

Doctor Death: A Madeleine Karno Mystery by Lene Kaaberbol

Release Date: February 17, 2015

Strong-minded and ambitious, Madeleine Karno is eager to shatter the constraints of her provincial French upbringing. She wants to become a pathologist like her father, whose assistant she is, but this is 1894, and autopsies are considered unseemly and ungodly, even when performed by a man—hence his odious nickname, Doctor Death. That a young woman should wish to spend her time dissecting corpses is too scandalous for words.

Thus, when seventeen-year-old Cecile Montaine is found dead in the snowy streets of Varbourg, her family will not permit a full post-mortem autopsy, and Madeleine and her father are left with a single mysterious clue: in the dead girl’s nostrils they find a type of parasite normally seen only in dogs. Soon after, the priest who held vigil by the dead girl’s corpse is brutally murdered. The thread that connects these two events is a tangled one, and as the death toll mounts, Madeleine must seek knowledge in odd places: behind convent walls, in secret diaries, and in the yellow stare of an aging wolf.

The Lady of Misrule by Suzannah Dunn

UK Release Date: May 7, 2015

US Release Date: TBA

Escorting 'nine days queen' Lady Jane Grey across the Tower of London from throne room into imprisonment is Elizabeth Tilney, who surprised even herself by volunteering for the job. All Elizabeth knows is she's keen to be away from home, she could do with some breathing space. And anyway, it won't be for long: everyone knows Jane will go free as soon as the victorious new queen is crowned. Which is a good thing because the two sixteen-year-olds, cooped up together in a room in the Gentleman Gaoler's house, couldn't be less compatible. Protestant Jane is an icily self-composed idealist, and catholic Elizabeth is... well, anything but.

They are united though by their disdain for the seventeen-year-old to whom Jane has recently been married off: petulant, noisily-aggrieved Guildford Dudley, held prisoner in a neighbouring tower and keen to pursue his perogative of a daily walk with his wife.

As Jane's captivity extends into the increasingly turbulent last months of 1553, the two girls learn to live with each other, but Elizabeth finds herself drawn into the difficult relationship between the newlyweds. And when, at the turn of the year, events take an unexpected and dangerous direction, her newfound loyalties are put to the test.