Tuesday, October 7, 2014

* Get Free Ebook Troubling a Star: The Austin Family Chronicles, Book 5, by Madeleine L'Engle

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Troubling a Star: The Austin Family Chronicles, Book 5, by Madeleine L'Engle

The Austins have settled back into their beloved home in the country after more than a year away. Though they had all missed the predictability and security of life in Thornhill, Vicky Austin is discovering that slipping back into her old life isn't easy. She's been changed by life in New York City and her travels around the country while her old friends seem to have stayed the same. So Vicky finds herself spending time with a new friend, Serena Eddington―the great-aunt of a boy Vicky met over the summer.
Aunt Serena gives Vicky an incredible birthday gift―a month-long trip to Antarctica. It's the opportunity of a lifetime. But Vicky is nervous. She's never been away from her family before. Once she sets off though, she finds that's the least of her worries. She receives threatening letters. She's surrounded by suspicious characters. Vicky no longer knows who to trust. And she may not make it home alive.

  • Sales Rank: #372719 in Books
  • Brand: Square Fish
  • Published on: 2008-09-02
  • Released on: 2008-09-02
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Dimensions: 7.59" h x .89" w x 5.22" l, .60 pounds
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 336 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Vicky Austin, the poetry-writing heroine of four of the Newbery Medalist's previous novels, finds herself caught in a web of political intrigue in this exotic, multilayered thriller. The high school junior is overjoyed when given the opportunity to travel to Antarctica to visit good friend Adam Eddington (introduced in A Ring of Endless Light ), a college student majoring in marine biology. Her enthusiasm wanes only slightly after she receives mysterious notes warning her to stay home. When she embarks on her journey, danger indeed seems to lurk around every corner--in one tense scene atop a pyramid, she is nearly pushed to her death. Her traveling companions, a colorful lot, include Otto, prince of Zlatovica; Esteban, a tour guide; and various eccentrics; as the voyage continues, their odd behavior intensifies Vicky's suspicions. Interspersed with flash-forwards of Vicky stranded on an iceberg, the intricate story line mounts in suspense. L'Engle, writing for a sophisticated audience, contrasts the purity of a frozen paradise with the burning greed of humans, and her stunning descriptions of the Antarctic waters and their inhabitants transmit a strong ecological message. Good overcomes evil in the end, but enough loose threads remain to suggest further adventures for the intrepid Vicky and Adam. Ages 12-up. 50,000 first printing.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Grade 6 Up-In this fourth book about the Austin family, Vicky is almost 16. Adam Eddington, her budding love interest in A Ring of Endless Light (Dell, 1981), is headed for a marine-biology internship in Antarctica. His wealthy great-aunt is so taken with Vicky that she gives the young woman a trip there for her birthday. However, politics and international wheeling and dealing quickly turn the opportunity of a lifetime into a fight for survival as Vicky becomes a pawn in the struggles that surround her. Readers know that trouble is in store from the onset, as each chapter begins with an italicized paragraph of her terrified musings while she waits to be rescued from the iceberg upon which she is stranded. Most of the intrigue is centered on the tiny South American country of Vespugia, which will be familiar to readers of A Swiftly Tilting Planet (Farrar, 1978). There is no fantasy here, though-only human foibles such as greed and waste as the environmentalists who want to protect this continent and the various interest groups, who prefer to use it for personal gain, squabble. The narrative is interspersed with the poetry Vicky often uses to express her feelings, and with lively descriptions of the wildlife and habitats of Antarctica. The mystery itself is fairly transparent, even predictable. Those YAs who are accustomed to more contemporary realism in their novels may find the Austins, with their wholesome, intellectual lifestyle and their thoughtful, well-connected friends, as close to fantasy as one can get while remaining on Earth. Hopefully, though, they'll be able to suspend their disbelief long enough to enjoy Vicky's adventure.
Susan L. Rogers, Chestnut Hill Academy, PA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Gr. 7-10. L'Engle's new novel, which returns to the Austin family, is both sweetly old-fashioned and contemporary. Vicki Austin is a remarkably calm 16-year-old whose life revolves largely around her family and around Serena, a wealthy, elderly neighbor who is the great-aunt of a college boy whom Vicki has a crush on. Things change, however, when Vicki's shipped off to Antarctica, via a troubled South American republic, and encounters a Baltic prince looking for love (and hard currency) and a puzzle involving nuclear waste and Antarctic development. L'Engle doesn't convincingly account for Vicki being so different from other teenagers, but she's a master at conveying a sense that something unusual is going on. Her story doesn't actually contain angels, but it's full of references to the spiritual level of existence. It also contains some New Age singing to the seals and a little old-fashioned worry about romance. Not one of L'Engle's best, but certainly a book that will find readers. Mary Harris Veeder

Most helpful customer reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Wow
By A Customer
I'd always been a huge fan of the Wrinkle in Time series, but I was always bored with the books about the Austins until I read Troubling a Star. The Vespugia stuff always goes over my head, but besides that it's a fabulous book with great characters and tons of suspense. When I first read this book in seventh grade I became obsessed with going to Antarctica. This January, three years later, I actually went there, and it was one of the most incredible experiences of my life, and I know I'm going to go back someday because it was so, so wonderful. One of the first things I did when I got hom was to search through my bookshelves and read Troubling a Star again- after all it had largely been what had inspired my trip in the first place, although I had only read it that one time three years ago. As I read it again (and all in one night) it was far more meaningful than before. I'll stop rambling now, but please please read this book because it's just awesome.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
I will forever love this book
By dreaminginsomniacs
I will forever love this book!

It is young adult fiction, and therefore should be read as such. It's not today's dystopian post-apocalyptic, but instead the strugglings of a teenager walking through high school. L'Engle created a family that loves each other, even while they argue and siblings quibble and experience (albeit fictional) life. L'Engle was a genius in my opinion.

I highly suggest the whole series following the Austin family (as well as L'Engle's "Wrinkle in Time" series)!

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Fascinating tale of a young girl and mysteries of Antarctica
By A Customer
Troubling A Star The book Troubling A Star is a story written by Madeleine L'Engle, the same author who wrote A Wrinkle in Time. This book is about a young girl named Vicky Austin. Her life changes drastically when she is given a trip to Antarctica. She is really excited about not only taking this trip, but also about seeing her boyfriend who will be working at a station there. While she is on her way to Antarctica on the cruise ship "Argosy", Vicky stumbles upon something really big concerning Vespugia, a small country in South America, and some serious threats on her life. Slowly, Vicky realizes that not everyone on the "Argosy" is just there for a vacation. She makes choices about whom she can trust. Something big is going down on the "Argosy," and Vicky is the only one who knows. The mystery becomes more and more dangerous until it becomes a threat to her health... This book is both captivating and factual. I really enjoyed this book mainly because of the surrounding area in Antarctica. L'Engle describes Antarctica, as well as the other many stops along the way, so well that I felt as if I were part of the story itself. For example, when Vicky is left on an iceberg, L'Engle writes as a diary and describes every little detail she sees all the way down to the clothes she is wearing. The only real problem with this book is that it is written for certain people. Readers with a small background on the political aspects concerning Antarctica should enjoy this book. As well as those who enjoy mysteries. The language isn't a serious problem. Also, the believability of the characters is very good. Each one of the main characters has totally different opinions and attitudes; it shows the writers creativity and gives the reader a sense of each character's personality. By the end of the book, the reader will feel as if he /she knows everyone in it. There were two main messages in this book. The first one is the problem concerning the vast area of Antarctica. Since we still know little about it, many feel it should be left alone. But each country that owns a small section of it wants to use it for dumping of nuclear weapons or experiments. These contradictions cause many problems and debates between the competing countries. The other main concept is the danger of being in a strange place without trustworthy friends. This can be a very scary experience, as well as a dangerous one. This book is just one plausible story from that situation. This shouldn't happen if it could be avoided. This book is a great book for ages ten to fifteen. It captivates enough, and is also quite educational and interesting. Adults could also enjoy this book, but, it is aimed more towards teenagers. I truly enjoyed this book and I would recommend it to anyone who is fascinated with other lands and loves adventure.

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Sunday, October 5, 2014

~ Ebook Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King, by Lisa Rogak

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Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King, by Lisa Rogak

A fascinating look at the life of the author who created such modern classics as Carrie, IT, and The Shining.
One of the most prolific and popular authors in the world today, Stephen King has become part of pop culture history. But who is the man behind those tales of horror, grief, and the supernatural? Where do these ideas come from? And what drives him to keep writing at a breakneck pace after a thirty year career? In this unauthorized biography, Lisa Rogak reveals the troubled background and lifelong fears that inspire one of the twentieth century's most influential authors.
            King’s origins were inauspicious at best. His impoverished childhood in rural Maine and early marriage hardly spelled out the likelihood of a blossoming literary career. But his unflagging work ethic and a ceaseless flow of ideas put him on the path to success. It came in a flash, and the side effects of sudden stardom and seemingly unlimited wealth soon threatened to destroy his work and, worse, his life. But he survived and has since continued to write at a level of originality few authors could ever hope to match.
            Despite his dark and disturbing work, Stephen King has become revered by critics and his countless fans as an all-American voice more akin to Mark Twain than H. P. Lovecraft. Haunted Heart chronicles his story, revealing the character of a man who has created some of the most memorable---and frightening---stories found in literature today.

Stephen King on Stephen King:

“I’m afraid of everything.”

“As a kid, I worried about my sanity a lot."

“I am always interested in this idea that a lot of fiction writers write for their fathers because their fathers are gone.”

“Writing is an addiction for me.”

“I married her for her body, though she said I married her for her typewriter.”

“When you get into this business, they don’t tell you you’ll get cat bones in the mail.”

 “You have to be a little nuts to be a writer.”

“There’s always the urge to see somebody dead that isn’t you.”

  • Sales Rank: #1188788 in Books
  • Published on: 2009-01-06
  • Released on: 2009-01-06
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Dimensions: 9.60" h x 1.19" w x 6.38" l, 1.20 pounds
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • 320 pages
Features
  • biography

From Publishers Weekly
Though critical studies of his vast oeuvre abound, King—the bestselling author of the 20th century—has not been the subject of a book-length biography until this strictly serviceable study. Rogak (The Man Behind The Da Vinci Code) doesn't probe her subject or his work too deeply. Rather, she strings together the best-known facts of his life with workmanlike efficiency: his family's early abandonment by his father; the author's triumph over an impoverished childhood; his perseverance and prolificacy as a writer; his determination, despite his comfort with genre fiction, to be regarded as more than a horror writer; his struggles with alcohol and drugs; his generosity toward other writers; the accident that nearly killed him in 1999. Rogak structures her text primarily around the chronology of King's scores of books and their film adaptations. Though she interviewed some of King's friends and colleagues, much of the book is derived from secondary sources. Her text is repetitive and cliché-ridden, but the facts she marshals will serve King fans not familiar with his life. 8 pages of b&w photos. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
Praise for A Boy Named Shel:

"Consulting many sources, among them Silverstein's friends; radio interviews; and newspaper, journal, and magazine articles, Rogak thoughtfully reconstructs the artist's life. ... An authoritative and accessible biography, absorbing from cover to cover."--Library Journal
"[A BOY NAMED SHEL] offers revealing anecdotes, complete with some dirty laundry, about the prolific children’s author and cartoonist."--Kirkus Reviews

"The strength of this biography is in leading readers back to Silverstein’s art, which is, after all, where he would have us find him."--School Library Journal

"Fascinating...A BOY NAMED SHEL is a revealing peak into the mind behind both 'Runny Babbit' and 'Freakin' at the Freakers Ball.'" --Albany Times Union

"A tribute to the unusual life of an extraordinary man."--The Daily Texan

"Lisa Rogak dives wholeheartedly into presenting the full story of media-shy Silverstein. She covers every step in his creative career, following his journey across media. Silverstein proved himself as a songwriter, a cartoonist, an author, a poet, a playwright and a screenwriter, and Rogak doesn’t miss a beat."--The Daily Californian

"Faithfully following Silverstein on his wandering and tracing his deft compartmentalizing, Rogak lifts the curtain, respectfully, on this cultural icon." --GO (AirTran Airways Inflight Magazine)

About the Author

Lisa Rogak is the author of more than forty books. She lives in Charleston, South Carolina where she writes and plays piano, upright bass, and accordion in a variety of ensembles. Her most recent biographies are The Man Behind the Da Vinci Code: An Unauthorized Biography of Dan Brown and A Boy Named Shel: The Life and Times of Shel Silverstein.

Most helpful customer reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful.
Will the real Stephen King please stand up?
By Sam Sattler
In "Haunted Heart," her unauthorized Stephen King biography, Lisa Rogak presents a straightforward look into the major events of King's life, from his birth into an impoverished family to the multi-millionaire lifestyle he lives today. And despite how heavily the book depends on secondary sources, and all the media attention given to King for more than three decades now, even passionate Stephen King followers should come away from it with a better understanding of the man.

Any potential revelations in the book originate in Rogak's speculation about how King's childhood shaped him into the writer, and the man, he is today, not from the well-known facts about his youth and his career. Stephen King does not remember his father, a man who, as the story goes, went down to the corner one evening for a pack of cigarettes and never returned. King's mother never remarried and it was only by working multiple jobs when they came her way, and with substantial help from her sisters, that she was able to keep Steve and his brother together.

The resulting insecurity King felt as a child convinced him that the world is a dangerous place filled with countless scary things wholly deserving his fear. He admits that he fears most of them and that the only way he can escape those fears, even temporarily, is to write about them - something for which his fans should be grateful.

Rogak describes the depth of King's addiction to drugs and alcohol in great detail. However, the surprising thing is not King's alcoholism or past drug use, neither of which is much of a secret these days. Rather, the surprise is how productive King was during even the worst years of his addictions. To put it into perspective, consider that he has no memory of the exhaustive editing process he went through to finalize Cujo or the fact that he was almost constantly drunk or stoned during the entire time he directed his first motion picture but still managed to finish the project.

"Haunted Heart" does well in its chronological presentation of Stephen King's life, and Lisa Rogak's assessment of what made King into the superstar writer that he is today is an interesting, if not new, theory. Readers looking for the basic Stephen King story will not be disappointed but one has to wonder what King's take would be on all the speculation about what makes him tick. Unfortunately, without King's participation or response we will never know how close to the truth Rogak and others have managed to get.

Stephen King fans will appreciate Rogak's efforts but will, at the same time, wish that King had made himself available to her.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
An interesting and readable book
By Bookreporter
My first introduction to Stephen King was SALEM'S LOT, which I read in the mid-1970s while my husband worked nights and our children were fast asleep. At that time, although I had to wake up at 6:00 to get ready for work, the story kept me up reading all night. It both fascinated and frightened me; I was too fascinated to quit turning the pages and too frightened to close my eyes. Since then, I've been a fan of King's and have read most of his novels as well as his memoir of the craft, ON WRITING.

HAUNTED HEART by Lisa Rogak portrays King's life and times in a conversational tone and voice, yet in a thorough and convincing manner. The book includes facts, anecdotes, interviews, quotes, several photos and a timeline. Some of the information here are already known from news stories, magazine articles or other sources. Much of it, however, is new --- at least to me --- and I suspect to others as well.

What sets this unauthorized biography apart is that Stephen King, the man and writer, is examined in the context of his times: a child raised by a single mother during the 1950s; a college student and protestor during the Vietnam era; a young father, husband and struggling writer working menial jobs in the early 1970s; a prolific and highly paid writer beginning in the mid-1970s; a generous benefactor; a loyal Red Sox fan since his childhood; a rehabilitated abuser of alcohol and drugs; a victim of a near-fatal accident at the turn of the century; a devoted husband for nearly four decades; and a proud father and grandfather.

The chapter titles, which are also the names of some of King's works, give clues as to the narrative that follows. For example, Chapter 1, "Apt Pupil," covers King's early childhood and formative years. His terrifying accident and recovery after being hit by a van are discussed in Chapter 12, "Misery."

HAUNTED HEART contains personal information about King that I have never read before, most notably about his wife, Tabitha, and their three children, Naomi, Joe and Owen. While the anecdotes about the loyalty and love of Tabitha and their devotion to their kids complement the biography, I had hoped it would've included photos of them, as well as his mother Ruth and brother Donald. Nevertheless, I found HAUNTED HEART to be an interesting and a readable book. I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about Stephen King, the incomparable writer who has created some of the most haunting stories that have fascinated and frightened readers for decades.

--- Reviewed by Donna Volkenannt

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
`So who is Stephen King, really?'
By Jennifer Cameron-Smith
In her introduction to this unauthorised biography, Lisa Rogak recounts an anecdote about her trip to Bangor, Maine and a discussion she had with Stephen King's assistant, Marsha DeFillipo about the aim of book she was planning to write.
`For most of that half-hour conversation, the man himself hovered just outside the doorway, listening in on our conversation but never once stepping inside.'

This anecdote could be a summary for the book itself: Stephen King's presence within it is indirect and reflected, rather than direct and central. There's plenty of data here, mostly drawn from secondary sources but little insight or analysis. That doesn't mean that the data isn't useful (although based on events detailed in the book, the timeline is incomplete) simply that a third person biography of Stephen King has little new to add to what is already publicly available.

However, for those discovering Stephen King for the first time, this book contains a lot of useful information including a bibliography. I found the notes section frustrating: there is no reference within the text to the notes; the notes themselves contain page references back to the text. So, if you read the text without exploring the notes you would not have a clear picture of how (and from where) the information was gleaned. For those who have been avidly following Stephen King's career since `Carrie' was first published in 1974, it is unlikely that this book contains anything new.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

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The Last Days of the Romanovs: Tragedy at Ekaterinburg, by Helen Rappaport

On the sweltering summer night of July 16, 1918, in the Siberian city of Ekaterinburg, a group of assassins led an unsuspecting Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, his wife, the Tsarina Alexandra, the desperately ill Tsarevich, and their four beautiful daughters, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia, into a basement room where they were shot and then bayoneted to death.

This is the story of those murders, which ended three hundred years of Romanov rule and set their stamp on an era of state-orchestrated terror and brutal repression.

The Last Days of the Romanovs counts down to the last, tense hours of the family’s lives, stripping away the over-romanticized versions of previous accounts. The story focuses on the family inside the Ipatiev House, capturing the oppressive atmosphere and the dynamics of a group—the Romanovs, their servants, and guards—thrown together by extraordinary events.

Marshaling overlooked evidence from key witnesses such as the British consul to Ekaterinburg, Sir Thomas Preston, American and British travelers in Siberia, and the now-forgotten American journalist Herman Bernstein, Helen Rappaport gives a brilliant account of the political forces swirling through the remote Urals town. She conveys the tension of the watching world: the Kaiser of Germany and George V, King of England—both, like Alexandra, grandchildren of Queen Victoria—their nations locked in combat as the First World War drew to its bitter end. And she draws on recent releases from the Russian archives to challenge the view that the deaths were a unilateral act by a maverick group of the Ekaterinburg Bolsheviks, identifying a chain of command that stretches directly, she believes, to Moscow—and to Lenin himself.

Telling the story in a compellingly new and dramatic way, The Last Days of the Romanovs brings those final tragic days vividly alive against the backdrop of Russia in turmoil, on the brink of a devastating civil war.

  • Sales Rank: #283248 in Books
  • Brand: St Martins Press
  • Published on: 2009-02-03
  • Released on: 2009-02-03
  • Ingredients: Example Ingredients
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Dimensions: 9.55" h x 1.10" w x 6.48" l, 1.15 pounds
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • 272 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Synthesizing a variety of sources, British historian Rappaport (Joseph Stalin) details the Romanovs last two weeks, imprisoned in a cramped private house in Ekaterinburg, a violently anti-czarist industrial city in the Ural Mountains where Nicholas II; his wife, Alexandra; and their five children were executed on July 17, 1918. The czars rescue was a low priority for the Allies, and several escape plots by Russian monarchists came to naught. A lax guard was replaced by a rigorous new regime on July 4, headed by Yakov Yurovsky, whose familys impoverished Siberian exile had fueled his burning hatred for the imperial family, and his ruthless assistant and surrogate son, Grigory Nikulin. How the last czar and his family died was one of Russias best-kept secrets for decades, and Rappaport spares none of the gory details of the panicked bloodbath (it took an entire clip of bullets to finish off the czarevitch because an undergarment sewn with jewels protected the boys torso) and botched burial of the corpses. Although parts of the Romanov saga are familiar and Rappaports sympathy for the czar often seems naïve, this is an absorbing, lucid and authoritative work. 16 pages of photos. (Feb. 3)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Since the end of the Soviet Union, details about the murder of the Russian royal family in 1918 have emerged and inspired several accounts of the killings. Author Rappaport, a talented British writer of narrative history, telescopes the post-abdication story of the Romanovs into the two weeks preceding their deaths, during which the final elements of decision in Moscow and execution in the Siberian city of Ekaterinburg fell into place. As storyteller, Rappaport skillfully contrasts the ignorance of the family members of their impending doom with the preparations of the Bolsheviks on the scene. She renders astute personality portraits of the seven members of the family, noting especially the beauty of the daughters that, to a degree, underlies popular interest in and horror about what happened to the Romanovs. Such sentimentality was alien to Bolsheviks waging class war, however, and Rappaport describes the chain of command from Lenin to the firing squad with responsibility-fixing emphasis. Unavoidably ghastly in her last pages, Rappaport, whose research included visits to the murder and burial sites, has produced an emotionally powerful work of history. --Gilbert Taylor

Review

Praise for The Last Days of the Romanovs

“The brutal 1918 massacre of the Romanov family may be familiar, but in Russian scholar Rappaport's hands, the tale becomes as shocking and immediate as a thriller. Drawing on new archives and forensics, she crafts a portrait of the final weeks of Russia's last imperial family, cramped in the House of Special Purpose in Ekaterinburg. Though Tsar Nicholas's rule was harsh, the love and religious devotion he and his family shared makes them sympathetic. The Romanovs are now saints in Russian Orthodoxy, symbols of faith and hope. This gripping read helps you understand why.”—People magazine (3 ½ stars)

“Synthesizing a variety of sources, Rappaport details the Romanovs’ last two weeks. . . . How the last czar and his family died was one of Russia’s best-kept secrets for decades, and Rappaport spares none of the gory details of the panicked bloodbath . . . and botched burial of the corpses . . . this is an absorbing, lucid and authoritative work.” —Publishers Weekly

“British historian Rappaport combines detailed scholarship with an engaging narrative style. . . . The book's most gripping sections describe the days and hours leading up to and including the family's execution. Rappaport spares few details . . . Solid political and social history, related with the vigor of a true-crime thriller.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Rappaport fills out her story with vivid detail and superb characterization, building the tension and drama to its brutal climax, sparing no stomach-turning details. She draws us in so well, that we very nearly smell the dusty drapes and taste the sweat hanging thick in the air of that tragic Siberian summer. We can’t stop reading, wondering what will happen next, even though we know full well what happens next. Meticulously researched and intimately drawn, this is a must read for anyone interested in the sad fate of the Romanovs, or for anyone interested in plumbing the depths of human depravity, witnessing the nobility of calm resignation, or reliving the tragedy that foretold the executions of hundreds of thousands of innocents in the decades to come.”—Russian Life  

“The Romanovs are to Russian history what the Civil War is to American history -- an inexhaustible source of interest. . . .  Rappaport's impressive research . . . sheds new and sometimes controversial light on the Imperial victims and what transpired. But it is her finely honed literary skills . . . that make this book so compelling. . . . Dramatic, sorrowful and heart-poundingly intense, this excellent book is certain to win a new audience for the endlessly fascinating panorama of Russian history.” —Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

“The Last Days of the Romanovs was, quite simply, stunning. It dealt with a subject that has long fascinated me, and I can say without reservation that it is the most detailed, authentic and gripping account of the bloody end of the Romanovs that I have ever read. I was staggered at how Helen Rappaport reconstructed and evoked such searingly vivid images; they are still with me now. Chilling and poignant, this is how history books should be written.” —Alison Weir, author of Henry VIII: The King and His Court

“The Last Days of the Romanovs is perhaps the most accurate depiction of the demise of Nicholas and Alexandra that I've read.  Beautifully researched and written, Helen Rappaport’s newest book is notable not only for its balanced view of Russia’s last imperial family, but its realistic portrayal of a close-knit family in distress.” —Robert Alexander, bestselling author of The Romanov Bride

“That perfect but rare blend of history, sense of place, human tragedy, drama and atmosphere. . . . [The Last Days of the Romanovs] kept me up for 2 nights. . . . This book is going to be a bestseller . . . it will be the best read you will have had for ages.” —Susan Hill, author of The Various Haunts of Men and The Pure in Heart

“A rare combination of talents is Helen Rappaport; as an historian she exhibits a deep and sensitive insight into the past; and as a writer of English, her style is one of clarity and freshness.” —Colin Dexter, author of the Inspector Morse series

“Helen Rappaport has brought her subjects back to life with a sombre intensity. . . . The book is essentially a compassionate account of a close-knit, deeply devout and surprisingly ordinary family caught up in quite extraordinary circumstances. The atmosphere of dark menace that permeated the House of Special Purpose is very well captured as their Bolshevik captors gradually closed down their links with the outside world; sealing and whitewashing the windows and erecting a second perimeter fence. . . . I found this book a deeply touching anniversary tribute.” —The Independent (UK)

“A highly accessible account . . . rather than romanticizing the family members, the author explores their numerous character defects. Set against the rich political backdrop of the bloody birth of the revolution, the result is extraordinary and powerful.” —Oxford  Times (UK)

“The Last Days of the Romanovs is well researched and has some excellent photographs . . . Rappaport successfully evokes the claustrophobic atmosphere within the house. . . . Nor does she spare the gruesome details of the massacre.” —Daily Telegraph (UK)

“An unromanticised telling of the family’s incarceration in the Ipatiev house and the circus that went on around them. [The Last Days of the Romanovs] brilliantly shows how history is never simple but always enthralling when written with this style.” —Bookseller (UK)

“An effective and engaging synthesis . . . with skill and imagination [Rappaport] juxtaposes the escalating chaos outside with the day-to-day tedium of the prisoners. . . . The result is an intriguing personal angle on what had seemed an exhausted subject.”—Sunday Times (UK)

“[Helen Rappaport] skilfully weaves together the grimly repetitive routine of the doomed family with the high drama engulfing the killers as they add the finishing touches to their terrible plan. Though some of the material is familiar, Rappaport's countdown format makes The Last Days of the Romanovs freshly compelling.” —New Statesman (UK)

“Helen Rappaport meticulously reconstructs the final days of the Romanovs in the Ipatiev house in Ekaterinburg and the unfolding political situation that sealed their fate. . . . Rappoport writes with verve, imagination and great empathy for her characters.”—The St. Petersburg Times

Most helpful customer reviews

99 of 103 people found the following review helpful.
A gritty, day-by-day narrative of 14 days leading to a massacre
By S. McGee
Anyone picking up this book is likely to have read some of the other literature on the Romanovs or the Russian Revolution, notably the Robert Massie biography, Nicholas and Alexandra and the follow up volume, The Romanovs: the Final Chapter. This is an altogether bleaker narrative -- if you can imagine such a thing -- that revolves around the day-to-day lives of the Romanovs, their captors and, at a distance, Lenin, George V and others who helped determine their fate.

The format is straightforward: Rappaport uses each of the last 14 days of the lives of the former Tsar and his family (the unpopular Empress Alexandra, their hemophiliac son, Alexey, and four daughters, Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia) as the focus of a chapter. In each chapter, she explores the state of the debate about the Tsar's future or the issues that were likely to affect that -- such as the relentless advance of Czech 'White' troops in the direction of the city of Ekaterinburg where the Romanov family now lived in almost complete isolation from the outside world. The result is a relentless "tick tock" account of how hope slipped away, of how the family lived side by side with guards who were making meticulous preparations for their deaths, of the petty indignities they suffered and the petty squabbles in which they still indulged.

It's a chilling book to read, and it culminates in a horrifying account of the massacre of the family and four of their servants in a basement room that I -- despite being familiar with the story, an avid history reader and veteran of many thrillers -- couldn't complete in one sitting. Within minutes, Rappaport tells us, some of the executioners and other guards were weeping at the bloodbath; some of the firing squad (a very loose term in the circumstances) were replaced at the last moment because they refused to shoot the young girls (in their teens to early 20s).

This unusual structure to the book not only allows Rappaport to heighten the tension to an extent that is unusual among non-fiction historical accounts of events now more than 90 years distant, but enables her to fill in details of what was happening elsewhere as, in Ekaterinburg, the former Tsar recorded in his diary the arrival of the new guards who were to become his executioners, or as the Grand Duchesses helped two temporary maids scrub their floors a day or so before their execution. While the Tsar was confined to a sweltering room, reading history books behind whitewashed windows nailed shut to prevent him from seeing even a glimpse of sky, his cousin, George V of England, celebrated his silver wedding anniversary and attended a baseball game organized by the US military. Contrasts like that just heighten the claustrophobic world that the Romanov family now inhabited, and signaled the kind of detachment from the rest of the world that normally is displayed only by those diagnosed with a terminal illness.

It's in the research and structure of this book that Rappaport's skills truly shine. The writing is good, but not great; of a more pedestrian nature than the book's other strengths would lead the reader to expect, and it occasionally relapses into too-fervid prose (as when she compares Alexandra to a female Iago). The only point when the writing actually hampers the book, however, is when she diverges for too long from the core narrative -- the narrow world of the Romanovs and how they arrived in it -- and spends that time to fill us in on the political jostling and arguments between different factions of the new Revolutionary government. Yes, they are important to understanding why the order was given for the murders -- but they could have been dealt with more elegantly and expeditiously.

Overall, this is an excellent book for anyone interested in the Romanovs in particular, and the final stages of Tsarist rule and the first days of the revolution, more generally. It works best as the kind of deeply personal narrative that the larger-than-life characters that the family became following their deaths has made it hard to write. (How many works of fiction are there devoted to the idea of the survival or one or more of the children? How many icons of the family's images now exist and they are revered as martyrs by devout members of the Russian Orthodox community?) In this book, we get a glimpse of reality; a balding emperor with bad teeth and a nicotine habit, frustrated by his inability to resort to exercise to keep his emotions under firm control; an empress addicted to morphine and other drugs, confined to a wheelchair and at once arrogant and fatalistic; four young women caught between their passionate love for their close-knit family and a desire to see the world, hair cropped short to battle head lice; the heir to the throne now mortally ill and unable to walk even a few steps.

For anyone who hasn't also read it, The Flight of the Romanovs: A Family Saga would be an excellent book to read in conjunction with this one -- in a less personal and immediate way, it chronicles the fate of other family members, both in 1918 and the years that followed, including the Tsar's surviving siblings and his mother. The Last Tsar: The Life and Death of Nicholas II I recall as being one of the first post-Soviet books to emerge from Russian research into the Tsar, and being a very compelling (albeit slightly idiosyncratic) work.

One warning to Kindle readers: while this book, as delivered on Kindle, includes a blow by blow description of many photos in the hardcover edition, the photos themselves are not included in the Kindle e-book -- disappointing. The Kindle edition, oddly, does include a complete index, but with page numbers, which is of little help when using a Kindle.

57 of 60 people found the following review helpful.
Three and a half stars...
By Cynthia K. Robertson
Since my high school years, I have been enthralled with the story of Nicholas and Alexandra Romanov and their tragic story. Every year or so, I need a Romanov-fix, and Helen Rappaport provided just that with her new book, The Last Days of the Romanovs: Tragedy at Ekaterinburg. There is much to like in this book, but also, a few detractions.

There are hundreds and hundreds of books on the last tsar and his family. Many of them just rehash the same information, over and over again. Rappaport tries to give a more in-depth look at the last 14 days that the Romanovs were in captivity in Ekaterinburg. She gives just enough background for those who may not know the entire story. Some of her descriptions and observations are first-rate. In describing Nicholas, "how had this devout, insistently dull and dogmatic little man, whose primary interest was family life, come to be demonised as the repository of all that was corrupt, reactionary and despotic about the Romanov dynasty?" When the family was descending into the basement of the Ipatiev House on that July evening, she writes "Twenty-three steps--one for every year of Nicholas's disastrous reign--now led him and his family to their collective fate." I especially liked learning more about the city of Ekaterinburg, as well as Woodrow Wilson's dilemma about aiding Russia. Rappaport's research in this respect is well done.

But what bothered me about The Last Days of the Romanovs is that there are no endnotes. There were so many times that I would read a new fact--something I had never heard before. My first instinct was to see where it came from so that I could learn more. The author gives her reasons for not including endnotes in her "Notes on Sources", but I don't agree with them. I'm not sure about the accuracy of the Index. I went to find Boris Yeltsin (she spells it Eltsin) and couldn't find him anywhere. Yet, he is mentioned on page 219. Finally, there are some minor mistakes throughout this book. One example involves Nicholas and Alexandra arriving in Ekaterburg, "It was Passion Week and the bells--the beautiful bells that had so beguiled Anton Checkov--were ringing out across the city." Three weeks later, the rest of their children joined them. "But the closely interdependent family unit was once more reunited and what greater joy could there be than for it to be during Passion Week--the most sacred festival in the Orthodox calendar." Passion Week is Passion Week. It is not three weeks long.

I enjoyed The Last Days of the Romanovs and I will add it to my extensive collection of Romanov books (now numbering over 100). But I thought Rappaport could have made this a better book.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
A classic Greek tragedy in the Urals
By Deejay
This was a fast paced, fact filled read that makes you feel that you're in the "House of Special Purpose" in Ekaterinburg. What happened to the Romanov family reads like a classic Greek tragedy; if only the Whites had arrived sooner, if only Lenin, Trotsky and Sverdlov weren't bent on revenge and murder, if only, if only, etc. The communists for 70 years called this despicable action an execution; an execution is a lawful punishment carried out as a sentence after a trial and guilty verdict. When and where was Nicholas' trial? And what sort of monsters shoot helpless, innocent women and children? This book is an historically accurate indictment of the Bolshevik killers.

See all 133 customer reviews...

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~ PDF Download Prince: Inside the Music and the Masks, by Ronin Ro

PDF Download Prince: Inside the Music and the Masks, by Ronin Ro

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Prince: Inside the Music and the Masks, by Ronin Ro

Prince: Inside the Music and the Masks, by Ronin Ro



Prince: Inside the Music and the Masks, by Ronin Ro

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Prince: Inside the Music and the Masks, by Ronin Ro

A fascinating, authoritative biography of one of the most commercial, controversial, and influential musicians of all time

In his three decades-long of recording, Prince has had nearly thirty albums hit the Billboard Top 100. He is the only artist since the Beatles to have a number one song, movie, and single at the same time. Prince's trajectory―from a teenage unknown in Minneapolis to an idol and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer―has won him millions of adoring fans.

Prince is the first book to give full treatment to this 30-year career of epic proportions. Acclaimed music journalist Ronin Ro traces Prince's rise from anonymity in the late 70s, to his catapult to stardom in the 80s, to his reemergence in the 21st century as both an artistic icon and a starmaker. Ro chronicles the music, showing how Prince and his albums helped define and inspire a generation. Along the way, Prince confronted labels, fostered other young talents, and took ownership of his music, making a profound mark on the entertainment industry and pop culture.

In this authoritative biography, Ro digs deep to reveal the man behind some of the most important music of our time.

  • Sales Rank: #411264 in Books
  • Published on: 2011-10-25
  • Released on: 2011-10-25
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Dimensions: 9.21" h x 1.00" w x 6.14" l, 1.25 pounds
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • 384 pages

Review

“Did 10 years of researching the enigmatic Prince pay off? You bet.
For much of the 1980s, Prince was arguably the most important pop musician on the planet. He wasn't an originator, however, but a sponge who could take bits and pieces from different genres and manage to create something uniquely his own. The fact that he could sing well, play expertly on several instruments and wear the hell out of skin-tight leotards didn't hurt either. Considering his sales figures, influence and huge, albeit admittedly inconsistent discography, it's surprising that nobody has delivered a noteworthy Prince bio...until now. Veteran journalist Ro (Dr. Dre: The Biography, 2007, etc.) spent a decade researching this book-which shouldn't surprise Prince's fans, as the man is notoriously private-and it was worth it, as he was able to get vital information, opinions and anecdotes from Prince's close and not-so-close associates, everybody from sidemen to record-label execs. (Unsurprisingly, the man himself did not grant Ro access.) By utilizing verbatim dialogue, the book often reads like a novel; granted, some readers may doubt the veracity of every piece of dialogue, but it's enjoyable nonetheless. The author has an obvious affection for Prince's work, but he maintains enough objectivity to be credible.
An energetic, detailed balance of reportage and criticism about an icon of his era.” ―Kirkus Reviews

About the Author
RONIN RO has written for USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, Vanity Fair, MTV, Rolling Stone, and Playboy. He has written several books about the entertainment industry, including biographies of Dr. Dre, Sean Combs, Run-DMC, and more.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Prince
PART ONEThe RISE1THIS THING CALLED LIFEON JUNE 7, 1958, AT MOUNT SINAI HOSPITAL IN MINNEAPOLIS, A baby was born. John Nelson faced his son in the crib and named him Prince Rogers Nelson--after his own musical stage name. "I named my son Prince because I wanted him to do everything I wanted to do," John later explained to Liz Jones.They lived at 915 Logan Avenue, a humble home in North Minneapolis. John worked at Honeywell, an industrial supplier, and he and his wife Mattie--a former singer that John met while playing parties with his group, The Prince Rogers Trio--together cared for their first son. They were already trying to raise five kids on what John earned at Honeywell when Prince was born, but within a year Mattie was again pregnant. When their daughter, Tyka Evene, arrived in 1960, John saw his dream of a music career slip even further away.Mattie also gave up her dream--since singing like Billie Holiday wouldn't pay the bills. She remained social, though, with a "wild side," Prince told Rolling Stone, while John was quiet, excited mostly by music.Since John still played shows around town with The Prince Rogers Trio, and still sometimes answered to his stage name, Mattie took to calling their son "Skipper." Prince obviously knew about his father's history leading "his own big band, playing around the Midwest and stuff," and how his mother sang for the group. But he didn't truly understand what his father did until 1963. One day, his mother took him to a local theater. They took their seats, the lights dimmed, and John emerged from behind a curtain with a smile. People applauded as he sat at a piano. While he played, the curtain moved again, and scantily clad dancing girls came out. "People were screaming," Prince recalled, according to Per Nilsen. "From then on I think I wanted to be a musician."The show took a hold of Prince, and for weeks after he tried to playany instrument within reach. He eventually settled, like his father, on the piano, and he would practice in the living room on John's. Then, in department stores, while Mattie shopped, Prince would rush to where the radios and instruments were kept to listen to music or play organs and pianos until his mother would get him. But piano wasn't enough. Prince would put two rocks in his hands, then smash them together to create a melody. He called this noise his first song. Soon, he'd use larger rocks to tap out a rhythm.But while Prince was taking his first musical steps, John was finding the pursuit a rough life. He was, according to local reporter Neal Karlen, "a Jazz musician in the whitest metropolitan area in the country" With a wife and six kids to support, he continued to work at Honeywell, but he couldn't accept that he wouldn't someday be a music star. So he kept creating new melodies. Despite a limited income, John did things like install a TV in the living room wall. Or he'd parade around in new suits and shoes, as if about to take the stage. By 1966, John had bought himself a snazzy new white Thunderbird convertible. His dream seemed by turns impossible and just within reach. When he saw that Prince and his younger sister Tyka were interested in music, he encouraged them to play his piano, realizing he'd have to live his dream vicariously through them. While young Prince tapped out melodies, Tyka told City Pages, she sang, "because that's what my mom and dad did."But just as quickly, moody John would see them bang away on the keys and tell them to get away from the piano. He needed it for his own dream, after all. Though the inner conflict persisted, inevitably he relented, and Prince showed him a melody he had written called "Funk Machine."Monday through Friday, Prince attended elementary school, where other students sometimes insulted his diminutive size. By 1967, the fifth grader was being bussed to a school in an affluent, predominantly white suburb. He wasn't thrilled. One day in class, he turned to a page in a textbook that had a black-and-white photo of a young, dead black man hanging from a rope on a tree.His sister Tyka recalled, according to Per Nilsen, that other students chased them back to the school bus many afternoons. "I didn't know it was because we were black," she said. Some days, other students by the bus protected them. But the next day would always bring another chase and more epithets. Inevitably, Prince tried to withdraw from the experience.One morning he hid his socks, believing this would give his motherno choice but to let him stay home. No dice. She yelled, "You're going to get to that school and find some socks!" He sighed and kept dressing. "She couldn't have them calling me a nigger with no socks on," he told PAPER Magazine, in 1999.Sundays, his mother took him to a wooden, two-story Seventh-day Adventist church where he was enrolled in a Bible study class. On these days, eight-year-old Prince bonded over music with his schoolmate, André Simon Anderson, the son of his dad's former bass player, Fred. "The most I got out of that was the experience of the choir," Prince said of church, according to Nilsen.During this period, Prince's older half brother, Alfred--Mattie's son from her first marriage--was trying to dodge a few rules. In his room, Alfred sang along to his many James Brown records. He styled his hair in a Little Richard--type conk. He always seemed to have money. He also ignored John Nelson's curfews. Late at night, Alfred climbed out of a basement window and hit the street. With him gone, Prince and his cousin Charles tiptoed into his room to try on his clothes and play his James Brown records. Sometimes, Alfred caught them in the act. But he didn't mind.In the end, things didn't end well for Alfred, Charles told author Per Nilsen years later. His recreational drug use led to confinement in a local mental institution.Prince, himself, was born epileptic. As a child, he had seizures. While he trembled and shook, his parents stood nearby, wondering how to help. Still, "they did the best they could with what little they had," he explained.There were other stressors. In 1981, Prince told New York Newsday that his father "felt hurt that he never got his break, because of having the wife and kids and stuff." With Mattie resenting this, "there were constant fights."By 1968, Prince was watching things finally fall apart between his parents. They began having high-volume arguments that sometimes left Mattie in tears. Mattie and John had always been different. She was louder and more vivacious, while John was serious and strict. She had set aside music in the interest of her kids, while John did manage to play some shows in local clubs. "I think music is what broke her and my father up, and I don't think she wanted that for me," Prince later told New York Rocker. Serious musicians, like his father, could be moody. They needed space. Everything in their environment had to be just right. "My father was a great deal like that, and my mother didn't give him a lotta space. She wanted a husband per se."Finally John and Mattie called it quits. After thirteen years of marriage, they decided to separate and filed for divorce. John packed his stuff and moved into a small apartment near Minneapolis's downtown. Prince was shocked when John left. He didn't even take his piano. "Everything was cool I think, until my father left, and then it got kinda hairy," Prince said.At home, it would now be only Prince, his mother, and Tyka. "He left when I was seven, so music left with him," Prince said. "But he did leave his piano." Prince faced the abandoned instrument. In the past, John had often kept the kids away from it. For good reason: they would just bang on it. With his father gone, Prince approached the piano; he was the only one that seemed to notice it was there. And he started to play it in earnest.Meanwhile, Mattie took three jobs. 
Prince spent much of his time nearby on his cousin Charles's street. He told people not to call him "Prince." Referred to as "Skipper," he developed an acerbic sense of humor and coined numerous put-downs. But back at home, he'd return to being his father's son, playing melodies on the piano John left behind. At some point, Tyka stopped joining him. Though she never said who, someone, she said, had crushed her dream of singing, saying she was crazy to think she could be on stage. Prince taught her to draw and write stories. But he didn't abandon his own musical dream. Soon, he started practicing drums, playing on a box of old newspapers.Mattie, however, didn't support Prince's musical aspirations. She wanted him in school, and later in college. She sent him to different schools, where he maintained high grades, but Prince viewed his studies as "pretty much my second interest. I didn't really care about that as much as I did about playing." Since music had destroyed his parents' marriage, he explained, "I don't think she wanted that for me."Mattie eventually met Heyward Baker. With her divorce now official, Mattie married Baker and he moved into the house. Baker always brought the family presents. But, Prince told Barbara Graustark, "I disliked him immediately because he dealt with a lot of materialistic things."Prince tried to build a relationship with Baker, as close as the one he had with John. But when Prince tried to engage Baker in conversation, Prince claimed, the man seemed to merely tolerate him. He mostly spoke up, Prince claimed, when Prince did something wrong. "I don't think they wanted me to be a musician," he said of Baker and his mother. They didn't want him to be like John. But the more they pushed, the more defiantPrince became. Before long, he felt rejected, and bitter. He began to rattle off things he disliked about his new stepfather and "it kind of hurt our relationship."Years later, Prince credited Baker for helping to...

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63 of 69 people found the following review helpful.
Another typical Prince tome
By Scott Woods
This is yet another largely non-exclusive look at Prince that doesn't stand out of the pack. Spending more time on the fat years of Prince and far too little time on the lean, this book reveals almost nothing that a fan of Prince - the most likely candidate to even pick up this book in this day and age - doesn't already know or have access to. There is virtually nothing distinguishing this book from the last five books about Prince that came out in the last ten years. Information is largely culled from the same sources as every other book, the anecdotes are largely old hat at this point, and there isn't the promised revelation of Prince's influence on much more than himself and his audience.

The biggest disappointment is that the opportunity to make a book that stood out is lost by committing the same crime that almost every other book about Prince makes: it acts like the last 15 years didn't happen. It spends 290 of its 356 pages of actual text on the albums leading up to 1996 (12 total, not counting soundtracks) and a practically scant 66 pages on the TEN albums that followed. It covers the early, more successful (and, not coincidental I am sure, thoroughly picked over) period of his career almost song by song, but then almost dismisses the last fifteen years of his career by comparison.

At this point I'd rather just read a book about all of the other acts Prince has launched, or a treatise that genuinely attempted to parse out his influence on culture and art during his tenure. if there's anything left to say about Prince, no one but Prince is likely to write the book compelling enough to warrant purchasing (and we all know how likely that is to happen). I'd say this is fine for people who are looking for an entry into Prince's world, but that's the same thing you can say about every other book about Prince.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful.
PRINCE!!!!!!!!
By LuvGirl
I was fan girl CRAZY for Prince when I was a teenager. Bought all his CD's sight unseen. Had his inappropriate half naked posters up on my walls with kisses all over them ( to my mother's horror). Turning down "Darling Nikki" real low so mom couldn't hear the very sexual lyrics, lol. Never thought I would be attracted to a man that wore makeup, heels, and thigh highs, but there you have it, I was! I was a fan for many years into young adulthood. Then marriage, motherhood, romance novels, (lol) and life took over whatever obsession I had with him. His death touched me deeply. More deeply than I expected... I guess it was because he bought a little purple to my otherwise colorless childhood, and to know that he's not with us on the planet anymore seems a little gray...

After his death on April 21st, 2016 (without realizing) I had missed out a lot on the progression of his career. Apart from dashing to the tv screen whenever I knew he would be on, I wasn't a very proactive fan anymore. Now I want to read all things Prince related. I can see the future, I'll be one of those Elvis like fan girl junkies, but instead for Prince!

while this book was enlightening in the musical areas though, it was pretty impersonal and cold. It was a lot about his music and a few disparaging tid bits here and there. Some of it annoyed because I guess I feel protective so soon after his death. I kind of felt that the author wasn't really a Prince fan at times. Nonetheless, I came away thinking that Prince really was way more talented than people really knew. His onstage persona was so flamboyant that it overshadowed his many talents. Most placed him in a purple box, but apart from his charismatic sexual demeanor, he was actually a musical genius. So even though I felt like the author wasn't really a fan, I think the legend that was Prince still shines through. Mmmm, maybe that was the authors intent all along...

P.S: I'm pretty proud of my teenage self to have picked a genius to be my Prince...

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
A look into the purple one's haze
By The Booker
Here's an understatement: Prince has always remained a bit of a mystery even to his most loyal fans. For those of us on the more casual side of fandom, he's almost an unknown. Of course we know his hit songs, the mega successful rock film "Purple Rain," and his penchant for being different. For example, not every male rock or R&B star would choose bikini briefs and high heels for stage outfits or change his name to an unpronounceable symbol. For Prince, later known as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince and finally once again, Prince, these were only surface revelations. What was going on off stage and behind the scenes are what makes this book probably the most insightful study to date about his career, artistry, business dealings, and personal life.

As a more casual fan I found there was too much detail spent on what seems like every single song Prince recorded, demo'ed, or worked on for other artists. For the purists this is the mother load. But because of the vast output of music Prince has produced before, during and since the pinnacle of his chart success in the 1980's, this kept it from becoming the "page-turner" I would've hoped for in a bio. The man is revealed, or at least as best he can be without his personal involvement, but all the details about business dealings and recording sessions are once again, more for the dedicated than the casual fan.

This book is impressive in the writing and amount of research done by the author. It reportedly took ten years of detective-like work to follow and uncover every path taken by an artist that changed his music, personality, lifestyle, band members, business associates and as mentioned above, even his name, like a chameleon. Do I know Prince better after reading this? I would say yes, though I didn't know much about him before. The dedicated will love it, but as a casual fan I could've been told less and still enjoyed reading.

On an interesting note, this is the second rock music book I've encountered that references the small town of Vermilion, Ohio. Prince used a Post Office box in Vermilion for hidden business correspondence during the time he changed his name. In "The Beatles In Cleveland" the Fab Four stopped in Vermilion for ice cream during an early morning drive from Detroit for their 1966 concert in Cleveland. An interesting footnote in the history of rock'n roll...

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Saturday, October 4, 2014

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The King of Plagues: A Joe Ledger Novel, by Jonathan Maberry

Saturday 09:11 Hours: A blast rocks a London hospital and thousands are dead or injured… 10:09 Hours: Joe Ledger arrives on scene to investigate. The horror is unlike anything he has ever seen. Compelled by grief and rage, Joe rejoins the DMS and within hours is attacked by a hit-team of assassins and sent on a suicide mission into a viral hot zone during an Ebola outbreak. Soon Joe Ledger and the Department of Military Sciences begin tearing down the veils of deception to uncover a vast and powerful secret society using weaponized versions of the Ten Plagues of Egypt to destabilize world economies and profit from the resulting chaos. Millions will die unless Joe Ledger meets the this powerful new enemy on their own terms as he fights terror with terror.

  • Sales Rank: #651036 in Books
  • Published on: 2011-03-29
  • Released on: 2011-03-29
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Dimensions: 8.25" h x 1.14" w x 5.41" l, .86 pounds
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 448 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In Maberry's audacious third novel featuring Department of Military Science agent Joe Ledger (after The Dragon Factory), Joe must stop a cult bent on overthrowing the world order. Though Ledger is unofficially retired, a terrorist attack that levels the Royal London Hospital killing thousands compels him to return to action. The London tragedy proves to be just the opening move in a meticulously planned plot. When a viral research facility in Scotland is compromised, the Bombay Stock Exchange is bombed, and Ledger himself is almost killed by assassins, he and his DMS cohorts quickly realize that they're up against a terrorist group with virtually unlimited resources—about which they know little except its name, the Seven Kings. Powered by a cast of over-the-top characters, breakneck pacing, nonstop action, and a subtle sense of humor, this is an utterly readable blend of adventure fiction, suspense thriller, and horror. (Mar.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Following The Dragon Factory (2010), Maberry cranks up the intensity level once again with his new Joe Ledger thriller. A London hospital explodes, killing thousands. This act of terrorism is only the beginning as the group behind the explosion turns to bioweapons in an effort to unleash a modern version of the biblical Ten Plagues of Egypt. Ledger, beaten and distraught over a heartbreaking loss, has quit the antiterrorism business but reluctantly must jump back into the game, charged with nothing less than saving the world. As events unfold, allies prove to be traitors, and traitors become allies. To throw off the authorities, the terrorist group begins utilizing civilians to handle the dirty work. The publisher bills the novel as horror, but the story, horrifying as it is, definitely belongs in the thriller camp. It�s also Maberry�s best book to date. The ending guarantees a sequel that will be anxiously awaited by series fans. --Jeff Ayers

Review

“Breakneck pacing, nonstop action, and a subtle sense of humor, this is an utterly readable blend of adventure fiction, suspense thriller, and horror.” ―Publishers Weekly

“A fast-paced, brilliantly written novel. The hottest thriller of the New Year! In The King of Plagues, Jonathan Maberry reigns supreme.” ―Brad Thor, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Athena Project

“Joe Ledger and the DMS are back in their most brutal tale yet as they face off against a diabolical organization who is always one step ahead. As the sinister plot is exposed and the body count rises, THE KING OF PLAGUES is impossible to put down. Be prepared to lose some sleep.” ―Jeremy Robinson, author of THRESHOLD and INSTINCT

“While most are content to sleepwalk through the third book in a successful series, Jonathan Maberry wages all-out destructive war on complacency. "The King of Plagues" expands the Joe Ledger universe, deepens existing characters while introducing bold new ones, and unleashes a runaway brain of a thriller plot turbocharged with a depraved spirit of invention. Next to Joe Ledger, Jack Bauer, Fox Mulder and Jason Bourne are rank amateurs.” ―Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Emmy Award winning writer/producer, "Lost," "Medium," "The Middleman.

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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
Ledger Goes to London
By Nickolas X. P. Sharps
So let me first introduce Jonathan Maberry's series of Joe Ledger novels. Think Resident Evil without the horrible dialogue. Think the hit Fox drama 24 with Bond villains. Think Monster Hunter International but less supernatural and more scientific. I really love the Joe Ledger novels (for the most part) and unless you hate America you will too. The first novel in the series, Patient Zero, is one of my all time favorite zombie stories. The sequel, The Dragon Factory, didn't quite live up to the quality of the first but it was still a solid thriller. Now here is my review for The King of Plagues. It's a little late and I'm currently reading the fourth book in the series, Assassin's Code, but you know what they say. Better late than never.

So Joe Ledger is drifting around Europe recovering from a personal tragedy when a terrorist attack takes out the oldest hospital in London. Thousands perish and just like that Joe finds himself out of retirement and back into the counter-terrorism business. This time Joe and the Department of Military Sciences face an enemy with unimaginably vast reach and lofty ambitions. The Seven Kings of the New World Trust are well funded, well prepared, and ready to bring chaos to the world in the name of profit. Can Echo Team stop the Seven Kings before a weaponized version of the Ten Plagues of Egypt are unleashed?

Where to begin? Well this is a Joe Ledger novel so perhaps best to start with the big man himself. Joe Ledger is a great character (mostly). I love reading from Joe's first person perspective which is also interspaced throughout the book with the third person perspectives of ancillary characters. Joe is a character of three parts as he will often describe them, the dwindling idealistic modern man, the calculating cop, and the cold blooded warrior. Supreme alpha male for sure and wise mouth to boot. I wouldn't say that Joe is lovable and sometimes his sarcasm can be grating but he is definitely compelling.

My big complaint about Joe? This is going to come as a real shocker but it comes in the form of a love interest that crops up almost immediately in the first book and ends "tragically" in the second. Don't get me wrong. Romantic sub-plots can be very useful when it comes to developing characters but far too often they just feel forced. Joe falls in love in Patient Zero, loses his woman in The Dragon Factory and is hollow shell of a man by The King of Plagues. This is a like a four month period. Far too forced, far too rushed. Maberry should have stretched out the relationship over a few books if he actually wanted readers to care for Joe's loss. As is you just sorta want to tell Joe to get over himself and get back in the game.

As far as the supporting cast goes the characters are hit and miss. Doctor Rudy Sanchez annoys me to no end spouting the same line of dialogue countless times, "Dios Mio!" The addition of Doctor Circe O'Tree on the other hand proved a wise move. At first I feared that Circe was a romantic replacement for the fallen Grace Courtland but thankfully she manages to keep her pants on and her wits about her. I was never a fan of Grace to begin with and Circe seems to be a much more accessible character.

The King of Plagues also sees the return of Sebastian Gault and his ever faithful aide, Toys. Gault is loathsome as ever but ironically Toys takes on a sympathetic air. Seeing the human side to Toys is good because the villains of The King of Plagues are almost as comical as those of The Dragon Factory. At some level I really like the villains of the Joe Ledger novels. I like secret societies and all that. But on another level the villains tread far too close to melodrama. These baddies just don't strike me as realistic. They're mostly bad for the sake of being bad, twirling their mustaches as trains race to run over damsels bound to the tracks. As dark and believable as the rest of the novel is at times I would like to see that same atmosphere infused into the puppet masters.

The plot of The King of Plagues is much tighter than that of The Dragon Factory and this is a blessing. In The Dragon Factory there was far too much going on at one time, far too many ideas cobbled together. Maberry uses this tighter focus and relentless pacing to deliver an unstoppable action thriller fit for the big screen. The action is top notch and brutal, the stakes are high and the good guys don't always come out on top. Unfortunately for all the build up the finale feels hasty and anti-climactic.

The King of Plagues is a good continuation of the Joe Ledger series and a step far above its predecessor, The Dragon Factory. Flaws aside, The King of Plagues is a nail biting thriller and comes recommended.

*The magical Goatfairy grants The King of Plagues by Jonathan Maberry, 7 out of 10 cheesewands*
Nick Sharps, Goatfairy Review Blog

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
Maberry keeps you on the edge of your seat
By James
IMHO, I think that "The King of Plagues" is the best of Maberry's Joe Ledger series.

As usual the Dept of Military Science finds themselves in the middle of a deadly terrorist threat having to play catch up with an enemy that is months ahead of them. Their enemies primary weapons are: fear, coercion and misdirection.

Joe Ledger seems to be a more complete human being in this book. The toll that combat and loss have taken make him seem a little more mature and introspective. Sure- the smart ass mouth is still there but he's thinking more and popping off less. The character is growing and becoming more interesting. The addition of Ghost- a trained German Shepherd- gives Joe a constant and loyal partner.

In "the King of Plagues" you will meet new friends and adversaries and sometimes wonder which is which. Some are actually both at the same time. I won't offer up any spoilers but we will see some familiar faces in the enemy camp and discover that one of those to be much more interesting than previously thought. The legendary Aunt Sallie finally appears, after being discussed in both previous books, and turns out to be hell on wheels.

I also enjoyed the idea of "the Seven Kings" as a secret society that manipulates events from the shadows. The way that they hijacked myth and legend to inspire fear and awe was brilliant. Every hero needs a worthy adversary to test their metal and in the Seven Kings, Ledger meets his match.

From beginning to end it is a non-stop full throttle thrill ride that doesn't slow down until the last period.

Begin this book on a Friday because you will be useless until you have finished it.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Hard as a whip kick, soft as Charmin
By Author Bill Peschel
Give Jonathan Maberry credit: In a thriller world where you can't think too big, he comes up with the biggest conspiracies, the evilest villains and the hardest, pulse-pounding action readers who think they've seen it all.

The King of Plagues by Jonathan Maberry book cover In "The King of Plagues," the third book in the series that began with "Patient Zero" and "The Dragon Factory," former Baltimore detective Joe Ledger is called back into the Department of Military Sciences -- imagine the SEALs with bleeding-edge technology -- when someone blows up the Royal London Hospital, an attack on the scale of 9/11.

Grieving from the death of his lover in "Factory," Ledger is also beset with doubts about his ability to continue fighting a war against various terror groups that seemingly will never end. But there's not much time for reflection, even in a book that's a supersized 400+ pages by thriller standards.

Maberry keeps multiple narratives and time streams jumping like a kid with ADD. Ledger investigates the bombing, then we're back seven months before the attack, watching various nefarious plots getting into gear. We're brought up to speed on the fate of Sebastian Gault, the villain who barely escaped with his life from the end of "Factory," then we're at a state prison in Pennsylvania, introduced to Nicodemus, the prisoner who could be Hannibal Lector's younger cousin in his ability to spook everyone with his oracle-like pronouncements.

It's hard to talk about the book without delivering spoilers, so I'll just say this: Maberry seems to have given a lot of thought to how conspiracy groups operate. While their plots and villain are blown up to serve the tropes of the genre, they seem grounded in their very human desires for wealth and power. They're less ideologically driven, disguising their motives with a propaganda superstructure to give themselves the air of mystery and secret knowledge and cynically manipulating the belief systems of their followers to get them to do their bidding. Given recent news reports about Bin Laden's love for pornography, French socialists' need for champagne and $3,000-a-night hotel rooms and Al Gore's mansion-sized carbon footprint, that sounds about right.

At the same time, Tom Clancy-like, he'll stop the narrative to drop a bit of technical information. In the middle of hand-to-hand combat with a terrorist cell, he'll whip out his Rapid Response Folding knife and add that it "has a wicked little 3.375-inch blade that locks into place with a snap of the wrist. What it lacks in weight it makes up for in speed because at only four ounces it moved as fast as my hand."

On reflection, it seems a little silly -- all right, a lot silly -- but in the middle of the action, it seems as natural as twisting the knife a quarter-turn in the guy's throat before yanking it out.

But there's also a lot to like in "King of Plagues" for readers who like the smaller picture, the subtleties and nuances of character, place and scene. Maberry's driving narrative focuses laser-like on the action, and leavened by touches of humanity, humor and observation that more literary writers can spend whole books trying to achieve. Some of the good guys are pains in the asses, and some of the bad guys can be motivated by a love as pure as Dante for Beatrice. While he's no Benjamin Black (John Banville's nom de thriller), he's damn better than most writers.

But, then, I'm an easy reader. Tell me a story, use acceptable grammar, make your characters vivid and I'm a happy camper. And if, like Maberry, you quote the Marquis De Sade, Howard Zinn and Benjamin Disraeli, so much the better.

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