Review: A LIGHT ON THE VERANDA by Ciji Ware

Full of breathtaking romance, loaded with historical and contemporary detail, sometimes light-hearted and at other times heart-wrenching, Ciji Ware’s A Light on the Veranda is a winner.

New Orleans-born professional harpist Daphne’s life took a turn for the better when she walked out on her wedding to the rat of the century. But now she’s in Natchez to play her harp at her beloved brother’s wedding. There she meets Simon, a man vastly different from the rodents she usually encounters. The attraction is immediate, mutual, and startling. For Daphne’s music conjures visions from the past involving another Simon and her ancestor, another harp-playing Daphne. The historical Daphne’s sad, tragic life can’t be changed. Does the modern Daphne have the courage to change hers? Especially since the rat, vicious as ever, is back and has her in his sights.

Ms. Ware interweaves the similar and yet different stories of two women across two centuries who share problems still all too common. Male betrayal, greed and cruelty can wreak havoc in a woman’s life, then and now. The historical Daphne, born into a frightful situation, had no control over her lot. The modern Daphne does, but only when she sheds her female indoctrination in submissiveness and fights back.

But even within the past and present world of male privilege, decent men exist. The historic Simon was one, and so is the contemporary Simon. Those of you who read my reviews know I like honorable heroes, and the modern Simon is one of the best. Utterly masculine, strong and yet vulnerable, protective but not patronizing, Simon is a spectacular hero. He’s also gorgeous, which doesn’t hurt. *g* Lucky Daphne.

Since most girls today are still trained to be subservient, the modern Daphne starts out as a bit of a doormat. But in the face of the rat’s spiteful cruelty and with some help from Simon, she blossoms into a strong, determined woman able and willing to chart her own course. Good for her.

With charm, poignant characterizations, heady romance and lots of scrumptious detail that bring past and present vividly to life, Ms. Ware’s A Light on the Veranda is a fantastic book.

Note, A Light on the Veranda is the sequel to Ms. Ware’s Midnight on Julia Street. If you’re like me and hate coming in on the middle of a series, read Midnight on Julia Street first. A Light on the Veranda contains spoilers for Midnight on Julia Street.

Thank you all,
Linda
ARC provided by Sourcebooks

Review: MIDNIGHT ON JULIA STREET by Ciji Ware

My primary requirement in a book is a good story. Midnight on Julia Street by Ciji Ware is a great one.

Corlis has been fired from her job--again.

A crusading TV reporter, Corlis doesn't care whose toes she steps on when she's pursuing a story, and she pays the price. This latest job in New Orleans is the fourth one she's lost. Not helping matters is her encounter with Kingston, her college nemesis, at the scene of her latest debacle. Twelve years ago at UCLA, feminist school paper reporter Corlis and sexist frat boy King fought a no-holds barred ideological battle that resulted in King's expulsion from the college. Now's he's a professor of architectural history with the mission to save an historic city block from a greedy real estate developer.

Both Corlis and King have mellowed in the intervening years. Corlis is no longer strident, and a stint in the marines obeying women officers has divested King of his chauvinist tendencies. Softer feelings now come to the fore. King even helps Corlis get another job. But flashbacks to antebellum New Orleans trouble Corlis. These visions send her back to when the buildings now under dispute were constructed. Her ancestor, another Corlis, lived in New Orleans then, and the other characters in the visions are also ancestors of people living today. Feelings run high over the preservation battle and find their mirror in Corlis and King's emotions, which make an about-face from their college days.

Midnight on Julia Street is an exciting, face-paced story loaded with historic and contemporary detail about New Orleans. Ms. Ware does a masterful job of interweaving the past when the buildings were constructed and the present when they may be demolished. She brings two very different eras to vivid life, leaving you wondering how the historical story will play out even though we already know the end.

As for the characters, I love Corlis. She's my kind of woman. Smart, educated, strong, an outspoken professional who stands up for what she believes in and always remains true to herself. I also like King, who has learned the error of his sexist ways to become an honorable man and the perfect match for Corlis. Watching them as they seek to deny their attraction while the preservation battle throws them together is another layer of drama in this riveting novel.

The third character is hot, humid, New Orleans. The issues facing the slave-owning French past of Corlis's visions are an eerie premonition of the problems of the modern city.

Ciji Ware's books are fantastic. Midnight on Julia Street proves that again.

Thank you all,
Linda
ARC provided by Sourcebooks

Review: A RACE TO SPLENDOR by Ciji Ware

Ciji Ware sets off seismic waves of her own in A Race to Splendor, an earth-shaking triumph of a novel about a woman architect battling the male establishment in San Francisco in the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake.

Amelia Hunter Bradshaw returns from completing her architect degree in Paris to find her drunken, irresponsible father has gambled away the Bay View Hotel, which her deceased grandfather left to her. To add insult to injury, her father lost the hotel to the disreputable J.D. Thayer, a card cheat and dealer in prostitution, a friend of shady businessmen, and a man who openly flaunts his Chinese mistress. And the courts, which uphold the condescending patriarchial view that logical men must administer flighty women's property, uphold her father's actions.

Although Amelia despises J.D, work together they must to rebuild the Bay View Hotel from scratch in the construction frenzy after the earthquake's devastation. In the process, each discovers the other may not be quite what he or she appears.

From the graft-taking city officials and the venal wealthy businessmen who run the town, to the poor abused Chinese and Italian immigrants, Ms. Ware's cast of realistic supporting characters enriches the many layers in this book. Last, but not least, is the City of San Francisco itself, which Ms. Ware has lovingly described in all its historical and physical grandeur, encompassing both the good and the bad.

In Amelia and J.D., Ms. Ware has created a Darcy and Elizabeth for the early twentieth century. Amelia fights against the male-dominated world that treats women as children whom men must protect, but often abuse. And a woman doing a man's job is an abomination. While J.D. needs and admires Amelia as both an architect and a woman, he nevertheless believes he is just as right in his patronizing views as she is. These two strong personalities lock horns in a titanic struggle that causes the pages to melt away.

I adored this book. Ms. Ware writes the kind of stories I like: historicals with women doing so-called men's jobs who take on the male-dominated world and win, and heroes who like these heroines precisely because they are the way they are. After reading A Race to Splendor, I ran out and bought Ms. Ware's Island of the Swans, Wicked Company and A Cottage by the Sea. Am I going to have a good time.

Thank you all,
Linda
ARC provided by Sourcebooks