#Constance Savery

[thelonelybrilliance]

Is Tenthragon really going to just ... end like that?????

[isfjmel-phleg]

Since you love Tenthragon, have you been able to get your hands on The Memoirs of Jack Chelwood? Now I want to read it but the printing was so limited I can't find it anywhere and don't know anyone's take on it but I know Savery considered it her best novel!

I did manage to get it through interlibrary loan about three years ago. There are about about ten libraries in the US that own it (not to mention five in the UK, one in Ireland, and one in New Zealand), but not all of them circulate it, and most of them do not typically loan for free, although that might depend on your library and where you are.

My comment on it at the time was "Savery apparently considered this one her best work. I would debate her on that if I could, but it’s certainly the lengthiest and most intricate of what I’ve read of hers." But honestly, I don't remember much about it and can't provide further details.

However, I've put in another ILL request and will give it a reread. Sometimes impressions change the second time around. I had read a lot of Savery around that time, which probably didn't give me adequate space to process the book.

[incomingalbatross]

IMPORTANT: I've just found out that Internet Archive has Runaway Robot, top-tier kids' sci-fi novel, available for borrowing. If you would like to meet my favorite robot of all time, please go read it. Rex is a delightful narrator, is too good for this world, too pure, and he deserves appreciation.

[starwarmth]

Books Read In 2023

Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley (1/3/23)

East by Edith Pattou (1/4/23)

Midnight on the Moon by Mary Pope Osbourn (1/16/23)

The Lady or The Tiger?, and The Discourager of Hesitancy by Frank R. Stockton (1/17/23)

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1/21/23)

Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti (1/22/23)

Tiger Queen by Annie Sullivan (1/22/23)

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis (1/26/23)

Batgirl, vol. 1: The Silent Knight (1/27/23)

Batgirl, vol. 2: To The Death (1/27/23)

Batgirl, vol. 3: Point Blank (1/28/23)

The Female of the Species by Rudyard Kipling (2/17/23)

Batgirl: Stephanie Brown, vol. 1 by Bryan Q. Miller (2/19/23)

Batgirl, Stephanie Brown, vol. 2 by Bryan Q. Miller (3/4/23)

Christmas in Noisy Village by Astrid Lindgren (3/4/23)

The Queen’s Blade by T C Southwell (3/5/23)

Sacrifice, The Queen’s Blade #2 by T C Southwell (3/9/23)

The Invisible Assassin, The Queen’s Blade #3 by T C Southwell (3/13/23)

Mermaids by Patty Dann (3/14/23) X

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám translated by Edward FitzGerald (3/19/23)

The Mirror Visitor by Christelle Dabos (3/21/23) X

The Missing of Clairedelune by Christelle Dabos (3/22/23) X

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jeannette McCurdy (3/24/23) X

Ronia, The Robber’s Daughter by Astrid Lindgren (3/27/23)

Kiki’s Delivery Service by Eiko Kadono (3/30/23)

Brine and Bone by Kate Stradling (4/10/23)

Green Arrow: Quiver by Kevin Smith (4/17/23) X

Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin, translated by Stanley Mitchell (4/22/23)

When Patty Went to College by Jean Webster (4/23/23)

The Princess and The Pea by Hans Christian Anderson (4/23/23)

Deathmark by Kate Stradling (4/25/23)

Without Blood by Alessandro Baricco (5/5/23)

River Secrets by Shannon Hale (5/6/23)

The Fairy’s Return and Other Princess Tales by Gail Carson Levine (5/8/22)

Batman Adventures: Cat Got Your Tongue? by Steve Vance (5/14/23)

Batman Adventures: Batgirl — A League of Her Own by Paul Dini (5/17/23)

The Girl From The Other Side: Siúil a Rún, Vol. 1 by Nagabe (5/19/23)

Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda. Translated by W. S. Merwin (5/26/23)

Other-Wordly: Words Both Strange and Lovely from Around the World by Yee-Lum Mak (6/21/23)

A Bride’s Story, vol. 1 by Kaoru Mori (6/25/23) X

La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils (7/17/2023)

Storefront Church by William Waring Cuney (7/24/23)

Golden Slippers: An Anthology of Negro Poetry for Young Readers (1941), compiled by Arnas Bontemps (7/28/23)

Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo (7/29/23)

Strawberry’s New Friend (Flower Fairy Friends series) by Pippa Le Quesne (7/29/23)

Clementine by Sara Pennypacker (8/11/23)

The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman (8/18/23)

Convent Boarding School by Virginia Arville Kenny (9/05/23)

The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis (09/18/23)

The Betsy Tacy Treasury by Maud Hart Lovelace (09/27/23)

Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan (09/27/23)

Skylark (Sarah, Plain and Tall #2) by Patricia MacLachlan (09/27/23)

Caleb’s Story (Sarah, Plain and Tall #3) by Patricia MacLachlan (09/27/23)

Maelyn by Anita Halle (10/06/23)

Imani All Mine by Connie Porter (10/15/23)

The Perilous Gard (10/22/23)

Enemy Brothers by Constance Savery (10/29/23)

Sadako and the 1000 Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr (11/19/23)

Gone By Nightfall by Dee Garretson (12/02/23)

The Dragon’s Promise by Elizabeth Lim (12/08/23)

A Lion to Guard Us by Clyde Robert Bulla (12/10/23)

The Thirteenth Princess by Diane Zahler (12/23/23)

The Hollow Kingdom by Clare B. Dunkle (12/26/23

The Wasteland by T. S. Eliot (12/31/23)

[valiantarcher]

Book asks: 8, 11, 20, 21, 22, 25, 27, 28

Thank you! :) Just a heads up that I have dug back into my notes for some earlier reads since it felt like I kept coming back to the same books; I found reviewing some old reads a lot of fun, so hopefully you don't mind.

8. A book that left you emotionally devastated. Ooh. Peace Like a River by Leif Enger and Tenthragon by Constance Savery are easy answers, as are a number of non-fiction books, but I'll go with Dawn by Elie Wiesel.

11. A book with one scene that really annoyed you. Just one scene? Hmm. I don't remember all my complaints with When the Stars Threw Down their Spears by Kersten Hamilton, but I do remember one scene that really bothered me.

20. A book that you enjoyed, but barely remember. According to my notes, Sword Song by Rosemary Sutcliff is a book I remember one plot point about but also can't ever reliably remember if I've read it when asked.

21. A book that improved upon reread. I enjoyed Lamplighter by D.M. Cornish on the first read, but I just finished a reread of it and I think I like it even more now.

22. A book that got worse on reread. Ha, probably a number of my childhood reads would fit this! But I'm going to say East by Edith Pattou: I had remembered not loving it the first time I read it but I read it again a few years ago and liked it less than I remembered.

25. A book on your B-tier: Not one of your favorites, but one you enjoyed. It looks like Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L. Sayers was one of these.

27. An author whose early work you enjoy more than their later work. This might be stretching it a bit as an in-progress series is my favourite of his works, but since I have ignored the last four or so published books, I'm going to say N.D. Wilson.

28. An author whose later work you enjoy more than their early work. This is also stretching it, but it looks like most of the books I enjoy by Patricia McKillip were written in the second half of her career (but not all).

[idratherdreamofjune]

Fortnight of Books: 2022

Day 7:

Most memorable character:

There are even more good candidates than usual this year, I can narrow it down to a few though. Hugh, the extremely conflicted and disturbed initial antagonist of Tenthragon (Constance Savery) is introduced as a straightforward villain, but as his background unfolded the reader begins to pity him and long for his reconciliation. His brother and the rest of the household are all excellent characters in their own rights, but Hugh is the most dramatic, and the one who changes the most. Mr. Land, the miracle-working father of the narrator in Peace Like a River (Leif Enger - again, a book full of finely-drawn people) also deserves notice. He is, ostensibly, the main character, and as one of the most deeply loving fictional characters I’ve ever encountered he gives the tale its heart and impetus. Jonathan Harker (Dracula) gets a mention too, I was fully invested in his story from the beginning and his character growth is truly impressive (though in some ways not positive). He’ll get special attention in the next post. ;D

Most annoying character:

The journalist detective Jimmy London in Calamity in Kent (John Rowland) - he does a fair amount of lying and goes so far as to withhold a lot of information about the murder from the police simply for the purpose of trying to get a scoop. A slimy individual all around.

[batrachised]

i know i've posted about this before, but the salt remains in the wound: we should have seen Charlotte reuniting with Reb in the Reb and the Redcoats, listen to me Constance Savery!! LISTEN TO ME!! You can't set them up and then not follow through!!

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 7.2

437 – Emperor Valentinian III begins his reign over the Western Roman Empire. His mother Galla Placidia ends her regency, but continues to exercise political influence at the court in Rome. 626 – Li Shimin, the future Emperor Taizong of Tang, ambushes and kills his rival brothers Li Yuanji and Li Jiancheng in the Xuanwu Gate Incident. 706 – In China, Emperor Zhongzong of Tang inters the bodies of relatives in the Qianling Mausoleum, located on Mount Liang outside Chang'an. 866 – Battle of Brissarthe: The Franks led by Robert the Strong are defeated by a joint Breton-Viking army. 936 – King Henry the Fowler dies in his royal palace in Memleben. He is succeeded by his son Otto I, who becomes the ruler of East Francia. 963 – The Byzantine army proclaims Nikephoros II Phokas Emperor of the Romans on the plains outside Cappadocian Caesarea. 1298 – The Battle of Göllheim is fought between Albert I of Habsburg and Adolf of Nassau-Weilburg. 1494 – The Treaty of Tordesillas is ratified by Spain. 1504 – Bogdan III the One-Eyed becomes Voivode of Moldavia. 1555 – Ottoman Admiral Turgut Reis sacks the Italian city of Paola. 1561 – Menas, emperor of Ethiopia, defeats a revolt in Emfraz. 1582 – Battle of Yamazaki: Toyotomi Hideyoshi defeats Akechi Mitsuhide. 1613 – The first English expedition (from Virginia) against Acadia led by Samuel Argall takes place. 1644 – English Civil War: Battle of Marston Moor. 1645 – Battle of Alford: Wars of the Three Kingdoms. 1698 – Thomas Savery patents the first steam engine. 1723 – Bach's Magnificat is first performed. 1776 – American Revolution: The Continental Congress adopts a resolution severing ties with the Kingdom of Great Britain although the wording of the formal Declaration of Independence is not adopted until July 4. 1816 – The French frigate Méduse strikes the Bank of Arguin and 151 people on board have to be evacuated on an improvised raft, a case immortalised by Géricault's painting The Raft of the Medusa. 1822 – Thirty-five slaves, including Denmark Vesey, are hanged in South Carolina after being accused of organizing a slave rebellion. 1823 – Bahia Independence Day: The end of Portuguese rule in Brazil, with the final defeat of the Portuguese crown loyalists in the province of Bahia. 1839 – Twenty miles off the coast of Cuba, 53 kidnapped Africans led by Joseph Cinqué mutiny and take over the slave ship Amistad. 1840 – A Ms  7.4 earthquake strikes present-day Turkey and Armenia; combined with the effects of an eruption on Mount Ararat, kills 10,000 people. 1853 – The Russian Army crosses the Prut river into the Danubian Principalities (Moldavia and Wallachia), providing the spark that will set off the Crimean War. 1864 – Dimitri Atanasescu founds the first Romanian school in the Balkans for the Aromanians in Trnovo, in the Ottoman Empire (now in North Macedonia). 1871 – Victor Emmanuel II of Italy enters Rome after having conquered it from the Papal States. 1881 – Charles J. Guiteau shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President James A. Garfield (who will die of complications from his wounds on September 19). 1890 – The U.S. Congress passes the Sherman Antitrust Act. 1897 – British-Italian engineer Guglielmo Marconi obtains a patent for radio in London. 1900 – An airship designed and constructed by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin of Germany made its first flight on Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen. 1900 – Jean Sibelius' Finlandia receives its première performance in Helsinki with the Helsinki Philharmonic Society conducted by Robert Kajanus. 1921 – World War I: U.S. President Warren G. Harding signs the Knox–Porter Resolution formally ending the war between the United States and Germany. 1934 – The Night of the Long Knives ends with the death of Ernst Röhm. 1937 – Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan are last heard from over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first equatorial round-the-world flight. 1940 – Indian independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose is arrested and detained in Calcutta. 1940 – The SS Arandora Star is sunk by U-47 in the North Atlantic with the loss of over 800 lives, mostly civilians. 1962 – The first Walmart store, then known as Wal-Mart, opens for business in Rogers, Arkansas. 1964 – Civil rights movement: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 meant to prohibit segregation in public places. 1966 – France conducts its first nuclear weapon test in the Pacific, on Moruroa Atoll. 1976 – End of South Vietnam; Communist North Vietnam annexes the former South Vietnam to form the unified Socialist Republic of Vietnam. 1986 – Rodrigo Rojas and Carmen Gloria Quintana are burnt alive during a street demonstration against the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile. 1986 – Aeroflot Flight 2306 crashes while attempting an emergency landing at Syktyvkar Airport in Syktyvkar, in present-day Komi Republic, Russia, killing 54 people. 1988 – Marcel Lefebvre and the four bishops he consecrated were excommunicated by the Holy See. 1990 – In the 1990 Mecca tunnel tragedy, 1,400 Muslim pilgrims are suffocated to death and trampled upon in a pedestrian tunnel leading to the holy city of Mecca. 1994 – USAir Flight 1016 crashes near Charlotte Douglas International Airport, killing 37 of the 57 people on board. 1997 – The Bank of Thailand floats the baht, triggering the Asian financial crisis. 2000 – Vicente Fox Quesada is elected the first President of México from an opposition party, the Partido Acción Nacional, after more than 70 years of continuous rule by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional. 2001 – The AbioCor self-contained artificial heart is first implanted. 2002 – Steve Fossett becomes the first person to fly solo around the world nonstop in a balloon. 2005 – The Live 8 benefit concerts takes place in the G8 states and in South Africa. More than 1,000 musicians perform and are broadcast on 182 television networks and 2,000 radio networks. 2008 – Colombian conflict: Íngrid Betancourt, a member of the Chamber of Representatives of Colombia, is released from captivity after being held for six and a half years by FARC. 2010 – The South Kivu tank truck explosion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo kills at least 230 people. 2013 – The International Astronomical Union names Pluto's fourth and fifth moons, Kerberos and Styx. 2013 – A magnitude 6.1 earthquake strikes Aceh, Indonesia, killing at least 42 people and injuring 420 others.

[starsaroundsaturn]

30, 32 and 40 of the writer ask for @catkin-morgs

Talk to me about the role dreams play in your writing life. Have you ever used material from your dreams in your writing? Have you ever written in a dream? Did you remember it when you woke up?

My older sister takes a good deal of inspiration from her dreams, but my most vivid dreams are normally my nightmares and I remember few other of my dreams. My most well remembered dream is about my little sister when she was two, and I would consistently dream that she fell off our twenty foot above ground level deck trying to pet a cat on the railing. Every time I woke up I was so terrified that I had to go and sleep in the same bed with her because I needed to make sure she was alive. I suppose the fear my characters exhibit about their loved ones falling to their deaths might be influenced by this dream. Other than that, my dreams tend to not influence my writing at all. I may have written in a dream, but I have never remembered it.

What is a line from a poem/novel/fanfic etc that you return to from time and time again? How did you find it? What does it mean to you?

I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul from Invictus. I read this poem when I was fifteen or so, and I think this line has symbolized to me that the only person who can destroy or injure my soul is myself. No one else conquer it. It also humbles me, because the forces that make my soul unconquerable have never been within me, because I’m thanking someone else for that.

A novel line that I obsess over is from the Keepers series by Ted Sanders: Fear is the stone we push. May yours be light. I suppose this line makes me think of Sisyphus, this place where we are always in trying to push something up an unbelievably high hill, and the top never seems to get any closer. This line, though, has this sense of I know you will keep pushing whether or not it is light but still wishing to have the person removed from their fear. As a person for whom fear and the effort to conquer fear has been an ongoing struggle for my entire life, this just hits me very hard.

I know you didn’t ask for this much, but from Enemy Brothers by Constance Savery there’s a line that goes something like: If you were drinking poison, but you thought it was lemonade, very good lemonade, you would be very angry if I knocked the glass out of your hands, but I couldn’t let you keep drinking. I think for me this makes me think of the kindness and terrible weight of trying to help people. Sometimes people don’t recognize it as help; sometimes even if they do they still are angry. But it doesn’t make it less worth while to try to help people, even if they think poison is lemonade.

Please share a poem with me, I need it.

Like your neurons’ supernova,

Like silver stardust slicks your skin,

I melted to a galaxy,

A universe to begin.

Like coldness and like darkness

But things of contrast are,

I beheld the knowing of light and heat

And with it made a star.

Like water the earth swallows

So hydrocarbons form,

Till molecules I breathed to life

The universe to swarm.

Like sparks take to a fire

When there is fuel about,

The breath of life would always spread

Till it burned the systems out.

Like a tried and trusted motor

Will axles force to turn,

The plants were born from silence

The animals love to yearn.

Like artists stretch a canvas

That thirstily drinks up paints,

The soul was made to be an art,

And drink the stuff of saints.

Like propositional calculus,

Asks for tautologies of truth,

I knitted out the neurons

Of curiosity from youth.

And like political systems

That man will organize

I made the body with the soul

Be one to sympathize.

I set out my creation

Like a child sets out their toys;

To me depended their very lives

And all their hurts and joys.

But I had made a universe

That I set out would spin

That supernova neurons fire

And new thoughts would begin.

That you melted into galaxies

A universe to meld

Until at last, in bending it,

In it, you me beheld.

So calculus and algebra and history and art

So science and philosophy and poetry and heart

So Let There Be Light You May behold

Let There Be Stories Young and Old

Let There Be Myth and Majesty

Let You, In It LEARN OF ME.

Let There Be A Universe Shining Out Inside Your EYES

So You May Behold The One In Me Before The Matter DIES.

[lover-of-the-starkindler]

Silence again. Dym, wide awake now, had a thermos flask of coffee, some rolls and a packet of crumbly oatcake. "It's all I could buy in the town, Max," he said as he opened his shabby leather case. "How many rolls d'you think you can eat? Hungry?"

"Nein," muttered Tony... "I--I mean--" he stammered.

"Nine!" said Dym, easily. "'Fraid you'll have to take it out in cake, old man. There were only seven rolls left in the shop."

Enemy Brothers by Constance Savery

[allthatglittersisnotgoldrush]

any book recs for a reader in need of a Gold-rush family fix?? or a historical read? Were there any books in particular that inspired you?

The authors talked about this for a long time and came up with approximately 1000 recommendations. None of them are specifically Gold-Rush-tied, it’s more about...our influences? Here’s a boiled down list:

1. For adventure... Louis L’Amour’s westerns, The Virginian, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Moccasin Trail (by Eloise Jarvis McGraw; see also her Ancient Egyptian works for intrigue and fun), Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

2. For coming-of-age... Tom Sawyer, the obscure but powerfully southwestern Anita of Rancho Del Mar, the topically irrelevant but deeply influential Enemy Brothers by Constance Savery, My Side of the Mountain, Caddie Woodlawn, The Prince and the Pauper

3. For epic storytelling and writing style... DICKENS, The Once and Future King, everything by Rosemary Sutcliff, the Queen’s Thief series by Meghan Whalen Turner, the Red Rising trilogy by Pierce Brown, any collection of fairytales/adventures of Robin Hood/Irish mythology, [TolkienGirl here: have to shout out to L.M. Montgomery] 

4. For poetry... Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Wordsworth, Robert Louis Stevenson, Richard Siken, Mary Oliver, Luke Havergal by Edwin Arlington Robinson, Byron (for Morgoth, really)

[thelonelybrilliance]

Your opinion on Dym Ingleford and also THE REB (OMG THE REB AND THE RED COATS HOW HAVE WE NEVER TALKED ABOUT THAT I MEAN YES I DESPERATELY WISH THERE WAS A SEQUEL)

HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO MEEEEEE

Dym Ingleford is the most perfect man ever created in literature. I just…I can’t. I can’t with the depth of his brotherly loyalty, the subtlety of his humor, the purity of his service…he’s so noble, and kind, and beautiful, and I WOULD LITERALLY MARRY THIS MAN HE IS THE MOST UNPROBLEMATIC FAVE EVER. You know the feeling you get when you look at PERFECT things, like a soldier saluting the Flag, or a wave crashing cleanly on sand, or Montgomery Clift’s jawline??? THIS IS DYM INGLEFORD. I could talk forever about this man. I have written nine chapters on an unauthorized sequel about this man. He is 22. I’M ABOUT TO BE 22. WE SHOULD GET MARRIED.

No really. My love of brother dynamics??? MIGHT AS WELL TRACE IT THERE. 

Also I know it’s a children’s book but Constance Savery knew what she was about when she describes his EYES and the “steely strength of his scarred hands” DAYUMMMM SIGN ME UP. 

The Reb: I’m about done with you, Monica, for giving me these two beautiful faves in one ask (Just kidding. BLESS YOU! YOu’re visiting me in TWO WEEKS I AM SO EXCITED). 

The Reb is that guy where you’re in love with him for years and then your realize he’s like FIFTEEN YEARS OLD. So let’s age him up to legality and then admit he is hot and fly AF. I mean, he is a sassmaster and military mastermind and he secretly looks up to his captor and he’s this prisoner of war who’s proud and ill-treated and then slowly wins a family over and you CARE SO MUCH ABOUT HIM??? ANd he’s playful, because he’s just a freaking KID but you also get this impression of how freaking imposing he is. His men respected him! He was tricky as hell! BLESS HIM

And Charlotte may only be eleven but girl KNOWS WHAT IS UP and she’s totally in love with him and y’all KNOW they would get married later on–someone write a SEQUEL DARNIT

[isfjmel-phleg]

A PSA for any of your followers who are as intrigued by your Tenthragon-blogging as I am: the text is now available on the Internet Archive!

Google doesn’t return it, but searching ‘Tenthragon’ into the Internet Archive metadata search brings up the 1930 US edition. (I won’t link in case it breaks the ask.) I’m not quite sure why it’s been made available ~2 years earlier than expected. Possibly the copyright was never renewed?

Either way, I was very excited to see it available. Your / @valiantarcher / @incomingalbatross’s commentary on it had got me super interested, and I read it all yesterday over 10 hours straight :’)

I have SO many questions and thoughts which I would love to talk about once they’re coherent. But hopefully in the meantime this can get some more new fans on the Tenthragon bandwagon!

Thank you so much for letting me know! Here's the Internet Archive link if anyone is interested.

I'm very glad to hear that you read it and enjoyed it, and I would love to hear your thoughts and questions whenever you're ready!

[incomingalbatross]

Positive things:

Done with my semester!

Finally read elusive Constance Savery novel Tenthragon

Jonathan Our Good Friend Jonathan has returned to my inbox

Really started to build a sense of camaraderie in our minuscule English grad student cohort this semester, and we're forming some Plans for the English graduate organizations next semester (I get to sit back and take a supporting role in the formation of said plans, which is how I like it)

I have half a season of BNHA stored up that I haven't seen yet

Still haven't heard back about the potential university-affiliated England trip, but I talked with one of the people in charge today and she said they should be sending out application responses soon. Which is good to know!

I can read stuff. And watch stuff. Without the nagging awareness I should be thinking about schoolwork instead

My sister just told me to try We Bare Bears and one episode in I can tell this was good advice :)

I don't actually know how much more free/unscheduled time I'll end up having this summer--my work hours are about to shoot up, I think, which has its pros and cons--but I have the IDEA of free time. I could go on outings with friends! Or with family members! Or by myself!

[bobmccullochny]

History

July 2 1698 - Thomas Savery patented the first steam engine.

1776 - The Continental Congress adopted a resolution severing ties with the Kingdom of Great Britain, although the final wording of the formal Declaration of Independence was not approved until July 4.

1839 - 53 African slaves took over the slave ship Amistad.

1890 - The US Congress passes the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

1897 - Guglielmo Marconi obtained his patent for radio in London.

1900 - The first Zeppelin flight took place on Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany.

1937 - Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan were last heard from over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first equatorial round-the-world flight.

1962 - The first Wal-Mart store opened in Rogers, Arkansas.

1964 - US President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the (Republican written) Civil Rights Act of 1964 meant to prohibit segregation in public places.

2002 - Steve Fossett became the first person to fly solo around the world (Australia to Australia ) nonstop in a balloon in just under two weeks.

2005 - The Live 8 benefit concerts - more than 1,000 musicians performed and were broadcast on 182 television networks and 2,000 radio networks.

[valiantarcher]

I have random and assorted thoughts on my Constance Savery reads over the past couple of weeks. I’ve categorised them by work (Magic in My Shoes, “The Waswytch Secret”, The Reb and the Redcoats, The Good Ship Red Lily, and Enemy Brothers) so those who haven’t read all of them have the option to (hopefully easily) scroll past the unread ones if they so desire. I have also put them under the cut due to length.

Magic in My Shoes: I enjoyed Sally as the narrator, and the premise was engaging even with me knowing the secret early in the book. I was a little surprised by the accusations of ill-nourishment and neglect against Aunt Persis, but in retrospect, I appreciate that realism - four growing children are not going to flourish off even generous portions for two of them. Which brings me to my main complaint - Tandy and his unwillingness to see gorging himself was selfish and wrong on many levels. Despite the thin excuse that he had been delicate and sickly at times in the past, I really expected Josset (with Laurence’s support) to put his foot down instead of continuing to baby him (after all, as someone remarked, triplets are all of the same age). Tandy didn’t ruin the story for me, but he made certain parts of it very irritating. I did love the plan involving ten-year-old Laurence becoming a schoolteacher and, when Aunt Persis declared that was nonsense, all the children bring up a moral tale with a six-year-old being so studious that she became a teacher as solid proof.

“The Waswytch Secret”: Given that it was in a collection of ghost stories (well, sort of - most had some sort of haunting element, if only a little, but I’m still not sure why “The Red-Headed League” was included), I wasn’t sure what to expect at first. It was thoroughly Savery, though, and an enjoyable read with an element of mystery. It felt slightly different from her novels, and I think that was due to the choice of one of the younger children as narrator.

Reb and Redcoats: This was a reread and I found it a pretty fun one this time around. Randal’s integration into and relationship with the Darringtons was charming. I couldn’t decide whether Tim Wingate’s inaptitude for stealth and secrecy was more irritating or amusing, but I swung towards the latter by the end, especially given his cheerful nature. My main gripe is that I still feel like the Patty switch was kind of cheating.

The Good Ship Red Lily: I struggled with this one a lot even past (or maybe because of) the tense start. Violet was a horrible child, and I loathed Ingram and disliked Sir Timon. Objectively, of course it’s good that there was reconciliation with Ingram and that he repented and asked forgiveness, but I could not make myself invested in it (though the tiny glimpses we had of it from Michael’s perspective helped a little). I enjoyed Toby as primary character a lot and especially appreciated his resolution to deny the pleasures when he felt accepting them would go against his conscience. I wasn’t very pleased with the treatment of Patience, though - Toby said the others didn’t join him in his denial because they were too young to understand; while that certainly makes sense for the younger ones (and Violet is a category in and of herself), Patience is a year older than him and - although not privy to all the knowledge and trust from their father that Toby is - was Toby’s confidant about plans to escape. She showed a lack of wisdom in following Violet up the chimney, but that could partially have been explained by her caregiving to the younger children. Regardless, especially since all knew about Ingram’s betrayal, I think Patience at least should have been given a reason for not seeing the pleasures as a betrayal of their father instead of being pushed to the side and under the general but false umbrella of “too young to understand”.

Enemy Brothers: Especially after The Good Ship Red Lily, I was afraid this one might not live up to the positive recollection I had of it - but it didn’t disappoint. I very much appreciated that, although Dym was the one who had a special connection with Tony, Tony belonged to the entire family and they to him. I know Tony takes it lightly at the end and chalks it up to their keenness for detective work, but James and Porgy cycling 60 miles after him and the German in the car was no small thing. And, while it bugs me a little bit that Ginger doesn’t recgonise Tony despite the marked resemblance to Dym, I’ll let it go with the idea that he thinks he’s familiar but his brain doesn’t provide the correct context while on ship. I have a new appreciation for Dym. On one hand, of course he is gentle and doesn’t take harm easily from Tony - he’s been searching for Tony for years and so he’s been choosing to love Tony for years. And, on the other, you can tell he still hasn’t forgiven Max’s Mutti for stealing Tony and just how much effort it takes for him to choose to tell Tony to still love her and that he will take him to see her after the war. I also appreciate the honesty that Dym had in discussing England’s past and how they were not always on the side of right but that this time, they were. Also, Dym was a bomber pilot! I don’t know the exact statistics, but this was an incredibly dangerous job. I’m sure it varied some between organizations and aircraft, but if you were on the crew of a US B-17 bomber doing runs, the odds were you would only make it halfway through the 25 runs (I believe that’s right for the year it was published?) you were supposed to before being killed, captured, or severely injured. Even if you beat the odds and made it through all those runs (as some did), you would have had multiple crewmembers who did not and so would not have kept your full crew together (Were there rare exceptions to this, crews who made it all together? I hope so, but I don’t know). At any rate, when Euphemia comments to Dym and his friends to leave croquet until the summer when it was warmer and the way they all looked at each other for a moment as if there was no certainty that summer would come hit hard this time. (Oh, I just found someone noting that the RAF flew night missions and had a higher casualty rate than the US bombers, though it did depend on the year, of course - if they weren’t in the worst year yet, they were heading into it.) And the moment when Tony finds Dym and comes up behind him, nervous and afraid, and whispers “Please, George, I’ve come back” is just wonderful. I think there’s an idea of fear and justice vs. love and mercy, along with the hope that the choice of coming back will make a difference, but I haven’t figured out how to put it into words. I’m actually kind of shocked this book has never been made into a movie or a mini-series, especially when WWII stories have been so popular in somewhat recent years. But perhaps the strong Christian threads have put producers off (...not that that’s stopped others from mangling or removing them from other works).

The Good Ship Red Lily and Enemy Brothers: Enemy Brothers feels like a kind of inverse of The Good Ship Red Lily. Both books deal with children meeting and spending time with family members (and because of kidnapping, no less) and making decisions as to where home is and who true family is, but the role of the family is drastically different. In Red Lily, the dapper uncle is the kidnapper. Ingram tries to act like he is filling the kind, wise, but fun adult role and the children do love him for that. However, he is directly and actively responsible for their kidnapping, for previous imprisonment of their father, and for the current attempt to capture their father. In Enemy Brothers, Dym is ostensibly in the enemy role (being English and responsible for Tony’s “imprisonment” in the White Priory), but his actions are kind, loving, and (mostly) wise. Even when Tony is hating him, he can’t deny there’s a magnetism around Dym that all the children, including him, recognise and respond to. It’s not quite that serious, but I am reminded of the exchange in The Fellowship of the Ring about the enemy’s agents seeming fair but feeling foul, while the good may look foul but feel fair. But where an understanding of Ingram’s true nature leads Toby to separate from him and his grandfather, a deeper understanding of Dym and his true character helps Tony to make the hard but right decision about his home and family. In both cases, repentance and returning bring about reconciliation and restoration, but Ingram is the one repenting in Red Lily, confessing and asking forgiveness of his brother. In Enemy Brothers, Tony is the one who comes back, finally seeking the brother who has sought him for so long. He doesn’t ask for forgiveness from his brother in words and indeed doesn’t need to because his actions speak so loudly of it, but is fully received with love and restored.