Perhaps best known for writing the Black National Anthem, Lift Every Voice and Sing , James Weldon Johnson wrote one of the first novels to probe the ambiguities of race, the novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man. As a boy, the fictional title character is sent North with his Mother to be raised in Connecticut. He does extremely well in school and is even something of a musical prodigy.

But, he is stunned when one day in school a teacher asks the white students to stand, and scolds him when he joins them. He confronts his fair skinned mother and she reveals that she is indeed black and his father is a white Southern gentleman. His father later comes to visit, and even buys him a piano, but the child is unable to approach and deal with him.

As a young man, the death of his mother & sale of their house leaves him with a small stake & he determines to attend college. Though qualified, he rules out Harvard for financial reasons & heads back down South to attend Atlanta University. However, his stake is stolen from his boarding house room before he can register & he ends up with a job in a cigar factory.

When the factory closes, he heads North again, this time to New York City and discovers Ragtime music and shooting craps, excelling at the one & nearing ruin in the other. A white gentleman who has heard him play enters into an exclusive agreement to have him play at parties & subsequently takes him along on a tour of Europe.

Inevitably, he is drawn back to America and to music. He tours the South collecting musical knowledge so that he will be able to compose a uniquely American and Black music. But his idyll is shattered when he sees a white lynch mob burn a black man. In the wake of this experience, he decides to "pass" for white--not due to fear or discouragement, but due to "Shame at being identified with a people that could with impunity be treated worse than animals."

Abandoning his musical ambitions, he takes a job as a clerk, does well investing in real estate & meets a white woman who he wishes to marry. After examining his conscience he decides to tell her that he is black. After taking some time to confront this fact, she consents to marriage.

As the novel closes, the "ex-colored man" tells us: "My love for my children makes me glad that I am what I am, and keeps me from desiring to be otherwise; and yet, when I sometimes open a little box in which I still keep my fast yellowing manuscripts, the only tangible remnants of a vanished dream, a dead ambition, a sacrificed talent, I cannot repress the thought, that, after all, I have chosen the lesser part, that I have sold my birthright for a mess of pottage."

And the reader can't help but feel profoundly ashamed of a system of racial oppression that forced a man to make these choices--a wonderful novel.

GRADE: B+

This is a tragic book in a lot of ways. It is a reminder that America has not fullfilled her promise to all of her children. It would be great to read a book like this as an object lesson in the bigotry of the past. We have made some progress but there is still much to be done. James Weldon Johnson produced a wrenching tale. That it is somewhat autobiographical adds to the ambivalent narration. First the narrator feels shame in his heritage but then grows to accept himself and feel pride in who he is. This tells a tale that America is often loathe to hear but it is important nonetheless. The aspect of a mulatto man passing for white is sad. One should be allowed to feel pride in multiethnicity. This is a horrible stain on our culture that so many people had to live in denial of who they really were. This book is a valuable document of America's dark side. I would hope that it experiences a much deserved revival now that evidence of Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemmings has reopened the discussion on this sad piece of our history. Read this book and weep but most of all read this book and learn.

For a book which was first published in 1912, this is an amazingly relevant work for today. Johnson's novel (hidden in the form of an autobiography) graphically looks at relations between the races in American. The nameless main character is born in the South to an African-American mother and a white Southern aristocrat. He and his mother move to Connecticut when he is very young, allowing Johnson to show us the benevolent face of pervasive racism of the United States. Johnson avoids the easy "good" vs. "evil" view of the oppressed vs. the oppressors. Instead, the narrator becomes a permanent outcast, returning to the South upon the death of his mother and then to the ragtime era New York City. The style of the novel is clear and extremely readable--and very current. The end of the novel dives deep into the issue of racism, causing both black and white readers to question their long-held assumptions about who they are and who they appear to be to others.

If you have read the first three novels in the Wolfwalker series (and if you haven't, I suggest that you do) do not, I repeat, DO NOT read Grayheart or Wolf's Bane. Ember Dione maMarin was my favorite character, and Harper destroyed her life. I don't ask for sugar plum fairies and sprites dancing under the pale moon light, but I do expect to be able to read a story without feeling sick to my stomach over the non-stop agony my character is experiencing. Wolfwalker, Shadow Leader, and Storm Runner had plenty of pain and fear, but those emotions were at least balanced by excitement and joy. I don't know what Tara Harper was thinking...maybe she was having a bad year, or maybe she has every intention of making up for it in future novels, but unless she redeems herself, my advice is to stay away from these novels.

First of all, this is not the fifth book, it is the 4th. The fifth is yet to be published. (Grayheart is the 6th) This book will knock your socks off. Yes, it is very depressing and very upsetting, but very necessary. If you are a fan of the Wolfwalker series and have faith in the author - you'll love it. If you prefer a happy ending, however, heed caution before reading this book. This book needed to take place though - Dion needed to discover herself - she was unhappy with her life and very discontented. Trust me, it is a tear jerking read, but you'll love it. (And if you pay really close attention to the epilogue you may realize that the ending isn't quite so bad afterall) I loved it - and would recommend it to anyone.

I LOVED this book! But I also think that I was "ready" for it since my father passed away this year. Like they say, no one can understand grief until it is experienced. The end was a little confusing but I'm hoping that Aranur's story helps to clear some of that up. Like the critic says, the book is NOT an escapist novel, if you are looking for a book that has a solid happy ending, this is not it. Instead it will rip-away everything that you knew and show you that "the future is all that holds us together (Gamon)".

The second of a (so far) three volume mystery series, The Tidal Poole seems well researched with lots of details suggesting the Elizabethan era. But the characters including Good Queen Bess (a young GQB) are one dimensional and less than compelling. Although I like the subgenre of historical mysteries as a rule, this is one of the weaker series. The fault, I suppose, lies in Harper's portrayal of Elizabeth herself. Her temper, easily aroused passions, and inconsistent relationships with her key courtiers become off-putting and unbelievable. She must have watched the old Bette Davis movie a lot. Too bad. I really wanted to like this...

Historically accurate? I'm guessing not much. Fun? Oh, yes.

This book is about my hero, Queen Elizabeth I. It takes place shortly after her coronation. The new queen finds herself with a mystery to solve and then goes about solving it in a very un-Elizabeth way.

I've never been much of a fan of mysteries, but I got this one from the library (they were selling it for a dollar) and found it was better than most. Great for anyone who likes mysteries or Elizabeth I (but not worth as much on the second reading.)

I just have a hard time imagining Elizabeth I wanting ANYONE to call her Bess, especially servants. You have to suspend reason to enjoy these books - but once you do, you get a nice mystery. The culprit isn't that hard to figure out in this book - but you keep reading to find out why they did it and how "Bess" and her band of slueths gets it all worked out. One thing that I do believe Harper does do convincingly is how she portrays Elizabeth and Dudley. Of course, we'll never know what really went on, but it reads true to me. Worth reading.

Like her other efforts, this one contains interesting characters, tight pacing, and good action. I particularly enjoyed the author's handling of the paladin character, Algorind. His "Duty First" credo gets him into some tight moral/ethical spots, but the author doesn't simply gloss over them. Rather, she writes these difficulties into the Algorind's character, and we see him (begin to) grow accordingly. Very satisfying, that.

Negatively, Thornhold does contain (what seemed to me) a clichee antagonist, Dag Zoreth. Pretty much a stock evil / depraved / violent mage. To me, Dag Zoreth lacked the depth and complexity of other characters in the book, namely Algorind and Bronwyn (the protagonist).

Also, I was initally expecting a little more from the mighty artefact (read the book!), and felt increasingly glum about it as the story went on. But I think that's just me (as jaded reader) being used to hero-saves-the-world stories... In the end I found the artefact refreshing, precisely because it WASN'T powerful enough to crack the world in half!

Much has been said of the protagonist, Bronwyn. I would only like to add the following: If you enjoy a little character-irony in your thematic nomenclature, make sure to look up "Bronwyn" in a baby-name book at your local book store...

Summary: Some of her best characters (Bronwyn, Algorind, Ebenezer, Danilo), but not necessarily her best writing. Thornhold is still a good read, however, and well worth the price of admission!

This book puzzled me, so I took the author up on her offer and emailed with questions. She admitted that the story was not supposed to be the END of the Harper series, but a PIVOT that would end the numbered SERIES but would take the Harper organization in new directions. The Harpers have changed before, and a new upheaval was planned. The characters introduced in this book would continue, and a lot of the plot threads would resolve. She especially wanted to see the Algorind young paladin overcome the betrayal he suffered without losing his faith, and "move from unquestioning acceptance into true wisdom," was I think the words she used.

So what happened? TSR abandoned the plot line and decided to move in completely new directions. The book was changed from a pivot story and put out as the last book. Cunningham admits that if she had known this was going to happen, she would have written a very different story, because this one sure doesn't END the Harpers. It wasn't meant to. The ending as written, and as the situation stands, is not very satisfying. I, for one, would like to know what happens to Algorind, what skeletons Khelben Arunsum has hidden in his closet, and what those rings of Samular can do when they really cut loose. It seems like a trio of altered artifacts is too powerful just to activate a magical siege tower. And it doesn't make sense to organize a whole order of paladins around protecting the descendants of Samular, unless they can do some serious, um, "stuff." I asked about some of these things, and Cunningham told me what she'd had in mind. I'm sorry that the whole story isn't going to be told.

Oh, well.

First of all, I have to say I enjoy reading this book very much. At first, when I finally finished it, it shocked to me a bit. But when I think over it, I realize that this was the perfect end for the book, leaving open doors for more books with these characters, and giving you enought to want more.

I have to say that if you want a book where all is black or white, you are or good or evil, and you want a perfect-pleasure end for the characters, search another one. Here are sown some facts of the good and evil that most men tend to forget. All is not good or evil. Mrs Cunningham shows us here these things, with a great plot. Bronwyn is a great character and it shows us how she is trough the book. It is not the typicall hero, the incarnation of Good and a perfect Knight. She is a thieve (or so) but with a strict code of Honor, wich don't mean that she is good.

The plot is great, and Mrs. Cunningham, playing with the personality of Bronwyn and the marks left in her by her past, keep it great and at the end, you wouldn't say it will finish this way. I have to disagree with some of other readers review. Some one sais the end isn't fair, that is not good (I can't tell you what, without revealing the Best part of the book). In my opinion, this book is not for those who always want a perfect and pleasent end.

I strongly recommend this boks, becouse it is not the same as always (with other novels) when there is a quest, and the Hero, through some difficulties, get at it, and he lives happy for ever. In here, you can see, that for doing some good, maybe you must do some evil too, but the goos is much than the evil, and youhave to make the choice your heart tells you, and is not so easy, as Paladins see, becouse it is not good white, or evil black. Is grey, both good and evil.

Judith Krantz is an extremely skilled writer with that genuinely, authorly flair for creating subworlds on her own terms - a talent possessed by any writer worth reading, from Dickens to Agatha Christie, whatever the genre or actual literary merit of his or her output. I read The Jewels of Tessa Kent with as much enjoyment as all her other works, very little more or less, since she is if nothing else consistent and the predictability of her formula - if you like this sort of thing, as I do - is part of the attraction. She is very good at drawing a detailed and superficially convincing picture of a specialised environment or social situation - in this case, the worlds of film-making, auction houses and applied Catholicism - and, despite the superabundance of positives and superlatives in her novels (nobody is ever just slightly beautiful, or a little bit rich, or reasonably good at what they do) she always includes a couple of entertaining vignettes of nasty, obsessed characters. Unfortunately, however, her great weakness seems to be an inability to portray a convincing romantic relationship. Her heroines generally fall madly in reciprocated love at first sight and marry within a week, in a way that never seems remotely plausible.

The Jewels Of Tessa Kent was a typical Krantz book. It was easy enough to read and enjoyable enough to finish. I felt bad for poor Maggie, being raised by her mother's parents, and then being shuffled off to total strangers to be raised after her parents die. I still feel as though she should have lived with her birth mother, the whole thing was very cruel. This book was not as thrilling to me as Scruples 2 or Lovers, but Krantz definitely gets a thumbs up for this one.

At the beginning of this novel, Tessa Kent is but a 14-year-old extraordinarily beautiful girl whose mother lives only for the day when Tessa will become a movie star.

However due to a one-night indiscretion Tessa becomes pregnant and the family moves to another city. There, in secrecy, Tessa gives birth to a little girl (Maggie) whom her parents decide to raise as their own.

Tessa is still under twenty when she wins an Oscar for the best supporting actress and from then on her star continues to rise spectaculously.

Soon after she gets married her parents die in a car accident. Tessa's husband doesn't know her secret and so Maggie is brought up by a cold, unsympathetic couple (relatives of Tessa's husband).

Tessa becomes a widow in the meantime and, when Maggie is 18, she decides to tell her everything but Maggie finds out from another source and decides never to speak to her mother again.

A few years pass and special circumstances make Tessa desperately try to make peace with her daughter... if it's not already too late.

I must admit I am a big fan of Judith Krantz and I read all her novels. Every one of them is magic, glamorous and has some inner joy that willy-nilly rubs out on you.

The old magic is still here in this book, but not nearly as much as in the other novels.

Also there are far less people and secondary story lines, something I regret.

All in all, a book not to be missed!

Judging from the reviews it seems all that have read The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery weren't happy with this book at all. The same is true for me. The Blue Castle is full of beauty and humor...while this novel was a pale shadow of it. The story line is very much the same, but holds none of L.M. Montgomery's magic. Frankly, the book was boring and I skipped through most of it once I got to the middle. In my opinion, skip this novel and read The Blue Castle.

For some reason I thought this was going to be a somewhat meatier 'Shell Seeker' type-book, and I continued to think so until about the middle of the book, but then realized it was a romance novel.

OK, I guess as romance novels go. I thought the 'ghost' storyline was stupid - at one point, I thought maybe she had faked her death. No matter, pretty well-written for it's genre but nothing I'd highly recommend.

Very short, reads fast, makes you laugh. A feminist social satire set in the early 1900 somewhere in Australia. It's the story of Missy, a poor and put-upon spinster living under the autocratic tyranny of the male members of the family. She seems destined to a life of misery till a cousin, recently divorced (delicious scandal!!) arrives in town and sets the 'gentlemen' in their place with a scheme that leaves the women in the story and the readers of the book richer for the experience in every way.
Very witty and very wonderful.

I MUST ADMIT A DISAPPOINTMENT IN THIS BOOK--THE STORY LINE WAS FAIR, BUT I FEEL AS IF WHITNEY WAS GRASPING, SO TO M SPEAK, AND THE WRITING STYLE LEFT ME COLD. AFTER HAVING READ SEVERAL OTHER WHITNEY WORKS, IT SEEMED TO ME THAT SHE WAS HAVING AN "OFF TIME" DURING THE WRITING OF THIS BOOK.

I thought this book was rather interesting. The storyline was one that kept you guessing what really happened to Susan Trench. This was Hallie Knight's assignment. Hallie was called into play by Susan"s grandfather. After uncovering many family secrets--she solves the puzzle.

I'm surprised that anyone was disappointed in it (other reviewers) because I enjoyed it. I will say it was not a typical Phyllis A. but a great read all the same.

The book spins the tale of a family of Jewish heritage. The heroine, Caroline, fled Eurpope to the US when she was merely a teenager. Having lost her parents and her lover, she accepted the offer of a marriage of convenience. The peace Caroline yearned for disappeared when her daugther,Eva found out the truth about her own father. The 'truth' was to haunt the family for many years before it finally came to light.

This book comes with dramas and twists. It has also not failed to invoke many conflicting emotions in me. We are supposed to love Caroline, the heroine, who was brave and strong, but yet, we can't love her totally, from the way she behaves towards her lawful husband. Joel seemed to be the perfect guy, totally devoted to his wife but yet he married another in total contrast of his late wife, 2 years after her death. And of course, the truth about Walter and Lore, after we've hated and loved them for nearly more than 3 quarters of the book....

This is definitely one of Belva Plain's better books.

Belva Plain has crafted a splendidly stunning story in her novel, "Legacy of Silence," which leaves one begging for more. Not since Sidney Sheldon's "The Other Side of Midnight" have I encountered a story that I could not put down. It has all the ingredients a family saga needs: Two strong woman characters, a plot that continually moves along and unfolds and a great amount of suspense which finally explodes. To reveal the plot in any great detail would be a mistake. "Legacy of Silence" is about deceit, lies and the means in which one can control the history of ones family. The characters of Caroline and Lore will remain with the reader long after the last page has been read. The New York Times once said of Belva Plain, "She is the queen of family sagas." Yes, she is!

Belva Plain made the characters come to life in this novel. I thought the ending was excellent. Lore was a very interesting character and Belva kept her doings a secret to the end. There was a lot of interesting history in this book, the second world war, the nazis, the persecuted Jews. It really gave you a feeling of what those years were like for some people. It was a very realistic story of what could have happened in those years. All of the emotions of life were displayed...death, birth, war, hate,love, loyalty, honesty, dishonesty and so on. Belva, hurry with another novel and I will be the first in line to buy it.

Nice story of a murder plot woven around Elizabeth Tudor just before Mary I died and she ascended. The characters are well-drawn, the plot is sufficiently complex and puzzling, and there is a nice amount of attention paid to history and historical detail (no glaring, at least, anachronisms). One gets a good idea of the frustration Elizabeth must have lived with: Hemmed in by her guardians, unable to communicate with those she trusted to advise her, unable to know fully whom to trust, liable to be taken back to the Tower for plotting against her sister, and yet the heir presumptive and potentially most powerful woman in Europe. The plot, an attempt by a hidden woman to poison all Boleyns (did you know it was Anne herself who changed the spelling [but not the pronunciation, don't forget] from "Bullen? Nor did i), including, of course, Elizabeth. The princess and a ragtag band of follwers she gathers must search out this poisoner and stop her before she destroys them along with half of Kent. Despite the characters and the devious plot, the book does not have the ring of truth for me; i only finished it because i became interested in the mystery, not because i cared a whit about Elizabeth, though Ned and Meg are nicely drawn, sympathetic. Perhaps a danger of writing historical fiction ~ especially one so off the beaten track ~ is that your characters are already known by your readers, and the known characters may not fit your needs; i think this is what happened here: I already know (for Harper's purposes) too much about her heroine to believe all she writes. If i look at this as a mystery book it comes close to working for me; as historical fiction, sadly, no.

A good little book, especially for younger readers interested in this period of history. Fanciful setting, entertaining characters and a fun spin on history.

And her followers are prepared to do just that... Karen Harper has successfully evoked Bloody Mary's England on the eve of Elizabeth I's ascent to the throne. She's created a human, believable young woman, terrified of plots against her royal person, trusting her loyal retainers despite warnings that no one is to be trusted, and truly regal, withal. The historicals details are many and fascinating and this is a terrific mystery, too! The identity of the poisoner, and the poisoner's ties to Queen Mary, is keep in abeyance to the very end; the suspense is excellent. 'Tis often said that a certain book is "hard to put down"---in this case, it's absolutely true. I look forward to Harper's next Elizabeth I adventure, The Tidal Poole.

I've never read Karen Harper before and when I saw the summary of
this one I thought it looked good. I was wrong. There is way
too much dialogue in some scenes of this book and the characters
don't show a lot of emotion. This book has a few parts that were
mysterious, the rest seemed dull and drawn out. I was happy that the author didn't include profanity or any brutal violence, but instead of a classic thriller she ended up writing a predictable story. I hope her other books are better.

The Stone Forest was my first book by Karen Harper and based on this, I'll certainly give her another try. Jenna Kirk, the protagonist, is struggling to make an independent life for herself, after a traumatic childhood kidnapping. Someone does not want her to achieve her goal. Is it her dead sister's boyfriend, her childhood friend, the family shrink, or an unstable townsperson? Suspects, and suspense, abound.

I really liked this book. It was suspenseful, but not gory and had a SWEET love story - not full of graphic sex. It kept me interested until the very end. If you like Carlene Thompson or MHC you will enjoy this book.