Hitting the Books

Paths of Exile

Carla Nayland

Britain, 605 AD.

When his homeland is defeated by a predatory neighbouring kingdom, Eadwine finds himself on the run for his life.

Homeless, penniless and friendless, literally with a price on his head, he must evade his enemies, avenge his brother’s murder and rescue his betrothed. Along the way, he will lose his heart to another woman and discover a shattering secret that challenges all the ideals he holds dear.

That’s the blurb from Carla’s website on her newest novel. A while back I read Ingeld’s Daughter, and really enjoyed it, so I was looking forward to reading this one.

I would definitely recommend Paths of Exile to readers of historical fiction. Carla does a superb job as usual of bring the reader into the past. The premise of the story is quite interesting, there were some parts that had me chuckling, and there were a couple of plot twists that took me by surprise.

However, I personally didn’t enjoy it as much as Ingeld’s Daughter, mainly because I’m a romantic/escapist when it comes to my historical fiction. In fact, I’ve come to the conclusion I don’t like straight-up historical fiction. I like historical romance. I don’t like stories that don’t end happily ever after, which, when you’re sticking to actual historical facts, usually doesn’t happen. (I’ll be reviewing another historical novel next month, to which I’ll have the same complaint).

Another thing that bothered me was the use of modern jargon/slang. I believe Carla was writing the modern equivalents of how certain characters would have spoken in the past, but it more often than not jarred me out of the story. The use of words like “cherry”(for female anatomy), “nobs”, “Pa”, “wink, nudge.” felt out of place (out of time?). And the phonetically written accents were extremely hard to follow (I don’t do phonics well at all).

Finally, I was rather ticked about how my favorite character ended up. I suppose it was the likely outcome of the time period, but still… It’s that whole HEA mentality I have. If the historical characters can’t have a happily ever after, at least let the fictional characters live out their lives in peace.

Paths of Exile is available in a free PDF format on Carla’s website, or as a paperback from Lulu.com.

Well, I finished all the flora on the wall today. Yahoo!

Oh, and we made the cute bear clock on the wall too.

Here’s the mostly finished product. I still have to paint on the fauna (where the photos are taped on the wall) and make the curtains. But I can at least put away the 18 billion cans of green paint I’ve had out for days.

Now I’m just sitting back and enjoying the view.

Well, I was going to post a review of Paths of Exile, Carla Nayland’s new novel, this week, and work on a quilt, and even possibly, maybe, hopefully, write some.

Instead I’ve spent the last 5 days painting a mural in my daughter’s bedroom (at my folks’ place in West Virginia). My parents named each of their rooms for one of the places we’ve lived. The Punkin’s room is the Northwest room. The big mountain you can barely see up at the top of the picture is supposed to be Mount Rainier, in Washington state.

I’m rather proud of how it’s turning out, considering this is my first mural ever. This isn’t the finished product–the dogwood’s already been painted over since it just didn’t fit in with the rest of the picture.

Needless to say, I’ve not gotten much else done this week. The Punkin especially is quite sick of “Mama painting.” I’m really hoping to have it done tomorrow (though I’ve been hoping that for the past 4 days)

I do promise to have that review up by the end of the month. Maybe even next week, Lord willing and the crik don’t rise.

When last we left our intrepid blogger, she was taking a brief sabbatical from the Internet in order to focus on her writing. That worked for a while–started turning the finished historical novel into a fantasy instead.

Then the Punkin got sick. Then the blogger got sick. Then the Punkin got sick again.

And then–oh, the horror, the horror–she got sucked into her sewing machine. Deeply mired, up to her eyebrows, and enjoying every minute of it. She started designing quilts, quilts, and more quilts. Received a wonderful, very addicting design program as a gift. Spends until 2 A.M. making pretty quilts instead of getting her poor, trapped characters out of her head. Bad, bad writer.

Now she’s gone and started up yet another website to try to sell some of her quilt designs. Don’t even mention the other poor languishing website. Someday…

June was recital month. Much stressing and rehearsing (the ballet was okay, the Irish kept slipping out of her wee over-stuffed head, and the Punkin refused to do her dance…until the first time she went out on the stage. Little diva.), cleaning and entertaining (since this was also the Punkin’s first recital, both sets of grandparents came into town). But it all turned out okay; the blogger is still relatively sane and healthy.

And two baby quilts had to be finished by July 1st.

No, no partridge in a pear tree.

Phew. I got tired just recounting all that.

But the point of this post is, I’m back. Hopefully. Certainly going to try my darnedest. Have a couple of book reviews coming up, and a few other odds and ends rolling around in the few empty spaces left in my head.

TTFN!