Two follow-up reads

I recently wrote about Susan Elia MacNeal‘s debut, Mr. Churchill’s Secretary. I was reading it because her second Maggie Hope book, Princess Elizabeth’s Spy, was due out last week. I read that over the weekend, as well as Lois Lowry‘s Messenger, which is the follow up to Gathering Blue.

Princess Elizabeth’s Spy is a fairly satisfying historical spy mystery, set mostly in Windsor Castle during WWII. Having read a couple of biographies of Elizabeth II around the time of the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations in June, I found this book very interesting. MacNeal has again done her homework to get the period details and historical characters right. As a librarian, I especially liked that the real Royal Librarian, Sir Owen Morshead, appears in the novel.  There were also two book-related codes in the plot, which is nice bibliophile touch. Some of the fictional characters felt a little under-developed to me, though.

One thing I’ll give MacNeal is that she doesn’t make everything obvious as far as the mystery in her books, at least not to me. I’m not sure I liked that Maggie, whose nearly-fiancee (he proposed, she refused but regrets it) was shot down in Germany, has a love interest by the end of Princess Elizabeth’s Spy, even though I can see from the preview of the next book (printed in the back of this one, as the preview for it was in the back of Mr. Churchill’s Secretary) that MacNeal did this to complicate things for our heroine in the next book.

I also found the end of the book, in which we learn what Maggie will do next, somewhat unbelievable. Will I read the third book in the series? Probably. But I will lower my expectations a bit and just accept the things I like about the series — the historical setting, the entertaining details about food, clothing, and everyday life during the war, and the pluck and intelligence of the heroine — come at the cost of a little more melodrama than I’d prefer.

Lois Lowry’s third book in her Quartet, Messenger is darker than I was expecting but very thought provoking. I read it in one sitting (if you’re not familiar with Lowry, this is a series for young readers – I’d say middle school age and up) and very much enjoyed it. We meet our old friend Matty again, the boy who once growled to all who’d listen that he was “Fiercest of the Fierce,” now living with Kira’s blind father, Seer, in Village. Matty is a messenger who has always been able to enter and traverse the forest without fear or “entanglement.”

But something is changing in the forest, and in Matty. He accidentally discovers his gift, one that Leader (Jonas from The Giver) sees and understands. In fact before we understand, Leader knows that Matty will need to use his gift in a very dramatic way to help Village and his old friend Kira.

Kira is still in her village on the other side of the forest, and she has made it a much better place to live. She still intends to eventually come to live with Seer. But in Village, an evil force (a combination of envy and greed) has changed people’s hearts and they vote to close the community to outsiders, even though they’ve always welcomed everyone who sought shelter there, and even though most of them came to Village as outsiders themselves. Matty promises Seer he’ll reach Kira before it’s too late. The end of the book is about Matty’s efforts to bring her to Seer before Village closes.

I know I’m being a bit vague but it’s because I don’t want to ruin it for anyone. Read this moving book and see for yourself. I’m looking forward to Son. I appreciate the way Lowry lets readers connect her dots without dumbing down her stories. Her books are full of wisdom and wonder. I also appreciate the pacing, which is dramatic without being tense.

Up next? I’ve started Where’d You Go, Bernadette, which is a hoot, and I have A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants, which Teen the Elder read in his first year seminar at college and recommended.  And I am reading some interesting books for the next Mindful Reader column, including The Art Forger.

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