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The Beggar’s Opera – Blog Tour and #Giveaway

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Let me start by telling you, lovely and intelligent reader, that you could win a copy of The Beggar’s Opera if you read to end of this post. Only open to Canadians. Now trust me when I tell you that you want to enter this one. The Beggar’s Opera is the best book I have read in a very long time. It gets my highest rating. So here is my review and an author interview with brilliant Peggy Blair, Canadian realtor, author and lawyer, new Twitter user and fabulous storyteller.

Peggy Blair, picture by Alan Dean Photography

The Review:


The Beggar`s Opera is the book that will reawaken your passion for reading. Peggy Blair hooks the reader fast with a brilliant literary combination of savvy gothic characters, a three dimensional, stunning setting, a dark plot that is always hinting at something more and themes that are relevant and topical. This is a book that will speak to so many because of the author’s intuitive response to the world around her and the ways in which she uses her characters to maneuver through some of 
the greatest contemporary issues we as a society face demographically and politically. The Beggar`s Opera begins with a flawed hero Inspector Ricardo Ramirez, who sees ghosts and rationalizes this as a hereditary illness called Lewy Body dementia, same illness that his grandmother suffered from, a particularly harsh dementia that manifests itself with Parkinson’s tremors and hallucinations. He is working on Christmas Day when a young boy, brutally sexually assaulted and murdered, begins to haunt him. The same young boy was seen begging on Christmas Eve when a Canadian detective named Mike Ellis was strolling by on vacation with his wife. Ellis becomes suspect number one and, a corrupt Cuban police force, charged with a mandate of holding someone accountable for the depravity, rushes to gather evidence that implicates the Canadian. Meanwhile, a smart Canadian lawyer married to a Cuban races to the rescue, but even she is not entirely convinced of Ellis’s innocence. The setting of The Beggar’s Opera is current Havana, a crumbling reminder of a regime and time when Cuba was, at least superficially, a star, on the world stage.

Blair’s research is stunning and she creates a remarkable atmosphere that is perfect for the story. Her Cuba is an ideal stage for the hints of magic realism that are sprinkled throughout the book. I am not sure what startles me more about The Beggar’s Opera, the fact that I was so disenchanted with the books I had been reviewing up until it arrived, or the fact that it might not have been published at all if not for a strange bit of luck and Scottish author Ian Rankin. Interestingly, this amazing author was discovered while at a crime writing conference in the U.K. After asking the author Ian Rankin for a photograph, she struck up a conversation and he provided a referral of sorts to an agent. Blair was shortlisted for the Crime Writers Association Debut Dagger Award 2010. This is intended to be the first in  a series of novels featuring Inspector Ramirez.

With The Beggar’s Opera, Peggy Blair has established herself as a remarkable and talented storyteller. I can’t wait for more.

The Beggar’s Opera, by Peggy Blair, was published this month by Penguin Canada. It is 352 pages and $24.95.

This one gets $$$$$ out of $$$$$. Suspense doled out with perfect pace and a wonderful new main character. A joy to read, I never wanted The Beggar’s Opera to end. 


The Beggar’s Opera Interview:
Q1. WHAT INSPIRES YOU TO WRITE?

Peggy Blair: I wouldn’t say I’m inspired — more driven! Writing doesn’t come easily to me; it’s hard work. So it’s hard to speak of inspiration. But I must say that Ramirez and his pal Apiro came to me fully-fledged; I knew what they would be like instantly, as if they were out there in the ether, waiting for someone to tell their story, and then found me. Like Ramirez and his ghosts, I’m not sure if that’s a gift or a curse.

Q2. WHAT ARE YOUR WRITING HABITS/ When do you write? WHAT IS YOUR SCHEDULE?

Peggy Blair: I don’t have any particular habits. I’m one of those people who does everything the moment I find out I have to, so I pay my bills the day they arrive, like to finish things well before deadline, and show up early for appointments. In the publishing business, I have discovered that this is an asset. I don’t like the idea of a book waiting for me to get working on it (sometimes I have this idea of the characters sitting around, stuck, talking to each other about how that idiot author can’t give them something to do and how boring it is without a plot). Once I have the idea, I stay with it until it’s done. The second in the series, The King’s Indian, is already written and has been sent back to me with editorial comments; my third book, Hungry Ghosts, is out with external readers now.

So the answer to your second question is that I fit in writing into my schedule like all the other demands on my time.

Q3. THE BEGGAR’S OPERA CONTAINS INTERESTING THEMSE ABOUT DEMENTIA AND ALZHEIMERS AND EVEN POSSIBLE MENTAL ILLNESS – IS THIS PURE RESEARCH OR IS THERE A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE THAT MADE THIS RELEVANT TO YOU AS A WRITER?

Peggy Blair: I think as we boomers age, we all have to be conscious of the fact that this disease is becoming more prevalent, whatever its cause. I’m in my mid-50s. As a realtor who works a lot with people who are downsizing, I am already running into clients who are coping with this illness.

Q4. WHO IS YOUR FAVOURITE AUTHOR? WHO ARE YOU READING RIGHT NOW?

Peggy Blair: I have a number of “favourite” authors. I devour everything by Carol O’Connoll who also writes quirky little mysteries. I loved James Lee Burke’s last novel, The Rain Gods. And I adore Martin Cruz Smith. I can easily read a book a night.

Q5. WHAT GETS YOU OUT OF BED IN THE MORNING?

Peggy Blair: Nothing! I’m not a morning person. I don’t really get going until after 9, and that’s only because I have a dog and a cat who have figured out that I respond to whimpering and scratching.

To win a copy of The Beggar’s Opera
 (Canada Only) prize to be drawn with random.org on March 1st

(Don’t forget to leave contact information in case you win.)

Mandatory:
1. Leave me a comment about the last really great book you read.
2. Follow thriftymommasbrainfood with GFC (see side bar or leave me a note stating that you already follow)

Extras: Two extra entries if you follow @inkscrblr

Two more if you follow @PeggyBlair on Twitter

DISCLOSURE: I received an ARC in order to review this novel. I was not compensated. My opinions are my own and always will be

The Forty Rules Of Love

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A truly good story takes you on a voyage to a place you didn’t know you wanted to visit. The Forty Rules of Love is just that kind of story; reading it is just that kind of journey. Elif Shafak is one of Turkey’s best-selling female authors. Up until I received this novel, her latest, The Forty Rules of Love, I had never heard of Shafak and that’s a shame really. Shafak is a gifted storyteller. The Forty Rules of Love consists of two parallel stories, one of which is set in contemporary time and the other of which takes place in the 13th century. The contemporary plot revolves around a housewife, Ella, about to turn 40, who is hired as a reader for a literary agent to read a book dubbed Sweet Blasphemy. Ella is a realist or so she thinks at the start of the book when she begins reading a new novelist’s rumination. The Forty Rules of Love is in some ways her coming of age story. Quickly Ella falls in love with the prose in the novel she reviews and then reaches out to the author through email beginning a relationship. But what sort of relationship will it be? That remains up to Ella, taken by the writing of this new author Aziz. She knows little of him but his talent and this portion of the book is told in a nouveau sort of epistolary for our times – through written emails to each other. Their emails grow increasingly amorous. “Her first email to Aziz was not a letter so much as an invitation, a cry for help. But Ella had no way of knowing this as she sat in the silence of her kitchen and composed a note to an unknown writer she didn’t expect to meet now or any time in the future.” The plot within Sweet Blasphemy revolves around the Sufi poet Rumi and his spiritual encounter with Shams of Tabriz. As Shams schools Rumi in spiritual matters he learns to open his mind more fully to that which he cannot see or touch and he realizes his life has been missing a key ingredient. Ella, in the contemporary plot line, can be seen to follow the same story arc only with a more romantic outcome. As Shams unveils each of his rules of love to Rumi, Ella and Aziz can be seen experiencing, internalizing and reacting to the fictional rules as their own. There is a certain subtle magic realism about this novel, not as overt as the Latin American authors who perfected the genre, but gentler and slightly more spiritual in nature. Perhaps that’s another reason I so enjoyed this book. The characters in this book are beautifully illustrated and the narrative at times complex, but not so as to detract from the read, only so that it illuminates the strength of the writer’s talent. In the end there is an unexpected twist and prose so lovely and insightful that it is also slightly heartbreaking. The Forty Rules of Love is more than a great love story: it is also an intriguing look at the intimate relationship that can exist between author and reader, writer and reviewer.
The Forty Rules of Love, 2010, Viking, $32.50 Canadian and $25.95 US.
Thriftymommastips’ rating $$$$$ out of $$$$$
thriftymomma is not compensated for her reviews, but receives a copy of the books she reviews.

Still Alice

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Still Alice by Lisa Genova is a lovely, bittersweet, insightful l look, at the devastating diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s Disease. Alice Howland, an accomplished Harvard professor, is barely 50 when she starts to realize her brain is beginnning to fail her. Forgetfulness is becoming an issue. She often is at a loss for words and occasionally becomes lost at work on the campus near the university where she teaches. She loses her place in a telephone conversation with her grown children often and simply isn’t as sharp as she once was. These small blips require further investigation and so she reluctantly and, with disbelief, consults her doctor. The diagnosis, while shocking, isn’t completely a surprise as Alice seems to know in her gut that something is wrong long before it is given a name. Early-onset Alzheimer’s. She keeps the diagnosis to herself for far too long, until she is no longer able. When she shares the devastating news with family, they react in their own ways, each one revealing different facets of the disease. To Alice’s oldest daughter it is particularly frightening as she becomes pregnant and worries the genes might be passed to her twins. Projecting into the future she also worries she may someday be a burden to her own children if she develops symptoms. Youngest child Lydia, the artistic actress, surprisingly rises to the challenge as caregiver of her mother. Their bond is strengthened by the mother’s vulnerability. Lydia chooses not to have the testing that would reveal her future health. Her brother Tom carries survivor guilt of sorts when it is revealed that he should not get Alzheimer’s. Her husband, John, a brilliant doctor, hides his feelings and refuses to believe his wife may someday be unable to remember his name. He is a secondary character at best in this story and he is sometimes unlikeable as the heartbroken husband struggling to decide if he can manage his feelings while unable, at times, to see the essence of Alice beneath the deterioration. John chooses work as a refuge from his homebound formerly vibrant wife. “If I am in lab, I don’t have to watch you sticking Post-it notes on all the cabinets and doors. I can’t just stay home and watch you get worse. It kills me.” can’t take it Alice. The impact on Alice’s family is dealt with nicely here in this novel, as each of Alice’s children struggle to decide if they will be tested for genetic markers that will tell them whether they may develop the same terrible disease. But it is Alice’s story that clearly dominates the novel and her character we feel for all throughout her sad journey. While this is a fictional story, Genova, who has a PHD in neuroscience from Harvard University, is an expert on the details of this disease, and I loved that I learned so much about the inner workings of the brain from this book. This book has all of the elements of a good story and has won a few accolades along the way including the 2008 Bronte prize and yet I felt the writing lacked sophistication and style. This is a great story and it is nicely written and I would recommend it to almost anyone, but the writing is simply good, not great.  

Still Alice, by Lisa Genova is published by Simon and Schuster, New York 2007
The Mass Market edition was $10.99 in Canada.
thriftymommastips rating $$$$ out of $$$$$.

Thriftymommastips did not receive any compensation for this review