5 Dogs Book Blog

Review by Elleanore Vance Welcome back, my Lovely Readers! This month we're looking at a classic from the Queen of Crime: Dame Agatha Christie. That essential intelligence thriller: The Secret Adversary. In the aftermath of the First World War and the sinking of the RMS Lusitania, we find Tommy Beresford, and his childhood friend Prudence  "Tuppence" Cowley looking for work. Both have done their service for King and Country, but now, the city offers no employment, and neither foes anywhere else. Penniless and desperate, having tried all of the legal ways to get ahead, the pair decide to try some less legal, morally grey ways. So begins the Young Adventurers Limited. One of the world's first spy novels, this is my favorite set of Christie characters. The intrepid Young Adventurers end up on the trail of a missing woman who had some very important papers on her when she disappeared. A case of mistaken identity opens new avenues of investigation, but will they be able...

Review by Elleanore Vance Thanks to Disney's "Robin Hood" animated feature, I grew up believing John I was the "phony king of England". In his work "Magna Carta", historian Dan Jones corrects that misconception. We begin with a very detailed snapshot of the Plantagenet siblings known as The Devil's Brood. These were the sons born to Eleanor of Aquitaine and her second husband Henry II: Henry the Young King, Richard I, Geoffrey and John.  Henry would have become the Third, but predeceased their father; a heart-breaking blow. Geoffrey also predeceased their father, getting trampled at a joust (though that may have been a fiction to conceal a homosexual relationship he may have had with Phillip II of France) Richard spoke no English and spent much of his reign Crusading in the Holy Land. What time he was not Crusading or being held hostage, was in France.  John, the youngest, known as "Lackland", is the one we're concerned with. See, ...

Review by Ellenanore Vance I need to open this review by saying that Zin and I are friends. I purchased this book with my own money, and I have NOT been asked to review, nor compensared for this review by them. Now that the disclaimer is out of the way... The Horror community was shaken by the 2021 release of "Flowers for the Sea". Squeamish readers were sickened and others were offended by the contents. I personally feel that its beauty was misunderstood. We follow Iraxi, a passenger aboard a ship holding the survivors of her village. She is the only survivor of the fire that exterminated her family, and she is 300 days pregnant.  Our cast also contains  Amat, the would-be prince, and Ket, daughter of the last midwife. As you may have guessed, Iraxi's pregnancy is not the usual kind. It is absolutely masterful the way we reveal new information with each turn of the page: delicate and full of senses. Smells are pungent,  tastes linger at the back of the mouth, ...

Review by Elleanor Vance "Northanger Abbey" is one of those novels i just hadn't quite got around to until now. I don't know what I expected. I *do know that it is obvious that this is a first novel, even if it was posthumous publication. We follow Catherine Moreland, a 17 year old 'heroine in training', as she takes a trip to Bath. There she meets other young people (about 65%of this book) and is eventually invited by her newfound friends to their home, the titular Northanger Abbey.   I found myself reminded why Austen is so extremely adaptable. Like Shakespeare, one sees the echoing archetypes of her characters in media today. Chad who likes to drive his car, the pretty girl who conveniently forgets she said she would be your prom date when she gets asked by the QB, etc. Like Christie, Austen was an original that the rest of us mere mortals can only hope to emulate.   If you're ready to slow down and really relax with a good book, i would reccomend a ...

Review By Elleanore Vance In Great Britain school children are taught about the Plantagenets, (Henry II to Richard III), and no story involving those British kings would be complete without mention of the Templars. I was not one of these children, so I had to learn about these 'holy' warriors from renowned historian Dan Jones. As an American student,  my knowledge of the Knights Templars and the crusades could be summed up in two sentences:    1) The Templars were a group of warrior monks across Europe,  sanctioned by the Pope and later the Holy Roman Emperor.     2) The Crusades were a series of Holy Wars urged on by several different Popes (over the years) to secure Jerusalem for Christians. As I found out, that is just the tip of the proverbial  iceberg. Author Dan Jones details wave after wave of those bloody and horrendous battles, as well as the kings and Popes who lead them. This falls into an area of history that should make you feel...

Review by Elleanore Vance For the longest time my personal knowledge of "The Stepford Wives" consisted of a trailer for the 2004 movie starring Nicole Kidman and Matthew Broderick. It looked ridiculous, so I wrote it off as a whole.   My discovery of "Rosemary's Baby" changed all of that. I needed to read Stepford. Once i had...hooo buddy. I was not prepared. At 35 years old, I was having nightmares. My habit is that i read the book, then watch a film adaptation, but i have yet to watch Stepford. It messed with me that bad.  Photographer Joanna Eberhart and family (husband and 2 children) move to Stepford to get away from the dangers of the city. Immediately upon their arrival, Mr. Eberhart is asked to a meeting of the Stepford Men's Association, which he accepts. But there is no mirroring Women's club. In fact all of the long-term female residents seem to only have mental power to take care of their homes and children. None of the ladies can hav...