Witch of Wild Things

Finished November 29

Witch of Wild Things by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

This is the first book in a series called Wild Magic. Sage Flores is the oldest of three sisters and eight years ago she left her hometown of Cranberry, Virginia after the death of her youngest sister, Sky. Middle sister Teal blames her for Sky's death, although they both know that isn't the case. 

The girls grew up in their aunt Nadia's house after their mother left town when they were young. A family legend says that it is a curse that all the women in the family have magic in them, and sometimes it feels that way. Sage's gift is with plants. She can identify plants from the smallest piece of them, and can communicate with them in a way. Sky's gift was with animals, and Teal's with weather. 

Sky fell from a cliff when engaging in risky behaviour, but her body was never found. Her ghost haunts Sage, offering ups cups of flavoured coffee and sometimes, when Sage cries, becoming visible to her. Sky tells her that she can't move on until Sage heals the rift between herself and Teal. 

Sage began working with jewelry and had a job teaching at a college. Budget cuts cost her the position, and she is moving back home as the book begins. Nadia's glad to have her back, but Teal not so much. Sage's best friend Laurel is also looking forward to her return. She lets Sage know that her old crush Tennessee Reyes is also back in town. 

Nadia has contacted some people in town already, and Sage finds that she already has a job offer back with the local garden company. She worked there in high school, where she became known as the 'plant whisperer'. 

Interspersed in the story are online chat conversations between Sage and Reyes from their high school days. Sage knew who she was talking to, but he didn't and never found out. This is something that becomes a part of the plot in the novel. The two are thrown together in a project at their workplace where they are tasked with visiting places in the area to look for local plants that aren't already supplied there. Working together means that they get to know each other, and figure out what drives each other in their lives, but they also find themselves drawn to each other. 

I really enjoyed the magical part of this novel, and the ways in which the different characters related to each other. A satisfying read. 

Measuring the World

Finished March 20

Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann, translated by Carol Brown Janeway

This novel focuses on real historical figures from the late eighteenth /early nineteenth centuries, naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, and mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss. Humboldt collaborated with another scientist, Bonpland, and spent more than five years in Central and South America, gathering plant samples, examining the fauna, following rivers to find where they met, and climbing mountains including several volcanoes. Humboldt's interest in science expanded to include meteorology, magnetism, ocean currents and astronomy. 

Gauss was a mathematician and physicist, a child prodigy who preferred a quiet life delving deeper into the science that he loved, was deeply affected by the loss of his first wife. His discoveries formed the basis for the work of other scientists as well. 

The two men, Humboldt and Gauss, did meet, but this book is a fictionalized account of both their lives, their interactions and correspondence and their scientific interests and achievements. 

Kehlmann brings the men to life, with complex personalities, individual quirks, and sometimes strange behaviour. This book has touches of humour, fantasy, and emotion. Enlightening and revealing. 

The Poisoned Island

Finished August 10
The Poisoned Island by Lloyd Shepherd

This novel begins with an incident in Tahiti in 1769 between an English sailor and a Polynesian woman.
The majority of the novel takes place in 1812, in London, with the arrival of the ship the Solander carrying a munificence of plants from Tahiti for the King's garden at Kew. There are also flashbacks of the ship's stay in Tahiti and the interactions then between the sailors and the local people.
The same day that the ship arrives home in London, even before its cargo is unloaded, one of the sailors is dead. Discovered by chance by the chief constable for the Thames River Police, a man who has recently begun using a new policing method of investigation, the odd circumstances of his death and the ship he comes from add up to make him take the case to his magistrate Harriott.
As more men from the ship die, Horton delves deeper into the suspicion that it is something brought from Tahiti that has tied the deaths together. And whether the cups containing what looks like a type of tea near their outstretched hands has a role in their deaths.
This book has the competitive environment between the various police magistrates, the new-fangled style of policing that Horton has introduced and Harriott encourages, the botanical specimens brought home from the tropics to England, including a particularly interesting one that has drawn the attention of the sponsor, Sir Joseph Banks and his librarian Robert Brown.
Weaving historical figures like Banks, the missionary Nott, the magistrate Graham, and others into the fabric of this mysterious murder case is done skillfully and creatively, bringing us a story that flows well and captures the reader.