Feminist Fiction Friday--The Winter Palace

Eva Stachniak's beautifully researched historical novel about Catherine the Great is a big juicy read. Told from the point of view of a young woman who enters the Winter Palace as a seamstress and becomes a spy (a "tongue") on behalf of the young woman who will one day be the Empress of All Russia, the book is filled with sex, intrigue and treachery.
The story is told by Barbara (called Varvara in Russian), a Polish book-binder's daughter who turns out to have a natural knack for espionage, although her lessons in it include deflowering at the hands of the spymaster, Alexei Bestuzhev, the Chancellor of Russia. The two women whose lives bookend the story--the ruthless Elizabeth (daughter to Peter the Great) and Catherine--seemingly could not be much different but as Varvara realizes, Catherine has her own agenda and her own methods.
There is love in the book, and a fair amount of sex, but that aspect of the story does not drive it. Probably the most intense man/woman connection in the entire novel is the one between Varvara and her spymaster, and in later scenes, when he tells her some harsh truths about her situation, we know that he is right because we're told so in Catherine's own words at the very beginning of the story.
If you're looking for an historical novel that's long on detail and layered with great observations, you should take a look at The Winter Palace.

Courtesy of Grammarly

My sister's pet grammar peeve was the Its/It's thing (mine is Your/You're) and she would have enjoyed this silly cartoon courtesy of Grammarly.

Update--This kind of behavior will not be tolerated

Why is Deadline Hollywood's Nikki Finke the only reporter covering the story of the CNN camera operator pelted with peanuts? Today the young woman gave her feelings about the incident. You can read the update here.  The CNN employee does not think much has changed in terms of race relations.

 Last night Condoleezza Rice rocked Tampa with her speech about growing up in segregated Birmingham and not being allowed to eat at the local lunch counter. It was a great speech and a bit of a thumbing of the nose at Romney and Ryan and their not-so-subtle cracks appealing to the birther crackpots.
 I couldn't help but think that a Rice/Clinton race would be an epic political event with two extremely smart, extremely shrewd foreign policy experts going head to head.

ThugLit is back

It's actually been back for awhile. There's now a new ThugLit page on Facebook so if you do the FB thing, you should go here and like it.

An Aha moment....Lynn Beisner

Feminine symbol from Loco Roller Derby

We read a lot about urban feminism but not so much about rural feminism. My paternal grandmother was the first woman in her county in Virginia to earn a college degree. She was a farm wife who also worked at the family's general store. Like my maternal grandmother (who was a traveling sales lady), she was ahead of her time.
I was thinking about that when I ran across this entry on the Role/Reboot site. It's the story of the moment feminist writer Lynn Beisner became a feminist. I like her message of "sisters doing it for themselves." Check out the post here.

The word of the day is ... narrative

Have you noticed?  The word "narrative" is all over the coverage of the RNC.  And in the news in general. It looks like it's replaced "calculus" as an expression of how a story is spun. Narrative...

The Next Noir at the Bar Los Angeles

I missed the most recent Noir at the Bar event here in L.A. (featuring Megan Abbott, Sara Gran, Denise Hamilton, Christa Faust and Jen Westeman, all writers I admire and have never met, although Hamilton and I  have tweeted about the whole NoHo Noir thing). But I will not be missing the next event, coming in October.
I will not be missing it because I HAVE BEEN INVITED TO PARTICIPATE.
I am so thrilled. I will be in stellar company--Eric Beetner, Johnny Shaw, Greg Bardsley, and Owen Laukkanen.  I cannot wait.
P.S. You can get a copy of that autographed poster from the August event--the link is on the FB page--and the proceeds go to a good cause.