Moonlight in Odessa

Title: Moonlight in Odessa by Janet Skeslien Charles
Genre: Fiction, Romance
Rating: 4/5

Moonlight in Odessa is a humorous and delightful book featuring a strong, street-smart protagonist. After months of unemployment, Daria finds work as the secretary for a foreign company. Plagued by an amorous boss, crooked officials and a mobster who she has feeling for, she begins to moonlight as an interpreter for a "matchmaking" agency that deals in mail-order brides, where she finds an American who wants to marry her. But will life in America prove to be what's she's always dreamed it would be?

I really enjoyed Moonlight in Odessa and I quickly fell for Daria as a character. Despite her desire for a better life, she truly seems to care for Odessa and constantly praises the city, telling anyone who will listen such factoids as Odessa's opera house is "the third most beautiful in the world." Although she doesn't always make the right decisions, she tries to do what's best for her friends and family, particularly by taking care of the grandmother who raised her. I loved following her relationships with the other characters, particularly David, and seeing how she'd react to their actions.

The plot kept me captivated for the most part, and although I wasn't entirely happy with the direction it took towards the end, I found that it left me contemplating what had occurred and wanting more. I particularly enjoyed the way Charles used Daria's lessons on English verbs to emphasize events and Daria's emotions throughout the book. I also found all the factoids about Odessa that Daria recites extremely interesting.

Overall I was definitely entertained by the book and have already started recommending it to others. And with the holiday season approaching I think Moonlight in Odessa would be a great present, what with its red and white cover featuring the image of a snow globe.

For more information on Moonlight in Odessa check out Bloomsbury's website.

The Historian

Title: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
Genre: Fiction, Horror
Rating: 4/5

Synopsis from Little, Brown: Late one night, exploring her father's library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters. The letters are all addressed to "My dear and unfortunate successor," and they plunge her into a world she never dreamed of - a labyrinth where the secrets of her father's past and her mother's mysterious fate connect to an inconceivable evil hidden in the depths of history. The letters provide links to one of the darkest powers that humanity has ever known - and to a centuries-long quest to find the source of that darkness and wipe it out.

The Historian is a very interesting take on the Dracula sequel. Unlike most, it is set in the twentieth century and doesn't deal with the characters from Dracula. Well, except for the man himself. Instead it recognizes Dracula as a fictional work and focuses more on the facts and fictions of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, aka Vlad the Impaler. I studied Dracula a couple of years back for one of my University courses but had forgotten a lot of the background my professor covered. By working the information into letters and character retellings, Kostova made it enjoyable to relearn.

Moreover, she made me interested in the characters. The plot focuses mainly on the narrator and her father and their separate yet symmetrical quests for the truth. Though they occur decades apart, both involve the sinister figure of Dracula, a little bit of romance and the search for a missing individual. As the father reveals his story to his daughter in fits and starts, you come to care for them and begin to root for them to succeed. Overall, I found that The Historian was a really good read. Its biggest appeals were the historical aspect and its suspenseful twists and turns. I was always trying to guess what would happen next. And though I wouldn't say I couldn't put it down, I can say that I never wanted to put it down for long. I'd like to try some of Kostova's other works and I've already started reccing this one to my friends.

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