Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page. We share what books that we found in our mailboxes last week. And I am adding what I purchased, swapped, etc.

The Queen's Pawn by Christy English.

Not to be confused with the awesome Secrets of The Tudor Court series by Kate Emerson (See my reviews of those two books)

"When young Mary Howard receives the news that she will be leaving her home for the grand court of King Henry VIII, to attend his mistress Anne Boleyn, she is ecstatic. Everything Anne touches seems to turn to gold, and Mary is certain Anne will one day become Queen. But Mary has also seen the King’s fickle nature and how easily he discards those who were once close to him…
Discovering that she is a pawn in a carefully orchestrated plot devised by her father, the duke of Norfolk, Mary dare not disobey him. Yet despite all of her efforts to please him, she too falls prey to his cold wrath. Not until she becomes betrothed to Harry Fitzroy, the Duke of Richmond and son to King Henry VIII, does Mary finds the love and approval she’s been seeking. But just when Mary believes she is finally free of her father, the tides turn. Now Mary must learn to play her part well in a dangerous chess game that could change her life—and the course of history."

The next two from Paperbackswap:
I had written two previous reviews on reads that circled around Tesla, and I was very intrigued. So I needed to know more:

Tesla Man Out of Time by Margaret Cheney

"Margaret Cheney explores the brilliant and prescient mind of one of the twentieth century's greatest scientists and inventors. Called a madman by his enemies, a genius by others, and an enigma by nearly everyone, Nikola Tesla was, without a doubt, a trailblazing inventor who created astonishing, sometimes world-transforming devices that were virtually without theoretical precedent. Tesla not only discovered the rotating magnetic field -- the basis of most alternating-current machinery -- but also introduced us to the fundamentals of robotics, computers, and missile science. Almost supernaturally gifted, unfailingly flamboyant and neurotic, Tesla was troubled by an array of compulsions and phobias and was fond of extravagant, visionary experimentations. He was also a popular man-about-town, admired by men as diverse as Mark Twain and George Westinghouse, and adored by scores of society beauties.

From Tesla's childhood in Yugoslavia to his death in New York in the 1940s, Cheney paints a compelling human portrait and chronicles a lifetime of discoveries that radically altered -- and continue to alter -- the world in which we live. Tesla: Man Out of Time is an in-depth look at the seminal accomplishments of a scientific wizard and a thoughtful examination of the obsessions and eccentricities of the man behind the science."

Arleigh from historical-fiction.com has been on a Shakespeare kick, and she clued me on to this read:
My Father Had a Daughter: Judith Shakespeare's Tale by Grace Tiffany

TEASER TUESDAYS is hosted by ShouldBeReading and asks you to:
♠Grab your current read.
♠Let the book fall open to a random page.
♠Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page.
♠You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
♠Please avoid spoilers!

The Kingdom of Ohio by Matthew Flaming

"Abrupty she imagines a landscape of bridges melting away underfoot and buildings changing shape, whole cities unmaking themselves as their past is rewritten. The vision of a destroyed world, populated with orphans like herself, each tormented by doubt and struggling to find a home in the alien present." ~ page 202

The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt
Hardcover 2008, Paperback March 2009 Mariner Books
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Mariner Books; Reprint edition (March 2, 2009)
ISBN-13: 978-0547085777
Review copy from the publisher
The Burton Review Rating:

This January 7, 2010 marks the 67th anniversary of Nikola Tesla's death. Tesla (July 10, 1856 – January 7, 1943) is the focus of this novel by Samantha Hunt, and I wanted to post this review close to that date in celebration of the life of Nikola Tesla.

This is one of those books that had a product description online and on the back cover that gives too much away and still doesn't do it justice, so I shortened it here:
"From the moment Louisa first catches sight of the strange man who occupies a forbidden room on the thirty-third floor, she is determined to befriend him. Unbeknownst to Louisa, he is Nikola Tesla—inventor of AC electricity and wireless communication—and he is living out his last days at the Hotel New Yorker. Winning his attention through a shared love of pigeons, she eventually uncovers the story of Tesla’s life as a Serbian immigrant and a visionary genius: as a boy he built engines powered by June bugs, as a man he dreamed of pulling electricity from the sky."
('The Invention of Everything Else was short listed for the Orange Prize 2009)

Shunned by the now modern society that Nikola Tesla helped to bring to fruition, author Samantha Hunt brings us her imagined story of Nikola's last days that he had lived out at the Hotel New Yorker. Through Nikola's thoughts, the novel flashes back to Nikola's childhood, his brother, and to the point that he immigrates to America in 1884. This is a story that encompasses many themes, from love, tragedy and loss, to the power of thought and unlimited creativity.

The novel opens up to Tesla at the age of 86, and we get a feel for how the story is going to play out. The author uses flashbacks and multiple viewpoints to embrace the reader fully into the world of 1943, where hotel chambermaid Louisa meets and befriends Tesla just at a time that her father and family friend have decided to embark on a time travel experiment. Louisa is a simple character, and could have been more developed, but perhaps the character of Nikola Tesla simply eclipsed hers in this telling. I certainly felt like I knew more about Tesla from this book, and I was enthralled with the vivid imagery of New York City as the characters lived in it, along with the scenes on Long Island where Tesla had one of his last greatest experiments which failed miserably due to lack of funds and Tesla's fall from social graces.

Nikola Tesla is a Serbian-born immigrant who came to the USA to test his inventions and work with Thomas Edison. Edison promptly fails him, cheating Tesla out of a promised $50,000 (worth much more in today's terms) in exchange for Tesla making Edison's laboratory more efficient. This was a sad sign of things to come for Tesla, where money issues seemed to plague Tesla forever after this incident. Although J.P. Morgan did back Tesla's experiments for a time, once Morgan learned that the invention that Tesla wanted to accomplish was free wireless electricity for all, Morgan pulled his support. Morgan had achieved a sort of monopoly by that time by reaping the benefits of the electricity revenues and he had no intention of giving it away for free.

The novel does not focus on Edison or Morgan but they needed to be mentioned so that the readers understood the reason for Tesla's unsuccessful ventures. Tesla was successful with Westinghouse when they harnessed electricity using the power of the Niagara Falls, but this is also not covered very much except to say that Tesla tore up the contract where at that time was worth $12,000,000 in royalties. But Tesla did it for the greater good, for the power of electricity to survive and to keep Morgan from owning the company that Westinghouse and Tesla co-partnered. There were quite a few things that Tesla created, from X-Rays to the Tesla coil and robotics. There were murmurings of Tesla's insanity as he tried to harness the unknown from outer space, and thus he was immediately discredited as talking to Mars. The "Teslascope" was the invention in progress of Tesla's that he wanted to be his greatest yet, but in the world's eyes at the time of 1901 he was effectively becoming a quack. It was a secret experiment, and to this day is still a mystery to the modern man for what Tesla was trying to accomplish by communicating with Mars. The novel also touches on the Death Ray, also known as the peace beam, which Tesla seemingly wanted to use to end warfare, and that the F.B.I. were spying on him for this and other information. The USSR had paid Tesla $25,000 in 1939 after testing the first stage of the Death Ray.

Once I started this novel, I seriously could not put it down and I read the last 3/4 of the book in one sitting. A minor drawback is that this is not a long book and it had room for much more. It does not drag at all within the plot, as we leaped from the present to past and back again, but this was done in such a cohesive way that it enthralled me. I enjoyed the mentions of other people such as J.P. Morgan, George Westinghouse, Mark Twain and the conspiratorial F.B.I. When it was the eccentric Tesla's turn in the story there were times when he confused me; his thoughts were indeed very meandering and perhaps a bit tedious. I think it helped to show Tesla how he really may have been, and how he saw the inner mechanics of everything he came across. This book is an absolute must-read for those slightly interested in Tesla, who is the reason for the electricity currents we utilize today, and the added romance and intrigue make this a fabulous fictional account of a man who was misunderstood and mistreated. There is so much more to learn about and from Tesla, that this will not be my last book concerning him.

The mention of the old laboratory in Shoreham, Long Island, then the Wardenclyffe World Wireless Telecommunications Station to Tesla, intrigued me very much because I grew up on Long Island and never heard of the site and Tesla's wireless ambition that enveloped him here. In fact, I don't even recall learning anything at all about Tesla in my studies. Why was that? Why was Edison the one who was so celebrated because of a light bulb? And I just found this article from 12/18/2009 that a plaque on this old Tesla laboratory was stolen from its brick building and has been missing for two months now. What a tragedy it is that still, after we supposedly realize the contributions that Tesla had made, that he is still being mistreated in America. The Wardenclyffe site with a huge tower had to be sold by Tesla to pay his debts to the Waldorf hotel, and now stands empty and vandalized, and sadly, for sale. The owners will level it for the buyers if need be.

Another book that I recently read which mentions Tesla is The Kingdom of Ohio by Matthew Flaming. Although completely different stories in nature, the mechanical age is the common thread between these two novels and I recommend both of them for fans of Tesla. My review of The Kingdom of Ohio is completed, and can be found here.