Mina

Rating:
Summary: Adeep historical tale
Review: By 1848 her sister and her parents died due to the potato famine, but fifteen year old Mina still lives with her dream of making it to the United States though her one effort ended with the ship catching fire and sinking. To survive Mina changes her sex becoming Paddy so she can earn a living as a stable hand on a country estate. Over time, "Paddy" is promoted to work as an assistant to the Italian chef Mr. Serle, sharing a room with him. Mina reveals her true gender to her boss, but he keeps her revelation secret from their employer.

Serle informs Mina that he is a Jew who fled the poverty of the Rome ghetto. He too dreams of America where he hopes to one day open a restaurant and make his fortune. Both begin to wonder if they pool their resources, could they achieve what they failed to accomplish separately. That means trusting the other something neither is used to doing.

MINA is a deep historical tale that shines a powerful microscope on mid nineteenth century Ireland and England. The story line is incredibly descriptive as Jonatha Ceely fill MINA with historical data like the workings of a Victorian kitchen, but that also keeps the pace of the plot at a leisurely stroll. Still genre fans will take delight with this insightful picturesque look back at a bygone era through the eyes of two survivors that is ideal fill in reading over a few days.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: 1848 is not a time to be poor
Review: Her family dead from the famine in Ireland, her dream of emigrating to America dashed, her brother and only living relative missing, Mina Pigot wakes in a stable loft from a dream of loaves turned to stones and rises to tend her new master's horses. It's 1848. A frightened fugitive as well as a refugee, she's disguised as a boy, her flame-red hair carefully blackened with soot.

Grateful for food and shelter, she feels lucky to have found a place on this English country estate, but it's a precarious place. The estate manager, suspicious of Paddy, as they call the Irish, startles a horse into injuring the `boy' and turns him off as unfit for work. But the shorthanded cook, Mr. Serle, a dark foreigner, takes him into the kitchen.

The back-stories of Serle and Mina unfold amid the daily life of the estate. Though the servants (except for Serle) aren't much more sympathetic than the gentry, Mina keeps her secrets and learns her work from sun-up to well after sundown. Ceely treats us to the aromas of baking bread and roasting meat, the skill of regulating the ovens and ranges, the plucking and peeling and beating and layering and timing of meals for a dozen, twenty or more.

Mina's narration, full of grief and hope and determination, but frightened of bullies like the senior kitchen boy, sometimes seems too timid, too ready to cry. Who wouldn't be with the life she's had, but it's not the tone of a hero. And while the reader knows that Serle is a Jew, Mina seems impervious to his disappointment every time she makes a remark about Jewish child killers and devil worshipers. Nonetheless, when Serle falls delirious with a bout of malaria, Mina nurses him. He's her only ally, true, but she has also grown to care for him.

Once he discovers her masquerade, her secrets begin to tumble out - her horrific experiences trying to emigrate, and after, losing everything and forced to run. This material might have worked better in flashback than in conversation (well, mostly monologue) as it is an exciting tale, which loses some of its immediacy in the telling. The same is true of Serle's story, when it comes.

But the workings of the estate, the venality of people's behavior toward one another, and the social realities of the time ring true. Mina's ignorance and timidity, while sometimes trying, feels authentic and her story is a touching, rousing tale. An absorbing and well-researched debut.

Rating:
Summary: Previous reviewers spoil the plot
Review: I enjoyed this book and would recommend it but why did the previous reviewers spoil it by telling the "secret" behind Mina's friend?

Just some advice: please concentrate on whether or not you liked the book and not give away any plot details to readers who might not have read the book yet.

Rating:
Summary: Previous reviewers spoil the plot
Review: I enjoyed this book and would recommend it but why did the previous reviewers spoil it by telling the "secret" behind Mina's friend?

Just some advice: please concentrate on whether or not you liked the book and not give away any plot details to readers who might not have read the book yet.

Rating:
Summary: historically accurate, moving tale of suffering
Review: I had a difficult time putting down this book. I loved the descriptions of the different methods of cooking for the time period, and the tales that the two main characters, Mina and Mr. Serle, tell are mesmerizing. The two have both suffered enormous losses in family and religious freedom, and continue to suffer under the ignorant comments of other servants of the "gentry." Mina is honestly written and totally believable as a 15 year old, innocent but very weathered and having suffered unimaginable pain.

I expected more of a love story to come of the relationship between Mina and Mr. Serle, but the ending was a bit more believable, the relationship a bit more complicated, without a love interest growing.

I hope to see more from Ms. Ceely.

Rating:
Summary: historically accurate, moving tale of suffering
Review: I had a difficult time putting down this book. I loved the descriptions of the different methods of cooking for the time period, and the tales that the two main characters, Mina and Mr. Serle, tell are mesmerizing. The two have both suffered enormous losses in family and religious freedom, and continue to suffer under the ignorant comments of other servants of the "gentry." Mina is honestly written and totally believable as a 15 year old, innocent but very weathered and having suffered unimaginable pain.

I expected more of a love story to come of the relationship between Mina and Mr. Serle, but the ending was a bit more believable, the relationship a bit more complicated, without a love interest growing.

I hope to see more from Ms. Ceely.

Rating:
Summary: Nice historical details
Review: I loved the descriptions of the work in the kitchen, but I found the plot to be extremely flimsy. A happenstance meeting with an unscrupulous character later in the book was particularly egregious.

Rating:
Summary: Timeless
Review: This carefully researched novel slowly engrosses the reader with resplendent details of life after hunger and great loss. As the story progresses, the characters cultivate relationships that could take place in any historical period or setting. In their alliances, the characters offer one another comfort in a harsh and often cruel environment.

The language in this novel is original and lovely. The descriptions of the food preparation and the daily lives of the servants are very rich.

Mina is a wonderful story that Ceely takes the time to tell in exquisite detail. She does not sell it short with a quick or predictable ending. The novel stayed with me long after I completed it.