This is my fourth Charles novel and, while Charles herself makes a point to tell her readers this is not a mystery, I’ve been thinking of commonalities. Charles tends to centre on a character who is smart, dogged, and down-and-out, either in “disgrace with fortune” or in “men’s eyes”, or both. (At least of what I’ve read of her so far.) Charles focuses on characters who are Jane-Eyre-like in one capacity or another: “poor, obscure, plain, and little.” They may have one or more of Jane’s self-descriptions. Except they’re not “poor, obscure, plain, and little,” no more than Jane. Charles places ..read more

I enjoyed Grossman’s first Once Upon the East End romance, Marry Me By Midnight. It was original and historically rich, with Jewish Regency characters, a fairy tale retelling, and an adorably innocent, inept hero, heiress heroine, and a twisting and playing with the fairy tale’s traditional male-female roles. And yet, despite this promise, Marry Me By Midnight was a muddle, a writer not in control of her material. Not so with Wake Me Most Wickedly and its virtuoso romance writing. The Jewish history, so important to Grossman, is better integrated, making for a smoother, flowing narrative; the ..read more

When SuperWendy recs a book, I listen; she’s yet to steer me wrong and she certainly didn’t with Thompson’s Little Wartime Library. (I link to her review.) Thompson’s historical novel is a book lover’s dream, among many many other themes and stories. Based on a “true story,” it tells of two friends, chief librarian Clara Button and her assistant, Ruby Monroe. Their library is as unusual as it is necessary to their Bethnal Green neighbourhood: situated in an abandoned tube tunnel where hundreds of people made homeless by bombing, or frightened of being bombed, live underground. There’s a theatr ..read more

Bennet should be congratulated on her latest romance novel for tackling a Quaker heroine. The powerful shadow of Kinsale’s Flowers From the Storm Maddy is seminal to the genre and to attempt a Quaker heroine means submitting to comparison. In Bathsheba Honeychurch, Bennet creates someone quite unlike Maddy and yet, with a perspective and approach to the world, and the hero, that has something in common with Kinsale’s heroine. Before I discuss further, I’ll set us up with the author’s blurb: An inheritance lost. A betrothal threatened. A scandal brewing… Outspoken Quaker Bathsheba Honeychurch k ..read more

When I set out to read The Other Side of Disappearing, I dreaded its women’s fiction vibe (I mean sisters) and thought, another one bites the dust (miss you, Sarah Morgan). But I’ve loved Clayborn’s romances and was willing to give her, and every traitorous romance author I love, one chance to see what she can do (kudos to Molly O’Keefe). I’m happy to report the women’s fic vibe waxxed and waned, but, in the end, the romance dominated. On the other hand, maybe we can agree that a “romance” with requisite HEA met can be a really good novel. Isn’t that what good romances are, in the end? (This ..read more

It’s lovely to be in Collins’s imagined world where characters are warm and fuzzy, society a place where good triumphs over evil and everything recounted with a light, humorous, loving touch. I wrote this about Lady’s Guide #3, A Spinster’s Guide to Danger and Dukes, and I say it again about Passion and Peril. In Passion and Peril, we’re introduced to eponymous governess, fallen-on-hard-times Jane Halliwell and long-ago acquaintance and somewhat friend, Lord Adrian Fielding (brother to the Duke of Langham, Danger and Dukes‘s hero). When the romance opens, Jane is in her third year as gove ..read more

I adore this series and its latest appearance is one of the most pleasurable volumes yet. Though I saw the who and why dunnit pages ahead of the final revelations, my goodness, Veronica and Stoker are at the top of my lovability scale. Moreover, the historical context, eccentric secondary characters, animals, one dastardly golden lion tamarin (in love with Stoker, aren’t we all?) and many doggos, settings, absolutely marvellous, as is Raybourn’s witty, elegant prose. In A Grave Robbery, Veronica and Stoker are as domestically blissful as they’re capable of. The cozy scenes they share as pleasu ..read more

I’m always content to see another Below Stairs Victorian mystery from Ashley: the main character, master-cook Kat Holloway, and her band of merry assistant cooks and butler, Mr. Davis, along with friends in high and low places, and protector and love-interest, police-agent Daniel McAdam, are a wonderful group to spend reading time with. Speculations In Sin sees Kat and company solving a murder that hits too close to home not to have their emotions in turmoil. Grace, Kat’s daughter from a former abusive marriage, is now happily, comfortably, and safely living with her best friend Joanna and hus ..read more

I’m a Backlisted (“giving new life to old books”) podcast fan, though every time I read one of their recommended, “resurrected” reads, I have a “do not like” to “meh” reaction. This is what happened with Black Narcissus, though it wasn’t Godden’s novel that was recommended. Backlisted did a great talk on Michael Powell’s 1986 biography (of the writing/directing team of Powell and Pressburger who filmed Godden’s novel. I should have known better given how much I disliked The Red Shoes.) But a reader’s rabbit-hole is a reader’s rabbit-hole and it will take a reader where it will. Off I went to r ..read more

Though blog-absent, occupied with too much going on at work and care-giving, I have been reading. And, I noted, what I’ve been reading came together in a peculiarly apt pairing, through no conscious effort on my part. I don’t remember where or who put Francis Spufford’s The Child That Books Built in my reading sight-line, but I’m grateful (likely, I heard about it on a pod). I read it as “non-stop” as I could, given it was the last week of teaching before spring break (it’s now spring break and quite spring-like for a Canadian March). At the same time, I’ve been rereading Tara Westover’s ..read more