It does look like this blog has become a Natasha Pulley fanclub recently! Some of that has been catching up with my reviews, amd I have been reading other people - in fact, this is the first of three reviews needing to be written so I had better get on with it - but if… Continue reading The Lost Future of Pepperharrow, Natasha Pulley
Category: Historical Fiction
The Bedlam Stacks, Natasha Pulley
Who wouldn't fancy a jaunt out into the wilderness in these days of social isolation and lockdowns? And the jungles and mountains of darkest Peru - I'm sorry, but Peru is forever linked to Paddington Bear and Aunt Lucy for me - retain a mystery and a mystique even today. Imagining ourselves in 1859, heading… Continue reading The Bedlam Stacks, Natasha Pulley
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2019 Book Survey
Love the idea of this Survey, from Jamie’s End of Year Book Survey and having read a few, thought I'd (perhaps a little belatedly) upload my own. **2019 READING STATS** Number Of Books You Read: 40Number of Re-Reads: 0Genre You Read The Most From: Crime, Fantasy and Literary 1. Best Book You Read In 2019? The… Continue reading 2019 Book Survey
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Top Five Saturday: Fake Love Couples
Top Five Saturday is a meme hosted by Devouring Books to discover and share books that all have a common theme. The list of themes currently runs at 11/9/19 — Books with a Survival Theme11/16/19 — Books by Unread Authors You Want to Read11/23/19 — Books with Fake Love Couples11/30/19 — Books to be read by the… Continue reading Top Five Saturday: Fake Love Couples
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Blackberry and Wild Rose, Sonia Velton
There is nothing like a rich and sumptuous historical novel and the cover of Velton's Blackberry and Wild Rose was so beautiful I had high high hopes. Possibly too high. The novel revolves around two women in eighteenth century London, a setting that I am not familiar with: the sixteenth century has been such a… Continue reading Blackberry and Wild Rose, Sonia Velton
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The Mitford Scandal, Jessica Fellowes
I love the covers of this series of novels by Jessica Fellowes! The blue here is gorgeous! All art deco, beautiful, vibrant. Not unlike the eponymous Mitford sisters around whom the novels revolve. This is the third outing for Louisa Cannon, previously nursery nurse to the younger Mitford sisters and friend to Nancy Mitford in… Continue reading The Mitford Scandal, Jessica Fellowes
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Top Five Saturday: Books Over 500 Pages
Top Five Saturday is a meme hosted by Devouring Books to discover and share books that all have a common theme. Previously, the focus has included witches, werewolves, thrillers, faeries, fairy tale re-tellings, high fantasy and many more. This week, we are looking at book in excess of 500 pages. So many to choose from...… Continue reading Top Five Saturday: Books Over 500 Pages
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The Anarchists’ Club, Alex Reeve
In the spirit of anarchy, I chose to read this book - the second of the Leo Stanhope series - without having read the first. I know! ANARCHY starts from this! Being honest, I don't think it mattered a jot: Reeve introduces his transgender Victorian protagonist essentially from scratch with enough - possibly too much… Continue reading The Anarchists’ Club, Alex Reeve
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Teaser Tuesday: The Fountains of Silence, Ruta Sepetys
Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by The Purple Booker. If you want to join in grab your current read, flick to a random page, select two sentences (without spoilers) and share them in a blog post or in the comments of The Purple Booker. I am shamelessly stealing this from Ali's blog iwuvbooks because -… Continue reading Teaser Tuesday: The Fountains of Silence, Ruta Sepetys
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Wakenhyrst, Michelle Paver
This was my first Paver read having heard some good things about her, and it thrust me straight into a solid Gothic historical yarn with some genuinely creepy moments! The novel is perhaps misnamed: it focuses on the house Wake's End set beside the local fen, some three miles from the village of Wakenhyrst; and,… Continue reading Wakenhyrst, Michelle Paver
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Lost Acre, Andrew Caldecott
This is a deliciously quirky trilogy of novels! Many many things in the books, Rotherweird and Wyntertyde should not work, and yet they somehow do. Gosh! Wyntertyde had left us on a cliffhanger: a second mixing point was discovered; Bolitho was revealed as Fortemain and then dispatched; the vile Calx Bole had succeeded in resurrecting… Continue reading Lost Acre, Andrew Caldecott
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Circe, Madeline Miller
Divine days fall like water from a cataract, and I had not learned yet the mortal trick of counting them.
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The Mitford Murders, Jessica Fellowes
What a classy cover! Don't be judging a book by its cover, but even so... classy! I want to describe it as being in an art deco style but I'm not entirely sure what that term means... Similarly classy is the pedigree of the author: Jessica Fellowes is a well renowned journalist and editor; she… Continue reading The Mitford Murders, Jessica Fellowes
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Melmoth, Sarah Perry
Look! It is winter in Prague: night is rising in the mother of cities and over her thousand spires. Look down at the darkness around your feet, in all the lanes and alleys, as if it were a soft black dust swept there by a broom; look at the stone apostles on the old Charles Bridge, and at all the blue-eyed jackdaws on the shoulders of St. John of Nepomuk. Look!
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The Silence of the Girls, Pat Barker
The Greek epics seem to have had a resurgence - dare one say a renaissance? - or a reimagining recently. On my to-be-read list are Stephen Fry's Mythos and Heroes, Madeline Miller's Circe, and Song of Achilles and now this by Pat Barker. I don't know what the appeal is of these narratives, nor why they are… Continue reading The Silence of the Girls, Pat Barker
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Washington Black, Esi Edugyan
Oh well, having set down my best intentions earlier, to review Washington Black before finishing Sally Rooney's Normal People, and to complete the 30 Day Book Challenge by Christmas, I have failed on all accounts and now have Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls to review as well! But, I have had a lovely Chrsitmas… Continue reading Washington Black, Esi Edugyan
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30 Day Book Challenge: Day One!
Okay, so I came across this at the great Professional Book Nerds site and with an unexpected day off work, I thought I'd start off today. And doing it on my blog rather than Twitter gives me a little more space to ruminate over the prompts which today is Favourite book in a series. Do… Continue reading 30 Day Book Challenge: Day One!
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The Winter of the Witch, Katherine Arden
Disclaimer: I was provided with an ARC / Proof Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. How exciting! My first ARC review! My first ARC review! My first ARC review! This is the third in Arden's Winternight Trilogy which commenced with The Bear and the Nightingale and The Girl in the Tower,… Continue reading The Winter of the Witch, Katherine Arden
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The Winter of the Witch, Katherine Arden
So excited that an ARC of The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden has been dispatched today! Book three of the Winternight Trilogy. I love Vasilisa Petrovna - firey, alien and other - the phoenix dominating that cover. I adore Arden's writing, her Russian folklore, the historical authenticity. And Morozko. And Solovey. It is… Continue reading The Winter of the Witch, Katherine Arden
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The Mystery of Three Quarters, Sophie Hannah
Hercule Poirot. Arrogant and dandy and moustache firmly in place. An extended cast of somewhat two-dimensional characters. A convoluted and contrived plot - very contrived in this instance. Very contrived. Let's face is, when the plot of a novel revolves around the construction of a battenburg cake, that novel is - for fear of being… Continue reading The Mystery of Three Quarters, Sophie Hannah
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Touch, Claire North
Poor Claire North. She brought out The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August as I read Kate Atkinson's Life After Life; I pick up Touch just after reading A Skinful of Shadows by Frances Hardinge. And both times, she comes a slight second in similar and comparable fantasy scenarios. Imagine being able to switch your… Continue reading Touch, Claire North
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The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau, Graeme Macrae Burnet
Graeme Macrae Burnet came to my attention through the Booker Prize: I loved his His Bloody Project novel with its multiple voices and setting, evocatively recreating the brutality of life in Scottish crofting communities. It was on the strength of that that I picked up this, the first of his Detective Gorski novels and -… Continue reading The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau, Graeme Macrae Burnet
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The Muse, Jessie Burton
I adored The Miniaturist! It was one of those books which had stayed with me: the cold of her repressed Amsterdam, the sweetness of marzipan, the claustrophobic house. The hint of the supernatural. The difficult, prickly bond between the women. So it was with pleasure and anticipation that I began The Muse and it took… Continue reading The Muse, Jessie Burton
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Within the Sanctuary of Wings, Marie Brennan
Sometimes we just need the familiar and the comfortable, don't we? A warm cuddle of a book. The Natural History of Dragons series by Marie Brennan, of which Within the Sanctuary of Wings is the fifth and, it would appear final, installment, is one of those series. It's not challenging; it's a tad formulaic by… Continue reading Within the Sanctuary of Wings, Marie Brennan
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See What I Have Done, Sarah Schmidt
Lizzie Borden took an axeAnd gave her mother forty whacks.When she saw what she had done,She gave her father forty-one. Oh, Sarah Schmidt can write! What a strange strange thing to start a review with! But there is writing and there is writing and Sarah Schmidt can write! Not only can she create a plot and move… Continue reading See What I Have Done, Sarah Schmidt
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