Every once in a great while you encounter a book that has all the right ingredients to appeal to your taste, but that nevertheless leaves you somewhat unsatisfied. The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones was like that for me. It has so many things I like: An English manor house, a disastrous dinner, early 20th century English vernacular, an eccentric child, unresolved sexual tension, and a mystery. And yet I did not love it. It’s an easy book that most readers will probably breeze trough […]
The world started upside down. I’m just trying to set it right side up.
6 stars, or A++ I’m not kidding, you guys. It’s that good! Disclaimer! I got an ARC of this through NetGalley, in return for a fair and unbiased review. I would also like to point out that I pre-ordered this book as soon as I could, so all the ARC did was save me another four interminable days of waiting to read the book. As for unbiased, I don’t know if I can ever be unbiased where it comes to Courtney Milan, because I love her writing […]
Another historical romance, with the Underground Railroad
4.5 stars Hester Wyatt was born as a slave, because her father, originally a free man, sold himself into slavery to be with her mother. When she was born, her mother severed part of her finger to make her more easy to identify, and Hester was found and taken in by her aunt Katherine, who taught her to read and write and raised her as her own. Now she lives in her dead aunt’s house, a valuable member of Michigan’s Underground Railroad. One night, she’s […]
I Am Not Familiar With This
So I’ve never read anything written by Jane Austen. I’m not sure how that happened, but it did. I hadn’t even seen one of the many films / series based on her books (other than Clueless) until about two years ago, when I watched the Pride and Prejudice series starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. I still haven’t read any of her work, but I now feel a bit more prepared to do so. The Jane Austen Handbook is a 200-page book that reads as […]
A heart-wrenching classic
Janie is married to a man when she is 16, because her grandmother, a former slave, wants to ensure a good life for her. Janie is miserable. To her there must be love in a marriage and she sets into the marriage waiting for love to happen. When she meets Joe one day she decides to run away with him, being struck by his big dreams and certainty of good things in life. They settle down in Eatonwille, an all black town, and Joe quickly […]
Being a Lady in the 1890s Seems … Ridiculous
As you can tell if you click the Amazon link, this book is not widely available. It’s from a publisher in the UK that specializes in gift books; specifically ‘reprinting’ vintage books as a bit of a novelty. For example, this book claims to have come from a work originally published in London in the 1890s. Given my love of old etiquette books, I can vouch for the fact that many items in here are hilariously outdated, so they at least theoretically could have originated […]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 677
- 678
- 679
- 680
- 681
- …
- 708
- Next Page »