I wholeheartedly loved this book, but it took me about 100 pages to fall in love. The first bit was a slog–the names are a mouthful and many of them are very similar to each other, we’re thrown right into the plot, and I kept feeling like I was missing important things. (And I probably was…it didn’t help that in the Kindle version, the glossary and the map are way in the back and it’s impossible to go there without losing your place.) I don’t know whether I had […]
History, Characters, and Emotion in a Perfect Package
“People say love gets fouled by a difference big as ours. I didn’t know for sure whether Miss Sarah’s feelings came from love or guilt. I didn’t know whether mine came from love or a need to be safe. She loved me and pitied me. And I loved her and used her. It never was a simple thing.” (54) I’d seen The Invention of Wings (2014) by Sue Monk Kidd on book shelves, and I’d heard some buzz about it. With only a very vague […]
A Heretic Monk and Murder at Oxford
This is the first of S.J. Parris’ thrilling Tudor mysteries centered on the former Italian monk and philosopher/scientist Giordano Bruno. The battlefront of the novel is in England, where Elizabeth I is fighting to keep her reign secure from Catholic forces in Europe and within her own country that want to topple her and capture the throne for Mary, Elizabeth’s imprisoned cousin and Catholic Queen of Scots. This first book gives us some background on our unlikely hero; Bruno has been buried in an Italian […]
A 16th Century Tudor Thriller
Prophecy is the second of a trilogy of historical fiction novels that take place in Elizabeth I’s England, where the so-called “art of diplomacy” is but a thin veneer for a war of intelligence over which empire—French, English, Spanish– will reign in Europe and beyond. The year is 1583, and the Italian philosopher/mathematician/astrologer/poet and former Dominican monk Giordano Bruno has fled the Catholic Inquisition in his homeland and settled in the “relatively more enlightened” city of London, where he lives in the home of the […]
A Formidable But Evil Woman – And Cannonball
I haven’t seen Winter’s Bone yet, but while reading this, I kept wondering how audiences were going to react to Jennifer Lawrence, America’s sweetheart, as a ruthless bitch. Set in a logging camp in 1929 North Carolina, Serena is a hard woman with no time for sentimentality, and there are definitely things about her to admire. She holds her own among the men,and is often the smartest person in the room. She knows more about logging than most if not all of the men, and she and […]
Reading This Novel Will Make You Crave Fair Food
I’ve enjoyed every single novel I’ve read by Brennert, and while I always buy them as soon as I see them, they tend to end up lost in my unread stacks of books for months at a time. I think this may be because as much as I know I can depend on a solid, reliable and informative novel, he is also comfort food. The narrative and the people will face challenges, and generally, overcome them, even if they face loss and years of struggle. He’s […]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 684
- 685
- 686
- 687
- 688
- …
- 708
- Next Page »