Lady of Quality by Georgette Heyer
ISBN: 033236490 Miss Annis Wychwood is in her late twenties, and as she is still unmarried, she believes her future to hold nothing but remaining single. However she is not about...
26 November 2010
Drood by Dan Simmons
by Dan Simmons
On the 9th of June, 1865, ten passengers were killed when a train crashed at Staplehurst. Among the passengers who survived the disaster was the novelist Charles Dickens. Meeting his friend, Wilkie Collins, soon afterwards Dickens describes a strange individual he came across at the site of the crash. This man, Drood, is to drag both Dickens and Collins into the depths of Victorian London’s criminal and poverty stricken underbelly. Will he also lead to murder and insanity?
17 November 2010
Nicholas Dane by Melvin Burgess
This is the sort of book I don’t usually read. You know the ones, from the “sad story” section of the bookshop. The misery-books as I call them. But a few years ago I’d heard of Melvin Burgess as an author to look out for. I’ve read his Lady : My life as a Bitch and to be honest I wasn’t all that impressed, but I’ll always give an author a second go. So I tried this one.
In the 1980’s Nick Dane is growing up as an average, if bright kid. He comes from a single parent family, and his mother has a secret. She never got off the drugs, not completely. And in the course of having a “taste” she accidentally overdoses and Nick is left all alone in the world. Soon he finds himself carted off to a “home” for boys, and soon learns that the violence and random beatings are not the worse this place has to offer.
1 November 2010
Blameless by Gail Carriger
ISBN: 9781841499734 An Alexia Tarabotti novel, The Parasol Protectorate: Book the Third Read for RIP challenge If you haven’t yet read Soulless and Changeless then I am afraid that this review...
31 October 2010
Changeless by Gail Carriger
ISBN: 9781841499741 An Alexia Tarabotti novel, The Parasol Protectorate: Book the Second Read for RIP challenge If you haven’t yet read Soulless then I am afraid that this review will contain...
30 October 2010
The small hand by Susan Hill
by Susan Hill
Coming home one evening from meeting with a client, rare books dealer Adam Snow takes a wrong turn and ends up outside a derelict Edwardian house. For some strange reason he is drawn to this building and its wilderness of gardens and finds himself wandering through the overgrown weeds. And, standing all alone, he feels the strangest of sensations. A small hand, in his. As though he were a father taking hold of a son’s hand. But he is not a father. And there is no child.
14 October 2010
Soulless by Gail Carriger
An Alexia Tarabotti novel, The Parasol Protectorate: Book the first Read for RIP challenge And the reason for Miss Tarabotti’s lack of enjoyment it that she was promised refreshment at a...
13 October 2010
The god of the hive by Laurie R. King
Book 10 in the Mary Russell & Sherlock Holmes mysteries. I really wish that I had gone back and reread the previous book in this series before starting this. The language...
14 September 2010
An instance of the fingerpost by Iain Pears
ISBN: 009975181x Read with HistoricalFavorites Marco da Cola, gentleman of Venice, respectfully presents his greetings. This was a wonderful read. When I first started it I had no idea[1] what to...
12 September 2010
The devil in the flesh by Raymond Radiguet
by Raymond Radiguet translated by Christopher Moncrieff
Although the 1930’s mini challenge has come to an end, when I spotted this book at work I thought it might fit, and wanted to read more books of that time. Of course then I read the details and discovered that it was actually written earlier than that… Oh well :)
The devil in the flesh created quite a bit of a scandal when it was published, semi-autobiographical, the author wrote it from the age of sixteen to eighteen, after his own affair with a married woman. And that, my dears, is the central theme to this book. In fact, it is the end all and the be all of everything in this book. Our 15/16 year old narrator’s affair with a married woman. And I found that incredibly off-putting.
20 August 2010
From Paris with love dir. by Pierre Morel
James Reece is trying hard to become a secret agent while working at the American Embassy in Paris. He is smart, and plays chess. And he is in love with a beautiful French woman, who has just asked him to marry her, and now his dream is coming true, he is taking action in the fight against drugs and terrorism, because he has been assigned to Charlie Wax, an “unorthodox” agent who may not play by the rules but gets things done.
Before I go any further I will say one thing: Do NOT watch this film.
19 August 2010
A civil contract by Georgette Heyer
by Georgette Heyer
The library at Fontley Priory, like most of the principal apartments in the sprawling building, looked to the south-east, commanding a prospect of informal gardens and a plantation of poplars, which acted as a wind-break and screened from view the monotony of the fen beyond.
Adam Deveril has just left the army and the Peninsular War. Not through choice, but because his father recently died and he must assume his family responsibilities as the new Viscount Lynton. Added to his problems is the fact that his father was not the most reliable with money, and Adam finds himself hugely in debt. He may even be forced into selling the family home, as not only does he have mortgages and debts, but he will also have to support his mother and provide for his two sisters. But he is also a man of principle and honour; he does not even consider his advisor’s opinion that he find himself a wealthy bride. But he forced to reconsider when the wealthy business man Jonathan Chawleigh suggests he marries his daughter.
14 August 2010
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