Weekly Reading Round-Up
One of the fringe benefits of going to conferences is the books. Lots ‘n lots of books. I came back from the Poisoned Pen conference in Arizona with a number of wonderful new friends and an even larger number of new books to read. So here’s the latest list….
— The Private World of Georgette Heyer, Jane Aiken Hodge
An intelligent and informative biography of the Mother of Regency Romance by a fellow fiction writer. I have to say, it was a great boost to discover that Heyer’s writing process was as haphazard as mine.
— Secondhand Spirits, Juliet Blackwell
Witchcraft and vintage clothing in current day San Francisco. Great fun.
— Interred With Their Bones, Jennifer Lee Carrell
What the DaVinci Code would like to be when it grows up. Think Eloise and Colin, on the trail of a major Shakespeare manuscript. There’s a wonderful chase scene in Harvard’s Widener Library.
— A Trace of Smoke, Rebecca Cantrell
A gripping mystery set in 1930’s Berlin. I did not see the conclusion coming at all.
— Your Scandalous Ways, Loretta Chase
You can’t go wrong with Loretta Chase. A twist on the standard Regency, with a plot set in Venice and a heroine who is anything but a sheltered young miss.
What have you been reading?
Currently reading “Summer at Tiffany,” a biography about two college students from Iowa who work at Tiffany’s in NYC for the summer. Delightfully cute.
Finished Married by Morning, but Lisa Kleypas and my guilty tabloid-ish reading Unchartered TerriTori (great read for a business trip!) and started Love in the Afternoon by Lisa yesterday.
Just finished up Haunt me Still, Jennifer Lee Carrell’s second book, which was awesome and all about Macbeth, but how she works in the witchcraft and Dr Dee is fascinating! Also, read this awesome book by an author I think everyone knows and loves, Lauren Willig, Mischief of the Mistletoe, everyone should read it when it comes out this fall.
I have finished Kingdom of Shadows by Barbara Erskine and can HIGHLY recommend it. Looking forward to reading more of her excellent work.
I also read a quick little book (360 pages, LOL) by Meredith Medeiros called Breath of Magic. It was great fun, witty, laugh-out-loud cute. Had time travel too. Only complaint was that it is mass market paperback, which makes me sneeze.
I am racing through Kasey Michaels Maggie series, then starting on Tracy Grant’s books. Amazon should thank Lauren for this section of the site : I have tripled me list to TBRs.
Ooops, make that Teresa Medeiros. Can’t imagine where Meredith came from!
Miss Eliza,
I think I speak for most of us when I say I am envious! 🙂
Read “Rushed to the Altar” – Jane Feather’s latest mass paperback. It’s a start to a new trilogy. A little different, a little darker Regency romance. Started Heyer’s “An Infamous Army” – let you know how that goes when I’m done.
I just finished The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane on audio, which I was hoping would have been much better. Another PhD at Harvard researching historical drama like your Eloise, but that’s about the only similarity to your fun and well written series! I can’t say the same, alas for Physick which was a really good idea for a book but just fell flat in all other respects. My next audio is Shanghai Girls which I hear is great. I’m still reading Devil’s Brood but it’s taking a long time for it’s a big book, and I’ve been insanely busy since getting back from my amazing adventurous weekend in AZ!
Since I’m on uni break, I’m taking advantage of my free time to do some non-academic reading – this week I’ve read a Heyer novel (re-reading The Masqueraders), two of the ‘Tomorrow’ series by Aussie author John Marsden (Tomorrow When the War Began and Dead of the Night) and am halfway through Possession by A S Byatt.
I just reread Pink Carnation. I still adore it. Well, I just started a book called A Silent Ocean Away by DeVa Gantt.
Oh I agree, Miss Eliza, I’m extremely jealous! lol.
Just finished “Nobody’s Baby But Mine,” by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. Cute read!
I have a bad habit of saying I read such and such a book when I am in the middle of it. In that spirit I read Julia Quinn’s The Viscount Who Loved Me
and When He Was Wicked
I am also well into Regency Buck and A Blunt Intsrument by Georgette Heyer.
I’m wrapping up An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears. On the face it’s a murder mystery set in 1660s Oxford, told and re-told by four different “witnesses,” but their accounts reveal much more complex narratives–scientific discovery, royalist intrigue, espionage and treason, and religious dissent and prophecy. I’m enjoying it, but it suffers from being WAY too long (700 pages). Very atmospheric, though, and recommended for fans of Umberto Eco.
After this, it’s back to Possession by A.S. Byatt (bliss…).
The book fairies just delivered me an ARC of Mistletoe 😀 Can’t waaaait to read and review it!