Weekly Reading Round-Up
It’s been a reading hodge-podge this week!
I had recommended Georgette Heyer’s Talisman Ring to someone– which meant, of course, that I was suddenly seized with the need to go back and read it myself. For quality control, of course. And I am pleased to report that it is just as marvelous and laugh-out-loud funny as it ever was.
In an abrupt shift from Regency hijinks (well, fine, 1790s, actually, but close enough), I used the long train ride up to my event at R.J. Julia to get started on the ARCs that have been piling up around me, starting with Anita Hughes’s The Light After the War (written as Anita Abriel), about the strange paths of the lives of two friends, Hungarian refugees, as they make their way from war-torn Europe to Caracas and eventually to Australia after World War II.
From the diaspora of World War II to the glamour of a royal wedding, I also started Heather Webb and Hazel Gaynor’s recently released Meet Me in Monaco, a story set around Grace Kelly’s whirlwind romance with Prince Ranier– and a French perfumier and a British photo-journalist who find their own lives changed in the process.
And, of course, I’ve been wallowing in the letters of the Smith College Relief Unit, which read like Rilla of Ingleside and then some!
I’m not quite sure what to read next, but I’m finding myself yearning for something vaguely gothic.
What have you been reading this week?
I adored Meet Me In Monaco- the characters ,setting & romance.
Started an ARC of The Murder List byHank Phillippi Ryan- intriguing!
I just finished two ARCs: The Murder List just mentioned by Susan and The Angels’ Share by Ellen Crosby. Both excellent! Just started The Secret Life of Anna Blanc by Jennifer Kincheloe. So far so good!
The movie The Secret Life of Bees with Alicia Keys, Dakota Fanning, and Queen Latifa is very heartwarming.
Needing a comfort read, I went back to Mary Stewart’s This Rough Magic. So terrific! Stewart’s ability to turn a phrase and draw you into the narrative was unsurpassed. Btw, I read The Summer Country last week and you’ve done it again, Lauren. I absolutely loved it!
Just received Mimi Matthews’ latest release, The Work of Art, and will be enjoying that this weekend 🙂
Still reading Leigh Bardugo’s King of Scars and Tolkien’s Return of the King; both are amazing. For work, I’m reading Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities; leave it to Dickens to have the most complex and layered characters with settings and events that mirror and reveal them.
I read The Glass Woman by Caroline Lea, which was very good, sort of a 17th century, Icelandic Rebecca. Now I’m reading The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr, which so far isn’t terribly exciting but I can keep reading it.
On the second book of Jodi Taylor’s “The Chronicles of St. Mary’s” time traveling historians series (recommended here…) now I will be spending the next few weeks reading all 10!!!
I’ve been rereading Sprig Muslin and Fingersmith. (I recommend Fingersmith passionately if you’re still in the mood for something gothic.)