Weekly Reading Round-Up
Happy Friday, all! And happy almost Valentine’s Day!
This week, the stand out read for me was an advance copy of Piper Huguley’s By Her Own Design, about dress designer Ann Lowe, who designed dresses for Olivia de Havilland and Jacqueline Kennedy among many, many others. Biographical fiction is tough to do well, but this one really came alive, from the deep South in the early twentieth century up through New York in the 1960s.
After that, I went back to my rather erratic progress through Elizabeth Daly’s 1940s Henry Gamadge mystery series with books 7, 8, and 10: Arrow Pointing Nowhere, The Book of the Dead, and Somewhere in the House. (At some point, I’ll need to circle back around and read books 2-6!).
Right now, in honor of Valentine’s Day, I’ve gone back to one of my all time favorite romance novelists, Jo Beverley, with the second in her 18th century Malloren series, Tempting Fortune. I know I must have read this one when I read through the Mallorens in the early days of grad school, but I can’t remember a thing about it, so it’s just like reading it for the first time. (For anyone who hasn’t read these, Winter Fire is the absolute best. Start there. It doesn’t matter that you won’t be up on the backstory of the side characters.)
What have you been reading this week?
Ashley Gardner’s “Murder in St. Giles”…I’ve really enjoyed the Captain Lacey series. Next in the queue: “A Rule Against Murder” by Louise Penny.
“The Girl is Murder” by Kathryn Miller Haines, rereading the Rock Chicks by Kristen Ashley, and finishing off “The Romance Reader’s Guide to Life” by Sharon Pywell.
The Other Sister by Jennifer Paynter.
Yours Cheerfully by A.J. Pearce
Ahh! By Her Own Design is now on my TBR list. Many many years ago, I wrote a paper on Olivia de Havilland’s lawsuit against Warner Bros and got a letter from the great lady herself about it. This book sounds absolutely fascinating!
I don’t get to read much anymore, but I just read The Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis and recently read A Witch in Time by Constance Sayers. Both “can’t put down” types.