Find That Book!: Book Boyfriends

We have a new Find That Book request– and this is a super fun one! Tiffany would like to find: “Best book boyfriends (not including Mr. Darcy, because that would be too easy :).” What is it that makes a good book boyfriend? There are the classics, of course.  Anne of Green Gables‘s Gilbert Blythe,…

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Find That Book!: Beach Read That’s Not a Beach Read

Scan those bookshelves!  We have a Find That Book request for a very specific sort of beach read…. The parameters (in more detail below): no dystopias, no thrillers with nasty people, no deeply depressing content; yes mysteries, historical fiction, or the lighter sort of thriller (I’m thinking romantic suspense?) Christine writes: We’re going on a…

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Find That Book!: Epic Historicals with Romantic Elements

Today’s book hunt is for that elusive category I think of as “epics”, but could also be called “historical with romantic elements”. Tiffany writes: “Am craving/looking for a book similar to MM Kaye, Zemindar, or Anya Seton’s novels, as in historical fiction with an amazing romance, but not categorically labeled ‘historical romance books.’ Am very…

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Find That Book!: Dual Timeline

Ever feel like you’re craving a certain type of book but have no idea where to look?  Yep, me, too. So I’m starting a weekly Find That Book series!  Send in your book needs and I’ll open it up to everyone for suggestions, and we’ll see what we can come up with together. Our first…

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If You Like….

A large chunk of The English Wife takes place in the unique environment of the Hudson Valley, just about an hour or so out of Manhattan. Having spent a significant portion of my childhood there, I’d always been fascinated by how different upstate New York feels from New England, shaped as it was by the…

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If You Like….

No Gilded Age novel would be complete without a stop in Newport. So, naturally, my characters (and I) had to spend a bit of time there. But when I sat down to make this “If You Like” list, I was surprised by how hard it was to think of books set in Newport in the…

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If You Like….

Maybe it’s all those postcards of the Eiffel Tower, maybe it comes of watching Gigi at a susceptible age, but there’s just something about Belle Epoque Paris. Even though The English Wife is set largely in New York and London, I couldn’t resist sending my characters on a little excursion to Paris, where they got…

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If You Like….

As I was gathering up my pictures of the various settings in The English Wife to share with you, it occurred to me that it might be fun to do a bunch of If You Likes to cover the various places involved in the book. So, since this is my Gilded Age book, it made…

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A Guest "If You Like" from Tracy Grant

A big welcome to Tracy Grant, who is visiting here today to share her favorite books about poets! Many of you may already know Tracy as the author of the Charles & Melanie Fraser books or as the author of the Malcolm & Susanne Rannoch books, beautifully written mysteries set just at the end of…

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If You Like….

Today we have a special treat– a guest If You Like from Sheila! As Sheila points out below, when we dip our toes into the past, we tend to focus on the propertied and privileged– because, let’s face it, they had better clothes. (Although not necessarily better teeth. But I digress.) But what about the…

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