4 Stars. Oh my gosh, Russian novels, even when they aren’t written by Russians, defeat me with the names. Everyone has at least two or three wildly different (to me, anyway) names! I can’t keep them straight! This one wasn’t too bad but I would still draw the occasional blank. I just had to keep reading and hope that I eventually got that […]
4 Stars. Oh my. I did not ever, in my wildest dreams, expect a book about Miss Gwen! What a hoot! Somehow, I’d decided that she was at least 70. She’s actually only about 45. And an attractive 45 at that, if you can get past the fierce way she wields her parasol in defense of Jane’s virtue. I’m so glad she got her own story […]
The Story of Land and Sea opens with young Tabitha contracting yellow fever on her tenth birthday. Her father and grandfather, having already lost her mother in childbirth, are desperate to save her despite the limitations of 18th century medicine. Her father takes to the sea with her in tow, thinking that the sea air Continue Reading…
Caitrin is on the run from a bad situation at home. With only the clothes on her back, a few coins, and her box of scribing tools, she just wants to get away. Her money runs out late one evening in the middle of nowhere. She finds her way to a village called Whistling Tor. Continue Reading…
Claire Harris is a New York socialite, throwing extravagant parties and softening up her husband’s potential business partners for him. Her past comes back to haunt her one night and she flees to Paris on the eve on the German occupation to find an old lover. Their reunion doesn’t go well and she finds herself Continue Reading…
Allan Karlsson impulsively leaves his nursing home by way of his bedroom window on the day of his 100th birthday. There was no real decision-making involved; it was just done. So there he is, on the run in his “pee slippers” (so called because 100-year-old men don’t reliably miss their shoes in the bathroom) and Continue Reading…
Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality has taken boys on board and is heading to London. Sophronia knows that something is afoot, if she can only figure out just what it is. Someone seems to be determined to kidnap Dimity and her brother (What is his name? I can’t be bothered to Continue Reading…
Sophronia Temminick is a tomboy in Victorian England. The youngest of innumerable sisters, she is left alone to pretty much do as she pleases. What pleases her is climbing dumbwaiter shafts, spying on her sisters, and generally acting in ways not becoming to a lady. When she is packed off to finishing school one day, Continue Reading…
It’s 1875 and Archie Dent’s parents belong to The Septemberists, a society dedicated to remembering the damage caused by monsters called the Mangleborn and to preventing them from rising again to destroy civilization. On a routine trip to the Septemberist headquarters, the older Dents are taken over by Manglespawn, children of a Mangleborn, and forced Continue Reading…
Mercy Lynch is a nurse in the Civil War, which has been lingering on for decades. Like many people, she has torn loyalties. She’s a nurse for the Confederacy but her husband is a soldier in the Union. Shortly after she receives word that he died in a POW camp, she receives a telegram notifying Continue Reading…
I seriously did not think I could love an audiobook performance more than I love Katherine Kellgren’s narration of the Bloody Jack series by L. A. Meyer. And then she narrated The Mysterious Howling. Holy cow. I am in awe of Ms. Kellgren’s talent! Old men, teen girls, simpering married women, wolfish children howling at Continue Reading…