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May. 4th, 2017 08:37 pmI am so far behind for various reasons. Some of these definitely deserve more, but this is all I have time for now. The Hidden Blade and Daughter of Mysteries were my favourites for this month.
February:
Courtney Milan, Hold Me. Sequel to Trade Me. Maria, transgender Latina best friend of previous book's lead, has a apocalyptic-themed blog under another name that Jay, neurotic Chinese/Thai physicist, loves; he corresponds with the pen name and starts flirting, but when he meets Maria in person writes her off as superficial and uninteresting. This is not my favourite set-up for a romance, I never really bought the blog as a concept (everyone loves it! top level scientists offer Maria jobs (or possibly papers, it's been a while) based on it), and the vast levels of wealth and wish-fulfillment going on with Cyclone are also not my thing at all.
Sherry Thomas, The Hidden Blade, Delicious, His at Night, Private Arrangments. The Hidden Blade is the backstory/prequel to My Beautiful Enemy, and it's great. Ying-Ying is the daughter of a concubine to a senior official who is not her father; her precarious existence is strengthened by her discovery that her servant/nurse is a secret martial arts expert, who takes on the job of training Ying-Ying. Leighton is the apparently privileged child of English nobility whose family is wrenched apart. Together, they will exchange one heated glance all book before getting together (and apart, and together) in the sequel. It is melodramatic and whole-hearted and I really liked it a lot. It reminded me of the early bits of MM Kaye's The Far Pavilions, actually, a book of which I am very fond.
The other Thomases are historical romance, English settings, and they're all fine but none of them really hit the spot, and some of her character interactions don't really work as romances for me.
Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent. 1890s England; Cora, a new widow for whom her husband's death came as a deliverance, leaves London for the wilds of Essex, intrigued by paleontology and the rumours of the serpent of the title. Too many of the cast felt like contemporary characters in costume for me, and the denouement irked. There's also a letter that Cora sends which is in fact a perfectly reasonable statement of personal boundaries and yes, it does arrive at the worst possible time, but that's not her fault and it felt like too much authorial thumb on the scale.
Agatha Christie, The Clocks. Late Christie, Poirot. I was contemplating a Christie re-read at this stage and this was what they had at the library. Very neat, not outstanding.
The Crime Club, Mystery and Mayhem: Twelve Deliciously Intriguing Mysteries. Picked up largely for the Robin Stevens, which was good but a bit obvious as a Christie homage. Harriet Whitehorn and Katherine Woodfine had the other two stories that I liked. I note that this is an all-female collection and that he only time I've seen "best male writer" as a qualification was in a description of Reginald Hill (when alive) as "Britain's best living male crime writer" (at the time, both PD James and Ruth Rendell were also still alive).
Heather Rose Jones, Daughter of Mysteries. I read a review of this and forgot the details, but conveniently it was the first hit for "ruritania lesbians" on Google. And yes, that does describe it, but it's also a lovely detailed piece of historical world-building, with an interconnection between religion and magic that reminds me a bit of Kurtz's early Deryni books. Barbara, the personal bodyguard of a somewhat eccentric baron, is bequeathed on his death to Margerit, an impoverished orphan - along with the Baron's fortune. The two of them have to negotiate vengful relatives, politics, rebellions, duels - and their own developing relationship. This is the first of a trilogy and I really enjoyed it.
I am no longer cross-posting to livejournal.
February:
Courtney Milan, Hold Me. Sequel to Trade Me. Maria, transgender Latina best friend of previous book's lead, has a apocalyptic-themed blog under another name that Jay, neurotic Chinese/Thai physicist, loves; he corresponds with the pen name and starts flirting, but when he meets Maria in person writes her off as superficial and uninteresting. This is not my favourite set-up for a romance, I never really bought the blog as a concept (everyone loves it! top level scientists offer Maria jobs (or possibly papers, it's been a while) based on it), and the vast levels of wealth and wish-fulfillment going on with Cyclone are also not my thing at all.
Sherry Thomas, The Hidden Blade, Delicious, His at Night, Private Arrangments. The Hidden Blade is the backstory/prequel to My Beautiful Enemy, and it's great. Ying-Ying is the daughter of a concubine to a senior official who is not her father; her precarious existence is strengthened by her discovery that her servant/nurse is a secret martial arts expert, who takes on the job of training Ying-Ying. Leighton is the apparently privileged child of English nobility whose family is wrenched apart. Together, they will exchange one heated glance all book before getting together (and apart, and together) in the sequel. It is melodramatic and whole-hearted and I really liked it a lot. It reminded me of the early bits of MM Kaye's The Far Pavilions, actually, a book of which I am very fond.
The other Thomases are historical romance, English settings, and they're all fine but none of them really hit the spot, and some of her character interactions don't really work as romances for me.
Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent. 1890s England; Cora, a new widow for whom her husband's death came as a deliverance, leaves London for the wilds of Essex, intrigued by paleontology and the rumours of the serpent of the title. Too many of the cast felt like contemporary characters in costume for me, and the denouement irked. There's also a letter that Cora sends which is in fact a perfectly reasonable statement of personal boundaries and yes, it does arrive at the worst possible time, but that's not her fault and it felt like too much authorial thumb on the scale.
Agatha Christie, The Clocks. Late Christie, Poirot. I was contemplating a Christie re-read at this stage and this was what they had at the library. Very neat, not outstanding.
The Crime Club, Mystery and Mayhem: Twelve Deliciously Intriguing Mysteries. Picked up largely for the Robin Stevens, which was good but a bit obvious as a Christie homage. Harriet Whitehorn and Katherine Woodfine had the other two stories that I liked. I note that this is an all-female collection and that he only time I've seen "best male writer" as a qualification was in a description of Reginald Hill (when alive) as "Britain's best living male crime writer" (at the time, both PD James and Ruth Rendell were also still alive).
Heather Rose Jones, Daughter of Mysteries. I read a review of this and forgot the details, but conveniently it was the first hit for "ruritania lesbians" on Google. And yes, that does describe it, but it's also a lovely detailed piece of historical world-building, with an interconnection between religion and magic that reminds me a bit of Kurtz's early Deryni books. Barbara, the personal bodyguard of a somewhat eccentric baron, is bequeathed on his death to Margerit, an impoverished orphan - along with the Baron's fortune. The two of them have to negotiate vengful relatives, politics, rebellions, duels - and their own developing relationship. This is the first of a trilogy and I really enjoyed it.
I am no longer cross-posting to livejournal.
