A Girl Walks Into a Bookstore...

Pages: 326 Original date of publication: 1924 My edition: 1984 (Virago Modern Classics) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Philly bookshop, August 2011 The Constant Nymph is one of those coming of age stories. This story is that of Tessa Sanger, the daughter of an unusual bohemian composer who lives in a chalet in the Austrian Alps with his ragtag group of children. Albert Sanger has a habit of randomly inviting other artists to the chalet, and the story opens when Lewis Dodd, a composer, arrives at the chalet. Well, I didn’t really like this novel very much, which was disappointing considering I liked some of Margaret Kennedy’s other novels ( Together and Apart was fantastic, for example). Although I like unusual characters, Tessa was far too “out there” for me to really understand or like her as a character, nor could I really understand the connection between her and Lewis or why the author tried to present it in such a mature light—even though Tess...

Pages: 614 Original date of publication: 1957 My edition: 2010 (Penguin) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Hatchards Bookshop, London, September 2011 MM Kaye was born in Simla, India, and came from a long line of people who served the British Raj. Several of her novels are set in India, most notably, of course, The Far Pavilions . Set against the backdrop of the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857, Shadow of the Moon is the story of the love between two British subjects with close ties to India: half-Spanish Winter de Ballesteros and Captain Alex Randall. The story begins properly when Winter, who spent her younger years in India and England, goes back to India to marry Conway Barton, Commissioner of Lunjore, who turns out to be obese and a drunkard. Her marriage doesn’t turn out to be the romance she has envisioned, however, but that part of the story takes a backseat to the larger events going on. To be sure, this is a romance-type of novel, but it’s subtle. Winter isn’t your typica...

Pages: 342 Original date of publication: 1936 My edition: 1981 (Dial/Virago) Why I decided to read: it’s on the VMC list How I acquired my copy: the Book Trader, Philadelphia, December 2010 Together and Apart is the story of a marriage—or rather, the breakup of a marriage. Betsy Canning decides to get a divorce from her husband Alec, a famous lyricist. Although she had tired of married life long before, she has all the more reason for divorce when Alec runs off with a much younger women. Thus begins the breakup of a family, as their three teenage children have to choose sides. Many of Margaret Kennedy’s novels were placed in a historical setting (such as Troy Chimneys ) or were timeless ( The Constant Nymph ). This novel is clearly rooted in the 1930s, when to get a divorce was to put yourself in disgrace. Of the novels I’ve read my Margaret Kennedy, this novel seems much more authentic. The divorce seems to have the greatest impact on the Canning children: Eliza, who’s making the tra...

Pages: 429 Original date of publication: 2011 My edition: 2011 (Sourcebooks) Why I decided to read: It was offered to be for review How I acquired my copy: review copy from the publisher, July 2011 Warning: spoilers below! The Rose Garden is Susanna Kearsley at her best. Eva Ward is a publicist who comes to the Cornish coast to scatter the ashes of her recently-deceased sister. A house called Trelowarth was once the home of smugglers, and Eva finds herself drawn back into the 18th century where she meets a man named Daniel Butler and becomes associated with Jacobean plots. Daniel Butler is kind of a mystery as a character, because we only get to see him for short snatches of time. But I can definitely see how appealing he is as a hero. But other than that, the character development of this novel is good. Better than that, though, is the writing. Kearsley’s writing is smooth, and the romance aspect of the novel is neatly woven in—it’s not too strong, but we know where Eva’s heart lies....

Pages: 304 Original date of publication: 1931 My edition: 1990 (Virago) Why I decided to read: Read it for All Virago/All August How I acquired my copy: Ebay, Augst 2010 Mad Puppetstown contains all the hallmarks of a Molly Keane novel; a large, rambling estate in Ireland; a slightly dysfunctional family; and, of course, house-parties in which hunting is featured. Easter, Evelyn (male, so I’m assuming it’s pronounced like Evelyn Waugh), and Basil are cousins who grow up together at Puppetstown. The novel opens in 1908 and takes the cousins through the Great War and, more importantly, the Easter Rising, during which the cousins must flee to England. They harbor hopes, however, that they will return to Puppetstown and restore it to its former glory. The novel starts off slowly, idyllically; this is the point in the novel at which the reader is supposed to feel the magic of Puppetstown and why the cousins are so attached to it. After all, it’s where Easter, Evelyn and Basil ...

Pages: 458 Original date of publication: 2011 My edition: 2011 (Crown) Why I decided to read: I’ve enjoyed the author’s previous books How I acquired my copy: Amazon, June 2011 Set in the court of Louis XIV, the Sun King, this novel follows the early period of his relationship with Louise del la Baume le Blanc, who comes to court as a teenager. Louis develops a close relationship with his brother’s wife, Henriette (younger sister of Charles II of England!); and to create a decoy and keep scandal from happening, Louise agrees to an affair with the King. I expected this novel to be primarily about Louise, so I was disappointed in that regard. It’s told from many different points of view: Louis, Philippe, even the story of the Man in the Iron Mask comes into play, which really added nothing to the main story. The author’s depiction of Louis’s character is very story, but I didn’t quite get what we’re supposed to see in Louise. As a character, she didn’t come across as strongly as some of ...

Pages: 245 Original date of publication: 1952 My edition: 1985 (Virago) Why I decided to read: LT recommendation How I acquired my copy: the Philadelphia Book Trader, October 2010 Margaret Kennedy’s 1953 novel tells the history of Miles Lufton, a self-made MP from a large family and the owner of Troy Chimneys, an estate in Wiltshire. Although the house’s name is the title of the novel, the focus is on Miles and his rise to prominence in the early 19th century. The book follows Miles’s political career less than it does his personal life, told in a series of letters and “memoir” entries, paired with letters from Miles’s Victorian descendants, who are rather horrified at his behavior. Margaret Kennedy’s novel has a very Jane Austen feeling to it, since she focuses mostly on what goes on the drawing room, so to speak; there’s this lovely, idyllic, and pastoral quality to Troy Chimneys that you just don’t find in the world of politics that Miles moves in. Miles buys the house as a means of...

Pages: 303 Original date of publication: 1934 My edition: 1984 (Virago) Why I decided to read: Read this for Virago Reading Week How I acquired my copy: The Book Trader, October 2010 I’ve been really up and down with Molly Keane’s books. On one hand, I loved The Rising Tide and Taking Chances ; on the other, I really didn’t like Loving Without Tears or this one. This is the story of the friendship between two women in London (and then, in true Molly Keane fashion, a decaying old estate in Ireland). Jane is a weak-willed woman who is caught between her friendship with Jessica and her budding relationship with George Playfair; Jessica is controlling and manipulative. Neither of the two main characters is particularly likable, which made it hard for me to care what ultimately happened to them. Jane is practically a doormat and not that smart; Jessica gets herself involved in everybody else’s life, which I found irritating to the extreme. Their relationship is passion...

Pages: 256 Original date of publication: 1951 My edition: 1997 (Virago) Why I decided to read: I’m trying to read all of Molly Keane’s novels How I acquired my copy: Ebay seller, August 2010 I became a Molly Keane fan after reading The Rising Tide and Taking Chances . I’m starting to notice some trends in Molly Keane’s novels: a domineering family matriarch, an old family house in Ireland. Loving Without Tears has both, but the house in this book isn’t important. Covering the space of a single day, and an epilogue three weeks later, this book tells the story of Angel, a woman who clings tightly to her grown children, watching in despair as they fall in love and intend to marry. Loving Without Tears is sadly not my favorite of the Molly Keane books I’ve read. Set in the years after WWII, there’s still this wonderful dreamlike quality to it (for some reason, I kept thinking of the setting of the musical Mamma Mia as I read!). The focus of this novel is on the rela...

Pages: 320 Original date of publication: 1932 My edition: 1981 (Dial Press) Why I decided to read: heard about this through LT How I acquired my copy: the Philly Book Trader, December 2010 Although written in the 1920s, The Ladies of Lyndon is set in Edwardian England and during and after the First World War. Agatha is one of the most sought-after debutantes of her season, and she marries John Clewer in order to become mistress of Lyndon. Her marriage is unhappy, and she finds comfort in her relationship with an old flame. This is a novel that explores various characters’ search for satisfaction in their lives—oddly enough, it’s John’s brother James who is happiest with his life, although everyone thinks he’s rather “off.” However, because James is the one who’s most comfortable with himself and his life, he’s one of the most endearing characters in this book—along with his wife, Dolly the former housemaid. By marrying her, James raises a lot of eyebrows, but he re...

Pages: 414 Original date of publication: 2010 My edition: 2010 (Dial) Why I decided to read: Heard about it through Amazon.com How I acquired my copy: Amazon Vine, September 2010 I’ve read all of Sophie Kinsella’s books to date, and I’ve enjoyed nearly all of them. Her novels are quirky and fun and funny, and they always provide their reader with a bit of brain candy. Mini-Shopaholic is the sixth Shopaholic book featuring the adventures of Becky Brandon (nee Bloomwood). You’d think that after six books in this series, the series would have jumped the shark, so to speak, but still Sophie Kinsella manages to find fresh material for our heroine. Mini Shopaholic takes place two and a half years after the last Shopaholic book, Shopaholic and Baby, leaves off. Becky’s daughter Minnie is essentially going through the Terrible Twos, and everyone else (including Luke) think Becky spoils her. Added on top of that is the fact that, apparently, Minnie is becoming a mini-shopah...

Pages: 272 Original date of publication: 1929 My edition: 1988 (Virago) Why I decided to read: I’m in the process of reading everything by Molly Keane and this one seemed to fit my mood. How I acquired my copy: Ebay, August 2010 After reading The Rising Tide , I’m now on a mission to read everything by Molly Keane (who wrote under the pseudonym MJ Farrell). Taking Chances is one of her earlier books, published as MJ Farrell, and is the story of three siblings: Roguey, Maeve, and Jer, although the story is told with Jer’s sensibility. The story opens with Maeve’s marriage to Rowley, a neighboring landowner, and the arrival of Maeve’s bridesmaid, Mary, from London. The women are as different as different could be, and Rowley and Mary are instantly attracted to one another. Taking Chances is another really good one from Molly Keane. Her books usually feature great, sprawling piles in the Irish countryside, and her characters are very much in to hunting and horses (Mo...

Pages: 320 Original date of publication: 1937 My edition: 1990 (Virago Modern Classics) Why I decided to read: came across this on Ebay How I acquired my copy: Ebay, May 2010 The Rising Tide is my first foray into reading Molly Keane’s novels. It’s the story of a family, the French-McGraths, who live in a crumbling, Gothic house in Ireland at the beginning of the 20 th century. Garonlea is the home to Ambrose and lady Charlotte French-McGrath and their five children. When their son, Desmond, marries Cynthia, the French-McGraths’ lives are changed—sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. I’ve never read anything by Molly Keane before, and I wonder why I’ve never heard of her before randomly buying this off of ebay a couple of months ago (strange how chance works). I loved the atmosphere of this book and the almost sinister atmosphere of the house (I have to love any book with a house like Garonlea in it). What I love about the characters of this no...

Pages: 647 Original date of publication: 1985 My edition: 1987 (Avon) Why I decided to read: heard about it through HFO How I acquired my copy: Amazon.com, April 2010 Legacy is the fictional story of one of England greatest queens—Elizabeth I, who reigned from 1558 until her death in 1603. It was during her reign that England achieved a certain amount of political stability and created a sense of national identity in the English people. Her relationship with Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was highly debated, and it’s the focus of part of the plot of this novel. Elizabeth’s relationship with William Cecil is also central to the plot. I haven’t read many novels about the life of Elizabeth I (Jean Plaidy wrote one called Queen of this Realm that I wasn’t so keen on because she focused more the legend, not the actual person), but this is easily the best. Susan Kay gets into the head and heart of Elizabeth, who’s a very difficult person to write fiction about, I thi...

Pages: 380 Original date of publication: 1995 My edition: 1995 Why I decided to read: I’ve read and enjoyed Susanna Kearsley’s other novels How I acquired my copy: The author generously gave it to me! When Emily Branon’s cousin Harry suggests a holiday to Chinon, France, she jumps at the opportunity. Harry, a scholar, is “potty for Plantagenets,” and wants to visit the town to do a bit of research. But when Emily arrives in Chinon, she finds that her cousin has disappeared, and she makes the acquaintance of a few foreigners in the town, including a set of brothers from Canada, a German artist, and a violinist. Emily finds herself drawn in by the story of two women named Isabelle—one the wife of King John of England, the other a girl living during WWII, both of whom hid treasures beyond price. This book is another strong one from Susanna Kearsley, who manages to draw her reader into her story. Having been in contact with the author herself, she’s been influenced by the novels of Mary St...

Disclaimer: I couldn't finish this book. I barely made it past page 100, where I knew I had to stop. I had such high hopes for this novel. I really enjoyed The Historian , so I thought I couldn’t go wrong with Kostova’s second book, a novel about Impressionism and psychology. I’m afraid she suffered a little bit from second-novel-itis this time, as she’s written a novel that left me scratching my head quite a bit. I loved the premise: psychology and art are two things that you don’t usually see thrown in together in a novel. It’s a different subject matter altogether from The Historian , but I was hopeful nonetheless. Oh, how it falls short of expectations. I found that I was struggling to work my way through this sleeper of a novel. And the fact that I just described this book as “work” should tell you a lot about what I thought. Novels should be pleasure, not work. First, the author gives a lot of detail. A lot. Excruciatingly, extraneously so. Need directions from Washington, D....

The Lacuna is an extremely difficult novel to explain. It covers a lot of territory, and a lot of topics. It’s difficult to know where to start. It’s a novel about a young man named Harrison Shepherd, a Mexican-American who grows up in Mexico and later lives in North Carolina. From the age of thirteen, when Harrison finds himself mixing plaster and cooking food for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, up through his thirties, when he is a famous author and suspected Communist, this novel is, as the back of the book states, a coming of age story. But it’s much more than that as well. As I’ve said, this is a tough novel to describe. In high school (about 10 years ago), I read everything Kingsolver had written up to that point, and I can say that this book is very much unlike any of her other novels, both in subject matter and style. But just the same, I loved this novel. Lacunae are voids, pieces that are missing; and it’s hard for me to grasp exactly what this means. It’s because of this that...

Lyn Ravenshaw is a London literary agent whose star client is Bridget, a volatile children’s book author. She’s invited Lyn with her to Wales for the Christmas holiday. While there, Lyn encounters the Swift brothers, as well as Gareth Glyn Morgan, a famous playwright. She also meets Elen, a young widow whose eight-month-old son stirs up feelings in Lyn that bring back memories of the loss of her own child, five years before. Another strong offering from Susanna Kearsley, although not my favorite novel of hers. I love the bleak, desolate setting, and the historical backdrop to the story provides some wonderful atmosphere. I also liked the interplay of historical eras: the ancient Welsh kings and the old Arthurian legends; the more recent Normans; and the even more recent Tudors, one of whom features in Lyn’s dreams. The psychological suspense is also top-notch, though I thought that Lyn’s “turnaround” with Stevie was a little too abrupt. But in all, this was an entertaining read; Kearsl...

Description from Amazon: Lara Lington has always had an overactive imagination, but suddenly that imagination seems to be in overdrive. Normal professional twenty-something young women don’t get visited by ghosts. Or do they?When the spirit of Lara’s great-aunt Sadie–a feisty, demanding girl with firm ideas about fashion, love, and the right way to dance–mysteriously appears, she has one last request: Lara must find a missing necklace that had been in Sadie’s possession for more than seventy-five years, and Sadie cannot rest without it. Lara, on the other hand, has a number of ongoing distractions. Her best friend and business partner has run off to Goa, her start-up company is floundering, and she’s just been dumped by the “perfect” man.Sadie, however, could care less.Lara and Sadie make a hilarious sparring duo, and at first it seems as though they have nothing in common. But as the mission to find Sadie’s necklace leads to intrigue and a new romance for Lara, these very different “t...

Verity Grey is a young archeologist and museum curator, when she’s called to participate in an archeological dig in Scotland. Peter Quinnell, a formerly renowned archeologist, is convinced that the ancient Roman marching campground of the Ninth Legion is located near the fishing village of Eyemouth. In addition, an eight-year-old boy has the second sight, able to see the ghost of an ancient Roman sentinel. Throw in an ex boyfriend and a handsome local Scottish love interest, and you have all the ingredients for a superb gothic romance. Susanna Kearsley’s books are redolent of those of Mary Stewart; they’re very atmospheric. I loved the ghost aspect of the story as well as the archeological and historical bits of the book, which seemed to be well-researched (granted, I don’t know that much about ancient Roman Britain, but still…). The characters are eclectic and well-defined. However, the ending of the novel feels a bit rushed, and we never really learn all that much about the Ninth Leg...