A Girl Walks Into a Bookstore...

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...

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme. Anyone can play along! Just do the following: --Grab your current read --Open to a random page --share two “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page Be sure NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) --Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers! “Stanley’s son was at Oxford, reading for a pass, for it was no manner of use, they said, his reading for anything more. He was a nice boy, but not yet clever.” --From Told by An Idiot , by Rose Macaulay

Pages: 317 Original date of publication: 2004 (as Lady of the Mercians ) My edition: 2010 (Cava Books) Why I decided to read: it was recommended to be through Amazon UK How I acquired my copy: Amazon UK, May 2010 The King’s Daughter is the story of Elflaede, daughter of Alfred the Great, King of Wessex during the late 9 th century. Elflaede herself became a Queen in her own right, and became known as Lady of the Mercians through her marriage to Ethelred, King of Mercia. As she continued her father’s quest to keep the Viking invaders at bay, in this novel, she falls in love with the very person she’s not supposed to—Guthrun, a Viking himself. I had to look up Alfred the Great and Elflaede up in order to get the full story of both, since I felt that the history got a little lost in the love story of Guthrun and Elflaede. I also wish that Alfred had been a greater presence in this book; although he was at the height of his powers at the time the book is set, I really...

Pages: Original date of publication: 1971 My edition: 1971 (Dobson Books) Why I decided to read: Elizabeth Chadwick recommendation How I acquired my copy: Amazon.com, September 2009 I first heard about Juliet Dymoke’s books through Elizabeth Chadwick, who listed Henry of the High Rock as one of her favorite historical fiction books. Henry is actually the second in a loosely-connected trilogy of books that can be read separately (the first is Of the Ring of Earls ). Henry of the High Rock is about Henry Beauclerc, a younger son of William the Conqueror who, despite the odds, became King of England. This novel is about his struggle to get there and his love, along the way, for Eadgyth of Scotland. Dymoke has a habit of portraying her male characters in a more or less rosy light; her Henry is very much romanticized. But I liked the portrait she painted of him. Her treatment of the struggles between Henry and his brothers is well done. Dymoke gives her readers a great...

Pages: 277 Original date of publication:2010 My edition: 2010 (Bloomsbury) Why I decided to read: I read The Aviary Gate last summer How I acquired my copy: LTER program, August 2010 The Pindar Diamond is a follow-up novel to The Aviary Gate . While they can be read separately, I would recommend that you reading The Aviary Gate before this one. The Pindar Diamond opens in 1603 and 1604, when a travelling group of performers take a mysterious woman, washed ashore on the Italian coast, into their care. Meanwhile, in Venice, Paul Pindar is on the hunt for a priceless diamond called the Sultan’s Blue; and his friend, John Carew, becomes entangled with a nun named Annetta. It’s only been a year since I read The Aviary Gate , but I found when reading its follow-up that I had to go back and re-read my review of the first! I just didn’t remember any of the characters, except for Celia. Having read the sequel, though, I don’t think that I’ll remember the characters much...

Pages: 316 Original date of publication: 1930 My edition: 2009 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: Heard about it through the Persephone catalogue How I acquired my copy: Persephone subscription, March 2010 Set in the years leading up to and through WWI, this is the tale of Jane Carter, a teenage girl when the story begins, who gets a job as an assistant in a draper’s shop in a town. The story takes Jane from the 1910s up through the 1920s, when she opens up her own shop, becoming as she does so much more independent. This is one of Dorothy Whipple’s earlier novels, so it’s less polished than, say They Were Sister or Someone at a Distance . Still, it’s interesting for the way it portrays life in the early 20 th century and the difference between the various classes (Jane as a poor girl from Lancashire; Mr. Chadwick, who has aspirations to something more; the wealthy, genteel Greenwoods; and the Briggses, who are self-made). I enjoyed watching how those differences began ...

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme. Anyone can play along! Just do the following: --Grab your current read --Open to a random page --share two “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page Be sure NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) --Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers! “I liked to think that my Monday evening salon was the only place in the city where men and women could mingle as equals. The married and marriagible women of the upper reaches of the town were hidden away, given little room for interests beyond clothes, children, entertaining, and a bit of work among the poor.” --From City of Light, by Lauren Belfer