What We're Reading!

Hey there, Pat here, bringing you the Word Wenches comments on what we’ve been reading this month. I’ve been hunkered down trying to fine tune my new release while reading up on the next book set in Victorian Edinburgh--my main reading this month. I really don’t think you want to hear about the archives of the University of Scotland, although they are fascinating!

But I discovered I’d missed a Terry Pratchett book and grabbed a copy of RAISING STEAM when it crossed my radar. This is one of the later volumes written with his wife, so the puns aren’t there except in some of the names. What was really interesting about this read is that I started it in e-book format and was feeling a bit let-down and disappointed by it. We have all my favorite characters (except the witches!) and Disc World has just discovered steam engines, which is throwing everything into a tizzy. But I just wasn’t getting into it. Because we have a library of Pratchett books, we ordered a print copy to fill the missing gap. So I opened the book to where I was in the e-reader and tried reading on the page and lo and behold, the experience was utterly different.

Of course, the footnotes are much easier to read in print. My Nook app loses my place if I try to go back and forth between footnotes and page, and the book has no chapters, so I can’t use the menu. I figured out the bookmark, but it became too much of a hassle. But footnotes really were just a minor issue. For some reason, my brain saw the deeper elements in print, the subversive issues Pratchett loves to play with in his fantasy world. In the e-reader, I was just skimming along, seeing words, and not really grasping the big picture.

Have you ever experimented with reading the same book in both formats?

Anne’s turn:

Two of the books I'm talking about this month I had preordered ages ago, but somehow lost track of them until something jogged my memory. The first is a contemporary romance called REPEAT by Kylie Scott, a favorite author of mine. She writes edgy, sexy, emotional books with wonderful characterization. This is an amnesia story, but one with a difference. From the blurb: When a vicious attack leaves 25-year-old Clementine Johns with no memory, she's forced to start over. Now she has to figure out who she was and why she made the choices she did - which includes leaving the supposed love of her life, tattoo artist Ed Larsen, only a month before. Highly recommended.

The other preordered book that slipped unnoticed into the TBR pile was by our own Susanna Kearsley - BELLEWETHER. As always with Susanna's books, there is an interwoven story from two time periods. The setting is Long Island (USA) where in contemporary times a historical museum is being set up. The historical story takes place in 1759 when war has come to North America courtesy of Britain and France, and people's loyalties are challenged. A wonderful book, highly recommended. 

Another stand-out read for me this month was DAISY JONES AND THE SIX, by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Not a romance, though there is a thread of romance; it's a kind of fictional memoir, told in snippets of recorded recollection of the rise and fall of a rock band. That sounds dull, I know, but I found it totally engrossing.

Finally, I've been rereading some old historical romances that have now been reissued as e-books, and the standout was Patricia Potter's DIABOLO, a classic western historical that had all the feels — adventure, heartache, romance, redemption — a wholly satisfying read. Next in line is LAWLESS which I read and loved many years ago.

Andrea here:

This month I have been reading historical fiction, and have two fabulous reads to recommend. I had read Kate Quinn’s THE ALICE NETWORK, and loved it, so grabbed her latest, THE HUNTRESS. It’s a riveting story of bringing a war crime to justice after WWII, with a wonderful weaving together of four completely different people and how the murder of six young children and young escaped British POW in Nazi Germany brings them together in a quest for justice. The protagonists include a Siberian girl who leaves the wilds to become one of Russia’s legendary women bomber pilots, a war wary aristocratic journalist and his ex-GI American partner who've dedicated themselves to tracking down Nazi war criminals after the war, and a young Boston woman who dreams of being a photojournalist like Margaret Bourke White, even though her widowed father won’t allow her to attend college because he wants her to marry her high school sweetheart. It may sound grim, but in Quinn’s capable hands, the powerful story is full of life-affirming friendships and joy amid the horrors of war.

I also read THE GIRL FROM THE SAVOY by Hazel Gaynor, a beautifully-written rags to riches story of a young maid at the famous Savoy Hotel in 1920s London who dreams of being an actress on the London stage. The hotel plays host to all the rich, glamorous people of the era, and she sees them from afar . . . but a twist of fate connects her to the most famous actress in London, the daughter of an earl who has defied the conventions of her class, and the cold disapproval of her mother to live her own life according to her own rules. The complex backstory of the characters is slowly revealed, showing the unexpectedly similar hopes and heartaches that tie them together. The twists are so well-done and add richness and texture to the story. Gaynor’s writing is captivating, with wonderful dialogue and descriptions. I will be glomming her other books. (And I was lucky enough to meet both authors at the recent Historical Novel Society conferences and hear them speak about their writing. Lovely people as well as fabulous authors!)

From Nicola:

I’ve just started reading THE GLITTERING HOUR by Iona Grey and already I am completely enchanted. The book is a dual time narrative set in the 1920s and ten years later. In 1925, Selina Lennox is a Bright Young Thing whose social set parties hard as a reaction to the horrors of the First World War. Ten years later, nine-year-old Alice is staying at her grandparents’ austere country house Blackwood where she pieces together the secrets of the past through following the clues in her mother’s precious letters. Iona’s previous book, LETTERS TO THE LOST, won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award and was absolutely stunning. I’m enjoying this one even more if that were possible; her writing is so beautiful and the evocation of 1920’s society is brilliantly drawn, as is the contrasting bleakness of Alice’s life in the apparent sterility of Blackwood in winter. What is most compelling, though, is the deep insight into the characters and their lives and emotions. I was pulled in from the start and totally engaged. One of those books where when you put it down and emerge blinking into real life you feel utterly bereft.

A totally glorious book I’ve been dipping into (because it’s that sort of book) is Carry Akroyd’s FOUND IN THE FIELDS. It’s a book full of gorgeous landscape paintings and also includes some nature writing and poetry by John Clare as well. Carry talks about finding inspiration for her art in the landscape, and as I love walking in the countryside and also find it good for inspiration and plotting, I loved this idea. I was excited to find you can buy Carry’s paintings as notecards as well as the book!

 

Mary Jo presents:

Open Road Media publishes backlist e-books for authors, and Pat Rice is the one who told me about their daily discount newsletters.

 There's a mixture of titles: mostly but not all fiction, some classics, others are backlist titles of authors who are still actively writing. The price is most often $1.99, and the downside is that they only guarantee the price for that day. 

 But I've acquired e-book editions of books I've read and loved, and found some new authors I'm enjoying. In the former category is Lian Dolan's ELIZABETH THE FIRST WIFE, a very funny women's fiction novel set in the author's hometown of Pasadena, California. Quiet Elizabeth Lancaster teaches Shakespeare at the local community college and is the least successful in a family of wild over-achievers. (For starters, her father is a Nobel Prize winner in Physics.)

 But she's content with her quiet life until her college boyfriend/ex-husband, now one of the hottest and most successful action movie stars in the world, blazes back into her life, wanting her scholarly expertise to help him succeed in a theater production of Midsummer's Night Dream in hopes that he'll look like a more serious actor.  This is all kinds of a bad idea for Elizabeth, but she takes the job to earn enough to pay for her kitchen remodeling. 

 And she's off to the races.  The story is great fun, and between chapters are her snarky translations of Shakespeare's language as it would be rendered today. (For example, the flowery Bard's words that translate into modern "Want to hook up?"  <G> )  Highly recommended if you enjoy fun characters and a woman finding a new path in life. 

I've also found new mystery writers.  Husband and wife Charlotte and Aaron Elkins have teamed up to write art history mysteries.  (She was an art curator and he has written a lot of forensic mysteries.)  I really enjoyed the four-book Alix London series.  Alix is a young art consultant who is trying to establish a business despite the fact that her father was a very well known art forger, recently released from prison.

 Alix has the "connoisseur's eye," meaning that she's really good at spotting fake paintings—which can be A DANGEROUS TALENT , which is the title of the first book in the series.  The four books are fast moving fun with a romantic thread and a mix of colorful settings, and not too gory.  I like Alix and her friends and really enjoy the art bits. (Shades of my art school past!)  Worth checking out if this is the sort of thing you like. Elkins' Alix London books are 99 cents each till the end of June.

And last but not least, Jo:

I’m Joanna, and I’m a book wallbanger.

Probably 99% of the books I pick up I reject in the first look-through. Maybe 30% of the books I take home and try to read I give up in the first chapter or two.

There. I’ve admitted it. I feel better for getting that off my chest.

Why do I toss the books out? It’s almost always for what I’d call general subpar writing. Not because I don’t like the plot. Not because I want the book to tell a different sort of story — I’m pretty flexible about story lines and genre. I can even manage to get to the last words of the endless, pointless, much-over-my-head literary works my friends foist upon me. (Y’know, I don’t have much occasion to use the word "foist" in writing. I don’t think I ever actually have.) It’s not because the relationships are too sexy or not sexy enough.

It’s unpolished writing. It's technical faults in how a story is presented. It's lack of skill in the craft. This bothers me because writing is my trade. Just as a surgeon sunning himself at the beach may gaze upon gall-bladder-removal or  appendix scars and deplore the clumsiness of the incision, I notice bad backstory and hackneyed language.

So I am picky in the extreme when I select books.

BUT, if you are a very skilled writer I will follow you through the book even if my teeth are continually on edge from your deliberate grammar choices.

I will name names. Ilona Andrews and Ben Aaronovitch. They (Ilona) have come down heavily in favor of “like” as a conjunction. Aaronovitch consistently substitutes the objective pronoun for the nominative, especially as the subject of a sentence.

Ilona: He hefted his vorpal blade like it was a feather.

Ben: Jason and me took off after the Golden Fleece.

They are such astonishingly skilled writers they can get away with it. They’re forging ahead toward the future of English. I read these guys with delight.

But don’t let any lesser writer try this on me. That’s all I got to say. 

 

Your turn! What have you been reading this month?

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Janice]

I too read The Huntress a couple of months ago and still remember it, which is a testimony of its own. I have been reading a lot of WW2 reconstructions; most fail me because the tone is too modern, but The Huntress had the right feel to it.

I can also recommend The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff and Dear Mrs. Bird by A. J. Pearce -- very different books but both set in World War II and both very readable.

I had caught up on Bosch on amazon prime, so I've been reading some of the ancillary Michael Connelly novels -- the ones about Mickey Haller, beginning with The Lincoln Lawyer and The Brass Verdict, and the new Renee Ballard sequence beginning with The Late Show. I live in LA and LA -- the real LA, in all its variety -- is in many ways the chief character in Connelly's novels, so I like that. I also like that when he writes about law and the legal process, it tallies with what I know; he knows how it works, from the paperwork to the personalities.

I've also reread several classic regencies for review, when my partner has time to upload them -- The Wicked Guardian (Elsie Lee), A Rakish Spy (Laura Paquet), Red, Red Rose (Marjorie Farrell), The Country Mouse (Jessie Watson), and The Irish Earl (Patricia Bray). I'm tired of crummy, dumbed-down prose and I do find these older books much to my taste. Their style doesn’t make me grit my teeth, which is very hard on the enamel.

I see that Mary Balogh and Anne Gracie both have new books coming out next month, and Jane Ashford the month after that, so I have something to look forward to as well. I've read so many regencies that I don't read for history, plot or character much anymore; it's the writer's style that is a make or break for me, and all these ladies are very careful craftswomen.

[Quantum]

I'm becoming a fan of Philippa Gregory. This month I listened to 'three sisters, three queens' about Katherine of Aragon and Margaret and Mary, the sisters of Henry. They become queens of England Scotland and France. Not sure whether historical fact supports the motivations and emotions described, particularly for the belligerent Scots, but it makes a ripping yarn.

Also listened to MJP's latest audios for the fallen angels series ... superb as always. I rather like the occasional 'hot' scene and MJP does them really well. Love the mix of adventure and romance .... more,more more .... please! 😊

[Pamela DG]

I grabbed my copy of Teresa J. Reasor's"Deep Within the Stone." The hero is a man cursed in the 1300's by a druid to live the rest of his life as a gargoyle. In modern times, the heroine is a sculpture who visits Scotland, sees the gargoyle, and purchases him bring him to her home in Kentucky. At night the gargoyle comes alive and he and the heroine get to know each other. Now they are researching how they can break his curse. The villain is her agent who is becoming possessive of her and quite likely killed her fiance two years ago. That's where I'm stopped. I'm traveling so I can't get back to the book until tonight!

[Patricia Franzino]

I'm reading "Betrayal in Time" by Julie McElwain, her fourth book in a series about time travel, which is so delightful and interesting. It always has a crime drama as part of the story. She also represents the inventions of 1816 that Kendra Donovan, her 21st-century protagonist, has to accept and work with.

[Alice]

I have just read Hazel Gaynor's latest books 'The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter' and it was delightful. On the recommendation of Andrea, I will read some more. I have also started The Pink Carnation series by Lauren Willig - which is a lot of fun. I have started re-reading Stella Riley - as Janice and Jo said, it is a pleasure to read something properly written with decent and believable characters

[Patricia Rice]

Now that I'm in SoCal and have a little more experience with LA, I should try Connelly again, thanks for reminding me of him! And OMG, Marjorie Farrell is a blast from the past. I wish she'd kept writing. We've lost too many intelligent writers who loved writing Regency history. And I think Anne and Mary can probably give you a nice slice of history with your heart-swooning romance!

[Patricia Rice]

I used to love Gregory back in the day. Don't know if I want to read about those poor queens again. ;) And MJP doesn't waste time drooling over sex, which I love!

[Patricia Rice]

Oh, I know Teresa! I'll have to look this one up, thank you!

[Patricia Rice]

hmmm, inventions... I may have to check this out, thank you!

[Patricia Rice]

I'm glad some Wench recommendations are helping your reading pile!

[Binnie Syril Braunstein]

Joanna - I feel your pain regarding bad grammar. I hate when newscasters/anchors do it, and I particularly hate when novelists do it. Oy! Regarding what I'm reading...I was fortunate enough to read an ARC of Mary Jo's Once a Spy, which I absolutely loved. It's a great addition to the "Rogues Redeemed" canon. I recently read Eleanor Webster's A Debutante in Disguise. And I just finished Diane Gaston's The Lord's Highland Temptation. Enjoyed both immensely. I also did a bit of re-reading: two books by Sarah MacLean. I'm looking forward to the next books from Mary Balogh, Anne Gracie, Sarah MacLean, Julia Buckley, Debbie Burns, and J. D. Robb. Among others...

[Margaret]

Pat, I have had the same experience myself with reading on an e-reader, and the whole issue fills me with roiling discontent. So many books are now only economically feasible or even available in digital format, yet the reading experience is just not the same. I own a gazillion digital titles, and generally read one or two a month, but I vastly prefer paper.

But on to books: I, too, loved The Huntress and have now pushed it on to several friends. I also loved Letters to the Lost, which makes me more inclined to pursue Nicola's recommendation of The Glittering Hour. This month, however, I read two phenomenal books: The Lost Man by Jane Harper, and even more magnificent, Miracle Creek by Angie Kim. They were both brilliant. I also enjoyed the highly recommended The Flatshare, by Beth O'Leary, and ARCs of Julie Ann Walker's In Moonlight and Memories trilogy. I loved her fun and always hot series, Black Knights, Inc., but this new work is very different and might appeal to an entirely different audience. Other great June books were The Bride Test by Helen Hoang (well-worth all the hype, and possibly better than The Kiss Quotient), The Diplomat's Daughter by Karin Tanabe, and a fun audio listen, If Ever, by Angie Stanton. There were other good titles that have been mentioned in prior posts, a few misses, and at least three toss-aways, but all in all, it was a great reading month. So many books, so little time!

[Mary M.]

“Jason and me”? LOL, everyone knows it’s “Me and Jason”! Seriously, I’m one of those reader-editors who mentally correct and rewrite as they go. I hate it when an ebook has obviously been run through a spell-checker but not a real eyes-on copy editor. I can’t imagine why authors don’t read their own writing and correct obvious errors. (Present company excepted, of course.) However, that’s probably the only thing I don’t like about ebooks, and the Search feature, library at my fingertips, and physical comfort more than make up for it.

[Patricia Rice]

Hi, Binnie! That's quite an impressive reading list. The problem with grammar these days is that it's changing as fast as technology, as is spelling, which makes me really crazy!

[Patricia Rice]

Summertime is apparently a reader's bliss!
I hear ya on digital. A lot of books can be read digitally, and I really prefer my little gadget to hauling a big book around. But it's impossible to tell which books I'd be better off reading in paper. I'm turning more and more to my library lately. It's impossible to keep up a reading habit at today's prices!

[Patricia Rice]

I know why writers can't read their own writing--because we have every word memorized in our own heads and skim lines looking for different flaws, like how a word or clause impacts the emotion of a scene. I'm currently editing an author/editor who knows grammar and spelling inside and out, but once she's in the flow, the most egregious errors simply slip past her. So we really rely on our editors to catch the small stuff--and it's hard to find editors sometimes with the kind of experience we have. And even then--usage changes, sigh.

[Vicki L]

My reading this month was all over the map genre wise! It started off with me reading 3 of Georgette Heyer's Georgian romances: These Old Shades, Devil's Cub and The Masqueraders.

I was inspired to read those books after seeing the gorgeous costumes in the fabulous pictures of the Fetes Galantes held at the Chateau de Versailles in 2019 (late May I think it was). CAW photos on FB had hundreds of pictures.

It was a great mental picture to see all those people dressed from head to toe in Georgian Finery with their hair dressed correctly to go with their costumes actually attending a ball at Versailles.

Next I moved on to Trisha Ashley (which I think I learned about from a Wench or a reader some months back). The two books I read by her this month were The Generous Garden (previous title Sowing Secrets) and A Winter's Tale. Very English, contemporary. They were women's fiction so it is all about growth, renewal, reinvention after a drastic change. Plus finding a new love. I did enjoy them and am willing to get more by her to read.

On my TBR Mtn, I found an old Elizabeth Peters book - The Seventh Sinner that I don't think I've ever read. It was enjoyable as most of Elizabeth Peters books were/are. It was set in Rome and is the 1st of the Jacqueline Kirby mysteries.

Next up was a Cowboy ie Western Contemporary romance by R.C. Ryan - The Cowboy Next Door. It was a fine book to pass a few hours with.

I read two of Andrea Penrose's books - Murder at Half Moon Gate and Murder on Black Swan Lane. They rose to the top of Mnt TBR since I won one of them during the Wenchiversary. I really enjoyed both of them and have put the 3rd one on my TBR wish list. (Grin).

Seeing as how I was in a Historical Mystery/touch of romance mood I moved on to Jennifer Ashley's book Death Below Stairs. It is a Kat Holloway mystery (1st in the series) and I enjoyed it as well. Which means I had to add the next book on my TBR wish list as well!

Moving right along I next read Jane Ashford - A Lord Apart which was a really fun Regency Romance.

Lady Derring Takes a Lover by Julie Anne Long was the next Regency Romance I read. It has a very quirky plot line as the widow of Lord Derring and his mistress band together to open a boarding house next to the River Thames. I really enjoyed it.

One night, I was too tired for a new book but not too tired for an old friend so I reread Janet Chapman's Charmed by His Love. Which then led me to reread 2 more of her books, Highlander for the Holiday's and Tempting the Highlander. She really does a wonderful job of blending magic, sometimes time travel, Scottish men and contemporary times/women together.

June was a better month for reading new to me books. I also of course read some so so's, meh, ugh DNF's as well. (Grin...) I feel better with my rate of DNF's now that I've seen how many Joanna tosses aside. I have soooo many on my TBR mountain in hard copy I just don't have time to spend on those that don't hold my interest. Or they make me go UGHHH because of the writing.

[Vicki L]

So true about writers can't see their own errors. I did edits for a friend who wrote a column and he was a good writer but....he knew what he meant and couldn't always see the things that would jerk my eye to a stop and go wait a minute, something doesn't make sense here. I'd point it out and he'd go oh yeah, you are right and work on how to change words around so it was smoother.

[Kareni]

I always enjoy learning what everyone is reading.

I read both paper books and e-books. I find paper books more convenient when I need to flip to a map or a glossary. Admittedly, e-readers are great for traveling with several hundreds of books from which one might choose the next perfect read. E-readers are also convenient when I don't want to get out of bed to get my dictionary!

Joanna, I don't typically notice great writing (though I might notice bad writing); I'm all about the story. I will say that Ben Aaronovitch's deliberate misuse of grammar by Peter has grated. At some point it was mentioned that he (Peter) was doing it deliberately to irritate Nightingale; however, the same grammar choices are used even when Nightingale is not present. Curiously, I only started noticing it in the second book. I'm tempted to reread book one to see if I was simply oblivious.

[Kareni]

Read in June ~

— Expendable (League of Peoples) by James Alan Gardner was a science fiction novel with an unusual premise; I was kept guessing and often did not foresee where the story would go. I enjoyed it.
— His Steadfast Love and Other Stories by Paul Brownsey is a collection of stories by one author. I enjoyed some of the stories, others left me unmoved. 
— the short work Skybound by Aleksandr Voinov. I found its setting (WWII Germany) and characters (pilot and plane mechanic) unusual for a romance which added to my enjoyment.
— Ben Aaronovitch’s Lies Sleeping. This is number seven in the Rivers of London series. I look forward to the next volume.
— The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction by Meghan Cox Gurdon which was both sobering and enjoyable to read. This would be a good book to give to new parents. It reminds me of Jim Trelease’s The Read-Aloud Handbook but with fewer book recommendations and with added material about the importance of reading aloud at ALL ages.

— The Keeper of Lost Causes: The First Department Q Novel by Jussi Adler-Olsen was a rather dark mystery which I enjoyed.
— The History of Soul 2065 by Barbara Krasnoff is a collection of some twenty stories that feature the family members of two girls that meet prior to world war I. The stories contain magic, the inexplicable, Death and the God of Cancer, concentration camp survivors, ghosts, pigeons, seders, and much more. Many of the stories were quite moving, and I enjoyed the book.

— A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady Trent by Marie Brennan for my book group. I found it a light, quick, pleasant read.

— The Bride Test by Helen Hoang which I enjoyed despite some quibbles.
— Blood of the Earth by Faith Hunter. I’d read several books in the author’s Jane Yellowrock series, but I preferred this and expect to read on in the series.
— Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey which kept me up late reading. Those of you who like mystery and magic might like this; I did.
— Fluency (Confluence Book 1) by Jennifer Foehner Wells. It was a pleasant read but not a book I expect to reread. I don’t intend to continue with the series at this time.
— I did not finish a book that I won in a Goodreads giveaway. In its defense, I’ll say that it’s vocabulary enriching as one of the characters is a logophile who carries around a dictionary. That is one of the few things I can say in its defense; the book in question is Solipsism by Noel Luis Nuñez.

[theo]

Late to this post, but I read Peter May's Lewis Trilogy which I loved. I was very sad to say goodbye to Finn. Then I read Raven Black which Anne informed me is what the Shetland TV series is based on. They just released seasons one and two on Britbox today so I'll be bingeing that! And to finish the month, I'm working on Anne's latest, Marry in Secret. Thanks Anne for the ARC!

[Patricia Rice]

Wow, you've hit on some of my favorite authors! I recommend your reading taste.

[Patricia Rice]

I read on an app on my e-reader and don't seem to have the dictionary choice, but I have Websters bookmarked and can always mosey over there. ;)

[Patricia Rice]

Wow, these are all new to me--and that's not easy to do! I'll have to go on a hunt, thank you! And if you enjoyed Marie Brennan, you might want to take a look at Book View Cafe, where she hangs out: http://bookviewcafe.com/bookstore/bvc-author/marie-brennan/

[DiscoDollyDeb]

I liked Kylie Scott’s REPEAT very much—up until the villain was revealed: the culprit was very obvious and I think that if a writer is going to mix mystery elements with romantic ones, the mystery shouldn’t be given short shrift. Up until that big reveal, however, I very much enjoyed the book. I recommend REPEAT for its second-chance romance, a subplot involving a bookstore & romance novels, and a very good dog, but the mystery is meh to say the least and flattened my opinion of the book as a whole.

This week I read Diane Les Becquets’s THE LAST WOMAN IN THE FOREST—a psychological suspense novel about a woman who begins to suspect that her late fiancé was a serial killer. For the most part, I had given up psychological suspense for a couple of years because I felt the entire genre was about “punishing” women for loving/trusting the wrong person, but TLWITF is well-written with beautiful descriptions of nature (the heroine is a wildlife researcher and dog trainer) and a gradual escalation of tension as all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. I recommend it—with the caution that there are a number of violent scenes.

[Linnea Priest]

Joanna, you made me laugh!!! I cannot stand the misuse of the subjunctive and the misuse of lie/lay. Just cannot stand it!!!! I have dumped many books because of this.

[Kareni]

Marie Brennan's book was my selection for my book group, so I led the discussion. Since there were no discussion questions that I could find, I did some researching on line for author interviews and the like which is when I discovered Book View Cafe. There is a wealth of material there, Patricia.

[Minna]

This month I've been reading Vikings II series by Sandra Hill and there should be 1 more book in the series being published soon. I've also been reading Lost in Finland by Tim Walker.

[Joanne Bourne]

I fear the English language may be moving on while I stand still, trapped in an old way of speaking.

Any day now I'll become "quaint" and "old-fashioned."

[Joanne Bourne]

Every author knows how important copyeditors and developmental editors are.

I especially need an editor. I'm as close to being dyslexic as is possible.

Maybe that's why I cling to finicking grammar rules ... *g*

[Joanne Bourne]

Aaronovitch uses this grammar error all through the narrative because this is First Person so we're hearing Peter's natural internal voice.

I don't see this as Peter affecting deliberate mistakes in speech to annoy his boss. I see this as Peter letting loose his natural informal voice in a context where he would normally self-correct. He doesn't speak this informally to senior police officials.

I *think* this is a "warts and all" thing. The formal, powerful, uppercrust Nightingale has picked a Black kid from council housing as his protege. Peter is saying, "I won't pretend (to you) that I'm anything else." and also "This is how people really talk."

[Joanne Bourne]

I need some serious compensation for grammar errors in a book. I need beautiful writing.

When grammar errors are being used deliberately -- even just to be iconoclastic -- I will grit my teeth and forge onward.

"It's in the writing toolbox," I remind myself. "It's part of the instrumentality."

[Andrea Penrose]

MJP does EVERYTHING well!

[Andrea Penrose]

Thanks for the other WWII recommendations, Janice. I thought The Huntress had a great voice, too.

[Andrea Penrose]

Sounds really interesting!

[Andrea Penrose]

I was thinking of the The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter next, as I really like Gaynor's writing. Thanks for suggesting it.

And you're in for a real treat with Lauren Willig's Pink Carnation series! us

[Andrea Penrose]

Great list,Margaret! I'm going to grab Letters to the Lost.

[Andrea Penrose]

Wow! Very impressive, Vicki!

So glad you enjoyed Charlotte and Wrexford!

[Andrea Penrose]

Wow! Madly scribbling titles for the TBR list. I really enjoyed Brennan's Dragon series too. Fun and interesting world.

[Sue McCormick]

Somewhere above, someone mentioned Bellewether; I gave it a belated second reading this month. As is my custom, a book truly comes alive for me upon the second reading. I am now in love with this book!

And now — confession time — I am belatedly catching up with the back-list of a "new-to-me" author. The confession comes from the "new-to-me" part — I've been discussing things with her for most of the past 10 years, but somehow I have only begun to read her novels in 2019. So let me introduce you to
Nicola Cornick!

More seriously, I am truly enjoying exporing your backlist. And I reccojend it to any other wenchy follower who may have come late to yout tabe.

And more confessions — there are other wenches not yet sampe by me.

[Patricia Rice]

so cool, thank you! Yes, BVC is an undiscovered gem, and it's been a privilege working with these truly marvelous authors.

[Patricia Rice]

thanks for the recs! I'm not much on suspense and I think you've nailed one of the reasons. I'll have to take a look at this one. And speaking as someone who has attempted to mix mystery and romance...it's pretty tough keeping two strong story lines balanced. The book needs to be twice as big. ;)

[Patricia Rice]

Oh perfect, Sue! Not sure what time it is in England right now, but I'll message Nicola to let her know.

[Kareni]

You just introduced me to a new word, Joanna. I knew finicky but not finicking.

[Karin]

I read Ben Aaronovitch's "Rivers of London" based on Jo's recommendation a month or two ago. It was very clever and entertaining, although not my usual genre. I read the latest C.S. Harris book, "Who Slays the Wicked", and it was great, as usual. And I read "The Bride Test" by Helen Huong. Again, outside my usual genre, but it had great characters. It was a bit soap opera-ish, and I could see this being a fantastic movie.
I am about to start reading "The Cooking Gene" by Michael Twitty, it's a book about the culinary history of the American South. I love food books!

[Mary Jo Putney]

++blush!++

[Anne Gracie]

Thanks, Janice — I'm hanging out for the Mary Balogh, too. :)

[Anne Gracie]

Thanks, Theo — if we did a WWWatching, I'd be listing Shetland. The main character is one of those seemingly quiet, superbly competent detectives that the Brits do so well. He's kind of a Scottish version of Foyle of Foyle's War — another superb TV series if you haven't seen that.

[Nicola Cornick]

Thank you so much, Sue! I'm absolutely thrilled you're exploring my backlist and hope you're enjoying the books.