Pat here, hosting our monthly wench book review event. We have way too much fun behind the scenes reading each other's recommendations and adding to our TBR piles! We have some great ones this month. And just to keep the bookstores (or libraries) busy, we welcome all reader recommendations in the comments below.
Christina:
I haven’t been reading much this month, but I couldn’t resist picking up The Sea Gate by Jane Johnson because the cover really appealed to me and I love stories set in Cornwall. This is a gripping and engrossing dual time story, alternating between the present and World War II. And although I don’t normally read much from this period, The Sea Gate gave a whole new perspective on things as the story takes place in a small fishing village on the coast. Here, the war seems far away, but it has a way of finding the protagonists all the same. For 16-year old Olivia, it changes her life in numerous ways, and has repercussions that resonate throughout her long life. In the present, we meet her again as an irascible old lady in her nineties, and I absolutely loved her character! She is refreshingly direct and downright rude, and the sheer strength of her will is remarkable. The story in the present mainly centres on a young relative, however, Rebecca, who has been through the wringer in more ways than one. Lacking in self-confidence and suffering from anxiety and depression, coming to Cornwall to help the elderly Olivia is the making of her. I so enjoyed watching her going from doormat to roaring lion – a favourite trope of mine – and was cheering her on, hoping for a happy resolution to all her problems. I highly recommend this novel to anyone who loves dual time stories and/or tales of World War II – it’s wonderful!
Nicola:
I usually think that September is too early ,to start reading Christmas stories, but I was in need of something happy and uplifting and when One More for Christmas by Sarah Morgan popped up, I couldn’t resist. I’m a huge Sarah Morgan fan having enjoyed her contemporary romances for years and more recently her family-centred novels. Full disclosure – Sarah had referenced my Scottish Regency historical One Night with the Laird a couple of times in the book as the heroine is a historical romance fan, which I am totally thrilled about!
One More for Christmas is a joy. (UK link here) There is romance and Christmas spirit aplenty but the heart of the book is the relationship between three generations of women in the Mitchell family. Gail Mitchell has carved out a hugely successful career but it has been at the cost of her relationship with her daughters Samantha and Ella. When an unfortunate (but hilarious) accident brings them back together, the girls reluctantly agree to their mother’s request to spend Christmas as a family in the Scottish Highlands along with Ella’s gorgeous husband Michael and their adorable daughter.
It’s a fabulous set up for a story. The Scottish setting is glorious and made me want to book into a Highland castle for Christmas. What I love about Sarah’s books is the depth she gives her characters and the way she really examines the sort of family interactions and conflicts that we’re all familiar with. She hits the emotional nail on the head every time. The way that Gail and her daughters slowly reconnect and find each other again is wonderful and thought-provoking. The icing on the Christmas cake is a hot Scottish laird and a lovely romance for workaholic Samantha. It’s the best Christmas book I’ve read in ages. It’s out in the US next week and is up for pre-order in the UK, out at the end of October.
Andrea:
This month’s reading has been my usual ying and yang between fiction and non -fiction. After working all-out on a new project this spring and summer, I’m finally getting a chance to catch up on my towering TBR pile. Right at the top was Lessons in Enchantment, the first book in our own Pat Rice’s latest “School of Magic” series, set in Victorian Scotland.
I love Pat’s “Magic” books, which always take us on enchanting journeys, whether they’re set in Regency, Victorian or modern times. And this one is a wonderful addition to her “Magical Malcolms” family tree. As usual, it has a cast of delightfully eccentric characters, and a heroine and hero who are stubbornly passionate about their own personal dreams—but even more passionate about protecting those who are vulnerable and seeing that justice triumphs over evil.
(Pat here: awwww, thank you! Hugs...)
Lady Phoebe a has a gift of communicating with animals, and dreams of going to university to study to be a veterinarian. Alas, poverty compels her to do the bidding of her aunts—who run the School of Malcolms—and serve as governess to the children who inventor Andrew Blair is sheltering for his cousin, whose Malcolm wife was murdered . . .
Little does Blair know that his household is about to be turned upside down . . . children who speak with ghosts and levitate objects that aren’t meant to float . . . a menagerie of animals who help guard the house from the villains seeking to kidnap the children for their nefarious plan. (I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book where a pine marten is one of the heroes! . . .though my mystery series does feature Weasels, ha, ha, ha.) And of course, a feisty heroine who somehow moves all the hidden levers to open his heart.
The story sparkles with wit and humor, and wonderfully explosive chemistry between Phoebe and Drew. Brew a pot of tea, bake some scones or oatmeal-raisin cookies and let the heartwarming story cast its spell over you!
I also finally had a chance to dive into The Club—Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends who Shaped an Age by Leo Damrosch. It’s won numerous accolades and it’s just the sort of history book that I love. Damrosch weaves sensitive portraits of the great men of Georgian England—Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Joshua Reynolds, just to name some of the members who gathered for weekly meetings at the Turk’s Head Tavern in London .
I haven’t finished it yet, but am really loving it. It’s about friendships, foibles, ideas and the interplay between a group of brilliant, imaginative men who, in bouncing ideas off each other and shaping their own thoughts in their respective fields, came to influence their world—and ours. It’s beautifully written and creates such a human portrait of these giants of Western thought. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys history!
Joanna:
This month, an interesting book set in Tang Dynasty China, The Hidden Moon.(Lotus Palace Mystery #4) from Jeannie Lin.
This is a historical mystery with an intriguing pair of detectives, a scholarly court lady and a streetwise semi-gangster. It's a time and place where a brilliant and intrepid woman could find no role except as the disregarded Middle Sister who needs to be married off; a tough, capable, insightful man, born into dire poverty, could be nothing more than a street hustler. Yet here they are, these two oddly matched people, tracking down a political assassin together.
See Lin's first steps into this delicately incised world and the meeting of Wei Wei and Gao in The Liar's Dice novella.
Mary Jo:
I'm not usually fond of books that are spun off of famous existing fictional works, though I can understand the appeal of playing in someone else's much loved world, plus the chance of increasing sales. (A matter of deep concern for all authors!)
So while I was vaguely aware of Laurie R. King's Mary Russell series, featuring a heroine who meets and marries Sherlock Holmes (really???), I'd never read any of the books. But I've been going through a bit of a reading drought, so I finally picked up a copy of a Mary Russell book that I've had on a shelf for years, A Letter of Mary. And wow!
The books are narrated by Mary Russell, and I love her voice. The superb writing and characterization made me buy into the idea that a 15 year old orphaned Anglo-British, half Jewish heiress might be Sherlock Holmes's soul mate. After the death of her parents in a California car accident, Mary is sent to live with a mean English aunt. She's roaming the Sussex Downs in Southern England when she meets an odd, bony, and terrifyingly intelligent man who is keeping bees there. Hence the title of the first book in the series, The Beekeeper's Apprentice. They have very similar kinds of intelligence, though he's a Victorian gentleman and she's a bright young modern woman in 1915.
He's bored and finds her interesting, and she finds him to be a fascinating alternative to time spent with her aunt. Through their intellectually challenging friendship, she learns his methods of observation and deduction that effectively turn her into a detective. And he learns that a woman can be the intellectual equal of a man. (They call each other Holmes and Russell.)
The first book covers several years as Mary goes to Oxford and Holmes occasionally goes off on mysterious missions for the government. They work several cases together, including one that threatens both of their lives. I find the characters and their relationship compelling, and I've now read several of the books, and bought several more.
Besides enjoying the reading, I learn a lot along the way. And as one reviewer said, the books are clearly meant for people with large vocabularies. Perfect for a former English major like me! I think the series has 16 books, so I have more to look forward to.
Pat:
For something completely different. . . I'm recommending All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
This is a fun space fantasy with a mechanically gender-neutral robot that apparently possesses some human splicing. It loves soap operas, hates its job, and is shy around humans. Designed as a security guard, it’s programmed to merely throw itself at danger and hope not too much is destroyed so it can be regenerated. But the company that makes it is cheap, the programming that’s supposed to control it is weak, and Murderbot has freed itself from the connection so it can watch soaps all the time. To avoid being taken apart for parts, it does have to follow orders when they’re issued. To its surprise, it has apparently learned emotional reactions from soap operas and becomes attached to the group of scientists it’s designed to protect. In return, the scientists treat the robot as an intelligent equal. Given the dangerous situation they're thrust into, they must learn to trust a machine that has already admitted to killing dozens of humans by mistake. Quite entertaining!