Andrea here, putting together our monthly feature on What We Are Reading. As usual, there's a wonderful range of intriguing books—so sharpen your pencil and start making a list! And be sure to tell us what YOU have been reading!
Anne: This month I'm recommending a new YA author and some re-reads — one a contemporary rock band series and the other historicals set in Europe in the 1930's and onwards.
The new YA author was recommended to me by a friend. Sarah Dessen's Just Listen was the first one I started with. It's about a young woman in her last years of high school. Annabel's life seems pretty perfect, until something devastating happens. She tries to deal with it by blocking it out and withdrawing, avoiding all confrontation. But when school starts up again after summer, her problems all come crashing back. She's lost all her friends and all her confidence. An unlikely friendship with another loner, Owen, shows her the way back. He's a music buff in an anger management program, and he helps her realize the dangers of holding in her emotions.
I loved this book and went on to read three more of Sarah Dessen's books. When YA books are this well written, they're not just for young adults.
The rock band reread came about from a wench discussion with Christina, when we were talking about our love of Kylie Scott's rock band series, and I suggested she read Karina Bliss. Rise is about Zander, the charismatic, outrageous singer and leader of the incredibly successful rock band Rage. After the old band split up, he's started the band again with new members, taking huge risks to rebuild their popularity in a Resurrection Tour.
At the same time, he's invited Elizabeth, a prestigious and award-winning academic writer to write his biography — a controversial move for them both. But Zander is hiding secrets, and one that could explode all his efforts to rebuild his band and reputation.
I read this (and the others in the series) seven years ago and I loved them all over again.
Lastly I pulled out my old Eva Ibbotson books after she was mentioned at the recent Georgette Heyer conference. So naturally I had to pull out the book mentioned and reread it. And oh, how that woman can write — I just sank into the world she created and didn't want to leave. She makes those places, that time and those people come so alive, and she makes me laugh and cry. Just soooo good. I want everyone I know to read her. So now I'm re-reading all her adult books. There are only a handful alas (she wrote lots of children's books too) but like Jane Austen, rereading her only gets better.
It drives me bonkers that her publishers have labelled her adult books as "12 and upwards." What nonsense! They're adult books, romances with adult concerns and while teenagers could read them without harm, there are subtleties they would miss and issues touched on they wouldn't really understand, just as I read Georgette Heyer as a teen, and when I came back to them as an adult, found so much more.
So if you haven't tried Eva Ibbotson, try The Morning Gift, The Secret Countess (aka A Countess Below Stairs), Magic Flutes (aka The Reluctant Heiress), A Song for Summer and see what you've been missing. I did an interview with Eva Ibbotson many years ago. You might want to read it.
Or read this article she wrote in support of public libraries, which will give you a taste of why her books are so good.
Christina: My recommendations this month are mostly Wench related – first I’d like to add my appreciation of Anne Gracie’s The Scoundrel’s Daughter, which was mentioned by several Wenches last month. I too absolutely loved it and can’t wait for the next book in the series – this was the perfect start and I loved both couples! Then there was Susanna Kearsley’s The Vanished Days, which I talked about in my interview with her and which is wonderful!
This week sees the publication of Andrea Penrose’s Murder at the Royal Botanic Gardens, a book I’d eagerly been awaiting. It’s another superb instalment in this brilliant series which kept me enthralled throughout! I’d been looking forward to reading about the wedding of the Earl of Wrexford and Lady Charlotte Sloane, but the murder of a brilliant London scientist occurs beforehand and threatens their plans and their lives. Of course they have to solve this first! The characters felt like old friends that I enjoy spending time with, and for each story the reader becomes more deeply embroiled in their lives. It is fiendishly well plotted, with lots of twists and turns that keep you guessing and I was on tenterhooks, turning the pages to find out how it all fitted together. Alongside the crime solving are the relationships between the various characters which are lovely to follow and give the books such an emotionally satisfying edge. All in all, absolutely loved it and can’t wait for the next one!
Then I read Susan King’s two rereleases – Stealing Sophie and Keeping Kate. They are historical romances set in the Scottish Highlands in the early 18th century and feature Jacobites and a touch of fairy magic. Now I have to admit to an extreme weakness for gorgeous Highlanders in kilts and the heroes of these stories do not disappoint. In Stealing Sophie, the heroine is abducted and forced to marry against her will, then held captive in an old castle ruin which is the hero’s temporary home. Educated in a convent, she’s not prepared for the wild feelings Connor MacPherson stirs up in her. But when it turns out he’d meant to abduct her twin sister and got it wrong, she’s oddly devastated. As for Connor, the last thing he needed was a wife, but he finds that he is rapidly warming to the idea …
Keeping Kate is the tale of Sophie’s more daring twin sister who has been spying for the Jacobites, using her fairy magic which enables her to charm most men and put them under her spell. But when she comes across the one man who seems able to resist her, Captain Alec Fraser, the tables are turned and she’s the one who falls in love. She thinks he’s the enemy, working with the English, and tries to resist the attraction. He, in turn, knows she’s trouble and he should stay well away from her, but she brings out his protective instincts and despite his best efforts, he secretly becomes enchanted with her. Having captured her as a spy, however, he’s been tasked with transporting her to Edinburgh to stand trial. Somehow they have to extricate Kate from her troubles without putting Alec at risk instead. That definitely needs a bit of fairy magic! I loved both these stories and now long to visit the Highlands again.
Finally, I glommed Penny Reid’s ‘Knitting in the City’ series, starting with Neanderthal Seeks Human. I can’t remember which Wench recommended this to me, but I really enjoyed them, especially the first book! Based around the seven members of a knitting group in Chicago, each story features one of these women and how she finds love. The heroine of the first book is extremely unusual and her observations had me laughing out loud. Her brain goes off at a tangent and she comes out with the most incredible (and often irrelevant) facts. Most people don’t understand her, but the hero does and the way he accepted and loved her exactly the way she was really warmed my heart. In the rest of the series, many of the heroes are unusual in different ways – one is a genius hacker, another a professor of robotics for example – and they were a delight to read about. There were a couple of stories I didn’t like as much as the others, but on the whole, I would really recommend this series.
Nicola: It's been a very busy month but last week I grabbed some reading time and
treated myself to Andrea Penrose's latest Wrexford and Sloane mystery, Murder at the Royal Botanic Gardens. Like Wench Christina, I loved re-acquainting
myself with all the characters and diving into another beautifully-written,
complex and engrossing story. I love the way that Andrea mixes in the
scientific background into her stories and particularly enjoyed the
"botanical" themed mystery. The relationship between Charlotte and Wexford
is always a delight with its thoughtfulness and emotional depth, and the
developments in the relationship they have with the urchins adds another
layer of complexity. Crime, mystery, Regency botany, romance and the
complexities of human relationships - it's all there and handled so
beautifully!
I also picked up The Windsor Knot by SJ Bennett, a recommendation from a
previous month's WWR! I'm halfway through and I love it! I love that the
Queen is the sleuth in the mysteries and that she is so clever and observant
and totally underrated by her top advisors. The writing is charming and
funny and it's very entertaining!
The rest of the time I've been reading non-fiction and a book called The
Lords of Lundy by Myrtle Ternstrom, for a potential future novel. Lundy is
an enchanting small island off the coast of Devon, a proper little fiefdom
that down the centuries, owners have very much treated as their own private
kingdom. From the piratical Marisco family in the 13th century to the
Victorian Heaven family, through civil war and smuggling and importing
wallabies and swans (yes, really!) the overlords of Lundy have set up their
own coinage and postage stamps and set themselves up in a castle and then a
Regency villa, ruling all they surveyed. It's a fascinating book that has
provided me with so much inspiration.
Mary Jo: I was on a light fantasy kick while we took a relaxing cruise on the Ohio River a couple of weeks ago. I started with The Bright and Breaking Sea, which is set in an alternate Regency world toward the end of this version of the Napoleonic wars. I've been writing books around the Napoleonic wars more or less forever, so I really got a kick out of the twists that Neill used. In her world, Britain is the Saxon Isles, France is Gallia, etc. The tyrannical Gallic French emperor, Gerard Rousseau has recently abdicated and is plotting to regain his throne. (The emperor's name is much less distinctive than "Napoleon Bonaparte," I thought, but that's just me.)
This world has magic, and some people are attuned to different elements. The heroine, Kit Brightling is Aligned with the sea. She can read the magic in the water and use it to travel swiftly and to sense enemies. That ability has made her a very young but very effective captain in the Queen's navy. There lots of fun and action, a handsome army officer, and a reluctant attraction between the two of them. A second book in the series, The Swift and Savage Tide, will be out at the end of November. I look forward to it.
I also read Dark Horse (Class 5 Series Book 1) by Michelle Diener. Pat Rice mentioned that she'd read this space-opera-ish book and she's enjoyed it, so I looked it up--and found that I'd bought the e-book in 2017. <G> Apparently one of the Wenches recommended it for a WWR, I bought it, and forgot it. (This happens.) Rediscovery was perfect for a vacation read.
Dark Horse is set in a distant part of space, and Rose Mackenzie is a human who was kidnapped from Earth and taken far, far away. She's being held prisoner and experimented on by the Tecran people in a vastly powerful space ship called a Class 5. The ship is run by an artificial intelligence that is basically enslaved by the Tecran--but the AI is gradually gaining consciousness, and it wants to be free.
Rose frees the AI, and becomes the only being that Sazo, the AI, can trust. Which makes her a power broker when another race, the Grih, find her and Sazo. The Grih look just like humans except that they have Tolkien elf ears. <G> The captain of the ship that finds her is tall, dark, handsome, and enthralled by Rose's melodious human voice. Yes, it's a romance!
Dark Horse turned out to the first of four novels, each featuring different couples and featuring an overall arc of dealing with the Tecrans, the scary-powerful Class 5 warships, and the politics of a five race space community. The subtitle could be "Earth women are smart!" <G> Clever and fast moving, the series was a perfect vacation read.
S
usan: This has been a busy month and I've been a restless reader, not settling into a book completely, trying several, a chapter here, a couple of chapters there. I've found some frontrunners and I'm looking for more reading time. Meanwhile, I'm currently reading The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman, and though I'm still in the midst of it, this is turning out to be a great fantasy-adventure, inventive and intriguing. As a spy for The Library, an omnipresent organization that spans alternate realities and time periods, Irene goes on covert missions - sometimes jumping centuries and in different disguises - to collect and rescue rare books in order to bring them back to the Library. When Kai, her new partner, joins her, together they go in search of a very rare volume of Grimm's fairy tales, only to be thwarted by the forces of chaos determined to stop their effort. Irene and Kai are likable characters with mysterious pasts, and their world is filled with magic and supernatural forces as well as old enemies. Irene has the knack of the Language, the magical use of words that summons just enough power to keep chaotic threats at bay--until a greater threat arrives. There are eight books so far in the series, and I'm very interested in what happens next!
I've done a lot of driving lately, and that gave me some audiobook time. I listened to a book I've read a few times over the years, and listening to it made it like a whole new story -- Mary Stewart's Wildfire at Midnight, excellently narrated by Lucy Paterson, was well worth the time. When Gianetta Drury takes a much-needed break on the Isle of Skye, she is expecting a quiet getaway at a remote hotel at the foot of a mountain, a place where she can recover from a stressful divorce from a man she deeply loved, though things fell apart. What she doesn't expect is to encounter her ex-husband at the hotel, along with a group of enthusiastic mountain climbers--and a murder mystery already in progress as the unsolved death of a young girl on the mountain has everyone on edge. As Gianetta gets to know the others in the hotel and is at pains to avoid her ex, someone else dies and tensions escalate. The mystery is a very effective variation on the locked-room scenario, a limited cast of characters and several suspects, and though I knew the answer, it was still a very fun and enjoyable journey--especially so because listening can be such a different experience that an old favorite seems new and fresh again. The narrator brings out the taut elements of the story beautifully, the romance is subtle and all the more romantic for it, and Stewart's gorgeous prose is just poetic. Well worth the listening!
Andrea: Like everyone who reads this monthly feature, I discover so many great reads from the suggestions offered by others. Case in point— I was so intrigued by Nicola’s mention last month of The Silver Collar, Book 4 of Antonia Hodgson’s historical mystery series, that I ran out and got Book 1 in the series, The Devil in the Marshalsea. I, too, just loved the writing. Hodgson skillfully creates the raucous world of Georgian London, and the frightening spider’s web of influence and privilege that can snare a careless young man in a complex plot of greed, vengeance and retribution.
Thomas Hawkins finds himself thrown into the infamous Marshalsea debtors prison after being robbed of the money his good friend has given him to pay off his debts. Now penniless, his chances of survival are slim within the wolf-eat-wolf world. His only chance of getting out is to solve the recent murder of an inmate, but as various people start to offer advice, he doesn’t know whom to to trust . . . And so begins a frightening cat-and-mouse dance as Tom tries to stay alive long enough to win his freedom. Hodgson is a masterful storyteller, and creates compelling characters and a devilishly good mystery. I’ve already snagged the second book.
For potential research, I also reach a fascinating book called Steam Coffin—Captain Moses Rogers and the Steamship Savannah Break the Barrier, (warning—it's very long and perhaps overly detailed, but still fun) which is a sweeping history of the race to build an oceangoing steamship. It’s just the sort of non-fiction narrative history that I love, weaving in personalities, the development od transportation on the east coast of America, and a riveting journey through Britain and the Baltic countries to St. Petersburg.
Now it’s your turn to add to our towering TBR piles! What have you been reading this month? Please share!
