I read The Anvil of the World and really liked it! Have you read it? I am going to start The Company series in late spring, I believe. I am very excited! I think I am going to have a girl crush on her, too, so we can sigh and imagine ourselves as time travelers together!

I don’t know why I bothered writing this comment, really. It will probably disappear. BUT this time I remembered to copy and paste in case it takes five tries to post 🙂

Actually I find Zola to be more plot than character development, especially in the later books. His writing style is not at all difficult, very journalistic. He’s surprisingly easy to read for a 19th century writer, and I’ve read translations by several different people. Just stay away from anything translated by Vizitelly because those are old translations and very watered down because of obscenity charges back in the day. The Oxford World Classics are good and so are the Penguins.

Second the recommendation of Little, Big, which is completely fantastic, but DO NOT expect it to be plotty. It’s not a grab-you book, it’s a magical lyrical strange figure-it-out mysterious book. It’s one of the best books I’ve read in the past ten years, but it’s not plotty.

I’m voting for Prospero’s Daughter.

My Cousin Rachel is by far my least fave du Maurier so far. I thought it was because I was having a hard time w life stuff when I read it, but maybe it’s just not as good. 😉

I didn’t like My Cousin Rachel at all. I had read some of duMaurier’s other work, so I wasn’t just comparing it to Rebecca…it was just boring. I liked Frenchman’s Creek, though.

That sounds like the Fionavar Tapestry. THE SUMMER TREE was his first book, and it’s definitely not his best. It doesn’t feel much like any of his later books, either; they’re all alternate history (or secondary world stuff that feels like alternate history, even though it’s set somewhere totally different), while his debut trilogy was heavily influenced by Tolkien.

Ah, I see that you didn’t like the first Bartimaeus book. It does suffer from a dearth of non-jerky characters. BUT, if you give the second and third books a try you might find them more agreeable. The third book is so super awesome that it’s almost a shame you have to suffer through the first two in order to get around to it.

Thanks for the warning! I really don’t see how she could have written anything better than Rebecca, but it is encouraging that My Cousin Rachel is so highly regarded!