God, Lady Audley folds like a tailgate chair once Robert turns out to be alive. She cannot shut up with the confessions. If it were me I’d have denied everything, and I’d have gone back to my husband to emphasize Robert’s insanity. Once Robert’s committed to an insane asylum he can’t gather witnesses, can he? The only obstacle I see is Phoebe and Luke, and if Lady Audley just smothered Luke real quick (he’s all burned; he can’t fight her), Phoebe could live her life in freedom. PHOEBE! Then Sir Michael offers to kill Robert, which Lucy doesn’t take him…
13 CommentsAuthor: Jenny Hamilton
This week, the Jennys agree that Amazon is being a bully in the Hachette dispute, discuss what makes a book feel dated, and have amiably opposite responses to Italo Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler. We also play a game in which we learn some things about Italy. You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode 23 Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy the podcast, give us a good rating! We appreciate it very…
7 CommentsWhen I was a baby blogger, I wrote a really nasty post about Sarah Monette’s book Melusine. Years and years of crawly shame spiders have effaced my memory of the details of the post (which I long ago deleted), but I know I said fuck and annoying quite a bit. Sarah Monette subsequently linked to my post from her blog, with a sad frowny-face emoticon, and I felt — and still feel — terribly guilty and ashamed that my thoughtless pique made an author feel bad. Ever since then I’ve been much more cautious about writing resoundingly negative posts — fun though…
21 CommentsWHOA WHAT THERE IS ANOTHER SECRET? “I am weary of my life here, and wish, if I can, to find a new one. I go out into the world, dissevered from every link which binds me to the hateful past, to seek another home and another fortune. Forgive me if I have been fretful, capricious, changeable. You should forgive me, for you know why I have been so. You know the secret which is the key to my life.”–Helen Talboys So she already had a secret before she ever went out to be a teacher and governess? All right, Lady…
14 CommentsEva is an echo. She was created to be the perfect double of a girl called Amarra, insurance against the possibility that Amarra might one day die. Every week, Amarra writes letters to Eva, describing everything she’s learned and seen and done, so that Eva will have all the same memories and all the same knowledge. If Amarra gets a tattoo, Eva has to get one to match it. In her small house in England, hedged about with Guardians to remind her of her duties, Eva chafes against her restrictions and dreams of being free. I wanted to like The…
6 CommentsIt means “dismissal.” The more you know! In the first chapter of this segment of readalong, Robert gets chucked out of the Audley house for paying too much attention to Lady Audley. Here is Braddon’s representation of how the conversation went down. I, um, it sounds like Sir Audley could have minced his words a little bit more. Sir Michael Audley told his nephew that the Court was no home for him, and that my lady was too young and pretty to accept the attentions of a handsome nephew of eight-and-twenty. Deprived of the ability to spend all day saying…
10 CommentsWe couldn’t think of a good game for this episode, but we think you’ll enjoy it anyway. As we head into summer, the Jennys take some time to discuss the types of books you want to read when you’re traveling, and we review the fun and silly books Cinder and Scarlet, the first two in a planned quartet of fairy tale retellings by Marissa Meyer (not to be confused with Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo). You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode 22…
5 CommentsIn Fangirl (affiliate links: Amazon, B&N, Book Depository), identical twin Cath goes off to college and finds that her sister, Wren, no longer wants to do the twin thing. Adrift, lonely, and anxious, Cath tries to navigate the waters of college on her own: her intimidating roommate, Reagan; Reagan’s cheerful friend?boyfriend? Levi, who walks Cath home from the library; and Nick, one of Cath’s classmates, with whom she partners for an assignment in their creative writing class. Meanwhile Cath continues working on her most enormous writing project ever: Carry On, Simon, a fanfic completion of the as-yet-unfinished, hugely popular series…
42 CommentsThe third section of Alice‘s Lady Audley’s Secret readalong starts with a bang. Or, I suppose, a resounding well-falling-down. (I’m not a hundred percent sure about this, but like — he fell down the well, right? That’s obviously what happened. Right?) Robert wakes up and discovers that George Talboys is nowhere to be found. In some anxiety, he makes inquiries and establishes to his satisfaction that George must have gone back to London by train. Oh, foolish Robert! George is beyond help! In the face of George’s new deadness disappearance, Robert forgets about his crush on Lady Audley and realizes…
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