Last month, my adjunct sister Kate and I both read The Heiress Effect and discussed it back and forth via email in many paragraphs, with an eye to posting a joint review on the blog based on what we both said about it. I have always been jealous of Teresa and Proper Jenny and their joint reviews, so I am constantly trying to get people in my life to do joint reviews with me. And haHA! I finally conned Kate into doing this. The Heiress Effect (affiliate links: Amazon, B&N, Book Depository) is about a woman called Jane who is…
14 CommentsCategory: 3 Stars
The beginning: Comics are so short when they’re a single volume! This format feels a little silly for such a short comic. But never mind. I like this format and I’m sticking with it unless you beg me to stop. Once upon a time in Pride of Baghdad (Amazon, B&N, Book Depository), there are four lions (three adults and a cub) living in a zoo in Baghdad, and the zoo gets blown up by American bombs. The lions, who have lived in captivity most (or all) of their lives, must learn to fend for themselves in a war-torn Iraq. The end…
13 CommentsThe beginning: Oddly gripping from the get-go! In Unfinished Desires (Amazon, B&N, Book Depository), Old, blind Mother Ravenal, long-time headmistress at Mount St. Gabriel’s school, is asked by some adoring students to record her memories of her years as a nun, teacher, and headmistress. In alternating chapters are her very Catholic musings on the school’s history and principles, and the story of the high school class of ’55, whose behavior caused her to take a leave (enforced leave???) of absence. The important figures in the class are brash, clever, impetuous Tildy; her former partner-in-crime, Maud; and the new girl, quiet…
9 CommentsMaggie O’Farrell and Kate Morton are inextricably linked in my mind. I am not sure whether it’s because they’re truly similar — with olden-times Britain and modern-day family members finding out secrets — or because they’re very faintly similar and I encountered them at the same time in my life. Weigh in if you have an opinion! And now on to Maggie O’Farrell’s brand new book. Instructions for a Heatwave (Amazon, B&N, Book Depository) is less suspenseful than the previous books by Maggie O’Farrell that I’ve read (or else I am maybe remembering her previous books all wrong). Gretta Riordan’s…
4 CommentsAnd now, the Plantagenets and the Wars of the Roses. Can someone British please tell me how British schoolchildren feel about learning the Wars of the Roses? Because I can see it two ways. On one hand, I can imagine it would be a great relief to get out of the thicket of battles and mess and dethronings and usurpations and arguing that went on all through the fifteenth century. On the other hand, I love political scheming and the Wars of the Roses are all schemes all the time. The Sunne in Splendour (Amazon, B&N, Book Depository) is about…
10 CommentsHere is the premise of In Great Waters. It’s a hell of a premise so be prepared. In an alternate version of our world, mermaids and humans live side by side, connected by alliances like regular nations and by the existence of hybrids (bastards) who are half-mermaid and half-human. Such creatures have bifurcated tails and human reproductive organs; they can walk on land and hold their breath for as long as fifteen minutes. They are also, by tradition, the rulers of Europe. In the sixteenth (I think) century, a hybrid child called Henry, cast up on land by his mother,…
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