23 Saturday Dec 2017
Posted in Chitchat
May you find your Christmas time be everything you might wish – as far as reality allows (!) and, even if it isn’t, let us all wish for the grace, humour and compassion for ourselves and those in our lives to help all of us appreciate the moments
20 Thursday Apr 2017
Posted in Chitchat, Fiction, Reading, Shouting From The Soapbox
Rebecca Mascull, an author I much admire, has her third novel out early next month. And, to whet your appetites, there will be a blog tour (me too!)
I shall be eagerly reading other reviews, interviews and so on, and will certainly be featuring them on my Posts I Like widget, but these are the blogs and these are the dates:
Rebecca writes literary historical novels with strong female characters. This one is about an aviatrix, and set prior to, and encompassing, the First World War. She always researches meticulously, so just when you might think ‘surely THIS couldn’t have happened at that time, you will find yourself surprised and educated. The Wild Air has a much more introverted, central character than the ones from her first two novels, but she is as interesting, layered, unique and entrancing as ‘The Visitors’ Adeliza Golding and Song of the Sea Maid’s Dawnay Price.
23 Friday Dec 2016
Posted in Reading
Tags
12 Tuesday Apr 2016
Posted in Fiction, Lighter-hearted reads, Reading
Tags
Book Review, Cluny Brown, Fiction, Humour, Humour and Wit, Lighter-hearted fiction, Margery Sharp, The Nutmeg Tree
It’s re-issue day at last for Margery Sharp, thanks to Open Road Media and some dedicated bloggers who have been raising flags for her for at least a couple of years.
Followers of this blog and most of us new Margery readers know that Jane who blogs from beyondedenrock has done sterling work in helping Margery to reach a new generation of readers. You will find, if you explore that there are reviews to more Margerys, not to mention reviews of various Margery books, from readers around the blogosphere who engaged, this year and last, in Jane’s hosted Margery Sharp day
Go explore Margery – she is a light-touch, light-hearted writer, who writes books which are hugely entertaining, witty, and well-turned in writing craft. Margery can indeed write sharply and incisively; you get the sense she feels warmly towards humanity, but is not at all saccharine.
Cluny Brown and The Nutmeg Tree have both been reviewed on here, so you can follow the links.
They feature two delightfully individual and quirky central characters, and I’m delighted to have met and made friends with Cluny and Julia
When Jane started her championship of Margery on her blog, she was only available, if you were very lucky, as a charity shop find, rumpled and elderly, but at reasonable cost. And, as time went by, and more of us were introduced to the wonderful Margery Sharp, the dwindling copies of Margeriana began to reach eye-watering prices via market-place sellers. I could only find a battered Cluny and a battered Julia-Nutmeg, at reasonable outlay. 
Until now – so have a look at the other titles Open Road Media have released. I trust some of them will make their way on here in due course!
16 Thursday Jul 2015
Posted in Fiction, Literary Fiction, Reading
It’s release day for this wonderful prize-winning novel by first time Canadian author Sean Michaels. A book about music, politics, love and science. This is definitely one of my books of the year. Here is my original review, written after receiving it as an ARC from NetGalley in digital form
18 Thursday Jun 2015
Posted in Reading
Tags
Book Review, Crime Fiction, Katarina Bivald, Publication Day, The readers of Broken Wheel Recommend
It’s publication day for Swedish author Katarina Bivald’s charming, romantic, quirky bookie inspired comedy (Scandi Rom-Com!)- though it is set in Iowa – The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend. The link is to my original review
With definite debts to 84 Charing Cross Road, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and Armistead Maupin’s books. this is a light-hearted, feel-good read, and its author’s (and central character’s) love of reading, lift it above JUST a light hearted romp. It’s a delight
The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend Amazon UK
The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend Amazon USA
18 Thursday Jun 2015
Posted in Reading
Today sees the publication of Rebecca Mascull’s intriguing, enthralling story of a (fictional) female scientist in the middle of the eighteenth century.
Song of The Sea Maid is both a cracking good read, and provokes a lot of thought and useful questions. The link is to my original review and also to a Q + A I did with the author as part of a blog tour this week What is fascinating is that though Mascull’s central character, Dawnay Price, is ‘invention’, there were more women who served as her model, at that time, than one would suppose.
A book ‘about stuff’ which is also a compulsive page turner
Not a Q + A with Rebecca, but still part of the blog tour for the book, is a fascinating post which Books By Women, a site devoted to women writers asked her to write about prehistoric woman.
Song of the Sea Maid Amazon UK
Song of the Sea Maid Amazon USA
04 Thursday Jun 2015
Posted in Fiction, Literary Fiction, Reading
Today sees the UK publication of Simon Mawer’s thoughtful sequel to The Girl Who Fell From The Sky (published as Trapeze in the States) The sequel can be read as a stand-alone, for sure as Marian Sutro, his central character, does have some of her back-story revealed in Tightrope. The first book told the story of Special Operations Executives (SOE) parachuted into France to aid the Resistance in the Second World War. The war has ended, the Cold War is…hotting up, and Sutro is coming to terms with living in a much less adrenaline rush world,
Here is the original review I posted for Tightrope
Tightrope Amazon UK
Tightrope Amazon USA
Sorry Statesiders, I believe you may have some months to wait before the book reaches your shores
31 Sunday May 2015
Posted in Chitchat
Technical Thanks and Warnings of Flickering Images Are Due:
I’ve long been deeply admiring of the repeating images which often adorn the interesting blog posts of Madame Bibilophile’s excellent blog
And then my esteemed long-time bloggy friend and mentor on things bloggy, FictionFan made a post with one.
So I asked for instructions…
You have been warned…………future posts are likely (for a while at least) to suffer a plethora of over and over until I work this new delightful trick out of my system.
Thanks Madame Bibi! Thanks FictionFan!
And meanwhile, whilst you listen to Patti, here is possibly the most heartbreaking and frustrating gif a woman could ever find…….
I think it’s time I tried to grab that horse and get out of this place…………….., or at least be in a position to catch up with some of that fast moving chocolate
06 Thursday Nov 2014
It’s release day for Margaret Forster’s interesting and informative autobiography of a life told through the houses she lived in, which is as much a history of the times as a recount of her specific life within these times Here is my original review, written after receiving it as an ARC from NetGalley in digital form
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