Arranging an Autumn in August Brit Lit bouquet

As some of you may know, I usually devote the month of August to a full on themed film focus and while Bad Movie Month was fun while it lasted, it’s time to embrace the new.

With that in mind, I am happy to announce the lineup for the second outing of Autumn in August , which brings a touch of fall into the latter half of the summer season.

I didn’t intend to add another theme here but British books seem to be the main connection for me here. First up is  2003’s Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, a title that is quite the mouthful due to being based on two books in the late Patrick O’Brian’s historical fiction series known as the Aubrey-Maturin novels.

Russell Crowe plays Captain Jack Aubrey, a renowned seaman in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars whose talents at the helm of a ship don’t match up with his dislike for authority.

Paul Bethany is Stephen Maturin, a surgeon taking a navel commission for the first time, hoping to collect some interesting samples from nature during the voyage. These rather unlikely companions become good friends as they and their crew face off against fearsome forces both from and sailing on the sea.

I remember watching this movie when it was first released and how quiet the audience was, since this is the type of story that demands your full undivided attention, something we don’t always get these days. It was well worth it and should be so yet again:

Since M&C:TFSOW is set during the Regency period and Jane Austen fans do like those books as well, it only made sense to select Sense and Sensibility from 1995 as a follow up.

While I have liked other versions of this first of Austen’s works(the recent BBC miniseries was nicely done), this one is an absolute favorite of mine. 

 Emma Thompson, who also won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, as the sensible Elinor restraining her passion for Edward Ferrars(a rather bashful Hugh Grant!) with Kate Winslet playing her openly emotional sister Marianne are sheer delights on screen.

There is so much to savor in this elegantly made film directed by Ang Lee, with the late great Alan Rickman as the lovelorn Col.Brandon, Harriet Walter as the artfully awful sister in law Fanny and Hugh Laurie as the drolly beleaguered Mr. Palmer. A true treasure of a movie as welcome as a fresh cup of tea:

Speaking of Emma Thompson and sister stories, she does have a knack for them as her role in the 1992 adaptation of E.M. Forester’s Howard’s End proves in abundance.

The title refers to a country house owned by the Wilcox family , a prim and proper set who find themselves interacting with the bohemian Schlegal sisters Helen(Helena Bonham Carter) and Margaret (Thompson).

Margaret is the more mainstream of the two, which is why the late matriarch of the Wilcox family connected with her so much that she wanted Margaret to have the house after her death. 

While that wish was kept hidden from Margaret (who had no clue about that idea anyway), widower Henry played by Anthony Hopkins, winds up falling in love with her and proposing marriage.

Margaret accepts but this is no fairy tale romance as Helen’s involvement with a troubled young man sets off a chain of events that alters the course of many lives in their wake.

This is a somberly elegant film that offers subtle food for thought, making it very autumnal indeed:

To round this all out, we follow Anthony Hopkins to 84, Charing Cross Road, a delightful real life tale told through letters.

Anne Bancroft stars as Helene Hanff, a NYC freelance writer during post WWII, whose “antiquarian “ literary preferences causes her to order from London bookshop Marks and Company as well begin a lively correspondence with shop manger Frank Noel(Hopkins).

Hanff had their letters published as a memoir and adapted into a stage play which caught the eye of Bancroft and the rest, as they say, is history. I’ve read several of Hanff’s books and she was a witty and warm hearted person who is well remembered for this long term literary friendship by fans the world over:

I do hope you all tune in for this frightfully British film festival of mine later this summer. Meanwhile I’m taking a brief blog break for the next couple of weeks just to get my bearings with everything going on in the world at the moment.

I do plan to return to LRG after July 4th, with a wrap up of my Sci Fi Summer reading, my Series-ous Reading review and possibly a write up on the new version of Jane Austen’s Persuasion , set to arrive on Netflix by July 15.

Now, I must confess that this particular book is the one that got me into Jane Austen in the first place, partly due to the 1995 film adaptation that I talked about for the first Autumn in August. Granted, I may be partial to that movie as it imprinted Austen onto me but I am willing to give a new take a fair chance.

The trailer that dropped this week for it is giving me and many others pause due to Anne Eliot being show as in a very goofy romcom fashion.

 Having Anne address the audience with sly witticisms about her obnoxious family is fine but smearing jam on her face to imitate her former beau Wentworth is a bit too wacky for me.

 Also, waving to him from the window and then diving down from view to dump a glass of wine on her head makes Anne look more like a Regency Bridget Jones than an Austen heroine( and I do like Bridget Jones!).

 Sure, there is plenty of humor to be found in Persuasion (casting Richard E. Grant as the incredibly vain Sir Walter is brilliant) but the theme of the story is reliving regrets and seeing if you can reasonably get a second chance is not meant to be your average Hollywood meet cute there. 

There are other positive points such as Henry Golding playing the smooth talking Mr. Eliot is fun and the visuals look lovely. I just wish that film makers would stop thinking that all Austen heroines must be Elizabeth Bennet or Emma Woodhouse.

Austen created quieter leading ladies such as Elinor Dashwood, Fanny Price and Anne Eliot as contrasts to the likes of Lizzie, Emma and Catherine Morland because not all characters have to be stamped out of the same cookie cutter cliche  mold in order to engage the audience on screen! With a good script and well cast actors, a low key lead can be just as compelling as a lively one in my opinion.

However, this is only a trailer intended to attract attention towards the finished project so I do plan to watch it and hopefully these silly moments are few and far between in the entire film. Let’s give this version of Persuasion a fair chance, folks and hopefully we’ll all be pleasantly surprised:

 

Stocking up on some summer reads

Between the horrid heat of the season and less than stellar headlines in the news, staying inside with some good books is becoming more and enticing there.

With that in mind, my latest library visit not only had me pick up another Christina Baker Kline novel(A Piece of the World) but a chunky new book from Marian Keyes as well.

Again,Rachel is a follow-up to her 1997 novel Rachel’s Holiday, where our title character Rachel Walsh is now a counselor at the very rehab center that ended her addiction cycle back in the day.

While she feels that her life is pretty much in order,despite a tendency to buy too many sneakers, Rachel finds that she is not over her former love Luke, who she divorced several years ago.

Luke is brought back into her world upon a death in his family and even she tries to maintain minimal contact , Rachel has to admit to herself the truth about her feelings both then and now.

I literally stumbled over this book at the library, taking a seat and pleasantly surprised to find it on a nearby display table. It’s been a long time since I’ve read Marian Keyes(did read Rachel ‘s Holiday as well as other stories about the Walsh family) and getting reacquainted with Keyes’ blend of engaging humor and well crafted drama has been well worth the wait indeed:

Meanwhile, I got a bit splurge-y and bought from both Book of the Month Club AND the Literary Guild! Yeah, feeling slightly guilty for that but I do intend to read most of them before Labor Day.

From BOMC,  I chose The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle by Jennifer Ryan plus Elin Hilderbrand’s new beach read, The Hotel Nantucket.

The latter location is a newly renovated establishment bought by a rich Londoner and opening up under the hopefully steady hand of Lizbet Keaton, determined to make sure that everything goes smoothly. 

While a main worry of Lizbet and her boss is getting a top notch review from hotel blogger Shelly Carpenter, there are other issues of concern such as a new employee trying to cover up a misdeed of his recent past, Lizbet’s ex showing up to rekindle their freshly ended relationship and a ghost.

I must confess that ghost character ( a young chambermaid named Grace who perished in a hotel fire or did she…?) is what sealed the deal for me on this one. 

One of my favorite TV shows this year  is Ghosts , the sitcom set at a old manor house being turned into a B&B by the  current living owners with one of them being able to see their eternally present guests, making me so eager to meet the dearly departed Grace as soon as can be:

Also got a similar duo from The Literary Guild with Alison Weir’s The Last White Rose and The Summer Place by Jennifer Weiner.

When twenty two year old Ruby announces her engagement to her rather new boyfriend Gabe, things are in an uproar among her loved ones for many different reasons.

Her stepmother Sarah is worried about the haste of this impending marriage while step grandmother Veronica is thrilled to have the perfect send off to her Cape Cod house that she’s planning to sell after so many years.

Sarah’s is equally concerned about her husband’s steady distancing from her(which might be a cover for an affair) and as both sides of the family converge upon Veronica’s summer house, she begins to wonder if holding this wedding there was a good idea after all.

Weiner has been putting out a set of Cape Cod themed novels the last few years, with this one being the third, and while they are stand alone stories, it’s hard to not complete the series so to speak.

Plus, this whole summer wedding setting is irresistible for heartfelt drama and relatable laughs, a page turning package of entertainment that Weiner excels at. Much like the upcoming HBO Max remake of Father of the Bride, The Summer Place is a welcome sight to see this hectic heatwave season:

Definitely, my book shelves are overflowing with potential ports of printed delight and yes, I am thankful for that privilege.

While the fact that the real world is in a bit of a mess on numerous fronts at the moment, I am doing my best not to despair at the state of things right now. 

Instead I chose to hold onto to the notion of radical hope, that folks will work to make our collective future one that we can all look forward to with a sense of joy and achievement.

With that in mind, my stress relief includes good books and positive pop culture events like the upcoming Tony Awards this weekend. I may not be able to attend the theater yet the clips that I’ve seen of Six, the musical about the wives of Henry VIII, has me rooting for those royal rock stars to win big. 

Plus, my favorite number is Anna of Cleves with “Get Down” as she revels over her divorced status with unabashed delight, something that hopefully the cast and crew of Six share in that night:

My Series-ous Reading is holding onto His Majesty’s Hope

One of the reasons that I started this whole Series-ous Reading feature in the first place was to catch up on some of my TBR piles and get further acquainted with certain authors and their work.

Well, so far every time I’ve read on of Susan Elia MacNeal’s entries in her Maggie Hope Mystery series, such as my recent SR pick His Majesty’s Hope, my desire to read more increases abundantly.

Maggie Hope is a newly recruited British spy during the dark days of WWII and at last, she’s been given her first overseas assignment. She is secretly airdropped into Germany to be meet up with a member of the resistance movement for two reasons: deliver a pair of radio crystals and plant a listening device in the home of a prominent German agent.

For the latter, Maggie needs the help of her contact Gottlieb Lerner, who is less than thrilled about working with a rookie but is able to pass her off as his girlfriend to gain entrance to the home of Clara Hess, former star singer and vicious enemy agent.

While Clara’s connection to Maggie is more intimate than she’d like, that doesn’t stop her from carrying out her assignment or making plans to stay longer in Germany once a prime opportunity to spy on a major Nazi party figure is ripe for the plucking.

Lerner insists that she stick to the original plan but Maggie is determined to take this risk with or without him. When that initial opportunity doesn’t work out, another one is presented to her that leads to some horrifying discoveries about the ultimate goals of the current Reich.

Nevertheless, Maggie is able to get what she needs while avoiding the advances of the man she’s working for who has no idea of her true agenda and plans to escape before being found out by Clara Hess and company:

Little does Maggie know that there is a secret ally in her midst.

Elise Hess, Clara’s daughter whose nursing work leads her to work with the resistance, is helping to hide two people in her family’s attic from being captured by the Nazis. 

When Maggie is in need of refuge herself, Elise is ready to assist her along with the 

men hidden away right underneath the watchful eye of her devious mother. Despite how solid their plan is, can Maggie and her new friends get to safety before it’s too late?

Reading one of these Maggie Hope novels is like binge watching a great season of smartly written TV. There are plenty of solid supporting characters given full story arcs and nuance within these well paced pages and Maggie is such a steadfast yet mortal heroine that you would follow anywhere.

I plan to read a couple more books in this series later this year and yes, the wait will be worth it. Having the Maggie Hope novels almost makes up for the loss of the Agent Carter series (almost! Marvel, come on, right this wrong there!):

Speaking of books to catch up with, my new selection in this Sisterhood of Sleuthing is Queen of Hearts by Rhys Bowen.

This eighth entry in the Her Royal Spyness series has hapless noblewoman Georgiana Rannoch being whisked off to 1930s America with Claire, her diva mother, who is in pursuit of a quickie divorce in Reno. 

During their ocean voyage, Claire is offered an audition in Hollywood so a side trip is made that leads to yet another murder for Georgiana to solve.

I do love the screwball comedy energy of these books with their special guest star appearances from famous fans like Coco Chanel, Noel Coward and Wallis Simpson. This time around promises to throw Charlie Chaplin into the mix , which should be amusing in more ways than one:

 

Preparing for a multiverse of imagination this Sci-Fi Summer

The first big holiday weekend of the summer is soon to be upon us and so is the next Seasons of Reading readathon, Sci-Fi Summer. For the month of June, both science fiction and fantasy books are encouraged to be on your literary docket.

Sticking to my rule of three, I have a trio of titles that should fit the bill nicely with two being prizes from a Discord giveaway that I gratefully won awhile back. Talk about books as the gift that keeps on giving there!

Sea of Tranquility: Emily St. John Mandel’s latest novel crosses many points in time as a self appointed detective seeks witnesses to a strange yet brief event involving music.

From a newly exiled man sent to Canada in 1912 to 1994 where a young woman records an odd moment in the woods and all the way to a book tour in the year 2203, where author Olive Llwellyn has left her family bat their moon colony home to promote her new novel on earth, all of them have shared this odd incident yet no one quite knows what it truly means.

Pulling these errant pieces together is the work of  Gaspery, who wants to connect these dots before the whole puzzle is complete as a last request of sorts to his late mother. Even if he succeeds,however, will the true solution be found?

While I’ve only read Station Eleven, Mandel’s work is well known for it’s seemingly simple designs that do slowly but surely reveal a wider story landscape. Have to say that I am intrigued indeed:

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow:  One thing that you can definitely count on with author Gabrielle Zevin is that she never writes the same book twice.

 From The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry to Young Jane Young, she zigs where most would zag and this tale of friendship and video games is both the most and the least expected story from her.

We met Sam and Sadie as kids in 1986, with the two of them bonding over video games while he’s in hospital and she is visiting her ailing sister.

Years later, Sam runs into Sadie at college where she’s developing a game that challenges the player to consider their moral stances in life. Impressed by her creativity, he offers to work with her on other such innovative games inspired by Shakespeare and the poems of Emily Dickinson.

While their gaming fortunes rise and fall(as well as draw unwelcome ire from self appointed crusaders), it’s the power of their friendship that becomes the ultimate quest of their lives.

This promises to be one of the best reads of the summer, I suspect, and hopefully others will be happy to take this page turning  journey with me:

Ariadne: The leading title  lady of this mythological retelling is a princess of Crete, whose mother was used by the gods to punish her royal father’s acts of hubris.

As a result, Ariadne has witnessed many gruesome sacrifices made to the dreaded Minotaur dwelling in the labyrinth created by her father, King Minos ,but this year’s champion Theseus, an Athenian prince, moves her to help him survive the deadly challenge and flee with him to safety.

Sadly, her devotion is not at all rewarded and while she does her best to deal with the options left before her, Ariadne refuses to remain a pawn in someone else’s game, divine or mortal.

I’ve always liked Greek mythology and this sounds like a great take on the role of women in these murky magical waters:

 Sci-Fi Summer  officially starts on June 1 and ends on the 30th, so  there is more than plenty of time to sign up 

and join in the fun. Much thanks to Michelle Miller at Seasons of Reading for making this chance to catch up on this genre possible.

Summer seems to be prime real estate for science fiction/fantasy fare, with the new season of Stranger Things coming out as well as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness taking the box office by storm, plus word of a new Star Wars series on the horizon. 

Just goes to show that no matter how harsh the real world is at the moment, there’s always a great flight of creative fancy to make those times a touch more bearable out there. 

 Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend,folks and I’ll see you in June with hopefully a happy song in my heart:

Bloomsbury Girls on the browse

 

One of the joys of reading is discovering new authors who seem to know exactly the charming type of story you need to dive into right now and a couple of years ago, Natalie Jenner’s The Jane Austen Society did just that for me.

It’s a delightful fictional look at the possible origins of a group devoted to preserving the Chawton home of Jane Austen and bringing more attention to her wonderful books(highly recommend it!) but today, I am here to share with you all my delight with her fabulous follow-up,Bloomsbury Girls , on this book blog tour.

While there is one character from The Jane Austen Society included here, you can enjoy this novel first on it’s own engaging merits. The ladies of the title work together at Bloomsbury Books in post WWII London , a rather new development for the shop that has long been run by men.

In this except from the novel, you can meet all three of them; Vivien whose rivalry with co-worker Alec is more than professional, Grace, a busy mother and wife hoping to do more with her love of books and Evie, the new girl looking for a change of scene and getting more than she ever expected:

Excerpt from Chapter Two of Bloomsbury Girls,

 by Natalie Jenner

The Tyrant was Alec McDonough, a bachelor in his early thirties who ran the New Books, Fiction & Art Department on the ground floor of Bloomsbury Books. He had read literature and fine art at the University of Bristol and been planning on a career in something big—Vivien accused him of wanting to run a small colony—when the war had intervened. 

Following his honourable discharge in 1945, Alec had joined the shop on the exact same day as Vivien. “By an hour ahead. Like a dominant twin,” she would quip whenever Alec was rewarded with anything first.

From the start Alec and Vivien were rivals, and not just for increasing control of the fiction floor. Every editor that wandered in, every literary guest speaker, was a chance for them to have access to the powers that be in the publishing industry. As two secretly aspiring writers, they had each come to London and taken the position at Bloomsbury Books for this reason. 

But they were also both savvy enough to know that the men in charge—from the rigid Mr. Dutton and then-head-of-fiction Graham Kingsley, to the restless Frank Allen and crusty Master Mariner Scott—were whom they first needed to please. Alec had a clear and distinct advantage when it came to that. Between the tales of wartime service, shared grammar schools, and past cricket-match victories, Vivien grew quickly dismayed at her own possibility for promotion.

Sure enough, within weeks Alec had quickly entrenched himself with both the long-standing general manager, Herbert Dutton, and his right-hand man, Frank Allen. By 1948, upon the retirement of Graham Kingsley, Alec had ascended to the post of head of fiction, and within the year had added new books and art to his oversight—an achievement which Vivien still referred to as the Annexation. 

She had been first to call him the Tyrant; he called her nothing at all. Vivien’s issues with Alec ranged from the titles they stocked on the shelves, to his preference for booking events exclusively with male authors who had served in war. With her own degree in literature from Durham (Cambridge, her dream university, still refusing in 1941 to graduate women), Vivien had rigorously informed views on the types of books the fiction department should carry. Not surprisingly, Alec disputed these views.

“But he doesn’t even read women,” Vivien would bemoan to Grace, who would nod back in sympathy while trying to remember her grocery list before the bus journey home. “I mean, what—one Jane Austen on the shelves? No Katherine Mansfield. No Porter. I mean, I read that Salinger story in The New Yorker he keeps going on about: shell-shocked soldiers and children all over the place, and I don’t see what’s so masculine about that.”

 Unlike Vivien, Grace did not have much time for personal reading, an irony her husband often pointed out. But Grace did not work at the shop for the books. She worked there because the bus journey into Bloomsbury took only twenty minutes, she could drop the children off at school on the way, and she could take the shop newspapers home at the end of the day. Grace had been the one to suggest that they also carry import magazines, in particular The New Yorker. Being so close to the British Museum and the theatre district, Bloomsbury Books received its share of wealthy American tourists. Grace was convinced that such touches from home would increase 

their time spent browsing, along with jazz music on the wireless by the front cash, one of many ideas that Mr. Dutton was still managing to resist.

Vivien and Alec had manned the ground floor of the shop together for over four years, circling each other within the front cash counter like wary lions inside a very small coliseum. The square, enclosed counter had been placed in the centre of the fiction department in an effort to contain an old electrical outlet box protruding from the floor. 

Mr. Dutton could not look at this eyesore without seeing a customer lawsuit for damages caused by accidental tripping. Upon his promotion to general manager in the 1930s, Dutton had immediately ordained that the front cash area be relocated and built around the box.

This configuration had turned out to be of great benefit to the staff. One could always spot a customer coming from any direction, prepare the appropriate response to expressions ranging from confused to hostile, and even catch the surreptitious slip of an unpurchased book into a handbag. Other bookshops had taken note of Bloomsbury Books’ ground-floor design and started refurbishing their own. 

The entire neighbourhood was, in this way, full of spies. Grace and Vivien were not the only two bookstore employees out and about, checking on other stores’ window displays. London was starting to boom again, after five long years of postwar rationing and recovery, and new bookshops were popping up all over. Bloomsbury was home to the British Museum, the University of London, and many famous authors past and present, including the prewar circle of Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, and Lytton Strachey. This made the district a particularly ideal location for readers, authors, and customers alike.

 And so, it was here, on a lightly snowing day on the second of January, 1950, that a young Evie Stone arrived, Mr. Allen’s trading card in one pocket, and a one-way train ticket to London in the other.

 

Excerpt courtesy of St. Martin’s Press, New York. Copyright © 2022 by Natalie Jenner. All rights reserved.

I hope that this look at Bloomsbury Girls, now available at a bookseller near you, encourages any lover of bookstores to add this delightful book to their spring into summer reading list.

In addition to print and ebook, Bloomsbury Girls is also in audio format with narration by actress Juliet Stevenson. Truly a bounty of ways to engage with the lovely literary style of Natalie Jenner here!

My thanks to Laurel Ann Nattress at Austenprose for including me on this wonderful tour as well as to author Natalie Jenner for this most welcome breath of bookish air:

Tough times never last but good books do

While my TBR piles are getting tricky to manage (yes, I have more than one or two there), I can’t entirely resist the urge to buy something new to read, especially when the daily headlines are getting worse every day (more on that later).

Truly, I did think that I would just skip the Book of the Month club selections for May but my literary eye was caught by Love & Other Disasters by Anita Kelly, which combines romance with cooking competition shows so how could I pass that on by?

The show in question is called Chef’s Special and intended for amateur cooks like Dahlia, who is feeling unfocused in life after her divorce.

She finds a friendly rival in London, who has enough troubles of their own as the first openly non binary competitor on the culinary series dealing with rather tasteless online scrutiny.

A romantic relationship soon develops with some complications both on and off screen. Can Dahlia and London make a delicious feast of love together or will that recipe for romance fall apart like an over baked soufflé?

Word of mouth about this novel has been excellent to say the least. A nicely told romance  like this sounds ideal for a spring to summer bookish menu indeed:
 

I paired that up with Jennifer Close’s latest release, Marrying the Ketchups. 

Set in Chicago, the story lines follow the Sullivan family as they deal with the recent loss of their patriarch Bud, who ran a restaurant in Oak Park.

While new widow Rose adjusts to her relocated life at an assisted living center, two of her grandchildren are reconsidering their situations as well. Gretchen is having serious doubts regarding her rock and roll career while her sister Jane harbors suspicions about her husband’s fidelity.

It’s their cousin Teddy, however, who is determined to keep the family diner going even though his ex-boyfriend constantly shows up there for the dinner hour on the regular (talk about pouring salt into a wound there!).

Dealing with change is the ultimate theme of the book and having read an earlier novel of Close’s(The Hopefuls)  awhile back , I know that her delightful low key story telling is built upon well honed character development worth it’s weight in page turning gold:

Meanwhile, on my recent birthday, I decided to get a physical copy of an ebook by Christina Lauren (The Soulmate Equation) that I was reading and it only made sense to add another book by that author as a proper gift.

The Unhoneymooners has a classic romcom premise as Olive Torres finds herself on a dream vacation with the one man in the world she can’t stand to be around.

With her twin sister Amelia coming down with food poisoning, along with her new husband, their already paid for honeymoon in Hawaii will go to waste unless Olive goes in her stead. The only catch is that Ethan Thomas, her new brother in law, has to join her.

At first, Olive plans to have fun on her own but when she and Ethan run into a pair of acquaintances from back home, they have no choice but to pretend to be their newlywed siblings or lose out on their vacation accommodations.

Despite these ruses, Olive finds herself liking Ethan much more than she had bargained for. Is that feeling mutual or is this just a potential fling and nothing more?

I’ll probably save this one for summer reading but rest assured that Lauren’s engaging romcom energy enhanced by lively developed characters is definitely a year round enjoyment:

Before I go, I do have something to say about those troubling headlines, especially the recent attack on reproductive rights by the Supreme Court. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a huge rant, just an affirmation of what we should stand for.

Freedom is a term that gets bandied about a lot but not very well understood by many, particularly those who think that imposing their beliefs onto the rest of us is their sacrosanct right.

Freedom means not only making choices but allowing others to do the same without impediment.

 What we’re seeing right now( and have been for far too long) is an entitlement mindset that wants everything convenient for themselves and no consequences whatsoever for any negative results of their actions.

Well, as a MTV show used to say, it’s time for people to stop being polite and start getting real. Putting up with this nonsense is not how bullies like this are stopped and if being loud is necessary, then let’s get loud.

We see this in the increasing prohibitive laws attacking voters, the LBTQIA community, immigration and book banning, which targets everyone overall. Whether you sign a petition, join in a protest or just tell that rude person in your social circle to knock it off with the hate speech, every bit counts.

These oppressors love to justify their actions by insisting that “This is what the Founding Fathers of our country wanted!” but they -perhaps intentionally-forget that those folks were out and out rebels  against the established authority, the very one that caused them to leave their former country for a fresh start in the first place.

The important thing here is to take a stand for the future of our country to progress forward for all concerned  and not fall back into an outdated oppression that benefits the few. Regardless of century, we shouldn’t hesitate to take our shot for a better world:

Having a bloody good time this Spring Into Horror

My Spring Into Horror readathon ended this morning as I finished reading Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia(the new epilogue added to the paperback edition bumped it up a star to my original GoodReads review).

However, I thought that for this wrap up, it would be best to talk about the books that were fresh on my bookish horror horizon and so I began with Stephen Graham Jones’ My Heart is a Chainsaw.

Jade Daniels is our leading lady who refuses to believe that she could be the Final Girl in the slasher movie scenario that is her life. 

While she can clearly see the massacre to come in her sullen small lakeside town of Proofock,ID( which happens to have an abandoned summer camp nearby) Jade’s attempts at warning the Final Girl in their midst-newcomer Letha Mondragon-about what to expect go off in the wrong direction.

Raising unwanted attention from the powers that be, Jade still persists in trying to prepare Letha for what’s to come, relying on her mental treasure trove of slasher movie knowledge to educate all those around but to no avail. Nevertheless, she gets ready for what promises to be the ultimate bloodbath of the summer:

To say more would ruin the numerous surprises awaiting you within these brilliantly blood soaked pages but I will say that the story is a steady slow burn that rewards your patience very well.

Graham Jones gives the reader a fully nuanced main character in 17 year old Jade, whose devotion to horror is her well worn armor against the harsh realities of her life. The literary portrait of this snarkily savvy yet sad souled young woman is a masterclass in emotional depth, especially with her wondering at times if she is the unreliable narrator of her own story.

I do intend to read more of SGJ but am delighted to learn that My Heart is a Chainsaw is the first book in an intended trilogy. As any good horror fan knows, sequels are the gift that keeps on giving:

For something a little less intense but still scary adjacent ,  I went with The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling. 

When Vivienne “Vivi” Jones was nineteen, she was new to the ways of magic so when she and her cousin Gwyn decided in a vodka hazed mood to lay a curse on the man who broke her heart, she never expected it to take effect.

Nine years later, that man , Rhys Penhallow,has returned to the witchy town of Glen Grove to do his family duty of resetting the ley lines that fuel the magic of this supernatural small town. Upon his arrival, Rhys experiences all sorts of bad luck which grows worse when he and Vivi meet up again.

The stakes get higher when Rhys tries to perform the ley lines spell, only to spread the curse through out the entire town. Faced with strange after efforts such as attacking toy skulls, a talking cat and an angry library ghost, Vivi and Rhys have no choice but to work together to break the curse before Halloween or it may be too late in more ways than one.

The story is charmingly sweet without being cloying and has several great bits of humor(particularly from that cat named Sir Purr-cival) , plus a well told revived romance. 

All in all, a fun romcom with witchcraft that does enchantingly engages you with every turning page and yes, Sterling is planning to give us a spellbinding sequel featuring Vivi’s cousin Gwyn! Love and horror can go hand in hand, even in the most awkward moments indeed:

 Much thanks to Michelle Miller at Seasons of Reading for making this readathon possible and I’m already arranging my TBR for the next one, Sci-Fi Summer , this June.

With that theme in mind, let me give a shout out to  Everything Everywhere All At Once, an amazing multiverse adventure movie that doesn’t star Dr. Strange (that one looks cool but I need to see Spider-Man No Way Home first!).

Michelle Yeoh plays Evelyn, a woman dealing with all sorts of average problems until one day she is literally dragged into an inter dimensional battle that requires her to live several lives simultaneously in order to save the day and then some.

It’s too weirdly wild to go into more details but if you are open to new mind blowing experiences with touches of humor, heart and family ties, this is a must see for sure. 

I went to watch it in theaters on my birthday last week and it was the best gift that I could give to myself. Also, in an odd way, ETEWAAO is a good movie for Mother’s Day, trust me on this:

My Series-ous Reading discovers A Woman Unknown

One of the reasons that I started doing my Series-ous Reading feature on this blog was to give myself a chance to catch up on many of the great books still lingering on my TBR and needed to be nestled on my shelves as part of a completed set.

Well, this month’s selection, A Woman Unknown by Frances Brody, brought me a little closer to that cherished goal. Our leading lady detective is Kate Shackleton, a WWI widow who holds out hope that her husband Gerald may yet be among the living.

While Kate does keep an eye out for any possible leads there, she also handles missing person cases for other people and thanks to a recommendation from her associate Mr. Sykes, winds up with two assignments that overlap each other.

The first is from a Mr. Fitzpatrick, an older man who is worried about his young wife Deirdre going off alone to parts unknown. Since Mrs. Fitzpatrick  is in the habit of shoplifting(as Sykes found out during a previous encounter),the chances of her being involved in illegal activity are rather high.

As it turns out, Deirdre is doing something sketchy in order to pay for her sick mother’s health care. With the help of a lawyer, she plays the part of “woman unknown “ in divorce cases, so that the man in question can give his current wife grounds for adultery without exposing his actual mistress in public.

These weekends at a hotel are merely meant to be widow dressing, nothing more but occasionally a client tries to be more intimate such as a prominent actor performing in a Gilbert and Sullivan theater tour:

However, Deirdre finds herself in a world of trouble when the next man she’s paired with is Everett Runcie, a sponging socialite whose wealthy wife Philippa is eager to part from him.  

To protect his long standing other woman Caroline Windham(who is also married), Everett and Deirdre spend the night together but the next morning, only one of them is alive.

Kate happens to be an acquaintance of Philippa, who asks her to find the killer. She’s also in search of the now officially missing Deirdre as well as the police are to find out what she knows. Deirdre isn’t seen as a suspect but her vanishing act might be a permanent one if she saw too much for the murderer’s liking.

Reading one of Brody’s books is like tuning into a favorite BBC mystery TV show, with many enriching background details about the characters generously ladled out and well developed scenes that bring the overall story to vivid life.

A Woman Unknown does have a noir flavor to it’s central plot but the main elements here are of women seeking a way out of traps that life has set for them on their own terms, offering food for thought along with some tasty thrills along the way:

Speaking of great series to catch up with, my next Series-ous Reading pick is Susan Elia MacNeal’s His Majesty’s Hope, part of her Maggie Hope historical mystery series.

In this entry, Maggie is going undercover in WWII Germany to stop one of the enemy’s worst agents who happens to be her thought to be dead mother.

This is the third book in this rapidly growing series and why they haven’t been picked up for adaptation yet is a real mystery to me. You have an amazing heroine on deck here, people-hop to it!:

 

Taking a Julia Journey into the nonfiction kitchen

 

Over the past two years, a certain portion of my daily reading has gone into a sadly steady decline and while nonfiction was never my strong suit, I did try to keep some of it on my regular literary  radar.

Given the state of things for the last couple of years in the real world, my interest in learning more about it seemed repellant to maintaining a hopeful attitude there. Sure, I did read a little bit of good nonfiction once in awhile but more often than not, I strove to avoid it as much as possible.

However, my appetite for nonfiction has been revived lately, due to a renewed pop culture interest in Julia Child(from a Food Network competition and a HBO Max series). Fortunately, this wasn’t the first time that Julia had caught my attention and I happen to still have a copy of her memoir  , My Life in France,  on the shelf.

The book tells the story of how she took an interest in French cooking in the first place as her husband Paul was stationed as a diplomatic cultural liaison over in France after WWII. 

Their life and times in Paris and Marseille, the friends made along the way and Julia’s collaboration with Simone “Simcha” Beck and Louisette Bertholie that lead to the ground breaking Mastering the Art of French Cooking are charmingly detailed in Julia Child’s down to earth manner, a delicious feast of personal experience that needs to be well savored:

My Life in France was co-written by Paul Prud’homme(a grand nephew of Julia’s) and he wrote a solo book about the later years of his aunt”s culinary career.

The French Chef in America is well subtitled “Julia Child’s Second Act” as it covers the creation of her iconic TV show which made public television audiences hunger for more edible education programs.

I happily recall discovering this tasty tome in my local library back in 2019 and now adding it to my personal collection and current TBR, ironically enough, my own copy is a former library edition. Talk about meant to be here!

I also find it fitting that Food Network is airing The Julia Child Challenge (which has its finale this week) as their existence is due to the first foodie steps that Julia made, bringing people together to share in her love of good cooking and good company:

Least you think that I’m just rereading here, I did get another Julia Child themed book that is completely new to me.

Love Always, Julia is a collection of letters between Julia and Avis Devoto(edited by Joan Reardon), the latter being one of Julia’s best friends and a major player in getting that first cookbook published. Avis was married to Bernard Devoto, a journalist who wrote an article about culinary knives that Julia liked so much that she wrote him a letter of praise.

Since Avis handled her husband’s correspondence, she answered Julia herself and the two of them became great friends both in person and in personal print. Avis helped Julia get an  initial offer from an American publisher for Mastering the Art(that one didn’t quite take) and later got her connected to Judith Jones, the editor that did bring the book ultimately to bookshelves everywhere.

In the HBO Max series Julia, Avis is also a major supporting character, played by the incomparable Bebe Neuwirth and it’s great to see such positive female friendships like this onscreen that reflect on real life. 

Being supported in such bold endeavors by sisters in arms, so to speak, does lighten the load but Avis was more that just a gal pal and these letters do showcase her inner life as well, I believe :

My regular fiction reading is doing well but it is nice to expand my mental horizons again. Who knows, I might also reread Julie & Julia again, it’s been some time since I took it up.

After all, J&J is part of the reason that I started this blog in the first place, Julie Powell inspired me to learn more about the culinary arts and to write online, much like Julia Child inspired her to attempt that culinary challenge that lead to her writing career.

Granted, they never met in real life(which just as well since Julia didn’t care for Julie’s cooking blog) and yet they inspired others to appreciate the simple joys of the world for the better. 

While they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I think that inspiration is the truest element of sincerity, passing your deepest passion on to those out there who may not know they need it. Being a muse is one of those callings that when answered, gives as much as it receives in the long run.

At any rate, I hope that my Julia journey leads to more enriching reading and for now, my page turning path is firmly in front of me. If you are similarly inspired as well, I wish you a bon appetit!:

Filling up my Library Haul spring basket

Spring has finally sprung, as they say, with this being a fine time to check out what’s in bloom at my local library.

My most recent trip started off with a cozy cat mystery that caught my eye quickly. Mimi Lee Cracks the Code is the third book in Jennifer J. Chow’s 
 Sassy Cat series and the lady of the title runs a pet grooming service called Hollywoof (guess you can tell where this story is located by that moniker!).

When her friend and mentor Pixie is accused of doing away with a former tenant at her rental house on Catalina Island, Mimi is more than ready to help solve the case with her trusty cat Marshmallow ready to do his part. As it turns out, Marshmallow is telepathic and can read, making him the purrfect detective (couldn’t resist the pun, sorry) indeed.

I don’t usually read animal centric cozies but I’ve heard good word of mouth about this series and the whole telepathic cat angle reminds me of a fun Disney movie from way back when, The Cat From Outer Space.

While I don’t think Marshmallow can do any science fiction style tricks, he’d probably enjoy this film at the very least as much I’m enjoying this book so far:

The next page turning posy to add to my book bouquet was Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot, which has a literary teacher trapped by success that is not his own.

At first, Jake Bonner doesn’t see the problem with using the story outlines of former student Evan Parker, who boasted about the instant bestseller potential of his intended novel.

After all, Evan died before getting officially started on the book(under mysterious circumstances) and three years later, Jake has become a major author, thanks to Evan’s idea, with a potential new love interest as well.

However, all is not well as Jake gets an email calling him out on his new found fame and to make matters worse, Evan’s story may not have been just a figment of his imagination. Rather, it’s an all too real tale that someone never wanted to be told and will do what they can to take revenge.

This sounds amazing and I believe it’s going to become a TV adaptation pretty soon, much like Korelitz’s prior novel You Should Have Known( called The Undoing on HBO) was. 

A good literary thriller like this is also prime book club bait as Jimmy Fallon discovered last year for his Summer Reading segment on the Tonight Show and it’s nice to see some late show love there:

For a final flourish, I was able to add a historical fiction thriller hybrid from Beatriz Williams.

Our Woman in Moscow begins with Ruth, who gets a postcard from her twin sister Iris that she hasn’t heard from for over a decade.

Iris joined her diplomat husband Sasha in Russia after WWII ended and now that government suspects him of being a double agent. Ruth is then recruited by FBI operative Sumner Fox to help him get Iris and Sasha out of the country by visiting her newly pregnant sister with Sumner posing as her spouse.

Williams is good at making the world of the past come alive on the page and with the bonus of some spy games in the mix, this blend of historical storytelling with James Bond elements promises to be most entertainingly engaging fare:

I am so grateful for having an available library and it’s so sad to see the numerous calls for book bans these days that are clearly meant to score pathetic  political points instead of promoting actual  free speech and thought as libraries were created for in the first place.

Hopefully, the more that we support our libraries and those who work in them, the more these terrible forces of oppression will be defeated in the long run.

Meanwhile, let us try to rejoice in the garden of great reads that our libraries grow for the benefit of all. 

During this spring holiday season, I like to think of my library visits as Easter egg hunts, finding those hidden gems to mentally snack on and savor as much as can be and with any luck , you can too:

Some new additions to my Current Reading TBR

 April is one of my favorite months, mainly due to my birthday coming up soon, which makes me more eager to stack new books upon my already staggering TBR pile.

Nonetheless, new reads are hard to resist especially when you’re surrounded by such fresh imaginative stories hitting the shelves. With that in mind, I decided to splurge on Book of the Month club’s latest selections  starting with Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel.

This debut novel is set in the realm of the classic epic poem Ramayana, where the title character is the third wife of a great king, determined to have her son take the throne when the time comes.

However,  each of the three queens have sons and when one of them,Rama, proves to have divine powers, Kaikeyi tries to show him how to properly use his gifts(having taught herself mystical skills over the years). Since he is not her child, the decision to have Rama banished is seen as an act of villainy on her part but what if Kaikeyi’s motives were truly for the good?

This retelling sounds promising and this trend of focusing on underappreciated female characters from classic literature is fast becoming a must read of mine:

I paired that up with Taylor Reid Jenkins’ The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo,  which is now being officially adapted for Netflix as we speak.

The novel not only focuses on Evelyn, an aging film star with plenty of secrets and lies to share, but her interviewer Monique as well.

Monique wonders why this still legendary diva would choose her, a relatively unknown reporter, to spill her glamorous guts to and is curious about her subject’s motives here.

Regardless of why, the tales that Evelyn tells are just as intense as any of the movies that she starred but perhaps her true stories have a twist ending that not even the most savvy screenwriter would imagine.

Having loved Daisy Jones and the Six, this book seems like one of those “why haven’t I read this by now?” deals. Not to mention that old school Hollywood stories are very alluring , whether on screen or on the page for me:

Before I get to either of those books, there is an upcoming novel that I’m happy to report that my blog is on the online tour for.

As a fan of Natalie Jenner’s previous book, The Jane Austen Society, hearing that her next release is set in a London bookshop makes my biblio loving heart beat faster.

 Bloomsbury Girls takes place in post WWII England where three women are taking positions  at Bloomsbury Book, which was previously an all male run bookstore. Evie is a Cambridge graduate who takes up cataloging upon being denied the chance to be a research assistant at her alma mater.

Vivian lost her fiancé during the war and has many ideas to increase interest in the shop, frequently debating with Alex, who is the head buyer of fiction with very set notions about what is best for business.

Grace helps to support her family by working at Bloomsbury but comes to enjoy this new sense of freedom from her at home troubles. With the shop in danger of closing, can this trio of new friends save Bloomsbury Books from shutting its doors for good?

Jenner’s last book was such a gem that it’s a real treat to be part of this tour(my turn will be in May, more info to come!) and much thanks to Laurel Ann Nattress at Austenprose for extending me this most welcome invitation.

The premise of this book puts me in mind of 84, Charing Cross Road, that wonderful real life story of a New York City writer who made long distance friends with a lovely London bookshop and it’s endearing employees. If you haven’t read the book or seen the movie, do so at once! You won’t regret it , trust me:

I know, having too many books on hand is a luxurious problem to be sure yet it’s one that brings more joy that sorrow, a rare thing these days. 

If you have the opportunity to escape for a little while into such great page turning delights, simply refuse to feel guilty about that and carry on with one of the best coping methods out there for emotional relief!

To wrap things up, I’d like to share a few brief thoughts about the new season of Bridgerton(which I will keep as spoiler free as possible).

Penelope Featherington is in my Top Five list of favorite characters and despite her flaws, she’s certainly more sympathetic than her best friend Eloise , who is very reckless and annoying at times. She is quite understandably frustrated by the expectations for women of the time period  but taking that out on Penelope is not right at all.

Perhaps Eloise will be less self involved in the next couple of seasons but I’m firmly Team Pen all the way here.

Otherwise, while I thoroughly disliked Anthony during season one, I must admit that learning more of his backstory made me think the better of him this time around. 

He and Kate do make a good pair and I personally can relate to their shared sense of responsibility as first born sibling there. I know some folks were less than thrilled with the pacing of this central story but I think that a good slow burn like this was refreshing after the fierce intensity of the first season.

All in all, Bridgerton was grand fun and the next two seasons should be well worth the wait, like any true love tale would be indeed: