Tag: Charles Dickens

ARC, Books

Book 724: Boyfriend Material (London Calling #1) – Alexis Hall

Geoff W

Book cover of "Boyfriend Material" with Amazon Affiliate linkIf this doesn’t overtake A.C. Rosen’s Camp as the book of the summer, I’m going to be so mad (but not really surprised). I honestly can’t even remember where I came across this, but when I did I immediately requested a copy from the publisher.* And boy, am I glad I did—it was so good.

I first read Hall’s work five years ago with Waiting for the Flood and could see the potential, but never followed up on my hunch only to be blindsided by this one! I could’ve been reading his work this whole time and growing with him. Needless to say, I will be going through his back catalog in the near future.

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Books

Book 671: Dreaming of Mr. Darcy (Austen Addicts #2) – Victoria Connelly

Geoff W

book cover of "Dreaming of Mr. Darcy" with amazon affiliate linkComing hot on the heels of A Weekend with Mr. Darcy, I of course had to read the follow up novel since the library just happened to have a digital download with no wait. What is that you’re whispering, “Self restraint?” Unfortunately, that’s not in my vocabulary—especially when it comes to books and explicitly when it comes to Jane Austen.

Book two of Connelly’s Austen Addicts series focused more on Persuasion than Pride and Prejudice, although there were plenty of Darcy references. This pretty much solidified that I’ll take my copy of Persuasion (where I’ll be when this posts).

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ARC, Books

Book 658: The Children of Harvey Milk – Andrew Reynolds

Geoff W

Cover art of "The Children of Harvey Milk"I’m not sure how I stumbled across this one, but when I did back in May I requested a copy from the publisher and they kindly obliged.* I was interested because of the subject matter, but also because Reynolds is based at UNC Chapel Hill (my undergrad) and his name rang a bell because he’d chaired the Sexuality Studies program there at some point in the recent past. And then with my master’s degree focusing on the Civil Partnership Act (2014) in the UK, of course I was going to want to read this book and see what he had to say.

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Book 655: Upside Down – N.R. Walker

Geoff W

Sometimes you just have to eat your own words. I really don’t like reading self-published works. In general, they are not edited (structurally, thematically, copy) appropriately, but then I stumble across a self-published book, like this one, and I am pleasantly surprised.

Don’t get me wrong there were a few copy editing errors—I’m looking at you “Hans Solo”, ouch—but no more than what I’ve found in some big publisher books before (cough ** Mr. Dancy ** cough ** Signett Classics ** cough). And in general, I found this to be well paced and complete. Maybe this is because I found it versus the author reaching out to me? I honestly don’t know.

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Books

Book 641: Unmarriageable – Soniah Kamal

Geoff W

Unmarriageable book coverNow this is how you do a modernization of a Jane Austen novel! I totally get why this one has received so much hype recently. I found it on a list of adaptations to look out for at some point last year and I finally got to read it after months on the library wait list.

Unlike what I wrote way back in 2011 about Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters and the adaptations needing to be moved away from the main story, Unmarriageable stays very very close to the original (with a few slight modifications). Where else could a modern day almost exact retelling of Pride and Prejudice than a parallel situations when it comes to women and marriage? Continue reading “Book 641: Unmarriageable – Soniah Kamal” →