Books

Book 788: Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell #1) – Hilary Mantel

I clearly was not in a hurry to read this one. It has been on my Kindle since I purchased it in December of 2011 and that was TWO years after it won the Booker Prize! I avoided it for some time because I was waiting for the remaining two books: Bring Up the Bodies (2012) and The Mirror and the Light (2020), but I also avoided it because it’s a freakin’ tome. It comes it at just under 560 pages.* Thankfully the next one is shorter (436), but the last is 200 pages more coming in at 764 pages! OOF that is going to be a commitment when I get around to it.

I also actively avoided it because that was around the time that I came to realize that in general I find myself enjoying the runners up to the Booker Prize more often than the actual winner. There’s like a mental hurdle I don’t think I can quite make the leap over to fully appreciate and see the beauty in most of the winners. I knew this was long and I knew that it had A LOT of description and the formatting was weird (minimal quotation marks, the point of view), so I knew it would be a big challenge for me.

Continue reading “Book 788: Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell #1) – Hilary Mantel”

Books

Book 769: Christmas Angel (The Christmas Angel #1) – Eli Easton

On the 10th day of my MM Holiday Romance binge, I went historical with another Kindle Unlimited novella.

Christmas Angel takes us to 1750s London where we meet John, a tall, dark, and handsome detective of sorts, and Alec, an ethereal heartbroken wood sculptor. It also kicks off a series of work connected by the titular angel that span hundreds of years (see first quote in paragraph for the full list). I’ll probably read them all, but maybe not this year.

Continue reading “Book 769: Christmas Angel (The Christmas Angel #1) – Eli Easton”

Books

Book 735: The Jane Austen Society – Natalie Jenner

Talk about a change of pace! I kept putting this off when it came up from my library. I was loving all the MM romance and young adult books I’ve been reading, but I finally just said okay. It was 100% worth it to slow down and take the village life pace to read this and not rush through it like some of the high-intensity romances I’ve read recently.

I’m pretty sure I stumbled across this on bookstagram and new I’d get to it eventually. I don’t discriminate between books inspired by Austen’s works, life or legacy—they’re all fair game to me and each new one I read adds a new dimension to my understanding/enjoyment of Austen and her continued impact on society.

Continue reading “Book 735: The Jane Austen Society – Natalie Jenner”

Books

Book 691: The Sealed Letter – Emma Donoghue

A few months ago I went through my bookshelves and made a couple of piles of books. The only qualifications were that they had to be on my shelves for a while (this has been on my shelves since April 2014) and that they probably be a quick read. This one falls somewhere in the middle of the pack of Donoghue’s books that I’ve read. It’s definitely not as good as Room or Slammerkin, but I do think it’s a little better than Hood, mostly because Donoghue really excels at historical fiction.

Continue reading “Book 691: The Sealed Letter – Emma Donoghue”

ARC, Books

Book 686: Enter the Aardvark – Jessica Anthony

This was a weird ass novel. I should’ve known it by the title when I requested it from NetGalley, but it was even weirder than I expected.* I’m sure I requested it because the blurb mentioned the modern protagonist was in deep denial about his sexuality, but that’s all I remember the rest was a weird wonderful surprise as I read it.

This is another dual narrative novel, authors really love those lately, with one portion taking place in modern America and the other taking place in the late 19th century England, and what ties the two together is a preserved Aardvark that arrives/is created at the most inconvenient time.

Continue reading “Book 686: Enter the Aardvark – Jessica Anthony”