This was delightful. A really moving, witty romance with two believably flawed characters.
Sam doesn't love his job, managing a bed and bath chain stoThis was delightful. A really moving, witty romance with two believably flawed characters.
Sam doesn't love his job, managing a bed and bath chain store, but he really cares about the people he works with- except his boss, Jonathan, who is such an asshole. When that asshole threatens to start firing members of his team, a mishap occurs, and a misunderstanding causes Sam to feign amnesia. His very handsome boss, not wanting to be sued, winds up moving Sam into his house. This premise isn't very believable, especially after a few days go by, but who cares, as it gets the slow burn romance started.
I've read a couple of other books by this author, and I'm always struck by how their characters have real conversations about sex, and I always hope that this is a thing young people do now when they're sleeping together. Because- bravo! It should have always been the norm.
This book is a lot of fun. I also enjoyed Jonathan's crazy family and the goofballs who work at Sam's store....more
Great. Now I have a violent crush on someone who has been dead for more than 180 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_... This was riveting. I spGreat. Now I have a violent crush on someone who has been dead for more than 180 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_... This was riveting. I sped through it in a few days, and I spent a good amount of time thinking about it when I wasn't reading. This novel is really fun and pretty sexy, too.
The main character works for the U.K.'s version of, I think, the State Department. She'd been working as a translator, but her new job is to be a "bridge". The government has acquired a time machine, and has successfully abducted/saved 5 people from the past. They've chosen people who they know, from historical records, were soon to die, figuring that removing them from their own time is unlikely to have changed the future, as they would have been dead anyway. The job of someone in the bridge position is to live with these time travelers and help them acclimate to the 21st century, and also to report on them to the government. Our narrator- who is never named- is the bridge for Commander Graham Gore, who died serving in the Franklin expedition to the Arctic, something I was already fascinated by before I read this book. We also spend a lot of time in this book with Arthur, who was removed from the World War I battle he was to die in, and Margaret, a lively 17th century lass who I believe was to die of the Plague.
Graham is such an interesting and beguiling character- and of course his bridge falls in love with him, as I kind of did, too. So a lot of this is a very slowly unfolding romance, and it also turns into a thriller, because the motives of the government are shadowy and not exactly benign. It was the perfect antidote to the artsy, bloodless book I read just before this one....more
I sort of saved this sweet book for a time I'd need it, and I really needed it last week as I mourned the untimely death of a colleague. It was perfecI sort of saved this sweet book for a time I'd need it, and I really needed it last week as I mourned the untimely death of a colleague. It was perfect-- about a vacation in a castle in Italy planned by two unhappy women. To share the costs, they advertise and find two other unhappy women, one a lonely old harridan who likes to boss people around, the other a beautiful lady who is just terribly tired of everyone around her trying to grab her and own her. Somehow, by the end of the book, everyone is kinder and much happier. It's a lovely, optimistic book that makes the reader feel more hopeful....more
This is a small story that is full of small pleasures. I listened to it as an audiobook, and one of its pleasures is that it had a very good reader, wThis is a small story that is full of small pleasures. I listened to it as an audiobook, and one of its pleasures is that it had a very good reader, who managed to convey the inherent politeness of the novel's characters as well as the deep wells of feeling under the surface.
Like so many women of her time and place, Jean's life in London after WWII is filled with loss. She lost her brothers and her father and is the lone caretaker for her somewhat infirm but extremely dependent mother, who is also pretty selfish and a horrible complainer. They live on Jean's meager salary as a reporter for a small paper, where she mostly writes about "women's issues", housekeeping tips and recipes and such. Then she gets a story that's a little more interesting, and she meets some people, and her life opens up. Jean's a great character. I really, really cared about her and was right there with her as she managed to find tiny spaces of time for herself, for the yearnings of her heart. I liked, as I always do, details of life in postwar England.
Okay, I'm going to go into the big spoiler below...
Honestly, all of you complaining about the sudden death? It hurt me too. But sudden and inexplicable deaths happen, and honestly, what would have been worse, and what I really felt was the ending we were all heading towards, was that Jean and Howard were going to give each other up for duty, for Jean's mother and Howard's daughter. I was very invested in these characters by the end of the book and wanted a happy ending, but it still means a lot that she knew he'd chosen to prioritize her, that they'd both chosen each other, even though it was going to be difficult and complicated....more
This is a good work of historical fiction, full of lively characters and full of Atkinson’s sense of fun. What it’s not is a masterpiece like God in RThis is a good work of historical fiction, full of lively characters and full of Atkinson’s sense of fun. What it’s not is a masterpiece like God in Ruins, and I can’t help being disappointed in that. I felt like I never quite got inside this story. There are a lot of characters, maybe 15 or 20 different narrators. Which was maybe too many. If we’d stuck with Gwendolen, the librarian turned detective turned nightclub manager, I might have been more invested, because she was delightful and full of surprises. I also got a little attached to Frobisher, the police inspector whose mission was to root out corruption in the police department and in the city, both jobs that desperately need to be done.
The person at the center of the novel, Nellie Coker, is maybe the person you (or any of the characters in the story) get to know the least. She has more nightclubs than she even has children, and she has a bunch of kids, so that’s saying something. She’s not a soft, fuzzy mother- she’s merciless, unsentimental, avaricious, and always has a plan to win. It’s the 1920s, and people are desperate to have fun, but London is no place for the innocent. Nellie gets out of prison for something about a liquor license, and her release is like that of a cue ball breaking the rack in billiards, setting in motion all the characters around her. Two different men- at least- are seeking her demise. Her oldest daughter, the one she trusts, has a big secret. Her younger son is (hilariously) trying to be a novelist. A young girl is trying to get a job as an actress or dancer, but winds up being a dance hostess in one of Nellie’s clubs. It’s a scary time to be a young girl in London- their bodies keep getting pulled out of the river.
A lot of dark things happen in this book, but it’s still mostly a romp. ...more
All unhappy families are not alike. This family had it all- money, time, the ability to nurture. But they cared so much more about competition that thAll unhappy families are not alike. This family had it all- money, time, the ability to nurture. But they cared so much more about competition that the children were terribly damaged.
This novel is based on a true story. It goes back and forth between the 1920s and the 1960s, to a day when the older sister, Enid, is waiting for a visit from her children in the nursing home where she lives. In the Great War, this very rich, titled family lost their heir, leaving his mother with tons of money, and two sisters, Joan and Enid, who are very competitive with each other. Enid is mentally ill, suffering from depression and maybe an inability to empathize. Joan is more normal emotionally. But both of them seem ruled by their mutual desire to defeat each other in their mother's heart and in her dispensation of the family fortune. Enid's children pay the price in their war, which seemed so needless. If they'd helped each other, everything could have been okay.
This is a chilly story, written by the daughter of one of these damaged children. I did get very absorbed in it....more
I don’t usually read romances, but goddamnit, The Great British Baking Show needs to be on more often. What do we get, a dozen episodes a year? I requI don’t usually read romances, but goddamnit, The Great British Baking Show needs to be on more often. What do we get, a dozen episodes a year? I require at least 2 or 3 times that many episodes to get through one of these lousy years we’re having. So I heard about this and thought, a Great British Baking Show romance? I need this book.
The male judge, Dominic, is like Paul Hollywood, but much hotter. (And inside, he’s a bit of a marshmallow.) And the new female judge used to be one of the bakers in the competition, the one who made a unicorn cake that accidentally shot frosting at Dominic’s head. His baking is amazing, but sedate and tasteful and usually white, while she likes color and magic and edible glitter. The book’s very silly, but I expected that. There could have been more bake-off in it though. This is a book that is absolutely STUFFED WITH BUSINESS. Aside from the romance and the show, there’s the wedding cake competition. There’s Dominic’s relationship with his sister, Sylvia’s relationship with her business partner, a secret relationship that a prince had long ago, a current princess’s relationship with her new, slightly bumbling fiance. Both of the two leads’ sad childhoods. So much. I just think this could have been shorter, had less sprawling side-plots, delved deeper into character, and included wittier conversations. Also, Sylvia was kind of annoyingly perfect and cute. I lost count of the number of times she chewed pensively on her lower lip. There was also a lot of fluttering: hearts, stomachs, eyelashes.
Hoo boy- this novel was steamy. Not reading romances since I was 13 or so, I’m out of practice at reading fairly graphic stuff, but it was pretty hot. I did enjoy this book, and actually finished it....more
I was super into this as I read it, but I suspect I might forget it fairly soon? It tells the not-unusual story of a love affair, a 40-ish upper classI was super into this as I read it, but I suspect I might forget it fairly soon? It tells the not-unusual story of a love affair, a 40-ish upper class housewife whose affair with a 25-ish counterculture-adjacent man upends her life. A lot of women realized in the 60s and 70s that they'd been smashed into these domestic roles they never even truly chose, and divorces exploded across the western world. I think this novel did an especially good job of talking about the terrible effect the patriarchy has both on men and women. The teenage daughter, whose family is torn apart by this, was an especially good character, crabby and questioning of all the gender bullshit the world was trying to force on her. And the son, who was maybe 10? Is sent to the crushing epicenter of patriarchy, an English boarding school, which kind of broke my heart. ...more
I hugely enjoyed this. At 200 pages in, I absolutely basked in the luxury of having 700 pages left of a book I was thoroughly enjoying. The story is aI hugely enjoyed this. At 200 pages in, I absolutely basked in the luxury of having 700 pages left of a book I was thoroughly enjoying. The story is about Sugar, a prostitute in Victorian London and the rich perfume magnate who makes her his mistress. These characters, and others in the periphery are very richly created indeed, as are the details about life as a poor person in London, life as a rich person in Notting Hill, life as a servant. A whole vivid panorama emerges, and I was there for it and I cared a lot about Sugar. This is like a Dickens novel but without Victorian hesitancy about sex or just even about bodies in general, and it has a decided feminist slant. It was a pleasure, and now that it's over, I'm kind of sad that I don't get to live in this world anymore, harsh as it could be.
This is so very much my jam that I can't quite believe that I missed it when it came out or that it took almost 20 years for me to read it....more
This was written in the 1950s- and it's been on my list for years. I'm torn between being sad that I didn't read it when I was younger and delighted tThis was written in the 1950s- and it's been on my list for years. I'm torn between being sad that I didn't read it when I was younger and delighted that I got to enjoy it for the first time during what is still a kind of crappy time in my life. Because it was such a pleasure.
Teenager Cassandra Mortmain, the narrator, has been sheltered away from the world in a crumbling castle her family has a long term lease on, but she still manages to have a lively mind and a warm heart. I just loved this narrator. The narrative takes the form of her diary, and she writes about her family, who is very poor- like, not enough to eat poor, like only have 2 raggedy towels to share among the 5 of them poor. When the book opens, they are in dire straits. The castle is falling apart, all the decent furniture has been sold, and there is no money coming in. Cassandra's mother died years ago, her father is a famous writer who hasn't written a book for a decade, she has a young, nice but odd stepmother, a beautiful and highly discontented older sister, Rose, and a younger brother who is still in school. Oh, and a servant they don't pay, a young man of about Cassandra's age, the son of a maid who died that they took care of (and allowed to work for them) after his mother died. Then- some young American men move into the manor house next door.
It's Cassandra's voice that makes this such a pleasure, and also watching things start low and move up and up. It's the perfect book to read for hours at a time while drinking tea while the wind blusters and the rain falls outside, which is what I did while I read this, and it was all delicious.
Spoilers below...
I feel like Rose gets judged a little too much in this book for being a gold-digger? You can't tell women they can't work and then blame them for trying to marry men who can support them.
I feel like the Mortmain family doesn't get judged enough for how they treat Stephen, who is basically a slave. He does all kinds of work around their own house, then goes and gets another job to feed these people.
I loved Cassandra's relationship with Simon and Neil, right from the start. She's such a good and charming friend! And I love that she held herself back from encouraging Simon to propose at the end. She's young. She's in love, but is smart enough to know that her story might still have all kinds of endings. I wish I'd been like that as a young woman, had let my story unfold instead of being a little desperate to nail things down.
Also, we should all have neighbors like Simon, Neil, and Mrs. Cotton. They wind up not only forgoing rent, but also paying for this family to live, offering school to Cassandra, giving them the use of a lovely apartment in London. I have really great friends, but I feel like maybe I should dump them and find friends like the Cottons? I would very much enjoy having the use of a lovely apartment in London.
I've loved the other 3 Sarah Waters books I've read, but this one... I was more than halfway through this very long book, and none of the characters wI've loved the other 3 Sarah Waters books I've read, but this one... I was more than halfway through this very long book, and none of the characters were having a very good time, and I wasn't either, so I decided to quit. After reading as long as I did, I should have known these people and cared about them, and I didn't really. It seems very well researched as to the time and place, and it did make me think about how absolutely awful it would have been to have to keep your relationships secret because violence and death and imprisonment could be the price you paid for loving openly. But other books were beckoning at me, so I left this one behind. Sad, because The Fingersmith, The Little Stranger, and The Paying Guests all MESMERISED me, almost made me call in sick so I could keep reading. Oh well. I eagerly await her next one....more
I liked this novel, which describes what it feels like to live with mental illness, but is still funny and warm and entertaining.
Something happened iI liked this novel, which describes what it feels like to live with mental illness, but is still funny and warm and entertaining.
Something happened in Martha's brain when she was a child, and life has been extremely difficult for her and for the people around her ever since. The people around her are vivid and interesting, a quirky and richly realized bunch, and her sister, Ingrid, made me laugh out loud repeatedly. One of my favorite things to find in fiction is a whole bunch of witty, unpredictable conversations, and this has plenty of them. It was a weird decision not to name Martha's disorder, when she finally, finally gets a diagnosis, but I guess it's bipolar disorder? Anyway, this is a book for people who like Marissa de los Santos books, Anne Tyler, and think Eleanor Oliphant, as well. I'll certainly be suggesting it to people....more
First book of the year and I loved it. Maybe 2021 WILL be better.
I love historical fiction in which you get all kinds of details about how people liveFirst book of the year and I loved it. Maybe 2021 WILL be better.
I love historical fiction in which you get all kinds of details about how people lived, the work they had to do to survive. This does a great job of this, with the added bonus that the language is so lovely. Very early is the book, Agnes, the main character, is gathering honey from her beehives. and I swear, while I was reading it, I could see the thick golden honey pouring into her container.
The author built this wonderful story on the very little that is known about the family of William Shakespeare, although Will himself is almost a secondary character. The Hamnet of the title was Agnes and Will's son, who died of the Plague at the age of 11. It explores the grief of this death for his parents. and how the tragedy of Hamlet had its foundation in this grief, and it also has things to say about marriage, family, long distance relationships. There's a long imaginative section about how the Plague makes it to Stratford-upon Avon from a flea on a monkey that a British cabin boy brings back to his ship after a foray to shore to bring food back for his shipmates. It tracing every step, and it's fascinating. At another point, the narrative follows a letter through all the steps it takes on its way from the family in Stratford to Will in London, and this is also fascinating. This book also boasts the truest (but still lyrical) description of childbirth I've ever read anywhere.
I loved it. The world of this novel is very close to that of Year of Wonders, by Geraldine Brooks, another favorite of mine. I listened to this as an audiobook, and the reader was great....more
It sucks to be a vulnerable female in a patriarchal world. Evangeline is a governess, seduced and impregnated by her employers' son, and she winds up It sucks to be a vulnerable female in a patriarchal world. Evangeline is a governess, seduced and impregnated by her employers' son, and she winds up in Newgate, then shipped off on a convict ship to Australia for wearing a family ring he gave her. On the convict ship, she meets Hazel, a bright, unschooled girl sent away at 16 for stealing a silver spoon. Hazel eventually winds up working at the governor's mansion in Tasmania, where she meets the only real, historical figure in this book, Methinna, an aboriginal girl stolen from her family to be an experiment and a display piece by the governor's dreadful wife. These three characters take turns being the narrator of this book.
This is perfectly fine historical fiction, but not much more. The person who winds up being the main character, Hazel, has a somewhat well-developed character, but the rest are pretty cardboardy, and the villain, Buck the sailor, is pretty much just a caricature, as is the doctor who keeps saving characters in this book. I was moved by the story of Methinna, who was treated abominably and wound up being very lonely with no place where she belonged.
On audiobook. The kind of book you gobble up, then forget, but the readers were quite good. There's a baby switch, the other dad is a psychopath, everOn audiobook. The kind of book you gobble up, then forget, but the readers were quite good. There's a baby switch, the other dad is a psychopath, everyone has secrets. I finished it 4 days ago and am already forgetting it, but Jesus, RBG died and everything sucks and this book sucked me in so I could get involved in someone else's life instead of having to live in my own....more
Nick Hornby is reliably good but not amazing, with a story that draws me in quickly and good characters, so when I saw there was a new one and the advNick Hornby is reliably good but not amazing, with a story that draws me in quickly and good characters, so when I saw there was a new one and the advance reader's copy was available, I jumped on it. I've had a very hard time sticking with books in this pandemic spring, and this was perfect. I'm really impressed with how good he is at creating female characters, too. This one is about a Brexit-era relationship between a 42-year-old divorced white English teacher and a working-class Black man who is 22. It considers differences between people in the U.K around Leave/Remain, as well as class and education differences between these two people. It was nice to be pulled into this story, kind of an escape, but not too much of one that it felt silly and inconsequential, because race was really important in this thoughtful novel....more
If you like to listen to audiobooks and you enjoyed Downton Abbey, golly, do I have a treat for you. This wasn’t really a proper book- it’s kind of a If you like to listen to audiobooks and you enjoyed Downton Abbey, golly, do I have a treat for you. This wasn’t really a proper book- it’s kind of a radio play based on a BBC miniseries based on five books, the Cazalet Chronicles. It’s basically a soap opera with lots of history in it done by really good actors. It was an absolutely fabulous thing to listen to as I lost any excitement I ever had about the 2020 Democratic primary as Elizabeth Warren dropped out and my heart broke.
There are lots of family members to get to know, so you have to concentrate in the first hour, but the distinctive actors make this easier. At the center of the book are three little girls, cousins, who grow up as the story goes on, but there are their aunts and uncles to get to know too, and a few family friends. It begins just before World War II and continues into the postwar period. They’re posh, not titled, but there’s old money, a family business and a large country estate. The characters are well-developed and the dialogue is wonderful, especially between the children. The marriages are often troubled, and there’s a lot of British stiff upper lip in evidence. Everyone tries to bear it, whatever it is, in silence, and when they break down and sob, there’s a great deal of apology in view. There’s a lot about the patriarchy, too, how much it sucked for women, and also for men. Also, surely more mentions of hot water bottles than any other book in history ever. I can only think that the author of the original books lived in a very drafty old house and was constantly chilly as she wrote.
I liked this, was interested in its structure and admiring of the quality of its writing, but somehow, it never quite grabbed my heart. I think maybe I liked this, was interested in its structure and admiring of the quality of its writing, but somehow, it never quite grabbed my heart. I think maybe because of the linked short story format? They were good, involving short stories, but just as you were getting involved with them, off you'd be to the next character. Once again I realize that I'm not quite a short story person. Also, although the stories all have a narrow focus, mostly on one person, the book's focus is quite wide, the U.K.'s black womanhood.
Twelve characters, mostly British, mostly black, mostly women tell stories about their lives, the people they loved and their families. We find out about them from their own stories, but also from how they show up in the stories of other narrators, so it winds up having the effect of a chorus. The language is interesting, poetic, but not quite poetry, it sounds natural, feels like the way real women think of their stories.
Spoilers down below- I mean, I guess they're spoilers?
My favorite stories- Dominique and her weird, controlling abusive girlfriend- that was the first thing in this novel grabbed me. I liked the story of Morgan's nonbinary journey. I couldn't BELIEVE the mother-in-law and her affair with her daughter's husband- yikes. The relationship between the difficult teacher character, Shirley, and Carole, the promising student she helped to elevate, was delicately teased out and very interesting. I really liked the cantankerous old matriarch at Christmas on her farm with her annoying family.
This is a hard one to talk about. It absorbed me while I was reading it, and I also think that it'll stick in my mind, that I'm still working out whatThis is a hard one to talk about. It absorbed me while I was reading it, and I also think that it'll stick in my mind, that I'm still working out what it meant, and that this is a good thing. This is very much a book of its time- Jo Baker is clearly doing what a lot of women are doing, reckoning with rape culture and its complexities. How it shows up in books- and TV shows- where the action starts with the discovery of a (usually beautiful and young) woman's body. How it shows up in our lives, stops us from doing things or being what we want to be. And how it just plain stops many women's lives- period. An awful lot of women are murdered by men who wants to have a say over what they do with their bodies.
The book starts with an assault, the kind of random, unlucky kind. It makes the narrator, a writer, want to hide, because who knows when just walking around in a woman's body will lead to danger and violence? It makes her want to leave London and go somewhere quieter. Then she gets a teaching job in the countryside, where she thinks she'll be safer. But she isn't safer.
I found this novel fascinating. Spoilers below:
The way the book leads up to her rape by the student makes you think about the way society would judge her. What was her mistake that led to this rape? Going to a student party? Having two or three drinks? Letting him walk her home? Letting him into the house? Not fighting back as hard as she could because she didn't want her toddler to have to witness what was happening? But hey, no- she didn't make a mistake, or not a mistake that led to her rape. She is not to blame....more
I almost quit this at about halfway through because I COULD NOT TAKE all the terrible sex this woman was putting up with, but I'm glad I didn't, becauI almost quit this at about halfway through because I COULD NOT TAKE all the terrible sex this woman was putting up with, but I'm glad I didn't, because watching her pull herself together was quite wonderful.
Queenie lives in London, is the granddaughter of Jamaican immigrants. She had an awful, awful stepfather and a mother who didn't stand up for her, and the trauma she experienced as a child is coming down hard on Queenie now that she's in her mid-20s. She drinks too much, is terrible at expressing her emotions, has had a painful breakup she isn't acknowledging as a breakup, and sleeps with awful, awful men. She's getting in trouble at work at a magazine, where she can't focus and spends too much time paying attention to her phone. The first half of the book is like watching a slow motion explosion- and then she puts herself back together. Against a background of black men getting killed by the police, this book doesn't shy away from the topic of race. Note: white men who are dating black women? DO NOT tell them their skin tastes like chocolate. Reading this book, you experience the parade of microaggressions and just plain aggressions a black woman has to experience just by being in the world. You can see the toll it took on Queenie's mother, the toll Queenie doesn't want it to take on her teenage niece. This book is great at showing the bumpy, difficult road to recovery, but it's also a lot of fun. Queenie's friends- who create a text group called "the Corgis", a reference to Queen Elizabeth's best friends- are interesting and delightful, and this novel offers a really full depiction of real women's friendships. Her family is also kind of great- the Jamaican grandparents, and Queenie's kvetching about them, are hilarious. I listened to this on audiobook, and the reader was wonderful, giving a varied cast of characters their own accents and personalities....more
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