Duplicate Death by Georgette Heyer

ISBN: 978-0755108855

This was surprisingly fab. I am a dedicated reader of Heyers Regency Romances (who isn’t? – my hubby like Infamous Army and I love him the more for it!!! ) . Due to Regency love I put off reading her thrilers until reaching this advanced age – what a mistake to make!! This book is a mildly demented mix of Agatha Christie and Jane Austen – brilliant stuff…

Plot: Dope: There is a neat drugs sub plot
Rope: Well wire actually – the instrument of death
Hope: Wronged woman – righted

Characters: Brilliant Detective. Fab heroes and Heroines and wonderfully souless side characters who you are always hoping will be gruesomely bumped off.

What to love: Really rather lovely characters. Humourously drawn – by turns gentle and quite wicked. Heyers gift for the cruel caricature is used to its upmost.

What to loathe: Hideously casual homophobia – fairly typical off the time but quite jarring to read. Sort of jolts you out of the book and sympathy with the characters.

Buy, Borrow or Bin: Buy – Really very good – and worth reading again even when you know who has done it.

If this book was a drink it would be: Home made spicy hot chocolate – mostly lovely but sometimes you end up drinking the nasty dregs and it can spoil your love for the whole.

On the Georgette Heyer Site

Faking It by Jennifer Crusie

ISBN: 978-0312932787

This is one of my favourite Jenny Crusie books. Which means it is one of my favourite ooks of all time. I have only have it two months and the cover is already completely ragged from rereadings in the bath. I love it – she makes me laugh and actually care about ALL the characters all the time.

Plot:
Fakery – (of paintings, fortunes, secondary personalities and careers)
Bakery – (Are men muffins [keepers] or donuts [moment on your lips lifetime on your hips [[in the BAD way]])
Make (out) ery – NOT to channel Paris Hilton or anything but this book is hot

Characters: Really good characterisation – no surprise from Crusie as she is a writer who delivers believable people acting true to themselves whilst going through one hell of a plot arc. (It always seems strangely feasible whilst you are reading in this case you believe in con men, split personalities, precociously brilliant teens, delinquent parents (Heroes dad is hilarious) and a completely incompetent femme fatale who (accidentally) kills her men for very little profit.

What to love: All the secondary characters. All the main characters. The intricacy of the plot. The humour. The sex. The happy ever after. The comparison of people to baked goods – I do that myself quite ofen. (In case you were wondering you are a perfect slice of apple cake just from reading this blog. Practically the top of the cake hierarchy…)

What to loathe: Hmmm…. Sometimes Louise/Eve felt she had been changed to fit into the plot – but then she is not exactly a stable character – so maybe she really is written how she is supposed to be written – I love her anyway – so I take all that back – it is all great!!!

Buy, Borrow or Bin: Buy – Multiple copies. Lend them to sad friends

If this book was a drink it would be: The perfect ginger beer of the book world. If you are wondering… in my lexicon that means it is spicy, cool and strangely sophisticated whilst totally wholesome – combined with a great sense of fun.

Here is a link to the author page about the book including the first chapter so you can make your own mind up: Faking It

And this is the book on Amazon so you can see what the book buying world thinks: Amazon

Sunshine by Robin McKinley

This is another of my favourite books.

10 Great things about this book

1. The heroine loves baking and understands the profoundly mystical significance of cinnamon rolls as large as your head.

2. The heroine has learnt many useful and lifesaving things from her dedicated novel and trashy newsfeed reading habit (See – it is good for me!!)

3. Decent plot

4. Great ensemble cast

5. Convincing world building – You can see the world Sunshine lives in

6. Quiet heroes – Like Mr Darcy both Con and Mel benefit from saying little but acting with integrity

7. Great baddies human and non human

8. No annoying Rice-ian sex scenes despite the fact Vampires exist in the world

9. Great anthromorphism – I like the way McKinley creates characters for things as well as people. It keeps things lively

10. Happy Ever After

How to be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the art of Comfort Cooking – Nigella Lawson

ISBN: 978-0701171087

Warning: Do not read if even the slightest bit hungry.

Those put off by the overly blousy sexy Nigella of recent tv series should not be.

This is why the women became famous in the first place. She really seems to write cook books for women. Real women who love the ida of cooking, who understand the sheer tactile joy that can be had from whipping up a batch of meltingly warm cupcakes for the menfolk.

I don’t mean to be all unreconstructed here – but there is definitely a kind of power in home baking. Whether it is the sheer awe it inspires in all the chaps in my house or just walking around the house in a lovely warm cloud of vanillla, whatever it is …that sense of warmth and mystery is found in this book.

Nigella gets it, she quantifies it and she has pulled together some lovely recipes so you can repeat it. Its a great book.

DON’T even look at it if you are contemplating a diet.

Nigella’s site - the recipe section is fun – if only for the seriously random recipes and comments some people have posted

The Making of a Marchioness Frances Hodgson Burnett

ISBN 1903155142

A more or less grown up read by the writer of The Secret Garden

This is a lovely book. In all the ways a books can be lovely. The only way it could be lovelier is if it was the worlds first nice smelling scratch and sniff book.

I read this book in its latest incarnation as a Persephone Book.

(If you don’t know Persephone are a brilliant publishing house that specialise in reprinting literary gems that ladies will love to read. Each title is bound in lovely silver soft cover with a distinctive print on the inside.)

The story itself is a Worthy Cinderella tale that segues into a wonderfully melodramatic thriller. I love it because even though it is sort of a romance it is more a book abot women and the triumph of character over adversity. Also the best thing in it is the female friendships – which hardly ever get written about in a convincing manner in modern books.

This satisfies on pretty much all levels for me and has serious re-readability.

Plot: Turn of the 19/20th C Cinderella with a basket of fish instead of a glass slipper. Also a slice of life after Happily Ever After ….

Characters: Caricatures – but it kind of works as they are a reflection of the strangely mannered world of the British upper and middle classes.

What to love: Emily Fox-Seton is a very lovable heroine and her triumph over adversity through sheer (strangely not nauseating) sweetness of nature is refreshing. The ascerbic Lady Maria brightens up things immeasurably.

What to loathe: The unthinkingly racist, classist and sexist nature of pretty much everything in it. This really is a book of it’s time. Do not read it expecting it to be modern and fair in outlook. It is a product of Empire…

Buy, Borrow or Bin: Buy

If this book was a drink it would be: A ladylike cup of tea in bone china served with lavender biscuits.

Read about it

Read the scanned text

good reads reviews

The Secret Diaries of Miranda Cheever by Julia Quinn

***** out of ***** then downgraded to ****

Enjoyable fluff. Julia Quinn’s stuff is always funny and barely historical. Like Loretta Chase on a sugar rush.

Genre: Historical Romance

Read: 29/8/2007 and 14/11/2007

Cary Grant: A Class Apart by Graham McCann

***** out of *****

Very good. Readable, well researched, rakes up the salacious gossip (and sources) but is never salacious in itself. And of course Cary is an interesting subject.

Genre: Biog

Read: 6/12/2007

Hex and the Single Girl by Valerie Frankel

*** out of *****

Good premise wasted. The author has potential just for the idea though.

Genre: Modern Romance

Read: 20/8/2007

The Scot, the Witch and the Wardrobe by Annette Blair

**** out of *****

Promisingly entertaining and original but falls apart. Plot disjointed, character motivation jumps about all over the place and there is too much sex. I would try another of her books, but if it is as disjointed then it won’t be worth the bother.

Genre: Modern Romance

Read: 19/12/2007

The Act of Roger Murgatroyd by Gilbert Adair

*** out of *****

An Agatha Christie pastiche, more in love with being funny than being a good mystery. Everyone is a caricature so it is hard to care about them. Readable but not as good as a Christie and not really that funny either.

Genre: Mystery Pastiche

Read: 8/3/2008