91. The Women of Pemberly, Book 2

By Rebecca Ann Collins
Rated 4 Stars
From Library

I decided to continue on with this series.  While still a little dry it is becoming slightly addictive.

The Women of Pemberley follows the lives of five women, some from the beloved works of Jane Austen, some new from the author’s imagination, into a new era of post industrial revolution England, at the start of the Victorian Age. Vast changes are in motion, as they were throughout this dynamic century. The women, like many of Jane Austen’s heroines, are strong, intelligent individuals, and the depth and variety of the original characters develop into a series of episodes linked together by their relationship to each other and to Pemberley, which is the heart of their community. The central themes of love, friendship, marriage, and a sense of social obligation remain as do the great political and social issues of the age. "The stories are so well told one would enjoy them even if they were not sequels to any other novel."

90. Second Time Around

By:  Marcia Willett
Rated 4 Stars
From:  Library

Marcia Willett is very much a hit and miss author with me.  Fortunately this book was a hit.

LIBRARY SUMMARY:  Mathilda Rainbird bequeaths her home to three unknown relatives: twenty-two-year-old Tessa, who misses her dead parents and brother but has learned to live alone; Will, a widower, who is drawn to Mathilda’s housekeeper, Isobel; and Beatrice, a retired prep-school matron who thinks the idea of living with her cousins is preposterous.Deeply moving and utterly real,Second Time Aroundfeatures the shining honesty that Willett’s fans have come to love.

89. The Pemberly Chronicles Book 1

By Rebecca Ann Collins
Rated 4 Stars
From:  Library

Overall I would recommend it for any Austen fan. It did kind of drag a little because there was a lot of  detail given to the political and economic situation of Regency England. Jane Austen herself chose to ignore the world events of her time: i.e. Napoleonic wars but these were important factors in a rich landowner's life  and the author researched very well.  This book certainly wasn't the steamy kind of read many authors have chosen when writing a P&P pistache, I myself enjoyed it.  It left Jane Austen's characters with their dignity intact.

PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY:  "Those with a taste for the balance and humour of Austen will find a worthy companion volume."-Book News The weddings are over. The guests (including millions of readers and viewers) wish the two happy couples health and happiness. As the music swells and the credits roll, two things are certain: Jane and Bingley will want for nothing, while Elizabeth and Darcy are to be the happiest couple in the world! The couples' personal stories of love, marriage, money, and children are woven together with the threads of social and political history of nineteenth century England. As changes in industry and agriculture affect the people of Pemberley and the neighboring countryside, the Darcys strive to be progressive and forward-looking while upholding beloved traditions. Rebecca Ann Collins follows them in imagination, observing and chronicling their passage through the landscape of their surroundings, noting how they cope with change, triumph, and tragedy in their lives. "A lovely complementary novel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Austen would surely give her smile of approval." -Beverly Wong, author of Pride & Prejudice Prudence

88. The King's Daughter

By Sandra Worth
Rated 4.5 Stars
From:  Library

Seventeen-year-old Elizabeth of York trusts that her beloved father's dying wish has left England in the hands of a just and deserving ruler. But upon the rise of Richard of Gloucester, Elizabeth's family experiences one devastation after another: her late father is exposed as a bigamist, she and her siblings are branded bastards, and her brothers are taken into the new king's custody, then reportedly killed. But one fateful night leads Elizabeth to question her prejudices. Through the eyes of Richard's ailing queen she sees a man worthy of respect and undying adoration. His dedication to his people inspires a forbidden love and ultimately gives her the courage to accept her destiny, marry Henry Tudor, and become Queen. While her soul may secretly belong to another, her heart belongs to England…

87. The Time of Singing

By:  Elizabeth Chadwich
Rated 5+++++ Stars

Absolutely wonderful!

FROM ELIZABETH CHADWICK WEBSITE:  In 1173, Roger Bigod is heir to the vast and powerful earldom of Norfolk When his treacherous father, Hugh, loses the family lands and castles in a rebellion against King Henry II, Roger finds himself in reduced circumstances and dogged by a bitter family dispute with his half brother over the remaining crumbs. Whilst trying to resolve the matter, he encounters Ida de Tosney, the King's young mistress. Seduced by Henry, Ida's gaze is now drawn to Roger in whom she sees a chance of lasting security beyond the fickle dazzle of the court. But she has to navigate a careful path between her dearest wishes and the King's reluctance to part with her. Every fulfilled wish has its price, and that price is losing the son she has borne to Henry. When King Richard comes to the throne, Roger is restored to his family's lands and becomes a great earl, and one of the richest men in England. He builds a great castle at Framlingham for himself and for Ida, but life is still riddled with uncertainty as Richard goes on crusade and the men left to govern the country quarrel their way into civil war. Ida struggles to come to terms with their new future...

86. Crossroads

By Belva Plain
Rated 2 Stars
Purchased in Train Station

Something to read on train.

Plain's tepid latest focuses on two women—privileged but plain Gwen Wright and beautiful but poor Jewel Fairchild. Their lives occasionally intersect, and eventually Jewel marries a wealthy man and discovers that money can't buy happiness. Gwen, meanwhile, marries a poor but honest man—but she still finds herself drawn to Jewel's husband, and the foursome is soon tangled in a web of deceit. Unfortunately, Jewel and Gwen don't evolve throughout the novel; Gwen is a character that some readers might find intolerably perfect—smart, privileged, shy, well-spoken, with simple needs and a tragic past—but any irritation that one might have with her is eliminated by the calculating and shallow Jewel, who is too pathetic to be a legitimate antagonist and too tragic to really be hated. It functions well as a simplistic morality tale.

85. The Elfish Gene

By:  Mark Barrowcliff

Rated 4 Stars

From:  Purchased

My ten year old Great Grandson was very impressed that I was reading this.  He told me that for a Great Grandmother I read interesting books. 

--BOOK JACKET.  "In the summer of 1976, twelve-year-old Mark Barrowcliffe had the chance to be normal. He blew it. While other teenagers were being coolly rebellious, Mark - like twenty million other boys in the 1970s and 80s - chose to spend his entire adolescence pretending to be a wizard or a warrior, an evil priest or a dwarf. He had discovered Dungeons Dragons, and his life would never be the same. No longer would he have to settle for being Mark Barrowcliffe, an ordinary awkward teenager from working-class Coventry; he could be Alf the Elf, Foghat the Gnome or Effilc Worrab, an elf warrior with the head of a mule." "Armed with only pen, paper and some funny-shaped dice, this lost generation gave themselves up to the craze of fantasy role-playing games and everything that went with it - from heavy metal to magic mushrooms to believing your bike is a horse named Shadowfax. Spat at by bullies, laughed at by girls, now they rule the world. They were the geeks, the fantasy wargamers, and this is their story."

84. The Hour I first Believed

By Wally Lamb

Rated:  One Star

From:  Purchased

This book was at least well written but way to depressing for me to enjoy.

Relocating to a family farm in Connecticut after surviving the Columbine school shootings, Caelum and Maureen discover a cache of family memorabilia dating back five generations, which reveals to Caelum unexpected truths about painful past events.

83. A House in Fez

By Susanna Clarke

Rated 5 Stars

From:  Purchased

http://riadzany.blogspot.com/2007/11/house-in-fez-book-launch.html

82. Nella Last's War

There is so much to like about this book that I am almost having a hard time writing about it.  For one thing Nella Last is one of the most eloquent writers I have ever seen.  She says in one part that if she had been clever enough she would have liked to write books.  Well I beg to differ with her - she is most assuredly clever enough.  Like you I am impressed that the British Government had the time to put together a project like the Observation Project.  They were incredibly lucky to catch Nella Last in the wide net they cast to find "ordinary" people to contribute their actual experiences in the form of a diary.  Aside from some reallhy eloquent writing what comes through to me is the breath taking honesty with which she bares her soul when she discusses her reactions and feelings as the war goes on. From all she writes of her crafts projects that she has turned into assisting in the war effort that she always had been a very creative person as well as sensitive and caring.   I would very much like to see the DVD and also there is a sequel coming out called Nella Last's Peace where presumably she continues her diary through the post war period.

One of the passages she wrote that I flagged as I read through the book is where she discusses how her work with the W.V.S. and various other projects  has changed her.  It gets more and more evident as you read through that while she has some affection for her husband (they have been married about 30 years) she has very little, if any respect for him as a person.  In fact, in the whole entire book she never once refers to him by his name - always as my husband.  Any way this passage struck me:

"When she had gone out, my husband said, 'You know, you amaze me really, when I think of the wretched health you had just before the war, and how long it took you to recover from that nervous breakdown.' I said, 'Well, I'm in rhythm now, instead of always fighting against things' - but stopped when I saw the hurt, surprised look on his face.  He never realises, and never could, that the years when I had to be quiet and always do everything he liked, and never the things he did not, were slavery years of mind and body."

And from page 195 - this made me laugh  - "As I walked I junketed off in my mind on a gay road of 'what I'd like to be next time I came".  I think I'd like to be a man and have the freedom to go to the far ends of the earth, to do things and see places, to go where few, if any, have travelled and be clever enough to write about it."

And the last bit I am going to bore you all with "The countryside was a painted glory of crimson and gold and green, so heartbreakingly lovely and it was impossible to believe that in the South - our South - there was death and destruction.  I wonder if everyone has the queer disbelief that I have so often.  And will keep it until bombs come and work havoc in Barrow, and I've seen destruction and death for myself?  I feel as if between me and the poor Londonpeople there is a thick fog, and it is only at intervals that I can believe it is our own people - not Spaniards or Dutch or French."

I cannot thank you enough Kathy for recommending this book.

81. The Bee Keeper's Apprentice

Rated 5 Stars
Re-read
From own shelves

What would happen if Sherlock Homles, a perfect man of the Victorian age--pompous, smug, and misogynisitic--were to come face to face with a twentieth-century female? If she grew to be a partner worthy of his great talents?Laurie R. King, whose very different first novel,. A Grave Talent (SMP, 1993), drew rave reviews, read the Conan Doyle stories and wondered about such an imaginary encounter. And following through, she has written The Beekeeper's Apprentice.1914, a young woman named Mary Russell meets a retired beekeeper on the Sussex Downs. His name is Sherlock Holmes. And although he may have all the Victorian "flaws" listed above, the Great Detective is no fool, and can spot a fellow intellect even in a fifteen-year-old woman.So, at first informally, then consciously, he takes Mary Russell as his apprentice. They work on a few small local cases, then on a larger and more urgent investigation, which ends successfully. All the time, Mary is developing as a detective in her own right, with the benefit of the knowledge and experience of her mentor and, increasingly, friend.And then the sky opens on them, and they find themselves the targets of a slippery, murderous, and apparently all-knowing adversary. Together they devise a plan to trap their enemy--a plan that may save their lives but may also kill off their relationship.This is not a "Sherlock Holmes" story. It is the story of a modern young woman who comes to know and work with Holmes, the story of young woman coming to terms with herself and with this older man who embodies the age that is past.

78. Identical Strangers

Rate 4 Stars
From Library

Elyse had always known she was adopted, but it wasn't until her mid-thirties that she searched for her biological mother. She was not prepared for the life-changing news: she had an identical twin sister. Not only that: she and her sister, for a time, had been part of a secret study on separated twins. Paula also knew she was adopted, but had no inclination to find her birth mother. When she answered the phone one spring afternoon, her life suddenly changed. As they take their tentative first steps from strangers to sisters, Paula and Elyse are also left with haunting questions. As they investigate their birth mother's past, they begin to solve the puzzle of their lives. Interweaving eye-opening studies and statistics on twin science into their narrative, they offer an intelligent and heartfelt glimpse into human nature.--From publisher description.