In 2009, I owned a copy of this book when I lived in London. As with a few other books I had there, I never got around to reading it due to my graduate studies. These books became casualties of my move when I left. Since then, I continued to want to read it especially after reading March by the same author. In the last year, I heard someone in my book club read and I also found a copy of this in a Little Library. It seemed that the universe was telling me to finally read this book.

I really like Brooks’ writing style and how she researches a time period and historical events but weaves ordinary characters into them. She did the same here as she did in March where she has people in history acting as best they can in extraordinary circumstances. I like her prose and character writing and will read more from her.

Both novels are about difficult times and there is a lot of death. It actually got too grim and bleak as so many bad things happened to the characters in this book. Thankfully it’s not too long. I won’t recommend this book to people because there is very little levity in it.

I do appreciate how Brooks wrote about a time in history that I don’t see covered a lot in literary or contemporary novels. I wish there were more interesting novels about the 1600’s and 1700’s in the old world. The epilogue was satisfying and intriguing. That could be a whole novel in itself. At the core of this novel is a strong friendship between two women of different classes and wish we had even more of it.

4/5 stars. Read October 15-17, 2022.

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

This was a lovely YA novel. It’s is a queer love story and very good historical fiction. I found the writing mature and well done. If the main protagonist was a few years older, I could see how this could have been marketed as an adult novel. Really well done

Read Sept 5, 2022

The Maid by Nita Prosse

I noticed this bestseller mystery awhile back and was intrigued by the cover and the concept of the maid in an escape mystery. The protagonist maid is neurodivgerent and this reminded me of Curious Incident of Dog in the Night time. The plot was obvious and depended a lot on the naivety of the title character. I have mixed feelings on how the author leaned into this because it was part of the story that the character was gullible for a time. There is an additional twist at the end which I appreciated but I don’t think I liked this enough to read another book from the author.

Read September 7, 2022.

The Hygge Holiday by Rosie Blake

I shouldn’t have read this but I wanted something so mindless. This not something I normally read. It’s basically a Hallmark Christmas movie. The characters are all two dimensionally drawn and most of them are not that likeable. The ending is super sappy. I’m wondering if I should be pickier with my books these days. Thank goodness I read fast.

Read September 23-24, 2022.

Reticence (The Custard Protocol #4) by Gail Carriger

I have been reading this series for a few years now. They are mindless steampunk urban fantasy fun. Most of the characters are enjoyable and the author has added onto them over the years. I have read most but not all of this series. I did not know this book was the last in the series until the end. I felt a bit sad that it was over. I gave it a 4 for the solid end to the journey.

Read September 18-25, 2022.