Emma Vol 4 by Kaoru Mori

Secrets are revealed when Emma makes a return visit to London

Behind William's upstanding exterior, he is still despondent over losing Emma. His sister's friend Eleanor is doing everything she can to insinuate herself into his life - perhaps on a permanent basis! As for Emma, she is on her way back to London to accompany the mysterious Mrs. Trollop to an important social event - an event that holds some shocking surprises!

Emma and William are separated by their different social positions, by circumstance, and by distance, as they were for most of the last book. William is still in London, and is still seen as a very eligible young gentleman. He is also the target of one young woman's desire. Eleanor is a friend of William's sister, and she is determined to catch William's eye but he is relatively oblivious to her intentions.

I loved the glimpses we get of various aspects of Victorian life in these books. For example, in this book William and Eleanor go to the opera, and she declares her feelings. The next day, her firebrand sister takes matters into her own hands, and challenges William regarding his intentions for Eleanor and being above all honourable, William does what is expected of him.

Meanwhile, Emma is still working at a house in the country, that is until she is chosen to accompany her mistress to London. When in London, she finds herself attending a party in the capacity of companion to a friend of her mistress, not realising just what event the party is a celebration for. Of course, she cannot attend a high society party in her uniform, so she is given a makeover.

The scene is set for Emma and William to meet again. I have to say the anguish in the last few pages of this bookwas jumping off the page! I can't wait to read the next book in this series!

One thing I was a little surprised by in this book was that there was an introduction of a little nudity into the story. Because this is the fourth book in the series that I have read, and there has been no sign of that before, it was a bit of a shock when I turned the page and saw it. It is not overwhelming or even all that out of place. Just surprising!

Another really good entry into this series. Despite the fact that I the last two books I have read have been graphic novels, I wouldn't particularly say I read a lot of them. When this series finishes, I will have to try and find another accessible manga series to read.


Rating 4/5

You can read my mini-reviews of the first three books in this series here.

Alphabet in Historical Fiction: Beverly Swerling's New York

New York is one of the places on my one day list - one day I will get there! I have been to other parts of America but I haven't made it to the east coast at all yet.

I was looking at the books that I had out from the library and was tossing up between reading a couple of novels, when I realised that City of God by Beverly Swerling would be a perfect choice for the letter N for the Alphabet in Historical Fiction challenge hosted by Historical Tapestry - N for New York!

The main characters of these novels are the Turners and the Devreys - originally descended from a brother and sister, this is a family that is intrinsically linked to New York from its early days, and who are intensely divided over the years by any number of differences of opinion!

New York is as much a character in the novels of Beverly Swerling as any of the people who live their lives through the pages of her novels and we follow the growth and expansion from a small colony known as Nieuw Amsterdam during the 1660s and beyond in City of Dreams: A Novel of Nieuw Amsterdam and Early Manhattan, to northern New York State on the frontiers in Shadowbrook: A Novel of Love, War, and the Birth of America, to New York in 1814 when the city is being blockaded by the British in City of Glory: A Novel of War and Desire in Old Manhattan, and now to 1833 as the city is in the grip of religious fervour in City of God: A Novel of Passion and Wonder in Old New York.

The scope of Swerling's novels is pretty big. We get to meet many famous names - like the Astors for example - and the author covers not only the development of the city itself, but also medical advances, major historical events, development of New York institutions like Wall Street and Tiffany & Co, the issues around various waves of immigration and so much more!

You can read my reviews of the first three books at the following links:

City of Dreams
Shadowbrook
City of Glory

And you can have a look at trailers for each of the books at Beverly Swerling's website.

In the meantime, here are my thoughts about City of God: A Novel of Passion and Wonder in Old New York, the latest instalment in this excellent series.

City of God, the latest installment in Beverly Swerling's gripping saga of old New York, takes readers to Manhattan's clamorous streets as the nation struggles to find a compromise between slave and free, but hears the drums of war. This is New York when one synagogue is no longer adequate for thousands of Jewish immigrants, when New Evangelicals rouse complacent Protestants with the promise of born-again salvation, and when it first sees Catholic nuns and calls them whores of Satan. It is New York when ships bring the fabulous wealth of nations to its wharves and auction houses, while a short distance away rival gangs fight to the death with broken bottles and teeth filed to points.

Into this churning cauldron comes young Dr. Nicholas Turner. Nick knows that the discoveries of antisepsis and anesthesia promise medical miracles beyond the dreams of ages. He learns that to make such progress reality he must battle the city's corrupt politics and survive the snake pit that is Bellevue Hospital, all while resisting his love for the beautiful Carolina Devrey, his cousin's wife. Sam Devrey, head of the shipping company that bears his name and a visionary who believes the future will be ushered in by mighty clipper ships spreading acres of sail, battles demons of his own. The life he lives with Carolina in the elegant brownstone on newly fashionable Fifth Avenue is a charade meant to disguise his heart's true home, the secret downtown apartment of the exquisite Mei-hua, his Chinese child-bride. The worlds of all four are imperiled when Sam must rely on Nick's skills to save the woman he loves, and only Nick's honor guards Sam's secret. On a night when promises of hellfire seem to become reality and the city nearly burns to the ground, Carolina and Mei-hua confront the truth of their duplicitous marriages. Rage and revenge join love and passion as driving forces in a story played out against the background of the glittering New York that rises from the ashes, where Delmonico's and the Astor House host bejeweled women and top-hatted men, both with the din of commerce in their ears and the glint of gold in their eyes.

As always, Swerling has conjured a dazzling cast of characters to people her city. Among those seeking born-again salvation are Addie Bellingham, befriended by the widow Manon Turner but willing to betray her, and Lilac Langton, who confesses her sins but avoids mentioning that she's a skilled abortionist in a city that has recently made abortion a crime. Ben Klein, a brilliant young physician, must balance devotion to his mentor and dedication to research with duty to the Jewish community. Wilbur Randolf, Carolina's father, indulges her in everything but fails her when she needs him most. Jenny Worthington, Wilbur's longtime mistress, is driven by avarice to make common cause with Fearless Flannagan, a member of a New York police force as corrupt as the city it serves. Ah Chee, Mei-hua's devoted servant, struggles through Manhattan's streets on bound feet and burns incense to the kitchen god in this place of foreign devils. They are all here, heroines and saints, villains and victims, and a vanished New York made to live again in an intricate tale of old debts and new rivalries.

This is the fourth book I have read by Beverly Swerling, and I have to come to expect a number of things from them. One is that there will be strong focus on medical procedures, one is that there will be a further development in the Turner-Devrey rivalry, that there will be a strong willed woman who comes to the fore, and that we will get to see some of the key events in American history through the course of the pages. This book is no exception. We get all of that and more.

The book spans a period of around 20 years prior to the start of the Civil War. At this time, there has been a sharp influx in the number of people who call New York home with many of the new immigrants being either Jewish or Catholic, particularly of Irish descent. With them comes a level of religious diversity that is not necessarily integrated into the life of the city, particularly as there is a religious revival movement occurring at the same time. The city struggles to deal with the growth, particularly the unprecedented levels of poverty. For the revivalists, poverty seems to be the price of sin, so any attempts to help the poor are rebuffed, and any attempts at scientific improvements are actively discouraged.

The main characters at the start of the novel are Samuel Devreys and Nicholas Turner. Samuel is head of Devreys Shipping, answerable only to Jacob Astor. He spent many years in the Orient as a youngster and in his heart would love to return there. Nicholas Turner is a doctor who has recently moved back to New York and wants to start his work at the hospital that his grandfather worked at before him. Nicholas hopes to improve the atrocious conditions at Bellevue but on all sides is surrounded by corruption and bribery. His big passion though is research. When he hears of a new substance that promises pain free surgery, he is very excited but when his display of the new technology is sabotaged he finds himself instead in private practice.

Samuel is a man with divided priorities. He wants to reclaim his birthright from the Astors, and he is working on a design for the fastest ships known to man, to try and exploit the links that he has to Chinese traders, specifically within the opium trade. He is unhappily married to a lovely young woman, Caroline Randolph, but his heart belongs to his Chinese wife Mei-Hua. In his drive to reclaim his shipping company, he over strives and miscalculates, and finds his life in a downward spiral, particularly once he starts to sample the wares.

Samuel and Nicholas's paths cross on numerous occasions, and as a result he is one of the few who knows of Samuel's secret life after he saves Mei-Hua following a botched abortion and later delivers their daughter Mei-Lin. Nicholas has his own cross to bear though, for he is in love with Caroline. The relationships are unorthodox and to an extent must be hidden in this time when appearances matter more than anything.


The themes and subplots within this novel are numerous, and there are a couple of strands at least that do seem to get a little bit lost in the mix. For example, Lilac Langton's role in the novel could have been key without having quite so much time spent on it. Either that, or she needed to be more of a major character and had more of a major role. What we had instead was pages dedicated to her but the actually thread of story for her seemed rather superfluous to the story as a whole.  In addition to the medical achievements of the age, the coming age of steam shipping,  and the conflict between the old ways and the new (from a Jewish and a Chinese perspective), there is also discussion of slavery (in particular the underground railway), of the growth of the ever expanding city (including references to the plan to start Central Park, the start of Tiffany and Co, for example), the influence and control of criminals in the developing city, and so much more.

For me, this book didn't quite reach the same stellar reading experience of City of Dreams and City of Glory, but I enjoyed it enough to still be pleased at the news of of another book featuring the Turners and the Devreys and I can't wait to read it! Just in the last few pages, there was something that happened that makes me hope that Caroline's son Zachary plays a prominent role in the next book as he has the capacity to be a multi faceted character.

This was also my July read for the Year of the Historical Challenge.

Rating: 4/5

Another one bites the dust!

Another reading challenge that is! And this time it is the Vampire Series Reading Challenge.

The books that I read for this challenge are:

The Struggle by L J Smith
Tempted by PC Cast and Kristin Cast
When Twilight Burns by Colleen Gleason
The Fury by L J Smith
Burned by PC Cast and Kristin Cast
Twilight: The Graphic Novel by Stephenie Meyer (illustrated by Young Kim)

Library Loot: July 7 to July 13

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva and myself that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

Before I share my loot, I would like to apologise to my fellow Loot participants. I generally try to get around to each person's blog to comment on their loot posts, but it just hasn't happened for the last few weeks. I promise to try and do better!

Now that is out of the way, here is the loot that I got from my library this week.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley - I am a sucker for this kind of title on a book! I have seen it mentioned a few times on the blogs so finally picked it up this week.

Seducing an Angel by Mary Balogh - The next book in the Huxtable quintet. I am partial to purple!

Ellie by Lesley Pearse - I was actually looking at a different book that I really wanted to read but put it back on the shelf when I realised that it was 750 pages long. The irony this book is 730 pages. Those 20 pages make ALL the difference! When I picked this one up off the shelf I thought it must be a new release, but I think it is more likely that it is a new copy of the book at the library given that it actually came out more than 10 years ago. I have never read this author, but I have heard good things about her.


The following books are all reloot. Maybe this will be the time I actually get to read them?

The Sharing Knife by Lois McMaster Bujold 

Divided in Death by J D Robb

Sabriel by Garth Nix

What did you get out from the library this week? Add your link to Mr Linky so that we can all come and be a bit nosy and see what you borrowed!

BBAW post

I ummed and ahhed about nominating for the awards, and have left it to the last minute, but this post is my nomination post for Best Eclectic Book Blog for BBAW.

LOTR Readalong: The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Classics Circuit: Those Devilish Alastairs
To Defy a King by Elizabeth Chadwick
Getting Voice Right
Armchair BEA/Book Blogger Con

It looks like my reading is a lot more eclectic than my reviewing! Good thing there is always room for improvement in blogging.

Teaser Tuesday: City of God by Beverly Swerling

This week my teaser comes from City of God by Beverly Swerling. I have big plans to have a review up for this book before the end of the week. Will have to see if that comes to fruition or not!

All four of Beverly Swerling's books have dealt with the history of New York and this teaser is speaking of one of the big events in the city's history. The teaser comes from page 172:

By three A.M on Wall Street the supposedly fireproof Merchants' Exchange had gone up, the greeddy flames devouring even stone and iron. When the sixty-foot cupola crashed to the ground, the seven men who had been trying to rescue the life-size bronze statue of Alexander Hamilton had to jump out of the way to save their lives, and Hamilton's statue was smashed to pieces by falling chunks of marble. By four the Tontine Coffee House, three blocks to the east, was ashes as well.

Teaser Tuesday is host by Miz B at Should Be Reading. Head on over to find out all about it, and how to join in!

Currently Reading: Shadow of the King by Helen Hollick

I have just started reading Shadow of the King by Helen Hollick, which is the third book in the Pendragon's Banner trilogy - all about Arthur and Gwenhwyfar! I read and enjoyed the first two, and I am looking forward to seeing how it is all going to end in this version of the tale, although I am not sure that I am looking forward to it, if that makes any sense! Maybe I should have said I want to see how it is all going to end.

Recently Helen has announced that all of her covers have been redesigned for her new UK publisher, and I have to say, they are very good, particularly for the Sea Witch series, which is what I am planning to read next from this author!

On the left is the cover of the book I have out from the library, and below are the new covers for both series.

Twilight: The Graphic Novel Vol 1 - Stephenie Meyer and Young Kim

When Isabella Swan moves to the gloomy town of Forks and meets the mysterious, alluring Edward Cullen, her life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. With his porcelain skin, golden eyes, mesmerizing voice, and supernatural gifts, Edward is both irresistible and impenetrable. Up until now, he has managed to keep his true identity hidden, but Bella is determined to uncover his dark secret...

Beautifully rendered, this first installment of Twilight: The Graphic Novel is a must-have for any collector's collection.

The current trend to turn successful novels and series into graphic novels is one which has passed me by to a certain extent. Whilst I know for example that there is a graphic novel of Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series, I haven't yet managed to read it. In fact, most of the graphic novels that I have read have all started out as graphic novels and not been converted from an existing series. I actually think I prefer the idea of the upcoming Outlander graphic novel a bit better. Rather than a straight retelling of one of the existing books, it is a companion story and will have new events to share with the reader.

This graphic novel was a pleasant surprise, in that it tells the story that is familiar that is told in the first of the Twilight novels and in a some what altered fashion in the movie, it was good to see that the imagery used in the graphic novel didn't seem to have been influenced by the movie in terms of the way that the characters were portrayed. The only thing is that I still like the way that Charlie Swan looks in the movie! I can't remember who the actor is that plays him, but for me he is still one of the best parts of the movies.

Young Kim has done an excellent job of illustrating the events in the book, and bringing Stephenie Meyer's words into a new medium. 

I would say that I would happily drool over the Edward from the graphic novel more than I would ever drool over Robert Pattinson. Jacob not so much.

One thing that Bella from the graphic novel and the movie do have in common is that they both have good hair! I know that for graphic novel Bella was drawn that way (to paraphrase Jessica Rabbit), but it doesn't stop this hair-challenged person being envious!


This book counted for the Vampire Series challenge, and I have now completed that challenge. I will do a wrap up post later this week.

Actually, yesterday was a bit of a Twilight day really, because in addition to reading this, I also went and saw Eclipse with a group of friends. I liked it a lot. The movies have definitely improved a lot. I do look forward to watching Breaking Dawn, but I must confess that I am concerned with how a few things are going to be portrayed given that there were a few moments in the book that had me wanting to throw the book at the wall! I guess we will see in due course how I like the movie.

TSS: Reading Series (Part II)

I have made no secret of the fact that I love to read series. One of my earliest unofficial TSS posts was all about the pros and cons of reading series. For the next couple of weeks, I am going to be doing something I am a little scared of actually quantifying, and that is exactly how many series there are that I have been reading since I started keeping track of series on my spreadsheets. I did do a similar exercise a couple of years ago that was shocking enough, but it is fair to say that I will have finished a few series since that time, but I will have started a lot more!

This week I am going to list the series that I have either finished all up, or where I am waiting with varying degrees of anticipation for the next book to be released, and then my TSS post next week will be the series that I am reading where there are more books that have already been published that I haven't yet read!

For the purposes of defining a series, I am counting duologies and trilogies where the books are obviously linked. The links below will take you to my reviews of these books where I have written them and I have made some comments on some of the entries.

I have no doubt that there will be other trilogies/series that I haven't got on my list that I have started, but this is based on the spreadsheets that I try to keep as up to date as possible but doesn't include any series that I finished reading prior to May 2007.

Finished series

• Royal Brotherhood - Sabrina Jeffries
• Makepeace Burke series - Diana Norman (**This is the real name of Ariana Franklin who is the author of the successful Mistress of the Art of Death series**)
• Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants - Ann Brashares
• Tir Alainin trilogy - Anne Bishop
• Rose Hunters - Connie Brockway
• Bridgertons - Julia Quinn (**Except for the second epilogues anyway)
• Dalriaida trilogy - Jules Watson
• Princes trilogy - Elizabeth Hoyt
• Donally Family - Melody Thomas
• Josephine B trilogy - Sandra Gulland
• Lessons in Love - Suzanne Enoch
• Illegitimate Heirs -Kathie DeNosky
• Simply Series - Mary Balogh
• Boudica - Manda Scott
• Chronicles of the War Lord - Elizabeth Vaughan
• Bubbles Yablonksy- Sarah Strohmeyer (**This series ended at a very strange point. It didn't really feel finished but I am pretty sure that the author doesn't have any intention of going back to this series. She is writing different kinds of books these days.**)
• Brides of St Leger -Susan Carroll
• Wallflowers - Lisa Kleypas
• Ursula Blanchard - Fiona Buckley (**This is a series I would like to see more of, and that didn't really feel finished, but I haven't heard anything about any suggestion of a new release so I am assuming it is done.**)
• Ravenstow trilogy - Elizabeth Chadwick
• Knights Miscellany - Gaelen Foley
• Sign of Seven Trilogy - Nora Roberts
• Travis trilogy - Lisa Kleypas (**These are the contemporary novels from Lisa Kleypas. I haven't heard that there are any more on the way so I have included them here, but it wouldn't surprise me if there are more connected books in due course**)
• Rothwells - Madeline Hunter
• School for Heiresses - Sabrina Jeffries
• Rebel Angels- Libba Bray
• Daughters of Ardmore - Nora Roberts
• Ephemera duology - Anne Bishop (** I am not 100% sure that I didn't hear that there is going to be a new book in this series**)
• Nefertiti -Michelle Moran (**Not generally considered to be a series, but I consider the first two books in particular closely linked enough to be considered as such**)
• Harper Connelly- Charlaine Harris
• Legend of the Four Soldiers -Elizabeth Hoyt
• Fred the Mermaid - Mary Janice Davidson
• Vicky Bliss- Elizabeth Peters
• Keys to the Kingdom - Garth Nix
• Desperate Duchesses - Eloisa James
• Millenium Trilogy - Stieg Larsson
• Into the Wilderness - Sara Donati

So if you are counting along at home that is 37 series that I have finished since May 2007. I am actually pleasantly surprised by that number until I realised that in this same time I have started a further 81 series!

Series where I am waiting for the next book

• Cate Madigan  - Janet Evanovich and Leanne Banks (**I actually have no idea if there are going to be more books in this series. I am thinking probably not!**)
• Pink Carnation - Lauren Willig
• Walsh sisters - Marian Keyes
• Temeraire - Naomi Novik (**Not too long to wait for the next book in this series thank goodness**)
• Fever series - Karen Marie Moning
• Alex Barnaby - Janet Evanovich
• Nursery Crimes - Jasper Fforde
• Thursday Next - Jasper Fforde
• Lord John - Diana Gabaldon (**I am assuming that there are going to be more in this series**)
• Robert Langdon -  Dan Brown (**Again assuming there is going to be another one**)
• Indian series - John Speed (**No news on the next book for this series**)
• Jackson Brodie - Kate Atkinson
• Emily, Lady Ashton - Tasha Alexander
• The Silent Series - Deanna Raybourn
• Nadia Stafford - Kelley Armstrong
• Emily Tempest - Adrian Hyland
• Conqueror series - Conn Iggulden
• House of Night - PC and Kristin Cast
• Mistresses of King Charles II - Susan Holloway Scott
• Mortal Instruments - Cassandra Clare
• The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
• Graceling series - Kristin Cashore
• The Kingkiller chronicles - Patrick Rothfuss
• Sons of the Revolution - Shana Galen
• Rose trilogy - Jennifer Donnelly
• Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox - Tana French

So there are 24 series where I am waiting for the next book to come out. I must say, it feels like an awful lot more than that!

Stay tuned next week for the really big list  - the one where I confess how many series there are that I am only part way through reading!

Weekend Cooking: A trip down a French memory lane.

This week I thought I would combine a couple of different things into one post. The first is the regular Weekend Cooking post that I do most of the time (I hope that food memories count for Weekend Cooking!), and the second is for the event Paris in July, which is being co-hosted by Karen from Book Bath and Tamara from Thyme for Tea. Both of these bloggers share a love of all thing French and Parisian, and so they have combined to host a month long event to celebrate!

I have been lucky enough to go have been to several cities in France and have had some good food experiences. My first night in Paris was on the first night on a tour that took me all around Europe. It was Christmas Eve and we went to what undoubtedly was a touristy French restaurant, but we had l'escargot (snails). I can't remember what else we had for dinner but that starter was certainly memorable! Later that night we went to a midnight mass. Couldn't understand a word of what was said, but some of the carols were recognisable, and the inside of the church was all candlelit (the church was a local church that was nearby) and it was a really lovely experience all up.

Later in that same trip, we celebrated New Year's Eve in Nice, which was nice (pardon the pun). It was pretty cool, but I do remember going swimming in the hotel pool!

Another time we were in France, we were staying in Lille, and again it was getting close to Christmas time so it was cold. We went on the ferris wheel in the middle of the city, and had dinner in a restaurant where I had Moules Mariniere (mussels in a white wine and garlic sauce). I have never had it since, but I do remember that meal clearly. One day I will have it again.  Fiddly, but oh so good!

I think though one of my favourite French food experiences was actually very simple! A couple of times when I lived in the UK, I went to Calais on day trips, basically on booze runs. At the time, due to taxes being as they were, it was significantly cheaper to buy alcohol in places like Calais than it was to buy in the UK, so the social club where I worked organised a bus trip where it cost about 10 or 15 pounds to go to Calais for the day. We left Sheffield at about 5 o'clock in the morning, drove to Calais, across on the ferry, and then a couple of hours shopping in Calais, and then back to Sheffield again arriving back at about 1am. The only spanner in the works for me was  that at the time Australians needed a visa to go to France, so I had to take a day off work a couple of weeks before hand, spent about 30 pounds getting to London to get my visa to enable me to get on the cheap trip to France.

Anyway, I digress. On one of the day trips I went with a friend. We weren't really as interested in the alcohol purchasing  as most of the other people on the trip were so we spent the time in the supermarkets etc where we went (because you really didn't see anything of Calais itself). Anyway, on this day, we bought some really, really fresh French bread, and some really, really fresh French cheese, and then we ate it whilst sitting on the ferry returning to the UK. It was only bread and cheese, but it was oh so good! Some times the simple things can be very so satisfying!

Some time in the next month I am planning to share a couple of French inspired recipes that I enjoy making regularly, and maybe one that I am planning to make for the first time ever. In the mean time, I have enjoyed this trip down memory lane.

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads and is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs.

June Reading Reflections

After a slow reading month in May, unfortunately things didn't really pick up all that much for me in June. Last month I attributed the slow month to the fact that I was reading Brothers of Gwynedd. This month I am still reading that book, and have added War and Peace into the mix as well, and so yes, not that many books finished! The sense of accomplishment will be so worth it when I finish both of those books! So what did I finish?

Emma Vol 3 by Kaoru Mori 4/5
A Cottage by the Sea by Ciji Ware 4/5
Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos 5/5
The Making of a Duchess by Shana Galen 3.5/5
The Shadowy Horses by Susanna Kearsley 5/5
The Yellow House by Patricia Falvey 4/5
Mort by Terry Pratchett 4/5
For the King by Catherine Delors 4/5
Fire by Kristin Cashore 4/5

Less books read means less progress on challenges as well unfortunately!

Let's start with the Period Drama Challenge. When I signed up for it, I said that I would watch 4 movies/series etc in one year. Shouldn't have been that difficult really. In the end I managed to watch one whole movie which was Sense and Sensibility and started to watch North and South (the US mini-series starring Patrick Swayze not my normal North and South). I think I watched the first disc but I definitely didn't finish it!

The book that I read for the Year of the Historical in June was Emma Vol 3 by Kaoru Mori, and that was one of my final reads for this years Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, along with Yellow House by Patricia Falvey. I have now finished this challenge!

I haven't been reading very many romances over the last few months, and I actually am beginning to feel like I NEED to read one. The only book that I read this month that counted for the Romance Reading Challenge was The Making of a Duchess by Shana Galen.

I finally got to read books for challenges that I hadn't previously started. For the King counts for the French Historical Reading Challenge, and The Yellow House counts as one book read for the Ireland Reading Challenge.

In addition Burned counts for the Vampire Reading Challenge, and Mort was a book that I read for the Terry Pratchett Reading Challenge.

I also joined in a new challenge this month - the Amy Einhorn Perpetual Reading Challenge. I have got my next read from the library for this one.

The final challenges to update are the 100+ Reading Challenge, of which I have now read 69 books, and for the Support Your Local Library Challenge I have now read 47 books.

Library Loot: June 30 to July 6

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva and myself that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

I have posted before about the expanding library service in my area, but I know that I am one of the lucky ones in that my library service isn't being constantly cut back. Just this week Holly from Book Binge posted about her library, and she linked to an article from The Huffington Post which gave some suggestions as to what people can do to help fight cuts in their local library systems. Given that there are some dedicated library lovers amongst us, I thought that the link might be of interest to some of you.
It is end of financial year today here, and for me that means lots of work, and having everything crossed that I have got everything right! It also means that I am not really reading as much as I would like, but that doesn't stop me from picking up more books from the library.

This week I picked up:

The Passage by Justin Cronin - There's been a lot of buzz about this book for a while now. Time to see what all the fuss is about. Lucky for me I am the first person to borrow this.

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan - This is another brand new book. I read The Keep from this author a few years ago now and liked it, so hopefully I will like this one too.

The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett - I haven't read any of the YA books by Terry Pratchett so I thought I would start with this one.

Sourcery by Terry Pratchett - This is the next book in the Discworld series for me. I was a little surprised that I had to get it as an Inter Library Loan. I might have to do this again for later books in the series too.

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: an Eclipse Novella by Stephenie Meyer - Wasn't intending to buy this, so from the library it is!

Eva will have Mr Linky today so head on over to share your link!

Edited to add Mr Linky! Sorry for the delay everyone.

Teaser Tuesday: Fire by Kristin Cashore

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Earlier this year, I teased from  Kristin Cashore's debut novel Graceling. Now I am reading Fire, which is kind of a prequel, in that it is set in a nearby Kingdom to Graceling, but it is pretty much stand alone.

I am going to share a couple of teasers. The first comes from the beginning of Chapter 1 on page 17. I was going to do share this for Book Beginnings on Fridays which is hosted at Page Turners but then I had a dilemna because whilst this is the first two sentences of Chapter 1, there is quite a long prologue, which I have yet to find how it connects to the main story.

It did not surprise Fire that the man in the forest shot her. What surprised her was that he shot her by accident.

The other teaser comes from page 115:

Bathing in a cold lake posed some unforeseen challenges - like the little monster fish, for example, that swarmed around her when she dunked her hair, and the monster bugs that tried to eat her alive, and the need for a special guard of archers just in case of predators. But despite the production of it all, it was good to be clean.

I already know that I am looking forward to the next book from this author!

Finally!

A few years ago now I read a book which I absolutely loved called The Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly, the second book in the Rose trilogy. It is a Victorian saga style novel and it was one of my favourite reads of 2006.

The first book in the trilogy was called The Tea Rose and followed a young girl from a poor part of London as she forges her way through the tea business at the turn of end of the 19th century. The Winter Rose was once again set in the rough docks areas of London, and this time the main female character was a young doctor.

At the time of reading The Winter Rose, there was a release date on Amazon UK which from memory was 2007, and then it got changed to 2008, and then there was no release date, but finally, finally we have word from the author:

Wanted to let you know that I just turned in a first draft manuscript of The Wild Rose!

This third and final part of the Rose saga follows Seamie’s and Willa’s story, introduces a few new characters, and – of course! – brings back a few old ones.

"Finished" is a very relative word when talking about manuscripts. There will be a bit of backing and forthing first, between me and my editor, until we arrive at a final manuscript, and then proofreading and fact-checking. But The Wild Rose should be out in stores sometime during 2011. As soon as I have a firm publication date, I will post it in the calendar section of the Web site.

Thank you so much for all the encouraging emails you sent as I wrote this book, and for your patience!

I can already tell you that the third book, The Wild Rose, is going to be one of my most anticipated releases for next year!

TSS: Footnotes

Have I mentioned lately that I am reading War and Peace at the moment? I may have done once or twice mainly because I am pretty pleased with myself for giving this a go!  I am not surprised that I am enjoying it, because I know that I liked Anna Karenina, but it still took a while to get to the point of wanting to read the next Tolstoy novel.

One of the things that I have been thinking about whilst reading it is the use of notes related to the text. Just recently I was also reading Mort by Terry Pratchett, who is a contemporary author who loves to use footnotes in his Discworld novels, as does another favourite novelist of mine, Jasper Fforde. Now to put Tolstoy, Pratchett and Fforde in the same post may seem like a bit of a stretch, but I am going to do it anyway.

In classics the use of notes, whether they be footnotes, or notes that are at the back of the book (what are they called when they are at the back of the book anyway?), is very prevalent. A lot of the time they are there to explain contextual points that the original audience would have already been familiar with and would have understood but that for the modern reader have been lost in the sands of time.

Today's post really is a question about how people read footnotes/annotations. I tend to put the bookmark at the page where the relevant notes for this section are so that I can easily flick back and forward and I read the note as soon as I see it mentioned the number annotating that there is a note in the text. Is this what other readers do as well, or do you read to the end of the paragraph and then go back and read the notes?

Do you prefer your notes to be at the back of the book or to be at the bottom of the page? For the translation I am reading of War and Peace there wasn't really an option to put the notes at the bottom of the page, because there is quite a lot of the text that was originally written in French, and a little bit of German, and it has been left as French and German in the translation, and therefore at the bottom of the page there is the English translation.

So how do Pratchett and Fforde fit into this discussion? Both of the authors like to have what I think of as almost asides in the footnotes. Some times in Pratchett's case they could be notes that go off on a tangent or just a funny comment.

I have often wondered how audiobooks deal with the footnotes. Is it different for the contemporary novelist than it is for the classics?

So, on this cool wintery Sunday (for me at least), let's talk footnotes.

Brothers of Gwynedd Part 2 - Dragon at Noonday

At the beginning of the summer (Northern Hemisphere season that is because it isn't particularly warm here at the moment), the Sourcebooks Summer Reading Club was announced. The book that we were going to be reading was The Brothers of Gwynedd by Edith Pargeter. It's fair to say that a fair proportion of the participants in the club really struggled with the first part of the book (myself included), but it seems that continued for most people with the second part of the book, and therefore the club was cancelled.

I might have been one of the few participants who was disappointed at this outcome, because as much as I struggled with the first part, I really enjoyed the second part of the book, so at this point I am planning to try and stick with the original time frames. We'll see how we go with that. The story was engaging, and I was disappointed when I had to put the book down a couple of times, because I would rather have been able to keep reading than to go to work.

Once again, I found myself thinking back to my reading Sharon Kay Penman’s Welsh trilogy a few years ago, with the events in this second part of the book equating with a lot of the storyline from Falls the Shadow. I am thinking that when I do finally finish this book, then a reread of the Welsh trilogy may be in order.

Part 2 of the Brothers of Gwynedd, which was originally published as a separate book under the title Dragon at Noonday, opens with Llewellyn returning to his lands in triumph. He is the head of a mostly unified Wales, with most of the major players having agreed to follow him. What followed was a period of relative prosperity and strengthening in Wales, helped in no small way by the fact that the attention of the English was not focused on their borders, but rather on internal strife.

Of course, the history of the relationship between Wales and England being as it is, even when things are peaceful it is never really all that calm, and for Llewellyn one of the worst things about this particular period of prosperity is the desertion from his ranks of one of his most important men, who also happened to be one of his relatives. On the flip side, it also meant a deepening respect and friendship between himself and Simon de Montfort, who at one point was the virtual leader of England during the baronial opposition to Henry III which is sometimes referred to as the Second Baron's War.

Rather than talk too much about what happened, I wanted to comment more on a couple of the characters, specifically the narrator Samson, and also Simon de Montfort.

It is always interesting when reading historical fiction to see what device authors use to get their fictional characters close to the action. Having Samson be a clerk who is a dab hand in a fight as well as having some religious background turns out to be very clever. By virtue of his occupation, Samson is able to be right in the action whether it be with Llewellyn, or as happens several times, by having Samson be temporarily seconded to Simon de Montfort's camp and by in the action I mean that he very well could be either confidante in his role as clerk or in the heat of battle.  The other advantage to having our narrator be a clerk, is that there are times when more background information can be shared through letter form, and it doesn't feel unnatural or out of place.

At the time that this book is set, King Henry III was being called to task by many of his lords for not living up to the agreements that he made in relation to the taxation and governance of the people. The leader of the rebels was Simon de Montfort who happened to be married to the King's sister. The relationship between the two men had started out in friendship, with Simon being one of Henry's son's godfathers, but it soon turned to animosity. Throw in some meddling from the church, and it seems like it was never going to end well.

One thing that I did find interesting is that in both this book and Falls the Shadow - again comparing to Sharon Kay Penman - the portrayal of Simon is so positive. In this book,  words that he are used to describe him include pure and saintly. An effort is made to admit that he does have failings, but for the most part it is obvious that the author really admires everything that Simon de Montfort stood for. He did do some amazing things, and is generally agreed to be one of the founders of modern parliamentary democracy, but I have also heard that there are some suggestions that there might be things to be less enamoured of, particularly in relation to the action he took part in whilst on crusade. However it is that he behaved in his time, I do find him a very interesting and dynamic character from history to read about, especially in the hands of excellent authors.

My plan now will be to pick up the third book at the beginning of next month and see what happens next, both in relation to Llewellyn and his family, in the relationship between England and Wales, and also in Samson's personal life. I am looking forward to it.

If I was to rate this second part, Dragon at Noonday, I would give it 4.5 out of 5, which is quite a contrast to the 3.5 out of 5 I gave the first part.

Library Loot: June 23 to 29

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva and myself that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

I haven't been reading many library books in the last week. I have been mainly reading two books that I own. I am sure that this decision is going to come back and haunt me later, but oh well. It wouldn't be the first, or hundred and first, time that I have had to reloot!

Here are the books I borrowed from the library this week:

Red Dust by Fleur McDonald - I have seen this author on Twitter. I haven't read a novel with an Australian rural setting for ages, so I thought I would give her a go. This book will count for the Aussie Author Challenge.

The Kingdom of Ohio by Mathew Flaming - This is a book I requested so that I could move forward on the Amy Einhorn challenge.

Tempting Evil by Keri Arthur - This is another Aussie author. I have read the first couple of books in this series so it is probably time to read the next one. (Reloot)

The Confession of Catherine de Medici by CW Gortner - This is one of the more highly anticipated releases for me this year. I was number 1 on the request list so that means a brand new book! Love it when that happens.

Savor the Moment by Nora Roberts - Another brand new book. This is the third in the Bride Quartet. I am looking forward to being able to curl up with this one night and just reading from beginning to end, and then closing the book with a sigh. That's the plan anyway!

So what loot did you get this week? Share the link to your Library Loot post in Mr Linky so we can all drop by and take a look.

Attention: Terry Pratchett fans and challenge participants

Have you heard about Terry Pratchett's Discworld Cup?

It is a tournament which is trying to determine what the best Discworld novel is as decided by us, the Discworld Fans. It is up to the quarter final stage now, but you can still vote!

Head on over to http://www.discworldcup.co.uk/ to cast your vote in the remaining rounds!

Props to Book Gazing who mentioned it in their post earlier in the week!