Mandy

Well, this was weird. I'm almost at a loss as to how to rate it. 3.5 stars maybe?

On one hand, it raised a lot of really interesting points about history - not just in the type that we study of the long-ago past, but also in the way our present is becoming history right under our noses. It talks a lot about memories, nostalgia, and the ways the past is connected to the present, and whether we can truly go back and change anything in the past.

And then right at the end, it kinda pulls the rug out from under the reader's feet and leaves you feeling like: What? What did I just read? Where did that come from?

From a sensationalist point of view, it was actually really engaging. I couldn't put it down and finished the latter half of it within a single sitting (it didn't take very long either, since it's such a short book). It definitely also offered a lot of discussion-worthy points so I'm glad I read this along with a few friends so we could really discuss this.

But ultimately, I felt like this book could've done a lot more with the very interesting points it raised, instead of dumping a complete plot twist on the reader right at the end, and without even going into the implications of that plot twist too. It almost felt like the author just... didn't really know how to end it, which is pretty ironic given the title.

DNFed at 45%.Too much racism, colonialism, and misogyny for my taste. The action and story wasn't super compelling either, somehow. I found [b:Journey to the Center of the Earth 32829 Journey to the Center of the Earth Jules Verne https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1389754903l/32829.SY75.jpg 1924715] more exciting. It's not draggy per se, but I just wasn't really enjoying myself. Oh well.

This was simultaneously a love letter to New York City, and how every little thing in life can trigger a cascade of events that changes how the cookie crumbles. I first discovered (and loved) Towles with A Gentleman In Moscow, so I was therefore naturally curious about this earlier work, published in 2011 and a full 8 years before Gentleman. The quiet and aloof detachment of the narrator and the narrative took a bit to get used to, but I couldn't help getting sucked in nevertheless into Katey's mildly cynical yet wildly intense assessment and dissection of life and its meaning. The only reason why I'd rate AGIM a little higher than this one is really only because I have a soft spot for AGIM's subject matter of found family.

“For what was civilization but the intellect's ascendancy out of the doldrums of necessity into the ether of the finely superfluous?”

Katey Kontent and her colleague, roommate, and partner in crime Evelyn Ross go out for a night on the town on New Year's Eve, 1937, where they bump into a smartly dressed young man, Tinker Grey. This unexpected and fateful meeting starts a chain of events that irrevocably changes all three lives for good.

“Whatever setbacks he had faced in his life, he said, however daunting or dispiriting the unfolding of events, he always knew that he would make it through, as long as when he woke up in the morning he was looking forward to his first cup of coffee.”

We mostly follow Katey in the story. As previously mentioned, her detached manner of narration gives a sense of distance from the events of the story. Similarly, Towles makes a pretty big choice of formatting all the dialogue in this book without quotation marks, and simply demarcating them as speech by an em dash at the start of what ought to be dialogue. The mixing of narrative and dialogue deepens that sense of distance between us readers and the action, and it helps permeate that haziness of memory throughout the story, which essentially it would be since this would be a future and older Katey looking back at the events of 1938.

I had mixed feelings for Katey. On one hand, she was pretty relatable and occasionally sympathetic, with her obsession with books and her being caught in between a child-like state of wanting to believe the best of the people around her and wanting to do right by them, and being jaded about life and society after having had to make her own way and living in New York City since she was orphaned at 19. For the first half of the book, she was so detached that I could barely really feel much for her except as the vehicle through which we are experiencing the events of the story, but I did feel more sympathy for her as the second half unfolded. We found out more about her, and she also began getting more personally involved in the events rather than acting the observer.

Tinker Grey gave me some Jay Gatsby vibes, although with marked differences. The entire denouement of the story revolves around him, and I guess he comes close to being the male equivalent of a manic pixie dream girl to Katey. We see and hear a lot about him but ultimately I found it difficult to be very much attached to him, although this might be more because of me than of the narrative.

Perhaps my favourite character in this whole story was Wallace. He was a cinnamon roll that's too precious for this world.

“In that sense, life is less like a journey than it is a game of honeymoon bridge. In our twenties, when there is still so much time ahead of us, time that seems ample for a hundred indecisions, for a hundred visions and revision–we draw a card, and we must decide right then and there whether to keep that card and discard the next, or discard the first card and keep the second. And before we know it, the deck has been played out and the decisions we have just made will shape our lives for decades to come.”

Overall, this book is wistful, mildly sad, but also a gentle affectionate reminder to us about how much our life paths are just as much made by chance as by intention.

Thoroughly enjoyed this deep dive into a subject that I've long wanted to know more about.

I'm ethnically Chinese and live in the Chinese diaspora in Singapore, so although a lot of names and stories here were familiar to me, there was an equal amount of information here that I had no idea about. It focuses not so much on what happened in which dynasty, or which emperors came after the other (indeed, that would take way too long for any audiobook), but rather on some key moments of China's 5000 year history and how it affected its common folk. Some traditions (such as wedding customs from centuries ago still happened on my own wedding day) are still being practised today, albeit in a modified and modern form.

I loved finding out about how Confucianism gave way to neo-Confucianism in the Song dynasty and how that affected (and continues to affect) the way Chinese women are treated and seen within the culture. How China's international relations changed throughout the centuries, and that they've had thriving business with so many countries around the world even centuries and centuries ago. Having been brought up with a more Western-centric education, I think we're wont to think that China has generally been closed off most of history which led to their “century of humiliation” in the 20th century, but that is so so far from the case.

This is an engaging, people-centric dive into the annals of Chinese history with interesting anecdotes that changed even my mind about what I thought I knew about it. Highly recommend for anyone interested in the topic.

The subtitle of this book should be: An essay on how many times you can flip-flop between two factions before your head gets chopped off and stuck on a pole somewhere.

We all know the famous Wars of the Roses, which came directly before the equally famous reign of Henry VIII and the other Tudors. But history, and in a large part Shakespeare's plays, have simplified the event into a (relatively) simple conflict between the two warring families of York and Lancaster, represented by the red and white roses respectively. Dan Jones sets out in this volume to prove that the Wars were actually far, far more complex than that. Oh, and if you have trouble keeping track of Roman numerals and of a million and one Henrys, Edwards, Richards, Elizabeths, and Margarets, you're in for a ride - no, but I'd recommend that you at least keep a character cheat sheet with you while reading this book.

One might wonder why the book starts in a seemingly unconnected time, some decades before the actual conflict begins, with Henry V on the throne, but I think Jones's point here is to draw a line between how some seemingly minor event occurring many decades prior (e.g. Henry V's widow, Catherine de Valois's second marriage to a relatively unimportant and unknown Welshman, Owen Tudor) to the major event that it will precipitate later on (e.g. Owen Tudor's grandson by Catherine, Henry Tudor, ostensibly ending the Wars of the Roses and ending up as King Henry VII). The butterfly effect on full display here.

As you might expect from the title, this book is chock full of military strategy, battles, treachery, uprisings, and a ton of violence. Still though, I found myself a little bored in the first half of the book when it concentrates mostly on Henry VI's ineptitude, and the power struggle between Richard, Duke of York, and Henry VI's wife, Queen Margaret of Anjou. There were so many Somersets, Buckinghams, Warwicks, Suffolks, Norfolks that were cycled through not just in terms who these noblemen are (their titles passed from father to son very quickly because they kept getting killed in battle or executed for treason by someone or other), but also whose sides they were on (even I couldn't tell you that right now, just assume that they have all at some point been on either side and have flip flopped at least once, if not multiple times). I skimmed through some parts of the book because there was just so many times I could read about yet another battle, but I paid attention to who won and who got his head cut off so that I could still broadly follow on the political action.

The most exciting parts of the book for me was after Edward IV, son of Richard Duke of York, took the throne and married Elizabeth Woodville, against the advice of everyone he knows. Even his most trusted advisor and ally, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, who was also nicknamed the Kingmaker because of how he had been instrumental in bringing Edward and his father to the throne against Lancastrian opposition, eventually flip-flopped over to the Lancastrian faction after this act of defiance. This was, to me, the meat of the book. It was fun seeing how Edward struggled to hold on to his newly claimed throne against his predecessor, Henry VI (of Lancaster), and then later how he even condemned his own brother George, Duke of Clarence, because he was an annoying upstart who had already led two rebellions against him.

I'm also slightly more familiar with this time in history because of the very (in)famous Richard III, who was Edward IV's younger brother. He remains an enigmatic figure for me, previously a stout-hearted and loyal commander with an almost hero-worshipping attitude for his brother the King, Richard III is remembered by history to become some kind of misshapen villain in his later years, usurping the throne from his young nephews after Edward IV's death, locking them in the Tower of London and purportedly arranging for their mysterious disappearance. Thus, the legend of the Princes of the Tower was born.

And yet, how much of what we know about this period was influenced by Shakespeare's plays? How much have we actually bought into the Tudor propaganda that has persisted since then? I remain intrigued by this period simply because so much of it has been “taken for granted” because of those plays, like Edward IV's bravery, Richard III's villainy, Richard II's tyranny, and Henry VI's incompetence. It's like someone painted a picture of what they wanted us to see and pasted it over a a slightly more accurate photograph, and we have grown so accustomed to this picture over the past four centuries that have passed since then that we are only now just starting to peel back the layers to uncover more historically accurate information beneath.

Historical fiction based on the famous Eleanor of Aquitaine, but with some modern sensibilities and drama thrown in.

This was actually generally enjoyable if you make allowances for the fact that the writer isn't trying to present a 100% historically accurate account of Eleanor's life. Often times, we see her inwardly questioning religious tenements which would be pretty sacrilegious thoughts to have in her day, openly denouncing misogyny and, while she doesn't exactly advocate women's rights exactly, she has thoughts about how women are treated back then which sounded more like the writer's 21st century observations on medieval society than thoughts that the real Eleanor of Aquitaine would likely have harboured. But if you put all these aside, and just treat this as a sort of slightly modernised, dramafied, almost soap-opera version of the life of Eleanor, you might enjoy it as I did, seeing how I breezed through all 470+ pages of it in just 2 days and I wasn't even hurrying myself.

Generally, the characters exhibited broadly realistic vibes. Eleanor herself is not portrayed to be some kind of medieval suffragette warrior or feminist, but a woman who had to live, survive, and thrive within the sphere and social roles that she had been born in. I enjoyed reading her POV, but I felt like I didn't see her grow, develop, or regress as much as other characters like Louis of France and even Petronella, her sister. For Louis especially, I enjoyed how the author managed to really draw out the character descent from shy, pious, and generally pleasant young prince to this cruel, tyrannical, and misogynistic religious zealot. I ended up *really* despising him by the end of the book, but also really interested at how the author developed him that way. With Petronella, Eleaonr's sister, I felt that the author did her a little dirty. Very little is known about Petronella of Aquitaine, as far as I know (and I'm no historian), but I thought her swinging between loving and comforting sister to throwing spoilt tantrums, unfairly blaming Eleanor for everything and going a little mad with her husband, Raoul, seemed to be more modern soap-opera than really what I would probably expect a medieval royal lady to do. But who knows, eh?

The plot does not shy away from some rough realities of medieval royal society and politics, particularly when it came to teenaged marriage and sex, marital rape, and how women were very easily made the scapegoat for every bad news that came with child-bearing. Can't get pregnant after years of marriage? Wife's fault for being barren. Gives birth to a healthy daughter? Wife's fault because “her seed is too strong”. Miscarried a baby boy? Wife's fault because “she displeased God”. All of this was particularly triggering to me, but I guess it's probably just the way of life back in that century, perhaps. I also think the author deliberately wrote it in such an aggravating way to really emphasize the inherent misogyny of medieval societies - whether that's a good or bad thing, I have yet to decide.

Another bit I particularly enjoyed was when Henry of Anjou (later Henry II of England) and Eleanor of Aquitaine first meet: Eleanor is nearing the annulment of her marriage to Louis of France, and both Henry and her know that they are potential marriage partners. This could've been a full-blown romanticised rose-tinted scene where Henry is dumbstruck by how ~beautiful~ and ~elegant~ Eleanor is, and she would in turn also fall head over heels for this well-built handsome young man and it's going to be like he swooped in like a hero and saved her from that disastrous first marriage. In fact, the book doesn't go down that tired path, thank goodness. They certainly are attracted to each other, but also wary at the same time - it's no coincidence that the author chose to have them play chess at their first meeting. Henry never loses his mind over Eleanor, and neither does she him. There are long conversations about Eleanor considering her suitors before deciding that uniting Aquitaine with Anjou and later England would be of the best political advantage to her realm. They both know that the marriage was a political one, the decision was made in a cool and calculated manner, and they both make no pretences about it. It was just a happy bonus that they both were also attracted to each other at the same time. We are also shown that Henry has a mistress *and* a baby son before he marries Eleanor, which is fairly true to life and doesn't shirk away from the very common reality of marital infidelity (mostly on the husband's part) in order to pursue a romanticised beginning of their marriage.

Why did I give it 3/5 stars? While I enjoyed the book quite a lot and appreciated a number of aspects about it, it didn't exactly blow me away and the some anachronistic details in it were a little too jarring for me. Would I continue the series? I'm in two minds about it because I do enjoy the writing style and would want to continue just because of that - but I also happen to sorta kinda know broadly what happens in the rest of Eleanor's life and have a feeling that she might experience the same kinds of frustration in future books as had happened in Book 1, and I'm not really looking forward to reading more of that. Otherwise though, this author's writing style is a great and engaging gateway to finding out more about these fascinating historical figures and I'd definitely check out more of her other books.

Surprisingly entertaining and informative, even for a lifelong Austen fan like me who's read so many biographies on the author. This didn't rehash tired old tidbits about Austen's life, but in fact challenged a lot of our modern preconceptions about Austen (that she was relatively penniless and anonymous during her lifetime, that she led a boring, sheltered life holed up at her writing desk, that she was a prim spinster with a stiff collar that wouldn't have flirted a storm at balls).

The lectures didn't just concentrate on Austen and her life, but also talked about each of her six novels in detail, gave some socioeconomic contexts of that era, and also delved into her legacy and how our image of Austen has been curated and molded by her nieces and nephews, who themselves were the sources of Austen's first biographies.

Definitely recommended for anyone who is an Austen fan or at least curious about the author. Be warned though, that in discussing this lecture series will spoil just about every thing that Austen has ever written, including her lesser-known works like Sanditon and Lady Susan.

Another beautiful piece from Le Guin! This was an incredibly atmospheric story and such a breath of fresh air, as the Wizard of Earthsea had been. Short though this book was, I find it difficult to summarize the story, which was both simple and complex at the same time. Suffice it to say that I was thoroughly enthralled by the plot and the characters.

Tenar is the central protagonist of this book. She's flawed, she's striving to be better, she's confident, she doubts herself and her value systems. She's both relatable and yet a protagonist that we can root for and hope that she comes out the other end okay. I also particularly liked her personal assistant, Manan, cringingly subservient though he may be sometimes.

A large part of this story takes place in a maze of pitch-black underground tunnels, and it is testament to Le Guin's writing that I almost felt claustrophobic just reading about these. I couldn't imagine how any of these characters could be walking around in the complete darkness, in a labyrinth of tunnels, without going mad with fear. I really felt what it meant when it was said that the Nameless Ones have power in that domain there.

Thoughts about the ending: Did Ged really just promise Tenar all these things about leaving the Tombs and then left her there alone? That kinda feels like a shitty thing to do. I'm hoping that that's not really the end of her story because that would be really shitty, and that's the reason why this is a 4 star and not higher. While Tenar hadn't been in a very great place to begin with, at least she was mistress of her own domain to some extent. Ged basically told her to come out and be free, the byproduct of which was killing and destroying all the people she had ever known, including Manan (justice for Manan!), and then he abandons her in this wide wide world that she had never stepped into for most of her life? I'm not saying that they need to be together forever just because he brought her out of it but at least he shouldn't be immediately dropping her as soon as she brought him out of that place - it almost feels like he was using her, which would have been really shitty.

100% definitely going to continue on this series. More people need to read the Earthsea Cycle and this needs to be adapted.

I bought this audiobook at an Audible sale some time back and only started on this one because the book I was currently reading had no audiobook available. I was so pleasantly surprised that this turned out to be a way better cosy mystery than the one I had originally been reading.

Major Heathcliff Lennox is a war veteran set to return to spend Christmas at his uncle's place at Melrose Court. Just before he sets off, however, he finds a dead man on his doorstep clutching a note with an enigmatic Countess's name written on it. Imagine his surprise when he reaches Melrose Court and discovers that the said Countess is in attendance! Murder happens, chaos ensues, and Lennox (because he hates to be called Heathcliff) finds out that he's not too bad at investigating mysteries after all.

This was an enjoyable and engaging blend of Agatha Christie and P. G. Wodehouse. The writing flowed well, and the humour worked (imagine if a more intelligent Bertie Wooster started solving mysteries). Most importantly, the mysteries tied up pretty well together and while mostly formulaic, there were still some plot twists that caught me off guard. Still, though, cosy mystery is a genre where sometimes being formulaic can be a good thing (hence the word ‘cosy'?)

Also I want to give a shoutout to the narrator of the audiobook, Sam Dewhurst-Phillips, who did a fantastic job at voicing all the different characters in the mystery. He breathed life into all of them, from the Bertie Wooster-ish quality of the main character, down to the pottering old butler Cooper whom you can't help feeling endeared to even though he barely has lines in the story.

Overall, a great entry into the cosy mystery genre with a slightly unique attitude of injecting Wodehouse humour into Christie-esque mysteries. I would certainly consider continuing the series.

Tributaries are about to join this story. We might, in the quiet hour before dawn, leave this river and this long night and trace the tributaries back, to see not their beginnings--mysterious, unknowable things--but, more simply, what they were doing yesterday.

On a midwinter night, a stranger bursts into the Swan, an inn at Radcot along the Thames, with a dead girl in his arms. She is unquestionably lifeless, but later she takes a breath and returns to life. Our story seems to begin here with the mystery of the drowned girl who came back from death, but in fact we will as much need to travel upstream closer to the source of several stories, rather than downstream to the end of the mystery, before we get to the bottom of this enigma.

This book was written masterfully. The wistful late-Victorian world (I'm guessing) is brought to life on the page, and it inspires your imagination with a particularly muted and earthy colour palette. The fantasy here isn't particularly in your face, it's really just the barest touch, but it's enough to infuse the entire story with a certain charm of the unknown - are certain things merely just superstition repeated by rural farmers who don't know better and which can be explained away with science, or is there really some kind of magic at work here? I'm usually a pretty impatient reader and skim a lot, but this book made me slow down a little and eat up as much of the details and words as I could.



The mystery itself was gripping enough for this to be a binge read for me. It wasn't exactly a thriller, but the core of the story was refreshingly different, centering around a strange little girl who apparently came back from the dead, and who seems to belong to everyone but no one at the same time.

The character work was beautiful too - we are introduced to some of the vilest characters that you will wish to personally drown in the Thames, and also some of the sweetest ones (Robert Armstrong was hands down the best character in this entire novel, closely followed by his pig Maud - I would've cried and thrown this book at the wall if anything had happened to them). You witness how downright disgusting people can be to each other (the way Victor Nash treated Lily White really riled me up) but you also see how much kindness and sweetness some humans are capable of (Robert Armstrong's parents were just... so good. They didn't end up together, and as a result he led a pretty fractured and ostracised childhood and life, but they both did as much as they could by him, and the story went on a much happier trajectory than it could have otherwise gone; same with the way he loved and did his best by Bess).

Overall, a surprisingly beautiful read that promises mystery, romance, and emotions of every colour.

Originally published in Unravellations.

I did not like it.

The plot was thin, the characters were unlikeable and unrelatable, everything was somewhat unrealistic, the dialogue was uninteresting and flat and it just didn't work. I was really excited to read it because it had such a luxurious-sounding title, the blurb sounded interesting and the cover was gorgeous. Unfortunately, though... Sigh. I won't write off Barbara Taylor Bradford just yet, because I've heard good things about the rest of her work, and how some reviewers say this book was an anomaly from her usual, but I was really quite disappointed and annoyed with this book, despite wanting to give it a fighting chance.

I don't like to write a negative review because I feel a sort of empathy towards authors. I'm not an author, nor am I even close to being one, but I love writing and have done a fair share of amateur writing myself, so I can at least appreciate how difficult it is to write an engaging novel while balancing all kinds of factors. No author would like to read a negative review of a work they've spent at least months preparing and writing for, and I empathize with that.However, since I'm writing a review, I might as well write my honest thoughts.This book was a let-down. I saw the reviews and ratings for it on Goodreads, but thought I shouldn't let others' opinions be my benchmark for how much I would enjoy a book. After all, it's not like I haven't enjoyed a book that's been negatively reviewed somewhere or others (hell, even Jane Austen has her own fair share of detractors). I started the book excited, being sucked into the glitz and glamourous world of the Inghams and the Swanns. I even took a used piece of paper and began to draw out a family tree just to keep track of who's who, how old they were and who's died and who hasn't. The Inghams are an aristocratic family living in their family seat of Cavendon Hall, while the Swanns are yet another family who have served the Inghams for centuries. Their current patriarch, Walter Swann, is valet to the 6th Earl of Mowbray, Charles Ingham.Then the awful event takes place that is so shouted about in the synopsis. Lady Daphne, Charle's beautiful 17 year old daughter, gets raped by a man, one of her neighbours and someone she knows, and on Ingham land. Honestly, I almost put the book down after this event. Trigger warning, please?! This came out of nowhere and I really don't enjoy reading about this subject matter. Nevertheless, I pressed on with the book, deciding to accept the event and see how the families deal with it. There's appropriate sorrow, grief, shame and all that, but everything seems very nicely resolved in the end. Charles and his wife, Felicity, only have kind words and love for Lady Daphne when they (eventually) find out about not only her rape, but her resulting pregnancy. Before her own parents find out about it, though, at least 3 members of the Swann family already has, and it is one of them, Charlotte, closest in age and platonic relationship to Charles, who breaks the news to the parents.Now, I don't know much about this period of English history, in the 1910s. But I'm pretty sure something as horrific as a rape on an Earl's daughter would have a whole lot more repercussions than it does in the book. Lady Daphne's rapist is Richard Torbett, of the Torbett family living neighbouring to Cavendon Hall. Her childhood best friend is Richard's youngest brother, Julian, who suddenly and very coincidentally dies soon after the rape, after an accident while horseriding. Because Richard has threatened to kill Lady Daphne's mother and her youngest 5 year old sister if any word of his identity is breathed, Lady Daphne conveniently pushes the blame onto Julian, recently deceased. What? As if it's not enough that this whole thing happened, she was willing to sully a childhood best friend's name? A childhood best friend who was actually happily engaged to another girl before his untimely death. She could've easily denied it was Julian and said she didn't see the identity of the other man, if she was afraid of Richard's threats. It's not even that their friendship has cooled and distanced, as she had been to Julian's house to visit and was raped on her way back to Cavendon Hall. I just don't understand.Meanwhile, there's a new maidservant in Cavendon Hall, Peggy Smith, who has the hots for Gordan Lane, another servant. Peggy is a single mother whose child has either been adopted or left to her sister to rear. Lady Daphne sees Peggy's sister and the baby when she comes to visit and instinctively knows that the child is really Peggy's, which creates a sort of sympathy for her since she's pretty much in the same plight. Nothing is known about why Gordon Lane or Peggy Smith fell for each other (aside from the momentous revelation of This is the woman I must marry at one glance under the moonlight, because such thoughts occur irrevocably in everyday life), and their relationship just seems unnecessary in the whole book except to provide a little forbidden sex scene in the woods. Throughout the whole of that scene, I kept thinking – why am I reading this? Who are these people? I'm not emtionally invested in them, why am I reading this explicit scene about them having sex?But then, after further thought, I realised I'm not emotionally invested in any of the characters. The characters are generally one-dimensional, and some characters are almost non-entities. You are introduced to 10 or so characters within the first 20 pages, but almost none of them have much role to play. Charles and Felicity Ingham have 6 children, Guy (22), Deidre (20), Daphne (17), Miles (14), DeLacy (12), Dulcie (5). Guy, Deidre and Miles are almost non-existent throughout the book, their appearances more like cameos than actually playing a role. Daphne, of course, plays the biggest role since the most major event in the book surrounds her. Then we have the Swanns. Walter Swann is valet to Charles Ingham, his wife Alice is the house's seamstress or something (I didn't know noble families employed live-in seamstresses?), they have a 12 year old daughter Cecily who is DeLacey's best friend and playmate, and also Miles's childhood girlfriend (they eventually grow up with the hots for each other but – whatever).The matriarch of the Swann family is not Alice, however, but Charlotte, whom I can't figure out is Walter's sister or aunt. Whatever it is, Charlotte grew up with Charles and his sisters when they were children, and when she was 17, she entered the employment of Charles's father, David, the 5th Earl of Mowbray. Not-so-secret rumours flew regarding the relationship between Charlotte and the 5th Earl but this is already history by the time the book starts. Eventually, later, when Charles's wife Felicity leaves him for inexplicable reasons, Charlotte somehow develops a relationship with Charles. OK, what the fuck? Sleeping with the father before the father died 8 years ago, and then sleeping with the son almost a decade later??? I know all kinds of weird shit happened back in the day, but this development just happened too suddenly and was just another thing to pile on the WTF-ery. Also, I don't even get why Felicity left Charles. Nothing is really known about her except that she's been spiritually absent, a pretty convenient excuse to have her character like a wallpaper in the background, because of her sister Anne suffering from a terminal illness and being at death's door. Interestingly, Anne is always just dying, but is never said to have actually died in the entire book – another convenient excuse. Felicity tells Charles that she is no longer interested in him sexually and wants a divorce – on the day that 5 year old Dulcie almost got abducted by who is presumably Richard Torbett, rapist of Daphne. God knows what horrors might've been in store for Dulcie if Percy Swann (I have no fucking idea how he's related to the Swanns and I gave up keeping track by that point) hadn't showed up in time and driven the villain away. So this horrific event was just narrowly prevented and one would imagine a mother would have more to think about on a day like this, and chosen another day to coldly and unfeelingly break up with her husband. IT JUST DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.You know what else doesn't make sense? This relationship between the Inghams and Swanns. It's not unusual for a family of lower social standing to become loyal and serve the same aristocratic family for generations, centuries. What is unusual, though, is when said family start crossing the lines. Out of goodwill, the aristocrats may consent to fund their servants' children's education – but to allow their children to be educated under the same governess as their own aristocratic daughters? To be brought up on an equal footing with their daughters? I'm sorry, but this is beyond the limit of realism for that time period. Social class was rigid as fuck in English history, and not even the wildest acts of generosity could break the class barrier to that extent. This story took place in the year 1913, where arguably social mobility was at its most fluid it has been for centuries past, but not to this extent. I argue that even now in this modern day and age, this kind of relationship would never exist between two similarly juxtaposed families in England. Furthermore, the Swanns' family motto is apparently Loyalty binds me, and they have to take some stupid oath when they come of age to swear to protect the Inghams? If there's going to be this kind of high-flown cheesy concept going on, I would at least want to know why. Generations of servitude under this aristocratic family isn't going to breed this kind of fierce loyalty. It might've been passable with a family of warrior knights sworn to protect another family of nobles back in the Middle ages, but – in Edwardian England? I can't see this happening. In any case, we have no plausible reason for this amazing loyalty of the Swanns towards the Inghams, despite being reminded of this repeatedly every two pages. What's even more amazing is that none of the Swanns waver from this one-track loyalty. When 12 year old Cecily is willing to take the rap for DeLacy Ingham's mistake of spilling ink on an old, fragile but well-preserved and beautiful lace ball gown, her mother Alice nods and says that she's a “true Swann” because she's willing to give up everything to protect an Ingham. So... this blind loyalty is written into the Swann genetic code or something? There better be some sorcery somewhere up the line, because I can't see this ever happening in real life. And of course, it seems that Swann women are irresistible to Ingham males, once again crossing the boundary of master and servant.I read excitedly through about 50% of this book and kinda gave up, but I was curious to know the ending so I flipped forward about 110 pages. To my extreme surprise, the characters were still talking about the exact same events as 110 pages ago. LOL. That was when I realised that I don't really want to bother properly reading the last half of the book. I skimmed through the rest just to get an idea of what happened, and finished the entire thing within 2 or 3 hours. The only big things that happened was Dulcie's near-abduction, Felicity's inexplicable request for a divorce from her husband, Charles and Charlotte's equally inexplicable sudden attraction towards each other, and Hugo and Daphne's marriage (saw that coming from a mile off anyway). Oh, and even though the blurb mentioned something about WW1 looming ahead, it only had a few cursory scenes in the book. By miracles and more miracles, Charles and Miles Ingham are spared from having to serve their country, saving the incumbent Earl and his spare heir. Unsurprisingly and to no one's anguish, Guy is killed in WW1. He barely appeared in the book anyway. Hugo signs up to serve (he's a cousin of Charles's who was exiled to America 16 years ago, did well in business, took a wife and had a happy marriage for 9 years until said wife died a year ago, then he expressed a wish to come back. Upon which, he proceeded to quickly and immediately fall head over heels for Daphne, and unsurprisingly accepted her previous rape and current pregnancy without much struggle), since he is bursting with patriotism for England even though he hasn't come back for the past 16 years, living in America since he was 16 years old. The only purpose for WW1 in this book, therefore, is to have an obligatory sad mournful family death (Guy) and to have Hugo a chance to meet Richard Torbett, Daphne's rapist and also serving in the army. Richard Torbett is very dramatically and conveniently killed, not by Hugo's hand but by Hugo's friend misdirecting him towards the German lines where he is bombed up quickly. Fantastic! Exit primary villain without staining our hero with the foul name of murder.

Originally published in Unravellations.

Since this is my very first introduction to the Inspector Pitt series, I get this feeling that I've missed out a lot, but the book explains its own sprawling backdrop and history pretty well and I never found myself confused, though I did find myself extremely curious. I am going to set about tracking down the very first novel in the series once I work my way through the pile of library books I've borrowed and need to finish.

As fate would have it, though, I think this book is a nice inflection point in the entire story arc as a whole to start off a new beginner with. Inspector Pitt has now been newly promoted to the Head of Britain's Special Branch (something like an internal security department) and consequently the problem(s) in this book have much more far-reaching political ramifications. Anne Perry wields her strong knowledge of the history of European politics to great effect here, and I am impressed and drawn in by the political web that she weaves around the central mystery. Now this is what I call a “stunning backdrop” to a piece of historical fiction, rich with exquisite detail but yet not overwhelming at the same time.

Allusions drawn to Inspector Pitt's past as well as the detective and policeman he used to be made me guess that perhaps books prior to this one would deal with more home-grown detective mysteries. As such, I'm pretty glad I started off with this book, because as a starter I can appreciate it on its own without comparing it to previous stories. I'm sure that my love for familiarity and my comfort zone would lead me to lament the more serious direction and political concerns that the plot arc has taken with this book. However, having started on this book and appreciating it for what it is, I can happily continue on chronologically with the Inspector Pitt series with all its political intrigues, and check out the earlier Inspector Pitt stories with its traditional detective mysteries. I'm really excited about both of these different threads.

Anne Perry's writing style is elegant and confident. She does not aim to make this novel sound like it came out of the Victorian era. Her language is generally modern, but written with a self-assured and well-practised hand so that it does not contrast too jarringly with the era she is writing about. Her focus is not on replicating the era itself in terms of linguistics, but in revolving around the human drama as well as the restricting hierarchies of society at that period. Her narrative style takes one into the minds of several different characters, jumping from Thomas Pitt, to his wife Charlotte, to his ex-boss Victor Narraway, to his aunt-in-law, Lady Vespasia, and so on. We are told the story from the perspectives of several different characters, and as such have a peek as to how they see the problem, themselves, and other characters, while also finding out what other characters think of them in turn. Though the narrative jumps around to different characters, I never found it confusing or hard to follow.

The plot in itself centers around what appears to be two different lines of mysteries. The first one is uncovered by Charlotte's aunt, Lady Vespasia, who is informed that her former friend and acquaintance, Serafina Montserrat, is unwell and unlikely to recover in her old age. She visits the ailing Mrs. Montserrat, who is not only suffering from the pangs of dementia, but also the paranoia and fear that she might let slip dangerous secrets in her memories to the wrong person when she is unaware of whom she is speaking to. The entire scene, describing the bitterness of aging for such a once-brilliant personage, was heartfelt and impactful. Lady Vespasia, however, is not inclined to completely dismiss Mrs. Montserrat's fears, although she mostly thinks it might just be pure fancy. She brings it forth to Victor Narraway, ex-Head of the Special Branch, who sets about doing his own investigative work just for the sake of having something to do, having lately resigned from a post he had held for 20 years previously.

Meanwhile, Thomas Pitt, now Commander of the Special Branch, is informed of some suspicious increase of interest regarding train signal points, and is led to believe that a possible assassination attempt might be made there against a minor Austrian Duke, due to visit England relatively soon. Though the Duke himself holds no political significance, but his assassination on English soil would carry with it widespread repercussions throughout Europe, with England at the heart of the mess. He finds trouble getting the Foreign Secretary, Lord Tregarron, to take his fears seriously. These two threads of mysteries seem wholly separate and irrelevant to each other at first, but as the book progresses, they are brought closer and closer to each until their intertwined nature and connection is revealed.

I particularly also love how Thomas Pitt encounters some very realistic problems with taking over a new, powerful position. His ex-boss, Victor Narraway, had held the position of Commander of the Special Branch for nearly 2 decades before him, and as such is given the respect that his post calls for. Thomas Pitt, however, finds that people generally think he might have been promoted before his time, and that he did not have what it takes to fill Narraway's shoes, which consequently raises self-doubt within him. Most interestingly, Pitt reflects that perhaps it might be his own humble beginnings as a son of a gamekeeper that had held him back in gaining the social standing that his post deserves, rather than experience and skill as people claim. Victor Narraway, after all, was born a gentleman, and after his retirement from the Special Branch, was inducted into the House of Lords. Indeed, various allusions as to social standing is drawn through the novel, giving the world Anne Perry creates yet another facet.

Overall, I greatly enjoyed this book, though admittedly it took me some time to really get into it. Once the momentum started though, it was impossible to put down. I would definitely be finding more of Anne Perry's books to read.

Originally published on Unravellations.While I was reviewing [b:Death on a Pale Horse: Sherlock Holmes on Her Majesty's Secret Service 14458877 Death on a Pale Horse Sherlock Holmes on Her Majesty's Secret Service (Sherlock Holmes, #6) Donald Thomas https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1346415560s/14458877.jpg 20101318], my attention was frequently directed to what a lot of reviewers viewed as a superior Sherlock Holmes canon extension - this book: The House of Silk, by Anthony Horowitz. Luckily, I had already borrowed it from the library and had lined it up behind Death On A Pale Horse on my reading list.In many ways, The House of Silk would definitely come up as superior if you're a bit of a purist. This is a good old-fashioned Sherlock Holmes romp, with our dear bungling narrator Dr. Watson, Holmes landing himself in trouble, the story setting never leaving England (unlike Death On A Pale Horse) and barely leaving London, a quest to uncover what lies behind a secret conspiracy and all that. I was very entertained throughout, and the plot chugs along at a pace, never leaving a boring moment.There are two things I'd like to point out about The House of Silk, though.Firstly, like most other spin-offs of famous works, there is a self-conscious way in which defining characteristics of Holmes are brought up, or canon stories are mentioned to. For example, the novel begins with Holmes deducing Watson's thoughts, Watson exclaiming at the devilry of it all, Holmes explaining his logical processes, and Watson finally admitting that it was simplicity itself. This famous scene from the canon is so frequently used in spin-offs, adaptations and anything depicting Sherlock Holmes that I could honestly have done without it. It was done once, and brilliantly, in the original books. Enough of that. It is too fantastical to assume that such a specific scene could be replicated so many times in real life between two people. If I had been Watson, if Holmes tried to intrude upon our thoughts in such a manner for the second time, I certainly wouldn't have been as surprised and incredulous as the first time, and would've been less than polite in extricating his methods from him. In my opinion, if a spin-off work aims to fit itself into a canon chronology of an original work, then it should note that these little references and scenes, of which the original work is famous for, is really unlikely to happen again at another time period, even if one would've liked to use it as a signifier that hey, this is the famous mind-reading Sherlock Holmes that we're writing about.Secondly - and this isn't a negative point this time - Horowitz injects certain points of reflections in the story which I found interesting. In the novel, Watson is supposed to be writing about this adventure of the House of Silk from his declining years, when his wife, all his friends, including Lestrade and Holmes, have passed on. As such, it is realistic to assume that Watson would be looking back with a broader perspective of a wizened elderly man, so I liked this bit. It also served as a reason for Horowitz to criticize Doyle and the times he lived in. The poignant reflections I can remember off hand are: 1) the state of the London child beggars, treated as part of the streets itself and handled almost thoughtlessly by Doyle in the canon; 2) the personality of Lestrade, described as incompetent by Doyle, but Horowitz redeems him here and portrays him not only as being effective and resourceful for someone who doesn't have a brain like Holmes's, but also someone who, though he is frequently a mildly antagonistic competitor, is also a firm ally of Holmes to the end; and 3) the flitting presence of Mrs Hudson throughout the canon - Horowitz's interpretation of Watson acknowledges that he barely took the time to get to know his landlady and didn't know much about her beyond her showing in clients at Baker Street. I enjoyed reading these little points, though it pertains to the author's own interpretation and criticism of the Holmes canon, but it ended a nice extra dimension and food for thought for fans reading this book.Although the revelation that the House of Silk was actually some sort of whore-house where young homeless boys were presumably forced into prostitution, I thought that was a slightly disappointing resolution. Perhaps it had to do with my expectations being something along the lines of an international criminal syndicate, which would run closer to the Holmes canon. Doyle rarely, if ever, wanders to the particular part of London that deals with sex crimes and sex-related vices. However, I acknowledge that such a concept is conceivable for the Victorian era; though they prided themselves on morality, such a strait-laced society bred a lot of perverseness.I enjoyed the ending where surprise after surprise comes in. Along with Watson, I was also duped into thinking Dr Silkin's House of Wonders was where the answer to the mystery lay. I also believed that Holmes escaped prison by hiding in a coffin exiting the prison mortuary. Being befuddled and told I was wrong is always good in any mystery novel. The Carstairs mystery was at once mystifying but also obvious. I knew something was wrong with either Edmund or Catherine Carstairs (or both) from the beginning, but I couldn't make up my mind what. At the beginning, I found Catherine Carstairs suspicious because of how she happened to enter the exact same room that the burglary took place, and she conveniently lost her key. Perhaps readers were meant to feel that way. Later on, when she comes to Watson telling him about her sister in law Eliza Carstairs's illness, I began to wonder if it was perhaps Edmund Carstairs that was the suspicious character, secretly poisoning his own sister. After all, the street urchin Ross recognised Edmund Carstairs and feared him. I thought Edmund was the one who had killed Keelan O'Donaghue, through some elaborate scheme. It was only when we returned to the Carstairs at the very end of the novel, after the House of Silk is revealed, that I suddenly made the link that Edmund must've been a patron of the House of Silk, before Holmes explained it in the narrative. That part didn't catch me by surprise. The bit about his wife actually being Keelan O'Donaghue did, though! I had no expectation of that, maybe because I may have missed a description talking about how Keelan was slimmer in stature and so on. The part about poisoning her sister in law by her bath salts was also interestingly novel, though I'm not quite sure if it is physiologically possible.All in all, I would recommend this book for lovers of mystery novels, and especially those who are already fans of the Holmes canon. It wouldn't disappoint.

Originally published on Unravellations.

I have been strongly attracted to this cover for some time, but the reviews on Goodreads didn't seem great so I had passed up on this book until I decided to throw caution to the winds and give it a go.

One of the most major problems about this book is the overload of information and details. It is clear that Thomas knows his stuff about English military history, and even other things like the anatomy of a paddle steamer and how its crew work. He shows it, and he shows it abundantly. The first third of the book was honestly a bit of a drag because it detailed specific battles that the English army fought in Zululand and other places in South Africa. Of course, these battles were central to the main plot line, which was that of Col. Rawdon Moran (brother of the infamous Sebastian Moran) being a background puppeteer of all these spectacular English defeats in South Africa. But I felt the language here far too technical, and it lost my attention many times. I fairly skipped over paragraphs and paragraphs of strategies and men being killed in the carnage of war. Names were thrown around that never had any relevance to the central plot, and only served to confuse me further. I almost gave up at this point. However, I persevered and was rewarded for my determination.

When I was wading through the military history bits of the novel, though, I decided to look up this whole period in history on Wikipedia. I was fairly sure that it was inspired by real-life historical events, and I was right. Reading up on the death of the Prince Imperial Louis Napoleon of France, as well as that of his main escort, Captain Jahleel Brenton Carey, certainly helped a lot in the understanding of plot events that unfolded after. If I hadn't, I would be even more lost than I was.

I was also pleasantly surprised at some of the plot twists, like the Rev. Dordonan actually being Major Putney-Wilson, and Josh Sellon turning up dead. Thomas also likes to weave in a sort of timeline into the story. This entire case was supposed to have happen shortly after Holmes and Watson meet, so there were some brief mentions of the “Brixton Road mystery”, Mary Morstan and a commissionaire who featured in a small role in one of the earlier cases, Albert Gibbons, makes a bigger appearance. I was neutral about this timeline thing – it wasn't a distraction, but it wasn't necessary either.I also thought Mycroft Holmes served up a deus ex machina, revealing a large part of the backstory when he appears halfway through the investigation. I thought the rivalry between Mycroft and Sherlock slightly too overstated in this book, though. Whatever rivalry there was in the original canon, it was kept very subtle and under wraps. Here, Sherlock looks at his brother “coldly” and Mycroft comes across as a pompous know-it-all.Watson, being our faithful narrator as always, remains completely in the dark most of the time. It is good and well that us readers remain in the dark with him, which is the whole point of him being a narrator. Plot twists were not so easily guessable that we would think Watson being deliberately obtuse. At one point in the story, Watson receives a ciphered telegram from Holmes, which he takes about 2 pages of soliloquy just to decipher. While I like that Watson shows his struggles as a mere mortal with a brain that works at a normal speed, but this also exemplifies the problem with Thomas's writing. There is just too much detail. A few lines would've sufficed to let the reader understand how much problems Watson encounters with the cipher, rather than pen down his stream of consciousness.

Luckily, I found that his writing, during the more exciting parts of the book, was sufficiently in tune with that of Arthur Conan Doyle's, so much so that sometimes I forgot that I'm not actually reading an original Sherlock Holmes story. This in itself is a great plus point for me, though it didn't mean that I managed to sit through every word in the novel. I would certainly pick up more of Donald Thomas's books in the future, and in fact I have already borrowed another one from his Lost Sherlock series, Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly. I would still try out more of Thomas's books, in the sanguine hope that if his stories didn't center so much around military history, they would read better.

Originally published on Unravellations.

I find myself at a loss of what to say about The Investigation.

At first it was like an Alice-in-Wonderland-esque tumble down a rabbit hole into infinite loops of absurd nonsense, but then in the second half, it takes a grimmer turn and tone and by the end of the book, you're really left questioning what was the point of it all. Or was that the point?

A lot of online comments mentioned how The Investigation was Kafka-esque. I'm going to admit here that I've never read Kafka (shame on me) so I can't concur or rebutt any of these statements. What it did remind me a little of was Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot, except not as absurdist, and it didn't quite leave me with a feeling of liberating self-doubt as Beckett's play did.

The Investigation starts off only mildly absurd. The Investigator, as he is known, arrives at an unnamed town where he is supposed to find his way to the Enterprise to investigate a series of suicides amongst its employees. Everything in the book is named that way - the Waiter, the Server, the Guard, the Guide. Things turn topsy-turvy for the Investigator as nothing seems to happen according to plan. He gets a creepy feeling of being watched. It raised a lot of questions about personal identity in today's world, are we defined by our functions in society, have we all lost our own individuality in capitalism, so on and so forth. Side note: the Enterprise always reminded me of Google for some reason.

Things get from crazy to batshit insane. Allegories either become too convoluted or simply collapsed under themselves. I was left feeling as lost as the Investigator, all my previous predictions for the ending of the book fell through. If anything, this book had the ability to keep me reading and reading, fuelled simply by the curiosity of finding out what exactly is going on. I finished the book within 24 hours, but the ending fell a little flat for me. I'm not even sure if the author intended to clear anything up by the end. I know explanations are sometimes not necessary for complex works like these, they're deliberately left open-ended in order to facilitate thought and discussion, but when I look back and can't seem to connect any dots, or to find out any sort of message behind it all, I begin to question the efficacy of the ending. Maybe it's me?!

Victorian mysteries are really something else and this book does not disappoint. Mysterious disappearances, secrets borne by everyone all around, deceit and death, you've got it all here.

Everyone wasn't too surprised when Sir Michael Audley of Audley Court proposes marriage to a lady not even half his age and who worked as a governess at the local surgeon's family, primarily because said lady was charming and lovely beyond words. The new Lady Audley is the belle of the county and never fails to be the star attraction of any party, gathering, or event that she attends. Sir Michael's good-hearted, if insouciant, nephew Robert Audley pays his visit to his new aunt with a friend, George Talboys, who he's newly reconnected with, and who has just fresh come off the boat from Australia. But then George Talboys suddenly and mysteriously disappears, and all signs seem to point to something terrible having happened to him. At the center of that horrible enigma seems to be the charming Lady Audley.

The titular secret that Lady Audley carries is not very hard to figure out - you probably would have guessed it within the first 5-10 chapters. But there's something very masterful in the way Braddon builds up that mystery, shows you probably just about 90% of it and keeps you hanging for that last 10% all the way up to the end. At some point around the the first arc of the book, I had wondered, “Why would I bother reading this if I already know what the secret is?” But oh, it was worth it. I binged this book in about 24 hours (including my sleep time) because it was just so gripping and kept me at the edge of my seat - even though I had a feeling I knew what the secret was.

Lady Audley's characterisation was stellar. She's exquisitely Machiavellian and only gets more and more intense with every chapter, as Robert Audley doggedly takes step after step towards the end of the mystery. There was an entire chapter that I had to skim because her machinations got so unbearably uncomfortable to read (This was the part where she shed some crocodile tears and tried to convince Sir Michael that Robert Audley was insane just so she can discredit him before he could tell on her to her husbandSpeaking of Robert Audley, I'm not entirely convinced that he doesn't have some latent homoerotic tendencies over here. When his friend George Talboys disappears, Audley is observed by the other characters in the book to have altered considerably, becoming moodier and unhappy - and this was before he even realised he had a mystery to solve. Audley harbours some really intense feelings and affection for Talboys which I'm not convinced is entirely platonic in nature. In fact, in the end he falls for Clara Talboys because she so much resembles her brother. It's almost like everytime he looks at her, he's reminded of George and therefore convinces himself that he's crazily in love with her. Anyway, he was also characterised beautifully, with a convincing transition between the insouciant, lazing gentleman to one that rushes about the entire country seized by some frantic energy trying to find out and avenge his lost friend.Spoiler review for the ending:I thought everything wrapped up a bit too perfectly tied up with a bow, with everyone ending up happy and Lady Audley ending up dead (but apparently having been kindly treated in an upstate asylum). I was really just kinda waiting for someone to accidentally stumble across George Talboys's body in the lime-walk, or for Audley to have arranged for someone to haul that decomposed corpse out of the well, which would have driven this book into Victorian gothic territory. But nope, I was pretty caught off guard by the fact that George Talboys actually managed to save himself! Not only that, but Audley didn't even have to travel to Australia in search of him, as he had planned - he basically just went home one day (very conveniently after the entire mystery is cleared up) and Talboys is there waiting for him, because he had actually gone to New York instead and came back after he decided he was too lonely there.In fact, I would've even liked it even more if Braddon pulled a fast one on us, and we had Dr Mosgrave right at the end tell us that it was actually Robert Audley who was mad all along (which I thought was actually going to happen during that chapter), and who had dreamed up and hallucinated all these things. Or that it had been him who had actually murdered George Talboys. I know it sounds out of this world (or more in line with Agatha Christie) but it's not unheard of in Victorian mysteries, like with Wilkie Collins. Heck, even Jane Eyre had some crazy plot twists.I was a little disappointed by Lady Audley's real secret, which is that her mother was apparently "mad", never mind the disturbing Victorian notions of mental health. It just feels like an all too convenient and cliched plot twist, and I would have preferred something a bit more out of the way and weirder than that. I thought that maybe Lady Audley had in fact murdered her mother.Despite that the ending was a bit overly neat, though, it didn't require a huge amount of suspension of disbelief so I was generally satisfied.Overall, this was a very enjoyable and gripping book that I thoroughly enjoyed and which embodies all the beauty of Victorian writing that I rarely see being emulated successfully in more modern and contemporary books.

This book was something of a departure from the usual Higashino stories that I'm used to (such as his Galileo and Kaga series), but that may be because it's a newer series compared to the others. In some ways, it felt a bit draggier and longer than the others because Higashino is suddenly taking a lot more time to develop other aspects of the story besides the msytery, but in others, there's some charm in getting to know our protagonists much better and seeing them develop, both individually and their dynamics with each other.

The overarching mystery in Masquerade Hotel involves a serial killer, who has already committed three murders, somehow revealing to the police that the next one would be done in the high-end Hotel Cortesia Tokyo. The police dispatches several of their finest to disguise themselves as hotel staff to keep an eye on things, one of whom is Kosuke Niita, hard-hitting cop who's not a little disgruntled at being assigned to blend into the front desk staff where he would have to be the epitome of hospitality and politeness in order to live up to Hotel Cortesia's reputation. The hotel staff in charge of training him up as a front desk personnel is veteran Yamagishi Naomi, whose entire identity is in being the perfect, role model hotel staff and giving guests only the best memories of staying in their hotel.

The actual mystery isn't that complicated and if it had been the only thing the book concentrated one (which is usually what Higashino does), it would probably take only half the length. But Higashino chose instead to focus a lot on developing Niita and Naomi's relationship dynamic. It sometimes felt like one of those Japanese dramas where each episode has a self-contained story about a problem with an odd guest and how everything gets resolved beautifully with rainbows in the end, with a nice message about how hotels are amazing.

The pacing of the book could be improved upon tbh, I think a lot of the smaller story arcs (which sole purpose was just for character or premise development rather than contributing anything to the mystery) could be tighter. I didn't really mind the episodic stories, but they could've taken a lot less time, and we could also probably see less of the policemen arguing amongst themselves or trying to stamp down on Niita's suggestions. But nevertheless, when you get into it, you do find yourself a bit sucked in.

Overall, I enjoyed myself and I found myself wanting to see more of Niita and Naomi by the end, even though it took me nearly half the book to really warm up to them. I would probably read the next one but it'll have to be a while from now because of how long it seems to take. I'm used to Higashino books being really snappy reads, so the fact that this seemed to go on forever was really weird.

I've tried multiple times throughout the years to read Fellowship of the Ring but I've always either skimmed through the book or given up entirely. Still, it's one of those bucket list TBR that I know I want to keep having another go at, and I think I've finally gotten to a sweet spot in life where I've managed to finish reading Fellowship and enjoy it.

I think my previous attempts had been foiled by mismanaged expectations brought about by my obsession with the first movie (back when I was a teen), but now that I've kinda left that behind at this point. I've also read more classics and gotten used to this style of writing, and all of this made Fellowship a much more pleasant read than I've previously experienced. It also helped that i went into it knowing that some parts were going to be slower-paced and lore-rich rather than action-packed (as i had expected during my very first attempt), and that helped me to shift my mindset to enjoy it better.

I took so long to read this not because it was a drag as it had been on my previous attempts. In fact, this is the most I have been engaged in and enjoyed the book in all my numerous attempts throughout the years! But I figured that this was a book I didn't want to rush through and force myself to read any faster than what I was comfortable with, so along the way I got distracted by a lot of things, like reading an entire other book (Astrophysics for People in a Hurry) and watching an entire 50-episode TV show. Despite all that, I'm still managing to finish FOTR within a month, and I think that's really good progress for me.

I'm already planning out the rest of my LOTR reading journey - TTT in Sep and ROTK in Dec. I really want to finish the rest of the trilogy this year, but I also think that these are books that I don't want to read consecutively because they're pretty dense in themselves. I want to take my time and slowly savour it along the way.

Some spoilerish observations:
Sam is even more of a voice of reason in the book than he was in the movie. I also can't believe they ended it so abruptly?? I thought that they'd at least have gone on to the death of Boromir and the kidnapping of Merry and Pippin etc. but I guess not. I previously really didn't like the whole Tom Bombadil bit because it felt so draggy and useless, but I found myself really fascinated by it this time round! Also, very fascinated by the Lothlorien bits and the fact that Galadriel is in fact Arwen's grandmother.

This was so imaginative and I kinda loved it for that but there were several points about it that ground against my gears.

Firstly, I really didn't like that these two sisters were just pitted against each other, even though they were moved to do so by external circumstances, throughout the whole book. I don't know how they even somehow reconciled and “clung to each other” right at the end of it, considering what both had literally just gone through. I really wish that we had a bit more of a genuine reconciliation between the two sisters.

Secondly, the ending felt really abrupt. As is the case for the first book, I felt like these premises are enough to fill much longer novels instead of the novella-length story that we got here. But even then, we had so much more substance to how the sisters made their choices between the Master and Dr Bleak, but their dive back to their original home world was all done in a 7-page chapter. We had no idea how they were going to assimilate back into their world after nearly 6 formative years away, and we don't even know how they were going to reconcile with each other given that to each of them, the other had ripped away and stolen what had come to matter most to them in the years they spent in the Moors. It felt like there's so much unexplored business here that is yet to be concluded. I'm not sure if Jack and Jill's story continues in the later books but as far as I know, the instalments in this series are barely connected to each other so we may not see Jack and Jill again, which is really a shame. It was such a great set-up but I felt like we barely got to the climax before everything ended.

Thirdly, I kinda hated that Jill had no redemption arc. I was incredibly annoyed with her for the whole book but also incredibly sympathetic. She was so mired in her obsession with the Master because, in my opinion, she had grown up so bereft of attention compared to Jacqueline. It almost felt like watching a child who gets into some kind of toxic dependent relationship because of the way they had grown up till then, and then becoming susceptible to more toxicity in these relationships when they eventually grow up into adults. It was annoying but also really sad and I had really really wanted to see a redemption arc somewhere, but - there was none of that.

But overall, Seanan McGuire's worlds are always so compelling and interesting. The premise is refreshing and unique, the writing is so easy and smooth. While I particularly detested Jack and Jill's parents and the way they treated the children in the first few chapters, I could really get behind the message that she was trying to convey: treat children like very young people but still people in their own rights, and not dolls to be molded into an image that you want them to be.

Despite my gripes about it, this was still at least a 4 star read for me and I'd be continuing on the series (I really hope to see more of Jack and Jill in future books!)

This is a re-read for me and while I don't recall the details of my previous read, I'm happy to say that my rating of this book has improved from 3 to 4 stars. With that out of the way, the topmost thought upon finishing this book is: Who hurt you, Anne Bronte? This book's sub-title is “The first feminist novel” which might very well be true for its time, but I think “Gaslighting fbois” is probably a more appropriate one today.The premise of the novel is fairly simple enough. The whole novel is really a very, very, very long letter from our sort-of protagonist Gilbert Markham to his friend Haldon. In it, he details a story from his youth, when his neighbourhood sees the appearance of a mysterious Mrs Graham, the titular tenant of Wildfell Hall, and her son Arthur. From there, we watch the story unfold.Gilbert is by no means an endearing protagonist. He is pretty gaslight-y in his turn and sometimes seems a bit self-absorbed when it comes to pursuing women. However, all of that is entirely eclipsed by the ridiculously aggravating man-children fboi gang that we meet after the 25% mark of the novel. I don't even want to compare them to children because I think it isn't fair to the latter who haven't had the time to grow and mature. Clearly maturity, empathy, and sparing a single moment of thought and consideration for anything beyond their noses is a foreign concept to most of the men in this novel.

What really saves this novel from Wuthering Heights level of dreariness is Helen or Mrs Graham, the real protagonist of this novel. She is a little aggravatingly gullible at first, it's true, as we read her perspective from her 18 year old self, but she soon proves her worth under adversity. Unlike so many simpering, swooning heroines of other contemporary books, Helen toughens up and actually retains the use of her logic and intelligence even under the most trying of circumstances. While our modern attitudes may be screaming at some of her decisions, if we look at her situation from an early 19th century perspective, what options were feasibly open to her at the time, and the societal repercussions of each, she really behaved very well and made very sound, rational decisions instead of giving way to impulsive recklessness. Having at least just one character I could root for in the whole damn novel made all the difference to me, and is what elevates this novel above Wuthering Heights imo.

I don't know if I want to delve too much into the men of this novel, except to say that they were all infuriating to read and all the more annoying because they are pretty grounded in reality instead of being caricatures a la Wuthering Heights. I could very well conceive that such men existed back then, and a lot of them and their attitudes still exist today, sadly enough. Anne Bronte did such a great job in dragging out their shittiness into the spotlight while maintaining every ounce of realism. I appreciate that, even though it didn't make for a very pleasant read sometimes. There were whole chapters I desperately wanted to skip because I knew it was just going to be so much aggravation, but I'm glad I persisted. At some point I wanted to slap all of them and exile them onto an island where they can learn humility and independence for once instead of being grown-up babies.

Overall, this was a much more entertaining read than I remember, and all the more because I felt so much feelings by it, even if they were not all pleasant.

2.5/5. This is one of those books where I go in kinda knowing what I'm getting myself into but also hoping that it might be something that defies my expectations. It did not. I can't tell if it's a fault on the book or on myself because I'm reading a genre that I already know I don't prefer because I'm not a fan of the tropes (which this book has in spades).

The book jumps between two different timelines: one in the 1930s when the original mystery happens where Iris Ellingham and her daughter Alice are kidnapped, and then the other one in modern-day when we see our protagonist Stevie Bell attend Ellingham Academy apparently because she's so obsessed with crime investigation and can't wait to solve that cold case from the 30s. This premise in itself is not bad, and I appreciated the way Johnson juxtaposes the information reveal in each timeline. Presumably everything that had happened in the 30s was already known to Stevie from the beginning of the book, but the information is kept unspoken and slowly revealed to us the readers simultaneously on both timelines so there's some bit of suspense there.

I was also much more interested in whatever was going on in the 1930s timeline because that is really where all the action and suspense was. There barely is anything happening in the modern-day one except a whole bunch of YA tropes that I couldn't care less about. I wasn't a fan of the Stevie and the “not like other girls” vibe happening there. I wasn't a fan of how she kept thinking she was smarter than her parents, and also insisting that her parents wanted her to be “normal” and “go to high school” and “enjoy prom” and all that. In trying to probably “rep” the bookworm-y girl loves an “obscure” hobby like forensic investigation and who has never dated before high school, you don't also need to cancel people who do want to just look forward to prom and date - I don't feel like it needs to be a competition or that one is better than the other.

Also, what was with that ending? I know this book was part of a larger series, but I expect at least that the central mystery of the book would have some kind of resolution by the end. It did not. It ended so abruptly that I legit wondered if I had missed something important when I was listening to my audiobook but apparently I hadn't. Most mystery series I've read may have some kind of overarching background mystery that spans multiple books, but at least the core mystery of the book is solved by the end. This one apparently is making the core mystery span across the trilogy which is bewildering to me and kinda makes me not want to continue.

In a nutshell, this one was spectacularly okay. Ngaio Marsh clearly pays a lot of attention to the cast of characters maybe even more than the mystery, but it still made for an entertaining story. There were a few great twists at the end. What was particularly intriguing to me in this story is the interface between the Maoi people with the English migrants, and how they interacted with each other. I don't think I've read a novel based in New Zealand before, much less in the WW2 era.

The setting is an English health resort run by the comically dysfunctional Claire family. The father, Colonel Claire, is beset by a slimy money-grabber, appropriately named Questing, who is slowly taking possession over the property. In an attempt to boost the resort's business, Questing invites famous actor Geoffrey Gaunt, his secretary Dikon Bell, and his dresser to receive treatment from the resort's famous mud spas for his bad leg. The Claire family is on friendly terms with the Maoi people, on whose lands the health resort is situated. Their maid Huai is a granddaughter of the chieftain Rua. Huai is courted by half-Maoi loiterer Eru Saul as well as general employee Herbert Smith, who is a particular friend of Simon, the son of Colonel Claire. Col Claire's brother in law, Dr James Ackrington, is a cantankerous long-time resident of the resort, and he is followed by a guest of the resort, Septimus Falls. Questing steps on all the wrong toes and most people have a motive to kill him when he eventually winds up in a pit of boiling mud.

I mean, you can kinda tell from the above that this story is very much character-driven. In fact, the mystery doesn't even start proper until about halfway through the book. In the meantime, we learn everything about the dynamics between all the above characters and how things lead up to the actual murder. The tone of the book is always kept rather light-hearted so despite the huge cast of characters, things never feel too dense to handle.

The most interesting character to me is probably Rua, and what we learn about him and his tribe. He is said to have been a journalist and an MP, but in his old age he has returned to govern his tribe. Unlike many novels where we see white characters being incredibly racist and intolerant to other cultures and practices, this novel seems to present a fairly tolerant and harmonious relationship between the white and Maoi characters, at least as much as can be expected for something written in the WW2 era. We also get references about Maois enlisting for the war effort against Germany too, and just a tiny glimpse about the whole politics behind that. There is even a Maoi concert held to which the Claires and their guests are invited, and during which important plot events happen. When the white characters are caught by surprise by Maoi practices that they aren't used to, they don't usually fall back on racist comments or insults. So if anything, this book has just made me even more curious about what the whole climate is like back then between the Maoi and the European migrants to New Zealand. I would be hesitant to call a book written in the early 1940s as progressive, but the treatment of Maoi tribes, folklore, and characters was generally a breath of fresh air in this one, and if anything I'd remember this book for this point especially.