Tag: Susanna Kearsley

Stacking the Shelves

Posted July 18, 2015 by Nicky in General / 16 Comments

Some lovely book-mail awaited me on my return from my month in Belgium, Canada and the US. So excite! Thank you to Susanna Kearsley and to Pan Macmillan for these, respectively.

Cover of A Desperate Fortune by Susanna Kearsley Cover of Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho

Aaaand I was happy to reunite with the library, of course.

Cover of Poison by Sarah Pinborough Cover of The Death House by Sarah Pinborough Cover of One-Eyed Jack by Elizabeth Bear

 Cover of Ghost Hawk by Susan Cooper Cover of The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black Cover of The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Reilly

One-Eyed Jack is a book I had as an ARC… ages ago. So I figured I’d get it from the library. I don’t know what exactly prompted me to try Sarah Pinborough’s books, but I’m intrigued. Susan Cooper is, well. Susan Cooper. ’nuff said. Been meaning to get to this one for ages. And The Darkest Part of the Forest features queer characters, so why the heck not? The Great Zoo of China… I haven’t heard 100% good things about it, but I felt like giving it a shot anyway.

Aaand just one comic on my pull list this week.

Captain Marvel & the Carol Corps #2

So what’s everyone else been getting? Anything you’re really excited about?

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted June 20, 2015 by Nicky in General / 16 Comments

This week, I got some major goals done — the book I was ghostwriting was finished (well, one of them), I got a lot of transcription work done, and I got an assignment done. So I was allowed some books, and much deserved they were. Also, one of them was bought with a voucher my mother gave me a few weeks(!) ago. Aaand then was Support Tor Day (warning: link to Vox Day’s blog; no, he isn’t supporting Tor, he’s calling for a boycott, which to me is tantamount to asking all reasonable people to support them).

Plus, Susanna Kearsley sent me an Amazon voucher to make up for me getting smacked with a customs charge for a book she sent me. I don’t have that book in my hands yet, but I do have a couple of her others. I had some of these from the library, but…

Cover of Uprooted by Naomi Novik Cover of Across the Wall by Garth Nix 23213811

Cover of Mariana by Susanna Kearsley Cover of The Assassin's Blade by Sarah J. Maas Cover of Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas

Cover of Hammered by Elizabeth Bear Cover of The Seventh Bride by T. Kingfisher Cover of The Sin Eater's Daughter by Melinda Salisbury

Cover of The Shadowy Horses by Susanna Kearsley Cover of Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang Cover of A Companion to Wolves by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette

Excite!

Comics

Ms Marvel

I’m not sure how I feel about this event, but still. Ms Marvel. Yay.

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Top Ten Tuesday

Posted May 26, 2015 by Nicky in General / 12 Comments

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is “beach books”. Which is not something I really do, so instead I shall pick the kinds of books I like to relax with. Whether that looks like your beach reads or not, I don’t know!

  1. Shades of Milk and Honey, Mary Robinette Kowal. Or anything in that series, but the first one is the lightest and closest to Austen and the like.
  2. This Rough Magic, Mary Stewart. Or any of her mysteries — they have an amazing sense of place, it’s like going on holiday without leaving home.
  3. The Rose Garden, Susanna Kearsley. Another one with a great sense of place, this one in Cornwell. It’s not all happy, but the romance is sweet and it has a happy ending.
  4. The Grand Sophy, Georgette Heyer. I have a huge soft spot for these romances. I loved Sophy in particular, though I’m also a fan of…
  5. The Talisman Ring, Georgette Heyer. Which is more of a mystery/adventure than some of the primarily society type ones.
  6. Magic Bites, Ilona Andrews. Light and compulsively readable.
  7. Have His Carcase, Dorothy L. Sayers. Okay, I think you need the background of previous books, but I love the first line and the rest doesn’t disappoint: “The best remedy for a bruised heart is not, as so many people seem to think, repose upon a manly bosom. Much more efficacious are honest work, physical activity, and the sudden acquisition of wealth.”
  8. Gaudy Night, Dorothy L. Sayers. For Harriet Vane in the prime spot, with her final answer to Lord Peter’s proposals at the end of the book… Plus, tons of smart women in academia.
  9. Jhereg, Steven Brust. It’s a fun first book of the series, it raced past me, and it’s really easy to read.
  10. Soulless, Gail Carriger. Fluffy fun with werewolves.

I don’t think that’d be a bad selection for the beach, right?

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Review – The Splendour Falls

Posted May 24, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment

Cover of The Splendour Falls by Susanna KearsleyThe Splendour Falls, Susanna Kearsley

Looking at the reviews for this book, I had to laugh at how many people compared Kearsley’s work to Mary Stewart’s. Including myself, I’m afraid, which leaves me wondering if Kearsley embraces that or is rather sick of it by now. But truly, some of the plot things here are right up Stewart’s street, too: the moment where the villain kisses the heroine, that charged moment between them. Except that there’s something more subtle here: the villain isn’t purely villainous, but motivated by love as well. There seems something genuine in his attraction to the heroine, his interest in her.

And Kearsley is much harder on my heart. As with Season of Storms, I found myself falling for a character who didn’t make it to the end of the book. Kearsley did a great job with character, much more so than Stewart: I can believe in what happens between the protagonists, I adore a lot of the characters, and all of them have an inner life. There is something dreamlike about the whole book, with these moments of clarity where you really get to know characters and see what makes them tick, even less significant ones.

The plot itself is a bit convoluted, and I could perhaps have done without the drama of Hans and Isabelle’s story, the convenient way everything comes back together at just the right time… but then, it was exactly what I expected from the genre, and worked out with sympathetic characters and a sense of place, it doesn’t come off too badly.

Rating: 3/5

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted May 16, 2015 by in General / 35 Comments

Another week where I’ve been a bit naughty! I have just adjusted my book budget to take other stuff into account, though, so I had the leeway. Thankfully. I hate failing at any challenge! But first…

For review

Cover of The Philosopher Kings by Jo Walton

It was listed as just a preview excerpt, but what I downloaded seems to be the full file. I am immensely excited about this one. My review of The Just City is actually (finally) going live on Monday!

Bought

Cover of Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodges Cover of An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir Cover of The Skeleton Cupboard by Tanya Byron

Cover of The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey Cover of Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas Cover of The Girl at Midnight by Melissa Grey

A friend bought me An Ember in the Ashes to comfort me about the election results! A couple of the others were on sale on Amazon or something like that. Aside from Sabaa Tahir’s book, they’re all paperbacks; for some reason I’m not really in the mood to read on my ereader at the moment, much as I love my Kobo.

Library

Cover of Darwin's Lost World by Martin Brasier Cover of Mariana by Susanna Kearsley

I got a couple of others, but I’ve featured them here before; I just grabbed ’em from the local library while I’m visiting my parents, to reduce the amount of books I had to haul across the country!

Comics

Captain Marvel Thor Silk Ms Marvel

Yay so many comics! Boo that my pull list is now costing me £10 some weeks. Whoops.

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted May 2, 2015 by in General / 26 Comments

Is it Saturday again already? Whoa. I’ve been catching up on blog stuff all this week, thanks to the readathon — which is not a complaint.

Review copies

Cover of The Eye of Strife by Dave Duncan Cover of Cities and Thrones by Carrie Patel

I have finally got round to writing a review of The Buried Life, which will be up soon; Cities and Thrones is the sequel. You can still check out Carrie’s post here from her blog tour for The Buried Life, too! I got The Eye of Strife via LibraryThing; I’ve been meaning to read Dave Duncan for ages, so this should be interesting.

Won

Cover of Sword by Amy Bai Cover of Dreams of the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn

I’ve been interested in Sword for a while, so I picked it as my win in one of the readathon giveaways. <3 Dreams of the Golden Age was my pick for another win; that hasn’t arrived yet, which is probably good, because I need to reread After the Golden Age, and I think my partner has my copy.

Library

Cover of The Drowning City by Amanda Downum Cover of Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas Cover of The Splendour Falls by Susanna Kearsley

Cover of The Deadly Sisterhood by Leonie Frieda Cover of Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Daughter of Smoke and Bone and The Drowning City are both rereads, to get me back up to speed for the next book in the series/trilogy. Crown of Midnight is obvious, since I just read Throne of Glass (but I’m sorry, I just don’t love it as much as some of you guys seem to). I have The Deadly Sisterhood somewhere, but goodness knows where. And I just like Susanna Kearsley.

Bought

Cover of Of Noble Family by Mary Robinette Kowal Cover of Silk, Marvel comic

Quite a contrast there between the covers, heh. I reaaally need to actually read the issues of Silk I have… I’ve been tearing through Kowal’s series lately, just in time for this last book. I’m excited!

Audiobooks

Cover of Among Others audiobook Cover of Rivers of London audiobook

Cover of Epigenetics audiobook by Richard Francis

I usually prefer to listen to audiobooks I’ve already read for myself, hence Among Others and Rivers of London (the latter of which I’d like to refresh my memory on anyway); Epigenetics: How Environment Shapes Our Genes is a new one for me, which I couldn’t really resist because epigenetics! Non-fiction! Science!

How’s everyone else been doing? Behaving yourselves?

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Review – Season of Storms

Posted March 28, 2015 by in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cover of Season of Storms by Susanna KearsleySeason of Storms, Susanna Kearsley

There’s so much about reading Susanna Kearsley that reminds me of reading Mary Stewart’s work. Something about the sense of place (this is so firmly Italy, and the house and its grounds are so easy to imagine), the female heroine, the romance… Except it’s better, because it steers away from some of the colonial and sexist attitudes that were still pretty firmly entrenched in Mary Stewart’s work, despite her independent and reasonably proactive heroines.

And this book especially won me over, because the main character has been brought up by two gay men in a stable, loving relationship. Neither of them are stereotyped, and the relationship feels real, lived in, between both them and the woman who is essentially their daughter. I got more caught up by Roo and Bryan than by Celia and Alex, honestly. I also ended up having a conversation on Twitter with the author about which of various characters I’d want to be my dad… (Well, in reality, no one is better than my dad. But shush.) There’s some serious emotional punches there, which really work because of that warmth and family which Kearsley portrays so well.

The plot itself is reasonably predictable; the trick is that I got involved with the characters.

Rating: 4/5

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Top Ten Tuesday

Posted March 17, 2015 by in General / 6 Comments

The Top Ten Tuesday prompt for this week is all about your spring TBR. Since I don’t really plan ahead much (I get too obsessed) and I’m writing this post two weeks before it goes live (I like to be organised), this is a somewhat random selection, and I might have got round to them by the time this goes live…

  1. Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Thorns and Roses. I should get round to this soon, since the publishers were kind enough to grant me access on Netgalley, and I actually have yet to read anything by Maas. Everyone’s so enthusiastic… I’ll get there soon!
  2. Karen Maitland, The Raven’s Head. Also an ARC, though I’ve read just about everything Maitland’s written so far. I’m hoping this one breaks the mould a bit, though.
  3. Emma Healey, Elizabeth is Missing. The idea of this really intrigues me. It should be waiting for me at the library as I write, so I should be reading it soon. I might find it a bit upsetting, though; apparently the portrayal of dementia and mental illness is very good.
  4. Joe Abercrombie, Half a King. It’s about time, that’s all I can say.
  5. Guy Gavriel Kay, The Lions of Al-Rassan. The next in my project of rereading all Kay’s books in publication order. (The idea is to watch his writing improve/change with experience, though oddly enough his earliest novels are probably my favourites.)
  6. Sam Kean, The Tale of the Duelling Neurosurgeons. I’ve been recommended this, neurology is fascinating, I might want to become a neurologist, and the library has it. What more could I wish for?
  7. Melissa Grey, The Girl at Midnight. Just got approved for this on Netgalley after a long wait, and it was in a previous Top Ten Tuesday as a book I was particularly looking forward to. Ergo, I have no excuse.
  8. Carrie Vaughn, After the Golden Age. This is a reread I’ve been meaning to get round to for a long time. I think there’s another book now, too!
  9. Gail Carriger, Changeless. I don’t want to end up waiting ages and ages to read this and forgetting everything about the first. Too bad I’m so easily di
  10. Susanna Kearsley, Named of the Dragon. Arthurian connection, you say? Set in Wales, you say? I’m there.

And probably all of these are going to appear again on my summer TBR, knowing me…

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Review – The Rose Garden

Posted February 17, 2015 by in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of The Rose Garden by Susanna KearsleyThe Rose Garden, Susanna Kearsley

I didn’t have to read much of this to realise that Susanna Kearsley’s work is going to be the perfect replacement for the comfort reading I got all the way through in the last two or three years (Mary Stewart’s romance/adventures). It has the same sense of place, the beautiful descriptions of landscape, and the same sort of heroine: female, curious, about to be swept up in bigger events than she’d ever have expected. And better: this is explicitly fantastical, where most of Mary Stewart’s books were more mysteries, sometimes with hints at fantasy.

And better again, whew, we don’t have first cousins getting married at the end.

It does start off with kind of a slow pace, and Eva is only rarely involved in actual action, despite the backdrop of free trading and other such types of derring-do. And it is indeed a romance, so the ending is a happy one for most of the characters (though there’s a sadder note, too, with Eva’s sister’s husband; I was glad there was some closure at the end of story with him as well, even if it was a sadder story), and there’s plenty of romance going on — not just for Eva, but in the background. And yeah, I think Fergal and Daniel take the time travelling woman a little too lightly. They’re curious, but not curious enough to feel realistic. They both just decide to protect her right away.

But I enjoyed it anyway: it has a great atmosphere, and the writing flows well. It’s a bit like The Time Traveler’s Wife, I guess, in that I wouldn’t want to examine how the timeline works too closely lest it fall apart, but it was the ideal fluff, and it had enough substance that I cared about the characters.

Rating: 4/5

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