Sunday, December 31, 2023

The Annam Jewel by Patricia Wentworth #DeanStreetDecember23

Title: The Annam Jewel
Author: Patricia Wentworth
Publication: Dean Street Press, paperback, originally published in 1925
Genre: Mystery
Setting: England
Description: Several years previously, James Waring partnered with two other unscrupulous men to steal the Annam Jewel from its shrine in a holy place in Asia. He did not survive for long but managed to tell part of his story and give the jewel to his brother, Henry.

Friday, December 29, 2023

The Little Wartime Library by Kate Thompson - set in an underground library in Bethnal Green

Title: The Little Wartime Library
Author: Kate Thompson
Publication: Hachette, audiobook, 2023
Narrator: Sarah Durham
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: WWII London
Description: When a bomb destroyed the Bethnal Green Library on the first night of the Blitz in 1940, thousands of books were lost.  However, there was a half-completed Tube station nearby and, over the next year, it was transformed into an underground shelter, built over the boarded-up subway tracks, complete with a small library for East Enders needing distraction from war worries.

Wednesday, December 27, 2023

Spell the Month in Books – December 2023 and RIP K.M. Peyton

From books I have read this year:

Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross (2023). Iris is alone after her brother goes to war and her mother dies (orphan alert!). The journalism career – and rivalry with handsome but annoying Roman Kitt – that meant so much to her now seems meaningless, but she uses what she’s learned to get a job as a war correspondent so she can find her missing brother. My review.

Monday, December 25, 2023

Murder on the Christmas Express by Alexandra Benedict

Title: Murder on the Christmas Express
Author: Alexandra Benedict
Publication: Poisoned Pen Press, paperback, 2023
Genre: Mystery
Setting: Present-day Britain
Description: London detective Roz Parker has taken early retirement from her stressful job so she can move to Scotland and improve her relationship with her adult daughter, who is expecting a child and has gone into labor six weeks early. Roz’s colleagues all chipped in to buy her a ticket for the December 23rd sleeper train from Euston Station.

Saturday, December 23, 2023

Spam Tomorrow by Verily Anderson #DeanStreetDecember23

Title: Spam Tomorrow
Author: Verily Anderson (1915-2010)
Publication: Dean Street Press/Furrowed Middlebrow, 
paperback, originally published in 1956
Genre: Memoir
Setting: WWII England

Description: Verily grew up in a slightly eccentric family in southern England, one of five children of a well-born vicar. His skill as a breeder of fox terriers paid for boarding school and other necessities for a large family not covered by a clergyman’s salary.

Thursday, December 14, 2023

My November 2023 Reads

Although I sometimes think I have overdosed on World War II historical fiction, I am always fascinated by evacuation stories, and last month I listened to the audiobook of Beyond That, the Sea, in which a girl is sent from London during the Blitz to Massachusetts where I live. Although the heroine is eleven when the book begins, this is definitely a novel for adults. Not only was this my favorite book in October, I kept on thinking about it long after I had finished and I recommend it to you too.

Monday, December 11, 2023

The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum #Ozathon24

Title: The Wizard of Oz
Author: L. Frank Baum
Illustrator: W.W. Denslow
Publication: Reilly & Lee Co., hardcover, originally published in 1900
Genre: Juvenile fantasy/series
Description: Dorothy is a little girl who lives in Kansas, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife. When a cyclone hits, Dorothy and her dog Toto don’t move quickly enough to the cellar: the house is sucked into the center of the cyclone and they are transported to a country of marvelous beauty and color, quite different from the gray prairie she knows.

Wednesday, December 6, 2023

Babbacombe's by Susan Scarlett aka Noel Streatfeild #DeanStreetDecember23

Title: Babbacombe’s
Author: Susan Scarlett
Publication: Dean Street Press, paperback, 2022 (originally published in 1941)
Genre: Fiction
Setting: London
Description: On her last day of school, Beth Carson hears her headmistress saying the school will be the poorer without her, and she knows she will miss it but steadies her shoulders to enter the adult world. A job awaits her at Babbacombe’s, the highly-regarded department store where her father has worked for years.

Saturday, December 2, 2023

Six Degrees of Separation – from Kitchen Confidential to The House on East 88th Street

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place, add six books, and see where we end up. This month’s starting point is Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain (2000). Before (and during) his book and television career, he was the chef at Brasserie Les Halles, which I went to several times, although never caught a glimpse of him (I didn’t mind; the steak and frites were good). When the book was a huge bestseller, everyone in NYC warned each other not to read it or we’d be afraid to ever eat out again.

Thursday, November 30, 2023

Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

Title: Divine Rivals
Author: Rebecca Ross
Publication: Wednesday Books/Macmillan, hardcover, 2023
Genre: YA Fantasy
Description: Iris Winnow’s beloved brother Forest has gone off to fight a strange war in which two gods are in conflict, her mother has lost her grip on reality, and Iris not only needs to earn a living but also has a newly developed desire to be a journalist.

Wednesday, November 29, 2023

WWW Wednesday – November 29

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Sunday, November 26, 2023

Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash, an evacuation novel for adults

Title: Beyond That, the Sea
Author: Laura Spence-Ash
Narrator: Ell Potter
Publication: Macmillan Audio, 2023
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: 20th century London, Greater Boston, Maine
Description: When Millie and Reggie Thompson make the difficult decision to send their eleven-year-old daughter as an evacuee to America to escape the Blitz, they could not have guessed she would be gone for five long years.

Tuesday, November 21, 2023

We’ll Always Have Casablanca: The Life, Legend, and Afterlife of Hollywood’s Most Beloved Movie

Title: We’ll Always Have Casablanca: The Life, Legend, and Afterlife of Hollywood’s Most Beloved Movie
Author: Noah Isenberg
Publication: W.W. Norton & Co., hardcover, 2017
Genre: Nonfiction/Film
Description: This well-researched and lively book about the making of Casablanca was a fun read, covering the evolution of the original play (never produced) to the screenplay (written by Theo Epstein’s grandfather and great-uncle).

Sunday, November 19, 2023

The Moon-Spinners by Mary Stewart

Title: The Moon-Spinners
Author: Mary Stewart
Publication: William Morrow, hardcover, 1962
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Setting: 20th century Crete
Description: Nicola Ferris has been working as a secretary at the British Embassy in Athens, working on her Greek and trying to explore the country whenever possible. She has planned a trip to Crete to meet up with her cousin Frances and gets a ride part of the way and arrives a day early, needing to walk across country to the town of Agios Georgios.

Friday, November 17, 2023

Nonfiction November: My Year in Nonfiction

Nonfiction November is hosted by several different bloggers and has specific categories for each week. Week 1, Your Year in Nonfiction is probably all I can handle (although it is past Week 1), and I was surprised to find I had read seven nonfiction books, all basically biography/memoir or history and all of which I enjoyed. This is about 3% of my total for the year, which seems typical for me. I do have a few more in mind for November but we shall see.

Tuesday, November 14, 2023

Guest Review: The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb

The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb (Anchor Books, 2022)
As this book begins, Ray McMillian, a young Black violinist, is about to fly to Moscow to take part in the Tchaikovsky Competition. He opens his violin case and the violin is gone, replaced by a ransom note.

Saturday, November 11, 2023

My October 2023 Reads

October was a busy month with a business trip to Tulsa (no direct flights, so lots of reading time), some reading for the 1962 Club, and hosting my book group’s discussion of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (not everyone finished it). My favorites this month were Just Another Missing Person, The Serpent Pool, Witch of the Glens, and two from D.E. Stevenson, along with several rereads.  Three reads this month were audiobooks.

Wednesday, November 8, 2023

Trumpets in the West by Geoffrey Trease

Title: Trumpets in the West
Author: Geoffrey Trease
Illustrator: Joe Krush
Publication: Harcourt, Brace and Co., hardcover, 1947
Genre: Juvenile Historical Fiction
Setting: 17th century England
Description: In June 1685, the Duke of Monmouth, eldest illegitimate son of Charles II, landed at Lyme Regis in South West England where he had widespread popular support, planning to take control of the area and march on London to seize the throne from his uncle James II. The rebellion fails but not before young Jack Norwood and his irrepressible friend Jane Goodrich sneak out of their respective homes to see the battle.

Saturday, November 4, 2023

Six Degrees of Separation – from Western Lane to Music in Western Civilization

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place, add six books, and see where we end up. This month’s starting point is Western Lane by Chetna Maroo, a coming-of-age story about a girl whose only escape is squash after losing her mother. It is too new to have reached my library but got a great New York Times review and is a finalist for the Booker Prize.

Thursday, November 2, 2023

A Wind From Nowhere by Nicholas Stuart Gray #WitchWeek2023

Title: A Wind From Nowhere
Author: Nicholas Stuart Gray
Publication: Faber & Faber, hardcover, 1978
Genre: Juvenile fantasy/short stories
My Impression: I have been a big fan of Gray’s fantasy since I found The Apple Stone in the local children’s library when I was ten, but obtaining affordable copies of his books can be challenging.

Wednesday, November 1, 2023

WWW Wednesday – November 1

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?
Currently Reading

During my commute, I am listening to Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson (2023). Jackson is an editor at Knopf who wrote a contemporary novel set in Brooklyn about affluent New Yorkers and the middle-class woman from Providence who marries into a rich and very snooty family.

Monday, October 30, 2023

Just Another Missing Person by Gillian McAllister

Title: Just Another Missing Person
Author: Gillian McAllister
Narrators: Joanne Froggatt, Justin Avoth, Kerry Wotton
Publication: Harper, audiobook, 2023
Genre: Suspense
Setting: Portishead, near Bristol, UK
Description: Julia Day is a Detective Chief Inspector who loves her job and is good at it, although her dedication has caused stress with her husband and daughter, Genevieve. When she is called into work from a family dinner because Olivia Johnson has been reported missing, Julia is especially concerned because this is the second young woman who has disappeared in a year – and the first case was never solved.

Saturday, October 28, 2023

The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth - psychological suspense from Down Under

Title: The Soulmate
Author: Sally Hepworth
Narrators: Barrie Kreinik, Jessica Douglas-Henry
Publication: Macmillan, audio, 2023
Genre: Suspense
Setting: Present-day Australia
Description: Pippa and Gabe Gerard bought their dream house, several hours from Melbourne, on the coast and planned to live there happily with their young daughters. They did not realize the cliffs behind their house are a popular place for would-be suicides until it was too late.

Thursday, October 26, 2023

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie #ReadChristie23

Title: Murder on the Orient Express
Author: Agatha Christie
Publication: William Morrow, trade paperback, originally published in 1934
Genre: Mystery
Description: Hercule Poirot has been in Syria, investigating a military scandal for an old acquaintance, and is eager to return home. On the train to Stamboul/Istanbul, he encounters a retired British colonel from India and a young woman working as a governess. All three transfer to the Orient Express in Stamboul, heading to France.

Tuesday, October 24, 2023

Tea Is So Intoxicating by Mary Essex

Title: Tea Is So Intoxicating
Author: Mary Essex
Preface: Alison Bailey Afterword: Simon Thomas
Publication: British Library Women Writers series, trade paper, originally published in 1950
Genre: Fiction
Setting: 1950s England
Description: Germayne left her dull husband Digby, as well as their spoiled daughter and uncomfortable house in Streatham, for a retired Naval Officer, David Tomkins. He seemed a livelier option at the time but, instead, she has found herself married for the second time to a man who cannot admit he is wrong.

Sunday, October 22, 2023

The Nonesuch by Georgette Heyer, for the #1962Club

Title: The Nonesuch
Author: Georgette Heyer
Publication: E.P. Dutton & Co., hardcover, 1962
Genre: Historical Romance
Setting: 19th century England
Description: Local society in the village of Oversett, North Yorkshire, is excited to hear that Sir Waldo Hawkridge, a dashing and wealthy member of the ton, has inherited Broom Hall and has come to see it with his amiable young cousin, Lord Lindeth. Tiffany Wield, a lovely heiress of 17 longing to enter London society, is determined to captivate them both.

Friday, October 20, 2023

Witch of the Glens by Sally Watson #1962Club

Title: Witch of the Glens
Author: Sally Watson
Publication: Viking, hardcover, 1962
Genre: Juvenile Historical Fiction
Setting: 17th century Scotland
This week Simon from Stuck in a Book and Karen from Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings are hosting the 1962 Club, and I finally found an American author to feature.

Description: At 17, Kelpie is a spirited young woman who knows only the life of a gypsy, traveling throughout Scotland with abusive Old Mina and Bogle.

Wednesday, October 18, 2023

Fletchers End by D.E. Stevenson #1962Club

Title: Fletchers End
Author: D.E. Stevenson
Publication: Ace Books, paperback, originally published in 1962
Genre: Fiction
Setting: 20th century Britain
my copy is a bit garish!
I read Fletchers End for the 1962 Club, which Simon from Stuck in a Book and Karen from Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings are hosting this week.

Monday, October 16, 2023

Mine for Keeps by Jean Little #1962Club

Title: Mine for Keeps
Author: Jean Little (1932-2020)
Publication: Little, Brown & Co., hardcover, 1962
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Setting: 20th century Ontario
This week, Simon from Stuck in a Book and Karen from Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings are hosting the 1962 Club, where bloggers read and write about books published in a chosen year.

Sunday, October 15, 2023

Visiting Tulsa

The Cities for Financial Empowerment holds two convenings each year for member cities to share best practices to help low-income residents build assets, and this fall's was held in Tulsa, Oklahoma’s second-largest city (population 409,000). Most of the meetings were held at the BMX Hall of Fame and we stayed at a Hyatt, which had the most helpful staff of any hotel I’ve been at in years. In the evenings, we had a chance to see some interesting parts of the city.

Friday, October 13, 2023

Looking forward to the 1962 Club

Twice each year, Simon from Stuck in a Book and Karen from Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings host a readalong celebration of books published in a carefully chosen year and it starts on Monday. At first, I didn’t think 1962 was such a great year, although I have quite a few friends born that year. What about books? Here are a few I have already reviewed:

Wednesday, October 11, 2023

My September 2023 Reads

I covered a lot of genres in September and my favorite books this month were Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear, memoirs by Drew Faust and Mabel Esther Allan, and a contemporary romance with a mature heroine and a theater background called Flirting with Fire by Jane Porter. Have you read any of these? What’s on your October horizon?

Monday, October 9, 2023

Bel Lamington by D.E. Stevenson

Title: Bel Lamington
Author: D.E. Stevenson
Publication: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, hardcover, 1961
Genre: Fiction
Setting: Great Britain
Description: After Bel’s aunt dies, she is on her own and leaves Sussex for a tiny flat in London and a secretarial job at an import/export firm. She finds it interesting but is lonely and the other office staff resent that her industry is recognized when she is promoted to work for a young partner, Ellis Brownlee.

Saturday, October 7, 2023

Six Degrees of Separation – from I Capture the Castle to White House Autumn

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place, add six books, and see where we end up. This month’s starting point is I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (1948) which I read for the first time twenty-six years ago and have already used in a #6degrees. It’s about two sisters who live with their eccentric father and stepmother in a decrepit castle. They spend most of their time trying to improve their finances but yearn for excitement. 
Surely anyone who has read this book remembers the first sentence: “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. . . .”

Thursday, October 5, 2023

The Lost Library by Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass

Title: The Lost Library
Author: Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass
Publication: Feiwel and Friends, hardcover, 2023
Genre: Juvenile Mystery
Setting: Smalltown, USA
Description: When a Little Free Library mysteriously appears in Martinsville, with a warm-hearted but worried guardian cat, fifth graders Evan and his friend Rafe are intrigued. The handwritten sign says, “Take a book, leave a book. Or both.”

Tuesday, October 3, 2023

Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury by Drew Gilpin Faust

Title: Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury
Author: Drew Gilpin Faust
Publication: Farrar Straus & Giroux, hardcover, 2023
Genre: Nonfiction/Memoir
Once upon a time, there was a little girl. Her official name was Catharine, but she never used it. Her father, though from a wealthy Ivy League background, wanted only to breed horses, so that was what he did. The girl grew up in rural, segregated Virginia in the fifties, reading Nancy Drew and pony books, riding horses, raising steers with the 4H Club, attending a small country school.

Would you be surprised to learn that she would become the president of Harvard?

Saturday, September 30, 2023

The Good Ones by Polly Stewart, and the ways in which it annoyed me

Title: The Good Ones
Author: Polly Stewart
Publication: HarperCollins, hardcover, 2023
Genre: Suspense
Setting: Rural Virginia
Description: Lauren Ballard disappeared nearly 20 years ago, leaving a husband and six-month-old baby, after spending a carefree afternoon with Nicola Bennett. She was never found. Everyone who knew her was questioned and those close to her were traumatized by her loss. Now, Nicola’s mother has died and she returns to Tyndall County to go through her mother’s possessions and ask Lauren’s realtor husband Warren to sell the house she grew up in. Yet once Nicola is back in her hometown, she is so strongly reminded of her friend that she decides to stay and investigate her disappearance. Taking a temporary position at the high school both attended, Nicola begins to ask questions about Lauren, not realizing her obsessive curiosity could be very dangerous or that everyone in Tyndall kept secrets she never knew.

My Impression: The most surprising part of the book was when Warren’s grandmother (a Radcliffe alumna) leaves Nicola some children’s books in her will:
Mrs. Ballard had left me a bunch of old children’s books I’d never heard of: Betsy-Tacy, Elsie Dinsmore, plus a few Brontës and some paperback mysteries by Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers. The Betsy-Tacy books were all right, but Elsie Dinsmore was god-awful. I read ten pages and shoved the whole box in my closet.
The bequest had nothing to do with the plot but (a) maybe a little more time with Betsy-Tacy would have improved Nicola's personality and (b) I doubt Warren and Sean Ballard’s mother wanted her son to date her mother-in-law’s cleaning lady’s daughter, even if she was a reader!

There were so many things that bothered me about this book, beginning with the unlikable protagonist. The author says it “is not a story about a murder. It’s not the story of what happened to Lauren Ballard in the early-morning hours of August 10, 2001,” so I suppose you could say it is a story about a woman who had a love-hate relationship with a charismatic older girl whose disappearance left her with unresolved guilt.  Admittedly, I read until the end; I wanted to know how it would end.  What annoyed me was that there were so many inconsistencies, unanswered questions, and just plain illogical aspects of the plot, some of which I have outlined below:

Many Spoilers:

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Appointment with Death #ReadChristie23

Title: Appointment with Death
Author: Agatha Christie
Publication: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, hardcover, 1965 (originally published in 1937 or 1938)
Genre: Mystery
Setting: Petra (modern day Jordan)
Description: It all begins with the great Poirot closing a hotel window as he hears:
“You do see, don’t you, that she’s got to be killed?”

Sunday, September 24, 2023

Five Things

There are five things I want to share with you today:

A fun Georgette Heyer quiz was provided by Regency historical writer Anne Gracie. I was annoyed to get one wrong! Can you do better?

Georgette Heyer

Saturday, September 23, 2023

Codename Charming by Lucy Parker

Title: Codename Charming
Author: Lucy Parker
Publication: Avon Books, paperback, 2023
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Setting: Present-day London
Description: Battle Royal was the first book in Parker’s much anticipated Palace Insiders series in which Sylvie Fairchild and Dominic De Vere are rival pastry chefs competing to make the wedding cake for Britain’s Princess Rose. 

Wednesday, September 20, 2023

WWW Wednesday - September 20

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Monday, September 18, 2023

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

Title: Tom Lake
Author: Ann Patchett
Publication: HarperCollins, hardcover, 2023
Genre: Fiction
Setting: Michigan
Description: During the pandemic, Lara’s adult children came home, as many did, and as her daughters help out with the family business, they ask her to tell them about her long-ago relationship with famous actor Peter Duke.

Saturday, September 16, 2023

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

Title: Number the Stars
Author: Lois Lowry
Publication: Houghton Mifflin paperback, originally published in 1989
Genre: Juvenile Historical Fiction
Setting: WWII Denmark

Tuesday, September 12, 2023

My August 2023 Reads

August was an excellent reading month, especially for historical fiction where I awarded five stars to The Marriage Portrait and Mrs. Porter Calling and greatly enjoyed two romances, A Lady’s Guide to Scandal and Romantic Comedy. I also revisited an eventing series – what’s eventing, you may well ask (see below). And the house diagonally behind me got hit by lightning Saturday, which caused a fire and apparently destroyed the internet and cable wiring for both streets. I am grateful we did not lose our power as happened elsewhere in the area but I hope Comcast will restore service soon!

Saturday, September 9, 2023

Silence in Court by Patricia Wentworth

Title: Silence in Court
Author: Patricia Wentworth
Publication: Hodder & Stoughton, hardcover, originally published in 1945
Genre: Mystery
Setting: WWII London
Description: For three years during the war, Carey Silence worked as a secretary for a Member of Parliament, until a train they were on was machine-gunned by enemy aircraft.

Tuesday, September 5, 2023

Mrs. Porter Calling by A.J. Pearce - more about Emmy!

Title: Mrs. Porter Calling
Author: A.J. Pearce
Publication: Scribner, hardcover, 2023
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: WWII London
Description: Rejoice, the third book about Emmy Lake has arrived and while the dark days of WWII are still with us, there is an indomitable spirit at the Women's Friend magazine and at the house in Pimlico where she lives with her best friend.

Saturday, September 2, 2023

Six Degrees of Separation – from Wifedom to The Inn at Lake Devine

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place, add six books, and see where we end up. This month’s starting point is Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell’s Invisible Life by Anna Funder, which sounds interesting and was just published in the US last week:
Using newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend, Funder re-creates the Orwells' marriage, through the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War. Eileen O’Shaughnessy’s literary brilliance shaped Orwell’s work and her practical nous saved his life.

Thursday, August 31, 2023

Midwives by Chris Bohjalian

Title: Midwives
Author: Chris Bohjalian
Publication: Vintage, paperback, originally published in 1997
Genre: Fiction
Setting: 20th century United States
Description: Sybil Danforth is an experienced midwife in rural Vermont but even she is tested on a stormy winter night when a minister’s wife goes into labor and has a complicated delivery.

Monday, August 28, 2023

Sally on the Rocks by Winifred Boggs

Title: Sally on the Rocks
Author: Winifred Boggs
Publication: British Library Women Writers, paperback, 2021; originally published in 1915
Genre: Fiction
Setting: 20th century England
Description: Sally is an attractive woman of 31 with several strikes against her: not only is she unmarried and penniless but she is also from "bad stock" – a chorus girl mother and a wastrel-from-a-good-family father.

Saturday, August 26, 2023

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell

Title: The Marriage Portrait
Author: Maggie O’Farrell
Publication: Knopf, hardcover, 2022
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: 16th Century Italy
Description: Lucrezia is the overlooked daughter of Cosimo I de Medici, the Duke of Florence and, because she was a difficult baby, consigned in her infancy to a wet nurse away from the family, where she absorbed gossip and the local dialect.

Wednesday, August 23, 2023

A War of Wizards by Margaret Storey

Title: A War of Wizards
Author: Margaret Storey
Illustrator: Janina Ede
Publication: Faber & Faber, hardcover, 1976
Genre: Juvenile fantasy/series
Setting: Britain
Description: In an earlier book, Timothy went to stay with Melinda, a white witch, who lives in an amazing house in London, where he became friendly with Ellen, a girl his age.