fantasia,
North and South was my first Gaskell book and it remains my favourite.
Cranford was also pretty fun - and short. I never made it past the first couple of chapters of
Wives and Daughters though I should give it another try sometime. I remember
Cousin Phillis being a bit sad/melancholy, as was
My Lady Ludlow.
Mary Barton is a bit of a cross between a crime drama and a romance, but is definitely a first novel (I enjoyed it anyhow).
Your book lists always look like a lot of fun.
I enjoyed
Homer Price but I don't think I really got some of the humour until I was a teen (not that it was inappropriate, but it just flew over my head).
Arwenel, I completely understand not getting into Father Brown/Chesterton.
If you do end up reading Ngaio Marsh or Ellis Peters, I'd be curious to hear what you think!
By the by, I've heard Josephine Tey most in connection with her
Daughter of Time book, if that rings any bells? (The same apparently has some rather negative portrayals of a historical group of people I am rather defensive of, which is the author's prerogative - but means I have never wanted to pick it up.)
Thanks for the review of Robin Hobb! I'll keep her on my "maybe when I have more time and interest" list, but won't rush to pick up her books.
Arwenel wrote:If there's one thing more annoying than the library not having a book, it's having books that follow chronologically from that book. What do they expect me to do, read a sequel without having read the first one, like some kind of barbarian?
Haha! But definitely.
I'm trying to think if any of the ones I've read would interest you. Unfortunately, only a couple stand out strongly, and the only one I can say with strong certainty that I like (
The Shining Company) is one I've been informed my opinion of is not an universal one.
I'm glad you liked
Scarlet pretty well! The Lunar Chronicles never really tries to pretend it's more than fairy tale retellings, but a) they're pretty fun and b) Meyer does do a pretty good job weaving an overarching story with them.
If you haven't heard, though, there's a novella (
Fairest) that's sort of a 3.5 in the series - it goes between
Cress and
Winter and explains some of Levena's backstory. I'm not sure if I would ever reread it, but I thought Meyer did a good job of explaining her and garnering some sympathy without removing WHY she's the Evil Queen.
*high-fives Rya on
The Outlaws of Sherwood opinion* I found the book at a booksale and it was REALLY nice with a dustjacket in excellent condition, so I bought it and eventually read it. Overall, I liked it fairly well, though what I remember most is what annoyed me.
Marian's excellence in everything was kind of irritating. But, also, Robin really did nothing at all. Which was kind of an interesting concept but mostly really disappointing - I understand the legend being bigger than the man, but the legend having nothing to do with the man didn't sit great.Avra, I'm sure I've forgotten a book title that I really wanted to know, but all I'm coming up with right now is that I saw a Wishbone episode based off
The Moonstone but didn't know it - I spent years convinced it was a Sherlock Holmes story, eventually read all the Holmes stories with no success, and then (after, oh, ten or fifteen years) was finally enlightened when I actually read
The Moonstone. I was VERY happy to have figured that out.
*waves at flam* I've seen Jacqueline Windspear around, but have never gotten around to picking up her books. After hearing your thoughts, I may have to give them a try.
I can never remember which book I read, but I
think it was
The Hero and the Crown? Whichever it was, it soured me completely on trying the sequel (though not the author, thankfully) due to some plot elements (
the whole "I love one character, but I'll marry someone else right now because I should, but I'll still be around after they've died and then I'll go find the first character and be with them, haha!" thing was really horrible).
Speaking of sequels, I discovered a month or so ago that Edith Pattou had a sequel to
East out - after fifteen years. I have never been head over heels for
East but a sequel intrigued me, so I put
West on hold and found a copy of
East to reread.
East held up decently well on a reread, though my list of annoying things grew a bit (for one, the mix between real-life events and magic never quite works for me, as some things are never explained in-universe and don't have immediate roots in the fairy tale or Norse mythology (
such as the occasional visions). Unfortunately, all the things I disliked in
East reappeared in full force in
West; in addition, the sequel is a rehash of the first and, even worse, undoes a lot of the happy ending/good of the first.
The Troll Queen is back. And then she dies again. She hates softskins with a blind rage and wants to destroy their entire world through "Aagnarok" but yet she wants Winn (a softskin and child of the softskin she hates the most) to raise to be king of the Trolls??? Surviving trolls suddenly appear and then just as suddenly disappear from mention?
Also, Urda survived and then dies just as meaninglessly as her son??? (Tuki's death bugged me on my reread.) So much more could've been done!
AND THEN SARA DIES IN TWO SENTENCES AND ALMOST NOTHING MORE IS SAID ABOUT IT DESPITE HER BEING ILL WAS SO BIG IN
East AND A LARGE PART OF THE REASON ROSE WENT WITH THE WHITE BEAR, TO SAVE HER LIFE???? And Sofia died too??? And SIB. ARGH, SIB. To be honest, I don't remember if she was actually named in
East, but her big part in this book was to a) provide a sudden and unexplained romantic interest for Neddy, b) look mysterious and tragic, and c) have some weird relationship with winds which she teaches to Rose (who just picks it up instantly, SO CONVENIENTLY). This is especially frustrating because the winds in the original fairy tale were replaced with humans merely guiding Rose, and I missed the winds being winds or some sort of wind creatures in
East. And now one of them just happens to show up? And she only saves Neddy, not Sara???
This is small, but I also missed having the author at the end actually reference some or all of the real-life things she put in. I figured out the Lewis chessmen, but only because I already knew about them.
Also, Rose was really kind of Mary-Sue-ish. One of the things I did appreciate in
East was Rose's love of weaving and how that was a huge strength for her. Instead, it gets sidelined for a magic sword that acts on its own almost, incredibly convenient dreams and visions, and a sudden ability to call on the winds (her weaving shows up once as a plot point but it's really unnecessary). Oh, and her ability to memorize a key based on touch (mentioned in one sentence at the time she needs to remember it) and replicate it perfectly using her own finger bone. *shudders* (It's not explained WHY it has to be a bone key, come on...)
And don't get me started on Charles' amnesia! I understand ANGST AND DRAMA, but this is one point where Pattou could've improved on her first book and she takes a hard left the other direction. We never got to know a lot about Charles due to the curse in the first one, but we kind of buy him and Rose falling in love due to all the time spent together - since they've been married three years, this would be a great time to SHOW how much they love each other and the things they love about each other. Instead, Charles forgets Rose and Rose spends all the time thinking how hurt she is and how sad it is he doesn't know her. We don't even get to see Charles falling in love a second time or Rose showing her love for him. This was a golden opportunity to show a couple AFTER the "happy ending" and instead it was squandered.
One more thing: In retrospect, it was fitting that the Troll Queen died because of her own powers and anger in the end of
East; I didn't love it, but it was fitting. Less fitting that Rose kills her with a magic sword in the end of
West. But she's also sure to proclaim her certainly dead this time (ha...).
The good thing is that, like
East,
West is a pretty fast read due to the constant perspective-skipping - you rarely stick with anyone longer than two pages so there's no time to get bored - and it's incredibly easy to think "I'll read just one more page".