I bought this book on a whim over a year ago and finally got around to reading it – I’ve recently become interested in the little pockets of Europe outside of my own knowledge, generally sticking to eastern Europe, and so this seemed like a perfect match. I found it even more interesting than I’d suspected, not only for Blacker’s experience, but for the comparisons he makes with medieval Europe, a topic with which I am very well acquainted.

First of all, the Romania he portrays is very much a rural idyll, so much so that I couldn’t help but feel some of the rougher areas were a little bit glossed over. It calls to the ideal of the rural peasant, happy to work, happy with life in general, free of superficial trappings of modern life like telephones, televisions, possessions, and so on. He also quotes from Huizinga’s The Waning of the Middle Ages, which is an old piece of scholarship that has been discredited in many ways by current medieval historians, a lot of which I read, and which put me on edge. I couldn’t help but feel that some of the problems of rural life, like bad harvests and lack of leisure time, were glossed over. Maybe the people did seem happier and more welcoming to him, and maybe they were, but he focused on other problems instead. It made for a very engaging read, and certainly I’d love to visit Romania now, but I questioned a lot of this as I read.

Blacker also spends a considerable amount of time with the gypsies, as the “love” in the subtitle alludes to, somewhat flabbergasted by their complete lack of preparation for life. The women, for instance, exist to do seemingly nothing but dance and charm foreign men, as Blacker discovers, and the gypsies almost always found themselves begging over the course of the winter as they failed to preserve enough food to last the whole season. Contrasted with the rural farmers, their lives seem confusing. He also meets some Germans, who even speak German, but return to the motherland over the course of the novel and find city life a difficult adjustment.

I think this review has already made it sound like I didn’t enjoy the book, which just isn’t true; I loved the descriptions of Romanian culture and people and Blacker’s experiences integrating into their society and trying to understand how things might have been. The book also has pictures in the middle, which helped, and I was outright fascinated by the idea that these people have been living the same way for centuries. They might have paved roads now, but the “good old days” such as they were do make for an excellent book.

I’d recommend Along the Enchanted Way if you, too, are interested in how life might be in the corners of forgotten Europe, but I’d take it with a little pinch of salt.

But Mary Eleanor wouldn’t endure his tyranny forever, and her fight back, for herself and her children, resulted in hope for all abused wives throughout Britain.

What a fascinating book. This popular history, which reads almost like a novel at times, traces the fall of an incredibly rich and privileged woman due to a couple of bad, life-changing decisions, and is a fascinating look at how a single man could ruin the lives of everyone around him. Stoney wasn’t even born particularly highly, but by simply using his attractiveness and ability to lie guilelessly, he managed to bag himself not one but two heiresses. By the standards of their day, his treatment was judged out of the ordinary, but both of his wives had very little power to free themselves from his clutches.

Mary Eleanor Bowes herself was a very compelling character and I felt for her very strongly throughout the course of the book. She was spoiled when young, and did obviously have bad judgement and suffered from a lack of maturity despite her rather more advanced book learning, but none of that meant that she deserved to be so ill-treated. I found all of the struggles she went through to finally free herself to be enlightening – married women under 18th century law genuinely had zero rights. She no longer owned any of the property her father had bestowed on her, as her new husband forced her to renounce her prenuptial contract keeping her own income and properties, and was kept a virtual prisoner by servants hired by her husband. She had nothing, not even her children most of the time.

Her fight to regain those rights is engaging and heartening, as it must have been for any of the women of her time following the case. It made me very glad that I wasn’t born in the eighteenth century, and that so many women before me fought for our gender, as I hope we continue to do so. Indeed, Moore lists when women gained some of the rights Mary Eleanor deserves, and some of them are depressingly recent, which only underscores the fact that there is still so much ground we need to gain.

A peek into the real-life trauma of a disastrous eighteenth century marriage, Mary Eleanor’s fight for her life and family in Wedlock makes for fascinating reading, even as it reminds us of how much women have fought for their rights over the past couple of hundred years.

A new urban fantasy series by Seanan McGuire? Wild bears couldn’t keep me away. She’s authored one of my two favourites, the October Daye series, and has also written the Newflesh trilogy (my review of Feed) under the name of Mira Grant. I completely trust her talent at this point and I simply can’t resist the prospect of more of her writing. I immediately bought this book on release day, and savoured it once I’d read it. Here once again, McGuire proves her talents by creating a book that is fun, different, and very much worth your time.

Like most urban fantasy series, a kickass heroine lies at the heart of this book in Verity Price. She’s not exactly your average kickass heroine though; her hobby is ballroom dancing, and she competes professionally alongside her job at a waitress at “Fish and Strips”. Her family is absolutely laugh-out-loud ridiculous, trained as they all are to combat standards; as an example, her grandfather disappeared years ago, and her grandma still trawls alternate dimensions with grenades trying to find him. The funniest part for me, though, has to be the Aeslin mice, a sentient breed of mouse that lives with the Price family and concoct festivals for every mundane event that happens in Verity’s life. It did at times feel that McGuire was intent on fitting every humorous line she’d come up with into the book, and not all of them resonate perfectly, but for the most part, I was far too busy laughing to mind.

As the first novel in a series, the world has to be set up, but the way this is done is overall so creative that I barely noticed. There is no learning curve; the book is simply fun and enjoyable from cover to cover. I loved the fact that Verity actually had a family who loved her; that she did something completely different and feminine alongside her fighting skills; and that the romance was subtle and woven into the overall context of the story, rather than the other way around.

Sure, Discount Armageddon is still a little bit shallow in parts, especially regarding the love interest, but I felt like this was a fantastic start to something that is yet again that much different from McGuire. Definitely recommended, and I will most certainly keep reading anything Ms McGuire writes.

I loved this book. I read several excellent reviews from a number of other trusted bloggers, enough to make me buy it, but I didn’t actually understand how much I’d love it until I began reading it. Billingsley uses one of my very favourite devices, the unreliable narrator whose worldview changes radically as he or she realises some important truths, and combines that with a delightful mix of fantasy, romance, and elegant writing to make a truly outstanding novel.

The book starts out slightly confusing. Briony is a narrator that lives very much inside her own head, and as a result the story is told fractiously; it takes a while for us to work out exactly what she is talking about, why she feels threatened by Eldric and his family, and about Rose’s peculiar behaviour. But once hooked, I couldn’t stop reading, and devoured the entire book in a single evening. I loved the atmosphere, which was very much like England a hundred years ago and with more magic. The swamp reminded me of the way the fens were in Lady of the Butterflies by Fiona Mountain, although the books themselves are wildly different; a magical and mysterious place that no longer exists in the modern world, long past drained to produce more land for houses, farms, and monetary gain in general.

It was the relationships and how they grew that really affected me, though; I absolutely adored Eldric and the way he bonded with each of the characters, especially Briony and Rose. He really causes her to question all of the assumptions she’s built up over the years. Backing him up is Rose, who seems to understand more about everything that’s happened despite her own peculiarities. I loved how Eldric and Briony so clearly made one another happy, too, and the completely organic way their relationship grew over the course of the narrative. It’s completely in contrast to the other young male character, Cecil, who attempts to bully Briony into marrying him.

In fact, just talking about Chime makes me want to read it again, which for me is a sure sign of an incredible read. It immediately secured its place on my new “to be re-read” shelves, and as such I completely recommend you make space for it on yours, too.

I’ve heard so very many amazing things about Simon Van Booy that it was only a matter of time before I actually read one of his books. He’s earned acclaim as a short story writer, too, but I always prefer to read novels when given a choice, and Everything Beautiful Began After is his first novel.

After reading the prologue, I was worried that I would find the whole novel somewhat impenetrable – beautiful, but written so abstractly that I’d need to really concentrate to work out the meaning, something I don’t always have the energy for at present. I could grasp what he was trying to do, viewing events through the lens of a child, but I was relieved when the rest of the book was written in a more easily readable style. Still very beautiful, though, as occasionally he jumps out at you with phrases that smack you over the head with meaning, such as:

… truth is just a lie that everyone believes.

And it takes a moment just to let that sink in, how true it is to life, but how it also simply sums up everything that particular character is experiencing at that moment.

All of the characters in this book are very inward-looking, very self-aware, and prone to analysing their own feelings through a microscope. But it’s really about growing and changing, not forgetting tragedies, not getting past them, but accepting them as part of who you are and what you’re going to become. Even just as the title says – everything beautiful began after – and indeed, it’s once you get past and accept the snags of your life that something beautiful can begin.

This is also a surprisingly fast read; I have a relatively small size hardcover version with 400 pages and I absolutely zipped through it. Except for those moments which catch you off guard, and make you stop and think, the book is a smooth and very beautiful read. It is probably worth sinking in and spending a bit more time with it if you can, though I do think it was incredibly powerful to read it in as few sittings as possible, as I did.

Very highly recommended for those who enjoy literary fiction, flat out beautiful writing, and engaged, thought-provoking characters. This won’t be the last time I read a book by Simon Van Booy.

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Julia Quinn’s books are regularly delightful and fun reads, but I’ve felt recently that she’s been losing a bit of her touch – focusing more on the sweet, less on the actual emotional perils that make romance novels such compelling reads. To my surprise, A Night Like This still retained her sweet hallmarks, but added on a layer that felt like a refreshing blast from the past as far as her writing goes.

I think the main thrust behind this was the past of both of the characters. Daniel’s past is immediately apparent; he accidentally shot his friend Hugh, the son of the Marquess of Ramsgate, in a duel, and was driven from the country for three years while the fledgling lord’s father sought revenge. He only has returned to England because Hugh came to visit him and assure him in person that his father would no longer kill Daniel if he stepped foot on his native soil. Anne’s past, on the other hand, is revealed much more slowly, and is far more heart-breaking, adding a touch of emotional tension to an otherwise sweet and romantic read. It wasn’t the actual subplot that I liked, as romance novel mystery subplots tend to be silly or useless obstacles; it was the addition of depth to each of the characters.

I liked the scenes where we witnessed Anne as governess to the younger Smythe-Smith girls and their individual personalities, too; they add a further touch of humour to the book and help a reader understand just why Daniel and Anne fall in love with one another. Again, Quinn’s novels are very sweet and sparkly on the interactions, but tend to be lacking in the emotional intensity department, and while this is an improvement on the last one, I still don’t think she’s quite returned to the early Bridgerton days.

As a pleasurable way to pass an afternoon (or a transatlantic flight, which is where I read this), A Night Like This is a great choice, and definitely a sign that Julia Quinn is making strides towards regaining her golden touch. Not quite there yet, but a lot of fun, and recommended for romance readers.

And as a final note, this is a truly delightful cover, a refreshing change from the usual half-undressed couple!

All external book links are affiliate links. I received this book for free for review.

Charting Roald’s life, from his immediate ancestry to his death, Sturrock does an amazing job communicating what sort of man Dahl was. He doesn’t shy away from some of the more difficult aspects of his life, or the way that he manipulated his own past when it suited him – mainly, it becomes clear that Dahl was a storyteller in all respects, and if he thought he could make his life more interesting by telling tales about it, he was happy to do so. While I wasn’t thrilled to discover that both Boy and Going Solo had a large degree of fictionalization, I was still eager to discover the actual, documented truth, and indeed there is a considerable amount of that here thanks to archives, research, and interviews consulted and conducted by Sturrock. Sturrock had also met Dahl before his passing, and so shares personal knowledge of him with us.

There is so much here that I’d never really guessed at it; I knew he’d written darker stories for adults, but I had never really known about his many love affairs, the true misery of his childhood, the losses he suffered in his own life both as a child and an adult, nor his crotchety and sometimes difficult personality. Sturrock liberally quotes from the author’s letters and documents, and I felt like I was genuinely getting to know him and connect him with the author I knew. His writing style is distinctive, and the picture Sturrock tells is cohesive. It’s in no way idealized; it makes him into a fully rounded person, which I think is the best possible result of a biography such as this one. Sturrock is equally praising of the author’s merits, especially his unflagging commitment to children’s literature and charitable work, as he is critical of other aspects of his life.

Naturally, I also found the circumstances around Dahl’s life to be fascinating. An attendee at a British boarding school, a pilot during World War II, and then an up-and-coming writer with a Hollywood star as his wife, Dahl lived through a considerable amount of exciting twentieth century history. I enjoyed Sturrock’s distillation of the facts and the way he built the background around Dahl’s life; it helped ground me and made the rest of the book wonderful reading.

A detailed and intensely appealing biography about one of the world’s best known children’s writers, Storyteller is worthy of a place in the library of any Roald Dahl fan.

In a lot of this book, Weir engages in one of my favourite things, evaluation of other historians. I love historiography, and she does a good job picking apart others’ arguments and showing what was based on actual source and what wasn’t. Unfortunately, a number of the historians she chooses to engage with were working a considerable amount of time in the past, rather than those who are working now and would be more likely to follow current standards for documentation and analysis. Saying that, I’m not sure how many historians are presently working on the Tudors and Mary Boleyn, as popular culture is not necessarily connected to academic culture, so it’s possible she didn’t have much more recent to work with; her main focus is revising people’s opinions of Mary as an infamous whore, and I did enjoy her investigation  of how that reputation came about.

Unfortunately, because of the scarce information, some flaws pop up in Weir’s work; it’s extremely repetitive, as she has the need to make an assumption about Mary’s past, then treats it as fact and tells us about it over and over again. Her reputed affair with the French king is constantly discussed, for example. I’ve definitely appreciated some of Weir’s other works more than this one in this respect. There just isn’t much here. I felt like Mary’s life would have been much more suited to a longer article or inclusion into a collection, instead of a book on its own. I failed to really get a sense of who she was; the most affecting and interesting part of the book, for me, was when Weir actually quoted a letter that she wrote. I understand that there are only two letters, but the difference really demonstrated to me how little I’d felt for Mary up until that point.

Mary Boleyn was a book I didn’t mind reading; it may be considered dry by others who aren’t particularly used to reading history and expect it to be more like a novel (there are pages of speculation about Mary’s birthday, for instance), but if you do enjoy biography you won’t have any trouble getting involved here. Unfortunately, I found the end result ultimately disappointing, and I hope Weir chooses a better documented subject for her next full-length work of popular history.

I received this book for free for review. All external links are affiliate links.