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 To those of you who are new to my blog, welcome! I’m Meghan, a 25 year old American living in the UK, married to a wonderful British husband and navigating the intriguing world of marketing for my career. In my spare time, I am and always have been a bookworm and a history nut, hence the title of my blog. In 2009 I got my MA in Medieval Studies and am currently dreaming of a PhD in Medieval History, but not quite yet.
I’ve been blogging about books since 2007, but I’ve been reading since I was five. Blogging has been and continues to be a delightful outlet to share that love of literature with other people, since very few people in my day-to-day life actually enjoy reading.
A few other random facts about me:
- My two favourite books are Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.
- I will happily read most genres but my very favourites are historical fiction and epic fantasy. I also love non-fiction, particularly history (obviously enough) and will usually be happy with an enormous tome that someone else would consider dry and boring.
- I adore the Middle Ages and have specialised in the Wars of the Roses; I will now refuse to read this period in fiction because I know too much. I do like nearly every period in history, though, and have loved books set in Cleopatra’s Egypt alongside books set in Victorian England – both fiction and non-fiction.
- I dream of having a cat and a full room devoted to my library one day.
I’d love to be at BEA meeting awesome book bloggers and publishing industry contacts this week, but it wasn’t in the financial cards. I’m hoping for next year and meanwhile looking forward to this week’s Armchair BEA festivities!
If you drop by, leave me a comment and let me know you were here – I’ll do my best to visit your blog over the next week and say hi in return!
 Anne is growing up further; this novel finds her attending Redmond College to get her BA after her short early teaching career. She has dreamed of getting her BA since Anne of Green Gables and so her education is top priority. While there, however, she experiences her first love affairs, including proposals from several men and an embarrassing first proposal, and meets new friends as well as retaining old ones like Gilbert Blythe. Though Anne retains her dreamy nature, it’s clear that she is grown and ready to face the real world after her education.
I first read these books as a young girl and I found my enjoyment of them diminishing as they went on. I enjoyed this one more than I remembered, but at the same time I could see why I started to lose interest in the series as a kid. They turn more to romance than adventurous escapades, and while Anne is just as endearing as ever, her refusal to admit her love for Gilbert among other things obviously frustrated me when I was younger.
Saying that, though, I felt Anne really matured in this book and started to set aside her youthful foibles to become a proper young lady, somehow without losing the spirit at the core of her. I loved the addition of Phil, a completely lively new friend of Anne’s, and it was a delight to remember just who she falls in love with for all of her beauty and vivacity. Similarly, reading about all of the Avonlea folk getting settled and moving along in life is simply a delight for someone like me who would quite happily live in this world for a long, long time. Billy Andrews’ proposal to Anne through his sister was hilarious, as was Anne’s mortification over her story’s publication.
Reading Anne of the Island was a lovely trip through familiar and new experiences alike in Anne’s world. As always I was eager to read the next once I’d finished and I’m enjoying my reread very much!
All book links to external sites are affiliate links. I downloaded this book for free through Project Gutenberg.
 Sundays seem to come around ever faster these days! They are even more frequent when I’m as busy as I have been these last few weeks, with work, visits, holiday plans, and a variety of different new activities like exercise crowding out my blogging. I found myself without a book review to write on Wednesday – the first time in three years of blogging – and so it’s been a bit quiet this week. I only have two reviews to write this week as well, so as I’ve said, things may not actually pick up for a while.
Despite reading slower, or perhaps because of it, I’m very much enjoying the books I am reading. At times I feel I speed much too quickly through books. I’ve set goals at various times to try and read less, but this is the first time it’s ever actually happened. While I’m not sure I’ve really reflected much more on the books I’m reading because my brain is constantly going on other things, I have actually enjoyed spending a bit more time in the worlds of the books I’ve read. I’m noticeably enjoying Nalini Singh’s work more now that I just can’t race through it, for example, and I absolutely loved spending more time with Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran, another candidate for my normal fast pace. I am a speedy reader normally, but I forget that it’s also nice to savor books, too.
Since this week is BEA, I am going to just let the lack of reviews slide and enjoy my new issue of BBC History Magazine in my free time. Subscribing to it is such fun; not only do I feel like I’m getting a variety of historical viewpoints and keeping up more with the academic world than I was before, there are also features on books and TV shows that fill up even more of my time with history goodness.
I’ll keep this one short as I know many of you are off to New York City this week. If you’re attending BEA, I hope you have an incredible time. I hope to see you there next year!
St Peter’s Church, Barton-on-Humber
More Wordless Wednesdays
 The Slepy family story begins with Christina ‘Seena’ Slepy on trial for her husband’s murder in Africa. The portion of the story leading up to the day is slowly revealed through flashbacks interposed with Seena’s thoughts on just how she and her family got to this point. Dick’s obsession with Catholicism, Seena’s affair, Amaryllis – so dark and different from her sisters – questions her parentage, and Mary Grace, Mary Tessa, and Mary Catherine all grapple with their own problems related to growing up and becoming women. Arrival in Africa merely exacerbates the tensions between the family members, each a world unto themselves, until the novel’s explosive conclusion.
I struggled with Amaryllis in Blueberry for a number of reasons, primary among them the fact that it reads like a shallower imitation of The Poisonwood Bible. I loved that book when I read it in high school and I have even managed to read it again since, a rarity for books I read in those days. It has stuck with me over the years in a big way, enough that the parallels between these books, with the divided family of daughters, one vain, one religious, the super-religious father, all heading to Africa on said father’s initiative, struck me at once. In that book, I was swept away by how the characters grew and developed, how Africa changed them in ways both good and bad.
Christina Meldrum appears to be trying for the same effect here, and while I enjoyed the book as I was reading it, just a day away from it has made me question it. It certainly did not have a similar effect on me, and I’m sure that’s in part because I didn’t care for the characters. They all seemed very self-absorbed, not unrealistic, but people I couldn’t relate to. Even Amaryllis, the title character, is a vague and shadowy girl.
One thing I did very much appreciate, though, was the characters’ efforts to break free of boxes, particularly Grace. She knows that because she is beautiful and blonde that she doesn’t have to be smart and that people in fact expect her to be dumb and make mistakes. So, even though she was clever as a child, she begins to rely on her beauty and becomes the stereotype that others expect. Some of the events in Africa help her to realize that she doesn’t have to be that way, that she shouldn’t put others in the boxes she hates herself, and that she can be both smart and beautiful.
I also think part of the problem is that the book is too short for what it’s trying to do. The narrative skips around between a huge number of characters, a real problem when their chapters are only a couple of pages long, and it’s difficult to get to know any of them particularly well. Some of the storylines seemed unnecessary, like Clara’s, and at times I felt irritated that the book led me to think in one direction just to provide an ‘a-ha!’ moment at the end. It felt cheap to me because the book wasn’t powerful enough to deliver an ‘a-ha!’ moment on its own. The writing was lovely, but in the end I just didn’t connect with it.
A few other reviews to give you a different perspective …
All book links to external sites are affiliate links. I purchased this book.
 The Hemings family as slaves are most famous for their connection with Thomas Jefferson, of course, because while he owned the family he also had a long-term affair with Sally Hemings after the death of his wife. That affair was made public while Jefferson was a very visible figure, leaving an impression of Sally that lasts up until the present day. Gordon-Reed views the Hemings family as a whole, covering multiple generations to explore who they were, how slavery affected them, and thus to look more in depth at this relationship between Jefferson and Hemings.
I’m no scholar of American history; my interests have been firmly European for a good few years now. That doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate an excellent work of American history and that is precisely what The Hemingses of Monticello is. It is very detailed and long, so not for the faint of heart, but I felt it unearthed a ton of truth in its portrayal of this family so affected by slavery. Gordon-Reed in many respects returns agency to Sally and the rest of her family, looking at how they may have been as people rather than as objects or simply as enslaved people who, despite the pain of their condition, were not all the same in other fundamental respects.
One of my favorite sections of the book took place before Jefferson was president, while he and Sally and one of her brothers were together in France. This was fascinating because, in France, they could have become free. It was a recognized possibility and Jefferson did not follow the law while they were there; instead he paid them wages and seems to have treated them more like free servants instead of the slaves they were. What does it mean that both of them returned with him, seemingly voluntarily, to the world of slavery? Or that Sally had already conceived at that point? Evidence is slim but Gordon-Reed’s case is convincing, and I did believe that she went with him because he promised her children would be free (and they were). A risky decision given that he could have died before that, and indeed his death was disastrous for the Hemings family, but not in that way.
Tied up in that is the notion of their relationship, naturally, and the fact that Jefferson clearly slept with a woman who was his slave and had a relationship with her. He could have forced her for all we know – but if he did why didn’t she flee? Slave women did flee from their rapists, as the author demonstrates. They did cry out for help. Gordon-Reed continues by questioning what options were open to them – why do we dismiss the possibility of love if there is no option for marriage? Jefferson never married again and didn’t father children (that we know of) with any others of his slave women. He treated her family and her in particular very differently than he did the rest of his slaves. It’s something we don’t want to touch because slavery is so horrific but I felt Gordon-Reed did very well in considering what was happening from all angles, not just one.
Overall I felt Gordon-Reed did an excellent job probing into many of the thorny issues surrounding history, slavery, and our ideas of the two, taking a deeper look at individuals without treating the subject of slavery like it was anything but wrong. The Hemingses of Monticello was wordy and very carefully considered but well argued and, for me, worth the week I spent reading it. Recommended.
All book links to external sites are affiliate links. I borrowed this book from my local library.
 After Brenna was mentally abused and nearly killed at the hands of a notorious murderer, she has struggled to feel safe even amongst her fellow changelings. What’s worse, she’s lost the ability to change after her abuse, making her feel vulnerable and completely unlike herself. In this state of mind, she has been trying to heal with the help of Sascha, star of Psy-Changeling book 1, and Judd Lauren, one of the coldest Psys around. Judd makes Brenna feel safe, though, and as she begins to spend more time with him the attraction between them goes. But every touch and emotion is literal pain for former Arrow Judd, trained so well that his brain begins to combust at the seams, making the fulfilment of their feelings seem like an impossibility.
I have had an interesting relationship with Nalini Singh’s work so far. In the romance blogosphere, I’ve found that she is completely revered. So many people love her books that it’s impossible to resist picking one up. For me, though, the connection hasn’t been there. I’ve enjoyed her books but so far she hasn’t catapulted her way up my favorites list. With this book, though, I could sense something starting to change, as I got so much more invested in this book than in the earlier two.
In this one, I think the difference was in the characters. Judd Lauren in particular is just the kind of hero I seem to like best. He’s tough because he has to be, the classic dangerous man who just needs a little affection. What I really loved, though, is that he doesn’t really soften. He doesn’t become like a changeling. Instead he expresses his emotions towards Brenna as best he can; he can fall in love but she can’t completely change him. They’re very clearly different types of people who bond regardless. They need healing, but their past lives can’t be erased just because they’ve fallen in love. The entire romance was excellently done, in my opinion, and had me really eager to read more, wishing I had already had the next Psy-Changeling book!
Caressed by Ice is a solid, very enjoyable paranormal romance, further enhancing the Psy-Changeling world and drawing me deeper into Singh’s snare. Recommended!
All book links to external sites are affiliate links. I purchased this book.
 In one life-altering law school class, four women of different backgrounds and beliefs were christened Bradwells, and afterwards became friends for years. Though life has taken each of them down different paths, of success and of failure, Mia, Betts, Laney, and Ginger have remained loyal to one another and to their friendship since that day. Now, with Betts about to be appointed to the Supreme Court, investigators have dug up the memories of one summer where a man committed suicide. All four women flee from the truth and end up on the island where it happened, where Ginger’s family lived in the summers, to try and face the facts of their past and work out how to grow from here as women and as friends.
The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton was released to favorable reviews nearly everywhere, so even though I hadn’t managed to read that one yet, I still jumped to get my hands on The Four Ms. Bradwells. I wasn’t quite sure what I expected from it when I started, but what I got was a tale about four strong women who have to face demons from their past – demons that many women face in their own private lives without the spotlight placed on these four. As such, it was a compelling and meaningful read with a lot of relevance for women’s lives.
The story is told mainly through flashbacks. All of the friends are together on the island trying to face what they’ve kept from the world for so long. As they experience the familiar scenery, they are reminded of the past and forced to reflect upon their lives. I liked how the novel touched deeply on the nature of female friendships, relationships, and family, how the women can love one another yet cause each other to suffer. We’re only given the past through these flashbacks, so at the beginning I had no idea what had happened. The actual events weren’t earth-shattering but were certainly moving and I felt for these characters and the pain they’d endured over the years.
There were things I didn’t like about the book as well, unfortunately. For one thing, I found it really hard to distinguish the women’s separate voices. I never take note of chapter headings and I more than once experienced the phenomenon of confusion as it turned out the perspective had switched and I hadn’t noticed. Ginger’s poetry and Laney’s Latin helped with this some but also got old as the novel wore on. I’d find someone who quoted Latin phrases or any poetry endlessly to be annoying in real life, too, so no surprise that happened here. And, finally, I understood that the said event was a terrible event for these women and their families, but I didn’t really see it as ‘dirt’ that would interest anyone about Betts’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Is it really that bad if you’re simply at a weekend party where a suicide happens? I know I wouldn’t have thought anything of it.
Overall, though, I did enjoy The Four Ms. Bradwells and it’s certainly a worthy read for other women. I also still intend to read The Wednesday Sisters as I have for at least a year now – soon I hope!
All book links to external sites are affiliate links. I received this book for free for review.
 Told entirely through letters, The Color Purple is the story of Celie, a black girl who is sexually abused by her father, giving birth to two of his children, and who grows into a woman abused and cowed by her husband. It’s only when her husband’s long-time lover, Shug, a nightclub singer, comes to stay with the family that Celie begins to find her feet, experiencing sexual awakening, love, and a modicum of independence for the first time in her life. Alongside Celie’s story are letters from her sister Nettie, who becomes a missionary in Africa over the course of the story and discovers her own happiness in a very different way.
I knew this book was going to be good; I’ve had it recommended to me multiple times, but somehow never managed to actually get my hands on it until I read about it in The Heroine’s Bookshelf. Set alongside some of my all-time favorite books, The Color Purple finally called out to me and demanded to be read. Now that I have, I’m very glad I listened!
This is not a book for the faint of heart. These poor women have a very tough time, particularly Celie, who is beaten down again and again until she has virtually no spirit left. She’s abused as a very young girl, forced to give birth to children of incest, and not even allowed to keep those children – the only two she ever has. She’s told constantly that she is plain, worthless, and exists to do the bidding of the men around her. Her only bright spot in life is her sister Nettie, and when Nettie goes then Celie’s spirit goes with her. Even though she meets other vibrant women, it takes living with a woman with spark, Shug, to teach Celie how to embrace her own.
I felt so much for Celie throughout this book. She is treated like a slave and never stands up for herself, but as readers we know that she has a pure heart and is a woman just waiting to love and be loved. The other characters also inspire sympathy – I loved in particular Nettie’s letters from Africa – but not to the same extent. This is her book of suffering and her book of self-discovery, both in one go. Celie’s revelation is not only of this world but it’s also religious, which I could appreciate even without sharing her beliefs.
In fact, there was only one thing I didn’t like about the book; the timelines. The lives of Celie and Nettie simply don’t match up. Events that take years in Celie’s life pass by in much less time in Nettie’s life. It was confusing, but ultimately the book still has a lot to say and I didn’t let this put me off.
The Color Purple is a fantastic book that I waited much too long to read. Don’t make the same mistake!
All book links to external sites are affiliate links. I purchased this book.
Spring has been coming on for a while but only lately have I actually started to get my rear in gear and clean my place out. I spent a lot of time yesterday sorting and cleaning and it is very nice to get rid of the winter blues! Today’s sunshine has only helped the situation.
To symbolize the coming of spring, we’ve even started up the window herb garden with two purchases yesterday. I have the total opposite of a green thumb, as pretty much every plant I touch dies, but that hasn’t stopped me trying yet. Someday I will get it right. Anyway, we have lovely green basil and coriander plants just waiting to be used in cooking:
 
I have also been continuing with a little bloggy spring cleaning. I have decided to switch over to affiliate links from The Book Depository. I have placed an Amazon banner on the side for anyone who likes to get their books from Amazon, along with an IndieBound box on the left for anyone who likes indie bookstores, so I hope this will mean an option for everyone. I personally don’t mind where anyone buys books so long as they are buying them! I’ve chosen the UK version of TBD but they will ship almost anywhere in the world for free and should switch over automatically if you’re in the US. If you’d like to support my blogging endeavours and fuel the addiction by letting me pay for my site and possibly even more books, please use them to buy online!
Unfortunately there hasn’t been much reading happening around here. I have only managed two books this week, which is pretty far from my normal 4-5, but I’m not sure I’ll be reading more any time soon as I have quite a lot going on elsewhere. All good stuff, but not really conducive to reading a lot. I am also thinking about taking a blogging break while everyone else is off at BEA to control my jealousy and give myself a little recharge. I won’t decide that though until next Sunday when I see how many books I’ve read this week.
Still making an effort, though – this morning I managed to finish up The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed, a very interesting book with plenty of detail for my little brain to chew over. Now I am getting deep into Lady of the English by Elizabeth Chadwick, due out in the UK in June and the US in September, about the Empress Matilda, Henry I’s daughter and Henry II’s mother, who was meant to be queen after his death and ended up fighting Stephen for the privilege. Very good so far, as I expected!
What are you up to this weekend? Any good books in your hands?
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