Today I have been re-living the wonders of Lost Art. At work a woman stumbled across this gorgeous pink book and remembered how amazing an experience reading it had been. She remembers parts with mystical happiness, a half-remembered dream-like story line. A world of rooms, a crumbling mansion and champagne at the Ritz. It's amazing the things we remember from novels we loved, novels we wanted to live within. All of a sudden I was swept up into a wonderful memory of reading this book, and if I wasn't reading something quite wonderful right now, I would be opening the book to a random page and sinking into all over again. Like one friend mentioned today when talking of Gone with the Wind this is the one book I can finish and start all over again immediately. No need for a break, or even a moment to try and forget the plot twist or anything, as this novel, I believe only gets better with re-reading.
Books, I think, are the only products that can literally make you want to leap within the story, with films I always feel slightly removed, but with a book, if you bring it up high enough, all you can see are the pages and the words. Life within the pages of a book can be so real, I wish to live within so many, it is a complete afflication. Hopefully, someone will find a cure or perhaps a way of jumping within those pages.
However, as I have nothing to say about my new book PopCo I will stop writing now.
The Girl Who Chased The Moon
Wow!!!
After the terrible disappointment of My Last Duchess I am so relieved to have finished this amazing, wonderful and completely engrossing novel. I can't remember the last time I felt so engrossed in so many different characters. I was rooting for all of them, amazed by all of them and entranced by Sarah Addison Allen's incredible ability to make every reference magical and interesting. The magical element of this novel is as strong as in all of her others, however, I enjoy that sort of thing. Families with traits, people with a crazy sixth sense, the ability to see home baking floating in the air, it is all a wonderful touch of something outside reality, but handled in such a way that it seems completely normal.
I would recommend everyone read this book.
Or pick up her other two novels, at the moment still Hodder publications, but it looks like she might be changing publishers, so watch this space!!!
My favourite is Garden Spells but Sugar Queen is just as wonderful. However, Garden Spells is her first and I think most organic, so alive with magical elements and human emotion it leaps from the page. But I'm not sure if this one tops it? I really could have leapt into the book and lived there, it almost made it to Lost Art Of Keeping Secrets for me, but as that is my all time favourite book, it has yet to be eclipsed, but this novel is nudging its way into top 20. Which for me is pretty impressive.
Loved loved loved it.
What more is there to say????
After the terrible disappointment of My Last Duchess I am so relieved to have finished this amazing, wonderful and completely engrossing novel. I can't remember the last time I felt so engrossed in so many different characters. I was rooting for all of them, amazed by all of them and entranced by Sarah Addison Allen's incredible ability to make every reference magical and interesting. The magical element of this novel is as strong as in all of her others, however, I enjoy that sort of thing. Families with traits, people with a crazy sixth sense, the ability to see home baking floating in the air, it is all a wonderful touch of something outside reality, but handled in such a way that it seems completely normal.
I would recommend everyone read this book.
Or pick up her other two novels, at the moment still Hodder publications, but it looks like she might be changing publishers, so watch this space!!!
My favourite is Garden Spells but Sugar Queen is just as wonderful. However, Garden Spells is her first and I think most organic, so alive with magical elements and human emotion it leaps from the page. But I'm not sure if this one tops it? I really could have leapt into the book and lived there, it almost made it to Lost Art Of Keeping Secrets for me, but as that is my all time favourite book, it has yet to be eclipsed, but this novel is nudging its way into top 20. Which for me is pretty impressive.
Loved loved loved it.
What more is there to say????
My Last Duchess and Face the Fire
FINALLY...
I finished My Last Duchess and I have to be honest, while I really wanted to love it and I mean really, it was actually a huge disappointment. It was as if the author was hoping to create some mystery and drama, but it never truly came to fruition. While I won't give it all away, I will say this much, if you are going to give some older woman a snake tattoo she had better be a member of a creepy secret club, that you uncover or uncover her room of snakes that she has through a secret door in her bedroom. None of these however, was the answer to this plotted mystery, actually the whole tattoo thing had absolutely nothing to do with anything, expect to show that this woman was super naughty having affairs with people. Goodness, at least there could have been something unexpected!!! It read almost as if the author had had a great first idea and then had forgotten all about her plot devices. Leaving everything to be revealed in the last few pages is brilliant, if you have given the reader at least a little understanding of the fact that there is a real mystery. Also, it was so not a mystery!!!!
Ok, I shall stop now. I could rant on and on, especially as the first chapter showed such promise and the second to last made me think: 'Finally we're getting somewhere!', but of course, that was nothing but empty hope and clever editing. The true ending was a disappointment, I would happily forget, I cannot believe I actually spent money on this book. In the end I don't expect my novels to be the best of literature, but they could at least have something to them. Character, plot, humour, mystery, wit ect. Just one of those will do. This however, had nothing and I did have such hope for it! I really really did!
Now, on to something I can say lovely things about: Face the Fire, the final instalment in the Three Sisters Trilogy by Nora Roberts. Not only is it a very entertaining, mysterious, funny, sexy and rather wonderful piece of romance trash, it is also well plotted. Of course I knew that in the end all would be fine, people would marry, people would kiss and the romance would be awesome, but it was still well plotted. I was even minorly surprised by some parts of it, which just goes to show that while Nora is a very good writer, it is her editor and great ideas that keep the reader reading. I will of course remain an unabashed Nora lover after finishing this novel. I cannot wait to start a new triology! Also, I have in my possession one of her Christmas themed novels, I can hardly wait for December!
So as you can see, to get the taste of My Last Duchess out of my life I had to purify with a little Nora, a good lesson in life I feel. Also, further proof that no matter how much you want to like something, there is no way you can force yourself too. Trust me, I know that now.
I finished My Last Duchess and I have to be honest, while I really wanted to love it and I mean really, it was actually a huge disappointment. It was as if the author was hoping to create some mystery and drama, but it never truly came to fruition. While I won't give it all away, I will say this much, if you are going to give some older woman a snake tattoo she had better be a member of a creepy secret club, that you uncover or uncover her room of snakes that she has through a secret door in her bedroom. None of these however, was the answer to this plotted mystery, actually the whole tattoo thing had absolutely nothing to do with anything, expect to show that this woman was super naughty having affairs with people. Goodness, at least there could have been something unexpected!!! It read almost as if the author had had a great first idea and then had forgotten all about her plot devices. Leaving everything to be revealed in the last few pages is brilliant, if you have given the reader at least a little understanding of the fact that there is a real mystery. Also, it was so not a mystery!!!!
Ok, I shall stop now. I could rant on and on, especially as the first chapter showed such promise and the second to last made me think: 'Finally we're getting somewhere!', but of course, that was nothing but empty hope and clever editing. The true ending was a disappointment, I would happily forget, I cannot believe I actually spent money on this book. In the end I don't expect my novels to be the best of literature, but they could at least have something to them. Character, plot, humour, mystery, wit ect. Just one of those will do. This however, had nothing and I did have such hope for it! I really really did!
Now, on to something I can say lovely things about: Face the Fire, the final instalment in the Three Sisters Trilogy by Nora Roberts. Not only is it a very entertaining, mysterious, funny, sexy and rather wonderful piece of romance trash, it is also well plotted. Of course I knew that in the end all would be fine, people would marry, people would kiss and the romance would be awesome, but it was still well plotted. I was even minorly surprised by some parts of it, which just goes to show that while Nora is a very good writer, it is her editor and great ideas that keep the reader reading. I will of course remain an unabashed Nora lover after finishing this novel. I cannot wait to start a new triology! Also, I have in my possession one of her Christmas themed novels, I can hardly wait for December!
So as you can see, to get the taste of My Last Duchess out of my life I had to purify with a little Nora, a good lesson in life I feel. Also, further proof that no matter how much you want to like something, there is no way you can force yourself too. Trust me, I know that now.
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