Jane Litte's Blog, page 108

Reading List by Jennie for April through June

Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore

I went into this knowing nothing about it but the name. It ended up being a bit of a slog, for a few reasons: dialogue rendered in impenetrable dialect, a lot of blah blah blah musings, and the fact that I didn’t really like the narrator.

John Ridd is an adolescent when his father, a local farmer, is murdered by the Doone clan, outlaws who were once aristocrats. The Doones live in an isolated valley in Exmoor, and in spite of the fact that they rob and kidnap with i...

REVIEW: Scandal in Babylon by Barbara Hambly

“You shall never have a penny of my money. Leave me alone or I will shoot you dead!”

1924. After six months in Hollywood, young British widow Emma Blackstone has come to love her new employer, glamourous movie-star Kitty Flint – even if her late husband’s sister is one of the worst actresses she’s ever seen. Looking after Kitty and her three adorable Pekinese dogs isn’t work Emma dreamed of, but Kitty rescued her when she was all alone in the world. Now, the worst thing academically-minded Emma...

Open Thread for Readers for August 2021

Got a book you want to talk about? Frustrated with a book or series? In love with a new one? Found a buried treasure? An issue that keeps popping up in the books you are reading? Just want to chat about stuff in general?

REVIEW: Daughters of Edward I by Kathryn Warner

In 1254 the teenage heir to the English throne married a Spanish bride, the sister of the king of Castile, in Burgos, and their marriage of thirty-six years proved to be one of the great royal romances of the Middle Ages. Edward I of England and Leonor of Castile had at least fourteen children together, though only six survived into adulthood, five of them daughters.

Daughters of Edward I traces the lives of these five capable, independent women, including Joan of Acre, born in the Holy Land, ...

REVIEW: Breathing Fire : Female Inmate Firefighters on the Front Lines of California’s Wildfires by Jaime Lowe

A dramatic, revelatory account of the female inmate firefighters who battle California wildfires.

“Shawna was overcome by the claustrophobia, the heat, the smoke, the fire, all just down the canyon and up the ravine. She was feeling the adrenaline, but also the terror of doing something for the first time. She knew how to run with a backpack; they had trained her physically. But that’s not training for flames. That’s not live fire.”

California’s fire season gets hotter, longer, and more extrem...

Review: Mindtouch (The Dreamhealers, #1) by M.C.A. Hogarth

Seersana University is worlds-renowned for its xenopsychology program, producing the Alliance’s finest therapists, psychiatric nurses and alien researchers. When Jahir, one of the rare and reclusive Eldritch espers, arrives on campus, he’s unprepared for the challenges of a vast and multicultural society… but fortunately, second-year student Vasiht’h is willing to take him under his wing. Will the two win past their troubles and doubts and see the potential for a once-in-a-lifetime partnership?...

REVIEW: Home to Texas by Kaki Warner

She’s his last case, he’s her fresh start—two troubled ex-soldiers find new purpose and a second chance at love in this new contemporary western romance from award-winning author Kaki Warner.

Lieutenant KD Whitcomb had mapped out her career from West Point to the Pentagon. But when an injury under questionable circumstances forces her to leave the army, her dreams fall dead at her feet. Feeling lost and needing to rediscover the tough woman beneath the uniform, she heads back to the family ran...

REVIEW: A Comedy of Terrors by Lindsey Davis

In Rome, 89 A.D., poisonings, murders, and a bloody gang war of retribution breaks out during the festival of Saturnalia, and when her husband, Tiberius, becomes a target, it’s time for Flavia Albia to take matters into her own hands — in Lindsey Davis’s next historical mystery, A Comedy of Terrors.

Flavia Albia, daughter and successor of private informer Marcus Didius Falco is twiddling her thumbs with no clients during the December festival of Saturnalia. But that doesn’t mean all is quiet. ...

REVIEW: The Unseen & The Adversary by Thea Harrison

Dear Thea Harrison,

The Unseen, released last year, was originally planned to be the first of 4 linked (serialised?) novellas, a spin-off of the Elder Races series, set in the fictional Other Land of Rhyacia. As it happened, due to events since then, The Chronicles of Rhyacia was reimagined as a duology. The second and final book in the story, The Adversary is out now. You were very open about the earlier book ending on a cliffhanger (thank you!). Anyone familiar with my reviews or my reading...

REVIEW: The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore

Dear Kate Moore,

I listened to your first book, The Radium Girls back in 2018 and was enthralled by it. (It’s a fantastic book but hard to hear because of the infuriating and tragic content.) So when I saw you had a new book coming out I snapped it up.  It’s a very different book, following one woman rather than many but there are some similarities; some of it is hard to hear (I listened to the audiobook) but unlike in The Radium Girls, eventually, Elizabeth did (largely) find justice.

Elizabeth...