Jan Priddy > Recent Status Updates

Finally. A murder. Setting the stage and all that for over 100 pages of people I found only barely interesting, and that was only because I have loved Lord Peter and Harriet in previous books.

Still reading this aloud to my husband.

chapter 9

"The flot plickens."

I saw it coming and now I'll delay the final pages to find the end.

It would be wonderful if, at this point in the tale, the lie [it should be a lie] about how the war started was revealed. alas

127 pages/only for Novik will I read another fantasy with royals and war

chapter five

There are 362 pages, not counting tiles pages, blanks, and advertising in the back.

My copy is dated 2002, "first edition," and has 220 pages.

Quindlen calls some characters "fat" which reminds me that today, we aren't allowed to say people are fat, despite the fact that over 70% of the US adult population "have overweight" and over 40% "have obesity" and more than 20% of children over the age of 5 "have obesity." As if consuming more calories than we burn each day for most of our lives were a disease and not a very, very bad habit promoted by industry.

With the rich and mighty, always a little patience.

How does it take "a few steps" to close the gap between two people when one of the has his hands on the other's shoulders? A step. Two?

I dislike books that withhold "the terrible thing." I'm clearly in the minority, because I have read two very popular books before this that held off revealing "the terrible thing" until near the end. By the time I find out what "the terrible thing" is, I just don't care. It's awful, sure, but the withholding of the information is a cheap way to maintain tension.

"Bone Black" on pages 197-198 is the first chapter I loved. The history of charred buffalo bones used to whiten sugar felt new to me.