Gentlemen and Players feels like a significant departure from Harris’s earlier novels, including Chocolat, Five Quarters of the Orange, and Holy Fools. I’ve read those and enjoyed them, though I occasionally tire of Harris’s one-sided and relentless bashing of the Catholic church. But her settings (usually French, and historical) are lovely, and her [...]
On our plane trip from St. John’s to Seattle, the kids and I made a game of counting how many people we saw — on the plane, in airports, on the street — reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. We counted eight — which, when you think of the number and variety of books [...]
I came to Queen’s Ransom with the disadvantage of jumping into a series — this is the third in Fiona Buckley’s series of mysteries featuring Ursula Blanchard, a sixteenth-century sleuth in the employ of Queen Elizabeth I and her right-hand man, Sir William Cecil. As this book opens, Ursula is tired of the underhanded work [...]
I know you have just been waiting with bated breath these last two weeks thinking, “What is Trudy reading? Why is she not updating her book reviews?!?! How can I go on living?!??!??!!?“
Have no fear, fellow overreaders. I have my reasons. For the last two weeks I have been immersed — engrossed, even — in [...]
Janice Wells writes a column (same title as the book) in my local paper, which I occasionally read and usually enjoy. When I saw that this book — a collection of her columns — was for sale, I picked it up on impulse to add to my mom’s Mother’s Day gift bag, thinking it [...]
I read and reviewed the first volume of Rutherfurd’s “Dublin Saga”: The Princes of Ireland, last month, and as I’ve said before, I generally don’t review sequels unless I have something new to say. In this case, I do have something new to say — I enjoyed The Rebels of Ireland even better than Princes.
This [...]
