2014 Reading, Books 127-129

127) Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends by David Wilton

A quick, fun read that debunks almost everything you've ever read on Facebook about the origins of words and phrases. E.g. "Ring Around the Rosie" is not based on folk memory of the bubonic plague, a word which I will politely leave untyped (on Twitter I'm wont to use "rhymes with yuck!" when things go poorly for my chosen sportsball teams) is not an acronym of For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, etc. Little of it was new to me, but it was an enjoyable read nonetheless.

128) Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal

The first book in Kowal's Glamourist Histories fantasy series is very much a Austen pastiche--down to using old-fashioned spellings like "chuse" for "choose" and "shewed" for "showed." The characters and situations feel very similar, too. The heroine's parents are very Bennet-like, the villain reminds me of both Willoughby and Wickham, etc. I found myself wishing it was less Austenian in spots, since the voice made the occasional small anachronisms stand out more. That said, I enjoyed this book and plan to continue with the series.

129) Bruno and the Carol Singers by Martin Walker

A Christmas short story in the Bruno Courreges mystery series set in the French countryside. As a story it's quick, slight, and straightforward, but it was a pleasant visit with the characters and setting (these things are straight-up food and rural French living porn--reading them made me add the Dordogne to the itinerary for our Europe trip next summer). It also reminded me to search for any new full-length entries since I last read the series. There are two, and I'll be reading them soon.

2014 reading, books 67-69

67) The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 by Alan Taylor

The 2014 Pulitzer Prize winner for History focuses on a little-known side of one of America's lesser-known wars, the War of 1812, and how Virginian slaves escaped to British ships during Britain's naval raids in the Chesapeake. An illuminating look at the American South a few decades after the Revolution and before the Civil War, not to mention British and American concepts of freedom.

68) The Serpent Garden by Judith Merkle Riley

I adore Riley's Margaret of Ashbury trilogy--in fact, it's one of my comfort re-reads--but I'd never read any of her other books before. This book, set early in the reign of Henry VIII, was enjoyable but not as good as the Margaret books. I felt like it focused too much on the plot and the various villains dabbling in demonology and court intrigue and not enough on the protagonist, who as a result didn't seem as alive and compelling as Margaret. (Incidentally, I'd class it as more historical fantasy than historical fiction, since the supernatural is even more unambiguous and prominent than in the Margaret books.)

69) Dare to Kiss by Jo Beverley

A short novella set in Beverley's Georgian Malloren world about a widow and her five children taken in on a freezing winter night by a reclusive bachelor. She has a scandalous past, and his reclusiveness springs from a physical deformity, and I liked that both the scandal and the deformity are REAL, and not a case of her being falsely accused nor him having scars he thinks are disfiguring but that many women would find sexy.