I love Nadiya Hussain. If you are a fan of The Great British Bake Off, you probably love her too. Nadiya was the winner in 2015, and she is, by all accounts the most popular winner in the history of the show. Charming, warm, funny, self-deprecating and gifted with a marvelously expressive face, she made all of us fall in love with her. Since winning TGBBO, Nadiya has published a cookbook (which I received as a surprise present last week from a lovely friend who […]
Another Delight
Sarah Caudwell’s legal mysteries are just delightful. This is the third one I’ve reviewed this year, and I’ve been moving very slowly through the series because I wanted to savor it. Now I only have one left. The Sirens Sang of Murder, like the other two Professor Hilary Tamar mysteries before it, revolves around a group of young barristers in England who like to spend most of their free time either sitting around drinking, or going out on dates. In between they practice law and […]
The reward of true service, surely, is to be asked for more.
At long last, we reach the end of the “Temeraire” series. Hot dang, it’s been 9 books… where would our heroes travel? how would they encounter Napoleon? would Laurence have complicated feelings about women in the military? would Temeraire rake his giant claws into the ground in distress over something? where would they settle down for retirement? all these questions had to be answered, and more! It’s no secret that I’ve adored this series, even though it became deeply repetitive and predictable. And in a surprising […]
Flavia de Luce – Times they are a changin’
I adore the Flavia de Luce mysteries but kept this one sitting in my Amazon cart for a while. Because I like them so much I tied my reading of it to as a reward for a fitness goal, and I finally made it (self high five). Moving right along, this installment did not disappoint, though it was pretty different than the previous novels. Each previous book had fallen into a “Murder She Wrote” esque pattern, if you are familiar with the Angela Lansbury series […]
A double cannonball to contemplate
What a subtle, poignant, sad book. In post-WWII England, Stevens, a butler of a formerly great aristocratic house takes a road trip through the country and has the opportunity to reflect on his tenure of servitude. Through these memories — many with another employee, Miss Kenton — Stevens sketches a life left rather unlived through the endless pursuit of dignity, that intangible, elite quality embodied by the foremost butlers. What is dignity? No one can put it into words, not even Stevens, but based on […]
In which I am a glutton for punishment
I just don’t know what to do with this series. The Glass Magician is a followup to The Paper Magician, with which I had significant problems but mostly forgave it based on the strength of the concept. It is that same strength of concept that led me, some time later, to read the sequel, despite my misgivings. And now? There’s just not a lot here, and it is so frustrating. There is no sophistication to the plot or characters, and the whole concept (a magician […]