I was having a hard time with this book, but I think it was primarily cause I was having a hard time reading and comprehending at this time. (Sinus/allergy headache and fibrofog, not a good combination)
Here is the cover synopsis:
This gripping murder-mystery is set amid the struggling upper classes of Perthshire as their comfortable world begins to crumble in teh aftermath of the First World War.
Dandy Gilver, her husband back from the Front, her chidren away at school and her uniform growing musty in the attic, is bored to tears in the spring of 1922 and a little light sleuthing seems like harmless fun. She decides to track down the Duffy diamonds, stolen from teh Esslemonts' country house, Croys, after the Armistice Ball. Before long though, the puzzle of the missing gems is swept aside by the sudden, shocking death of lovely young Cara Duffy in a lonely seasid cottage in Galloway. Society and the law are keen to call it an accident but Dandy, along with Cara Duffy's fiance Alec, is sure that there is more to it than meets the eye.
Something is being hidden by the Duffy family: the watchful Lena, the cold and distant Clemence and old Gregory Duffy with his air of sadness--not to mention the victim herself, beautiful Cara, whose secret always seems just tantalizingly out of reach. Dandy must learn to trust her instincts and swallow most of her scruples if she is to uncover the truth.
A sparkling and skillful first novel in the true spirit of the golden age whodunit.
By the end of the book, I was really getting into it. Dandy finally seemed like a real person. But please bear in mind that I was struggling to read this due to aforementioned aflictions, LOL. It took a L-O-N-G time to read thru things in this book. But I am looking forward to future books. McPherson seems to come into her own by the end of the book and makes one want more. (and when you get to the end of the book, you'll really understand that statement.) This is a "thinking" book, not a breeze thru it book. Your thinking hat must be firmly in place, even if you figure out who did it, you'll need it to follow thru to why, just the same as Dandy. You are truly put in her shoes, and her befuddlement, trying to figure out all the details.
dandygilver.co.uk
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Greenwood, Kerry: Away with the Fairies
Okay, finished Kerry Greenwood's Away with the Fairies. It was very good, but I still think Phryne is a snob. But she is a likable snob. I look forward to reading more of her books.
Here is the cover synopsis:
It's the 1920's in Melbourne and Phryne is asked to investigate the puzzling death of a famous author and illustrator of fairy stories. To do so, Phryne takes a job with the women's magazine that employed the victim and finds herself enmeshed in her colleagues' deceptions.
But while Phryne is learning the ins and outs of magazine publishing first hand, her personal life is thrown into chaos. Impatient for her lover Lin Chung's imminent return from a silk-buying expedition to China, she instead receives an unusual summons from Lin Chung's family followed by a s series of mysterious assaults and warnings.
This is the 14th book of the series. I hope I can get my hands on the others. Found out that some are in paperback in the US, they are just as much as hardback though, not much difference in price... in that case I'd just by the hardback, LOL.
Very good series.
here is my favorite quote:
"...someone was going to suffer, someone was going to be really, really sorry for doing this, before Phryne let them die.
Horror and weakness vanished. No one in her immediate circle had ever seen Phryne really angry and ordinariy she kept this killing rage, a legacy from her Celtic ancestors, a close secret. In this state, she knew, she was literally capable of anything, and not since she had interrupted a couple of her schoolmates torturing a dog had she lost it. Then it had taken the combined efforts of three teachers to hold her and prize the remains of the stable rake from her grasp. She had never regretted learning in that way what a really good rage can do, although---as usual---she had been expelled. She had taken the dog with her, and was willing to bet that those two girls would be very chary of even looking unkindly at a dog ever again. After they got out of the infirmary, of course. "
This passage conveys something more than the cool and aloof exterior you grow accustomed to in the rest of the story. But I really liked it cause I could identify. I can remember as a child getting angry about something, but knowing full well if I ever acted on it, I would be in a heap of trouble. I never could think of a reaction to someone antagonizing me other than physical violence, which I was sure not to do.
Anyhoo... look into this book and the others in the series. "Cocaine Blues" is the first.
Here is the cover synopsis:
It's the 1920's in Melbourne and Phryne is asked to investigate the puzzling death of a famous author and illustrator of fairy stories. To do so, Phryne takes a job with the women's magazine that employed the victim and finds herself enmeshed in her colleagues' deceptions.
But while Phryne is learning the ins and outs of magazine publishing first hand, her personal life is thrown into chaos. Impatient for her lover Lin Chung's imminent return from a silk-buying expedition to China, she instead receives an unusual summons from Lin Chung's family followed by a s series of mysterious assaults and warnings.
This is the 14th book of the series. I hope I can get my hands on the others. Found out that some are in paperback in the US, they are just as much as hardback though, not much difference in price... in that case I'd just by the hardback, LOL.
Very good series.
here is my favorite quote:
"...someone was going to suffer, someone was going to be really, really sorry for doing this, before Phryne let them die.
Horror and weakness vanished. No one in her immediate circle had ever seen Phryne really angry and ordinariy she kept this killing rage, a legacy from her Celtic ancestors, a close secret. In this state, she knew, she was literally capable of anything, and not since she had interrupted a couple of her schoolmates torturing a dog had she lost it. Then it had taken the combined efforts of three teachers to hold her and prize the remains of the stable rake from her grasp. She had never regretted learning in that way what a really good rage can do, although---as usual---she had been expelled. She had taken the dog with her, and was willing to bet that those two girls would be very chary of even looking unkindly at a dog ever again. After they got out of the infirmary, of course. "
This passage conveys something more than the cool and aloof exterior you grow accustomed to in the rest of the story. But I really liked it cause I could identify. I can remember as a child getting angry about something, but knowing full well if I ever acted on it, I would be in a heap of trouble. I never could think of a reaction to someone antagonizing me other than physical violence, which I was sure not to do.
Anyhoo... look into this book and the others in the series. "Cocaine Blues" is the first.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Jane Austen: A serial flirt with a hangover
By Avril Ormsby
Fri Apr 25, 6:16 PM ET
Jane Austen fans who think the novelist was a country mouse may be shocked by a new British TV drama that depicts her flirting, suffering from hangovers and reneging on the acceptance of a marriage proposal.
But the screenwriter behind "Miss Austen Regrets" believes anybody who has read her books will recognize Austen as a woman of brilliant wit who knew her way around society.
"I am not dishing the dirt," Gwyneth Hughes said. "Some people might not like to see Austen with a hangover, but I am not out to shock."
Helen Lefroy, a distant relative of Tom Lefroy, a friend of Austen's, said the novelist may have been a live wire "but she wasn't wild."
"We know so little of her, but I do not think she was looking for marriage. She was looking to understand the relationship between men and women, which she used in her novels so well," Lefroy said.
The script for the BBC production, to air on Sunday, is based on the 100-plus surviving letters by Austen to her devoted sister, Cassandra, and to her young niece, Fanny.
Austen, who wrote the classics "Pride and Prejudice" and "Sense and Sensibility," never found her own Mr. Darcy.
But the drama features a number of romances as well as a proposal of marriage, which the 27-year-old Austen initially accepted and then turned down after a night's reflection.
"It would have been seen as incredibly rude and ill-brought up," Hughes said. "Fast, scandalous and wrong."
Later, a middle-aged Austen developed a crush on a doctor 10 years her junior, who was treating her brother.
"My judgment is she fancied him like mad," Hughes said.
Austen had been a tremendous flirt, and enjoyed partying, the screenwriter added.
"She was a normal woman," Hughes said. "If she went to a party, she would have had some wine and woken up with a hangover."
Hughes believes many letters may have been destroyed by Cassandra to spare the feelings of friends, family and neighbors, and to protect her sister's privacy.
"She was lively and ferocious. Some of the comments about her neighbors make your eyes water."
But there was enough in the letters to hint at "what might have been" in terms of romance, Hughes believes.
"We are very condescending nowadays, thinking they had buttoned-up and boring lives. But they were no more boring than ours, and some were more interesting.
"I am looking for Jane as she was, who we can relate to and understand in a modern world."
Reuters/Nielsen
Copyright © 2008 Reuters Limited.
All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.
Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
By Avril Ormsby
Fri Apr 25, 6:16 PM ET
Jane Austen fans who think the novelist was a country mouse may be shocked by a new British TV drama that depicts her flirting, suffering from hangovers and reneging on the acceptance of a marriage proposal.
But the screenwriter behind "Miss Austen Regrets" believes anybody who has read her books will recognize Austen as a woman of brilliant wit who knew her way around society.
"I am not dishing the dirt," Gwyneth Hughes said. "Some people might not like to see Austen with a hangover, but I am not out to shock."
Helen Lefroy, a distant relative of Tom Lefroy, a friend of Austen's, said the novelist may have been a live wire "but she wasn't wild."
"We know so little of her, but I do not think she was looking for marriage. She was looking to understand the relationship between men and women, which she used in her novels so well," Lefroy said.
The script for the BBC production, to air on Sunday, is based on the 100-plus surviving letters by Austen to her devoted sister, Cassandra, and to her young niece, Fanny.
Austen, who wrote the classics "Pride and Prejudice" and "Sense and Sensibility," never found her own Mr. Darcy.
But the drama features a number of romances as well as a proposal of marriage, which the 27-year-old Austen initially accepted and then turned down after a night's reflection.
"It would have been seen as incredibly rude and ill-brought up," Hughes said. "Fast, scandalous and wrong."
Later, a middle-aged Austen developed a crush on a doctor 10 years her junior, who was treating her brother.
"My judgment is she fancied him like mad," Hughes said.
Austen had been a tremendous flirt, and enjoyed partying, the screenwriter added.
"She was a normal woman," Hughes said. "If she went to a party, she would have had some wine and woken up with a hangover."
Hughes believes many letters may have been destroyed by Cassandra to spare the feelings of friends, family and neighbors, and to protect her sister's privacy.
"She was lively and ferocious. Some of the comments about her neighbors make your eyes water."
But there was enough in the letters to hint at "what might have been" in terms of romance, Hughes believes.
"We are very condescending nowadays, thinking they had buttoned-up and boring lives. But they were no more boring than ours, and some were more interesting.
"I am looking for Jane as she was, who we can relate to and understand in a modern world."
Reuters/Nielsen
Copyright © 2008 Reuters Limited.
All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.
Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Walmart
Okay, a bit of a rant here. I like to order books thru Walmart.com. It saves money and time. Well, it used to. They do NOT offer ship to store with books, nor pay in store.
But my biggest rant right now is this:
THEY HAVE REDUCED THE STOCK OF BOOKS YOU CAN ORDER.
I, just a few months ago, could find several of the authors I noted on the right of this blog at Walmart.com....not all of their books, but some. Now several of those authors are no longer listed. Even new releases! I do not understand this. It is so convenient to buy a Walmart gift card and buy online rather than make a trip to the bookstore and possibly have to order there as well, plus cost is lower at Walmart. I would prefer to pay the full price if I knew that the author got a bigger cut of the profits, but I seriously doubt that. Even buy directly from the author would be good.
Okay, rant ending.
But my biggest rant right now is this:
THEY HAVE REDUCED THE STOCK OF BOOKS YOU CAN ORDER.
I, just a few months ago, could find several of the authors I noted on the right of this blog at Walmart.com....not all of their books, but some. Now several of those authors are no longer listed. Even new releases! I do not understand this. It is so convenient to buy a Walmart gift card and buy online rather than make a trip to the bookstore and possibly have to order there as well, plus cost is lower at Walmart. I would prefer to pay the full price if I knew that the author got a bigger cut of the profits, but I seriously doubt that. Even buy directly from the author would be good.
Okay, rant ending.
Tazo tea Passion
Currently my favorite tea to drink at night, as it has no caffeine.
Here are ingredients: Hibiscus flowers, natural tropical flavors, citric acid, licorice root, orange peel, cinnamon bark, rosehips, lemongrass and fruit juice extract (color)
Love it, strong flavor, but not a tea that will keep you awake at night.
I sweeten with Splenda. I've tried with honey, but as much as I love honey, I can't take it in my tea, makes it tast funny to me. And I'm not supposed to have sugar (due to MVPS and FMS) but have to have it sweetened some.
Here are ingredients: Hibiscus flowers, natural tropical flavors, citric acid, licorice root, orange peel, cinnamon bark, rosehips, lemongrass and fruit juice extract (color)
Love it, strong flavor, but not a tea that will keep you awake at night.
I sweeten with Splenda. I've tried with honey, but as much as I love honey, I can't take it in my tea, makes it tast funny to me. And I'm not supposed to have sugar (due to MVPS and FMS) but have to have it sweetened some.
New reads and news
Have just read Rhys Bowen's Her Royal Spyness. I really rather liked this book and am looking forward to the new book due out in July. She has 2 other series, Evan Evans and Molly Murphy. Her website is: rhysbowen.com
Also, have found out one of my favorite authors, Lyn Hamilton, will not be writing any more Lara McClintoch books. I loved these books that have an anthropological slant to them. Oh well, will just hope she changes her mind. lynhamilton.com
Same with Yasmine Galenorn. She had 2 cozy mystery series that I loved, but she has discontinued those to concentrate on her paranormal series. This is okay, her right, but I pouted for quite a while, LOL. Also, I can't seem to get into the new series, don't know if it is perpetual brain fog or what. www.galenorn.com
Found a new author: Kerry Greenwood. Well, new to me, seems she's been writing since the late 80's. Her Phryne Fisher series, I'm just starting it, with not the first book, but Away with the Fairies. And they are only available in hardback (pout). Seems to be a good series...I'm only a couple of chapters in. Don't know how I feel about Phryne, she seems a bit of a snob. But I can get over that, LOL. phrynefisher.com
Also, Rett MacPherson's Torie O'Shea series is good, especially with the family dynamics and genealogical slant. http://www.rettmacpherson.com/
Looking forward to reading Laura Child's latest in her scrapbooking and her teashop series. Her books come with tips and recipes in the back... http://laurachilds.com/
Well, that's all for now....
Also, have found out one of my favorite authors, Lyn Hamilton, will not be writing any more Lara McClintoch books. I loved these books that have an anthropological slant to them. Oh well, will just hope she changes her mind. lynhamilton.com
Same with Yasmine Galenorn. She had 2 cozy mystery series that I loved, but she has discontinued those to concentrate on her paranormal series. This is okay, her right, but I pouted for quite a while, LOL. Also, I can't seem to get into the new series, don't know if it is perpetual brain fog or what. www.galenorn.com
Found a new author: Kerry Greenwood. Well, new to me, seems she's been writing since the late 80's. Her Phryne Fisher series, I'm just starting it, with not the first book, but Away with the Fairies. And they are only available in hardback (pout). Seems to be a good series...I'm only a couple of chapters in. Don't know how I feel about Phryne, she seems a bit of a snob. But I can get over that, LOL. phrynefisher.com
Also, Rett MacPherson's Torie O'Shea series is good, especially with the family dynamics and genealogical slant. http://www.rettmacpherson.com/
Looking forward to reading Laura Child's latest in her scrapbooking and her teashop series. Her books come with tips and recipes in the back... http://laurachilds.com/
Well, that's all for now....
Saturday, April 5, 2008
A Beginning
Let's see if I can keep this up. Never have been good at journaling...
Hopefully will post not just what's floating in my mind, but a bit on what interests me too. As the title of my blog suggests, that would be Tea (and all that associates with that subject), Herbs, and books, most especially cozy mysteries. Also music, movies, tv and such. As well as mythologies, cultures, languages and other things.
Hopefully will post not just what's floating in my mind, but a bit on what interests me too. As the title of my blog suggests, that would be Tea (and all that associates with that subject), Herbs, and books, most especially cozy mysteries. Also music, movies, tv and such. As well as mythologies, cultures, languages and other things.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)