A Book Blogger's Diary

Sourcebooks Casablanca, 347p, ISBN: 1402238835 Synopsis - Returning to his family seat from Waterloo, Gervase Frant, seventh Earl of St Erth, could have expected more enthusiasm for his homecoming. His quiet cousin, stepmother, and young half-brother seem openly disappointed that he survived the wars.  And when he begins to fall for his half-brother's sweetheart, his chilly reception goes from unfriendly to positively murderous. Yes, this is a sort of a murder mystery, my dear Heyer fans. Or rather attempted murder, I should say (that's not a spoiler, for I'm sure you guessed the hero can't be murdered - right?). I feel the real mystery lies in the romance part of it, for till the end the reader is left wondering who exactly will end up with whom. Not at all the usual sort of fare we've come to expect from this wonderful romance author of yester years, but one which she writes surprisingly well. Before I explain all that, let me begin by telling you about our ...

Sourcebooks Casablanca, 368p, ISBN:1402238797 To say that the beautiful and tempestuous Lady Serena is highly upset to find that her recently deceased (and highly eccentric) father, the Earl of Spenborough, left the care of her fortune and control over her marriage to her jilted fiancé Ivo Barrasford, the Marquis of Rotherham, is to understate the case. Too much time has elapsed since Serena broke her engagement to her childhood companion, Rotherham, (and that too after the invitations had been sent - such a scandal !) for them to feel anything but discomfort at this bit of posthumous matchmaking on the part of the Earl. Or so they both declare. Used to commanding a large household and having acted as her father's hostess from a young age, energetic and politically-savvy Serena soon finds herself in doldrums when her life is suddenly reduced to a small Dower house with none but her father's young widow, Fanny, for company and a social sphere consisting of occasional visits from...

About the Book - Jack Carstares, an Earl turned highwayman, and his enemy, the enigmatic Duke of Andover, engage in an intense rivalry over the beautiful Diana Beauleigh. Seven years before the story opens, Carstares protected his brother by allowing himself to be disgraced for cheating at cards. His brother, suffering intense guilt, isn't aware that they played right into the hands of the Duke of Andover. The disgraced Earl now roams the countryside until a confrontation with his rival thwarts the attempt to kidnap the lovely Diana. But now the Duke is more determined than ever to have Diana for his own, and the two men will meet at sword point before the Earl's name can be cleared and he can claim his fair lady. My Thoughts - As regulars of this blog know, I love Heyer's books. She has a style of writing that just flows. The energy never dulls. The stories might not be perfect, but I can never quite fault Heyer's execution of them. The Black Moth ( 368 p, ...

Synopsis : Bran Hambric was found locked in a bank vault at six years old in the City of Dunce where Magic is outlawed, with no memory of his past. For years, he has lived with one of the bankers (whose family can only be described as ludicrously strange), wondering why he was left behind -- until one night, when he is fourteen, he is suddenly confronted by a maddened creature, speaking of Bran’s true past and trying to kidnap him. Bran finds that he is at the center of a plot that started years before he was even born: the plot of a deadly curse his mother created…and one that her former masters are hunting for him to complete. Haunted by the spirit of his mother’s master and living in a city where magic is illegal, Bran must undo the crimes of his past...before it is too late. Who could possibly have put a six-year-old into a locked bank vault if not mages or gnomes? The answer is larger than Bran. In fact, it is larger than Dunce. It just might be larger than magic itself. It might ...