Romancing Mr. Bridgerton
Excellent regency romance.
Previously reviewed.
This was re-read in advance of the Netflix series.
Category: Books
cuddles?
Axiom’s End
A first contact sci-fi novel by the insightful video essayist. This is set during Bush 2’s presidency and is full of paranoid conspiracy both among humans and aliens. I enjoyed this a lot and I’m really looking forward to the next book in the series.
cart?
The Lives of Christopher Chant
A story telling the childhood adventures of the boy who would grow up to be Chrestomanci in Charmed Life. Very entertaining kids book with much more of a fantasy adventure focus.
Next in order is Conrad’s Fate which I disliked on first reading and have stalled with for now.
matchbox?
Charmed Life
I started to read the Chrestomanci books in DWJs preferred order.
Eric and Gwendolyn are orphans who are taken to live with their parent’s cousin who happens to be Chrestomanci.
This is an excellent kids fantasy book with the trademark wit and compassion of the author on full display.
synthetic?
A Beautifully Foolish Endeavour
The follow up to An Absolutely Remarkable Thing expands the tale to include more narrators as the consequences of the events in the previous book hurtle toward a species level confrontation.
This is a very good book. A real page turner with great characters and deeply considered ideas. It succeeds in giving a satisfying conclusion to the similarly excellent first book of the series
rental?
Evvie Drake Starts Over
Linda Holmes is an occasional contributor on one of my favourite sports podcasts. This is a sweet romance about a widow starting to come back to life when she rents a room to a Major League pitcher recovering from an injury.
lake?
Almost Just Friends
Piper is scraping together the money to fix up her grandparents old home for sale when her troubled siblings return to town. Trying to hold it all together and deal with her attraction to the new neighbour causes things to go off the rails in ways that may prove to be for the best in the long run.
taprobane?
The Fountains of Paradise
I first read this book a long, long time ago as a library book. A few years ago, with fond memories, I bought a second hand paperback copy of the book to revisit at some point.
Having a desperate need to spend more time away from screens now that I’m working from home during the lockdown I picked a physical book from my shelves to give me that diversion.
The plot is that superstar engineer Vannevar Morgan has decided that his next project should be a space elevator. He has a special low-g developed wonder material that will allow it but he needs to build it on a mountain somewhere on the equator. The best spot just happens to be on the site of an ancient monastery.
This book is solid entertaining Science Fiction but honestly nothing outstanding – definitely not as good as I had remembered.
Worth a read but not worth going out of your way to get a copy.
douga?
Tell Me How You Really Fell
This was a comfort re-read of a very enjoyable teen romance.
See the original review for more
subway?
A City Dreaming
M is a magician or as he would put in it “in with the management”.
This book is a series of rolling vignettes as we see what M gets up to after washing back up in New York after drifting all over the planet.
The main character is a charming rogue and the writing enjoyable.
The problem for me was that the story never coheres. Some vignettes are utterly trivial tales of life as a debauched New York who just happens to have magical abilities and others have a genuine sense of danger and high stakes.
The stories just feel random – there’s no sense of tension and release. It’s never building to something and certainly the war between magical queens promised in the blurb never materializes.
I don’t regret reading it – there was much to enjoy – but I just felt it could have been great if was a more conventional fantasy story.