Wednesday Reading Meme
Mar. 22nd, 2023 07:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
I finished D. K. Broster’s The Yellow Poppy! GODDAMMIT BROSTER. I saw it coming but I refused to believe it was coming. Not only did Napoleon violate the sanctity of the Duc’s military safe-conduct to arrest him, he had the Duc shot in front of Mirabel, the Trelan’s ancestral home.
And Broster had spent the previous few chapters setting up a rescue attempt that was to be disguised as a transfer to another prison, so when the executioners first arrived to take the Duc to Mirabel, I thought it was the rescue! The raising of hope only to crush it to a powder… truly brutal. And we end on the duchesse in the chapel of Mirabel, kneeling by the Duc’s body, weeping as the dried petals of the yellow poppy that he enclosed in his last letter fall on his ever-stilled breast… MY GOD BROSTER.
littlerhymes and I finished Alan Garner’s Elidor, a portal fantasy in which the children are only in the fantasy world for, like, four chapters. They spend the rest of the book home in Manchester trying to protect the magical Treasures that their liaison in Elidor entrusted to them. Garner never does quite what you expect! Although he is very predictable in the sense that the endings always seem to cut off abruptly about two sentences after the climax.
I also read Carol Ryrie Brink’s The Highly Trained Dogs of Professor Petit, which is about a showman whose troop of highly trained dogs are under threat from an unscrupulous competitor who lures in the crowds with his tiger act! Short and cute.
And I read Jennie D. Lindquist’s The Little Silver House, a sequel to her exquisite The Golden Name Day, and just as good as the first book. These books are about happy Swedish-American children having good times and enjoying the fun traditions of their Swedish heritage, like having a picnic at dawn to sing and watch the sun come up.
What I’m Reading Now
My St. Patrick Day reads have been derailed slightly by illness, but I am nonetheless traipsing ahead. In R. A. MacAvoy’s The Grey Horse, Ruairi just rescued the runaway son of the local landowner, and also murdered the Crown agent that said landowner had called in to investigate local Nationalist unrest.
Meanwhile, in Maeve Binchy’s Circle of Friends.... Oh gosh so much is happening in this book. DELIGHTED that Benny finally managed to run the Uriah-Heepish Sean Walsh out of her father’s clothing store. LESS delighted that Sean Walsh proposed marriage to the rich widow who owns the hotel across the street and was immediately accepted, not despite but because of the fact that Mrs. Healy knows all about his crimes. “This will make it easy to keep him under my thumb!” Mrs. Healy thinks. WILL IT, MRS. HEALY? I mean, maybe it will. Mrs. Healy certainly has a spine of steel and a heart to match, so really she and Sean are made for each other.
What I Plan to Read Next
Jennie D. Lindquist’s The Crystal Tree, the third and last book in her trilogy. These appear to be the only books she ever wrote, but WHAT a set of books.
Also, I want to add a Maeve Binchy to my St. Patrick’s Day list for next year. Any suggestions?
I finished D. K. Broster’s The Yellow Poppy! GODDAMMIT BROSTER. I saw it coming but I refused to believe it was coming. Not only did Napoleon violate the sanctity of the Duc’s military safe-conduct to arrest him, he had the Duc shot in front of Mirabel, the Trelan’s ancestral home.
And Broster had spent the previous few chapters setting up a rescue attempt that was to be disguised as a transfer to another prison, so when the executioners first arrived to take the Duc to Mirabel, I thought it was the rescue! The raising of hope only to crush it to a powder… truly brutal. And we end on the duchesse in the chapel of Mirabel, kneeling by the Duc’s body, weeping as the dried petals of the yellow poppy that he enclosed in his last letter fall on his ever-stilled breast… MY GOD BROSTER.
littlerhymes and I finished Alan Garner’s Elidor, a portal fantasy in which the children are only in the fantasy world for, like, four chapters. They spend the rest of the book home in Manchester trying to protect the magical Treasures that their liaison in Elidor entrusted to them. Garner never does quite what you expect! Although he is very predictable in the sense that the endings always seem to cut off abruptly about two sentences after the climax. I also read Carol Ryrie Brink’s The Highly Trained Dogs of Professor Petit, which is about a showman whose troop of highly trained dogs are under threat from an unscrupulous competitor who lures in the crowds with his tiger act! Short and cute.
And I read Jennie D. Lindquist’s The Little Silver House, a sequel to her exquisite The Golden Name Day, and just as good as the first book. These books are about happy Swedish-American children having good times and enjoying the fun traditions of their Swedish heritage, like having a picnic at dawn to sing and watch the sun come up.
What I’m Reading Now
My St. Patrick Day reads have been derailed slightly by illness, but I am nonetheless traipsing ahead. In R. A. MacAvoy’s The Grey Horse, Ruairi just rescued the runaway son of the local landowner, and also murdered the Crown agent that said landowner had called in to investigate local Nationalist unrest.
Meanwhile, in Maeve Binchy’s Circle of Friends.... Oh gosh so much is happening in this book. DELIGHTED that Benny finally managed to run the Uriah-Heepish Sean Walsh out of her father’s clothing store. LESS delighted that Sean Walsh proposed marriage to the rich widow who owns the hotel across the street and was immediately accepted, not despite but because of the fact that Mrs. Healy knows all about his crimes. “This will make it easy to keep him under my thumb!” Mrs. Healy thinks. WILL IT, MRS. HEALY? I mean, maybe it will. Mrs. Healy certainly has a spine of steel and a heart to match, so really she and Sean are made for each other.
What I Plan to Read Next
Jennie D. Lindquist’s The Crystal Tree, the third and last book in her trilogy. These appear to be the only books she ever wrote, but WHAT a set of books.
Also, I want to add a Maeve Binchy to my St. Patrick’s Day list for next year. Any suggestions?
