This is my first foray into a novel by Maud Casey (The Shape of Things To Come, Geneology) and it was mind-bending. The book follows two narratives. Albert’s inner thoughts populate one of them. He is an ambler, a friendly walker who finds himself in the medium merchant towns of middle Europe. When Albert walked,…
REVIEW: TWO UNLIKELY DETECTIVES – Sidney Chambers and Harriet Westerman
The Perils of the Night James Runcie has put a sometimes-reluctant pastor, often-accidental detective Canon Sidney Chambers in 1950s Cambridge. Chambers is a townie, one of the few outsiders tolerated by the establishment. When a thrill-seeker falls to his death while scaling a cathedral tower,…
REVIEW: MRS. ROBINSON’S DISGRACE by Kate Summerscale
Kate Summerscale has once again uncovered a fascinating story from the ever contradictory Victorian era. Not so very long ago, divorce was nearly impossible (unless you were King Henry VIII, of course). Until 1858, “marriage could only be dissolved by an individual Act of Parliament, at a cost prohibitive to almost all of the population.…
REVIEWS: BOOKS THAT DIDN’T QUITE FLOAT MY BOAT
I try to give every book the same consideration, particularly when it’s in the review pile. As a (wannabe) writer myself, I can understand the toil that an author went through. I respect that. But there are still some books, that no matter how much I should have liked, and thought I would enjoy, I…