Welcome to Litsy!

I managed to read 15 books this year! (Not pictured: Red Rabbit) Merry Christmas! 🎄🎅🏻🤶🏻🎁❄️☃️

Finally started this series, about William Marshall. This book is the story of his father John, who served Matilda during the Civil War against Stephen. One gets a glimpse of the character of young William when he is taken hostage by Stephen. Look forward to the next one

This story sounded great - Robert Merivel rises into King Charles II favour until he is no longer in favour and is cast out - however I found this really quite hard work (along Wolf Hall lines). It‘s not all doom and gloom, there was an amusing bawdiness throughout, you will love to hate Merivel, and the second half, whereby Merivel‘s life takes a different path, was really interesting and moving. However overall I found this a bit of a slog.

Inspired by the life of folk artist Mary Ann Wilson, this is considered the first lesbian historical romance, and it's a charmer. Patience, an educated woman from a prosperous family, and Sarah, brought up to be the “boy“ of her poor father's farm, fall in love and must navigate the barriers -- both societal and psychological -- that threaten to keep them apart. They alternately narrate their story and both voices are vivid and distinctive.

It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered, before the adverse hosts could meet.
#TheLastOfTheMohicans #JamesFenimoreCooper #firstline #openingline #Classics #Fiction #HistoricalFiction #Adventure #Literature #Historical #American #Novels #ClassicLiterature #War

I was so excited when I found DEAD DEAD GIRLS in a Little Free Library near Finian‘s place, and so crushed when I actually dove in. To be generous, this reads like a second draft: flat characters, long paragraphs full of dull sentences that repeat the same thing from three different angles, and consistency errors. It could‘ve been a solid book with a more rigorous editor. As it stands, I bailed at 50 pages. Back into the LFL it goes.

I looked forward to this book from the second it was announced and I loved it. It‘s definitely a “Follett” book—really awful villains, women treated awfully as it was in past history. But also, definitely not the magic of Pillars Of The Earth. It will be hard for him to ever replicate that. It was more about finding a way to move the giant stones of Stonehenge than the actual assembly of it.

🎧Richard Armitage narrated the audiobook superbly.

I love fallen trees! 🌳

#beautybreak @ImperfectCJ

@anncrystal @dabbe @dilara @jessclark78 @amiable @tamra @sace @amyg @thebookhippie @kspenmoll @liseworks @uncommonlycozies @karisa @cuilin @jenlovesjt47 @monalyisha

Sunrise, but no sun.
The merchant ship Marie tied up at the Liverpool docks hours ago, beneath an overcast sufficient to obliterate the moon and the stars—and now that dawn has arrived conditions have not improved.
#Marley #JonClinch #firstline #openingline #HistoricalFiction #Fiction #Christmas #Retellings #Holidays #Historical #BritishLiterature #Fantasy #BookClub #Classics

Edward has finished two days of meditation and prayer. He is here to tell my my fate. I sit with my hands folded, meekly ready to accept it, in case it is a fate I am willing to accept.