Loved, loved spending my summer with this book!

Nice story with a now-familiar cast.

I appreciated the main character most of the time, but in the end, I found her a little too good to be true. She came to the story with trauma behind her, and while I love that she didn't wallow in her misery, she didn't seem very affected by it either. I found the romance to be VERY low key. I did enjoy the setting.

The set up and premise of this book are right up my alley, but I was bored. It did make me think about the effects of poverty on children and entire neighborhoods. The smallness of their world and the quickness of the violence was well depicted. Maybe that's why I didn't enjoy my time there. They didn't like living there, and neither did I.

The Civil War ghosts at the center of all four books were my least favorite part, but this book, arguably the one that leans on them the most, may be my favorite. The analytical heroine is a bit overdone, but I liked this romance as much as Rafe and Regan's.

Not my favorite of the four, perhaps because I'm on a strong heroine kick. All the women in these books have backstories that produce scars of some sort that our hero helps her overcome. Cassie's scars seem to make her less world weary--like Savannah in the previous book of the series--and more, well, simple-minded. Devin seems more inconsistent than the other brothers, all patient for 12 years and then unable to be patient for a week.

Couldn't put it down. This book goes in my guilty reads pile, but I did enjoy it. Not sure how someone's eyes turn to Ice or if I'd really like to hear a man snarl though.

My library loan ran out about halfway through, and I'm not interested enough to renew it. This story is much more political, and it's been too long since I read the first one for me to be invested.

I'm almost halfway through, and my library loan ended. At the moment, I'm not feeling a drive to check it back out. Thoughts? Does it get better? I think too much time passed between reading the first one and starting this one, and I've lost the plot a bit. Consequently, I'm not all that into this one.

Another quick adventure wth Max. I like a woman who isn't always trying to be nice--at least on paper 😀.

I took a little while to get into this book, but I found it a pleasant read with a nice group of characters. Nothing earth-shattering but a nice read.

I'm a bit of an Anglophile, and I love books about England. I appreciate the vignettes, but I did get tired of listening to the grumpy old man narrator at times. A little editing would have strengthened this book. So I liked this book, but I think I could have loved it.

Loved it! And perfectly appropriate to read on my Kindle, a weird intersection of the book world and the digital world.

Another one I started by accident...I just meant to read a little, and now I'm sucked in!

I love a book with a map!

I wavered between pick and so-so...you get what it says on the tin. If you miss "Downton Abbey," this is a good taste. That said, I miss Maggie Smith's lines! The older lady of good breeding in this novel isn't quite as clever!

Take a little Connie Willis and add a lot of Jasper Fforde and you get an idea of what this book is. Fun read!

I am finding this very slow going, and I've read a lot of (real) Victorian novels! I'll bet Fellows likes Henry James...if he can get over the fact that James is an American. 😀

I loved this book! I was sad to finish it and dribbled the last pages out as much as I could. I will miss my new friends. Great ending to a fantastic series! So fresh and sharp.

When I really like a book, I reach a point at which I want to carry the book around with me, like a child carries a lovey. Upstairs, downstairs, wherever I am. Maybe so I can read whenever I get a spare second? Or because I want my new friends with me? Whichever, Lila, Kell, Alucard, Rhy...you're going to the bus stop soon!

March was an insufferable boob who realized that he was but didn't change. Realistic depiction of the Civil War and well written, but mostly I just want to reread Little Women. I'd rather spend time with his wife and kids.

I still like Charlotte and Jamie, but I didn't like this one as much as the first one. I found the mystery a little hard to follow though it mostly came clear in the end. Clearly, there's another book in the works.

Home with a sick kid and hoping to get some reading done in between loads of laundry.

Another prickly heroine!

Guess what came in the mail? My prize!

For the most part, I found this book to be very helpful. It was a little repetitious at times, but maybe that can't be helped because people may skip around in the book, and some information is relevant to various issues. Overall, a good book.

A little help for the parents too!

I've started employing some of these strategies with my 8yo, and I'm already seeing changes in her behavior. I'm also trying to use them on myself! Time will tell. I'm resistant and not the best patient.

These are pacey books, but I couldn't get this one to take off for me. I like Jo, and I wanted to read a book set in Russia, but I pretty much wanted to finish it so I could read something else, not to find out what happened.

Loved it! I can't wait for the next one to come out! Lila's character is fascinating and believable at the same time. She's all edges and dangerous and so unapologetic about it. Fabulous!

On a more encouraging note, many of the coping strategies are mechanisms I have discovered on my own. That said, the ones that are new to me might help both of us!

I started this book by accident. I finished the first one and started something else. And then I missed these characters so I just checked in on them for a minute. And, well, now I'm reading this book as well as two others. Oops.

I loved this book! I already have the second on my kindle. The characters are sharp and clearly have depth and backstories that are only hinted at. I'm looking forward to learning more about them.

I picked this book up to find new ways to help my anxious 8 yo. Little did I know that apparently my way of coping with the world is exactly what she's trying to teach kids not to do! I think I see a problem here....

I always wanted to be McGonagall when I grow up, but reading her backstory, while it makes me admire the character more, may also make me think I'd like to look into Molly Weasley a bit more.

Nice, quick dip back into the world of Harry Potter. Affirmation of Rowling's brilliance, as if we needed more.

This book of essays about knitting makes me want to put down my reading and go knit! Not sure that's a good thing...as I said earlier, the Barbara Kingsolver is glorious, and it was nice to "meet" people like me who can't watch TV without busy hands. So kindred souls!

I read this series almost every Christmas, but I was going to skip it this year..then it called to me as Midwinter approaches.

When I read this in high school, I hated Gwenhyfar and loved Morgaine. Now I find myself much less partisan; I understand Gwen better, even if I still don't like her. And I sympathize with Morgaine less. I wouldn't say this is a perfect novel, but it is a force, and it's point of view was groundbreaking--and perhaps still is.

I keep reading phrases and lines that seem to come directly from Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising. I had to check publication years--who is referencing whom?--and Zimmer Bradley echoes Cooper. On purpose? Or using a common historical source?

So far the book is lovely, but Barbara Kingsolver alone is worth the price and more. The alchemy, chemistry, botany, and poetry all knit together... "pronking gambol of newborn wildhooray"--such beauty!

The author calls a particular type of scholar Tweeds. My friends and I used the term Tweedy to describe the guys who make long, rambling comments about their own work after hearing our papers without asking a question at all. This book is itself a bit Tweedy. There's so much observational exposition that I forgot people died at the beginning! Have to put it down for awhile. Hibernating.

I left academia almost six years ago, and I'm already flinching ten pages in. Doesn't hurt that the last MLA I went to was in Chicago, where this story is set.

I'm really more halfway between pick and so-so. It was cute, but kind of flat. Maybe if I hadn't already read Jasper Fforde I would have been more impressed. The main characters are likable, and the story moves quickly. I wasn't excited to spend time there though. I wanted to be, but I wasn't.

Charming 😏 characters and village with a believable and well-thought-out mystery. I don't like mysteries that withhold key information so you can't figure it out, and this book walked the line of telling too much and not enough quite well. I'll read the next one!

I was surprisingly affected by the denouement. I didn't like Angela Lamb as a character--find her insufferably self-centered and insensitive--but the blended narrative at the end was lovely.

Reading this book again is like meeting up with an old high school friend who has aged surprisingly well.

I read this book long ago, and starting it again last night, I saw so much of what I loved when I was in junior high and high school. How much of what I read then went back to this book?

These books follow a pattern, but I like them so. I like the sense of place and the prickly people. And I love the fairy tales of this particular story.