Monogamy by Sue Miller
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The premise of this book: how is widow Annie impacted when she learns her recently deceased husband of many years, Graham, was unfaithful? It’s an intriguing question and I imagined a book full of dramatic confrontations and cataclysmic breakdowns. But it was entirely not that book. Instead, it was a nuanced exploration of identity and grief, of what we absorb from and give to our partners, and how the ripple effects of relationships reverberate through the lives of tangential loved ones. It was really a book about grieving, anger, weakness, sacrifice, and ultimately, love. I really enjoyed it.
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Tag: novel
Book review: “The Heir Affair”
The Heir Affair by Heather Cocks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This delightful, wrenching, hilarious book is literary anglophile crack, and I adored every moment I spent burning through it the past few nights.
Background: This is the sequel to “The Royal We,” a fav published several years ago that is basically a fictionalized story of Wills and Kate, i.e. the darlings of the UK royal family. Read no further if you don’t want that novel spoiled…. In “The Royal We,” the Prince of Wales is Nick, a sincere, handsome, and fun-loving young royal enrolled at Oxford, and Rebecca — or Bex — is the tomboyish and refreshingly cute American who ends up rooming with one of his toft Oxford besties. Their meet-cute moment and her proximity to his inner circle results in friendship, then romance, a proposal, and ultimately marriage. It isn’t without it’s major bumps and breakups, including an unfortunate turn when Bex makes out with Nick’s red-headed rougish younger prince brother Freddie (ahem, Harry, anyone?). The first novel ends with the pair wedded, but with much to sort through.
This sequel, several years in the waiting, opens a few months after said marriage. A devious journalist friend has spitefully published amplified details of the alleged fling between Bex and Freddie, the nation is in a tizzy, and Bex and Nick and trying to figure out how to sort through it. This is the launch pad for a novel that covers the first few years of this duo’s marriage that is realistic in its ups and downs and challenges, and is all the more colorful for his romantic royal British backdrop and a chaotic crew of beloved secondary characters who keep the pages a’turning. Is Bex’ basically innocent fling with Freddie really in the past? What power plays will brittle Queen Eleanor pull next? Just what secrets was Eleanor’s now-deceased royal sister Princess Georgianna keeping in her Kensington apartments? What will villainous journalist Clive pull next? And don’t count out fun storylines from Bex’ spirited twin sister Lacey, and other favs like Lady Bollocks, baker Gaz and his lovely wife Cilla.
I loved this sequel! Hope fans of “The Royal We” enjoy it as much as I did, and I hope we haven’t seen the last of Bex and Nick.
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Book review: “The Jewel”
The Jewel by Amy Ewing
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Described as “The Selection” meets “Handmaid’s Tale,” this dystopian fantasy was a total page-turner and I am so excited it’s part of a trilogy that’s entirely published because now I know what I’m doing for the next several days!
Our setting for this novel is a central city known as The Jewel. It is a circle, and is surrounded by four additional circles, all separated by walls, less exclusive as they move away from the Jewel. The outer ring, the poorest and shabbiest, is known as The Marsh — but it has one claim to fame; it’s young women at age 12 are tested and some are discovered to have special powers, or augeries, that can manipulate the color, shape, and growth of things. These women are taken from their families to institutions where they are carefully instructed and controlled until their later teenage years, when they are auctioned off to the royal families of The Jewel to serve as surrogates.
Our heroine is Violet, otherwise known as Surrogate 197 of 200 — the highest numbers are the most talented, and Violet has a particular talent for making things grow. The story begins on the eve of the auction and follows her plunge into the spectacular, twisted, complex world of The Jewel, with it’s terrible traditions, secrets, and the relentless competition between The Jewel’s most important families for the greatest treasures of all: offspring.
Cue the chills and I’m sorry now if you, like me, are unable to put this down. So good!!
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