Libby Berman – Google

I have always loved Villette. There are many quotes here that I hold onto. Heroine Lucy Snowe has undergone some terrible family tragedy, which we are not privy to, leading to her working life; first as a paid companion- like the second Mrs. DeWinter, and then as a teacher at a Belgian boarding school. Lucy is as feminist as Jane Eyre; only more secretive . This novel would make a bizarre mini series- family members fail to recognize each other throughout the book, but I love it.

I really loved this book. Cassandra Mortmain is the next -to-youngest daughter of a formerly celebrated author,living in not genteel poverty in a ruined Suffolk castle, prior to World War 2. She has an eccentric pagan stepmother, called Topaz, an unhappy elder sister; Rose.A younger brother,Thomas,13; and a live in employee/brother who loves her. I Capture the Castle covers six months in which Cassandra practices speed writing; and captures her life after the American heirs to the landlord claim their inheritance. This book never felt contrived; it has an innocence not found often. Author Dodie is more well known for 101 Dalmatians.

The Lord of the Rings felt immensely fake to me; the language didn't flow,and the characters were painted in the broadest strokes.. Galadriel is all light ,love,and flowers; Gallup is black,living in a black hole- slithering, and snake-like.Frodo ,. Iand the Hobbits are a simple,happy peasantry .I was never seriously interested in the lives and escapades of the cast. The Battle of the Trees is a reworking of the Scottish play. Now, people get married with elven vows-as non existent a language as Vulcan. Or whatever they speak in Game of Thrones. Life was hard in the Dark and Middle Ages; the peasantry didn't dance and sing. Life wasn't, and isn't fair. Tolkien is a green fantasy land, where good and evil are easily defined.Real Life adventures don't work that way.

This book,like several other of Kate Morton books,exists in two,or three time periods. This is not the linear histories of God Is An Englishman,following one family ,from the past until present day(often still in the past). The Clock Maker's Daughter is supposed to be the mystery of identifying Victorian artist Edward Ratcliffe's most inspirational model. I was more interested in how each life plays out; and the future of archivist Elodie Winslow is unresolved.Kate Morton includes a list of sources here,and she answers fan mai.Highly recommended.

Ivy Jacob's is an unwed teenage mother- to be , when she is ' rescued' by a ' friend' who takes her to a commune- cult community much like Puritan Salem. Her daughter, Mia , is raised there, as the criminal cult leader's daughter. At 15, she escapes , saved by a librarian, and her significant other, who raise and educate her. Her talisman is Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, and her not- father stalks her thru the years. In her maybe- madness,she escapes into 1837, and an affair with Hawthorne, while saving her life in the present.

This is an incredible book. A teenaged folk band in 1970's London , is sent to a rambling, multi- architectured Manor house, following the death of their first vocalist. Wylding Hall is uniquely built, and seems to take an instant dislike to most of the Windhollow Faire players. One of their manager's rules is that they have no distractions while there, but kids are kids, and distractions include a girlfriend visiting the Hall, as well as a young reporter; + they play the villagepub. In the midst of all this, their lead guitarist disappears, and the village police aren't remotely interested I. looking for him. The entirety of the book is band interviews for a documentary covering the band, and their time in Wylding Hall. Extremely highly recommended.