Top Ten Tuesday: Satisfying Book Series

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's theme is Satisfying Book Series and it was hard to pick just ten.

Two's Company - set during the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg

Whe Claire Farrell left New York, heading south in her new convertible, it was ostensibly to visit her grandparents in Williamsburg, but really to pursue a handsome actor, Whit Bowdon, performing in summer theater. Whit is sophisticated and willing to do whatever it takes to advance his career, in contrast to Philip Young, a young architect boarding with the Farrells, who is focused on the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg – and enjoys teasing Claire about her lack of interest in history.

The Annam Jewel by Patricia Wentworth #DeanStreetDecember23

Title: The Annam Jewel
Author: Patricia Wentworth
Publication: Dean Street Press, paperback, originally published in 1925
Genre: Mystery
Setting: England

Description: Several years previously, James Waring partnered with two other unscrupulous men to steal the Annam Jewel from its shrine in a holy place in Asia. He did not survive for long but managed to tell part of his story and give the jewel to his brother, Henry.

England Was an Island Once by Elswyth Thane – for the #1940Club

Title: England Was an Island Once
Author: Elswyth Thane
Publication: Harcourt, Brace and Company, hardcover, 1940
Genre: Memoir/History
Setting: England just before WWII

This week, Karen of Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings and Simon of Stuck in a Book are hosting the 1940 Club in which we all read and write about books published in the same year.

My October 2022 Reads

I read several entertaining books for the 1929 Club but the novel that most captured my interest last month was Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. It is a mesmerizing story of friendship and collaboration spanning three decades, starting when the two protagonists meet in a hospital as teenagers, then reconnect when attending college in Cambridge and starting a venture together. As I was listening to the audio, I found myself telling everyone I encountered about this book, which I picked up because of Nancy Pearl’s recommendation.

Six Degrees of Separation – from The Naked Chef to The Clothes They Stood Up In

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place, add six books, and see where we end up. This month’s starting point is The Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver (1999), the bestselling cookbook and television star. I assume people watched his show because the title was salacious but I think he merely advocated for a simple approach to cooking (yet laughed all the way to the bank).

Cloth of Gold by Elswyth Thane for the #1929Club

Title: Riders of the Wind (1926) and Cloth of Gold (1929)
Author: Elswyth Thane
Genre: Fiction
Setting: 20th century

Description: Alexandra, the heroine of Riders of the Wind, married an older, distant cousin, Clement Marley, an authority on Asian art, when she was mourning the loss of her father and too young to know better. Her father was a world-famous explorer who died tragically in Africa when she was a teenager, and she has inherited his restless spirit and feels confined in London with her condescending husband who insists his meals be on time and disapproves of her walks in the fog.

My February 2022 Reads

Seven of my nineteen February books were rereads, a much higher percentage than usual; indicating some comfort reading, I suppose. Sometimes with Elizabeth Cadell and D.E. Stevenson, one can’t tell if it was read before until halfway through as both were prolific and the titles sometimes sound interchangeable even when the stories are distinctive.  But my favorite new-to-me read was Dead Wake by Erik Larson, the story of the Lusitania’s last voyage, which I highly recommend.

King Cake

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson

Title: Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
Author: Erik Larson
Narrator: Scott Brick
Publication: Random House, audiobook, 2015
Genre: History

Description: The Lusitania was a British-owned luxury ocean liner that departed from New York for Liverpool on May 1, 1915, carrying nearly 2000 individuals, of whom 1,265 were passengers.

The Light Heart by Elswyth Thane, one of the Williamsburg Novels

Title: The Light Heart
Author: Elswyth Thane
Publication: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, hardcover, 1947
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: America, Great Britain, Germany

Description: The fourth Williamsburg novel is about Phoebe Sprague, daughter of Sedgwick from Yankee Stranger and great-great-granddaughter of Julian Day, hero of Dawn’s Early Light. An aspiring writer, she has just turned 21 and is invited to travel to London with her Murray cousins for the coronation of Edward VII in 1902. 

Drums Along the Mohawk by Walter D. Edmonds - for the 1936 Club

Title: Drums Along the Mohawk
Author: Walter D. Edmonds (1903-1998)
Publication: Little, Brown & Co., hardcover, 1936
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: Upstate New York, 1976-84

The 1936 Club is hosted by Simon from Stuck in a Book and Karen from Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings.

Description: When pioneering farmer Gilbert Martin sweeps 18-year-old Lana Borst off her feet and away from her family to help him settle his new farm in the Mohawk Valley, she anticipates a life of hard work and challenges but does not expect Indian warfare, violence, starvation, or Gil’s disappearance for endless periods of time when her husband is conscripted to the Revolutionary forces. She complains much less than I would! 

Six Degrees of Separation - from Phosphorescence to Light a Single Candle

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place, add six books, and see where we end up.   This month’s starting point is a book Kate really liked, Phosphorescence by an Australian writer Julia Baird, which has a gorgeous cover but has not yet been published in the US.  However, it did make me contemplate different meanings of the word light, which made me think about my favorite author, Elswyth Thane.

Six Degrees of Separation - From The Proud Way to Little Women

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where one ends up.   This month’s starting point is Rodham: A Novel by Curtis Sittenfeld, in which the author reimagines Hillary’s life if she hadn’t married Bill.  My sisters liked her book Prep but I have no interest in reading this book which sounds so invasive. Leave Hillary alone!

However, it somehow reminded me of my first book, The Proud Way by Shirley Seifert (1948), a historical novel about Varina Davis, the First Lady of the Confederacy, married to Jefferson Davis.  Varina came from a slave-owning family in Mississippi but received a better education than most women of her class and, perhaps influenced by Northern relatives, did not approve of slavery.  Her birthplace, The Briers, is now a B&B, if I ever make it to Natchez.  This book belonged to my mother.

Cult-favorite Tryst by Elswyth Thane (1939)

Title: Tryst
Author: Elswyth Thane

Publication: Aeonian Press, hardcover, 1974 (originally published in 1939)

Genre: Fiction/Romance

Six Degrees of Separation: From Wolfe Island to The Children of Green Knowe

Australian author Lucy Treloar’s Wolfe Island, a dystopian novel set in Chesapeake Bay, is this month’s starting point for Six Degrees of Separation, which is organized by Kate.  It sounds interesting but due to a busy semester, I was not able to add it to this month’s reading.  It does seem unusual that an Australian author would set a book in Virginia (or Maryland!) and name her narrator Kitty Hawke, which is a play on a famous North Carolina coastal town.   Maybe I will understand her reasoning when I read the book!  I notice all my books this month are by women - unintentional but interesting.

 

My first book is Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry (1947).  Set on the Virginia coast like Wolfe Island, this is a famous children’s book, a runner-up for the Newbery Award, about the wild ponies on the island town of Chincoteague, Virginia.  I was not a big "horse book" reader but all of Henry's books were in my school and city libraries.

Patriot Hearts by Barbara Hambly

Title: Patriot Hearts

Author: Barbara Hambly

Publication: Bantam Books, trade paper, 2008

Genre: Historical Fiction

TBR Challenge:  This is the first book I have read from my 2019 TBR Pile Challenge, sponsored by Roof Beam Reader.  Mind you, my house is one large pile of books waiting to be read, but I selected just a handful!

Plot: This is the story of four women important to the early history of America: Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, and Dolley Madison, wives to three presidents, and Sally Hemings, the slave who bore Thomas Jefferson several children.  Told partly in flashbacks as the British march on the White House during the War of 1812, Hambly convincingly portrays the Founding Mothers with fictionalized vignettes that show their relationships with their spouses, historical figures of the day and, occasionally, with each other.

The Alice Network (Book Review)

Title: The Alice Network
Author: Kate Quinn
Publication: William Morrow paperback, 2017
Genre: Historical Fiction

Plot: In a fast-paced new historical novel from bestselling author Kate Quinn, two women—a female spy recruited to the based-on-real-life Alice Network in World War I France and a rebellious American college student searching for her cousin in 1947—are brought together in a compelling story of courage and redemption.

Winter Woes

Why one should not make a TBR pile on the floor with one's new Robert Goddard books, ordered specially from England:

because when the pipe breaks due to frigid temperatures, those are the first casualties!   I am hoping they will still be readable once they dry out...   Happily, this one is bouncing back after a day on the radiator.  The old laptop from law school that was stored in that bench was not so lucky but can still be recycled.

The room is recovering but I am still traumatized.   I had that "what do you save first when the house is on fire" moment and grabbed the lower shelf of Elswyth Thanes, figuring that long before the time the water rose to the Lovelace or Weber shelves the plumber would arrive (which turned out to be the case).

The Passing Bells (Book Review)

Title: The Passing Bells
Author: Phillip Rock
Publication Information: Seaview Books, Hardcover, 1978; reprinted by HarperCollins, 2013
Genre: Historical fiction, Book 1 in a trilogy

Plot: Abingdon Pryory is the home of the Greville family, and, like others of his time, the ninth earl, Anthony Greville, married an American heiress to ensure that the estate would survive financially into the 20th century. The marriage was successful, and they have three children: Charles, his heir; William, still at Eton; and Alexandra, a spoiled and shallow teen. Naturally, the Pryory has its fair share of servants, from Ivy, the new and very inexperienced parlor maid, and Jaimie Ross, the chauffeur with an amazing mechanical sense, to stock characters such as the butler and housekeeper. The cast of characters is expanded by the Countess’ nephew from Chicago; a handsome but impoverished military officer, Fenton Wood-Lacy, who needs an heiress of his own; and Lydia Foxe, the Grevilles’ beautiful neighbor whose birth makes her ineligible for her target, Charles. This book opens just before World War I and follows the characters as their leisurely lives end and they face the stresses and sorrows of conflict in England and at war in Europe.

What I liked: Long before Downton Abbey I loved stories about aristocratic English families and those who served them, as well as other historical fiction set in and around that era.

The Turncoat (Book Review)

Title: The Turncoat; Book One, Renegades of the Revolution
Author: Donna Thorland
Publication Information: NAL Trade Paperback, 2013
Genre: Historical Fiction, first in a series

Plot: 1977. Modest Kate Grey, a New Jersey Quaker who lives with her father and favors the Patriot cause, is confronted with the realities of war when her father joins General Washington and, hours later, Peter Tremayne, a British officer, and Redcoat soldiers invade her home. Kate is so mesmerized by the handsome stranger she is ready to throw virtue to the winds and while she bandies words with Peter, a mysterious widow, who turns out to be an accomplished spy, steals his papers (he is later court-martialed as a result). Peter and his men then flee from Rebel troops; the widow flees from his retribution to Washington, dragging Kate with her. When Kate, knowledgeable about military strategy from long talks with her father, realizes that Washington needs information about the British from General Howe, she offers to infiltrate Philadelphia Tory society and send secret reports back to help win the war. She does not expect to encounter Major Tremayne again, now that they are emphatically on opposing sides, but you won't be surprised to hear that he has survived his disgrace...

(I am afraid the Quakers are shaking their heads over the Grey family: the father is fighting with the Colonists and Kate gains a scandalous if mostly undeserved reputation.)