If a novel ever needed an HEA, Lauren Willig’s prosaically-titled Two Wars and a Wedding does. A multi-hanky read, indeed. A historical saga and sweeping one at that (more sagas, please!): recounting a young woman’s journey from immature and impetuous to worn-down, guilt-ridden, and broken to strong, resolute, and happy across “two wars and a wedding”. And did it ever keep me reading, as steadily as Real Life would allow, over three days. To start, let’s fill in the war and wedding details with the publisher’s blurb:
September 1896: As an aspiring archaeologist, Smith College graduate Betsy Hayes travels to Athens, desperate to break into a very male-dominated field and find work at some of the world’s most famous excavation sites. In the midst of the heat and dust of Greece she finds an unlikely ally in philanthropist Charles, Baron de Robecourt, one of the few men who takes her academic passion seriously. But when a simmering conflict between Greece and Turkey erupts into open warfare, Betsy’s archaeological sites become battlefields and she falls into the grim and heroic task of nursing the wounded. As the world around her is irrevocably changed, Betsy finds her heart pulled in multiple directions.
June 1898: As the Spanish-American war begins, an older and wiser Betsy Hayes is searching for her former best friend Ava, who she last saw in Greece during the Greco-Turkish War. She believes that Ava might be with the Red Cross headed to Cuba, so Betsy herself joins the Red Cross and follows Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders straight to the heart of the fighting. As she enters the war zone, dark memories of her last war resurface and her need to protect old and new friends intensifies. (more…)
I always enjoyed Thomas’s romances, back when she was writing them, but I think she found her “true” genre with the Lady Sherlock mystery series. The latest, A Tempest At Sea, maintains what the previous six proved: Thomas can write clever, complex mystery plots while keeping her ethically-minded, sympathetic protagonists front and centre. Lady Charlotte features, but A Tempest At Sea is an ensemble cast (to the series’s betterment) one in which we get to be with Charlotte’s lover, Lord Ingram, on a greater page count than Charlotte. Given how adorable “Ash,” Lord Ingram, is, the loss is bearable, though I would have liked to see more of Charlotte and even more of Charlotte and Ash together. On the other hand, A Tempest At Sea is a closed-“room”, rather closed-“ship” mystery and, as a Christie-fan, cause for celebration and enjoyment, as Ash notes, ” ‘The isolation of shipboard society heightens the sense of danger.’ “ To orient us, the publisher’s blurb:
Wrexford and Sloane #6 sees Lord Wrexford and his now Lady Charlotte once again chasing villainy. Though married contentment permeates Penrose’s latest, the honeymoon is definitely over when Wrexford and the Weasels pull a body from the Serpentine. The publisher’s description lays out the mystery’s stakes for Charlotte, Wrexford (what the heck is his first name?), the Weasels, their friends, and a lovely new addition to their found family: 
Continuing my journey to reader-recovery (see my previous two posts), I read the latest in another favourite historical mystery series, Penrose’s Regency-set Wrexford and Sloane, Murder At the Royal Botanic Gardens. I read it steadily over the past two days (yet one more way to stave off the reality of returning to work after a gloriously idle summer; with major de-cluttering, but still). 
Since Magee was nominated for the Booker Prize, I thought I’d re-post this audiobook review of the nominated title. 
I’m glad to be caught up with Ashley’s Below Stairs mysteries with Death At the Crystal Palace in anticipation of #6, The Secret Of Bow Lane, whose premise sounds most intriguing and is set to be out next week. As always, Ashley’s amateur-sleuth-below-stairs-cook, Kat Holloway, is a wonderful heroine, but as with most mystery series I follow, it’s also the ensemble of characters around the central figure I love. This is no less true of Kat and her crew of sleuthing “aides”. 
…and possibly my favourite of the series (#1 is marvellous too). Montclair takes the narrative threads set up in book one, The Right Sort of Man, and brings them to some resolution. In The Unkept Woman, Iris Sparks finally reckons with her past and Gwen Bainbridge gains in strength and resolve, which go a long way to bring her closer to regaining custody of her finances and son (as we learn from book one, Gwen had what would be deemed in post-war England a “nervous breakdown” and was declared “incompetent” [legal term] losing custody of her son, Ronnie, and finances, given over to her conservative, draconian in-laws. Gwen’s emotional collapse came at the death of her husband, Ronald Bainbridge, in WWII). But in the latest volume, Sparks’ past returns: she is the eponymous “unkept woman”, having broken off from the married man she’d been having an affair with, on and off, during and post war-time intelligence training and action. But things are more complicated than what I’ve described so far. 
I’m elated C. S. Harris continues to give us a St. Cyr mystery annually and that I can devote uninterrupted time to reading it because it’s summer holidays for this schoolmarm! And #17, When Blood Lies, did not disappoint; au contraire! I think it’s one of the best of the series, mainly because Harris finally arrives at completing certain story arcs she’s carried over the entire series. And, in her clever way, still leaves us with unanswered questions and the possibility of further revelations. Nevertheless, it still felt like we arrived at a new place for one of our favourite investigating couples, Sebastian and Hero, his wife. 
Miss Bates Reads Romance 