In the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, a hold-up in the traffic stopped the cab which was bringing Octave and his three trunks from the Gare de Lyon. The young man lowered one of the windows, although it…| This Reading Life
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single lady in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a husband. ‘Nonsense,’ Miss Caroline Bingley muttered into her empty teacup…| This Reading Life
I have hated my mother for most of my life but it is her face I see as I drown. But Rowan doesn’t drown and the face she sees upon wakening is the ‘rough and wind-bitten and scratchy…| This Reading Life
At any point over the past fifty years or so a small band of dissidents have made it their business to inform the reading public that the Orwell game is up. In most cases this process involves the …| This Reading Life
The 1952 Club is hosted by Karen @Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings and Simon @Stuck in a Book. After checking the lists to see which books were first published in 1952, I realised that I had three o…| This Reading Life
Olenka, the daughter of the retired collegiate assessor, Plemyanniakov, was sitting in her back porch, lost in thought. It was hot, the flies were persistent and teasing, and it was pleasant to ref…| This Reading Life
Sunlight floods the room from the bay windows, reflects off the wide, honey-coloured floorboards and casts an emerald glow over the perforate leaves of a monstera shaped like a cloud. After I finis…| This Reading Life
Jane Austen is not my secret friend – although in my latest novel Jane Austen and Shelley in the Garden I made her a bothering companion to my heroine. Here in this book I try to stay with he…| This Reading Life