London in the Roaring Twenties: women empowered by their experiences of the Great War, men scarred emotionally and physically.
Are the nightclubs ruled over by Nellie Coker Shrines of Gaiety or Dens of Iniquity? Both, really.
Another smashing novel from Kate Atkinson that blends the worlds of Jackson Brodie and the Todd family.
Author page: Shrines of Gaiety – Kate Atkinson
Another wonderful historical novel by Maggie O’Farrell.
We are in 16th century Italy, still a patchwork of Dukedoms and city states, where Lucrezia de’ Medici, the third daughter of Cosimo I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Eleonora of Toledo, La Fecundissima, has been married to Alfonso II d’Este, Duke of Ferrara.
As the bride in this dynastic marriage, Lucrezia replaces her elder sister, Maria, following Maria’s death. Lucrezia is 13 at the time of the wedding in 1558. Three years later she is dead.
It’s wonderful and fascinating how a novelist can take such a slight array of facts and create something so rich and absorbing, and yet still so intensely personal.
Whilst it is written in a very different style from Hamnet (no tears were shed in the reading of this novel), the elaborate prose suits (Maggie O’Farrell’s) Lucrezia’s inner voice – she observes the world with an artist’s eye and experiences life and emotion in extremes, as many teenagers do – and the richness of Italian Renaissance art.
I know nothing about Robert Browning’s famous poem My Last Duchess. The Marriage Portrait does not exist; but this portrait by Alessandro Allori does:
Other reviews:
Author page: The Marriage Portrait – Maggie O’Farrell
Poverty in rural Virginia and the American opiod drugs epidemic provides the setting for Barbara Kingsolver’s superb modern retelling on Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield.
Hard-hitting and heartbreaking shot though with glimmers of hope.
Author page: Demon Copperhead – Barbara Kingsolver
Another investigation with Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott and the gang, in which Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling) portrays social media trolling and abuse, online gaming and fandom, and misogyny.
In the background, the will-they-won’t-they plotline continues.
Plus, I’m loving Pat!
Author page: The Ink Black Heart – Robert Galbraith
A female focused telling of the tale of the Pendle Witches, narrated by 17 year old Fleetwood Shuttleworth, mistress of Gawthorpe Hall. The one that got away.
Easy reading; real people; gruesome events. Not a criticism.
Author page: The Familiars – Stacey Halls