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What are you reading March 2017?

For discussions of historical fiction. Threads that do not relate to historical fiction should be started in the Chat forum or elsewhere on the forum, depending on the topic.
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princess garnet
Bibliophile
Posts: 1797
Joined: August 2008
Location: Maryland

Re: What are you reading March 2017?

Post by princess garnet » Thu March 23rd, 2017, 1:13 pm

Finished: Head in the Clouds by Karen Witemeyer
Set in 1880s Texas, a young woman becomes a governess for a transplanted English baron's young daughter.

Now: Cassandra & Jane by Jill Pitkeathley
Novel about Cassandra and Jane Austen

tdkerst
Scribbler
Posts: 8
Joined: March 2017
Currently reading: Lincoln in the Bardo
Interest in HF: I'm writing a historical novel set during the Irish Famine in the 1840s
Favourite HF book: The Dante Club, by Matthew Pearl
Preferred HF: 19th century New York
Location: Lower Hudson Valley, New York

Re: What are you reading March 2017?

Post by tdkerst » Fri March 24th, 2017, 8:43 pm

I'm reading George Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo, a curious blend of fictional, dramatic, and non-fictional formats.

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Misfit
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 9581
Joined: August 2008
Location: Seattle, WA

Re: What are you reading March 2017?

Post by Misfit » Fri March 24th, 2017, 11:20 pm

Never Doubt I Love by Patricia Veryan. Fifth in her Jewelled men series.
At home with a good book and the cat...
...is the only place I want to be

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Susan
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 3746
Joined: August 2008
Location: New Jersey, USA

Re: What are you reading March 2017?

Post by Susan » Sat March 25th, 2017, 12:22 am

tdkerst wrote:I'm reading George Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo, a curious blend of fictional, dramatic, and non-fictional formats.
Lincoln in the Bardo is on my TBR list, so I'm curious to know what you think of it.
~Susan~
~Unofficial Royalty~
Royal news updated daily, information and discussion about royalty past and present
http://www.unofficialroyalty.com/

tdkerst
Scribbler
Posts: 8
Joined: March 2017
Currently reading: Lincoln in the Bardo
Interest in HF: I'm writing a historical novel set during the Irish Famine in the 1840s
Favourite HF book: The Dante Club, by Matthew Pearl
Preferred HF: 19th century New York
Location: Lower Hudson Valley, New York

Re: What are you reading March 2017?

Post by tdkerst » Sat March 25th, 2017, 4:07 am

It's a little disjointed in structure, with dialog presented as if in a play, but devoid of anything resembling stage directions. The poignancy of Lincoln's mourning the death of his son Willie is heightened by Saunders' use of contemporary accounts of the boy's dying. It's a dark subject, but well done.

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Madeleine
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 5860
Joined: August 2008
Currently reading: "Mania" by L J Ross
Preferred HF: Plantagenets, Victorian, crime, dual time-frame
Location: Essex/London

Re: What are you reading March 2017?

Post by Madeleine » Mon March 27th, 2017, 8:45 am

I'm afraid I've had to ditch "The Book Thief", read about 240 pages and couldn't face another 300.

I've just started "To catch a Rabbit" by Helen Cadbury, debut novel in a new modern crime series.
Currently reading "Mania" by L J Ross

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Misfit
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 9581
Joined: August 2008
Location: Seattle, WA

Re: What are you reading March 2017?

Post by Misfit » Mon March 27th, 2017, 12:16 pm

Getting ready to start The Mandarin of Mayfair, final book in Patricia Veryan's Jewelled Men series. What a ride.
At home with a good book and the cat...
...is the only place I want to be

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Vanessa
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 4378
Joined: August 2008
Currently reading: The Farm at the Edge of the World by Sarah Vaughan
Interest in HF: The first historical novel I read was Katherine by Anya Seton and this sparked off my interest in this genre.
Favourite HF book: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell!
Preferred HF: Any
Location: North Yorkshire, UK

Re: What are you reading March 2017?

Post by Vanessa » Tue March 28th, 2017, 10:43 am

I've just started Peculiar Ground by Lucy Hughes-Hallett, a book I've received to review via Lovereading.
Off Topic
In the 17th century, a wall is built around the deer park of a great house. Wychwood is a world in itself, its ornamental lakes and majestic avenues planned by Mr Norris, a master of the new art of landscaping. A world where, after decades of civil war, everyone has something to hide or something to fear, where dissidents hide in the forest and Londoners fleeing the plague are at the gate.

Three centuries later, one hot weekend, there is a house party at Wychwood. Over the course of the weekend another wall goes up, dividing Berlin. Erotic entanglements blur with distant rumours of historic changes and a little girl, Nell, observes all.

As Nell grows up and as the Berlin Wall falls, the world splits again. There are TV cameras in the dining room, golf-buggies in the park and a Great Storm brewing. A fatwa alerts Westerners to a new ideological faultline. A refugee from the new conflict, the one which is still tearing us apart, seeks safety in Wychwood.
currently reading: My Books on Goodreads

Books are mirrors, you only see in them what you already have inside you ~ The Shadow of the Wind

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