Welcome to the Historical Fiction Online forums: a friendly place to discuss, review and discover historical fiction.
If this is your first visit, please be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above.
You will have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed.
To start viewing posts, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Susan's 2012 Book Log

Keep track of what you read in 2012. One thread per member, please.
User avatar
Susan
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 3746
Joined: August 2008
Location: New Jersey, USA

Post by Susan » Wed May 30th, 2012, 11:39 pm

[quote=""SonjaMarie""]"Royal Affairs: A Lusty Romp Through the Extramarital Adventures That Rocked the British Monarchy" by Leslie Carroll

If it had just been a typo I might have pushed on, but there had been other errors before I got there (can't remember what they were now), and so it got wall banged.

The line was "Mary Boleyn's twentieth-century descendants include Winston Churchill; Mary Bowes-Lyon (the mother of Elizabeth II);...." How she could've missed named Elizabeth II's mother, is WAY beyond me.

AND she had this excerpt on her website and NO correction.
http://www.lesliecarroll.com/carroll-af ... xcerpt.htm[/quote]

I figured it was a non-fiction book. I looked at some of the excerpts from her NF at her website and I was not impressed. I think she does better with HF. BTW, I contacted her via her website and pointed out the error. I'm sure others have pointed it out and I agree that it is awful that it has not been corrected. There was a Mary Bowes-Lyon. She was an older sister of the Queen Mother.
~Susan~
~Unofficial Royalty~
Royal news updated daily, information and discussion about royalty past and present
http://www.unofficialroyalty.com/

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

Post by Susan » Sun June 10th, 2012, 7:33 pm

17) Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow by Juliet Grey; finished 6/10/12; I didn't like this one as much as the first novel in the trilogy, but then I didn't feel as sympathetic towards Marie Antoinette as I did in the first novel. In the early part of her life (the first novel), she was not left with many choices, but in this part of her life (second novel) she is making choices that lead her to that tragic figure we know.
Last edited by Susan on Sun June 10th, 2012, 8:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
~Susan~
~Unofficial Royalty~
Royal news updated daily, information and discussion about royalty past and present
http://www.unofficialroyalty.com/

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

Post by Susan » Sat June 16th, 2012, 12:42 pm

18) Her Highness, The Traitor by Susan Higginbotham; finished 6/15/12; What I always like about Susan Higginbotham's novels is her choice of point of view characters. They are always real people who are not as well known and can tell a well-known story from a different perspective. "Her Highness, the Traitor is told from the first person points of view of Lady Jane Grey's mother and the mother of her eventual husband Guildford Dudley. It opens with the death of Henry VIII and covers events of the time period as they affected the Grey and Dudley families. Like many historical fiction readers, I have been "Tudored out," but this different perspective was refreshing and new.
Last edited by Susan on Sun June 24th, 2012, 1:36 am, edited 2 times in total.
~Susan~
~Unofficial Royalty~
Royal news updated daily, information and discussion about royalty past and present
http://www.unofficialroyalty.com/

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

Post by Susan » Sun June 24th, 2012, 1:25 am

19) The Queen's Vow: A Novel Of Isabella Of Castile by C.W. Gortner; finished 6/22/12; I really liked C.W. Gortner's previous novels, but this one didn't grip me like the others did. For some reason, I didn't relate to the main character. Perhaps it was because of the first person narrative. I thought the first part of the book went too slowly with too many details about events. In contrast, the end, when lots of historical events were happening, flew by and then the novel seemed to abruptly end. In the latter part of the novel, I would have liked to know more about the scholar Beatriz Galindo (I had to Google her) and how she interacted with Isabella and her children. Although we all know about Christopher Columbus, more interaction with him would have been appreciated. The Inquisition and the expulsion of the Jews were very important historically and could have been a bigger part of the narrative.
~Susan~
~Unofficial Royalty~
Royal news updated daily, information and discussion about royalty past and present
http://www.unofficialroyalty.com/

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

Post by Susan » Sun June 24th, 2012, 1:26 am

20) The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (originally published as These Foolish Things) by Deborah Moggach; finished 6/23/12; Read this one in a day! I saw the film the other day, liked it, so I thought I'd read the book. I think this may have been the first time I saw a film before reading the book. While the major plot line of retired British people living in an old age hotel in India is in both the film and the novel, characters differ as do their story lines. We learn more about the characters in the novel and see how their children fit into (or don't fit into) their lives.
~Susan~
~Unofficial Royalty~
Royal news updated daily, information and discussion about royalty past and present
http://www.unofficialroyalty.com/

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

Post by Susan » Thu June 28th, 2012, 8:31 pm

21) Lord John Grey and the Private Matter by Diana Gabaldon; finished 6/28/12; Enjoyed this Lord John Grey adventure and the references to the Outlander novels. Back to Through a Glass Darkly.
~Susan~
~Unofficial Royalty~
Royal news updated daily, information and discussion about royalty past and present
http://www.unofficialroyalty.com/

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

Post by Susan » Sat July 7th, 2012, 8:45 pm

22) Through a Glass Darkly by Karleen Koen; finished 7/7/12; A perfect book for a summer read. Set in the early eighteenth century during the reign of King George I, the characters were well-developed and would make the reader care about them. While many of the characters were aristocratic, there were glimpses into the lives of those from other classes. Even though there were many characters, it was easy to keep track of them. I even did some research to figure out which ones were real people (I did know some of that already). Some of the plot lines were predictable, but I didn't care. Misfit, I just read your review and found out that I can spend some more time with some of these characters because there are two more books!
~Susan~
~Unofficial Royalty~
Royal news updated daily, information and discussion about royalty past and present
http://www.unofficialroyalty.com/

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

Post by Susan » Mon July 9th, 2012, 12:54 pm

23) The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan; finished 7/8/12; Wasn't out of this world, super memorable YA writing, but if Riordan's books gets kids to read, that's OK with me. I love Greek mythology and I would have read Riordan's books when I was a kid.
~Susan~
~Unofficial Royalty~
Royal news updated daily, information and discussion about royalty past and present
http://www.unofficialroyalty.com/

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

Post by Susan » Fri July 13th, 2012, 1:10 pm

24) The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan; finished 7/12/12; This is the first book into Riordan's foray into Egyptian mythology. I did like it better than the second Percy Jackson book, perhaps because I don't know much about Egyptian mythology. It's a bit of Harry Potter The DaVinci Code, and Indiana Jones.
~Susan~
~Unofficial Royalty~
Royal news updated daily, information and discussion about royalty past and present
http://www.unofficialroyalty.com/

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

Post by Susan » Mon July 16th, 2012, 2:02 am

25) The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan; finished 7/15/12
Last edited by Susan on Tue July 17th, 2012, 12:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
~Susan~
~Unofficial Royalty~
Royal news updated daily, information and discussion about royalty past and present
http://www.unofficialroyalty.com/

Locked

Return to “Member Reading Logs - 2012”