Angieville

The wonderful Mary Stewart has passed away . I've written about her previously  here  and  here , but I just wanted to say that I'm . . . I'm so sad. The first line of the first Stewart book I read (which happened to be her very first book as well) reads, "The whole affair began so very quietly." I spent the summer after my freshman year of college devouring anything of hers I could get my hands on. One year, for my birthday, my husband tracked down beautiful copies of every one of her books. I went into my library last night and ran a finger along their beloved spines. And as I type this now I'm stepping off the plane in Paris with Linda, navigating the twisted streets of Provence with Charity, climbing the sun-dried ruins of Delphi with Camilla, and I think—my, what a legacy.

So we'll just agree to go into this review knowing that I really enjoyed   Rosamund Hodge 's debut novel Cruel Beauty , shall we? In general, fairy tale/Greek mythology mash-ups complete with lovely words are welcome in these parts. And so I confess I was excited but just a little bit sad when I found out the next entry in the world would be a novella. Give me all the pages, please. But. It was to be a Cinderella retelling set in the same world and, as that was clearly awesome, I resolved to take what I could get and be grateful for it. I like this cover, although it's a bit bland for my taste and doesn't inspire quite the same swirling dread as the cover of Cruel Beauty.  I do like what they're doing with the stairs. I think I might have liked a hint of Maia somewhere in there to humanize things. And, as it happens, there is a whole heaping helping of dread in this little book, so something more sinister would have worked splendidly. But, as I said, take what I ...

Top Ten Tuesday is a bookish meme hosted @ The Broke and the Bookish Yes, I'm one of those readers who has trouble DNFing a book. The truth is I've gotten better at it over the years. I used to never quit. But now it's become a matter of self preservation. I really do only have so many available hours in the day. And I am simply not going to waste them sticking it out to the bitter end with a book that's not doing it for me. But I've noticed it helps if I'm able to make the judgement call early on. Before I start to feel any obligation or enough investment that I'll finish it out to see if things pick up or are redeemed in the end. So today, I give you a split list. The first half are books I didn't put down and really wished I had. The second are books I came this close to tossing but for one reason or other didn't and now I am so glad I pressed on. Regretfully Yours, or WHY DIDN'T I GET OUT WHEN THE GETTING WAS GOOD?! Outlande...