Book Talk

     Well, if you didn't like Deception on Sable Hill I can't guarantee this one will suit you any better, but I did enjoy Whispers In the Reading Room more than the former. I would say that Gray is in her element with the genre she's exploring.      Quaint, quiet, self-assured librarian Lydia meets soft-hearted, wealthy club owner Sebastian, resulting in a broken engagement with her abusive fiancé , the acquiring of quite a few new acquaintances, and an ominous murder charge that threatens to upend everything. And all of this because she admired him in his dedication to come to the library where she worked, sharing in her love of books.      He's sullen and mysterious, and attracts far too much attention for his own good - attention in the form of fear and intimidation - and with the nature of his business and the scars he carries from his childhood, trust becomes a difficult thing to discern.      Lydia is headstrong, independent, and resolved. Her financial

     The cover attracted me. The title intrigued me. The preview on the back and the short synopsis in the front did neither, so I returned to judging a book by its cover and read it anyways.      Let's just say that the first chapter made up for all of that.      Evangeline Denmark has a rich and vivid imagination and she's been extraordinarily careful to write it all out in an engaging and capturing way. She embraces the steampunk subgenre of fiction, adding with it elements of dystopia and fantasy. Her words weave a complex world of horrible hierarchy, chemical alchemy, Chemists, Defenders, porcies, tocks, and all manner of steam-powered machines.      Curio begins in a city called Mercury, where the people are dependent on a Chemist potion for them to be able to digest any food; where restrictions are high, rules are severe, and the punishment for any broken law is ever more so. Every citizen battles with the struggle of conformity and submission to a cruel desire fo

  The Brontë Plot   Katherine Reay      I am not as familiar with the books written by the Brontë sisters as I would like to be, but Jane Austen is a quiet friend of mine, and someone who enjoys classics like hers and those of the Bront ë sisters would enjoy The Brontë Plot . Katherine Reay professes a not-so-gentle enthusiasm for classic literature, poetry, and prose. Her main character, Lucy Alling, is a young woman with a penchant for antiques and the value of words. She works in a gallery, handling most of the book comings and goings, as an employee to Sid - a kindhearted man with an eye for interior decoration.      This story is less about romance and more about finding yourself. Less about nonsensical daydreams and more about the sometimes bleak state of reality. It's not as dark as all that, and the romance is there, and the adventure, and the newness, but there is something more real about the way that Reay writes. More true to life. It's not full of a

Mere - adj, define: Being nothing more or less than what is specified. synonyms: just, only, sheer, complete      A big selling point here is, yes, the new covers that have just come out for all of C.S. Lewis' signature classics - Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Problem of Pain, The Great Divorce, A Grief Observed, and Miracles. I had a lot of fun waiting for each new cover to come into the store, and I'll be honest, I only started collecting these books when I first saw this cover for Mere Christianity .      But then I started to read, and dear Lord, I am overwhelmed. After the first chapter alone. I know I'm behind the times and so many people have read this already, but there are sure to be others like me who have missed out on this excellence. He is so gentle with his words. And so logical - which the human brain finds so appealing. So logical and so wonderful, and so precisely written, that I am breathless and desperate for more.      If y