Category: Fiction

Title: The Austen Escape
Author: Katherine Reay
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Source: NetGalley
Release Date: November 7, 2017
Rating: ★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

After years of following her best friend’s lead, Mary Davies finds a whimsical trip back to Austen’s Regency England paves the way towards a new future.

Mary Davies lives and works in Austin, Texas, as an industrial engineer. She has an orderly and productive life, a job and colleagues that she enjoys—particularly a certain adorable, intelligent, and hilarious consultant. But something is missing for Mary. When her estranged and emotionally fragile childhood friend Isabel Dwyer offers Mary a two-week stay in a gorgeous manor house in Bath, Mary reluctantly agrees to come along, in hopes that the holiday will shake up her quiet life in just the right ways. But Mary gets more than she bargained for when Isabel loses her memory and fully believes that she lives in Regency England. Mary becomes dependent on a household of strangers to take care of Isabel until she wakes up.

With Mary in charge and surrounded by new friends, Isabel rests and enjoys the leisure of a Regency lady. But life gets even more complicated when Mary makes the discovery that her life and Isabel’s have intersected in more ways that she knew, and she finds herself caught between who Isabel was, who she seems to be, and the man who stands between them. Outings are undertaken, misunderstandings play out, and dancing ensues as this triangle works out their lives and hearts among a company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation.

Review:

I love Jane Austen adaptations, so when I heard about this one, I had to get it!

I really liked this story. It had some great twists. There were a few moments when my mouth dropped open, I was so surprised.

I loved how they were from Austin, Texas. It was a subtle reference to Austen that I didn’t pick up on at first, but it was a cute addition. 

I also really liked the Austen references. It made me feel connected with the characters, like having an inside joke. There were also a variety of ages of characters, from a couple in their eighties to an eight-year-old girl. This variety was great because it gave the opportunity to show many different Austen characters, such as Mrs. Jennings and Margaret Dashwood.

This story reminds me of Austenland, so the story wasn’t too original. But I still enjoyed it. I recommend this story for all Austen lovers!

Title: The Logogryph
Author: Thomas Wharton
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Gaspereau Press
Source: Borrowed from a friend
Release Date: October 1, 2004
Rating: ★★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

“The particular volume I’m looking for is nameless, lacking a cover, title page, or any other outward markings of identity. Over the centuries its leaves have known nothing but change. They have been removed, replaced, altered, lost. The nameless book has been bound, taken apart, and reassembled with the pieces of other dismembered volumes, until one could ask whether there is anything left of the original. Or if there ever was an original.”

So begins Thomas Wharton’s book about books. What follows is a sequence of variations on the experience of reading and on the book a physical and imaginative object. One tale traces the origins of a fictional card game. Another tells of a duel between two margin scribblers. Roving across the globe and from parable to mystery, Wharton positions his reader between the covers of a book that is not. How

are we to read the pieces that follow? As extraneous to the nameless book, as parts of it in its original form or perhaps as evidence that it has relocated to other existing volumes?

The Logogryph takes its cues from magic realism and the techniques of cinematography. The result is a mind-bending caper through the process of reading, the relationships we establish with fictitious worlds and the possibility of worlds yet unread. Wharton indulges his reader with tales of fantastical cities where the only occupation is reading and of the plight of a protagonist suddenly dislodged from his own novel. And what becomes of the reader who reads all of this?

This book is a Smyth-sewn paperback with a jacket and full sleeve. The text was typeset by Andrew Steeves in Caslon types and printed on Rolland Zephyr Laid paper. The jacket was printed letterpress. The inside features illustrations by Wesley Bates.

Review:

This is a beautiful book, both in the physical material and the writing. It is from a small Canadian press. It comes complete with a cover sleeve and gorgeous, thick paper.

It has short passages that are about books and reading. Some are taken from real life, such as the story about the inventor of paper. But some are fictional.

I loved the story about the lost character. A man doesn’t know what to do with his life when he suddenly finds himself alone in a train station. But then he realizes that he must be a character in a story.

One thing I would change about this book is I would give each passage a title. It would organize them more, especially the ones that continue throughout the book.

I loved this book and I recommend it for all other bibliophiles!

Title: The End We Start From
Author: Megan Hunter
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Random House Canada
Source: NetGalley
Release Date: November 7, 2017
Rating: ★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

An indelible and elemental debut–a lyrical vision of the strangeness and beauty of new motherhood, and a tale of endurance in the face of unimaginable change. In the midst of a mysterious environmental crisis, as London is submerged below flood waters, a woman gives birth to her first child, Z. Days later, the family is forced to leave their home in search of safety. As they move from place to place, shelter to shelter, their journey traces both fear and wonder as Z’s small fists grasp at the things he sees, as he grows and stretches, thriving and content against all the odds. This is a story of new motherhood in a terrifying setting: a familiar world made dangerous and unstable, its people forced to become refugees. Startlingly beautiful, Megan Hunter’s The End We Start From is a gripping novel that paints an imagined future as realistic as it is frightening. And yet, though the country is falling apart around them, this family’s world—of new life and new hope—sings with love.

Review:

I read many good reviews for this book on other book blogs, so I wanted to read it too. It is a very original story.

It reminded me a lot of Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. The world is in an unidentified crisis. The narrator’s house has been flooded and supplies are limited. There is no more internet. Everything in the world unravels around her but she stays grounded through her son.

I like how the story shows the woman’s tough journey through motherhood that coincides with this new world. Though she is always comparing things to what she used to know, her son, Z, will only know this new world.

This story has a beautiful lyrical quality to it. The narrator’s voice is interspersed with excerpts of human origin stories from mythology or religion. It reflects the way that this is her son’s own origin story, in this new world.

I really enjoyed this story. I recommend it if you want to read something short and poetic.

Title: Little Secrets
Author: Anna Snoekstra
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Mira Books
Source: Goodreads Giveaway
Release Date: October 17, 2017
Rating: ★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

What happens when ambition trumps the truth?

A town reeling in the wake of tragedy

An arsonist is on the loose in Colmstock, Australia, most recently burning down the town’s courthouse and killing a young boy who was trapped inside..

An aspiring journalist desperate for a story

The clock is ticking for Rose Blakey. With nothing but rejections from newspapers piling up, her job pulling beers for cops at the local tavern isn’t nearly enough to cover rent. Rose needs a story-a big one.

Little dolls full of secrets

In the weeks after the courthouse fire, precise porcelain replicas of Colmstock’s daughters begin turning up on doorsteps, terrifying parents and testing the limits of the town’s already fractured police force.

Rose may have finally found her story. But as her articles gain traction and the boundaries of her investigation blur, Colmstock is seized by a seething paranoia. Soon, no one is safe from suspicion. And when Rose’s attention turns to the mysterious stranger living in the rooms behind the tavern, neighbor turns on neighbor and the darkest side of self-preservation is revealed.

Review:

I really liked the beginning of this story. It was so creepy when the little girls in the town started to receive dolls that looked exactly like them.

I wish the story of the dolls was more prominent. I liked that idea but it really took a backseat to everything else that was happening.

I didn’t feel a connection with any of the characters. I felt that none of them had anything positive going for them. Things just kept getting worse for everyone. Even when Rose had her articles published, she still wasn’t happy.

I expected this story to be more suspenseful. Perhaps if the setting wasn’t so depressing, it would have made the story a little brighter. Everything seemed so run down, from the town to the characters, so I didn’t have anything positive to look forward to reading.

Title: Upstairs, Downstairs
Author: Olivia Hart
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Aria
Source: NetGalley
Release Date: October 1, 2017
Rating: ★★★

Synopsis:

Secrets on your doorstep don’t stay secret for long… A romantic comedy perfect for fans of Debbie Johnson and Holly Martin.

When Daniele Bracci – a musician at Rome’s Opera Theatre arrives at his new apartment, he is surprised by the warm welcome he receives from his neighbours. Giovanna however, is more preoccupied with introducing him to her daughter Anita. But what she doesn’t know is that for the last two years, Anita has been secretly seeing someone else.

When Anita is introduced to the new tenant, she has the shock of her life – Daniele was Anita’s first love at high school. Can she come to terms with the terrible way things ended between them?

Anita isn’t the only one with something to hide… and none of these secrets go unnoticed by Pina, the apartment gossip who writes everything down in her secret diary…

Review:

This story is very fast paced. A lot happens in a short period of time. It was also fairly short, so I read it in just a few hours.

I liked the diverse backgrounds in this story. Though most of the characters are Italian, Anita’s boyfriend is Japanese. This brought different ethnic groups into the story. They would also eat at restaurants that had culturally different foods, such as Japanese or Medeterranian restaurants.

One thing that I thought could be improved was the dialogue. Sometimes the characters had a conversation that described something that they already knew. It was unrealistic, since it was only there to give information to the reader.

The voices of the characters sounded the same, so I would get confused about who was speaking in the middle of the dialogue, since they didn’t sound distinct. Also, there was a lot of thinking out loud, which were thoughts in quotation marks, so I would get that mixed up with dialogue.

I would have liked to see more diary entries from Pina. She’s a funny character, because she’s so nosy. It would have been nice to see more from her perspective.

This was an interesting story, but I think it could have been polished to be more successful.

About the Author:

Olivia Hart is a collective group of authors who met five years ago on a writing course and then could no longer do without each other’s company. They decided to write a novel that would bind them forever.

Follow Olivia

Website: http://ariafiction.com/author/olivia-hart

Available on NetGalley: http://bit.ly/2xtoDNo

Buy links:
Amazon: http://amzn.to/2fFQzV7
Kobo: http://bit.ly/2xldsqO
iBooks: http://apple.co/2xn3T8n
Google Play: http://bit.ly/2fEKqIL

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Website: www.ariafiction.com
Twitter: @aria_fiction
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