Was perusing Barnes & Noble's website just now, came across The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton; I really enjoyed that, and The House at Riverton, both of which I read before I started this blog (I assume, because I just searched for Morton and didn't come up with anything). Anyhow. An author to keep an eye on. Forgotten Garden weaves in the Secret Garden, so how can you go wrong?? Okay, well, you could, you could go really wrong, and I would be incandescent with rage because I love that book, but this was more about Burnett, not Mary, et al., so it worked. It was subtle, and felt respectful, not gratuitous or like the author was trying to profit from Burnett's work/following in any way. Riverton, which I believe was her first novel, and had another title outside the U.S., was not quite as strong, but still very good. Morton does a nice job with the tensions between social classes and age groups, and her prose is quite nice, too, so the books are more substantial than they might seem. These would be totally fine for a plane, train, or automobile ride, but still smart and thought-provoking.
Oh, and, this blog totally is worth it, because by checking on the dates of publication, I just saw that she has another book coming out in November - which I will totally keep an eye out for, now that I don't need to worry about writing the date and title down on a scrap of paper I will never see again...
Addition: not as good, but great beach/travel reading and worth keeping an eye out for more: Christi Phillips. She wrote The Rossetti Letter and then The Devlin Diary, a series featuring a young female historian - diff. time/place than Willig, and darker, but same general "let's have an attractive historian researching the past and trace mysteries in two time periods" thing. What can I say - improbable semi-romances that develop in archives appeal to me :) In any case, don't think/know that Phillips has anything in the chute at the moment, but I'll add her name here so at some point when I search "books I want to read" it will come up and prompt me to check occasionally.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
random update
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