Friday favourite: The Wideacre trilogy

Think English country lanes, generations of wealth, corruption, crime, and compassion and life in the 18th century. I was transported to this world in every page of Philippa Gregory's Wideacre Trilogy.

The story of Beatrice Lacey, a daddy's girl who is dedicated to her beloved ancestral home of Wideacre Hall, a home that will never become hers. It's the story of Beatrice as a child, a young girl, and a woman who grows up with a passion, a stubbornness, and the desire to make her mark in her time.

The Evening Standard described Gregory's main character in the following way: "For singlemindedness, tempestuousness, passion, amorality, sensuality and plain old-fashioned evil, [Beatrice Lacey] knocks Scarlett O'Hara into short cotton socks."

Despite many a good review of Philippa Gregory's work, the Wideacre Trilogy: #1: Wideacre, #2 The Favoured Child, and #3: Meridon, was my first real experience of Gregory's work and I'm still recovering from it. I simply couldn't put it down. Just when you thought you knew the story, another situation occurs; just when you think you've finally worked out a character, a new side to their personality appears.

The Wideacre Trilogy will keep you up at night, it will burn your dinner and make you miss the bus. You'll forget to brush your hair, the washing pile will be neglected, and crumbs will remain on the kitchen floor, waiting to be swept away. Life in the present day won't exist as you turn page after page of these books. Instead, you'll be at Wideacre Hall, experiencing life in the 18th century, and you won't want to return.

Love a good mystery - Book #18:Why Mermaids Sing

It’s been ages since I’ve read a mystery and I’d forgotten how much I enjoy them. I think the last of that genre I read was The Millennium Trilogy (and that took quite some beating!). It’s often the case that once I’ve finished a good book, I struggle to pick up a new one not wanting to be disappointed after such a high standard has been set.

But enough time had passed since reading of Blomkvist and Salander’s exploits, and after failing miserably in my quest to find a good chick lit read, a new mystery it was! I hadn’t read any of C. S Harris before, nor had I picked up a Sebastian St. Cyr mystery, but I’ll be sure to pick one up in future after reading Why Mermaids Sing.

I devoured this book in an afternoon - a story of murder, mystery, fathers and sons, the wealthy, the privileged and of course love. It’s set in 1800 London, young men venture out to pubs in the countryside on horseback (and fail to return alive), the wealthy form an elite society of invitation only, and the star of the show – Viscount Devlin himself – loves a woman out of his league.

I just loved the cleverness of it all. How we were drip fed snippets of information we could put together about the mystery that slowly unfolded. It took me until I was about three quarters of the way through the book until I finally solved it, but that didn’t stop me from seeing how the ending all panned out. It wasn’t necessarily a complex tale, but had enough twists and turns, characters and clues that it kept me wanting to read ‘just one more chapter’.

What's more, this is going towards LazyGirl Read's Mini Challenge - it's my something new.

Now I’m on the lookout for more mysteries – recommendations please!

Book #3: Trust Me

Shopping at second-hand bookshops, is very different to walking into a bookshop – it’s much more exciting, because you simply don’t know what will be there waiting for you. It means you can’t really have a book in mind that you wish to walk out the door with, because chances are, it’s not going to be on the shelf. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though – it just means you’ll walk out with something you’d never even considered (and it could be even better than what you’d hoped for to begin with).

But nothing beats stepping into a second-hand bookshop to see on the shelf, a book that you’ll been longing to find, or a book by one of your favourite authors – that you’re just about to get for a bargain price. That’s how Trust Me, by Lesley Pearse, ended up on my bookshelf.

I can’t quite remember how I first came across Lesley Pearse’s books, but I certainly remember the first one I read. It was called “Never Look Back” (check out the Friday favourites!). Each of Pearse’s books is an easy read – they’re a perfect holiday book, a perfect plane book, or a perfect book to curl up with on a wintery afternoon. They each have the perfect blend of characters, an historical element that beats any a history lesson, and a somewhat predictable ending that you’re never quite sure how you’re going to reach.

Trust Me is the story of two sisters, their childhoods spent in orphanages in both England and Australia. It’s a story of two girls sharing so much, yet having nothing in common; two girls from the same family yet two girls who are so different in their approach to life, and the challenges their lives pose. From the streets of Sydney to the dry dusty Australian Outback, this was one I couldn’t put down.

A Friday Favourite: The Tea Rose

This book should come with a health warning – you will not be able to get out of bed, nor will you be able to converse with others around you. Reading this book will make you very unsociable, unaware of happenings around you, and you will lose a week of your life – but it’s worth it. Every minute of it!

The Tea Rose is, without a doubt, my absolute favourite book. I first read it years ago while house sitting for my now mother-in-law. She’d jetsetted off to the Mediterranean on a six week cruise – a birthday present from her son, now my husband – dishing out presents like that I wasn’t going to let him get away! Her house was on a farm under the shadows of Mt Pirongia, a beautiful mountain in the heart of the Waikato region of New Zealand. But as beautiful as it was, I quickly found out that country living is not for me. I lasted all of about 26 hours of those six weeks on the farm, before leaving the house sitting duties to husband and returning to my childhood home – in the city!

Yet, I would escape back to the countryside on weekends, and it was one of those days that I spent immersed in The Tea Rose. A captivating historical novel with its beginnings in a Jack the Ripper era of London. A cast of well-developed characters that each has a story of its own, and a perfect mix of danger, intrigue, romance and sorrow. I disappeared for days into the pages of The Tea Rose and several years later, when I’d moved to the magical city of London, I discovered the sequel, The Winter Rose. There went another week of my life!