Book dump

[failte_aoife]

Mostly book I read ages ago but always forgot to write up because I didn't have terribly much to say about them. Like more posh murder:

John Rowland - Calamity in Kent

Tbh I couldn't say anything that's better than this Goodreads review:I have a seriously hard time suspending disbelief for a mystery novel whose plot boils down to "Scotland Yard

Comments

[hamsterwoman]

Cluff can finally arrest him and doesn't have to worry about the lack of proof against the wife!

Huh. Does the book present, like, a moral take on this outcome, or? I'm trying to figure out how one is supposed to feel about that resolution...

an extremely dull sex scene between the Queen and her wife (btw they also have a child that is biologically theirs but nobody is trans...)

...ok then. XP

The plot is the pizza and the worldbuilding is the caviar.

Im happy to see I'm not alone in reaching for weird food analogies when it comes to talking about books! But in fact I understand perfectly what you mean with that. And I could probably see that sort of mix working if done deftly enough -- I'm pretty sure I've read some things where the plot was a vehicle for worldbuilding and I was perfectly cool with that -- but probably the worldbuilding has to be exceptionally well done, and it would help if something else -- the characters or the prose or SOMETHING -- are also amazing, which it doesn't sound like was the case here. (Maybe the worldbuilding IS some kind of homebrew DnD campaign setting? or a fanfic with the serial numbers filed off?)

Sorry Frodo, Boromir and Ron. You were just not strong enough

<3! (at your snark, not the book's choices :)

Ira Adler, Javert, Rosetta and Frank Stein, et al is just... Look, I adore puns and surprise cameos or whatever, but this is just ridiculous.

I also thoroughly enjoyed your takedown of The Tudor Code The Catherine Howard Conspiracy.

[failte_aoife]

Huh. Does the book present, like, a moral take on this outcome, or? I'm trying to figure out how one is supposed to feel about that resolution...
Not really...it's just a middle book from a series that - if the introduction is to be believed - was incredibly popular in the 30s & 40s and it's all just One Way To Solve A Crime

I'm pretty sure I've read some things where the plot was a vehicle for worldbuilding and I was perfectly cool with that
Yes...I mean I've really enjoyed stuff like Gates of the world which has a variety of sub-plots and half of them boil down to 'Get from A to B' and one is a character fighting embezzlement and child labour and it's all set in a very weird world and it was great...and I think Sunkissed Feathers could have been at least good fun if the author had taken some of the energy she used for coming up with 3251 all-new animals into developing a plot that was slightly fancier but the way it was just left me with a feeling of vague dissapointment...just like the Rosetta Stein & co. As novel-lengths books with enough space to develop the feelings (or the plot) properly, I would have probably gone 'this is so stupid and I love it' but...

:D