The Scarlet Letterby Nathaniel Hawthorne ( Read more... )

Tigana
by Guy Gavriel Kay
676 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Fantasy/Historical

This is my third pass of Tigana and my second front-to-back read (the other time being a skim-through of Dianora's sections). I still love Kay's prose, overwrought as it sometimes is; the ending still killed me, though no tears. I love Dianora as usual; more ( Read more... )

Their Eyes Were Watching God
by Zora Neale Hurston
219 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Historical/Literary

Like Into Thin Air, this was assigned reading. I had heard horror stories about the dialect, but I found the novel surprisingly readable and reasonably interesting. (By the way, the cover of my edition, with a foreword by Mary Helen ( Read more... )

The Heart of the Dragonby Alasdair Clayre ( Read more... )

What Life Was Like in the Land of the Dragon: Imperial China, A.D. 960-1368by Time-Life Books (Denise Dersin, ed ( Read more... )

A Great and Terrible Beauty
by Libba Bray
403 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Fantasy/YA/Historical

It took me the longest time to finish reading this, because the story had two opposite effects on me: I was compelled to turn pages as I read, but once I closed the book and put it down I had absolutely no inclination to go back. I predicted or ( Read more... )

The Crimson Petal and the White
by Michael Faber
895 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Historical

When I began reading this epic-length novel, I was under the impression that it was political. Not political fantasy, but certainly political historical fiction. It isn't--no, this novel is about Society in every meaning. I was intimidated by the ( Read more... )

Private Arrangements
by Sherry Thomas
351 pages (paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Romance/Historical

I don't normally read category romance--contemporaries are too light compared to my usual fare of secondary-world F/SF, and historicals are extremely hit-and-miss. Private Arrangements is a historical romance that, from cover copy, looks like your typical ( Read more... )

The Spymaster's Lady
by Joanna Bourne
373 pages (paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Romance/Historical

This historical romance was highly praised by several people on my flist, and the espionage angle piqued me. I'm a little late to the party, but I hope this review is still of some use. Annique Villiers, a French spy known as the Fox Cub, is about to be ( Read more... )

The Lions of Al-Rassan
by Guy Gavriel Kay
527 pages (paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Fantasy/Historical

For the downtime during three straight days of All-State rehearsal, I needed an engrossing but not plot-compelling book (I had to be able to put it down easily). So I chose to reread a GGK novel that I'd picked up at the used book store, which also ( Read more... )