A Fellowship of Games & Fables

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On top of exposing me to books that I normally would not pick out for myself and unearthing other ways in which I can be interpreting the books that I read, being part of a book club has made me really appreciate the different reading experience I get when I read a book recreationally. It occurred to me recently that a lot of the books that I've consumed over the years have been as part of some sort of assignment: university, the 1001 project, and now book club. I have just closed the cover on J. P. Penner’s third instalment in the Adenashire series and, perhaps it’s been the winter weather, perhaps it’s been a stressful workweek, but the hours I was able to steal cosying up with this book that I was reading for me and no other reason have really been some of the most enjoyable.

Jez is not looking forward to the Adenashire Yule Games. She’s not a fan of the cold weather or the large crowds. She would much rather be allowed to sleep the entire Yule season away. But a drunken encounter lands her right in the middle of the festivities with a wager to beat a boastful human team. Not only that, but she must also fake a relationship with her friend Taenya, a woodland elf. Plagued by long-standing insecurities about her worth and a sense of pride that won’t let her back out of her mess, Jez tackles each Yule Game event with cold pragmatism. But the more time she spends with Taenya, the warmer her demeanour becomes. Could she be falling for the elf, and would a romance ruin a perfectly good friendship?

A Fellowship of Games & Fables is the third book in Penner’s Adenashire series: a collection of incredibly cosy fantasy reads that are best enjoyed with a cup of tea and some form of warm baked-good. Each book is a sweet little romance novel, following a trio of protagonists introduced in the very first instalment:  A Fellowship of Bakers & Magic. Book three follows Jez, an aloof and emotionally closed-off fennex and, similar to its predecessors, it chronicles a sweet and wholesome story of self-discovery and romance.

Similar to book one, in that the central drama is in the form of a competitive situation, where Games & Fables surpasses Bakers & Magic is in its solid establishment of drama. It could be that book one was Penner finding her feet with the series, but the low-stakes quickly went down to no-stakes and the thrill that should have come with a competitive setting just didn’t. This is not the case with book three. Penner works with the knowledge that readers are immediately going to side with Jez and uses that character misdirection to create a good sense of drama and suspense where the narrative requires it. It’s a fun play on the idea of the unreliable narrator, without the omniscient narrator doing any real misleading – just letting the reader do all the work based on their relationship with the character.

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Written in a prose accessible to a wide audience-range, A Fellowship of Games & Fables is a delightfully cosy read filled with drama, romance, very cute scenes of social awkwardness, and complete with recipes in the back! I have since discovered that there are yet more instalments in this series and I am quite excited to get them on my shelf.

Author: J. P. Penner, 2024,2025

Published: Poison Pen Press, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Illinois, 2025

A Fellowship of Librarians & Dragons

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While we often think about curling up and reading as the ultimate form of cosy, there are many factors to consider when measuring the cosiness of a designated blanket, couch, bed, or tea reading session. Of course, the biggest is the type of book one is choosing to cosy up with. Having powered through the mellow, romantic, and no-stakes comfort of A Fellowship of Bakers & Magic, it seems the thing I really needed this week was more cosy comfort reading and so it was onto the next Adenashire instalment: A Fellowship of Librarians & Dragons.

After becoming best friends with Arleta Starstone at the Langheim Baking Battle, Doli Butterbuckle decides that moving to Adenashire is the next logical step for her. Peaceful, quiet living, being near her best friends, and spreading her infectious good humour through working in a bookstore seems like the ideal life. Plus, it’s away from the pressures of her overbearing family in Dundes Heights, where she’s never felt she could really be herself. But Doli’s quiet life gets shaken up when she inherits a dragon egg. Faced with a responsibility she’s not sure she’s ready for, Doli enlists the help of the newly-arrived gargoyle librarian, Sarson, to learn as much as she can before the egg hatches. Not only does her research uncover a myriad of potential challenges in dragon-rearing, but as she spends more time with him, Doli finds herself falling for Sarson.

Now that I have cottoned on to how these books are meant to be read, it was easier to simply fall into the enveloping warmth and cosiness of A Fellowship of Librarians & Dragons. Reading like a PG erotic romance, whilst simultaneously making fun of the fact that it knows it’s doing that, the second book in the Adenashire series is every bit as sweet and warming as its predecessor. It’s an adorable little tale of how relationships can help to shape one’s identity, as well as inspire ambition, passion, and strength that one never knew they had.

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The romantic in me very much enjoyed the wholesome but still suggestive interactions between Doli and Sarson, and the dragon-lover in me was very satisfied with the cute and cheeky character of Evvy, a pink baby dragon with a penchant for mischief and an insatiable appetite. It also felt that there was more drama happening in this book than in the first one, taking it from no-stakes to low-stakes, which made the pages flip even faster.

Filled with romance, comedy, character growth, and just as many delicious-sounding recipes as the first book, A Fellowship of Librarians & Dragons is another perfectly cosy read.

 Author: J. Penner, 2024

Published: Poison Pen Press, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Illinois, 2025.

The Transformations

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What better way to ring in the new year, then by closing the cover on a book? I had hoped to make this month’s bookclub read the last one of 2025, but it’s been a year and I threw in the towel at 11pm when my eyes and brain could not take in any more words.

2025 was a year in which a lot of things changed for me, there were a lot of upheavals, adjustments, and reshufflings. It’s kind of eerily apt that the final book I consumed this year was The Transformations by Andrew Pippos.

The story follows George Desoulis, a subeditor at The National and a functional loner by nature. His contented bubble of solitary routine is shaken up one night when he allows Cassandra Gwan, a self-assured journalist and coworker to enter it. Soon the two begin an unorthodox relationship, each becoming increasingly aware of the intimate ways in which they are transforming from one person to another, as they respond to the changing landscape of their jobs, their responsibilities to family, and the events of their past that still live in the dark corners of their characters.

I like to think of myself as an open reader, an eclectic in that I enjoy a variety of genres, writing styles, and author timbres. If I have learned anything about myself while reading this book, it is that I respond better to books that are not quite so calm and subtle. It’s a bit of a cliché, but this girl likes a bit of drama!

The Transformations is a book that explores the intricacies of emotional human development and how we are constantly morphing from one identity to another, creating a human-shaped papier mache of labels that bears a name. Pippos as an omniscient third-person narrator follows his romantic leads in equal measure as well as the supporting characters, giving readers a rich understanding of who these people are and what types of events and experiences have shaped them.

The prose is blunt with the odd adjective or adverb breathing life and personality into the scene. It’s a book in which the real stories are told between the lines, through subtle hints in dialogue or a throwaway sentence of self-analysing exposition. The problem that I encountered with this is that, while it made the book easy to read, I felt that the characters and the events that were taking place lacked personality, vibrance, and drama and thus, it was a bit hard to really become enveloped in the world of the book. I enjoyed reading it for reading’s sake, admiring the author’s literary craft rather than the story or characters he had created.

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While I don’t believe that this is a book that I would revisit, I am pleased to have read it, taken a few life perspectives away from it, and been exposed to a new author who has a talent for conveying and traversing the finnicky emotional labyrinths of the human condition. The Transformations is a book that very simply explores the changing nature of relationships and boundaries of relationships, the decline of the newspaper as an institution, and the various ways in which change happens, sometimes suddenly sometimes unnoticed over time.

Author: Andrew Pippos, 2025

Published: Picador by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd, 2025.

A Curse For True Love

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Well, I’m now back to where I was many months ago when I did not have a ‘To-Read’ pile on my bedside table. I have just closed the cover on the conclusion to Stephanie Garber’s Once Upon a Broken Heart trilogy and I’m sure that already, someone somewhere in the film industry is working to secure the movie rights.

Evangeline’s life is a living fairytale. She is married to a handsome prince, lives in a legendary castle, and will one day be queen of the Magnificent North. She only wishes she could remember how this happened. Evangeline’s memories are gone, but Prince Apollo has a put a name to the culprit: Lord Jacks. But after some attempts on her life, Evangeline is not so sure that everything is as it seems. Did Apollo really come back from the dead to be with her? If so, where is the love she should feel for him? As her heart and her head begin to conflict with one another, Apollo determines to ensure that Evangeline remains unaware of the price paid for this happy ending. There’s only one way: killing Jacks the Prince of Hearts.

With more secrets festering, more obstacles appearing, and the occupants of the central love triangle being segregated, Garber has written the chapters with the omniscient narrator following the three central protagonists: Evangline, Apollo, and Jacks. It’s really the best way to ensure that the book retains its power to make the reader compulsively page-turn. With her memories gone, a book that solely followed Evangeline would be boring/almost impossible and getting to see what Apollo and Jacks are doing as well as understand their reasoning adds more depth to their characters, not to mention we get to see more of the newly awakened ancient family of the Valors.

This method of storytelling is also perfect for this climactic third act because a lot of the ‘action’ is character-driven rather than event-driven, as its predecessors were. With the quest narrative to open the Valory Arch complete, the characters now are driven by their own desires to find the truth, bring more to their story, and turn away from heartache.

Garber continues to lean heavily into the cliched fairytale setting and quest for true love, almost to the point of making a mockery of the genre. However, despite her saccharine prose and syrupy scenes of castle life, she manages to retain a sense of sincerity and celebration of the fairytale power of love, thus appealing to all the sooky romantics (like me) that make up her readership.

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While it sometimes feels like the pace is disjointed – a side effect of the narrator following three different protagonists- A Curse For True Love is a romantic and satisfactory ending to a very over-the-top and aggressively epic fairytale love story. I absolutely can see myself rereading this series in a couple of months’ time. The Once Upon a Broken Heart series is a must-have for romantics, lovers of fairytales, and enthusiasts of YA fiction.

Author: Stephanie Garber, 2023

Published: Hodder and Stoughton, Great Britain, 2023

A Curse For True Love is the conclusion to Stephanie Garber’s Once Upon a Broken Heart trilogy, following Once Upon a Broken Heart and The Ballad of Never After.

The Ballad of Never After

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Well it’s official. I have been cursed to be unable to physically put down this trilogy, having just finished the second book in a record 3 days. Either that or these books are just that compelling! The second instalment in Stephanie Garber’s Once Upon a Broken Heart trilogy proves to be even more thrilling, decadent, and enticing than its predecessor, with new curses, new betrayals, and new complications obscuring Evangaline Fox’s road to finding her happy ending.

After Jacks’ latest betrayal, Evangeline is determined to never trust him again and hopes that with her own special magic, she might still be able to get her happy ending that Jack’s took away. Apollo is not dead, merely in a suspended state and Evangeline devotes her time to trying to find the magical means to wake him. That is until he wakes up on his own and promptly tries to kill her. But it’s not really him. Apollo has been cursed. With time against her, Evangeline finds herself again entering into a tentative partnership with Jacks to find four magical stones and open the Valory Arch: the only thing that can break the curse on Apollo and save them both.

Gripping excitement from the first page, The Ballad of Never After has more sinister curses, more betrayals, and more plot twists that keep the fingers flying. Now that introductions are out of the way, the story gets into the nitty gritty of who these characters are and what they desire, all of which is being shaped by the events taking place around them.

Where the first book sampled the Cinderella story with the wicked stepmother and the manipulative stepsister, this book follows the story of Beauty and the Beast with the central relationship between Evangeline and Jacks taking on a much more solid shape. The tragedy of a doomed romance is at very heavy play here, along with the exploration of love by exposure.

Evangeline becomes a strange sort of heroine, as she begins to think more with her heart rather than her head and drives the story with her impulsive actions that only prompt internal consideration at their most dramatic moments. One would think that, at this stage, she’d give up on the North and go back to the Meridian Empire where she might be able to find a nice boy, settle down, and have a comfortable ever after (until Jacks’ cashes in on the final kiss she owes).  Between her first love who’s now a vampire and has tried to kill her once, her husband who was bewitched to love her and then cursed to hunt her down and kill her, and her fast-becoming true love who is an Immortal Fate and the source of all her current misfortunes, Eva’s track record for heroic fairytale males is not great. But of course, it’s all this emotional turmoil that comes with these characters that makes the story so compelling.

The world becomes bigger, brighter, and sometimes more beautiful, as the protagonists venture further into the Magnificent North on their quest to find the stones. The quest narrative then gives Garber a fantastic avenue in which to dole out the history and lore of this magical world, extending its beauty and fantasy as well as revealing some of its more terrible and tragic aspects.

Garber’s dramatic and saccharine prose continues to make every sentence positively drip with syrupy, fantasy vibes, made a little more adult and exciting with the introduction of sex. Even sex in the Magnificent North is dramatic, romantic, and dangerous and at times the book takes on a new and exciting vibe of teasing, mild erotica.

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The Ballad of Never After is a very exciting and compelling sequel that has definitely gotten me completely hooked. Filled with action, adventure, romance, tragedy, magic, and marvelous dresses, I can’t wait to see how it ends.

Author: Stephanie Garber, 2022

Published: Hodder and Stoughton, an imprint of the Hachette UK Company, Great Britain, 2022. Pictured edition published 2023.

The Ballad For Never After is the second book in Stephanie Garber’s Once Upon a Broken Heart trilogy.

Once Upon a Broken Heart

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It seems that I’m on a real fantasy bender at the moment, having read three fantasy books in the last three weeks. I have to say it’s been fascinating binging on modern fantasy, seeing what stays the same and what changes. Little Thieves was a cool and dark hybrid of fantasy quest narrative and heist novel. Temeraire felt like a children’s tale made adult by the wartime setting. And now Once Upon a Broken Heart, a book that seems to have popped out of nowhere and become the latest hot topic in YA fiction.

Evangeline Fox has always believed in fairytales, happily ever afters, and true love. But her world is shattered when the love of her life, Luc, gets engaged to her stepsister, Marisol. Convinced that something is amiss, Evangline prays to Jacks, the Prince of Hearts, to stop the wedding. But Jack’s help comes with a price; Evangeline will owe him three kisses to be administered whenever and to whomever he chooses. But after the first kiss, Evangeline realises how dangerous her desperate deal with the immortal really is, as she is plunged into a twisted plot including murder, treason, and vampires. As Evangline tries to make sense of the plot that she’s become entangled in, she discovers that Jacks wants more from her than she pledged and she’s being manipulated to some greater, twisted, ends.

At first I was not convinced by this book. To be fair, it’s always hard getting into a new book, especially a fantasy, as there is so much world building and lore that often needs to be explained before the real story can commence. But Garber does a very clever thing in drip-feeding the lore of the Meridian Empire and the Magnificent North through internal monologues from the protagonist in the seconds before some great drama or plot twist happens.

I also struggled with the saccharinely sweet way in which she writes. The book is very heavy, leaden even, with adverbs and adjectives that describe the people and places and items in taste-sensory terms. Emotional experiences taste like something, all the world’s dresses are described as desserts with cream, peach, and candied being particularly favoured. Everything about the way Garber describes is over-the-top and extravagant to the point of being cringing, but then the penny dropped as the story progressed… this is intentional, you’re taking the piss.

There are more twists and turns in this tale than a rabbit’s warren, and even though there are very cliched fantasy tropes at play, everything is manipulated to become this incredibly compelling and modern take on the fairytale genre. Evangeline as the classically flawed heroine driven by a broken heart makes you wince at first, but as small splashes of her personality leak out through her actions or conversations with other characters, you become enthralled. Particularly as you the reader are coming to the same conclusions about what’s going on in the same time that she is. When the big mystery comes out, you’re instinctively trying to put the clues together before the hero does: the classic response to any crime or noir novel. Garber is doing the same tricks as Conan Doyle and Poe, but blindsiding the reader by having plot twists that are so sudden they give you whiplash. The only time you’re given to think back and piece things together is the same time given to Evangeline, compelling you to turn those pages faster and faster.

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A great, manipulative mystery plot set in a highly charged fairytale setting, Once Upon a Broken Heart is an enthralling read. Ending on an intriguing cliffhanger, I’m thanking Past Hannah for picking up the next book yesterday!

Author: Stephanie Garber, 2021

Published: Hodder & Stoughton, a Hachette UK company, Great Britain, 2021. Pictured paperback edition published 2022.

Once Upon a Broken Heart is the first book in Stephanie Garber’s Once Upon a Broken Heart trilogy.

Ice Planet Barbarians

 

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So a lot of personal changes have been happening resulting in a little bit of a reading slump, but I’m happy to say that, after over a fortnight of not wanting to reading anything, I have finally closed the cover on a book. A while back, my book club picked our next read with the express purpose of it being monumentally different to all of the other books that we have read so far. Deciding to go with a theme of smut and ridiculous, we opted for Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon and this is the book that I just finished.

The book chronicles the erotic adventures of Georgie, a woman who is abducted by aliens, to be sold in some heinous off-world market. During the flight from Earth, the cargo ship experiences a malfunction and crash lands on an icy planet. Georgie and her fellow captives manage to escape their horrifying alien captors and shack up in the abandoned cargo hold. It falls to Georgie to venture out and see if she can find any resources or a way home, but during her exploration she gets caught in a hunting trap and awakens in a cave with a muscular, tender, and gentlemanly alien between her legs. From there Georgie must overcome lust, the language barrier, and the hostile elements of this planet if she’s going to find a way to save her friends. But with the help of Vektal, a sexy blue-skinned barbarian chief who has picked Georgie for a mate, she might just be able to do it.

It has to be said that this book was not picked for its incredible writing or ground-breaking story. Indeed, the girls who decided thought it was about time that those of us who don’t usually read trashy, dime-store erotica needed some exposure. While my entrance into reading this book was impeded by a whole heap of personal dramas, I can’t honestly say that this was not what I needed. The literary equivalent of a popcorn movie, Ice Planet Barbarians is a mindless, erotic, romp rich in…imagery.

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While the story is predictable and the characters have the same breadth as a piece of paper, the voyeuristic appeal of this book cannot be denied. Dixon paints a world that we’ve seen before, but with a few new and original perils, and I suppose if you really wanted to try and read some meaning in the story’s events, you could argue that it’s a piece about raising awareness for conservation and the continuance of a species. It’s refreshing to have the leading lady be cynical and view the world in movie references while the man is sarcastically over-masculine and has a huge, throbbing… sense of chivalry. Even the intense sex scenes cannot overshadow the humour that Dixon has shoved in there.

It's a book that’s not meant to be taken seriously: a silly, mindless, afternoon read and it absolutely lives up to that purpose. Despite a shaky start, I actually read about 80% of the book in a few hours! It’s fun, definitely sexy and smutty, and just rather lithely enjoyable.

Author: Ruby Dixon, 2015

Published: E-Book, Kindle form, Amazon, 2015

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

 

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Metaficton or tongue-in-cheek allusions to something’s self-awareness as a piece of fiction is a concept I’ve always found fascinating. And clearly other people do too because it’s something that gets explored and have attention drawn to all the time, indeed in some of my favourite pieces: Scream, Stranger Than Fiction, Deadpool and, most recently, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.

The book tells the story of a young woman who flees from a forced wedding and makes a Faustian deal with a shadowy god. She wants more time, and freedom. She gets immortality with the downside being that no one she meets ever remembers her. For three hundred years Addie LaRue has been a friend, muse, and lover to many artists, helping them leave their mark on the world whilst being forgotten with each new day. That is until she meets Henry, who remembers her. Suddenly life is beginning again for Addie and she is getting to experience the joy of a relationship that lasts more than one night. But the Devil’s in the details and Addie can’t help but wonder if this is really love or another ploy to claim her soul.

The love-triangle of the artist, Faustian deal, and immortality is as old as the hills and still as solid considering that it’s now almost a universally shared thought that art is as close to immortality as humans can get. Addie LaRue, in something of a Forrest Gump type of way, treads this well-worn path but treats its readers to a number of delightful back alleyways that would have otherwise been missed. The romantic nature of the story coupled with the quirky and ironic fact that the protagonist is actually a supporting character for so many other stories, is what gives the book its compelling power. 

V. E. Schwab takes a well-known and recognisable narrative and twists, turns, and stretches it as far as it will go, like taffy or Play-Doh, until it finally settles into a really fascinating (if sometimes still predictable) love story. Jumping between past and present, a la The Time Traveller’s Wife, we are treated to a series of narratives that all, inevitably, intertwine to lead to a teasing and hopeful(?) conclusion. 

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The prose is simple and poetic, heavy on imagery to try and bring vibrancy to the mundane, which I guess can sometimes get a little pretentious and annoying, but for the most part is just nice and easy to read and picture. While our central characters certainly (for me at least) leave a bit to be desired, the external strangeness of their narrative is what compels you to read on. Addie’s character journey in particular is rather interesting as she mentally comes to realise that her deal has made her something other than human and it’s fun when those moments for ethical and philosophical contemplation come up. If you could live forever, but no one remembered you, how would you live? Schwab comes up with some interesting barriers and trials that come with Addie’s curse and it’s very cool to read and imagine yourself in Addie’s shoes.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a good read, an original twist on a timeless tale, flavoured with sweet romance and peppery pops of ethical and philosophical exploration. It’s thought provoking, romantic, dramatic, and compelling, and I quite enjoyed it.

Author: V. E. Schwab, 2020

Published: Titan Books, London, 2020.

Adam Bede

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Undoubtedly I have before mentioned what fun and fascination is to be had in reading books from another time period. Sometimes the modern reader can experience great surprise in hearing authors express social ideas and opinions that are still relevant over a century later! And then there are those times where the development of a story can prove a little tricky to understand or appreciate. This was a little bit the case with the last book that I finished: George Eliot’s first novel, Adam Bede.

The book tells the story of swarthy and respected country carpenter Adam Bede, a man with brawn and brains who is also a little in touch with his emotional side. He is secretly, but passionately in love with the pretty, but vain Hetty Sorrel. Sadly, Hetty’s head is turned towards the rich and charming Captain Donnithorne, one of Adam’s most admired and respected friends, and disaster strikes when Adam discovers their amore and Donnithorne leaves the parish. A heartbroken Hetty runs away in a vain search for her lover, only to discover poverty, loneliness, and disgrace that even Adam with his tender love cannot sooth.

Eliot’s novel has been celebrated as a great work of literary realism, painting a wonderfully rich picture of the countryside in the English Midlands as well as insightful glimpses into the inner workings of her labourer characters. Although famously agnostic, Eliot writes about the Christian ethical schema of confession, forgiveness, and redemption in a way that is strangely captivating – even to the modern reader – and provides much of the story with its juicy drama during the climax in this way.

The phonetic dialogue provides a challenge for the modern reader, a little like Wuthering Heights does, but the book’s central messages as well as its incredible exploration into the contrasting social and emotional dilemmas of the characters does not in any way get lost or misunderstood. 

It’s a slow burn book, where the action is not so much what drives it, but the joy of getting enveloped in lengthy paragraphs of description and monologue keeps you turning pages. While I am not entirely sure that I’ll read it again in a hurry, I was still able to power through it faster than I have some other books from the same period, so I clearly enjoyed the experience it offered. 

Author: George Eliot, 1859

Published: W. Blackwood & Sons (London), 1859

Madame Bovary

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 Undoubtedly I have said it before, but I will say it again because it’s one of the great surprises and pleasantries of this world: I love nothing more than reading books that are over a century old, yet are still so modern and relevant to the time I’m living in. It’s a weird, prophetic delight that I can’t seem to get enough of. This week, I went back to France, 1857 and was delighted to find a modern, character-driven tale of self-destruction and domino-effect drama: Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary.

The story follows Emma Bovary, a beautiful young woman who marries a sweet and kind country doctor, but then proceeds to become increasingly bored with provincial married life. Yearning for the grand passions and dramas of the romance novels she avidly reads, she seeks happiness in extravagant spending, high fashions, and even adultery. But the more that Emma lusts after this fantastic love that she believes she deserves, the further into ruin she throws herself and her family. 

Madame Bovary is famously considered a ‘modern’ novel because, unlike the other plot-driven novels of the 1900s, Flaubert lets the story progress through his characters. While being the disassociated and omniscient narrator, Flaubert still manages to weave a dramatic and emotionally provocative tale through in-depth, emotional character journeys, as well as a delightfully novel way of throwing his ‘voice’ into the mouths of supporting characters so that a stream of social commentary might flow throughout the work. 

While the conclusion of the book is very dramatic and horrible, it is nonetheless satisfying as Flaubert so successfully manipulates the reader’s emotions towards various characters. While there is absolutely a good lot of sympathy that gets doled out for Emma, the exciting and dramatic climax of the book leaves the reader with a feeling of deep satisfaction, if also a little sadness and remorse.

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While Emma is certainly not a heroine that one would want their daughters to look up to, she is nevertheless a classic and wonderful example of the ‘flawed woman’; a woman that’s not really the conquering hero of her own story, but nonetheless is impressive enough to have an entire story written about her. Vapidness, jealousy, and gullibility are the true villains behind what happens to Emma, in a very sexist type of way, but there is still some strength in how she handles situations up to the very end, as well as some endearing quality that makes us want her to come out all right.

Madame Bovary is a tale that requires a bit of perseverance, but is absolutely worth it in the end. 

Author: Gustave Flaubert, 1857

Published: Charpentier (Paris), 1857. Originally in French, the first translation was made the year of original publication. 

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

 

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The world of literature is one that I love particularly because it’s dynamic, transmutative, familiar, and foreign. What I particularly love about reading, especially reading celebrated works of bygone eras, is the potential to find a book that provides a challenge and forces your mind to expand or contract as you read it. I have just closed the cover on a book that did just this, Thomas Hardy’s tragic tale of the evils of social hierarchy: Tess of the D’Urbervilles. 

When simple country peasant, Jack Durbyfield discovers that he has a noble lineage, he is elated and determines to re-establish the wealth and social standing of his ancestors. As a means to accomplish this, he sends his beautiful daughter Tess to the home of their wealthy cousin Alec D’Urberville in the hope that a prosperous marriage will ensue. However, tragedy prevails as the predatory D’Urberville violates Tess and then abandons her as a single mother. Forced to keep her silence, Tess returns to the laborious life of a country peasant, but finds hope of leaving her terrible past behind when she meets and falls in love with the clergyman’s son, Angel Clare. Their love is strong and pure, but when Tess decides to come clean about her past on their wedding night, everything changes…

There are many tragic heroines that colour classic literature: Kathy Earnshaw, Jane Eyre, Lady Audley to name a few and Tess Durbeyfield sits securely within this company. For quite a substantial part of the book, it reads like a romantic drama or gothic romance with Tess being continuously victimised, but then having the warm and sweet promise of a happy ending somewhere down the road. It’s this misdirection that gives the book its power to entice us to read on even as disaster after disaster befalls Tess; the real villain behind her eventual downfall not being men, but social hierarchy and gender roles themselves. Wealth, social status, gender, and moral purity are the driving forces that keep pounding down at Tess like a battering ram, until the reader can’t bear to read any more. How could anyone bounce back from that? Hardy’s teasing promise of a romantic reunification between Angel and Tess is definitely what kept me going, which then made the final phase, ‘Fulfiment’ all the more shocking, tragic, and depressingly satisfying. 

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In a fashion similar to Jane Austen, Hardy inserts a personal voice of the narrator into the novel, providing the world with judgements and social commentaries, however unlike Austen’s sassy and comedic attitude, Hardy’s tone is blunt, harsh, and grossly omniscient; sympathising and empathising with all of his characters rather than showing attachment. 

Much like Lolita or Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Tess of the D’Urbervilles was shunned by critics when it first came out; the cold and stark comments on the injustice of social conventions as well as the immorality the narrative depicts being too confronting and ‘not very nice’. But time has worked its magic on the sad story of Tess and while the book is still tragic, confronting, and emotionally distressing, it is also provocative, powerful, and meaningful. 

Author: Thomas Hardy, 1891

Published: Osgood, McIlvaine & Co. 1891

Gone With the Wind

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Living in a very fast-paced society that barrels hazardously forward at an alarming speed, sometimes it’s easy to forget that true epics and masterworks take time, and lots of it. I see this most in literature with modern fantasy writers, many of which believe that they can created another Lord of the Rings without putting in the literal years. 

True, ambitious, and timeless masterworks are not the creative result of a muse’s spark of inspiration and then 6 months to a year of feverish clacking away at a keyboard. They take time and they are all the more transcendental because of the love, effort, and time that has been put into them. While Lord of the Rings is the classic go-to example, another stands just as tall and magnificent: Gone With the Wind.

The story follows southern belle Scarlet O’Hara and a taunting love triangle that progressively gets complicated due to the Civil War and later the Reconstruction of the South. 

One thousand pages of romance, drama, and history, Margaret Mitchell’s only published work is a breathtaking exploration into a bygone era whilst also being an epic love story, a captivating retelling of a dramatic and significant time in American history, and a startling revelation at the swift and merciless effects of time and circumstance. 

A love-letter to her hometown of Atlanta, a scene of defiance and determination in a violently changing world, the book is the fruit of a decade of research, character building, and careful sentence crafting. It is also (in my opinion) one of the best examples of character building in existence. The fiery and determined heroine in Scarlet is one that the world did not ask for, but really needed. Scarlet’s story, in which she is both villain and victim, is truly incredible. Even though one spends the majority of the book looking forward to her getting her comeuppance. As a heroine, Scarlet is not someone to aspire to be; she’s self-confident to the point of narcissistic, stubborn to the point of complete idiocy, and quite possibly the biggest perpetrator of girl-on-girl crime ever. She’s the original Mean Girl. Having said that, her story is one that is beautiful and inspiring despite her vanity and self-interest, and the end of her arc is so satisfying because it’s a mixture of comeuppance as well as enlightenment and redemption. 

Image credit: Britannica

While it is first and foremost a love story, Gone With the Wind is also an incredible exploration into the dynamic nature of society and culture. It’s just as much a story about evolution as love, and it’s truly fascinating to see how changing governments, changing cultural attitudes, changing social ethics and class systems affect a society. The consistent wind motif that Mitchell uses to depict how easily entire world attitudes and codes of behaviour can disappear is both compelling and frightening. 

I would have to say that Gone With the Wind is officially one of my favourite books ever! From beginning to end, I was completely enveloped in the world and enraptured by the characters, and at no point in the thousand plus pages did I want to put it down! A true epic, a true classic!

Author: Margaret Mitchell, 1936

Published: Macmillan & Co (London)

Longevity: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 and made into a celebrated film starring Clark Gable & Vivien Leigh 

Atonement

 

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There is nothing I love more than beginning a book completely on a whim and then being completely enveloped in it. To have that book then completely cast your rational thoughts about the narrative and the prose into disarray is the glistening cherry that sits atop an immaculate sundae. Such is Ian McEwan’s novel, Atonement, which I literally just closed the cover on.

Told in three parts, Atonement tells the story 13-year-old Briony Tallis who witnesses a moment of sexual tension between her older sister Cecelia and the housekeeper’s son, Robbie. Briony’s feverish imagination and childish naivety causes her to misinterpret Robbie’s behaviour as villainous and when a horrifying attack befalls her cousin Lola, she is quick to blame Robbie, causing his arrest and incarceration. Years later, as Robbie desperately tries to survive the Dunkirk evacuations and Cecelia severs all ties with her family for falsely accusing her love, Briony comes to realise the severity of her mistake and tries to atone for her childhood crime. 

I absolutely adored this book. There is something so strangely and unidentifiably compelling about McEwan’s lengthy, wordy prose. The story itself ticks all the boxes for a thrilling afternoon read: drama, a love that overcomes adversity, guilt, betrayal, and suspense, but more than that it’s a self-indulgent story of the pleasures (and pains) of writing as well as the dangers of misinterpretation and the strain of changing gears from child to young adult. 

McEwan has a somewhat signature style in his narratives that explores and describes the unfolding events –as well as the elongated moments in between- in a stream of consciousness from the various perspectives of his characters. Atonement has this in spades, with even something of a metafictional critique on the narrative style itself, which is not only compelling, but very amusing (as well as relatable to any writers in the readership). 

Image credit: Penguin Books Australia

Set in the mid-1930s, and then during the War, the story delightfully shape-shifts between genres: at first appearing as a mystery, then an epic romance, then a war story, and finally a memoir. This constant, yet rhythmic shifting of genre is yet another reason why it’s so hard to put the book down, as you’re increasingly trying to decide what type of story you’re reading. 

And then there is the epilogue, which is both satisfying and maddening, as many loose ends are tied up in terms of where various characters end up, but a wider avenue of mystery is opened as to the truth of the preceding events. A tongue-in-cheek epilogue with some sadly ironic conclusions, it’s a perfect ending. 

Author: Ian McEwan, 2001

Published: Jonathan Cape (London).

Achievements: Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2001. Adapted into a film starring Keira Knightly and Saoirse Ronan in 2007.

Paris by the Book

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This week the literary tone was one of realism and romanticism, as I curled up on the couch with Liam Callanan’s Paris by the Book.

One of those stories where the blurb sounds like one genre, but the book delivers an entirely different experience, this novel is a nice one, perfect for the mindless afternoon when television and snacks are needfully replaced with tea and sunshine.

Paris by the Book tells the story of Leah Eady, an American wife who moves to Paris after her husband disappears. The only clue left for the family was a crumpled note in a cereal box, which led Leah and her daughters to the bustling streets of Paris. Once there, they discover an unfinished manuscript written by her husband, which seems to be chronicling the events. The family lives out the novel, trying to find more clues to Robert’s whereabouts, but soon realise that this is more than a new book, it’s a new life.

Callanan definitely captures the romantic perceptions of Paris; you know, those primarily American ones that absolutely saturate mainstream movies like Julie & Julia and Midnight in Paris. The heroine is totally a mash-up of all those protagonists, and this where the book gets ‘interesting’(?). The artistic romance of Paris is the real focus of the novel, putting the central narrative more or less into the back seat. While this does prove a bit annoying for a fair chunk of the story, once you’re past a certain point and can see how the narrative is backseat-driving, then the pleasanter part of the reading experience takes over.

The changes and developments that happen to the central characters are very subtle, with the search for the missing husband making noise and demanding to be the centre of attention, you don’t see the lovely changes and development of the underlying story until the narrator actively draws attention to it. While this technique can be risky, it’s done quite well here and brings a warmer side to an otherwise quite sad story.

Image credit: Bonjour Paris

I had my dubious feelings early on when I realised that we’ve got a male author inhabiting the voice of a female first-person narrator, and I think the beginning of the book is marred a little by the almost over-the-top romanticism of Paris, but eventually that does get tones down and the character arcs are allowed to naturally take their course at a calm and pleasant pace.

While there is nothing literarily amazing or groundbreaking about this novel, Paris by the Book is nevertheless a sweet and pleasant afternoon read.

Author: Liam Callanan, 2018

Published: First published in Great Britain by HQ, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd in 2018.

Lady Chatterley's Lover

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There are many sayings and proverbs that highlight the intimate and influential relationship between the past and the future (and the present in between) and most, if not all of them preach that history has the high ground of being more important; there would be no this now if there hadn’t been a that then…

Whilst I agree on the importance of the past and its continued influence on the present and the future, it’s not always wine and roses when it comes to visiting a prior time. Cinema and literature are classic examples of the ravaging affects of time and while some books and movies prove to be immune, others are not so lucky. One interesting example is the book I read this week: Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

Written by D. H. Lawrence, the book tells the story of Lady Constance Chatterley who suffers from a sexless marriage to her husband Sir Clifford, a Midlands landowner, writer, intellect, and cripple. Aware of their mechanical plight, Clifford encourages Connie to take a lover, so long as he’s of the same social standing. However, Connie becomes strongly attracted to Clifford’s gamekeeper, Mellors, and the two embark on a forbidden love affair. Can such a thing as true, intimate love flourish amid the increasingly modernising world of class, society, industrialisation, and capitalism or are Connie and Mellors’ ideas of love too old to survive?

The history of this book is undoubtedly what keeps it in the literary classics canon. It was published privately in the late 1920s and available in foreign printings for years before Penguin took the risk and published an unexpurgated version in 1960. Penguin and their controversial book went to trial under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959, but were acquitted with many famous authors of the day appearing as witnesses for the defence. A book that causes that much of a stir, of course people are going to want to read it!

And for its time, Lady Chatterley’s Lover was quite risqué and controversial, tackling many prevalent themes such as class, intellectualism, and capitalism; sometimes reminiscent of Jane Austen, whilst being written in a fluid style of poeticism and intellect that actually depicts the intricacies of sexual intercourse. While it’s very cool to read the physical and emotional affects of sex act and its influences on relationships, which we know much more of nowadays, there’s a certain type of crassness in the poetic uses of words like ‘fuck’ and ‘cunt’ that Lawrence employs, which don’t translate as well to a modern audience. As a modern reader, I found this book to be intriguing in what it was doing, but more on the level of novelty. It’s a funny book in that way because, even by the end, I was still confused as to how I felt about it.

Image credit: Lapham's Quarterly

Interestingly, I think a large part of this comes from certain events that take place having an unnervingly prophetic edge to them, the book’s climactic third act sharply reminded one of the Weinstein Scandal and the #MeToo movement. And the characters themselves are another ‘problem’. Being a social commentary on the state of society and indeed the advancement of humanity, there’s a real defeatist attitude amongst all of the characters, which makes it really hard to bond to any of them and support their causes. In a sense, it’s a very reflective novel, with the characters voicing the attitudes of the author, which then in turn transgresses to the reader.

Me personally, I like books where I can like at least one character and there is a sense of closure at the end. So I’m not sure that Lady Chatterley’s Lover is quite my cup of tea. However, I am glad that I have read it and, who knows, I might take it off the shelf again sometime in the future and change my mind…

Author: D. H. Lawrence.

Published. Privately in Florence in 1928. First English-language publication by M. Secker (London) in 1932. First Expurgated version published by Penguin Books in 1960.

Mansfield Park

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So after the influx of fantasy that I have been reading, I figured it was time to go back to something a little higher-brow, classic, and from The Book. So this week I indulged in what is fast becoming a guilty pleasure of mine, a period romp in the form of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park.

This classic novel is one of Austen’s more sober and dramatic stories, telling the tale of heroine Fanny Price who is ‘rescued’ from her overcrowded and impoverished family by a rich relative and sent to be raised with her uncle, aunt, and cousins in Mansfield Park. Treated as the outsider and effectively orphaned, neglected, and constantly humiliated by her cousins- bar one- and her second aunt, Fanny’s unwavering gentle nature and strong principals of virtue and pure, good manners, take root and grow stronger amid the corruption, selfishness, and scandal that engulfs the young people of Mansfield Park.

In Mansfield Park Jane Austen attacks all her signature themes, the three Ms: matrimony, money, and manner. Fanny as a heroine is one of the most surprisingly strong and inspiring women in literature, despite her overt femininity being a tad off-putting, especially for modern readers. While she spends the entire book judging the people around her (especially her cousins and friends of her sex), pining for the love of a man who is captivated by another, and being prone to great attacks of anxiety and hysteria, it is Fanny who is more or less the only person in the novel to come out sublimely happy at the end.

In her traditional fashion, Austen weaves a great story of social criticism and commentary, mocking the pretensions and idylls of the rich, highlighting their hypocrisies and double standards, and generally throwing shade on the vulgar manners of the materially beautiful and adorned. Though written in her classic, witty, and eloquent prose, there is an inherent hint of bitchiness that flavours the entire novel, making it a real page-turner, considering the dull (by modern standards) content.

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Where readers might be used to funny or distressing misinterpretations that then get resolved in a great, romantic happy endings like Sense & Sensibility or Pride & Prejudice, Mansfield Park delivers a most climactic bout of drama and scandal and then leaves it to fester as in reality. There is no drawn out suspense as we await Marianne to overcome a fever, or Wichkam and Lydia to be discovered, the consequences of Mansfield Park are resolved and the pains eased with the passing of time, but the characters continue to suffer: seemingly in punishment for their own misaligned characters and their actions towards Fanny. This delivers another level of enjoyment to the book as it shows a most agreeable degree of author-character attachment and Austen, who refers directly to herself within the final chapter, enters even more actively into the polygamous book-and-reader relationship.

Though both similar and unlike her other revered stories, Mansfield Park is officially one of my favourite Austen novels, a true classic.

Author: Jane Austen

Published: 1814 by T. Eggerton (London)

The Scarlet Letter

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It’s true that, for many modern readers, books from the 1800s can prove challenging, archaic, and sometimes downright unreadable. And while its horrendously easy to cling to this literary attitude of ‘oh it’s too dense for me’, I urge people to try and break themselves from it –especially those, like me, who have a passion for literature, voyeurism, and the absorption of knowledge and culture.

This train of thought and conclusive plea has come from my just finishing my chosen book of the week: The Scarlet Letter.

Set it in the fledgling, Puritan town of Boston New England, the book tells the sad and sombre tale of Hester Prynne, a woman subjected to the ridicule, ostracism, public defamation, and alienation of the community after she has an affair and is made to wear a red A for ‘adulteress’ on her bosom. Raising her illegitimate child, Pearl, alone and keeping the identity of her fellow sinner a secret for fear of destroying his reputation and livelihood, Hester’s life is made more perilous as her husband detects the guilty man and makes it his mission to wreak vengeance upon him.

Despite its dated dialogue and lengthy, philosophically poetic prose, The Scarlet Letter is one of the most loaded and complex books that I can recall reading. Hawthorne bombards his readership with –seemingly- thousands of philosophical questions about the nature of love, hate, faith, shame and, in doing so, opens the floodgates to release a torrent of discussion.

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The book does not merely chronicle a scandal, a secret love, and a revenge story; it pushes the reader into wider, uncharted territories, exploring the nature of people and communities. Setting the story in a newly established village, it can be argued that the real saviour/villain of the piece is change and evolution as is depicted by Hawthorne’s constant contrast between various stages and depictions of people: adulthood vs. childhood with Hester and Pearl, civilization vs. savagery with the Boston townsfolk and the visiting native Indians who live in the forest, and tradition vs. human instinct to change and adapt as is most prevalent in the scarlet letter beginning the story as a symbol of shame, corruption, and degradation and morphing into one of strength, woman’s unearthly compassion, and comfort.

It’s the changing attitudes of the characters on the page that makes The Scarlet Letter so impressive and, funnily enough, its conclusion holds a lot of relevance to this very day, especially regarding the question of gender roles and the ever-raging battle of the sexes. More than this, the book itself is a compelling and immersive read that stimulates the entirety of the brain: the half that processes information and stores it for discussion and argument, and the part that visualises worlds and scenes and scenarios. It’s surprisingly good and easy to adapt to. 

The Scarlet Letter was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne and first published in America in 1850 by Ticknor, Reed & Fields.