Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries - Heather Fawcett

49%

07.05.23

My excuse is that I wanted something easy to read while I had the flu and this had a nice cover. Of course, I should know that the cover is not the way to judge a book - in this case, I judge it - yet again! - on the Edwardian characters speaking like modern Americans. Nobody would have used that vocabulary, and clearly the author knows nothing about how Cambridge colleges work. Yes, it's fantasy, but jarring inaccuracies ruin the immersion. Again, I ask, why didn't an editor pick up on any of this? So that irritated me even without the very familiar storyline and unsympathetic characters behaving remarkably irrationally for scientists. 

A Marvellous Light - Freya Marske

Didn't finish

I almost abandoned this in the first chapter, as soon as the Edwardian aristocrats started to speak like modern Americans - how did an editor let that get through? - but read on in case the story made up for it. It didn't. The characters were interchangeable and nothing much happened except endless exposition. When I realised I was skimming chapters, it was clearly time to stop. I didn't even care enough to get as far as the sex scenes.

(One blurb - thankfully only just spotted - recommends it for fans of Georgette Heyer. Er, it has absolutely nothing in common with Heyer except perhaps being Rich British Historical People Problems.)

The Late Mrs Prioleau - Monica Tindall

56%
18.12.19

I don't think the narrator was supposed to be so unsympathetic but otherwise a rather enlightening dive into history.