A Lady's Guide to Fortune Hunting by Sophie Irwin

Some Regency romances start off by establishing the scene, gently acquainting you with the main characters around a pianoforte, and then introduce the main story problem once you have settled in with your teacup and a biscuit. Not so Lady's Guide. Within the first few paragraphs the problem facing our heroine is as thoroughly in our face as it is in hers. And yes, there's effective scene-setting, including the pianoforte. It is a quick and effective hook rendered in decisive, character laden language that feels appropriate to the era.

 

Having cut my teeth on Georgette Heyer's groundbreaking Regency romances, I am not an easy mark for modern clones. But this book, which in some ways seems an homage to that august author’s classic tale of a managing elder sister and beautiful younger, has held my attention and defied a direct comparison. There's also a nod to that most famous of all Regencies, Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice, in the family with five dowerless daughters at risk of losing the only home they've ever known.

The main characters are consistent, their dialogue witty, and the situation comedy more than entertaining enough to allow the relationships to develop in an authentic manner almost in the background. By the halfway point I was compelled to keep reading even though, as usual with romance , the outcome was already clear. My commitment was rewarded by a most satisfactory new complication that involved deep games both social and monetary.

A few small elements marred my overall enjoyment.  Since when is it necessary for every elder brother to have a sad or tragic past event repeatedly dragged up when it's not truly needed to explain a later choice? (I know, I know: since Season 1 of Bridgerton hit the streaming services). At another point, when the reader is already quite sure what’s going to happen, the author feels the need to foreshadow it with an unusually heavy hand. The early thorough grounding in setting became slightly spongy in later scenes, and some threads that early on promised a fair bit of drama in their conclusion were rather quickly and tamely wrapped up.

 

But these are small flaws indeed in what was an otherwise most enjoyable read, with balls aplenty, scheming matrons, sweet side romances, and a primary relationship with snap and crackle of the non-steamy variety, its dialogue more enjoyably witty than sappy.  If you like your heroines to give as good as they get, and your heroes slightly flawed, this is a great way to spend a weekend.

Recommended.

Thanks to #Netgalley for the ARC

#Regency #romance #ballgown #fashion #London #Almacks #JaneAusten #GeorgetteHeyer #LadysGuide #FortuneHunting #siblings #review #bookstagram #bookreview

TOMORROW And Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zelvin

This novel has the potential to be the gamer-geek's literary LOTR.

Speaking as both a gamer and a writer, with kin and friends deeply embedded in the gaming industry, I found this novel an amazing read on multiple levels of complexity. Like the best video games, in fact, it can be read (played) through several difference lenses/levels of difficulty.  There's the children of immigrants thread that winds through the whole, the Unfair Games' autobiographically-tinged rags to riches origin story, and the mixture of twenty-something relationships - friends, romances, sexual, even violent - plus Sam's physical disability story being subsumed by the character Ichigo while Sadie's psychological fragility is its own precarious quest mirrored into 'Both Sides', their next original game. Social tropes abound without being allowed to become preachy or take over from the unfolding quest for the perfect game.

My review is not in the least objective as I loved, deeply loved, this novel far beyond my ability to comment on the quality of writing or character development . Honestly, after the first tentative dip into Chapter One, every time I opened a new chapter I was quickly drawn into the spell, no matter how many days had passed since my last session. I'll likely come back to it several more times and find other elements to comment on in more detail.

If you enjoyed Erin Morgenstern's 'Starless Sea' and played the hell out of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, you'll find elements here to pull you into Sam and Sadie's world, with Marx as the helpful, if sometimes annoying, Navi character.

Also

(from Macbeth, spoken by Macbeth)

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more.

I'm very grateful for the e-ARC from Netgalley

#gamers #gaming #fiction #friendship #Netgalley #Harvard #tech #GameDevelopment #disability #immigrant #VisibleMinority #Tomorrowx3