My sister first introduced me to Anne Perry and her historical (Victorian era) detective fiction. Her two most popular series are The Monk Mysteries set in the 1850s/60s and the Thomas Pitt Mysteries set in the 1880s/90s. She also has a WWI series and a Christmas series along with loads of other works. Her evocation …
Tag: fiction
A Bad Habit
She was very attractive, but her nails were bitten to the quick. This meant that her hands were usually balled into fists on her lap or tucked away into her pockets, belying a cool easy elegance rather than what it actually was. Embarrassment. Strange, this one flaw, when all the rest of her was so …
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
This book was recommended to me by a friend. Do your friend(s) a kindness and do the same because it is worth it. Written in a genteel manner, this elegant read is part history lesson and love story, part etiquette manual and cuisinay guide, part class study and artistic/literary essay. You will find yourself in …
Fear from Fiction
Picture this...Grade five, recess time and a ball buster boy in my class (Martin) told me that years ago someone had hung themselves in the basement of my house. He offered up horrific details as I stood silent, my insides churning and a cold sweat running over me while the other kids laughed and played …
Revelations of a bookcase
If you want to gather insight so as to know someone better, spend some time checking out what they read. Or better yet, take some time to peruse their bookcase. Allen Ginsberg famously said, "You are what you think about all day" and Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin remarked, "Tell me what you eat and I will …
The wicked
Despondency has an address, and this is it. Our house is one of a series of identical houses on the fringes of this forest. The ever present dankness and semi shadow is meant to humble and educate. From an early age blind obedience and outright denial of any desire or ambition for 'things' outside the …
Manu writes 