Hosted by Lipsy Lost & Found my Wednesday post gives you a taste of what I am reading this week. A similar meme is run by Taking on a World of Words
My current read is The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett which was my pick on the Classic Club Spin #18. There are echoes of the garden from The Secret Garden but I have to be honest, I’m not exactly racing through it but I now need to get a move on to have it read and reviewed by the end of the month.
Blurb
The Shuttle is about American heiresses marrying English aristocrats; by extension it is about the effect of American energy, dynamism and affluence on an effete and impoverished English ruling class.
Sir Nigel Anstruthers crosses the Atlantic to look for a rich wife and returns with the daughter of an American millionaire, Rosalie Vanderpoel. He turns out to be a bully, a miser and a philanderer and virtually imprisons his wife in the house. Only when Rosalie’s sister Bettina is grown up does it occur to her and her father that some sort of rescue expedition should take place. And the beautiful, kind and dynamic Bettina leaves for Europe to try and find out why Rosalie has, inexplicably, chosen to lose touch with her family. In the process she engages in a psychological war with Sir Nigel; meets and falls in love with another Englishman; and starts to use the Vanderpoel money to modernize ‘Stornham Court’.
The book’s title refers to ships shuttling back and forth over the Atlantic (Frances Hodgson Burnett herself travelled between the two countries thirty-three times, something very unusual then). Goodreads
The last book I finished was This is Not a Novel by Jennifer Johnston one of my reads for 20 Books of Summer 2018 Challenge which I am failing at.
Blurb
Johnny, an outstanding young swimmer, went missing nearly thirty years ago: drowned, or so everyone except his sister Imogen believes.
How could this have happened? Encouraged, pushed even, from a child by his father, Johnny could have made the Olympic team, couldn’t he?
As Imogen gradually pieces together bits of her family history, we hear the tragic echoes that connect her with the Great War and Ireland in the nineteen-twenties Amazon
And then I have a whole stack of great looking books to read for 6 September so I think next I will pick up Jenny Blackhurst’s, The Night She Died.
Blurb
On her own wedding night, beautiful and complicated Evie White leaps off a cliff to her death.
What drove her to commit this terrible act? It’s left to her best friend and her husband to unravel the sinister mystery.Following a twisted trail of clues leading to Evie’s darkest secrets, they begin to realize they never knew the real Evie at all… Amazon
So what do you think? Any of this mixed bunch take your fancy?
I’ve been wanting to read a novel by Jenny Blackhurst…maybe I will have luck finding one of her books available soon. Thanks for sharing, and here’s MY WWW POST
LikeLike
The other two reads are quite heavy in their own way so it’s definitely time for a bit of psychological fiction to puzzle over.
LikeLike
Well, if it’s any consolation, I’m just only about to pick up my Classics Club Spin book – Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala – although it is quite short, and I’m well behind on my 20 Books of Summer also. I’ve undoubtedly read well over 20 books during the period of the challenge, just not the 20 on my list!
LikeLike
Me too I seem incapable of sticking to the list!
LikeLike
I think I’m mostly curious about the title of This Is Not a Novel. From the blurb it doesn’t really sound like it fits but I suppose it makes sense once you read it?
LikeLike
Yes, it is an eye-catching title and it does fit once you’ve read it!
LikeLike
I’m very much looking forward to the new Jenny Blackhurst. Should hopefully be getting around to it soon.
LikeLike
I’m looking forward to it too – I’m in bad need of a change of pace!
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Night She Died looks fabulous!
LikeLike
Doesn’t it, I can’t wait to get stuck into it!
LikeLike
That’s the thing about lists and plans, isn’t it, Cleo. Sometimes they have to change. I read Burnett as a girl, and have very, very fond memories of it. But I’ve not read that particular one. I’ll be interested in what you think of it when you’ve finished it. And the others sound interesting, too.
LikeLike
My plans have been thrown out of the window this summer – all for good things I might add and sometimes that means you just have to roll with it all and remind yourself that plans are made to be broken! 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Jenny Blackhurst is on my want to read!
LikeLike
I’m greatly looking forward to it too!
LikeLike
I just finished my Classics Spin book yesterday – and I had to put it down for a few days because it was dragging. It ended up being okay but I didn’t exactly love it. Good luck with yours!
LikeLike
Oh well done you!! The best thing I can say is mine is progressing slowly…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I liked This is Not A Novel a lot. Jennifer Johnston is very underrated.
LikeLike
The last one intrigues me most this week. Sorry your classic isn’t grabbing you – I was lucky, mine was short! It sounds sorta interesting but you’d have to sell it to me… 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve read by Jennifer Johnston – though I haven’t read “This is not a novel”. I’ll be looking forward to your review Cleo.
LikeLike