Nom de Plume

What I’ve read this week:

Joanna Martin plows through the records, letters, and other documents of her ancestors, the Fox Strangways, to deliver a portrait of women and children of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Then we plow through 356 very long pages of Wives and Daughters: Women and Children in the Georgian Country House.

The book is divided into two main categories. The first describes the 4 women of the 4 generations of women her book covers. The second category is broken into different sections, such as education, household management, servants (so difficult to find in those days), and so on. The most interesting section, to me at least, was on health (though it STILL didn’t answer that burning question of what Georgian women did without Monistat). It’s pretty amazing that she had all these resources on hand to go through for firsthand accounts of what life was like.

But herein lies the problem, at least for me: There were fascinating characters and riveting snippets of information, but the scholarly tone laid a dull finish over everything. The bulk of the book was taken over by excruciatingly long lists of who earned what, the furniture in the inventory in each room, the exact cost of coal for umpteen houses during the winter of 1797 … I am sure there are far more scholarly people than I who delight in these details, but I wish they had been footnoted instead.
Also, I got the decided impression that the title was tacked on by the publisher to make this more appealing from a feminist perspective. And while it did favor women, the link between the title and the content often felt tenuous.

So in a fit of bookmooching, I got two Patricia Wrede novels (very entertaining froth and by the way, I loved The Enchanted Forest Chronicles). I found the first one, Caught in Crystal, tiresome. But The Raven Ring was a very nice way to pass an evening. Basically, a woman of the Cilhar, a very fierce tribe, goes to collect her mother’s belongings after she is killed under mysterious circumstances. Amongst the things is a ring that has been passed down in the family for seven generations. And everyone seems to want it. Our heroine Elerat teams up with a callow magician and an honorable thief to solve the mystery. Of course she does, and of course she finds love during the process.

Apparently, this is the sixth in the Seneca Falls mystery series, featuring a librarian sleuth in the 1860s.

And I am hooked.

Glynis has the town constable at her beck and call, and a dashing loner named Jacques Sundown in her bed (that is, when he’s around). And she’s the best sleuth in town. So when an upstanding citizen is murdered, the constable whisks her into the middle of the investigation, where she investigates and solvest he case.

This was such a great read less because of the mystery itself (though that was good too), and more because Monfredo does such a great job if infusing history into the novel. At no point is she didactic, but she makes the events of the day–the Civil War and the burgeoning women’s movement–and integral part of the story. I suspect I will be reading all of these.

I miss Steve when he’s gone — but at the same time, I relish the thought of climbing into a freshly made bed and reading til the wee hours of the morning. Remembering how much I loved Jacob Have I Loved as a child, and feeling the need for some comfort reading, I clambered into bed last night with a paperback and a snuggly little pug. It was strange; I had read this so often that the words echoed in my memory, but I was taken anew by its power. I cried. Honestly, I did. There were two main parts that got me. The first was at her grandmother’s malevolent whisper, “”Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated” and she realizes it was God who was speaking. The second was when she bursts out at her mother when they’re washing windows, and her mother tells her that she’ll miss her more than she misses Caroline.