#but peter and harriet more than make up for it!!

[leojurand]

Peter: Oy!

Harriet: Hullo!

Peter: I just wanted to ask whether you’d given any further thought to that suggestion about marrying me.

Harriet (sarcastically): I suppose you were thinking how delightful it would be to go through life like this together?

Peter: Well, not quite like this. Hand in hand was more my idea.

Harriet: What is that in your hand?

Peter: A dead starfish.

Harriet: Poor fish!

Peter: No ill-feeling, I trust.

Harriet: Oh, dear no.

Dorothy L. Sayers, Have His Carcase

[harrietvane]

So, in Busman’s Homeymoon, Lord Peter buys Harriet Vane a mink cloak worth 950 pounds (according to the Dowager Duchess’ journal entry), but he buys Tallboys for “only” 650 pounds.

Even bearing in mind that real estate really did used to be cheaper, do you understand how that is possible? Or how to find out more about relative purchasing power? I used an online calculator website which gave me some figures, but it still seems insane that one could buy an entire Elizabethan farmhouse for 2/3 the price of a garment! Very curious to learn from others who understand this better than I do.

Ah, I see my esteemed colleague @oldshrewsburyian has also had some interesting thoughts on this, so I'll link that here as well before I begin.

So, it's a legitmate question, and there's no catch-all simple answer (in the gotcha sense of 'why didn't i know that bit of cultural Truth'), but there are mitigating factors that take it from a ridiculous price comparison, to merely outlandish. Even taking into account that the coat is quoted in guineas, not pounds, and that PW says the bank valued Talboys at £800 via a mortgage (the paid price was a discount, for paying in cash quickly, which is Plot Relevant), it gets us to roughly the same place, value-wise. Or shall we say PRICE-wise, rather than value, as I'll get into below. There's several factors at play here - they mainly relate to class, and spending power:

-The house is Not That Great, in terms of the kind of property that PW would usually be buying. I mean it is still a large-ish house, big enough to have 2 adults and small children in, but it's not what would be on his radar normally. The only reason they know about it, it that it's near a place where HARRIET grew up as a child. It's not getting any high marks in particular Beauty, Convenience, or Quality - the main reason HV's drawn to it is sentiment, rather than anything else. They both know that they will have to significantly add to it, and alter it, in order for it to be a comfortable home. That would usually be out-of-budget for someone in Harriet's position, who would expect to buy something that meets her needs 'as-is'. Most people looking at buying that house would be Harriets not Peters, so it might be a tough sell.

-The house has no power, and limited plumbing: There's dark references to DRAINS by the dowager duchess, it's entirely possible that this house has no modern plumbing at all - they make the comparison that the huge palace the Wimseys grew up in wasn't plumbed until recently, but then again they do have about 800 servants, whereas Talboys is just a regular house: they will have Bunter alone (at first), with an assist from Mrs Ruddle. There's mention of "a cistern" with some basic valves, but the scullery is mentioned as having a copper, from which hot water is "scooped into a large bath-can" - a copper being, simply, a large metal basin over a fire, in effect. No running hot water, maybe no flushable loos - it's a factor. They also talk specifially about having to electrify Talboys themselves - it's candles and lamps until then. It's fancy camping. By the mid-1930s, a lot of middle-class buyers would expect a little more convenience in both water and wiring, unless they had significant support staff, which Talboys would not be expected to house.

-There's probably no farm! It's a farm house - not a wider land purchase. People like PW's brother the Duke are wealthy primarily because they own land, not because of the big palace they have (which eats money, rather than generates it). The land is what gives them spending power, because other people are paying them rent to live on it, farm on it, or both. PW's own personal 'younger sibling' wealth is also mentioned somewhere to be primarily in real estate (assumed to be in London) - sad to say: he's a landlord, and that's why he's rich. Talboys, on the other hand, as a purchase, would not, in almost any way, be expected to generate revenue through either farming, agriculture, or charging rent. Until they invent house flipping in 80 years, or until the motorway goes through in 40 years, there's not much expectation that Talboys would increase all that much in value.

-Lastly, there's a massive disparity in what The Market Will Bear when we compare a basic residence vs a luxury item (like a mink coat) in the mid-1930s. This is not particular to that time, though. Like any first-year economics student will tell you, the price of something is not it's intrinsic value, it's what someone is WILLING to pay for it. If someone is willing to pay such a price, that's the price it will be. So, we're not comapring Objects, we're comparing Buyers: the the main purchasers of a slightly run-down farmhouse located nowhere special are Harriets, and main purchasers of mink coats are Peters. Talboys is priced for Harriets. The mink coat is priced for Peters.

Compare for example, a contemporary parallel: the Hermes Birkin bag. It's a leather handbag with a starting retail price of about USD 11,400. Just for the bag. Then, you have fancier versions of the fancy bag, eg wikipedia tells me one version sold at auction for USD 380,000 in Hong Kong in 2017. Now, the Harriets of today are not buying a Hermes Birkin handbag, but they are probably trying to buy slightly run-down houses outside urban centers for (one hopes) slightly less than 380k. The Wimseys of the worlds are clearly buying Birkin bags. In that way, it's actually pretty easy to get to a place where Person A might buy a single luxury item for X pounds, and Person B might buy a whole residence for X pounds, and neither feel like they'd done something insane. The key here is in a Wimsey/Vane marriage, they run up against this concept immediately, and repeatedly.

There's a good reason the first epistolary section of the novel is almost entirely taken up with money chat - the ring, the purchase of shirts from Burlington Arcade, the marriage settlement, the gift from the bride to the groom, the mink coat, the bitchy exchange between Helen and Harriet about HV being allowed "six free copies of her book" to distribute. These people come from 2 fundamentally different experiences of the world. They might have gotten engaged using the word 'Magistra', specifically to emphasise their fundamental equality (in the context of learning and the mind, to begin with), but it can't be denied: there's gaps that need to be bridged. They both know parts of their married life will be spent in attempting to do that, hopefully to their mutual satisfaction. Mention of a mink coat for 950 guineas is a nice, neat shorthand for illustrating what's still at play between them here.

[purplecherryuwu]

The Hook family (My AU)

James Killian Hook

Taught all his kids to swear

Gave Harry his hook (canon)

Was the one to train Harriet after she lost her eye

Refuses to get a proper prosthetic even now when they're off the island

Named all the kids because he does not trust his husband when it comes to naming both people and animals

Hates phones with all his heart

Still hates Peter Pan and has taught all his kids to hate him too

Struggles to show his kids emotional support but would die for them

Morgie le Fay Hook

The reason James is not dead

Loves all kinds of animals but especially snakes

Now that they're off the island he moved his family into his mother's residence since she's dead

Likes to dress fancy no matter the occasion

Earns money by making potions and selling them

The emotionally stable one in his and James's marriage but if something happens to any of their children he's more scary than James

Very affectionate to all his kids

Teaches them magic whenever they visit

Henrietta Wendy Hook

Will kill you if you call her anything but Harriet if you're not family

Lost her eye when she was 10

The most like James out of all her siblings, not just appearance wise

After the barrier was down she met a fast flying fairy named Iris who she was the spawner to, they're best friends

Moved herself and her entire crew to Neverland, will stay there until CJ reaches her age

Will behead Peter Pan if he ever comes near her ship

Thanks to Iris she uses pixie dust frequently and is respected by the fairies of Neverland

Hurt one of her siblings and you'll suffer a fate worse than death

Harrison Liam Hook

Puts on this crazy persona for everyone around him but is actually very sensitive

Helps his sisters do their hair whenever they ask him

This is what prepared him for helping Uma with her hair

Very much protective over his sisters

Uma and Gil the only ones except his family who knows his name is actually Harrison and that he has two dads (will explain why in a later post)

Terrified of spiders

When he started attending AP he was very pissed they didn't serve alcohol

Tries to hide it but loves using his magic almost as much as swordfighting

Calista Jane Hook

The most chaotic of her siblings and that's saying a lot

The baby

Her and Harriet team up whenever Harry starts a fight with either of them

Steals pixie dust from Harriet whenever she can and has gotten in trouble for flying and crashing into things

Very annoyed over how protective Harry and Harriet are over her

Is awful at puns (canon)

When she was little she tried to dye her hair black to look more like her siblings

Will not hesitate to play dirty when fighting There is loads more to come (hopefully)

[o-uncle-newt]

Random Sayers thought-

I've seen people say that Gaudy Night is when Harriet becomes a co-detective with Wimsey, or even solo detective of her own mystery. I was always surprised by this, and the more I think about it the more I think that's not true. She's a co-detective with Wimsey in Have His Carcase, because she has to* and finds it interesting and (secretly, I think) wants to show Peter what she's made of and collaborate with him on equal terms- and just hang around him in general, just like he wants to hang around her.

*By "she has to," I mean that she needs to be in control of her fate. She's tied up in this case and can't stand by and let other people solve it and suspect her again (and can't let Peter seem to be just being the gallant knight-errant again, either, she's had enough of that). I've read stuff on Harriet and PTSD before but the world can always use more, hint hint...

But in Gaudy Night, not only does she not solve the mystery, she doesn't realize what Peter has until the very end. What she is able to do is be detail oriented, put together the dossier, place it in an order that Peter is able to follow and allow him to solve it. She's a writer; that's what she does. And she's a writer who doesn't want to become subsumed in Peter, who doesn't want him, or being with him, to define her. She doesn't need to solve the case- her association with him shouldn't have to be about solving cases. She just needs to write the book that's in her to write.

In the punt, she and Peter realize that she is almost blinded from being able to solve the case because of her own jaundiced view of the situation, her own personal struggles, and the narrative that she is internally composing. As a writer, her job isn't to interpret situations- it's to create them. She's not meant to be following someone else's clues and plainly observing facts, she's meant to be creating her own narrative. If she could put everything to the side to solve the case, she would be putting to the side the things that make her HER. Peter can solve it because a) that's HIS thing/way of dealing with things and b) he knows she wants it to be solved.

(Incidentally, he also knows that he might be "sawing off [his] own branch" in doing so, but that's fine, because the thing that they both have in common, that unites them despite their different functions in the world and different skill sets, is a dedication to truth.)

By Busman's Honeymoon, the pretense that Harriet is a co-detective is basically gone. She's there to shed her own light on the situation as a novelist and an observer of character, but Peter is the detective. And that's important because the books is so much about what happens when the two of them actually take a stab at the thing they've decided may actually work by the end of Gaudy Night- having Harriet join Peter without being subsumed in him. Having him be able to continue his life's work with her support and despite her growing realization of what it entails, and having him realize that the unique angles that she gives him are complementary but different to what he himself has.

It's also important because it's clear that they're with each other for who they are as people and not what they each do. In Gaudy Night, Peter says that he thinks Harriet hasn't written the book that she could if she tried- not that her current books aren't good but that she's better than them. In Busman's Honeymoon, Harriet fully realizes that Peter's work makes him suspect sympathetic people and ultimately leads to capital punishment (she obviously knew this, but as she notes, it's different when the same delicate hands that... you know... are also the ones that do THAT...). And for each of them, they're able to say "this is who you are and what you do and I believe in your right to, and ability to, do it- and hope that you will accept me as a part of your life as you do so."

[bananaactivity]

sooo in your au, what would the hook siblings and Peter pan’s reactions be if they met each other? An ig wendy and her siblings and the never land ensemble in general

SOOO about that in a past post I explained that I didn’t know about Harry’s siblings till it was too late and I will show you how to write them in  while keeping the story that I liked.

 I actually figured it out while writing that post and added it in and by now I figured out even more about how to get hooks siblings in.

 Literally just gave James a brother and I made Harriet and CJ Harry’s cousins. But as a bonus I just found some more out, and now James brothers name is Remus Hook and he is a cowboy. 😄

Get it?!? Because Cowboys are the Pirates of the dry land????

Anyway, that also means that Harriet and CJ‘s aesthetics are now of the cowboys. Honestly cowboys and country men are of my favorite things, because like the looks are so good.

Speaking of what you asked if Peter Pan ever met Harry again, he would absolutely try to kill him. I don’t know if anybody remembers but Peter Pan is not a good dude. A lot of versions of his story wrote him as this ageist little prick who steals kids and kills them when they grow up. Here after hook accidentally had Harry with a Random ass woman  Peter gets a hold of the woman wait for her to birth out the baby, kills her and then steals Harry,  he threatens to hook that he’ll raise Harry as his own, and make him hate hook. But Hook knows that his baby will never grow up at all and essentially be useless for eternity. When he  reminded Peter about this Peter just ended up trying to get rid of the baby by throwing him into a river. Hook, of course, saves his son and returns to the isles costal shores to raise him.

Now I know that writing Peter Pan like this will make James incredibly sympathetic, and as though he is in the complete right to hate a man that cut off his hand and killed the mother of his baby, and tried to kill the baby itself, but most of Hooks problems make him the irredeemable villain that I want him to be. is mostly caused by his complete lack of care for others. All of his focus for all of his life since getting his hand cut off has been to end Peter. He doesn’t care about any other kids that may hurt. He only cares if he gets HIS revenge. he is also a murder and he will have the first on screen kill as a reference to him being the first Disney Villian depicted killing someone.

Harry’s reaction to Peter would be to get as far away as possible, he knows how important killing peter is to his father and he doesn’t want to have to take Peter out in self-defense. James’s brother Remus is much nicer than Hook but looks just like him, so Peter would definitely not notice the difference and try to kill him. However. Remus is a gunslinger and does NOT miss often so as soon as Peter comes for him, or his daughters, somebody’s head is getting blown off and it’s not gonna be Remus.

Also, James and Remus are the Hook Brothers middle names in my Au. Their full Names are Killian James Hook and Arregaithel Remus Hook. Here’s the whole family tree seen in my Au

Parents:

Sean Hook and Deana Hook

Sons;

Killian (Kee) James Hook and Arregaithel (Argy) Remus Hook

Sons children Children (in order of age):

Harriet Beth Hook , Harry Sullivan Hook and Christina-Janneigh (C.J) Anderson Hook

Don’t ask me why Sean and Deana Hook named their kids like that I dunno.

Everybody that knows Killian and Argy calls them by there middle names but they call each other Kee and Argy( if they’re arguing they’ll call each other Keekee and Archibald respectively)

Wendy and co has dementia and that’s all I know about her. :| But her daughter Jane is the mother of Remus’ children I don’t have much worked out for them tho…

[blysse-and-blunder]

in lieu of a commonplace book: a new term

saturday, sept 2 — sunday, oct 1, 2023

been running around and then lolling around and then running some more, and the last time i really understood what day it was i think it was aug 28?? though i have gotten a new wall calendar for my room so hopefully that...makes a difference?

anyway. lots of things viewed, read, played etc., but this is the ilcb where i talk about michael sheen's sex show. y'all have been warned.

reading finished this month:

light from uncommon stars, ryka aoki — there was a lot about this one to like, and lots of things that i think...could have worked better? the dialogue stood out to me as weirdly stilted. the author got so much good, fluid, lyrical writing into the descriptions of the violin maker, all the meaningful resonances of the violin, and everything else kind of paled to that. a lot of vision in this one, and hopefully readers who are less picky than i am will be able to chill out and enjoy the representation, the demons and space and music and donuts.

the empress of salt and fortune, nghi vo (audio) — stunning. short, but suggests/captures an entire world. adored the emphasis on little artifacts and material details, the flashes of actual history and the absolutely elegant touches of fantasy.

clouds of witness, dorothy l. sayers (audio) — a lord peter wimsey mystery is always a wonderful excuse to listen to a voice actor just go nuts with posh RP accents, but i do miss my girl harriet even as i know that i'm reading all the prequels on purpose :(

one last stop, casey mcquiston —i didn't think i liked casey mcquiston before, but this book was genuinely a delight. is this how everyone felt about rwrb? the romance tropes worked for me this time, the dialogue here felt natural and fun (especially the secondary characters), and the little turns of phrase and comparisons and twists hit just like you'd hope. the history! the queer community! the roommates! and you know what, fuck it. a little tooth-rotting fluff can be good for the soul.

listening bounced off of the new olivia rodrigo (sorry 😥) and the new chappell roan (sorry sorry 😥) and won't be trying to articulate why for now, haven't spent enough time with the new mitski (liked it on the first listen though) so this section of the post is going to go to noah kahan's stick season, which i have listened to on repeat for the last few weeks. i think i've got a favorite song chosen, only to notice something new about another one—it's not just 'northern attitude' and 'homesick,' though obviously the lines 'i'm mean because i grew up in new england' and 'i was raised out in the cold' / 'i was raised on little light' do fucking resonate. but so does. most of it.

at some point i have added both 'halloween' and 'the view between villages' to my liked songs, and for some reason i get a real kick out of the line in 'new perspective' about calling an intersection downtown just because it's gotten a target. but anyway here's 'stick season', simply for the line 'and i'll dream each night / of some version of you / that i might not have / but i did not lose.'

watching masters of sex (2013). if i'm honest, this is a little bit of a dodge—i watched the entire first season of this show back at the beginning of the month, it fully took over my staycation cat-sitting gig time, and then i haven't been able to get back to it now that i'm home. i think i'm scared to dip back in, honestly? because i can't let myself get sucked back in that strongly.

this show is maddening. it's fascinating. don't ask me if it's good. it's based on this book by thomas maier, which i may have to actually read, because i keep getting distracted wondering about how much the script is changing, adapting, etc. i've taken my intro psych class (and then some), i had to read about masters and johnson, and i feel like the show must be taking liberties— but also, is it?

this show isn't mad men, but it does have that period midcentury / postwar aesthetic, and they do a very good job mentioning bits of history/current events that tie it to the actual history. and there is actual history here, and i love that. but also, i have never been this aware of a show making choices for baldly strategic reasons— you can so tell that this show was written for weekly release, plot threads come and happen for an episode or two at most, only then to be either dropped (for future use if necessary?) or solved.

then again, there's some very competent and tightly-constructed stories, e.g. the episode about the nuclear attack drill and how everyone behaved, how it did and did not matter to them, how their worlds were and weren't also symbolically ending in the intertwined subplots. also a big fan of the one where they're hearing about the new research on the female orgasm! and freud! it's so interesting to have this all framed as ~the frontiers of science!~ and then see how in some ways it's more progressive than you'd expect (than we are today still, on primetime).

the other lead, lizzy caplan, is new to me, but she kills it, kills it, as ginny johnson. allison janney is in this?! caitlin fitzgerald aka tabitha from succession is in this? see what i mean, like half the cast is people who either were in big prestige tv enterprises or who would go on to be, which to me says something about the way this show was viewed as a good move for your acting career in 2013. (link to a piece of historical journalism discussing this show and nbc hannibal as not-to-be-missed viewing for 2013. wild.)

i've never thought this much about how television has changed from the early 2010s to now. this feels like a bridge, connecting pre-peak TV to where we've ended up, where it's not as 'prestige-y' as it would be now, but is still going for the sophistication and intensity. michael sheen wears a funny little bow tie and got a golden globe nom for this, but he could not be further from aziraphale here—it's like watching a totally different person (acting_patrickstewart.gif), he smiles so little and is routinely so awful to various women in his life, including those he purports to love. i distract myself watching him make acting choices in response to some of the (frankly wild) things that they've given masters to say and do, and that's. all i'll say about that.

okay that was mortifying. let's move on.

playing have now completed (for the second time) the first act investigations in pentiment, with new scenes unlocked (the spinning bee! storytime with brother sebhat! midnight in the library!) and still not a solid answer to the mystery. methinks there is a message there, but we won't know for sure until i can next find a time for me to continue with either of my play-through companions. when i play with A, we make choices based on 'i would never pick that if i was playing on my own, but since you're here, you'll be the voice of chaos egging me on,' which if nothing else has led to a lot of cackling.

things this game also excels at, besides narrating women's stories and moral ambiguity: animating children and animals. we shook hands with this dog and it was perfect.

making hungry for a handicraft. sewed a bra back together (unpictured), glued a handle back onto this little ceramic pitcher, glued a hairclip back to its backing and a slipper sole back to its upper slipper (all hail having appropriate adhesives for a job!) watched as squirrels made a meal of the valiant, late-blooming tomatoes.

working on the court romances chapter has a new direction, but it does feel a little like an albatross around my neck at this point. i sent my committee the body and soul debates chapter, but at my most recent meeting it was clear most of them hadn't finished reading it so the discussion was largely 'where's chapter 2? why isn't that here also?' they still gave me the equivalent of a little pat on the head and said 'keep going', so. i'm taking drastic steps (enlisting other on campus resources, my therapist, etc.) to try and fucking make some fucking progress.

[musewrangler]

Tag People You'd Like to Know Better

Hey thanks for this @klarionthewizard!!

Three Ships---

Sola Naberrie/Firmus Piett [Star Wars] Barbara Hornblower/Horatio Hornblower [Hornblower fandom], Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane [Dorothy Sayers mysteries]

First Ship---Hmmm. Hard to say. First one I really noticed and loved? Toss up between Anne Shirley/Gilbert Blythe and Eowyn/Faramir.

Last Song---Dancing Queen by ABBA on the radio. Because I always have the station on the Eighties. ;D

Last Movie---I also am largely tv shows at the moment, so...kind of watched 'Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken' but it was in the background while I was chatting with someone so...

Still. I'm a horsegirl at heart and that movie slaps.

Currently Reading---This is embarrassing. I'm writing more than reading really, so most of what I read? [mumbles] My own work. Hollersandholmes and I have made a pact to read Farenheit 451 together this summer though. :D

Currently Watching----thanks to a tumblr mutual I'm on my first viewing of Stargate: Atlantis. And yep, it does not disappoint in the found family, bromance, hurt/comfort, angst times. Loving it.

Last thing I wrote----I assume completed work. I just finished 'Burn Away the Dross and Find the Silver' though I need to publish that chapter. :D

Currently Writing---various short stories for Multifaceted. Currently it's 'I Felt You In My Bones'. Also working on finishing 'A Shield Not a Sword' where Piett and Veers work independently of both the Empire and the Rebellion. A good way into something with the working title of 'Piett and Sola adopt the twins' ;D. And finally making my way into the next installment of Empire Reimagined with 'Stiffen Up the Sinews, Summon up the Blood' which deals with a Vietnam like situation in space and Veers being captured while Piett has to deal with politicians. [don't worry, he'll get in on the action too]

No pressure tagging @tolkienreader1996nreader1996 @banachtarskiparadox @blondoverthinker @edie-deedie @lady-merian @oh-great-authoress

[ghostoftonantzin]

Books I have read this year, 2023, roughly in order

I enjoyed doing this last year, so I thought I would do another little write-up of the books I read this year and what I thought.

I've read 52 books this year, hitting a goal I hadn't thought to set. That includes a few graphic novels, but not the audiobooks, which I listened to 15 of this year (I spent a lot of time driving). Same as last year, I've annotated the audiobooks with an asterisk.

I also started listening to Backlisted this year, which significantly influenced my reading choices.

Under a cut, because it got long

Swedish Cults, Anders Fager (1/2) - I saw this was originally published in 2009, and I feel like the first story in this collection somehow really echoes that time. Which is probably a strange thing to say about a horror story.

When Washington was in Vogue, Edward Christopher Williams (1/13) - very sweet, very interesting look at a time and a place I didn't know much about.

The Cement Garden, Ian McEwan (1/19) - I expected to enjoy this a lot more than I did, based on how it's often described as a great "fucked up" book. I think the teenage boy POV just didn't do much for me.

Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons (1/20) - a reread, for the first time since probably 2014 or so. I enjoyed it (and understood it) a lot better this time around. I got to the back half and couldn't put it down, which is a strange thing to say about a parody of the rural novels of the 1930s.

Nona the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (2/12) - finally got this from the library. I didn't enjoy it as much as the first two books in the series

Fun Home, Alison Bechdel (2/24) - a reread. The final page always destroys me.

Cassandra at the Wedding, Dorothy Baker (2/25) - Very literary. I think I enjoyed it, though I can't muster up the energy to form a stronger opinion. The scene where Cassandra pulls out the bridesmaid dress she bought was memorable, though.

Are You My Mother?, Alison Bechdel (2/28) - a reread. Scratches the same itch as Fun Home, but doesn't tie the family narrative into the theoretical themes as cohesively.

Surviving the Applewhites, Stephanie S. Tolan (3/12) - another reread, to see if it was as good as I remembered from fourth grade. It held up for the most part.

The Secret to Superhuman Strength, Alison Bechdel (3/13) - finally, not a reread. Fun, erudite, perhaps not as tight as Fun Home, but another excellent Bechdel.

Ravishment, Amanda Quick (3/24) - sometimes you have to read an entire romance novel in an evening. This was fun, though its plot and that of "Mistress" (see below) blur into one another.

Season of Migration to the North, Tayib Saleh (4/7) - I think I would have enjoyed this book more if I had read it in a class where I could discuss it and learn more about the historical context behind it.

The Bloater, Rosemary Tonks (4/9) - of Backlisted fame. I should reread again, more slowly, to get a better taste for Tonk's use of language.

Mistress, Amanda Quick (4/15) - also a fun quick read, though I can't remember much of the plot.

Excellent Women*, Barbara Pym (4/25) - yet another attempt to get into audiobooks, and it semi-worked this time. Mildred sets a high bar for other Pym protagonists to follow, and I thought Pym created an excellent portrait of post-war life for unmarried women and the minor indignities and intimacies that accompany it. Also ridiculously funny, at least to me.

Clouds of Witness*, Dorothy L. Sayers (5/12) - I wanted to read Gaudy Night, but I figured I should read at least a few Peter Wimsey mysteries that came before it. I think my favorite character was Lord Wimsey's mother.

Star, Yukio Mishima (5/16) - an interesting portrait of a disaffected youth and of fame in Japan at the time it was written.

Strong Poison*, Dorothy L. Sayers (5/16) - the first Wimsey mystery to feature Harriet Vane, and my first encounter with Lord Peter's office of overlooked older secretaries, who provides the enjoyable detour of Miss Murchison making an important breakthrough in the case. Not bad, though not super memorable.

Have His Carcase, Dorothy L. Sayers (5/17) - the only Wimsey mystery I read instead of listened to, because neither library app had the audiobook. This one was too reliant on keeping timetables straight for my taste, but I still read it in a day.

Beyond Black, Hilary Mantel (5/22) - possibly the best book I read this year. Bleak, bleak, bleak, and wonderful for it. Yet one of the most cathartic happy endings I've ever read.

Thus was Adonis Murdered, Sarah Caudwell (5/28) - caught my sense of humor by the second or third page. Hilariously dry mystery, and understandable even if you don't know legal jargon.

The Feast, Margaret Kennedy (5/31) - this book is not even remotely a thriller, is in fact sort of an elaborate morality play, and yet I couldn't put it down. The conceit- that a cliff collapses onto a hotel and everyone inside dies, but not all the hotel guests were inside- keeps you guessing at whose sins are bad enough to merit a karmic death.

Starlight, Stella Gibbons (6/4) - a lot grimmer than I expected, and almost ahead of its time in terms of the (I'm going to say) pointlessness of its ending, in a "people come into the main character's lives, stuff happens, but the main two old ladies aren't actually affected" way. Not a book you would expect to find demonic possession in, but it's there and it's played straight!

The Shortest Way to Hades, Sarah Caudwell (6/6) - I find it interesting that all of these mysteries center around details of things like inheritance law and yet all feature murder as the main crime, and also that (spoilers) the villain is disposed of in a manner that does not require the main cast to get involved with the police.

The Sirens Sang of Murder, Sarah Caudwell (6/9) - by the second volume in this series I kept trying to guess who the murderer, and I was never ever able to do it. Not that I've ever been good at that part of mystery novels, but I do appreciate Caudwell keeping me on my toes.

Gaudy Night*, Dorothy L. Sayers (6/11) - finally, the book I read three prior mysteries for. I found this one fascinatingly slow for a mystery and much more focused on the life of women in academia in that era than I had expected. I particularly enjoyed the character of Miss de Vine, who at first seems like the classic absent-minded professor, only to reveal herself to be much wiser in ways of the heart than she appears.

The Black Maybe, Attila Veres (6/19) - short horror story collection, translated from Hungarian. Not bad, but none of the stories were super memorable.

Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus (6/22) - I did not enjoy this and probably would not have finished it if my mom hadn't highly recommended it. The characters felt flat and the plot struggled to build enough tension for the emotional beats to hit. I also feel like the four-year-old character did not act anything like a four-year-old, though I'll admit I don't know a lot of four-year-olds.

Hackenfeller’s Ape, Brigid Brophy (6/26) - I would say this book wasn't that exciting, very dry and academic for its bizarre plot, but one detail near the end (which I won't spoil) knocked me sideways and tbh probably made the book for me.

Less Than Angels*, Barbara Pym (6/27) - I had to go back and add this while writing these reviews because I'd completely forgotten to list it at the time. Not as good as Excellent Women, though I also had to adjust to the multiple perspectives as opposed to just one.

Comemadre, Roque Larraquy (7/2) - a reread. Still one of the strangest books I've ever read. Highly recommend.

The Sky is Blue, With a Single Cloud, Kuniko Tsurita (7/3) - I'd had this collection of manga one-shots for about a year, and decided to finally read it when hanging out at the library when the water was out at my apartment. It's very interesting to see her style develop and to learn more about the alternative manga industry.

Mrs. Caliban, Rachel Ingalls (7/4) - I had been vaguely meaning to read this for a while, then found it on Hoopla. Looking back on it, it rivals In a Lonely Place (the Dorothy Hughes one) with regards to drawing California in the mind's eye, though the mood of their particular Californias are very different.

Black Wings Has My Angel, Elliott Chaze (7/8) - the tension at the end of this book is like pulling teeth, it's incredible.

Scruples, Judith Krantz (7/24) - absolutely frothy and frequently ridiculous, but also fun. Their are main characters named Spider and Valentine, and it's taken completely seriously. It's actually a really interesting look at the values and beliefs of the 1980's as reflected through pop culture.

Days in the Caucasus, Banine (7/28) - I was more interested in the sequel to this memoir, Parisian Days, but figured I should read this volume, about the author's childhood in Azerbaijan in the years leading up to its incorporation into the Soviet Union. It provided a really interesting perspective of the Soviet Union from a resident of one of its subject states.

Frederica, Georgette Heyer (8/6) - my first Heyer. I'm impressed by her ability to write annoying younger siblings and walk the line between "overly cute" and "overly aggravating".

In the Miso Soup, Ryu Murakami (8/17) - good, though not my favorite of the year by far. The violence depicted did manage to turn my stomach a bit.

My Man Jeeves*, P.G. Wodehouse (8/20) - I've realized that I need to listen to audiobooks that are fun if I'm going to survive long drives, so I turned to the Jeeves series (I only listened to the Jeeves stories in this one). An interesting introduction to the character, especially since it starts in America instead of the England of the more well-known tales.

Love in the New Millennium, Can Xue (8/29) - I'm not sure if this book is meant to be very surreal, if I'm missing cultural context, or both, but I will say it does serve me well to be a little befuddled by books sometimes. This book has a strange, flowing sense of perspective, where it moves between perspectives and the stories of its characters, only slowly unveiling where it's emotional weight lies. Very interesting.

The Inimitable Jeeves*, P.G. Wodehouse (9/1) - second collection of Jeeves & Wooster stories. Good, though Bingo isn't my favorite side character.

Flesh, Brigid Brophy (9/1) - the beginning chapters are incredibly sensual in a way I can't describe, but after that it inspired an incredible feeling of dread that something would go terribly wrong. Despite the fact that this is a satire of young adults in 1960s London, I could feel emotional catastrophe creeping around every corner. I don't think this was Brophy's intention.

Ice*, Anna Kavan (9/8) - somehow not anything like I had osmosed it being. The narrative flows between reality and fantasy so fluidly that it's incredibly easy to wonder if you spaced out and missed something important while listening to it. The plot is also fascinatingly simple and surprisingly free of actual conflict: despite impediments, the hero ("hero") rarely actually encounters any opposition that seems like it could truly keep him from his goal. This adds to the feeling that everything occurring in the book is barely-veiled symbolism.

The Glass Pearls, Emeric Pressburger (9/13) - the tension in this might have honestly been too much for me. Good, but I don't know if I can read it again.

The English Understand Wool, Helen DeWitt (9/16) - sometimes you read a book and recognize that it's very good, while also being annoyed that what it is is different from what you want it to be. I understood it worked as a morality tale, but I found it limiting and frustrating. I will also indulge in a bit of cattiness here and say that for a book about luxury and high-quality goods, the book design chosen by New Directions for this series feels like a cheap set of children's books. (I read this on an online checkout from the library, so I only saw the book itself in a bookstore.)

Right Ho, Jeeves*, P.G. Wodehouse (9/18) - The fact that Jeeves and Bertie were on the outs for this one did stress me out, I will admit.

In a Lonely Place, Karl Edward Wagner (9/22) - the stories pick up in quality in the back half, in my opinion, though none of them are true duds. The last story and standout in the collection, yet another twist on a vampire tale, really draws its strength from the grimy-yet-glamorous depiction of an art student's life in London.

Kissing the Witch, Emma Donoghue (9/27) - I enjoyed how each story folded into one another and found this book hard to put down. Also very gay, loved it.

The Drama of Celebrity, Sharon Marcus (9/27) - I was reading this for background for my fic, and it was somewhat helpful. It's really mostly an analysis of Sarah Bernhardt's career, with some light theory of celebrity to contextualize it instead of the other way around like I expected.

Malpertuis, Jean Ray (10/15) - I probably shouldn't have read the summary for this book before the book itself, but I'm not sure I would have fully understood the plot if I hadn't. Not a knock on the book itself.

The Great God Pan and Other Stories*, Arthur Machen (10/16) - I don't read a ton of nineteenth-century literature, so I was surprised by how compelling the title story was, especially when listened to. I also found some of the imagery in "The Novel of the White Powder" horrifying and would not be out of place in a modern horror story. The final story was a bit of a slog, though.

Heartburn*, Nora Ephron (10/20) - a relisten to the version narrated by Meryl Streep. I downloaded it based on a recommendation describing the audiobook as turning it into the one-woman monologue the book was meant to be, and I can't think of any higher recommendation to offer than that.

Casting the Runes and Other Stories*, M.R. James and others (10/30) - I knew about M.R. James from popular culture, but I honestly had not expected "Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad" to center so much around golf.

Invitation the the Waltz, Rosamond Lehmann (11/1) - I read most of this in one sitting, playing old music through my headphones, which felt really ideal. Setting most of it during one formal dance allows for a sense of insular-ness while allowing the details of the world to be woven in. If that makes any sense.

Crazy Salad and Scribble Scrabble*, Nora Ephron (11/3) - it's really interesting to listen to these essays written during the second wave feminist movement and realize that we've been having the same arguments for 50 years. It's also interesting to read about the minutiae of Watergate from the perspective of those watching it unfold in real time. So many weird, unmemorable cultural-political things that have gone down the hole of public memory! (I need to note here that the last essay in Crazy Salad is, based on my memory of the first time I read it (I skipped it this time around) very transphobic, so I can only recommend this collection with that heavy caveat.)

BBC Radiophonic Workshop: A Retrospective, William L. Weir (11/7) - I first learned about the BBC radiophonic workshop through the Backlisted episode about Rosemary Tonks, and this was a fascinating look into that period of British history and the origins of electronic music. It's also helped me pinpoint how to find that sort of music I think of as "alien abduction music", which is a bonus.

Joy in the Morning*, P.G. Wodehouse (11/10) - I didn't realize this wasn't in the 3-book arc that starts with Right Ho, Jeeves until I was partway through. Still, quality Wodehouse.

Good Morning, Midnight, Jean Rhys (11/17) - despite listening to the Backlisted episode before reading this, I didn't quite grasp what "modernist novel" meant, which meant I was surprised by the stream-of-consciousness flow of this novel. It's such gorgeous writing, though. Depressing as hell.

Winter Love*, Han Suyin (11/18) - beautiful and sad. The main character, Red, is frustrating, even though everything she does is perfectly understandable within the context she lives in.

The Girls, John Bowen (11/21) - the blurbs for this book ("Barbara Pym meets Stephen King") made it seem like this would be both lighter and more horrifying than it actually was. I found it to actually be very melancholy in parts, and surprisingly focused on the emotional aftereffects of murder. The ending, the final paragraph, is gorgeous.

Black Orchids, Rex Stout (11/30) - I'm now trying to find Nero Wolfe books in secondhand bookstores, though I'm limited by the lack of secondhand bookstores in my area (that may be a good thing). I enjoy how Nero Wolfe and Archie play off each other.

The Hearing Trumpet*, Leonara Carrington (12/1) - so, so good, and I'm glad I listened to it as an audiobook, because the narrator, Sian Phillips, is an elderly woman herself and therefore able to conjure up a whole range of different voices for the old women who populate this book.

Mistletoe Malice, Kathleen Farrell (12/6) - I was actually disappointed by this, which might have been a matter of mismatched expectations. However, the Christmas tree never caught fire, and I swore a review I read said it would, so I spent the whole book waiting in vain.

Venetia, Georgette Heyer (12/16) - A delight. Aubrey is a great character, and I enjoy how Heyer has the different characters play on each other.

Great Granny Webster, Caroline Blackwood (12/18) - did not expect this book to have a large section on "decaying old Anglo-Irish homes and their horrors", but I guess that's a richer vein in literary fiction than I realized (see: Good Behaviour by Molly Keane).

Sylvester, Georgette Heyer (12/21) - not quite as enjoyable as Frederica or Venetia, in my opinion, though that may be partly because I waited for almost 2/3 of the book for Phoebe's book to actually be published.

Providence, Anita Brookner (12/28) - beautiful prose, of the sort that makes me realize my own inadequacies in both my writing and my critical capabilities, because I can neither replicate it or describe what makes it so compelling. This book is also so tightly crafted for a story where almost nothing happens. It ends up exactly where it's been leading all along.

[hannahhook7744]

Hook Siblings Incorrect Quotes Part 1;

Peter, Hookling/Baby Hook, Hope, and Ally have been added.

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Hannah: Harry, I swear to God, if you call me Short stuff one more time I will take that hook and shove it so far up your ass—

Harriet: HANNAH!

Hannah: Sorry 'Ettie.

Hannah: up your Arse—

Harriet: Hannah!

Hannah *running away* sorry not sorry!

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Hannah: Okay, that's it! I'm stabbing and snitching on the next person who tries to kill me!

Harry:...

CJ:....

Ginny:....

Hannah: yes, even you three! I will snitch straight to dad! And Grandma! And Harriet!

Harry: Dang, that's cold Vato...

Hannah: and trying to kill me isn't?!

CJ: It was an accident!

Ginny: Okay, fair.

Harry: I was just trying to blind you!

Hannah: That's not better, Harry!

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Harry: I'm taller than you!

Hannah: I'm smarter!

Harry: I'm funnier than you!

Hannah: Debatable.

Harry: I'm better at flirting than you!

Hannah: Alright. I'll let you have that one.

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*GAME NIGHT*

Harriet: Everyone is to try and answer a question about each teammate. If you get it wrong, you take a shot.

Harriet: Now... Guess my first word!

Ginny: Dagger!

Harry: Hook!

Cj: Bayonet!

Hannah: Treasure!

Harriet:...

Harriet: Guys, I was a baby. My first word was mama.

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Ginny: That's it, we're gonna go out and find what we need!

Cj: To the city?

Ginny: Yeah, no matter what!

Hannah: Well-How exactly do you propose we do that, exactly?

Ginny: I... I don't know!

Harriet: Oh come off it, be serious!

Ginny: I am serious!

Harriet: You're insane!

Harry: Why, if only we were all wiener dogs, our problems would be solved!

Everyone:...

Ginny: What???

Harry: Or maybe it was a basset hound!

Harriet, panicked: YOU'RE ALL INSANE!

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Hannah, watching tv: NO NO NO! BABY, NO! YOU'RE ONLY 21! YOU SHOULD NOT BE DATING SOMEONE A YEAR YOUNGER THAN YOUR MAMA!

Harry: ESPECIALLY AFTER SHE TALKED TO YOUR MAMA LIKE THAT!

Cj: DUMP HER ASS!

Ginny *just sitting on the couch*

( Harriet in the hallway)

Harriet: WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU 4 WATCHING?!

Ginny: Reddit stories.

Harriet: That's it! No more YouTube! *unplugs the tv*

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*Harry, Cj, and Hannah trying to make cookies*

Cj *holding a bowl of butter* Maybe we can just put the whole thing in the microwave? Just for a second?

Hannah *sitting on the counter, kicking her legs* Great idea, Cj!

Harry *eyeing the bowl* We are not putting a metal bowl in the microwave, guys. That's how burning the house down happens. And I am not getting in trouble with Harriet and Ginny for that again!

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Harriet: You are now one day closer to eating your next plate of nachos.

Harry: That's the most hopeful thing I've ever heard.

Cj: But what if I die tomorrow and never eat any nachos?

Hannah: Then tomorrow is nacho lucky day.

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Harriet *Gently taps table*

Harry *Taps back*

Cj: What are they doing?

Hannah: Morse code.

Harriet *Aggressively taps table*

Harry *Slams hands down* YOU TAKE THAT BACK-

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Harriet: Have you seen Harry around the isle lately?

Cj: Ugh, yes. He made a horrible mess of the blood fountain.

Hannah: It looks fine to me?

Cj: IT USED TO BE WATER!!!

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Harriet age 6, about Hannah: Apparently we're getting someone new in the family.

Harry age 3: Are we stealing them?

Cj age 1: New or used?

Harriet: Wonderful responses, both of you.

Ginny, also 6: And Harry's right.

Harriet: GINNY!

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Cj: Why are you on the floor?

Harry: I'm depressed.

Harry: Also I was stabbed, can you get Harriet, please.

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Harriet: Tell Hannah about the birds and the bees.

Harry: They're disappearing at an alarming rate.

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Harry: If I accidentally sat on a voodoo doll of myself, would I be trapped forever in that position, doomed to starve to death?

Cj: How am I supposed to know?

Hannah: You say, as if we don’t use you as a source of knowledge of the occult.

Cj *sighs*

Cj: You wouldn't be trapped.

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Harriet: If you had to choose between Hannah and all the money I have in my wallet, which would you choose?

Cj: That depends, how much money are we taking about?

Hannah: Cj!

Harriet: 63 cents.

Cj: I'll take the money.

Hannah: CJ!!!

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Cj: Please bring home PURIFIED water with NO minerals added for taste

Harry: We got spring water.

Cj: NO.

Hannah: with EXTRA minerals.

Harry: it's like licking a stalagmite.

Cj: DON'T COME HOME.

Hannah: Mmmmm cave water.

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Cj: Naturally, we are on the cutting edge of technology.

Harry, amazed: Wow...

Hannah, to Harry: Well what does that mean?

Harry: I don't know.

Harry, to Cj: What does that mean?

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Ginny: I told Harry their ears flush when they lie.

Harriet: Why?

Ginny: Look.

Ginny: Hey Harry! Do you love us?

Harry, covering their ears: No.

Harriet:...

Hannah: Hey Harry do you love Uma-

Harry *runs off still covering his ears* No!

🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

Harriet: Care for another sundae, weenie?

Cj: I am not a weenie!

Hannah: Relax, you’re among friends. *raises their drink*

Cj: My friends don’t hang out at Weenie Hut Jr’s.

Ginny: You tell ‘em, Cj! *sips their drink*

Cj: Ginny, what’re you doing here?

Ginny: I’m always here on Double Weenie Wednesdays.

🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

Hannah: Top 30 reasons why Hannah is sorry... Number 5 will surprise you!

Cj: Top 30 anime deaths. Number One: YOUR FUCKING ASS RIGHT NOW!!!

🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

Harriet: Okay, truth or dare?

Hannah: Truth

Harriet: How many hours have you slept this week?

Hannah:

Hannah: ...Dare

Harriet: Go to bed.

Hannah: I don’t like this game.

🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

Cj: Here's some advice.

Harriet: I didn't ask for any.

Cj: Too bad. I'm stuck here with my thoughts and you're the only one who talks to me.

Hannah: She's got you there. This is your fault-

Harriet: I thought I told you to go to bed?

Hannah: Don't tell me how to live my life!

🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

Ginny: I can explain.

Harriet: Can you?

Ginny: If you give me thiry minutes to think of a lie, I can.

Hannah: it would take you longer than that *snorts*

Ginny: WHY YOU LITTLE-

Harriet: GINNY!

🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

Harry: *Stubs their toe* FUCK!

Harriet: Mind your language!

Harry: What else am I supposed to say, “Woe is I”???

Harriet:

Harry: You have to accept that swear words are necessary sometimes.

Hannah: or you could swear in a language she doesn't know.

Harriet: HANNAH!

Hannah: I'm the baby you can't get mad at me.

Harry: You know what? I think I'll do that-

Harriet: HARRY!

🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

Hannah: So what do you do?

Harry: I work in genetic research, and I'm currently trying to eliminate all Cancers.

Hannah: Wow, impressive.

Harry: Then I'll move on to Leos.

🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

Cj *blowing stuff up with Zevon, Freddie, and Ally in the bathroom*

Ginny and Clay Clayton *off somewhere traumatizing some poor wedding guest*

Anthony and Luke *arguing over who looks better*

Stormbringer crew *causing choas*

Peter *fighting with Hook while Mama Hook, Qurrin, and Captain try to stop them*

Little Hope and Baby Hook-Hook *eating the flowers*

(And so on for the guests).

Hannah *stuffing her face with spicy chicken sandwiches *

Harriet *leans over to Haul* are you really sure this is the one you want to marry?

Haul *mesmerized * yep.

🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

Harry: YOU'RE A TRAITOR AND JUST LIKE ACTING LIKE YOU'RE BETTER THAN US. AS IF YOU'RE SOME KIND OF PRINCESS! WELL, YOU'RE NOT! YOU'RE JUST A FREAKIKG POSER! A DISGRACE! MUCKING AROUND WITH THOSE BORE-A-DON BRATS! YOU AREN'T MY SISTER!

Hannah: YEAH, WELL FRICK YOU! I DON'T NEED YOU! AS LONG AS I HAVE MY CREW I'M FINE! THOSE BORE-A-DON BRATS ARE COOLER THAN YOU ANYWAY!

Harry, offended: THEY ARE NOT, TAKE THAT BACK!

Hannah: I'LL TAKE IT BACK WHEN YOU GET SOME SENSE AND YOU'RE OWN PERSONALITY!

Harry: WHY YOU LITTLE—

🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

*After Hannah ran away*

*Peter is comforting Ally*

Peter: Stop crying because it’s over. Start smiling because Hannah is someone else’s problem now.

🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

Hannah: How do Ally and CJ usually get out of these messes?

Peter: They don't. They just make a bigger mess that cancels the first one out.

Hannah: Damn.

🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

*the Squad at Disneyland, in the teacups*

Hannah, Little Hope, and Hookling *spinning a little and talking*

CJ, Ally, and Peter *flying past them, spinning as fast as they can, screaming*

🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

Hannah: A mouse!

Hookling, pulling out a knife: Go back to where you came from or I'll stab you.

Ally, pulling out a frying pan: It'll make a nice meal!

Little Hope, giving the mouse cheese: You deserve a treat, little guy.

Peter, gasping: It's Ratatouille!

CJ: His name is Remi, dumbass.

Hannah: ...I was going to say to just trap it and throw it out the window... what is wrong with you people.

🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

Hannah: Which way did Hookling go?

Little Hope: Well, based on the direction of the wind, the broken sticks in the corner, and the slight disturbance in the dirt, I'd guess they went left.

Hannah: You could really figure it out from that?

Little Hope: No, you idiot, Hookling sent me a text. See?

Hannah *grumbling* kids these days. When I was your age-

Little Hope: What? Like a million years ago?

Hannah: I'm only 16 years older than you!

[silverloreley]

Do you have any headcanons about Wendy Darling (and her daughter Jane) in the Descendants universe?

Full disclosure, I don't like Peter Pan. The story and the character. Don't ask me why, I just don't. Same with Pinocchio. Funnily enough, one of my favourite Italian singers, Edoardo Bennato, made an album for each so my ideas of the characters tend to be influenced by his view. I don't know if it's good or bad. Also, I don't remember the second movie at all, except the fact Jane was a relatable character although annoying at first.

Anyway, Wendy Darling.

The Darling siblings put aside their adventure in Neverland after going back home. It was like a weird dream to them, it didn't quite feel real. It taught them a lot and they remember it all happening, but they left it behind, as children often do with formative experiences.

Peter stopped wanting to see her when she became taller than him, he took it as a sign she was a grown-up and was outraged Wendy chose that. She was sad for a while but decided it was okay. Peter would never grow, but she was ready to.

The second movie didn't happen, the war that took Wendy's husband away for a long time did neither. The Darling siblings were marginally involved in the Great Auradon Conflict after the Villains were revived, but that was before Jane was born. Hook saw that Peter didn't care about the Darlings anymore so he let them go after kidnapping them once. After, Wendy still volunteered to help during the conflict, but from the sidelines. This earned her a place among the Heroes, although she isn't considered one of the major ones, and attended Auradon Prep with the princesses.

So! Wendy grew up, became a novelist, and got married to a man who accepted her unusual way of being a lady, because Wendy never quite became like other young ladies of Little London, even if she was greatly respected thanks to her reputation.

Jane (and Danny) grew up with a genuine fear of pirates but that was about it. Her mother's stories were like those of everyone else in Auradon, comforted by the fact all Villains were on the Isle of the Lost. She ended up on Neverland, at some point, but only because Peter heard of her existence and was curious, hence "invited" Jane and Danny - it was more a kidnapping - to Neverland, where she met the fairies and Lost Boys.

When that happened, Wendy rushed to Neverland to take back her kids, she scolded Peter very hard and tried to make him understand how his actions were wrong. Now that she was older and with children of her own, it was easier to find the right words to make him understand stuff he never learned of. She figured out his abandonment issues and promised to go visit him from time to time. Jane, who started to like him too, in a way, did the same.

Jane went to school with the first wave of Hero Kids (Li'l, Derek, Arabella...), not the current one. It means, by the time the VKs arrive, she's not at Auradon Prep anymore.

Jane and Wendy butted heads about Ben's decree at first because of their opposite ideas on nature vs nurture. Wendy thought all kids only need someone to teach them, Jane saw that no matter how hard they all tried to reign in Peter, he never got better. In fact, Jane may be the only one who recognizes the mean streak inside Peter and thinks he's not the hero everyone thinks he is. She's his friend in a more genuine, less idealistic way than any of Peter's other friends ever was. If Peter will ever choose to grow up, it will be because (or for) of Jane.

That said, Jane isn't against the VKs, in general, or them coming to Auradon. She only thinks if some of them are genuinely mean-spirited, they'll stay so even in a better place, but she also thinks they deserve a chance to show who they are before they are judged.

Jane will get along with Harriet quite fine, as Harriet is the proof she needed that not all people are doomed by their character. If she had met Harry first, she may have never changed her mind, though.

Also, she thinks CJ is as mental as Peter and is glad the two of them don't like each other because Auradon would be doomed if they paired up.

[leojurand]

top 10 8 books of the year

i ended up reading 63 books this year, but since about 17 of them were rereads, this is top 8 out of 46.

i usually don't do top 10s or anything similar because choosing is hard, but i wanted to "force" myself to do it this year, and here are the results!

8. the secret lives of country gentlemen, kj charles

kj charles is my absolute favourite romance author, and i think her formula was perfected with the doomsday duology, even though they're not necessarily my fave books by her. out of the two, i chose secret lives because it was so perfect to me! absolutely adored both mcs, individually and together. i always enjoy the kjc novels that have higher stakes, and i was super invested in this story, and the characters, and everything that happened to them. very beautiful romance scenes. can't wait to read whatever she comes up with next!!

7. the mask of apollo, mary renault

it's still crazy to be that i've only read two mary renault books this year, because i am completely in love with every aspect of her writing. the prose is so gorgeous, and this book was so atmospheric and immersive. i love the slow pace in her novels, and there's always moments of introspection that tug at my heartstrings. and that ending!!

6. gaudy night, dorothy l. sayers

pretty sure the fact that i spent like half an hour talking to a classmate about how amazing the sayers's writing is makes her my author of the year. and it couldn't be any other way! of the lord peter wimsey novels, i think gaudy night is her magnum opus. it was a very personal novel for her, and it shows in the care she put into it. i love harriet vane so much, and i adore peter, and i'm so happy that the peak of their romance and their feelings for each other was reached in such a wonderful book.

i only wanted to choose one book per series, but my other two faves are unnatural death and murder must advertise (i have yet to read busman's honeymoon)

5. the ruins, scott smith

and the award for biggest surprise of the year goes to this book! its adaptation is a very nostalgic movie for me, and last month me and my girlfriend decided to watch it together. i decided that was the perfect time to finally pick up the book, since i'd heard so much about it being so much better, as is usually the case. and god, it is much, much better. fantastic writing, and the characters feel so much more human and real than their movie counterparts. great atmosphere, and the gore? oof. one of those novels that makes me stop in the middle of whatever i'm doing and i think "man, the ruins was so good"

4. the winter prince, elizabeth wein

now, this book truly never left my brain since i read it. i picked it up on a whim and it hit me like a truck, which i didn't expect at all from such a short story. it has one of my favourite styles of prose: simple but so, so pretty. it was so easy for me to connect with the characters, especially medraut, and with the messed up dynamics that are shown here. such a wonderful book, i can't explain

so, do i have any excuse for not having read its sequel yet? no! and i'm planning to do that next month

3. the heaven tree, edith pargeter

this is a trilogy but i think of it as one story, so this includes all three books. the heaven tree gave me everything i wanted it to give me: breathtaking prose, drama, fucked up dynamics, beautiful dynamics, characters that are complex and messed up and that i don't agree with so many times, but i could always understand (well, almost always. the romance in the first book is nonsensical and stupid, but i love these books enough to forgive it). such a beautiful story, with a villain who was as easy to hate and to admire simply by how layered he was.

2. the sparrow, mary doria russell

this is the only book on this list that i've already reread, that's how serious this is. also the most "staring at a wall for an hour after finishing it unable to move" book of the year. made me feel so many emotions i can't even begin to explain. the amount of love and pain in this book can't be measured. emilio sandoz character of all time.

1. fire from heaven, mary renault

second mary renault on the list, and one i've read! also one of my earliest books of the year, because i read this in january. and it has stayed with all these months; my love for it didn't falter for even a second. you know when you consumed a piece of media and think "this was made for me"? well, that's how i felt reading fire from heaven. everything about it was perfect to me, from the prose to the pacing to the dynamic between alexander and hephaistion. you can really tell alexander's story was very important to mary renault (she was pretty much obsessed with the guy, and how very relatable), and now it's important to me too.

so, again, how come i haven't read the sequels yet? well, i tried to the persian boy soon after finishing this one, but 50 pages in and i couldn't get into it, which is sad so i decided to leave it for another time. i think i love fire from heaven too much to fully embrace the change in perspective in the second book. maybe i'm petty because the persian boy is considered the best of the trilogy, and maybe renault's best along with the charioteer. and i just don't think i'll feel the same way! it's hard to believe that it will make me feel the way fire from heaven did. and that's why it has to be number 1 on this list, i'm so incredibly attached to it, 11 months after reading it.

and there it is! it's hard to rank books when they're completely different from each other, but i tried. i would say overall it was a pretty good year... hard to compete with last year because well. i did read 15 dorothy dunnett novels almost back to back then. but still! i'm pretty happy

[skitterchomp]

Renowned mystery writer Dorothy Sayers fell in love with her most famous detective, Lord Peter Wimsey. So she added a self-insert, Harriet Vane, to meet and eventually marry him.

Vane was obviously, overtly based on Sayers. Vane was a mystery writer whose former lover -- a man who exactly resembled Sayers' ex -- was murdered using a method described in one of her books. Vane had angrily broken up with this man for exactly the same reason Sayers angrily broke up with her own longtime partner. After he died, Vane was accused of his murder, but Lord Peter Wimsey showed up and found the real killer.

Wimsey immediately fell in love with Vane, but she resisted. After working together for a few books she changed her mind and married him. The Harriet Vane books are widely considered some of Sayers' best.

It absolutely is ok if it's obvious, or if it's a self-indulgent fantasy. Making art you can be passionate about is much more important than whether people think you are cringe for breaking made up rules.

The stigma of self-inserts is so harmful to the creative process. Relax. Admit it. Everything you make is derivative of yourself, always, no exceptions. You can turn the mirror into tinier and tinier shards or you can make it as big as you want to reflect as much as you want. At the end of the day it's always going to show you inside of it. Pretending otherwise is stupid.

[joelbell]

Lying On The Couch

Election Day.

I spent my summer in a state of retreat, lying on the couch. I binged, in order of publication by year, all 11 of the Dorothy Sayers novels about Lord Peter Wimsey. My retreat also included the additional set of novels that the Sayers’ estate sanctioned by Jill Patton Walsh, another four. I had noticed in the spring that I was overwhelmed by the political landscape and withdrew from most media in the wake of the Presidential election. We canceled the paper, even. I sacrificed my pandemic ritual of tackling the crossword in pen on newsprint. The NYT games, “Connections” and “Wordle” also fell away. Instead, I picked up the first novel of the series, “Strong Poison” and reclined on the couch with the cat on my chest and tried to disappear. It turns out I’ve been lying on the couch in more ways than one.

I became enamored with the relationship between Lord Peter and his Valet, Bunter, in 1990 or so and have carried the pair around with me over the years. So much so, this time around, that at certain passages where they, each in their assigned ways, try and express deep attachment toward one another, I burst into to tears. I cried when I finished the whole collection as well. What the hell is going on?

Because I don’t fully understand my affection for this relationship, I have been making notes and digging around the web. Folks love these characters as well. Though built on the surface to look like the unflappable character Jeeves, from the Jeeves and Wooster adventures of PG Wodehouse, I feel Bunter is a more fully fleshed-out figure. The Peter/Bunter relationship is warm, certainly, but not comic, as in Bertie and Jeeves. The purchase on my imagination and real feelings when I am reading these stories seems to me like something out of the Enneagram: sometimes I am Peter, a little clever, too sensitive, affected. And sometimes I am Bunter, a sardonic Sancho Panza, anticipating others needs and reaching for the cocktail shaker.

As Peter, I’m absolutely an Anglophile. Surrounded early on by the prep school system in Australia and Hong Kong (and later at Oxford) it is a world I’ve occupied. And as a pretentious sort, it appeals to me. Although, I never felt more American than when I was at Oxford, unprepared for JUST how repressed and insufferably clever these emotionally stunted young men were, especially these elite kids who strove to attend that venerable place. At 19 years old, you’ve scaled the peak. One travels DOWN from Oxford. 

If I am to be honest though, in the measure of things, I may be more a Bunter. Or, I understand the role better.

The passe partout to the Peter/Bunter dyad arrives near the end of the whole collection where Peter explains to his wife, Harriet, herself an author of detective fiction (and once a suspect for a murder), that because he had been so traumatized by his experience in WWI (it was then he met Bunter who served as his Sergeant), he needed rehabilitation that didn’t yet exist:

            “I think I went for months with no better purpose in life than trying not to disappoint Bunter. If he made breakfast, then I ought to eat breakfast. If he thought I needed a new suit, I ought to order one, and so forth…You see, Harriet, that if my life was a stream of meaningless trivia, I was affronting Bunter. He was far too good a fellow to be a servant to a witless fool. I could just about manage to do what Bunter appeared to expect I might do…” 

The British class divide both establishes and delimits the whole gestalt of their relationship and is plaited alongside their mutual devotion. Bunter isn’t entirely comfortable when entreated to join Harriet and Peter at the dinner table (after serving them) to discuss a murder or evidence they’ve gathered and, even then, offers his own opinions with appropriate deference, M’ Lord. Sayers takes pains to describe that. The American in me would love for the affinity and care to blur such lines. 

There’s and analogy about being a therapist, how the small differentials of the doctor/patient relationship foster tremendous intimacy while assigning each our roles. I don’t get to grab a beer with a client I adore. Maybe it is in my role as therapist where the Peter/Bunter dance goes on in me as well. Sometimes I am the doc giving orders and sometimes I am entirely of service. 

I got a lot thoughts about this, obviously. That’s what you get from lying on the couch: what it is to really be of service, to be devoted, to be Bunter and not retreat defeated or resentful or wounded by Peter’s occasional disability and consistent privilege. What it is to be Joel and dig through an elder’s ephemera in a devoted way, give care to an ailing person, or a spouse, and NOT brush against some martyred injury. Doc Bell can do it, mostly. He gets paid for it, after all. Sometimes Joel is not so good at it.

I am certainly a cast of characters today. 

xoxo

[o-uncle-newt]

Thank you for adding all that wonderful context to my post about The Nine Tailors! And I look forward to your separate post about Agatha Christie being good at romance, because I've read a lot of her books and...well, I'm curious to hear your argument, we'll put it that way ;D

Thank YOU for posting the thing about The Nine Tailors, which I'd never heard of before and is so delightfully Sayers!

And... ok I need to clarify lol

One definite thing- and I don't think this is something I actually NEED to be saying outright- Sayers is MUCH better at writing romance than Christie, as such. I think she's also better at portraying the intricacies of human emotion and reaction and all those delicious things that make her books so vivid.

Where I think Christie is better is the synthesis, and at assembling pieces to synthesize.

Sayers does an absolutely beautiful job of CREATING characters- much of this is helped by, say, putting a lot of herself in both Peter and Harriet, as so many of the best writers do with their creations, and I'm sure putting plenty of other people into her other characters and basing settings on real environments (see John Cournos/Philip Boyes and Benson's/Pym's). She manages to make EVERYONE vividly human, which is a) a big job and b) often difficult to fit in around all of the machinations of a detective story, as Sayers so eloquently describes in Gaudy Night as Harriet Vane.

A lot of people criticize Christie for writing "archetypes." The thing is, though, that shouldn't be a criticism at all! She had a really brilliant gift for understanding stories, understanding the kinds of people who appear in stories, and manipulating the genre such that she's able to fit the right kinds of people around the right kinds of stories. That's actually why I tried to make the point that her strength isn't romance, because I think that's actually a weakness in her mysteries, when she decides she has to randomly pair people off. The thing that's great though is that she's able to customize the archetypes into entertaining and very readable people, these people do things for psychologically plausible reasons, and the motivations that they have and the mystery stories that they find themselves in end up syncing up incredibly well- and the whole built-up story ends up flowing absolutely seamlessly in a way that I think Sayers found a lot harder.

It's like Christie's playing in a Lego set and using a box of assorted pieces to put together in new configurations and make masterpieces- and Sayers is trying to combine the Lego bricks with more realistic-looking... Idunno, Barbies. Something that doesn't fit. The metaphor may be over-extended.

That's what's so fascinating about reading both the introduction to The Omnibus of Crime and then the later mystery novels that Sayers wrote, as I was saying. Sayers so clearly LOVES the genre, but she is also so clearly a literary stylist, an Intellectual (who had something of a sense of humor about it- but not entirely), and someone who had an incredible skill at characterization. She also understood the puzzle mystery and the detective genre in a way that few did, as one of the first real experts on it as a genre in the first place and as someone who not only researched its history (she traces it all the way back to the Bible and the ancient Greeks) but reviewed mystery novels and co-created the Detection Club. And it's precisely her deep understanding of the genre that made her realize, as she describes in Gaudy Night, how difficult it is to integrate deep character portraits into a relatively formulaic genre. I've seen it said that her books presage the modern crime thriller more than they reflect contemporaneous puzzle mysteries, and I think there's a lot of truth to that. She was learning the limitations of the genre she'd come to love.

In my opinion, Sayers's novel that does the best job of integrating the puzzle plot and the character work is Bellona Club, which I actually have a draft post about how incredibly underrated it is. She integrates both seamlessly, but you can also see how difficult it was, if only because she was rarely so successful tonally again. Probably the closest she comes are, weirdly, The Nine Tailors and Gaudy Night, but only because there she chooses whether she wants to foreground the novel or the crime (as I mention in my original post that started this whole tirade) and sticks to that. In books like Clouds of Witness, Have His Carcase, and Unnatural Death, to pick a random few, there are plenty of occasions where a chapter of exquisite literary character development is suddenly ground to a halt by an extremely technical disquisition about an extremely convoluted murder/coverup plot. (Something like Murder Must Advertise does this a bit less, but there the tonal issue is that, and I acknowledge this is arbitrary of me, the whole drug subplot does not work and that's where most of the detection is.)

Back to Christie, which is where all this started! What she has and Sayers doesn't isn't the ability to build complex characters (though honestly I don't doubt that she could if she wanted to- it's just not what she wants to do- and one of these days I'll read a Mary Westmacott and see if I'm right about that). It's the ability to build a complex story full of just-complex-enough people that feels authentic. The reason why her romances are among the weaker elements of her books is, in my opinion, because their actualization is generally the LEAST integral to the careful structures that she's building- however, the people who are part of the romances are often very strong, when the feelings that they have as part of those romances end up motivating something that they do. Take, for example, Death on the Nile- is the central romance the important part? No, the way that the characters in it act based on that romance is, because that directly influences the plot. And there she shines and it is all beautifully compelling.

In my opinion, Sayers was a brilliant writer and novelist who happened to enjoy detective fiction and so forced herself into the genre. Christie somehow magically managed to waltz her way into the exact right genre to suit her talents, right when the genre was exploding in popularity. Sayers is a more versatile and talented writer as a writer, but nobody ever owned the genre of detective stories, in all the ways that they could be written, like Christie did. With Sayers, we say "oh look she's getting experimental" with a book like The Nine Tailors or Gaudy Night or even, in a certain light, Five Red Herrings- we see her books in a pattern and context of the way her mind works and her life goes and her tastes change. With Christie, no matter how fertile and creative her mind and no matter how different the results are from each other, we're like "oh, that's classic Christie." Her versatility, and the way that she can change on a dime and be consistently great (for most of her career...) in so many different modes.

[erinnya]

i don't want to overstay my welcome.

Harriet had almost convinced herself that she didn’t miss him. The weekly ritual of sitting in the bland, too-bright waiting room was unbearable enough without adding disappointment to the mix. The pale walls, lined with fading prints of nature scenes that had nothing soothing about them, had seen countless hours of her restless fidgeting. At first, she’d told herself that Peter’s absence was a relief. One less pair of eyes to catch her at her most vulnerable, one less person to awkwardly acknowledge in the silent, sterile atmosphere. But now, without him, those empty seats seemed to press in closer, making the room feel even smaller than it was.

Today was no different. Her appointment was running late, as always, and Harriet slouched in the stiff, vinyl chair, letting her gaze drift to the clock, then to the door. She had given up on glancing at it every time it creaked open. He wasn’t going to walk in, not after so many weeks. It was foolish to hope for it, really. That unspoken routine they'd fallen into had probably been nothing more than coincidence to him, just two strangers waiting out the awkward minutes before facing whatever demons had brought them here.

But when the door did open and she heard the familiar rustle of his coat, her heart stumbled in her chest. She glanced up, trying to mask the surprise in her eyes with a disinterested look. He was there, standing in the doorway, looking much the same but somehow different .. lighter, maybe, or just .. less worn out. Their eyes met for a split second, and she saw the recognition there, the faintest curve of a smile before he walked over.

"Long time no see," she said, as if it were nothing. As if she hadn’t wondered where he’d gone, or if something had happened to him. He returned her look with a small nod, settling into the chair across from her, though there was a distance to the way he held himself now.

Harriet felt the need to fill the silence, but the words escaped her. She didn’t know if she should say it was good to see him or ask where he’d been or if he still came here regularly but just at different times. She settled for nothing, the quiet stretching thinly between them.

Then he turned to her with that half-smile that had once seemed so familiar. “I don’t want to overstay my welcome,” he said, his tone too casual, as if he was making a joke at his own expense.

The words struck her in a way she hadn’t expected, sinking beneath her skin like a cold knife. She kept her expression steady, raising an eyebrow and giving a short, nonchalant nod. "Good for you," she said lightly, her voice carrying just enough of an edge to make it seem like she didn’t really care. "Must be nice, not needing any of this bullshit." She gestured around at the dreary room with a vague wave of her hand, as if it were all beneath her.

But inside, there was a sinking feeling she couldn’t quite shake. Harriet had been certain she wasn’t the only one who didn’t belong here. Peter had understood that in some unspoken way. Now, it seemed she was back to being the exception, after all. Just another patient. Another face in the waiting room. And somehow, it felt like she was losing something more than just a familiar face.

"So, you’re all fixed, huh?" she added, forcing a teasing edge into her voice. "Well, don’t let me keep you. Wouldn't want you to relapse or anything." She flashed a smirk that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She was being unfair and she knew it, but she just couldn't help it.

[cathygeha]

REVIEW

A Duke’s Lesson in Charm by Sophie Barnes

Gentlemen Authors #3

Bumbling, anxiety ridden, difficult encounters had two people who could be perfect for one another staying far apart until something changes ~ Fun read for today!

What I liked:

* Callum Davis, Duke of Stratton: kind, caring, good friend, most of his inheritance spent, guardian of his cousin’s son, debut novel written with two friends soon to be published, has an interesting situation with Lady Emily

* Lady Emily Brooke: loving daughter of Lord & Lady Rosemont, good friend to Harriet and Ada, owner of Heidi her canine companion, writes a column for a newspaper, has an interesting situation with Callum

* Peter: orphaned, in the care of Callum, grieving, begins to come out of the darkness when he meets Emily’s pet – Heidi

* That Callum puts Peter first and is willing to approach Emily for Peter’s sake

* The correspondence between Callum and Emily that broke the ice and the ongoing growing relationship between them

* The way communication between Callum and Emily managed to overcome many issues that began to crop up but managed to be nipped in the bud

* Emily’s parents: loving, wise, wanted the best for their daughter, admirable

* That this stands alone without reading the first books in this series

What I didn’t like:

* Usually, I manage to put in a villain here BUT there weren’t any true villains in this book – I will say that the grief due to the loss of a loved one, though a bit of a catalyst, did make me think of people I have had to say goodbye to in the past.

Did I like this book? Yes

Would I read more by this author? Yes

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC – This is my honest review.

4-5 Stars

BLURB

She was the last person he ever expected to marry… Callum Davis, Duke of Stratton, never expected to get along with Emily Brooke, but thanks to his ward, he starts to realize she’s pretty good company. The more time he spends with her, the better he likes her. But rather than let their relationship grow at a gradual pace, a pretend courtship leads to a whirlwind romance that quickly collapses when Emily finds out what Callum has written about her. Now he must make every effort to prove his love for her is real, or risk losing her forever. There is only one person Lady Emily Brooke must avoid at all cost, and that’s the Duke of Stratton. Since her debut, the man has threatened her safety by stepping upon her toes, spilling drinks on her gown, and sending her head first into a fountain. But when he invites her for a walk so the boy in his care can spend time with her dog, she cannot resist. What surprises her most is how charming the duke can be. Until a mistake on his part makes her question his feelings and his intentions.