Book Club Friday: Sense and Sensibilty by Joanna Trollope #FridayReads

Happy after-Christmas, everyone! I hope Santa Claus brought everyone lots of new books to read. I didn't get any books per se, but I did get a $25 Barnes and Noble gift card. I think I'll probably use it to preorder This Star Won't Go Out, but I'm not 100% sure yet.

If you're thrilled to death with a book you got as a holiday gift, be sure to tell me in the comments.

I recently finished:

Peter: A Darkened Fairytale by William  O'Brien
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A magical and enchanting tale of a 10-year-old whisked away to a magical world full of unforgettable new friends and grave dangers. "A darkened fairy tale" certainly describes this adventure. Some parts of it could be disturbing for children younger than the target audience of 11- to 13-year-olds, but for mature youngsters, this is ideal for independent reading or for a family read-along. Fans of C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia or of Lauren Oliver's The Spindlers will enjoy this otherworldly fantasy.

View all my reviews on Goodreads

I'm currently (still) reading Forbidden Highlander.

When I finish that (probably later today), I'm most likely to start Sense and Sensibility by Joanna Trollope, which I ordered from Amazon Vine's "Last Harvest." Vine is having problems this month, and I wasn't able to have my usual pick of free swag. That's okay, though. At least I picked up a contemporary adaptation of a Jane Austen classic. I like to read the Vine books close to when they arrive, because I have a limited amount of time to review those.

I haven't read any of Joanna Trollope's other books, but I think it's cool she's related to Anthony Trollope. According to the New York Public Library Literature Companion, Anthony Trollope (1815-1882):

"...was among the the most popular writers of his day, appreciated for his depictions of clerical, political, and everyday life in Victorian England and his portrayals of memorable characters in richly imagined settings. The son of a failed gentleman farmer and the writer Frances Trollope, he grew up in relative poverty....His output included 47 novels as well as travel books, biographies, and prose collections. He is best known for two novel sequences, a form he introduced to English literature: the Barsetshire novels...and, after running unsuccessfully for Parliament, the politically steeped Pallister novels...His two-volume Autobiography appeared posthumously, in 1883."

Frances Milton Trollope, apparently, is not important enough to merit her own entry, but Wikipedia says she was a prolific novelist who lived 1779-1863. She wrote the anti-slavery novel Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw, which is said to have been an influence on Harriet Beecher Stowe when Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin. Anthony's older brother Thomas was also a writer - mostly of histories - and Thomas Trollope was married to Frances Eleanor (Ternan) Trollope, who was also a novelist and published 12 books between 1866 and 1892. The Wikipedia entry suggests it was Frances Milton, not her son Anthony, who introduced the novel sequence into English-language literature.  (Patriarchy, stop trying to simultaneously erase and take credit for women's artistic accomplishments.)

If you recognize the family name Ternan, you may be a Dickens addict - Frances Eleanor's sister Ellen Ternan was a notoriously scandalous mistress of Charles Dickens. I'm not a Charles Dickens fan myself - I did not enjoy reading Great Expectations in tenth grade, although I seem to enjoy the Alec Guinness movie version - you might like to read another book I had the option of choosing from Vine's Last Harvest, which is Havisham: A Novel by Ronald Frame. I didn't choose it, but I could have.

The book I have waiting for me to pick up at the library is After Dead by Charlaine Harris.

A lot of people hate this collection of snippets about the characters in the Sookie Stackhouse universe, as evidenced by its 2 1/2-star rating on Goodreads. It's 50% off at Barnes and Noble for their after-Christmas sale, but based on the lousiness of the ratings, I have no intention of paying money for it. I'll give it a free read, though, simply because of my loyalty to this series.

Book Club Friday: Currently Reading...

To enter to win Switch (a dystopian romance) by Janelle Stalder, go here.

I'm currently reading Forbidden Highlander by Donna Grant. This Scottish Highlands paranormal romance is the second book in the Dark Sword series. I don't usually read historical romance novels, but I'll make an exception for a PNR. I also have a fondness for books set in the remote parts of the U.K., whether it be the Scottish Highlands, rural Wales, Cornwall, or the Isle of Man. All the Celtic parts, basically.

The blurb from Goodreads:

Fallon McLeod has gifts any warrior would covet—fierce strength, unmatched skill, even immortality. But those gifts have come at a price that puts everyone he loves at risk. Only when his brother, Quinn, is taken captive does Fallon leave the seclusion of his Highland home to seek the king's aid. And though every woman at court would gladly be his for the asking, one alone causes desire to roar to life within him: beautiful, mysterious Larena Monroe.

Rumors swirl around the castle about "The McLeod" but Larena knows the truth. Like Fallon, Larena is searching for a way to vanquish the evil Druid who wants to wreak havoc on earth. Drawn to Fallon in spite of her fear, she surrenders to a passion that shocks them both with its raw intensity. But Larena dares not hope for more—not when she holds a secret that could turn her fiery Highland love against her forever…

"Totally Captivating" (RT Book Reviews), Forbidden Highlander is a stunning historical and paranormal romance, book two in Donna Grant's bestselling Dark Sword series.

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I read the first book, Dangerous Highlander, all the way back in 2010. You can read my review here. I kind of got sidetracked from my intentions of reading a rotation of my favorite PNR authors, which should go:

- Kate Douglas's DemonSlayer series (1 of 4 read so far)
- J.R. Wards's Fallen Angels series (1 of 5 read so far)
- Nalini Singh's Psy-Changeling series (2 of 12 read so far)
- Donna Grant's Dark Sword series (1 of 6 finished so far)

Donna Grant also writes two "spin-off" series from Dark Sword: the Dark Warrior series, an additional 9 novels with a contemporary setting; and the 4 Dark King novels. Whew! That's a lot. But they're a fairly quick read, and Forbidden Highlander is fun because the female protagonist is a warrior woman who literally has a goddess inside her. A happy ending for Larena and Fallon is almost guaranteed, since it's a romance novel. I hope to have it done by Hogmanay (that's what the New Year is called in Scotland).

According to the receipt stuck inside the cover, I purchased Forbidden Highlander at Borders on October 2, 2010.

Then, I intend to read Mitzi Szereto's erotic Oscar Wilde mash-up, The Wilde Passions of Dorian Gray. I hope it's as entertaining as Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts. When I finish that, I'll read the next Kate Douglas on my list, then attempt to tackle George Eliot's thick classic (the original, not a mash-up this time!) Middlemarch. I read The Count of Monte Cristo in January 2013, so it's almost time for another brick of a classic.

Then, perhaps The Casual Vacancy. We'll see - that's getting pretty far ahead of myself.