Friday, December 17, 2010

Pensive, peaceful

December whirlwind. Behind on everything but on the verge of catching up. Tuesday is my last day at my job, after five and a half years. Rollercoaster of emotions: bittersweet, excited, nervous, ready. I start a new job the first Monday in the new year. Learning, growing. Much to do.

I'm looking forward to a holiday filled with family; little children waking up early on Christmas morning. People are what make the world go round.

Merry merry merry!

Friday, December 3, 2010

Turret book of the month club

Well, I had this long post written that devolved into a discussion of the book jackets, and I decided to delete it in case the author has a Google alert set up, because I don't want to hurt her feelings after I enjoyed her books so much. The jackets aren't her fault. They're very beautiful jackets, aesthetically speaking, I just think they're not very teen-friendly. What was I talking about? Oh, right. Let me come in again.

So I've been on this castle kick lately. One of my favorite books of all time is I Capture the Castle. I recently enjoyed the Australian imports A Brief History of Montmaray and its sequel, The FitzOsbornes in Exile (it isn't out in the US yet, I read an advance copy). And now the book that's at the top of my Christmas wishlist is this one:

"Starred Review. A letter posted in 1941 finally reaches its destination in 1992 with powerful repercussions for Edie Burchill, a London book editor, in this enthralling romantic thriller from Australian author Morton (The Forgotten Garden). At crumbling Milderhurst Castle live elderly twins Persephone and Seraphina and their younger half-sister, Juniper, the three eccentric spinster daughters of the late Raymond Blythe, author of The True History of the Mud Man, a children's classic Edie adores. Juniper addressed the letter to Meredith, Edie's mother, then a young teen evacuated to Milderhurst during the Blitz. Edie, who's later invited to write an introduction to a reprint of Raymond's masterpiece, visits the seedily alluring castle in search of answers. Why was her mother so shattered by the contents of a letter sent 51 years earlier? And what happened to soldier Thomas Cavill, Juniper's long-missing fiancé and Meredith's former teacher? Despite the many competing narratives, the answers will stun readers."