Madeleine E. Robins

Obtained free as part of the Feb 2012 LibraryThing Early Reviewers batch. Offered by Book View Cafe to mark the books' publication as an ebook. (I took in epub format and read on my kobo).

Only 20 and already widowed, Lady Jane is invited to spend the winter with her late husband's family. There she is reintroduced to Lord Menwin, a man she was in love with before her marriage. After a few embarrassing meetings, where he is decidedly off hand and insulting to her, they realise it was all a misunderstanding, and decide that they are in love really. Unfortunately Menwin has not only inherited his father's title, but also his debts, and the only way for his grandfather to agree to dig him out is for Menwin to marry and produce an heir. The rest of the book is an attempt to get Menwin out of the disastrous engagement he's found himself in.

Not quite Jane Austen, this tries valiantly enough. The first pages try to overload you with too much information (a habit I hate, and I groaned when I read it), but it got better quickly. Lively, light, using some phrases I'm not entirely convinced were in use during the Regency period and some that were, overall an enjoyable book for a damp spring weekend


… (mais)

While away on a business trip, New Yorker John Tietjen learns that something has happened to his city. Fleeing survivors tell a garbled story of widespread destruction and violence, but it's not until Tietjen fights his way into the city that he gains some sense of New York City's apocalyptic fate -- and what he can do to stand against it.

The Stone War was excellent and unflinching. Every time the possibility for a pat or cliched resolution arises, the novel resolutely turns away and pushes deeper into the dark and unpredictable. And what's marvelous is that, despite the horror and the misery, the novel itself isn't grim. Instead, it's a glowing examination about the need for community against the threat of brutality and estrangement. I'm not sure I accept the denouement, in which the novel attempts to assign its phantasmagorical terrors to a concrete agent, but I'll agree that the conclusion is consistent with the rest of the book.… (mais)

This third installment in the alt-historical adventures of Miss Sarah Tolerance finds our heroine tasked with tracking down a young woman who's eloped from her father's house. Miss Tolerance's search for the missing Evadne brings her into contact with the seedier side of Regency London. The Sleeping Partner has more grit to it than the previous two books—this is a kind of "Regency noir"—and higher emotional stakes than the second one. Madeleine Robins has a knack for creating a heroine who is independent-minded enough to walk her own path, but is not unrealistically anachronistic in her thinking (i.e., she's not Not Like the Other Girls.)

Given the lengthy gap between publications and the change in publishers, I fear the Sarah Tolerance books are likely to remain a trilogy. However, while Robins clearly sets up some plot points/relationship arcs here which could be picked up in future installments, The Sleeping Partner does also work as a conclusion.… (mais)