fiction Archives

Maid, The

Quirky Maids and Campy Conundrums Author: Nita Prose Molly the Maid works at the Regency Hotel. Molly is obsessed with rules, with cleanliness, with returning everything to a “state of perfection.” She will literarily miss the elephant in the room because she is busy polishing it. When Molly finds the wealthy Mr. Black dead in his bed, it’s little surprise that she doesn’t get the enormity of what she’s seeing . . . that she even started to clean the crime scene before calling for help. What is a surprise, however, is that the police are focusing in on Molly. As [...]

Frances Carden2023-01-16T11:38:50-07:00January 16th, 2023|Tags: book review, fiction, maid, mystery, read, reading|

Snobs

British Aristocracy, Gold-Digging, and Snobbery in the 90s Author: Julian Fellowes From the author who created Downton Abbey and Gosford Park comes a tail of modern upper-class shenanigans, social climbing, backstabbing, occasional polite witticism, and scandal. In Snobs the drawing rooms and estates are all set against the backdrop of the 1990s. Even ruined aristocrats still hold some clout, and Edith Lavery has been raised to land the wealthiest and (unfortunately for her) dullest of them all. Enter Charles Broughton, the wealthy Marquess of Uckfield. Charles isn’t much to look at, and he certainly isn’t that exciting, but he does [...]

Frances Carden2023-01-15T19:53:13-07:00January 15th, 2023|Tags: book review, fiction, read, reading|

Daughter of Doctor Moreau, The

A Less Animalistic Retelling Author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia He claims to be running a sanatorium in the Yaxaktun jungle, but what he is really doing is far more secretive and more disturbing. Dr. Moreau is an outcast scientist, a man who is trying to create the perfect human/animal hybrid. And here, buried in the jungle, away from the eyes of the law, he has free reign to keep creating, to keep experimenting. In the jungle, Dr. Moreau has few helpers. He has his sickly daughter, Carlotta, now a nearly grown woman, who works with the hybrids – his failed experiments – [...]

Frances Carden2023-01-15T12:45:55-07:00January 15th, 2023|Tags: book review, fiction, reading, retelling, review|