Shari Creates

Books, languages, things I make and notes from everyday life.

Category: Reviews

  • Anathema

    Anathema

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    Maevyth Bronwick enters the forbidden Eating Woods in search of her banished sister and crosses into Aethyria, a dark world of magic, curses, and dangerous creatures. There she meets Zevander Rydainn, a centuries-old assassin whose curse may be tied to Maevyth’s blood, binding their fates together in ways neither of them expected.

    I picked up Anathema because I was in the mood for dark fantasy romance, and Zevander sounded exactly like the sort of hero I usually like — cold, dangerous and not particularly friendly.

    The story follows Maevyth Bronwick, who lives in Foxglove Parish, where everyone knows not to go near Witch Knell, otherwise known as the Eating Woods. People who are banished there don’t come back. Then Maevyth’s sister, Aleysia, is banished into the woods, and Maevyth goes after her. That takes her somewhere she definitely wasn’t expecting to end up: beyond the mortal world and into Aethyria, where she meets Zevander Rydainn, known as the Scorpion. He is a centuries-old assassin carrying a curse, and Maevyth’s blood may be the key to breaking it.

    So naturally, he can’t simply get rid of her. Not to mention that he was totally into her. 😂 Apparently mortals smell rather deliciously like oranges to the immortals of Aethyria. The problem is that mortals are also associated with disease, which is one of the reasons crossing between their worlds is rather complicated.

    This was actually a very interesting setup for me because their relationship doesn’t begin with romance. Zevander has a practical reason to keep Maevyth alive, while Maevyth has her own reason for wanting to get back to the mortal world. And this is where Maevyth and I eventually began to have problems.

    Initially, I really liked her. She seemed level-headed, sensible, observant and surprisingly capable considering the horrible environment she had grown up in. Then Aleysia was involved and suddenly, to me, all reason went out the window. I understand loving your sister. I understand wanting to know what happened to her. But Maevyth had just entered a forest where she had literally watched a monster tear the flesh off Uncle Riftyn. She barely escaped with her own life, somehow managed to cross into an entirely magical world, and Aleysia was trapped on the other side with that creature approaching her.

    At that point, what would a sane and reasonable person realistically think had happened to Aleysia? Because my assumption would not be, “She’s probably fine. I just need to get back there.” To me, there was practically nothing that would make me believe Aleysia should still be alive. Maevyth’s single-minded certainty about it started bothering me because it didn’t fit the level-headed girl I thought I had met at the beginning of the book.

    The romance, though, worked much better for me. The attraction was pretty much there from the beginning, especially on Zevander’s side. For someone who wouldn’t even blink when killing someone, the fact that he couldn’t bring himself to kill Maevyth while she was lying in her bed did it for me. 😂 His attraction to her was hardcore from day one, even if he couldn’t bring himself to admit it. For Maevyth, it was much slower. There were practical reasons for them to remain together before there were romantic ones, and their relationship developed gradually rather than having her immediately fall all over him. That part worked for me.

    The world itself is much darker than a lot of romantasy I’ve read. This isn’t just a pretty magical forest with a few dangerous creatures wandering around for decoration. The Eating Woods are genuinely horrible, some of the creatures are grotesque, and there is an underlying horror element throughout the story. There is also a LOT of worldbuilding: curses, blood magic, mages, different realms, creatures, old gods, prophecy, Zevander’s history… A LOT.

    But surprisingly, I was completely immersed in it. I didn’t actually just listen to Anathema. I read the book while listening to the audiobook at the same time, and that combination was chef’s kiss. 🤌 Having the text in front of me while Melissa Barr and James Cassidy brought the characters to life made it much easier for me to sink into such a complicated world. Instead of struggling to keep up with unfamiliar names, places and all the lore through audio alone, I could actually see everything on the page while hearing it performed. I tore through this enormous book in about a day, so whatever complaints I have about it, boredom certainly wasn’t one of them.

    And then there was James Cassidy. I think we need to acknowledge that his voice may have had some influence on my continued interest in Zevander. 😂 His performance suited Zevander extremely well: deep, controlled, slightly threatening — basically exactly what I wanted this character to sound like. That deep baritone voice certainly helped the imagination.

    Unfortunately, the ending did the book some harm for me because then we get the trapdoor. After everything Maevyth has gone through trying to find Aleysia, she discovers her sister beneath the floorboards of the Crone Witch’s cottage. Alive.

    And my brain immediately went: No. No, no, no.

    How long had she been down there? How did she survive everything that happened after Maevyth crossed into Aethyria? How did she get from the Eating Woods into that crawl space? What exactly had been happening to her all this time?

    I know it is a cliffhanger and obviously the next book can provide explanations. But as the ending of Anathema, it asked me to accept one thing too many without giving me enough information to make it believable. And this is one of my problems when I read: once something doesn’t make logical sense to me, my brain starts pulling at the thread.

    I can overlook a lot in fantasy. Magic? Fine. Immortals? Fine. Giant murderous creatures roaming around a cursed forest? Absolutely. But the internal logic still has to convince me. Between Maevyth repeatedly throwing reason aside whenever Aleysia was involved and then discovering Aleysia alive under that trapdoor, I reached the point where I couldn’t keep making excuses for the story.

    Then there is another cliché I keep noticing in these kinds of books: why do they all have masquerade parties? 😂 At some point, the mysterious masked ball has to stop being mysterious.

    Anyway, other than those jarring things, there was so much about Anathema that I genuinely enjoyed. I liked Zevander. I loved the dark gothic atmosphere. The Eating Woods were wonderfully horrible. The world was interesting enough that I became completely immersed in it, and reading the book together with the audiobook was probably one of my favourite reading experiences in a while. And apparently I liked James Cassidy’s voice enough that I subsequently went looking through the other audiobooks he had narrated. So there is that. 😂

    Would I continue with The Eating Woods? No. I was curious about what happens next, but not curious enough to read another enormous book hoping that the things which bothered me would eventually be explained.

    Sometimes a book can keep me completely absorbed while I’m reading it and still lose me once I start thinking about what actually happened. Anathema was one of those books.

  • The Dead Romantics — Ashley Poston

    The Dead Romantics — Ashley Poston

    Book cover of The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston.
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    Florence Day is a ghostwriter who has stopped believing in romance. After returning home following her father’s death, she begins seeing the ghost of her new editor, Benji Andor. As Florence navigates grief, family, and the strange connection growing between them, she is forced to confront what she believes about love, loss, and second chances.

    Florence Day is a ghostwriter for a famous romance novelist, which is rather unfortunate because she has stopped believing in romance herself. After a bad breakup, she is struggling to finish the final book in her contract, and her new editor, Benji Andor, refuses to give her the extension she desperately wants. Then Florence’s father dies, sending her back to the small town she left behind and to the family funeral home where she grew up. There is one other complication: Florence can see ghosts. And not long after she gets home, Ben turns up at the funeral home — apparently dead.

    That premise was actually what attracted me to the book. I had already thought of The Ghost and Mrs Muir when I read the description: a living woman developing a relationship with a dead man who cannot really be part of her ordinary life. The circumstances are different, of course, but the idea itself did not feel particularly new to me. Still, The Dead Romantics tells its story well enough that I enjoyed reading it, especially once Florence and Ben began spending more time together.

    The part that worked best for me was the yearning. There is a scene where Florence and Ben talk about how different things might have been if they had met earlier, before he “died,” and that was probably the part that got to me most. They clearly like each other, but as far as they know, they have met too late. That sense of “if only” worked much better for me than the actual mystery of whether Ben was really dead.

    Unfortunately, I guessed fairly early that Ben was not actually dead. He kept disappearing without properly explaining where he went, and there were little things that made me wonder whether he was actually lying somewhere unconscious and hearing people around him. Once that possibility occurred to me, I could not really unsee it. So when the reveal eventually came, my reaction was less “Oh!” and more “Yep.” I also noticed things about the ghost rules that did not always seem completely consistent, which made me pay even more attention to how the supernatural side of the story worked.

    Another thing that increasingly pulled me out of the book was how deliberate the diversity began to feel. Florence’s brother is gay, her sister Alice eventually gets together with her female best friend Rose, and there is also a nonbinary character using they/them pronouns. Any one of those characters on their own would not have bothered me. But when they kept appearing within the same relatively small cast, I became conscious of the author assembling a very specifically representative group of characters rather than simply meeting people in a story. By the time Alice and Rose were heading in that direction, I had already guessed that too. I was half-expecting a disabled Black lesbian trans woman to appear next just to make sure there was no diversity box left unticked. It may sound harsh, but that was genuinely the point at which the representation stopped feeling organic to me and started feeling constructed.

    And that is probably my main problem with The Dead Romantics: I could see too much of the machinery behind it. I could see where the central twist was going, I could predict at least one of the relationships, and some of the contemporary-romance ingredients felt as though they had been deliberately put into place because this is what a modern romance novel is expected to contain. At the same time, I cannot call it a bad book. The premise is good, the storytelling is engaging, Florence’s grief over her father gives the story more emotional weight than just the romance, and I genuinely enjoyed the relationship between Florence and Ben while they believed their situation was impossible.

    So three stars feels right to me. There was enough here that I enjoyed, and I certainly do not regret reading it. But it was also predictable enough — and occasionally calculated enough — that I could never completely disappear into the story.

  • A Hazard of Hearts

    A Hazard of Hearts

    Book cover of A Hazard of Hearts by Barbara Cartland
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    Serena Staverley is left in a precarious position after her father gambles away the family estate and her future to Lord Harry Wrotham. Lord Justin Vulcan, a formidable and famously successful gambler, wins Staverley Court and Serena’s fate from Wrotham. Serena initially fears the reserved and intimidating Vulcan, but as family intrigue, danger and secrets unfold around them, she gradually discovers that his reputation does not tell the whole story.

    This is going to be slightly unfair as a book review, because I cannot talk about A Hazard of Hearts without talking about the 1987 adaptation too. For me, the two have become almost inseparable. I watched the movie first, and this is one of those very rare cases where I can honestly say that the adaptation is as good as the book.

    The story follows Serena Staverley, whose father has gambled away the family fortune. In one final disastrous wager against Lord Harry Wrotham, he loses Staverley Court and effectively Serena’s future as well. Yup, the bugger wagered his own daughter thinking he could overturn his bad luck and win back everything. Lord Justin Vulcan then challenges Wrotham and wins everything from him. It is an outrageous setup even by old-fashioned historical-romance standards, but it also means that Vulcan, in a very strange way, has actually helped Serena. He has taken her out of Wrotham’s hands rather than being the man who engineered her father’s ruin.

    Serena naturally has every reason to be wary of Vulcan. He has a formidable reputation: serious, reserved, not particularly talkative, and apparently blessed with the luck of the devil at the gaming table. He seems like the sort of man who simply does not lose. Looking back, he has rather strong Mr Darcy vibes. The interesting part, though, is that his behaviour keeps contradicting the frightening reputation. He does not treat Serena as though she is part of his winnings, he does not take advantage of the situation, and little by little he proves himself respectable, dependable and trustworthy.

    That is what makes the romance work for me. Serena does not suddenly fall for him simply because he is handsome (though Marcus Gilbert was handsome in the movie 😍) , mysterious or powerful. He earns her trust first. So while the story definitely has enemies-to-lovers vibes, I would probably describe it more accurately as distrust-to-love: wariness, observation, trust and then attraction.

    And then, of course, there is the movie. Because I watched it before reading the book, Helena Bonham Carter became Serena in my imagination and Marcus Gilbert became Lord Vulcan. Their chemistry was the bomb. There really is no more sophisticated way for me to put it. 😂 Helena Bonham Carter gave Serena exactly the right combination of youthfulness, pride and innocence, while Marcus Gilbert had the serious, controlled presence Vulcan needed. Together, they just worked.

    And when Vulcan says, “Shall I make you fall in love with me, Serena?” I said: YESS!!!

    The supporting characters were excellent too. Diana Rigg was wonderfully memorable as Vulcan’s mother, Lady Harriet, who is a real character in her own right: dramatic, controlling and very much a force to be reckoned with. Edward Fox was also excellent as Lord Wrotham. The whole production felt much richer than a simple television romance, and one of the reasons it works so well for me is that, as I remember it, the adaptation stayed quite true to the book. The characters, atmosphere and even memorable lines carried across to the screen.

    I finally found a copy of the novel in 2008 through eBay, from a secondhand bookseller in the US. I had already been looking for it for quite a while, so actually getting hold of it felt like finding something I had been chasing for years. And thankfully, the book lived up to the movie.

    In fact, watching the adaptation first helped my reading experience. I already had Serena and Vulcan clearly formed in my imagination, and instead of finding that limiting, I enjoyed having Helena Bonham Carter and Marcus Gilbert accompanying me through the story. The novel itself is wonderfully dramatic: gambling, family intrigue, danger, secrets, villains and plenty of romantic tension. It is exactly the sort of unapologetically old-fashioned romantic adventure that Barbara Cartland did so well.

    For once, I do not feel the need to choose between the book and the adaptation. I love both. The movie made me want to find the novel, and the novel gave me more of a story I had already fallen for.

  • Oktober — Khor Ewe Pin

    Oktober — Khor Ewe Pin

    Cover of Oktober by Khor Ewe Pin
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    After his mother dies, fourteen-year-old Oktober goes to live with his aunt, uncle and cousins. His mother has left him a series of letters containing tasks he must complete one by one, and following them gradually reveals the truth about his past, his adoption and his biological family.

    I picked up Oktober after not having read a book in Malay for a very long time — probably close to two decades. That made the experience slightly strange from the beginning.

    The Malay sometimes felt unnatural to me, almost as if I were reading a translation rather than something originally written in the language. But I honestly can’t say how much of that was the book and how much was me. After so many years of barely reading Malay fiction, my own sense of what sounds natural on the page may simply have become rusty.

    What I do remember clearly is that the story itself hooked me very quickly.

    Oktober loses his mother before he turns fifteen and is sent to live with his aunt, uncle and cousins. Before her death, his mother leaves behind a series of letters for him. He cannot simply read them all at once. Each one gives him something he has to do before he can move on to the next, and gradually those tasks begin revealing things about his own past and family.

    That structure worked extremely well for me because the book never seemed to sit still. There was always another task, another clue or another piece of information waiting to be uncovered. I kept wanting to know what the next letter would reveal.

    There is quite a lot going on around Oktober as well, particularly within the family he has been sent to live with, so the mystery surrounding the letters never feels like the only thing carrying the story. The different problems keep overlapping and pushing it forward.

    Looking back, that is probably why I gave it five stars despite my reservations about the Malay. I may have occasionally questioned the language, but I was never bored.

    For a book that also happened to be my return to reading Malay fiction after many years, Oktober turned out to be a very entertaining choice.

    Rating: ★★★★★

  • The Third Gilmore Girl — Kelly Bishop

    The Third Gilmore Girl — Kelly Bishop

    Official The Third Gilmore Girl hardcover cover by Kelly Bishop
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    The Third Gilmore Girl is one of the very few memoirs I have read — or, more accurately, listened to.

    Kelly Bishop narrates the audiobook herself, apart from the foreword by Amy Sherman-Palladino, and perhaps because I know her voice so well as Emily Gilmore, there were moments when it almost felt as though Emily Gilmore were sitting there telling me her life story.

    Except, of course, this is not Emily’s life. It is Kelly Bishop’s.

    Gilmore Girls has long been one of my go-to cosy dramas, although strangely enough, I don’t particularly like the two main Gilmore girls. Lorelai can be far too over-the-top for me, while Rory’s romantic choices — particularly the way she moves from one relationship to another — made her increasingly difficult for me to like.

    But I digress. This isn’t a review of Gilmore Girls. 😅

    Despite my feelings about its two main characters, there are plenty of other characters I like, and Emily Gilmore has always been one of them.

    She can certainly be a stick in the mud, but I always felt that much of that came from the way she had been raised and the very particular world she lived in. Old money, expectations, appearances and rules shaped her. She was disappointed in Lorelai, but she clearly loved Rory very much.

    I sometimes found myself thinking that I would have liked to have had a grandmother who cared about me even half as much as Emily cared about Rory.

    So when I came across Kelly Bishop’s memoir, I was intrigued.

    I wanted to know about the woman behind Emily Gilmore. Where had she started? What had her life as a performer been like before Gilmore Girls? How did she eventually end up playing Emily, and what was it like to inhabit that character for so many years?

    What I particularly enjoyed was how much of a glimpse the memoir gives into the world of professional performers.

    Kelly Bishop’s career began long before Emily Gilmore. She moved to New York as a young woman to pursue dance, performed at Radio City and on Broadway, and eventually won a Tony Award for her role in A Chorus Line. Her career later moved through film and television before Gilmore Girls became such a major part of it.

    Listening to her talk about those different stages of her life gave the book an almost old-school show-business feeling to me.

    It also made me think about how often people who become very good at something seem to have known surprisingly early what they wanted to do. They choose a direction, keep working at it, hone their skills for years and gradually build a life around it.

    Lucky.

    There were also parts of Kelly Bishop’s political outlook that I didn’t necessarily agree with, particularly when she talked about some of her activism. But that never stopped me from liking her or enjoying the book.

    And I did like her.

    Kelly Bishop has a genuine flair for storytelling.

    The audiobook never felt as though it dragged. She tells her own stories with enough personality that simply listening to her became part of the pleasure of the book. There is something particularly fitting about hearing a memoir like this in the author’s own voice rather than reading it silently on the page.

    I originally picked up The Third Gilmore Girl because I wanted to know more about Emily Gilmore.

    By the end, I was much more interested in Kelly Bishop.

    ★★★★★

  • The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy — Brigitte Knightley

    The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy — Brigitte Knightley

    Official cover of The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley
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    Assassin Osric Mordaunt needs the help of brilliant healer Aurienne Fairhrim, despite their rival Orders and mutual dislike. Forced into an uneasy partnership by his mysterious illness and a spreading Pox, the two discover that working together may be far more dangerous than either expected.

    I picked this up because I was specifically in the mood for enemies-to-lovers with an antihero.

    And Osric Mordaunt certainly fit the requirement.

    He is an assassin from the Fyren Order who becomes seriously ill and discovers that the person most capable of helping him is Aurienne Fairhrim, a healer from the rival Haelan Order. Aurienne has problems of her own. Her Order is trying to deal with an outbreak of a long-forgotten disease and desperately needs money, which is how she ends up reluctantly agreeing to work with a man she thoroughly dislikes.

    So we have an assassin and a healer who belong to opposing Orders, forced to work together.

    Obviously I was interested.

    I liked both of the main characters, which is not always a given for me in a romance.

    Aurienne is exactly the kind of heroine I enjoy. She is extremely capable and intelligent, but she isn’t constantly trying to prove that she is capable and intelligent. She simply is.

    And Osric?

    Well. Cold, broody, dangerous, morally questionable.

    In this case I was actually looking for an antihero, so he was very much what I wanted.

    But what really made the book work for me was the slow burn.

    I don’t want enemies-to-lovers where they are supposedly enemies for five minutes and then immediately start falling over each other. Give me the resistance. Give me the denial. Give me two people who genuinely have reasons not to like each other and then make them spend enough time together that things begin to change despite themselves.

    This book gave me that.

    And I especially loved that Osric got there first.

    There is something enormously satisfying about watching the cold, broody one slowly realise that he is in trouble. By the time he begins recognising what he actually feels for Aurienne, she still isn’t quite there yet.

    Perfect.

    It meant I got to enjoy him having to sit with those feelings instead of the romance becoming immediately mutual the moment one of them realised what was happening.

    The rest of the story moved at a good pace too. The mystery surrounding Osric’s illness and the reappearance of the Pox gave them something substantial to do besides simply circle around one another, and I kept wanting to know what would happen next.

    But really, I came for the enemies-to-lovers antihero romance.

    And on that front, I got exactly what I wanted.

    Rating: ★★★★★

  • Princess Jellyfish (Kuragehime) — Akiko Higashimura

    Princess Jellyfish (Kuragehime) — Akiko Higashimura

    Official Princess Jellyfish Complete Manga Box Set cover by Akiko Higashimura
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    Jellyfish-obsessed Tsukimi lives among a houseful of female otaku until fashion-loving cross-dresser Kuranosuke crashes into their sheltered world. Their unlikely friendship turns Tsukimi’s jellyfish obsession into fashion inspiration, pulling the whole group into a strange, funny transformation.

    I found Kuragehime through the anime first. Waiting for new episodes was taking far too long, so naturally I went online looking for the manga it was based on.

    That turned out to be a very good decision.

    The manga didn’t disappoint at all. In fact, it gave me much more of what I liked about the anime. The story is longer and much more detailed, and I loved the artwork. It was very much to my taste.

    What makes Kuragehime so much fun, though, is that it is really a story about otakus — people who are completely obsessed with their own particular thing.

    Tsukimi is a jellyfish otaku, living in a house full of women who are equally obsessive in their own ways. There is a train otaku, someone obsessed with the Three Kingdoms, and another whose world revolves around traditional Japanese dolls and kimono. Then there is the mysterious person who apparently lives in one of the rooms but whom we almost never see — and yes, eventually we finally find out who that is. 😂

    They are a wonderful collection of people who have very little interest in fitting into conventional society.

    Then Kuranosuke crashes into their world.

    He loves fashion, Tsukimi loves jellyfish, and somehow those two completely unrelated obsessions become the basis of one of the strangest and most entertaining partnerships in the story. Their talents come together through fashion, and eventually this whole den of NEETs and otakus ends up being dragged into something they could never have imagined — including becoming models themselves.

    I loved that.

    There is also an ugly-duckling element to the story, but I don’t think that fully describes it. Tsukimi isn’t interesting because someone discovers that she can be made pretty. She already has this huge inner world built around jellyfish, and that very obsession becomes part of what makes her talented.

    And then, somehow, this jellyfish nerd ends up being loved by two half-brothers.

    One is Kuranosuke, the beautiful cross-dresser who loves fashion and barges into her sheltered life. The other is his older brother, a thirty-something politician who is painfully inexperienced with women.

    It is such an unlikely love triangle. 😂

    But that is exactly the kind of thing that made Kuragehime feel different from other manga I had read. The romance is important, but the story is also about these strange, obsessive people finding something useful and even wonderful in the things everyone else thinks make them odd.

    I loved the whole series enough that I would happily reread it.

    My only real complaint is the ending.

    I wanted more. 😅

    For me, the ultimate romantic happy ending is still marriage and children. After following these characters through the entire series, I wanted that completely satisfying, unmistakable ending.

    Instead, we at least get Kuranosuke finally coming to terms with the fact that he has fallen in love with Tsukimi.

    I’ll take what I can get. 😂

    Would I reread it? Absolutely.

    Rating: ★★★★★

  • Dear Enemy by Jean Webster — I Think Sandy May Have Been the Beginning of a Type

    Dear Enemy by Jean Webster — I Think Sandy May Have Been the Beginning of a Type

    Dear Enemy by Jean Webster book cover
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    Published: 1915
    Sallie McBride takes charge of the John Grier Home and finds herself constantly at odds with the institution’s reserved Scottish doctor, Robin MacRae.

    I loved Daddy-Long-Legs, so naturally I read Dear Enemy too.

    And somehow I ended up loving this one just as much.

    It is the sequel, but instead of Judy, the letters are written mainly by her friend Sallie McBride, who has been put in charge of the John Grier Home.

    Sallie is probably one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much.

    She is funny, stubborn, quite dramatic at times, and not remotely the sort of person you would immediately imagine running an orphanage.

    Also, she has red hair.

    I have a weakness for red-haired heroines. I don’t know why. I just do. 😂

    But the real problem here is Dr MacRae.

    Sandy.

    Cold, serious, difficult Sandy.

    I remember liking him enormously.

    At the beginning, he and Sallie do not get along at all. He thinks she is frivolous and inexperienced. She finds him infuriating.

    Which, of course, made me very happy.

    I love enemies-to-lovers.

    Not necessarily people genuinely trying to destroy each other. I mean that particular kind where two people keep clashing because they completely misunderstand one another, and then somewhere along the way the irritation starts turning into something else.

    And Sandy has that Mr Darcy sort of appeal to me.

    Not that he is Mr Darcy.

    Just that same difficult, reserved man who initially seems cold and judgmental, and then you slowly realise there is considerably more going on underneath.

    And naturally he has a tragic history as well.

    Because apparently being cold and difficult wasn’t enough. 🤣

    I won’t go into it because I don’t want to spoil the book, but learning more about him changes the way you see him.

    That worked very well on me.

    I also loved that Dear Enemy kept the letter format from Daddy-Long-Legs. There is something about reading a character’s letters that makes everything feel more intimate.

    You see Sallie getting annoyed with Sandy.

    Then mentioning Sandy again.

    And again.

    And being very annoyed with him.

    Very, very annoyed.

    At some point you start thinking, Sallie, you are writing about this man quite a lot for somebody you supposedly cannot stand.

    😂

    That is exactly the sort of romance I enjoy.

    The book isn’t only about the romance, though. A lot of it is Sallie trying to improve the orphanage and slowly becoming attached to the children and the work.

    I liked watching her grow into the job.

    She doesn’t suddenly become some perfect, self-sacrificing heroine. She remains Sallie. She complains, gets frustrated and has opinions about absolutely everything.

    But she cares.

    And gradually you realise how seriously she has begun taking the responsibility she was originally quite reluctant to accept.

    Maybe that is part of what I love about Jean Webster’s books.

    There is romance, yes, but the heroine also gets a life.

    Judy gets education and independence.

    Sallie finds work that actually means something to her.

    And then there is the romance on top of that.

    In Sallie’s case, with a grumpy Scottish doctor.

    A tragic one.

    Who she initially dislikes.

    Honestly, what more did I want?

    5/5

  • Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster — An Old Favourite That Still Feels Like Hope

    Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster — An Old Favourite That Still Feels Like Hope

    Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster book cover
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    Published: 1912
    Orphaned Jerusha Abbott is given the chance to attend college by an anonymous benefactor, on the condition that she writes him regular letters about her life and studies.

    Reread: February 2026

    Some books become favourites because you discover them at exactly the right time.

    I think Daddy-Long-Legs became one of mine before I had even read it.

    When I was a child, I knew Judy Abbott through the Japanese anime My Daddy Long Legs. I remember coming home from school wanting to catch it on television. I loved that world — Judy going away to school, making friends, discovering a completely different life and writing all those letters to the mysterious man paying for her education.

    Years later, when I was old enough to properly explore the internet, I discovered that the original Jean Webster novel was available free through Project Gutenberg.

    Naturally, I read it.

    And loved it.

    So this reread came with a ridiculous amount of nostalgia attached.

    Daddy-Long-Legs is told mostly through Judy’s letters to the anonymous benefactor who sends her to college after she grows up in an orphanage. She has never properly met him. She knows almost nothing about him. She has only caught a glimpse of his long shadow, which is how he ends up becoming Daddy-Long-Legs.

    The letter format is probably one of the things I love most about the book.

    You don’t simply get told that Judy changes. You watch it happen through the way she writes.

    She arrives at college having spent her entire life in an institution, suddenly surrounded by girls who grew up with families, books, travel, beautiful homes and all sorts of ordinary experiences she has never had. Then, letter by letter, her world gets bigger.

    She learns.

    She reads.

    She makes friends.

    She develops opinions.

    She gets annoyed.

    She becomes ambitious.

    And she becomes increasingly herself.

    There is something enormously comforting about that.

    I have always loved the period as well. The college life, the clothes, the letters, the expectations placed on young women, even the small descriptions of everyday life give the book a cosy atmosphere that works particularly well for me.

    And then, of course, there is the romance.

    Let’s not pretend the appeal is entirely about education and personal development. 🤣

    There is definitely a bit of Cinderella wish fulfilment here.

    An orphan girl is given an extraordinary opportunity. She gets an education. She discovers that she can write. Her entire life opens up before her.

    And then she falls in love with a rich man.

    I mean.

    I’m not complaining.

    I also realised while rereading it that part of the romantic appeal is very similar to what I love about You’ve Got Mail.

    There is something ridiculously satisfying about two people becoming important to each other while one of them doesn’t fully understand who the other person really is.

    That gap in knowledge creates a particular kind of tension that I apparently enjoy very much.

    And no, I’m not explaining that any further.

    Some things are better discovered while reading. 😄

    What makes the story work for me, though, is Judy herself. She isn’t waiting around hoping somebody wealthy will rescue her. By the time the romance reaches its conclusion, she has already spent the book becoming independent, educated and determined to make something of herself.

    The romantic ending is the cherry on top.

    Perhaps that is why Daddy-Long-Legs has always felt like such a hopeful book to me.

    It is about what can happen when somebody who has been given very little is finally given an opportunity.

    A door opens.

    Then another one.

    And suddenly a life that once seemed completely predetermined becomes full of possibilities.

    Reading it again still gave me that same fuzzy, warm feeling I associate with the story from childhood.

    Part of that is certainly nostalgia. I can’t separate Jean Webster’s Judy completely from the Judy who used to appear on my television after school.

    But I’m not sure I want to.

    Some stories become part of your life that way.

    And after all these years, Daddy-Long-Legs is still one of mine.

  • Behind Five Willows by June Hur — Book Review

    Behind Five Willows by June Hur — Book Review

    Behind Five Willows
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    Published: 2026
    In Joseon-era Korea, an illegal book transcriber and a secret novelist exchange letters without knowing they dislike each other in real life.

    My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

    Behind Five Willows is a historical young-adult romance set in Korea during the Joseon era. At its centre are Haewon, an illegal book transcriber, and Seojun, a nobleman who secretly writes fiction at a time when the government is banning books. Their lives become entangled when Haewon’s older sister falls in love with Seojun’s best friend, forcing Haewon and Seojun to accompany the couple during their courtship.

    Their first impressions of each other are not favourable. Haewon finds Seojun arrogant and irritating, while he is equally quick to judge her. What neither of them initially realises is that they already know another side of each other through the letters they have exchanged anonymously.

    That part immediately reminded me of You’ve Got Mail, one of my favourite films. In the film, the two main characters enjoy writing to each other without knowing that they are rivals—and that they dislike each other—in real life. I have always liked that contrast: two people can understand each other intimately through their words while completely misreading one another face to face.

    Of course, You’ve Got Mail is itself a variation on a much older romantic structure, and Behind Five Willows openly draws from Pride and Prejudice, another of my all-time favourites. Haewon and Seojun have their own version of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy’s problem: both are intelligent and observant, but neither is as accurate a judge of the other as they believe. Their relationship changes gradually as they see beyond social position, pride and their original assumptions.

    The Joseon setting prevents the novel from feeling like a simple retelling. Reading and writing are not merely shared interests for Haewon and Seojun. Because of government censorship, books can place their livelihoods and reputations at risk. Haewon’s work as a transcriber also gives us a glimpse of how stories were copied and circulated when access to them was restricted. The historical setting therefore shapes both the romance and the choices available to the characters.

    I also enjoyed the characters beyond the central couple. Their family obligations and differences in social status are not decorative complications; they influence what each person is permitted to do and how easily a mistake can affect an entire family. At the same time, the book does not become weighed down by its historical and political themes.

    One of its strongest qualities is that it is an easy read. The story moves smoothly, the romance develops naturally, and the historical details are incorporated without making the book feel like a lesson. It has enough substance to make the setting meaningful, but it remains warm and accessible.

    For me, Behind Five Willows combined several things I already love: the misunderstandings of Pride and Prejudice, the anonymous correspondence of You’ve Got Mail, and a historical setting that was much less familiar to me. The result felt recognisable without being repetitive.

    I gave it five stars because it was simply a pleasure to read.