Historical Tour de Genre discussion

Hi everyone! I love love love historical fiction and I wanted to try my very first challenge this year so I'm excited to join you all. I don't have my books picked out yet, but I'm thinking about starting with The Widow of the South for the Historical Plantation subgenre. It's been sitting on my shelf waiting to be read, and this would be a good excuse to finally read it. :) I'll update again when I actually start reading.

Hi Jessica!

So excited for you to read The Widow of the South! I actually visited the plantation and snagged a signed copy from the author. I had a very strange paranormal experience while taking the tour of the house. I'm not easily shaken. Love horror, ghost hunting and paranormal stuff ect. However, I become so rattled during the tour that I had to excuse myself and bolted from the house. I wasn't expecting anything to happen since it was midday and summertime. I initially joined the tour for historical research -- I was working on my historical fiction novel at the time. Needless to say, it totally freaked me out! I want to go back just to see if I get any of the same feelings or have another experience. Just blew my mind. I'm still not sure what to make of it.

Oh wow, how crazy. What happened while you were there?

Now I'm super excited to start reading it, lol. :)

Okay I'm already making a change...

I still want to read The Widow of the South this year, but I remembered that this month I'm supposed to read The Kitchen House for a book discussion, so I'm going to make that one my Plantation category book. I'm only a few chapters in, but I've heard so many great things about it so I'm excited. :)

Widow of the South is on my list at the library. I read The Kitchen House last year and thought it was good, though a little dark for my taste. I don't know what I'm going to read for the Plantation category!

Finished The Kitchen House tonight -- so amazing! I'll post a review tomorrow. I'm working on reading The Book Thief now, for the YA category.

First review -- The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

< a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

I hadn't originally planned to do any of the alternate sub-genres, but I read this novella and I think it fits in the historical fantasy sub-genre pretty well. It's The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart by Mathias Malzieu. I really liked it, I thought it was beautifully written and sort of an adult fairy tale.

Here's my review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/136124521

I've finished two more books for the challenge but haven't gotten around to writing reviews for them yet.

For the Young Adult sub-genre: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which was absolutely wonderful.

And for the Mystery sub-genre: Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor by Stephanie Barron, which is the first book in the Jane Austen mystery series. I really liked it, and will definitely be reading more of the series (I already picked up 3 more of them).

Reviews to come, when I have some time to write them.