The Library Lady > Recent Status Updates

Inside every person is a story worth telling, and we have only ourselves to blame if we don’t perk up our ears and listen.

Inside every person is a story worth telling, and we have only ourselves to blame if we don’t perk up our ears and listen.

I know that a lot of people are excited because this is a lady Julia crossover. But truthfully, somehow it's not really keeping my attention. I started reading this weeks ago, and keep putting it down to read other books.

Funny line: ""You and Stoker,” she said, gathering him into the conversation with a glance, “have an irritating habit of behaving as though you were the main characters in every story""f

In adding this, I found that the author is vulgar enough to give her own work 5 stars. Therefore when I rate this I will be cutting my rating by at least one star.

I was really struck by these lines:

The town of Portree was like a song you whistled because you couldn’t quite remember the lyrics. It was quaint and lovely.

I am probably going to abandon this. It's nudge nudge wink wink-aren't I witty archness is making me queasy.

Here we go again. Does Ms Greenwood understand that there is a difference between a baron and a baronet? And if back when they were poor in Australia, Phryne's mother worked as a cleaning lady. How can she possibly have not known how to cook?

I am reading a nonfiction book about heiresses and it produced a desperate craving for my annual reread of the series!

The intelligence Unit's motto: "We do the thinking so the rest of the coppers don't have to.

I read these for lines like this:
"... the Intelligence Unit (motto: “We do the thinking so that other coppers don’t have to”).

I am powering through these books again, and meant to leave notes in my reviews of all the inconsistencies, but I've been reading them so fast I haven't done so. So far in this one Greenwood has given Miss Lee a line that is basically lifted from a Dorothy Sayers not in print in 1928, and has referred to Phryne as "the daughter of a Duke,"which she can't possibly be or she would be known as "Lady Phryne."

I have both read and listened to these books countless times. This is a particular favorite of mine, but each time I read/ listen to this series, I tend to say that about each book in its turn!

Vespasia "She was now of an age that it would be indelicate to mention,."
Is this Perry's way of saying, "Well, when I started writing these she was a lot older?"

About 20 years younger than she was previously said to be:

Vespasia was close to seventy, although she might not look it, and certainly had not retired from any part of life. Her passion, courage, and energy would put to shame many a thirty-year-old, and she had always been a leader in the highest Society.

Aunt Vespasia Age Tracker: a book or two back, she was said to be 74. Now she is "over 80."

Bits from DL Sayers immortal Lord Peter Wimsey books keep popping up in Phryne books. The "Megatherium Co.,"whose crash is vital to "Strong Poison," becomes a scam company in early volumes, "Nutrex for Nerves," the key account in "Murder Must Advertise," runs ads in the magazine in "Away With the Fairies." This book includes the theft of "The Attenbury Emeralds." Homage or plagiarism?

At a Jazz Age party on the Cote d'Azur: "Zelda had brought a writer husband."

I've read the three books that follow Clouds of Witness and proceed this one, but I didn't like any of them enough to want to re-read them. Instead I jump to here, to the first appearance Harriet Vane.

Does "pop" or "feminist" history mean that a book has to be superficial and bland? I am plowing through this one, but it is written in a style reminiscent of a featherbrained high school student writing a term paper, and is about as deep.

I am going to try to skim read this, but so far it is the most banal book that I have read in a long, long time.

After reading an awful novel based on Desiree's life, I wanted to read this again, and these days I do a lot of such reading on my phone and tablet. Sadly, this seems unavailable on Kindle or through libraries, but Google Books has it for $9.99 and I am thrilled to have an ebook copy of this as well as my battered old hardcover.

An early quote which shows why the current TV version, with all the workers calling Ross "Ross" makes me wince:
The Poldarks had always been on good terms with their tenants.Distinction of call was not absent, it was understood so clearly that nobody needed to emphasize it..."

I could do without the revised cover, as I vastly preferred my old paperbacks with the REAL Poldarks (Robin Ellis, Angharad Rees) on them, but after reading some mediocre historical fiction recently, oh the joys of returning to Winston Graham's world!

I am already turned off to this book because the author is the sort of nitwit who has the chutpah to give her own work 5 stars, AND because she apparently thinks she is writing the 1st book ever on Desiree Clary. I don't know how old she is, but I read and cherished "Desiree" by Annemarie Selina some time in the 70s. Hell, a movie was made of it in 1954--with Marlon Brando in fact! Starting rating: *

More Susan worship. "Dr. Silverman smiled and nodded. I always felt sort of pale and insubstantial when I was with her. She was such a presence. Her black hair was so thick. Her eyes were so big. Her intelligence was so palpable."
Ugh.

I have tried reading this book with 2 different apps, on an Android tablet and on an IPad and nothing makes the format read correctly.