Miriamgreen > Recent Status Updates

Maybe you developed like whiskey in a barrel while your siblings remained chamomile tea. And maybe that isn’t fair. But when I met you, you were already meant only for me.

Retribution neatly done. In mathematics they say an equation is beautiful in its simplicity and the truth that it presents.
Hear the author reclaimed the narrative

She wrapped her arms around him, locked her legs around his back, as if he were a comment she would be riding through the universe.

And this was the scene of their lovemaking. Well done

It’s all too much for any of us, he said
Life is

These are the sentences, the poetry, that saved the story and remanded the reader that this was the author of the Penny Royal Green series

Thus Dot, in a first, an absolute first, checkmates Mr. Delacorte. He cannot believe she achieved a tactic, and he was blindsided. And the pawn who sacrificed himself was little Peter. Leaving the Rook open, Mr. Delacorte‘s queen was trapped, as.Dot says, in jail. Most interruptions in the narrative are just that, interruptions. But not the chess game

A most welcome caprice. Decor for many books has been teaching.to play chess. She exasperates him by naming all her chest pieces, as in, Adolfo upon that made a sacrifice, so that Sir Horatio a Knight, could trap the queen he was in love with – putting her in jail.
He earns for her but she is married to Theodore the second, the king. All welcome blather

She wasn’t worldly. He was too much for her, yet exactly enough, and she feared nothing else would ever be enough again.

In the latter part of the book there are some pearls that are dropped between paragraphs that are difficult to get through, without skimming. But now the plot has focused attention.

Good God, Marchand. Her temper flared. Mince a word now and again.

the painful dance from adversary to intimacy has been completed. The question of finding the Ming Dynasty vase still up in the air. Is her brother Hogarth stupid? I find the palace to be annoying and I’ve always felt that way since the early books. This has been no different. the gambling intrigued, and yes, that has proved of interest Especially her initial interview. but overall another disappointment

An excellent first kiss episode, which has saved it from running on empty to a quarter tank of gas. As Marchand slowly reveals himself, the plot gets tighter, and there is more interest in what is actually happening.
It is about time

I don’t use the word lightly but it’s a stupid book.

There is a tremendous sadness in the headlines and the deepest rift between MAGA and decent human beings. To witness what we have been embroiled with for 12 years with Donald Trump and the cult of personality has been enormously difficult. Each headline is more egregious than the last. The corruption, the nepotism, the pedophilia, all stops removed in a grab for power

Is always the mark of a well love story to be cast a drift at the ending, hoping for more pages, a longer epilogue, or just a continuation. In this case I have in my book bag the Prince of Broadway, the prior title, which I will now crack open. Thank you Joanna Shupe for an adventurous step back into the crime lords of the Gilded Age. Especially as midterms are at hand.

The author does a fine job of cataloging a heartbreak, and impossibility between two people despite the joining of their hearts. For all her dirty talk, she can evoke the deepest pain of unresolved affection.
I will do everything possible to forget you. What a sad line

She does her homework on the Gilded Age, from crime boss to millionaires to sweat shops to the Metropolitan opera, and everything in between. But I question why she needs such a filth vocabulary. Who is she trying to titillate. It is almost as if her readers must pass a gauntlet of lewd and crude. To follow the narrative

have read this book before. The insistence of Justine letting check Mulligan escort her to the legal aid benefit triggers memory. Also the bowling. And that got hot and heavy. Once started reading it is obligatory to finish if it is a well done plot, and this definitely was. All of her gilded age titles are interactive in the best possible way

The cover, another insult to readers. Do you think this looks like a goody two shoes? This is a woman of charitable impulse, that is the point of the book. And I do not like the color pink

Two years later
Blah, blah, blah.
Yada, yada, yada

Definitely not one of her better achievements. Nothing to brag about

They solve the dilemma in 2 1/2 agonizing pages of trite, blubbering treacle-I don’t want you to go, I don’t want go, I’ve loved you since Scotland, me too. Awful just awful. And then the epilogue

And here we have the ultimate line of the narrative
Anna was filled with emotion

Give me a break. Unworthy of Diane Gaston. So unworthy, and for the reader so disappointing. So the level of this title was a junior high girls romance read. I am embarrassed I’m reading it

The villain Lucius has stolen away the 16 year-old Ellen, madly dashing off in a curricle. Will has intercepted them, an interrupted duel, and Lucius grabs Ellen to ride off again in the curricle. Which, of course, crashes throwing Lucius out, and Ellen useless curled in a ball. He has despoiled her with her complete permission. tSTL. All The perils of Pauline compressed.

Your choice, mother, be decent or be gone.

Finally the worm has turned. Anna has read the rules to the DowAger-finally. It was a welcomed ballyhoo.

Even throwing the cat among the pigeons with Anna asking Mary to become her ladies maid, and leave Violet, was not enough to dispel the constant formality between Will and her. The longing expressed by Anna was the same as expressed by will but it was as they were parallel lines that did not meet. It became unsatisfying and did not advance a nuanced plot

The miscommunication device in the narrative is very unsettling and unwelcome. To a point it has its place but when it is continued far beyond the comfortable, this reader would like it to end

The narrative has been unrelieved, with hard pedal angst stretching through the story like a taffy pull and I do not like taffy. It is uncomfortable that Anna has not stood up for herself, that she’s not bashed her mother-in-law over the head yet, that she has let the servants dismiss her. But most of all is well who has distance himself entirely. Unhappy reader

This scene where the newly married and servants that aided them, gathered together for a meal. they had foiled the efforts to prevent their marriage and a celebratory meal, it’s description, was well done. In a few sentences the scene was set that drew the reader into the room, sharing the experience. So kudos for this Interlude

I’ve gone back to investigate titles of her that I have read that I have given very high marks to, and the memory of which has never left me. In the immersion I see that many titles are repetitive tropes, many are not worth the reading time, but many I have peaked my interest. I was quite overwhelmed at the number of titles she has authored. And this one is not one of her better ventures, thus far

All wedding ceremonies should be as was this. Five men drinking whiskey in the tap room, five guineas dispersed, three questions asked: your names, do you wish to be married, are you being forced. Once answered, they signed their names, and that was it. Marrying over not the anvil with the bottle of whiskey. All wedding ceremonies should be as was this

Venture of Gaston more plebeian in its writing that I remember of her previous titles. Almost like a high school writing assignment in the sentence structure. But not offensive