Sean O > Recent Status Updates

Lots of YA tropes and seekrits. For me, a step down.

Ah, we are entering the “heist” part of the plot. Good.

Oof, what an awful chapter.

He’s going to kill the title character (who is not even sick) off just because of Victorian melodrama bullshit. 🙄🤮

Mr. Greenwood is a piece of shit.

The clerk from the post office that wasnt good enough to marry the Marquis’s daughter is…

Secretly an Italian Duke!

TWIST!

Things seem to be winding down. Not fast enough tho.

The melodramatic Tuberculosis subplot is… boring? It’s supposed to be sad, but it’s just mawkish

2025 Reread: I’m going to get through the entire series now. So this will be quick

Trollope subplots: sometimes better than the main plot. Always worth the pages.

I always marvel at how Trollope consistently delivers. Even from books that start weakly. 1/3rd in and he’s got some solid subplots going and the main characters all make sense.

Update: Lady Kingsbury is Trollope’s greatest villain. She is a horror.

Meanwhile, Lord Llwddythlw is both the best name and a great character. Probably my favorite minor character since Charles Glascock.

2025 reread: this is some well-written historical fiction.

“Foster father and foster mother must get back together.” Oh hell, it is a YA novel.

Is this a YA novel? Probably. Except it doesn’t suck like most YA books I’ve stumbled across.

The novella is a good length for a Nero Wolfe story. The second one had a lot of red herrings, but it also quickly pivoted thanks to Archie and Wolfe.