Play Book Tag discussion

I know JoAnne and I are set to read this. Others welcome to join in.

I will start this in a week - after my Feminerdy Book Club meeting on Sunday.

probably same time frame for me

I am starting this now, though unlikely to read more than a few pages before the weekend.

Ha, was coming to tell you that I started it last night, 2 1/2 chapters in.

Still in first chapter. I was out last night, had a margarita or two, and didn't last long after coming home. Busy day today so no reading.

I settled down in bed to read to the end of Chapter 1 before going to sleep. Next thing I know, I am at chapter 5, and I must call a halt.

Enjoying it immensely. Ch. 4 has a dinner party in it ... can't wait to discuss it. One of the features of Proust's novel are these 100+ page dinner parties in different levels of society that the narrator attends. Like here they are very revealing - on every level. J.K. Rowwling has a key dinner party at the heart of her brilliant The Casual Vacancy. I rank this one with those.

Yes, it does get addicting! I was leery when I read a blurb on the book "great for the Downtown Abby fan", or something like that. , must agree though that it does have that vibe. I am about chapter behind, I had an epidural yesterday so have been resting since then

Ch. 4 is long and needs to be read in one sitting I think. As if you are observing the dinner as it unfolds.

Those publisher quotes are merely designed to target a specific audience that will buy the book because of that quote. It could have been that reviewer's sincere belief in a positive way, or a denigrating comment in a negative or even positive review. I represented a theater PR rep for 30 years. Learned a lot about how they extract quotes from reviews after opening night to sell tix, even when mostly bad ones.

Mentioning Downton Abbey sells books. The publisher PR department probably collectively thought it had died and gone to heaven when they got that from a ARC reviewer.

This is such a joy to read. The period, location, and personalities are so richly alive. I adore Aunt Agatha. Daniel is even growing on me. All the village politics and relationships remind me of The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling, which I loved, obviously suitable to an earlier era - vintage - but at the core the same. I am approaching the end of Part One.

I enjoyed this book a lot when I read it a couple of years ago. Glad you’re liking it!

HA-I knew you would jump ahead of me-I had to get my awful subdue book off my nightstand and move on before I threw up. I will make this one a priority today

I need to put time into my Subdue book and Crucible of War this weekend. I also am craving a regency romance or mystery read just for fun. That should give you time to catch up. I am going to pause at end of Part One for a couple days.

The dinner party was great, but I actually enjoyed the garden party better. I also love Agatha, she is much more liberated than she lets on to the society ladies. I will finish chapter 7 tonight and maybe move on to 8, I want to get my Subdue book done so that I can move on.

I am wallowing in historical romance. Not quite ready to be back in 1914. My subdue read is being ignored.

And the picnic was great. Equally revealing but in a different way.

I will be starting Part 2 in a day or 2-I am hoping Hugh gives up the doctor's daughter-

I am just starting Part 2 tonight but won't get far.

Oh I do not believe for a second that Hugh lasts much longer imagining he's in love with her.

It is obvious from their first meeting at the train who Hugh ends up with. What isn't so clear is what is up with the wannabe poet cousin, on every level.

(view spoiler)[ I believe he is queer, that is my thought anyway. That is why, I think, he and his partner are so anxious to get away. I remember him in the beginning being called "pretty boy" by the drunk agitator on the train (hide spoiler)]

Joanne wrote: "[spoilers removed]"

Yes ... and the Continent, Paris especially, were less morally rigid. But there are increasing hints of something else in his background relating to the father and why he seems to almost call his aunt's place home and he so distant even as a child from his father.

Oh, this is such a lovely novel, but my reading plate is full at the moment even though I would like to listen to this one again sometime!

The author paints such a stark picture in those first couple of paragraphs greeting us in Part 2, sharply reminding us the reader of the horror war brings and that this is not just light fiction, much as the villagers themselves were shocked awake after all their eager planning, just as boys entered the war with no perception of reality of it. Brilliant writing, especially when comic relief provided a couple pages later by Mrs. Fothergill, Agatha's nemesis: (view spoiler)[“Let me sink from exhaustion, yet still will I do my duty,” said Mrs. Fothergill. “I shall not shirk from the strife.” (hide spoiler)]

Haha-yes I am about 3 chapters in to part two. Utterly unconscionable that "housing a refugee" is the "in thing to do".

I love the friendship that is developing between Beatrice and Celeste. Mrs. Fothergill is the town pain in the ass!

It's the absurdity of the social climber.

Another favorite: “No, no, I am called to leadership on this issue on the national stage,” said Mr. Tillingham. “I must have my refugee.”

Right? And by the way give me a martini with that refugee!

Beatrice is a woman after our own hearts:

Setting aside literature, she spent a pleasant moment choosing between purchasing a straw hat of Agatha Kent quality and buying a three-volume set of the works of Jane Austen, bound in dark blue morocco and hand-tooled gilt, which she coveted at the local bookshop. She was grinning in rueful self-awareness that the books would always win against personal adornment...>

I am going to remember that line whenever I buy something nice for myself "It is Agatha quality!" ;)

Oh, the Trojan pots of damson jam!

This book just gets more and more delightful the farther I read!

Even though I fear that our beautiful caring Celeste has a dark story to tell based on bruises. The balance the author achieves is just gifted.

Beware gifts of damson jam! Here is one for you!

Just wait until you get to the hops harvest! The formal dinner is up first and our dear Bettina is out-doing herself. Still to come is the young peoples picnic - oh and we met Craigmore during the afternoon.

I finished. Review when my work day over. 5 stars. Just loved it.

Only half way in. Trying to finish up challenges, but should get back to it tonight

I could not put it down. It was reading fast and I stayed up too late.

This left me with such a good feeling. Here's My Review

Thanks, I won't read it until I post mine-would not want to be influenced in anyway-😂

Just went on my TBR!!!!

How you doing, JoAnne? I'm glad I pushed to finish it earlier this week because I'm really bogged down right now in a slow reading but engrossing book.

Thank goodness for long holiday weekends! Folks are already disappearing making it feasible to get a bit caught up at work without working late into the night.

I just finished the chapter of the parade-that idiot Mayoress-gads I wanted to slap her silly

Joanne wrote: "I just finished the chapter of the parade-that idiot Mayoress-gads I wanted to slap her silly"

That scene is the beginning of the novel's denoument. And Bettina definitely needs the JD + Miss Lola team to hold her down, slap her silly, and drool on her.

One of the things I loved was all the wonderfully written 'set pieces' the author gives us -- dinners, picnics, this parade -- that paint a picture, present the themes and advance the plot.

Dorothy Dunnett was mistress of the brilliant central set piece - at least in her Lymond Chronicles which I have read. Each book has a masterful, big, important set piece - a human chess game, a scavenger hunt across the rooftops of Rheims, France (I think that's the city). Lordy I need to reread those brilliant books.

Dunnett taught me the deep pleasure they bring to a novel. Proust was also a master of them.

I am now finished with part 3, will more than likely finish tonight. I agree with this being the beginning of the denoument of the book. How things all came to a head with Daniel and Celeste. It makes me wonder, in the day and age, how many more marriages were based on this premise. I love how she writes Daniels dilemma, how she never comes out and says anything, just leaves it to you to figure out, and really that is how it was, not only then but way into the future. Geez, I had and uncle who was married 3 times before the right woman came along and melded into his life style

Joanne wrote: "I am now finished with part 3, will more than likely finish tonight. I agree with this being the beginning of the denoument of the book. How things all came to a head with Daniel and Celeste. It ma..."

So true, JoAnne. I remember clients from the 1980s and 1990s where it clearly was that type of marriage though unstated. Mostly for a man (where that awful expression 'having a beard' came into being) but once or twice for a woman. It was even unstated to we lawyers but refered to indirectly. We knew.

It's one of the strengths of Simonsen's writing that she was able to 'pull that off'.

Review is posted. I loved it and so glad we finally got to it. Although the ending was so very sad, I would not have expected the author to be anything less than realistic.

That ending had me reaching for the kleenex! It was the right ending. Yet she gave us the gently humorous even there.

I too am glad we finally read this together