eyes.2c Reviews

Artists in Residence: Seventeen Artists and Their Living Spaces, from Giverny to Casa Azul by Melissa Wyse, Illustrated by Kate Lewis ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ What a great idea! Looking at various artists’ residences. I know similar books have been published but I just really did enjoy this “seeing” through a different lens. Although reading this reminded me that I’d missed visiting Monet’s Giverny  years ago due to it being closed for the season. Sigh! Something I’ve had a lingering regret about over the years. Kate Lewis is to be congratulated on her extraordinary illustrations. She brought the artists’ homes alive. Her illustrative exploration deepened the book’s aesthetic experience for us. What a wonderful way to research! And then, Melissa Wyse’s very different investigative  method over the years, of filling notebooks with descriptive prose about those residences! Only for the two to so serendipitously meet at an ‘artists in residence” enclave! Brilliant! Aspects the described homes...

The Narrowboat Summer by Anne Youngson        ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I so enjoyed Narrowboat Summer. A very different read. A story to savor. A quiet winner. Three women meet on a tow path just out of London and for two their lives change forever. A fabulous cast of eccentric characters and two middle aged women. Sally had just walked out on her marriage and Eve had been let go from her job as an engineer. Walking from different directions along the tow path the women happen to intersect with each other and Anastasia, a hardened canal boat owner who’s worked the canals and locks for years. Eve and Sally find themselves deciding to help Anastasia out of a problem, crewing on her narrowboat The Number One, learning the locks and the rhythms of the river, before taking it to a boatyard at Chester whilst Anastasia took care of some health needs. This was the start of a journey measured in days not hours, a journey of the soul. And that's what drew me on! The people, the rhythms, th...

The Vanishing at Loxby Manor by Abigail Wilson       ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Kent 1811, a fall from a horse, a missed duel, who could have guessed the impact these two separate occurrences would have not only for Piers Cavanagh and Charity Halliwell but their companions. The deep friendship along with that of their siblings and other neighbors goes back years. However time moved forward, Charity to Ceylon with her family, Piers to a marriage planned for him from birth. Forward to Kent 1816. After five long years away from those she'd grown up with, Charity has decided to return to Loxby Manor and her old companions for a year rather than going to Boston with her family, before turning her life towards other horizons. She arrives at Loxby Manor in the evening. No sooner has she been shown to her bedroom, when her friend and daughter of the house Seline greets her, borrows her cloak and sneaks out of the manor after a mysterious light that has become visible amongst the darkened nearby r...

Kiss of the Lyon  (Lyon’s Den #12) by Meara Platt   ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2 I really liked the two main proponents in this addition to the Lyon’s Den pantheon. Lord Mathew Lyon (note the surname!) a sometime intelligence operative for the crown  and  Danielle Haverfield, a young woman intent on saving her brother. Each in their own way gorgeous, loyal and swoon worthy. I must say that Danielle is really quite a bold young thing underneath the biddable young debutante exterior. But then, she has many reasons for her actions—and it seems curiosity is one! Of course they meet at the gambling  tables in the Lyon’s Den! Of course things go pear shaped! The storyline demonstrates just how much can be packed into an historical romance;  pulling in an arranged marriage, spy craft, an abusive father, and traitors—all in the shadows of high society, and in the blink of an eye. I guess that’s what spread this story a little thin for me. Although my liking for the lead chara...

Shake Loose the Border (Border Reivers #3) by Robert Low        ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ A fascinating look at this time of 1548 Scottish history. A life of violence is Batty Coalhouse's  heritage. Known for his abilities to get the job done he takes on an unasked for task; to rescue one Will Elliot, Lord of Newark in Fife's Steward, being held by reiver enemies. The rescue attempt leads to even more confrontations and conflict. There's the truly disgusting opportunist, a reiver, styling himself the Laird of Blackscargil whom Batty faces time and again. And Batty's thoughts are true words,  "No matter that the war atween Scotch and English is trickling to a close, he thought; for the reivers it is just a better excuse to shake loose the Border." Trapped by his reputation as a hard fighter, trapped by the more powerful and trapped by his, almost melancholic inner voices. No way out! But then Batty "has a fire for vengeance." Batty "has shaken forth the Border...

Portrait of Peril (Victorian Mystery #5) by Laura Joh Rowland       ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Strangely, I has a secondary comment running though my consciousness when reading this. I was remembering my pleasure when I purchased the Phantom Comic, "Married at Last," when Mr. Walker and Diana Palmer finally tied the knot. Of course there's no prize for guessing what spurred that memory being dredged up from my brain's vault. After a torrid relationship Sara Bain and Detective Sergeant Thomas Barrett  are no sooner finishing their last I do's in a church in Bethnel Green when chaos breaks out. Murder in the crypt! It's fitting that the action takes place in the caverns and crypts under the church, in the hazy fog of the day.  All is shades of grey frequently stained by the bizarre. Mediums and criminals mix. A clever title that looks to the interests of the day through a different lens. Sara Bain / Barrett is a complex character. A crime photographer and reporter for the Daily ...

The Duke's Privateer (Devilish Dukes #3) by Amy Jarecki        ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Well this was a five star read! A delightful spinster,  Honorable Eleanor Kent,  turned privateer and providing goods for the top echelons of town, a gifted interior designer and daughter of a viscount. Intelligent, charming, shrewd and determined evidenced by the way she’s turned the family’s flagging fortunes around and gained the friendship of Prinny, the Prince Regent. Ah yes! By evading taxes she’s actually saved the country from the worst of Prinnys expenses. A tortuous argument I know. And who’s the prime villain. Why the gorgeous rake who finds himself in over his head as heart and duty conflict. The  Duke of Danby  has undertaken to be the leader of the Prime Minister's tax evasion (anti smuggling) task force. Of course he and the delectable Elinor will clash, in more ways than one. A super twist of various tropes by Jarecki. I’m indeed five star charmed! An X...

Court of Swans (Dericott Tale #1) by Melanie Dickerson        ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Fractured fairytale themes continue with Dickerson's take on The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen where a princess rescues her eleven brothers from a spell placed on them by an evil Queen. Set mostly in medieval London of 1381, historically at the time when King Richard of Bordeaux, is about to meet and marry Lady Anne of Bohemia, just after the Wat Tyler rebellion. Delia, daughter of the Earl of Dericott, has a new stepmother--traditionally nasty and ambitious of course. A new brother is born but little is seen of the babe. (Curious in my mind.) Not long after, Delia overhears her stepmother bemoaning that her child will have no inheritance. To Delia a premonition of danger. As it was. The Earl dies in a fall from his horse.  Swiftly following the funeral seven brothers (not eleven) are arrested for murder and treason--even ten year old Roland? The young officer who comes to take the bro...