Heartstone

author: Elle Katharine White

If I told you, “Pride and Prejudice BUT WITH DRAGONS” how fast should I throw the book and then run from the stampede?

I will confess that I didn’t really read the back or the synopsis when the ARC came to my door. I just thought the cover was pretty enough to put on the “ACTUAL TBR” pile (as opposed to the “Aspirational TBR” pile). I was a good part of the way through before I went, “…wait a second…”

The handy thing about using a known story in a high concept fantasy is that you can spend your time working on the world building. In this case, the Darcy-analongues, the Daireds, are dragon riders who defend the country against evil beasts- gryphons and the like- while the Bennet analogues, the Bentaines, are commoners who work for one of the landowners. They meet when Darcy and his BFF are hired to kill off a pack (pride? flock?) of gryphons, and the usual P&P stuff applies.

I’m still not all that clear on the world-building, or how people became paired up with sentient dragons, and I would have liked to have seen that.

HOWEVER, THERE ARE DRAGONS AND THEY ARE COOL. And it was neat to see how the dragons affected the expected plot points. It’s not totally a beat-for-beat retelling but it’s pretty close.

It was fun! I enjoyed it a lot! It did a good job of blending Austen with fantasy and explaining why the position of the Bentaines was so precarious within the rules of the world. And I can also promise that, as should be required for all P&P retellings from now until the end of time, the Lydia analogue isn’t paired off in the end with the Wickham analogue.

– Redheadedgirl

Science Fiction/Fantasy

In Such Good Company

author: Carol Burnett

In Such Good Company: Eleven Years of Laughter, Mayhem, and Fun in the Sandbox is delightful if you are a fan of The Carol Burnett Show. And if you aren’t yet, go get the DVDs or look it up on YouTube and watch some of it for heaven’s sake.

This book is not an autobiography. Rather, it’s a collection of anecdotes about the show. It you are interested in the show, it’s heavenly, but it probably wouldn’t appeal to the general reader. Carol Burnett is not only funny, she’s also incredibly generous, and she devotes most of the book to praising everyone but herself – the writers, the actors, the crew, the guest stars, and of course Bob Mackie who, among other things, designed the dress for the “Gone With the Wind” parody (“I saw it in the window and I just couldn’t resist it!”). While I didn’t learn anything earth-shaking, I did learn a lot about how the show worked, and why it would be so difficult to replicate today. The book is slight but enjoyable.

If I had to pick one reason to love this book it’s that Burnett tells the story behind the Elephant speech by Tim Conway which made me watch it, which made me laugh so hard I almost had an asthma attack. The context is that Carol had just reminded everyone not to laugh during a sketch. Then Tim Conway destroyed everyone by making up a long story about an elephant while poor Burnett tried to work in her next line (“Go ahead, Momma”) without laughing.

In the below video, there’s a short break. This is because Conway pulled his stunt for the early show and of course the producers made him promise not to tell the same story during the later show. So he didn’t. Watch and learn! Try not to pee your pants!

– Carrie S

Memoir, Nonfiction

Look to the Stars

author: Olivia Kelly

Look to the Stars was exactly the book I needed to read at exactly the right moment I needed to read it. Lately my brain has been in over-drive, catastrophizing and just generally keeping me from sleeping soundly. Look to the Stars was the perfect Regency novella to reset my mind – it’s light on conflict, although the conflict is still there, and I loved the main characters. It’s more a short chronicling of a romance than anything.

Miriam Rosenbaum, an American heiress, is in London with her mother and four sisters for the Season. Her mother is an expat who married an American, and now is returning to London to try and find husbands for her daughters. All Miriam cares about the London Academy of Astronomical Sciences and the astronomers she’s been corresponding with. Miriam could care less about marriage – she’s here for the science, baby. While she isn’t particularly concerned with socializing, when invitations don’t start rolling in, she knows it’s because her family is Jewish, and she sees the pain it causes her family.

Their hostess’s son (and future Earl) Leo Blakeley is looking to escape his uncle forcing him into an arranged marriage, so he pretends to court Miriam. Hilariously, Miriam has other shit to worry about and is unaware that’s what he’s doing. “You want to take me for ices again? Okay, I guess. Let’s hurry back. I got stuff to do.” As a result the two build up a friendship that comes before falling in love.

I think that this book worked for me because, like I said, there wasn’t overwhelming conflict. There is some gentle misunderstanding, but mostly it’s about two people getting to know each other and falling in love. Miriam and her family receive slights due to their religion, and that prejudice is something that’s never resolved, just acknowledged – which I think is fair. It’s not a problem that you can solve today, let alone in a novella.

Overall Look to the Stars cheered me up immensely, and that’s what I look to books, especially romance, for in the first place.

– Elyse

Historical: European, Regency, Romance