The Ice Swan is a slow-burn and rather tender romance about two people building a relationship after their worlds have crumbled around them. It is set in the Russian emigré community in Paris during the final months of the Great War, and then in rural Scotland in the War’s aftermath, and it manages to be both angsty and gentle. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Princess Svetlana Dalsky fled the Bolshevik uprising in Russia with her mother … Continue reading The Ice Swan by J’nell Ciesielski →
There are two things you need to know right up front when deciding if this book is for you. It’s the first in a trilogy, and the author has stated that the HEA won’t be happening until book three. It worked for me, but if you’re feeling the lack of satisfying emotional resolutions in your real life and need one in your fiction? Yeah, hold off on this one. The plot hinges on a weaponized … Continue reading Slippery Creatures by K.J. Charles →
This is also part of my, “Okay, universe, just tell me what to read” campaign. This book has a lot of my catnip: lady spies, a dual chronology, and a host of people trying to put their lives back together after a war. In 1947, Charlotte “Charlie” St. Clair is in England with her mother. She’s on her way to Switzerland for an abortion. She’s a college sophomore, unmarried, and her parents have decided that the … Continue reading The Alice Network by Kate Quinn →
I expect that we’ll see a number of WWI themed movies over the next three or four years as we pass through the centennial anniversaries. I’ve written before how I have this fascination with the insanity that was WWI, so yes, I’ll go see like, all of them. I was really excited for this one, being the biography of Vera Brittain and how much I love women’s history and telling women’s stories. I also, having cut … Continue reading Movie Review: Testament of Youth →
I’ve always had a fascination with World War I, partially because we barely spent any time on it in school- there was Franz Ferdinand, and trenches, and mustard gas, and then everyone got together and decided it was Germany’s fault, and then there was a Long Afternoon and then WWII happened. Even when I try to sort through, well, everything? I get bogged down in the hot mess of geopolitics and shit. The stories of … Continue reading Movie Review: The Water Diviner →
