Let me start off by saying that, with The Ivy Years series, Sarina Bowen became #1 with a bullet on my list of favorite contemporary authors. Her blend of humor, sensitivity, romantic instinct, steam, and generally good writing really came together in a fantastic series. The Fifteenth Minute is no exception in technical merit. But, to me, it had issues that weren’t so in its predecessors. A lot of them have to do with the underlying premise, which I’ll get to more in a minute. […]
A double cannonball to contemplate
What a subtle, poignant, sad book. In post-WWII England, Stevens, a butler of a formerly great aristocratic house takes a road trip through the country and has the opportunity to reflect on his tenure of servitude. Through these memories — many with another employee, Miss Kenton — Stevens sketches a life left rather unlived through the endless pursuit of dignity, that intangible, elite quality embodied by the foremost butlers. What is dignity? No one can put it into words, not even Stevens, but based on […]
The guy on the cover is really pretty, though
Oh, dear. Well, it’s really not so bad as all that. But the bottom line is, I really, really wanted to love this book. I have loved the rest of the series. And, my very good friend — with whom I share the majority of my romance reads — recently asked, “Do you have a thing for Scots?” and I had to admit I do delve into Highland romance quite a bit, so this should have been such a home run. But it wasn’t. I […]
Four years in four days
I can recognize a sensation when I see it. Sarina Bowen’s tag blew up this summer with positive reviews for her series, The Ivy Years, and after more minor prodding on Facebook, I decided to change the status on when to read these from “Later” to “Now.” All four stories feature couples who are in some capacity part of the Fake Harvard Harkness varsity hockey universe. Each book excels at portraying characters who behave as real people would, in situations both mundane and extraordinary. These […]