Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Feb 8, 2012, 4:00 am
By no fault of his own, twelve-year-old Jack is one of the most ostracized boys in town, and all because of his last name. The Witcher family are considered white trash, and even though Jack is smart, fair, and honest, he is tarred by the same brush that affects all his family. It’s harder for sen...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Feb 6, 2012, 4:00 am
Henry Skrimshander is an outstanding shortstop and it’s that which draws Mike Schwartz to recruit him to Westish College in Wisconsin. Within a very short space of time, Henry has revitalized the Westish team and brought them victories that had been vastly beyond their reach. But with one missed t...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Feb 5, 2012, 4:00 am
I felt like January was an exceptional reading month. It was good in other respects, too; I received my Indefinite Leave to Remain visa for the UK and celebrated my birthday on the 12th. I’ve made peace with the fact that I’m never going to resume a review every weekday, I don’t read enough or...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Feb 2, 2012, 4:00 am
After falling in love with Jack Hampton during the course of The Tory Widow, Anne Merrick has fully devoted herself to the Patriot cause – but because she’s still known as a Tory, she’s infiltrated their camp with her loyal maid, Sally. Anne and Sally have the dangerous job of not only discove...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Feb 1, 2012, 3:07 pm
Good evening all! I’m not here today; instead, you can find me discussing The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin with Jodie over at Lady Business! We had a fantastic although spoilerrific discussion, so don’t miss it.
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Jan 31, 2012, 3:00 am
Subtitled “The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking”, Susan Cain’s Quiet takes us on a journey through history and into the present, understanding why exactly introverts and the skills that they have are devalued in present day American culture. We also take a look into the...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Jan 30, 2012, 4:00 am
Margaret Prior’s spinsterhood is about to be thrown into glaring relief. Her sister is getting married and her brother has long been wed to Margaret’s friend Helen. As a lady, living in Victorian London, it’s considered an excellent idea for her to devote her time to charitable works. She’d ...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Jan 29, 2012, 12:10 pm
This Sunday finds me relaxing after a long, difficult week at work. I’ve been so wiped out that I’ve had a hard time focusing on anything, let alone blogging – fortunately, I had a decent stock of blog posts available for the week, so I’ve kept things nice and lively here. Friday brought me...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Jan 27, 2012, 4:00 am
As a result of an unfortunate accident with another boy, young Prince Patroclus is exiled from his homeland and sent to grow up in a foreign land with a set of strangers. In Phithia, his new home, he is merely one of many boys growing up under the shadow of the king and his half-god son, Achilles. ...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Jan 25, 2012, 4:00 am
... it also lets us view Catherine’s development through another pair of eyes. Varvara could have become a mute vehicle for Catherine, but instead she is a fully fleshed out character in her own right, ... close to her, it’s never hard to understand how that change has happened. We can almost...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Jan 24, 2012, 4:00 am
Today I’m thrilled to welcome Eva Stachniak, the author of The Winter Palace, to Medieval Bookworm, on the little things that make history come alive for novelists. Once in a ... ’s shoes, or on her bed. The cats made the Winter Palace vivid in my mind. A little more about the author: Eva S...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Jan 23, 2012, 4:00 am
Living in a stall, selling carpets, is not really what one dreams of at night, no matter how successful. In Abdullah’s dreams, he is a prince, destined to marry a beautiful Arabian princess. But they’re just dreams, until one day, a merchant walks by Abdullah’s stall bearing a magic carpet. Ab...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Jan 22, 2012, 5:31 am
Isn’t it fantastic when an author sends you little goodies to promote their products? I’ll be reviewing Christine Blevins’s newest book, The Turning of Anne Merrick, in a couple of weeks for the blog tour put together by Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, and Christine sent along a lovely ...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Jan 20, 2012, 4:00 am
Humans will never stop trying to find a cure for death and disease. In Rhine’s world, scientists thought they’d figured it out – until they realized that the disease simply killed everyone, girls at 20 and boys at 25. Just four years before her inevitable death, orphaned Rhine is kidnapped fro...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Jan 19, 2012, 4:00 am
Arthur and George are born in Great Britain in the mid-19th century, but their lives couldn’t be any more different. Arthur grows up in Edinburgh, in a shabby but intellectual and loving family, becoming an eye doctor and then a world-famous author. George grows up in rural Shropshire, tortured by...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Jan 16, 2012, 4:00 am
Spartacus is famed as a warrior, a Thracian who led a band of rebellious gladiators against the might of the Roman republic. Ben Kane has taken this story, only the bare bones of which exist in historical record, and crafted a duology of fiction novels around those bones. This, the first, covers the...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Jan 13, 2012, 4:00 am
Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy series is one of the few YA series I’ve actually kept up with over the past year or so; as a result, I immediately latched on to this book as soon as it was released. I was curious to know more about the minor characters from the first series, and Bloodlines foll...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Jan 11, 2012, 4:00 am
As I’m trying to catch up on my reviews from 2011, and now my five six reviews from 2012, I thought I’d better start putting together some mini reviews for those books I can get out of the way quickly! Here are the two short, lighter non-fiction books I read at the end of 2011. Life Below Stair...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Jan 9, 2012, 4:00 am
Ashima and Ashoke Ganguli begin their lives together with an arranged marriage and a move to the United States from India. Ashoke is still a student, with ambitions to become a professor, while Ashima stays home to take care of their son, Gogol, who is born shortly after their marriage. The Namesake...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Jan 8, 2012, 4:00 am
Do you ever find that, while or after reading particular books, that the author’s prose starts to change your own thoughts? This is happening to me right now with The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. I’m not sure if the way that Harbach writes just fits too perfectly into my subconscious, or wh...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Jan 4, 2012, 4:00 am
I named Courtney Milan as one of my top discoveries of 2011 and books like this one are exactly why she ended up on that list. Smite Turner isn’t a normal hero. Traumatised by his mentally ill mother throughout his childhood, in a time when treatment was more harmful than helpful, he’s grown in...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Jan 2, 2012, 4:00 am
Many of the most famous love poems were inspired by a real life love story. This is certainly the case with John Donne, whose romance with Lady Ann More led to some of the most beautiful, and sometimes risque, poetry in the English language. Though living in relatively stringent Elizabethan England,...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Dec 31, 2011, 4:19 pm
Another year, more bookish statistics to share! 2011 has been busy! It was my first calendar year of full-time work. This means it was also the first year in which I could buy a lot of books, and unsurprisingly, I did just that, ending the year with 509 unread books. I read a lot of books, too; I a...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Dec 30, 2011, 4:00 am
William the Conqueror is one of the most well-known figures in English history, and for good reason; with a single battle, he ended the Anglo-Saxon rule of England and changed many aspects of governance, aristocracy, and even language. That’s simplifying things just a bit, but the impact of the No...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Nov 2, 2011, 5:00 am
This book is very well-known, so I won’t get into a summary too much. Suffice it to say that Levitt and Dubner use economic theories to tease out the truths behind commonly held misconceptions. For instance, what was the cause of the drop in crime across the United States in the 90′s? Do sumo wr...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Nov 1, 2011, 5:00 am
Celia’s parents are superheroes, but she has never been anything more than normal. Eking out a standard existence on a single salary, renting her own apartment, taking the bus to work; this is Celia West’s life. Her parents Captain Olympus and Spark keep the city safe, while operating a huge and...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 31, 2011, 4:00 am
A Touch of Dead is a collection of Sookie Stackhouse stories from in between various novels of the series. This means they (and this review) contain spoilers for those who haven’t read the books. Since it’s an incredibly short book at less than 200 pages long, this is definitely going to fall in...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 30, 2011, 4:25 am
Good morning Saloners! Today finds me trapped at home due to our car breaking down (again) so I’m hoping to get a lot of those irritating practical tasks at home over with. Namely, lots of cleaning and filing are in my future. These things both need to happen, but I’m particularly annoyed becaus...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 28, 2011, 4:00 am
On Christmas Eve, 1800, three men conspire to assassinate Napoleon as he rides by on his way to the theatre. The plot is foiled and Napoleon lives to rule another day – but it’s up to Chief Inspector Roch Miquel to find the culprits. Under pressure from his boss, the famous Minister of Police Fo...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 27, 2011, 4:00 am
The Bauers are a prosperous, middle class family living in Czechoslovakia. They are patriotic, they celebrate Christmas, and while they’ve suffered their fair share of joys and sorrows, they don’t consider themselves too different from their neighbors. Unfortunately, they are Jews, and even if t...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 26, 2011, 4:00 am
Diminutive Mercy Lavinia Bump, just 32 inches tall, has never been content with her life as a girl in the country. Even when she’s appointed a teacher despite her size, she longs for more. So when her “cousin” arrives offering to put her on display for her singing talents – in reality to exh...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 25, 2011, 4:00 am
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan was my hypothetical first historical fiction subject, and before I went anywhere I thought I’d best read what she herself wrote about her life. After all, there are only gaps to fill if the actual woman herself didn’t write about ...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 24, 2011, 4:00 am
Jacquetta of Luxembourg is a woman who, according to Philippa Gregory, history has neglected, mainly for lack of information; married first to the Duke of Bedford and then rather scandalously to Richard Woodville, a commoner, Jacquetta was an observer of many of the most important events during the ...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 23, 2011, 2:04 pm
Happy Sunday evening, Saloners! I spent half of yesterday and this morning participating in this fall’s Read-a-thon, which I’m happy to say was very much a success for me. I finished 5 full books and a sixth I was already reading, for a total of 1597 pages read in 11 hours and 24 minutes (approx...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 22, 2011, 4:43 pm
Well, halfway through Hour 9, anyway! How is everyone holding up? It’s 9:30 here, so I’m well into the evening, but I’ve finished my third full book now and I’m just set to choose a fourth. So far I’ve read For the King by Catherine Delors, A Touch of Dead by Charlaine Harris, and now Just...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 22, 2011, 12:48 pm
So far so good – I’ve finished the book I was reading first, Miles in Love, and I’ve also finished my first full book, For the King by Catherine Delors. The second was actually a very good choice – historical fiction about a real-life police investigation set in nineteenth-century Paris duri...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 22, 2011, 6:35 am
It’s nearly time for the Read-a-thon! I’m all set to start, hopefully shortly after 1. I thought I’d share my not-so-towering book pile with you all. I’ve read 4 books in the previous two Read-a-thons. While I’d like to top that, 4 books right now would be excellent. Here is the pile as it...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 18, 2011, 4:00 am
Joan of Arc – Jehanne the Maid – is the legendary virgin who heard the voices of the angels and led the French Dauphin to victory, finally, over the English. This book portrays her journey, from the first time she heard the voices of the angels and struggled with what to do up until her capture ...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 17, 2011, 4:00 am
The world has not been kind to Ash Turner, but he has resolutely made the most of it. Born to a mother intent on giving away her family’s last morsels of food, dyslexic in a world which doesn’t understand his condition, and fiercely protective of two brothers he struggles to understand, Ash’s ...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 14, 2011, 4:00 am
This history of cholera focuses on one of the last, and most lethally quick, epidemics to strike London. It was one of the last because this time, two diligent men found what they believed to be the cause, and circumstances started to change. The first man, Dr. John Snow, was already a pre-eminent a...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 13, 2011, 4:00 am
Three generations of women, none of whom ever really managed to get along, collide at one Maine “cottage”. The matriarch of the family, Alice, is disappointed by the way her progeny have turned out, especially Karen, her oldest daughter. Karen and Alice have never really connected, to the point ...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 12, 2011, 4:00 am
... for her seductive ways. But now the Emperor has passed on, and ... not personally well acquainted with the period, but these books give ... actually going to get it. The last thing she wants is ... against them becomes truly forbidding. The ending, however, wraps up neatly ... left this rea...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 11, 2011, 4:00 am
I know what you’re thinking – this book is a completely out-of-the-ordinary read for me. And it is, I’ve read very few books like this in my life. But I became curious about wheat when my mother was advised to eat much less of it by her doctor because of the sugar content, even in whole wheat ...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 10, 2011, 4:00 am
... a constant threat, but worse are the factions that threaten to split ... pleased with her development as the series carries on. Naturally, she ... , and very much contrary to the way Cornwell sometimes treats his women, Aethelflaed is developed as the strong, leading woman that history ... ve...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 9, 2011, 4:00 am
Late as usual, I meant to write this post last weekend, but we had house guests and unfortunately I had no time for blogging at all, something that seems to happen a bit too often these days for various reasons. It’s especially annoying when I actually feel more keen on blogging than I have in mon...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 7, 2011, 4:00 am
This is the fifth book in the series. Rosemary and Rue is the first book. The sons of the Duchess of Saltmist have been kidnapped, and usual it’s October Daye who is called upon to rescue them. The stakes are very high; if Toby doesn’t find the boys, her country is going to go to war with those...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 6, 2011, 4:00 am
Everyone who has heard about the tragedy of the Titanic, or watched the film, probably remembers that the band kept on playing even as the ship sank into the ocean. They gave their lives so that people would remain calm and get on the boats in an orderly fashion. Nearly everyone who survived remembe...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 5, 2011, 4:00 am
As with the other volumes, this is an omnibus composed of three separate stories – two books and a novella. I won’t avoid spoilers for Young Miles or Cordelia’s Honor, so read those reviews before starting this book! All of the stories in this particular omnibus deal with genetics and the man...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 4, 2011, 4:00 am
In her early twenties, Soo-Ja makes a decision that many young women make; she decides which man she will marry. Bound by her family’s traditional values in Korea after the war, she finds herself with no choice but marriage. Her family will not countenance her becoming a diplomat, so when a young ...
Comment - Like

Meghan K. posted an article on medieval bookworm - Oct 3, 2011, 4:00 am
For as long as men have been writing history, important women have been lost from its pages. Restoring all of them would be an impossible, lifetimes-consuming feat, but that doesn’t mean some historians can’t try. Building on the success of Philippa Gregory’s novels set during the Wars of the ...
Comment - Like