3 Short Book Reviews

I've actually been reading lately, just taking my time getting through my main book. I thought I'd do three quick book reviews of each one that I've finished over the past few weeks:

1. Queen's Play by Dorothy Dunnett. A little long and difficult to get through, but in the end worth the read. This is the 2nd in the Lymond Chronicles, following The Game of Kings. In this installment, Lymond must go to France to help protect young Queen Mary of Scotland. Acting undercover, he poses as an obnoxious young lout who refuses to pay attention to or revere the rules and expectations of polite society. For the first half of the book, he is drunk or purporting to be, and somehow still managing to save the queen. In the latter half, his cover is blown and he must travel back to England and then back to France in order to find the necessary evidence to condemn the assassin. In the end he is successful and is back to the lovable Lymond from book 1. I do look forward to Book 3 in this series, but will wait a while as Dunnett's writing is a little thick and difficult to get through. I need some light and airy books for a while.

2. The Robber Bridegroom by Eudora Welty. The Robber Bridegroom was Welty's first stand-alone novella published in the early 40s. It is told in a fairly tale type language and imagery and follows the life of Rosamund as she discovers true love in the berry stained face of the man who "stole what she would have freely given." I felt a little dissonence in the handling of the violence in language that so easily drifted over the top of it. Welty doesn't dissappoint though, as this is a wonderful book, easy to read and completes my reading of Welty's fiction.

3. Much Ado about You by Eloisa James. After hearing my Aunt Betty read a section from an Eloisa James novel (steamy love scene) that she was reading to her mother, I decided that I wanted to read James. It's been several years but I finally got around to it, and absolutely loved Much Ado about You. Four orphaned sisters arrive at their guadians house...he is a drunk bachelor who has never had to take care of more than his horses. Within a week, one of them has run away with a lout and the other has been jilted at the alter and married to the man who she has fallen in love with. Delightful in both language, humor and story, this is a great book and a very quick read--I finished it in 3 days!