Synopsis:
A San Francisco lawyer finds herself magically spirited back to ancient Rome, where she ends up running a tavern and weathering a German invasion.
Review:
I’m reading Household Gods for an online book club, and the only reason I didn’t quit this book is because I really like the people in the book club. I am [...]

Popularity: 28% [?]

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Synopsis:
The concluding adventures of Gemma Doyle, proper Victorian debutante and keeper of the magic of a mystical world called the realms, which is threatened by intruders from the ominous Winterlands.
Review:
The Sweet Far Thing ends the trilogy that began with A Great and Terrible Beauty, followed by Rebel Angels. Gemma Doyle and her friends are [...]

Popularity: 56% [?]

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Synopsis:
Callously ravished by the man she hoped to love, an 11th Century Norwegian woman shapes her life around dreams of vengeance.
Review:
Gunnar’s Daughter is an early novel from the Sigrid Undset, author of the Nobel Prize-winning Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy, and it is no less of a powerful, shocking work not just for a book set in [...]

Popularity: 45% [?]

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Synopsis:
Life inside a 1970s TB ward from the point of view of a teenage girl who won’t take her treatment lying down.
Review:
A View from a Kite is a superlative young adult book, featuring a fresh, likable protagonist in an utterly fascinating setting. Gwen is 17 and has tuberculosis, so she lives in a sanatarium [...]

Popularity: 35% [?]

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Synopsis:
The orphaned daughter of Henry VII’s widow Katherine Parr finds herself at court, ostensibly as a lady-in-waiting but in reality to serve Queen Elizabeth as a white magician.
Review:
The Red Queen’s Daughter is one of the last of the galleys I picked up at Book Expo this year. I don’t read a lot of historical [...]

Popularity: 25% [?]

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Synopsis:
Upon discovering that she has a great-aunt who’s been in a mental institution since the age of 16, Iris has to decide how much she’s willing to allow her life to be changed.
Popularity: 44% [?]

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Popularity: 44% [?]

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Synopsis:
As her seven sons grow to manhood in 13th Century Norway, Kristin finds her marriage tested by long-simmering resentments, and struggles with her passage into senescence.
Review:
This might be my favorite of all three Kristin Lavransdatter books, because I think Undset is operating at the peak of her narrative powers. She really brings to life [...]

Popularity: 77% [?]

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Synopsis:
After the death of the tortured aunt who edited her grandmother’s best-selling diaries, a second-generation Danish-British woman seeks to find out the truth of her aunt’s parentage, which may be linked to an infamous murder case.
Review:
The complexity of Anna’s Book (originally published as Asta’s Book) is reminiscent of A Dark-Adapted Eye, and both books are [...]

Popularity: 45% [?]

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Synopsis:
Now married to her beloved Erlend Niklausson, Kristin takes up her new life as the mistress of Husaby, fearful that the child that grows inside her will expose her secret shame and cause her father to reject her.
Review:
I didn’t think it was going to be possible for Undset to outdo her achievement The Wreath, book [...]

Popularity: 60% [?]

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Synopsis:
The destinies of two men who look almost like twins are intertwined with a prisoner of the Bastille and his golden-haired daughter, as the drums of the French Revolution bring death, destruction, and La Guillotine ever closer.
Review:
A Tale of Two Cities is three of five for the Classics Challenge. I don’t think I’m going [...]

Popularity: 36% [?]

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