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lissan's reviews
842 reviews
Tell Him About It by Holly Kinsella
3.0
The name of Holly Kinsella sounds familiar, but I have never read anything by her. So when Endeavour Press asked if I wanted to review a couple of books, I choose this as one of them. I had a notion that it would be an easy, light hearted read.
'Tell Him About It' tells the story of Sara Sharpe who works as a publicity assistant for a big British publisher. She is sharp(!) and interested in her job, which is more that can be said from some of her colleagues. Sara is dating Simon, who is a successful lawyer and everybody expects them to marry. However, Sara is not sure that Simon is the right for her.
Adam Cooper is a writer who has just published a new book. It falls on Sara to take care of him and arrange for a lecture and signing tour. Adam is newly divorced from a socialite, who has spread bad things about him in the press. First impression seems to be true, but Sara discovers something else under the surface.
I probably do not have to tell you how this story ends? This is what I think people call a 'feel good' novel. It is framed by some 'insight' into the publishing world, adding something from the gossip world and coming to the conclusion, that what really matters, is the quiet life at home with the person you love! Well, I think we can all agree to that.
It makes for a few hours of relaxed reading, and it is not badly written. It works as a break in between more serious books.
Review from my blog at [email protected]
'Tell Him About It' tells the story of Sara Sharpe who works as a publicity assistant for a big British publisher. She is sharp(!) and interested in her job, which is more that can be said from some of her colleagues. Sara is dating Simon, who is a successful lawyer and everybody expects them to marry. However, Sara is not sure that Simon is the right for her.
Adam Cooper is a writer who has just published a new book. It falls on Sara to take care of him and arrange for a lecture and signing tour. Adam is newly divorced from a socialite, who has spread bad things about him in the press. First impression seems to be true, but Sara discovers something else under the surface.
I probably do not have to tell you how this story ends? This is what I think people call a 'feel good' novel. It is framed by some 'insight' into the publishing world, adding something from the gossip world and coming to the conclusion, that what really matters, is the quiet life at home with the person you love! Well, I think we can all agree to that.
It makes for a few hours of relaxed reading, and it is not badly written. It works as a break in between more serious books.
Review from my blog at [email protected]
Homecoming by Bernhard Schlink
4.0
Bernhard Schlink is probably most famous for his wonderful book The Reader, which was also made into a film. Homecoming has been on my TBR shelves for some years, and which is often the case, once I have read the book, I wonder why I left it there for so long.
As with The Reader, this book takes us back to events during World War II. Peter Debauer is born at the end of the war and grows up with his mother. His father died during the war. His youth summers are spent with his grand parents in Switzerland. The mother never comes with him to be with her in-laws.
His grand parents extends their pension by editing a series of books entitled “Novels for Your Reading Pleasure and Entertainment”, which Peter reads through the summers. Once the grand parents are gone he finds another book which he starts to read. The problem is that there are pages missing, and since the book somehow hits a string inside him, he searches, through the years for another copy and/or the writer, to find out how the person finally came home. It turns out to be a life long search.
The search is framed by Homer’s Odysseus and his travels home after the Trojan War. For Peter it is also and odyssé, to find out who his father was, where he belongs and the meaning of his own life. The story follows the events of his life, from a youngster, to his youth and to his grown up life. Every road he takes leads into another one and a new direction in life. Peter is like a spectator in his own life, and has problems engaging with other people. It is thought provoking, and shows what it is like growing up, not knowing who we are, where we come from, or maybe even, where we are going.
At one point Peter is working in Berlin, after the wall is down. He is speaking with an American journalist who asks him what he thinks about the wall going down and the unification.
'I went on about the two halves of Germany: the Catholic, Rhinelandish, Bavarian, opulent, life-affirming, extroverted western half versus the Protestant, Prussian, frugal, hard-boiled, introverted eastern half. The eastern half was as much a part of my spiritual world as the western half, and I wanted free access to it, the right to work, live, and love there. Maybe a free East Germany, like an Austria or a Switzerland, would be enough for me. But wouldn’t it be more natural for two halves to make a whole?'
On his way back from East Berlin, he is seeing Barbara, his former girlfriend on the plane. He does not approach her but tries to analyse his feelings towards her.
'Is existential fatigue then the result of too little commitment rather than too much? Is it taking things too lightly that wears one out or taking them too seriously? Or is the whole thing nothing but hogwash? Is it nothing but my mother’s work ethic in another guise? Was I simply more tired than usual because there are times when one is more tired than usual?'
Barbara, who had been living and working in Africa and the US, and now has returned to Germany, is in East Berlin about a work offer, says:
‘It’s the combination of the familiar and the strange. I can be somebody else when I’m in Africa or America, but I have to cut myself off from my home; here I can be somebody else in my own country, with my own people, in my own language.’
I think these quotes form the book shows very well what Bernhard Schlink wants to tell us. The difficulty of growing up, living and finding a meaningful life in post-war Germany. To find ones place, and to come. He is doing it very well. The book is low toned, but is saying so much, which I hope the quotes above shows. There is much more to the story and it takes new, unexpected twists all through the book. They all give you something to think about. I will end with another quote from the book, which is worth thinking of.
‘Be suspicious. Trust neither the coming decade nor the coming century. Trust neither the good nor the normal. Truth first reveals itself in the face of evil and in the moment of crisis.’
From my blog thecontentreader.blogspot.com
As with The Reader, this book takes us back to events during World War II. Peter Debauer is born at the end of the war and grows up with his mother. His father died during the war. His youth summers are spent with his grand parents in Switzerland. The mother never comes with him to be with her in-laws.
His grand parents extends their pension by editing a series of books entitled “Novels for Your Reading Pleasure and Entertainment”, which Peter reads through the summers. Once the grand parents are gone he finds another book which he starts to read. The problem is that there are pages missing, and since the book somehow hits a string inside him, he searches, through the years for another copy and/or the writer, to find out how the person finally came home. It turns out to be a life long search.
The search is framed by Homer’s Odysseus and his travels home after the Trojan War. For Peter it is also and odyssé, to find out who his father was, where he belongs and the meaning of his own life. The story follows the events of his life, from a youngster, to his youth and to his grown up life. Every road he takes leads into another one and a new direction in life. Peter is like a spectator in his own life, and has problems engaging with other people. It is thought provoking, and shows what it is like growing up, not knowing who we are, where we come from, or maybe even, where we are going.
At one point Peter is working in Berlin, after the wall is down. He is speaking with an American journalist who asks him what he thinks about the wall going down and the unification.
'I went on about the two halves of Germany: the Catholic, Rhinelandish, Bavarian, opulent, life-affirming, extroverted western half versus the Protestant, Prussian, frugal, hard-boiled, introverted eastern half. The eastern half was as much a part of my spiritual world as the western half, and I wanted free access to it, the right to work, live, and love there. Maybe a free East Germany, like an Austria or a Switzerland, would be enough for me. But wouldn’t it be more natural for two halves to make a whole?'
On his way back from East Berlin, he is seeing Barbara, his former girlfriend on the plane. He does not approach her but tries to analyse his feelings towards her.
'Is existential fatigue then the result of too little commitment rather than too much? Is it taking things too lightly that wears one out or taking them too seriously? Or is the whole thing nothing but hogwash? Is it nothing but my mother’s work ethic in another guise? Was I simply more tired than usual because there are times when one is more tired than usual?'
Barbara, who had been living and working in Africa and the US, and now has returned to Germany, is in East Berlin about a work offer, says:
‘It’s the combination of the familiar and the strange. I can be somebody else when I’m in Africa or America, but I have to cut myself off from my home; here I can be somebody else in my own country, with my own people, in my own language.’
I think these quotes form the book shows very well what Bernhard Schlink wants to tell us. The difficulty of growing up, living and finding a meaningful life in post-war Germany. To find ones place, and to come. He is doing it very well. The book is low toned, but is saying so much, which I hope the quotes above shows. There is much more to the story and it takes new, unexpected twists all through the book. They all give you something to think about. I will end with another quote from the book, which is worth thinking of.
‘Be suspicious. Trust neither the coming decade nor the coming century. Trust neither the good nor the normal. Truth first reveals itself in the face of evil and in the moment of crisis.’
From my blog thecontentreader.blogspot.com
Halva liv by Mats Strandberg
4.0
Halva liv (Half lives my translation) by Mats Strandberg. Also a new writer, that I would welcome back. Jessica is devastated when her boyfriend Jacob disappeared from one day to the next. Several years later, her grandmother dies, and she goes back, also to Skåne, to attend the funeral. She stays on during the summer to take care of the house while her grandfather and uncle travel to Spain. Her grandmother wrote a diary directed to her, which she now receives from Solveig, who was one of the few friends her grandmother had. The diary reveals a family secret that has been kept hidden for 60 years. It is a wonderful book about Jessica who is trying to come to terms with her life, her family and Jacob, and a summer when all the secrets are revealed and life can start again.
From my blog thecontentreader.blogspot.com
From my blog thecontentreader.blogspot.com
Demelza by Winston Graham
5.0
Poldark series; Ross, Demelza, Jeremy and Warleggan by Winston Graham
Addictive! This is the word to describe what happens when you start reading the first book in this
series. Winston Graham has written historical fiction at its best. Cornwall in the end of the 18th century, where people are mainly depending on the tin and copper mines.
The story starts when Ross, a young man from the higher classes, but without money, comes back after having fought in the American wars. Being rather disillusioned by his experience, he is on his way home. Already in the stage coach he gets news that his father has died. Deciding at the spur of the moment, not to go directly home, but visit his uncle to inquire more about the circumstances, he get his second chock when he learns that his first love, Elizabeth, is to marry his cousin Francis. With these devastating news he goes back to his house, Nampara, where he grew up. It is in an appalling state, and no money to take care of it. However, he is determined to take it back to how it once was. The other part of his inheritance is a couple of mines, where his father already had given up on finding anything. His prospects does not look that good.
I don’t want to reveal too much for you, who are still happy enough, to have the enjoyment of reading the books ahead of you. It is a family saga of the Poldark family, and the people surrounding them. It is a tale of family, love and betrayal, the rich and the poor, the mining business which seemed to have thrived during the time, but now in decline, the miners and their miserable life, but with highlights at times, the people making money on banks and businesses, not always fair, the unrest in France, the smugglers of the Cornwall coast and much more. They just go about their daily life, but Winston Graham has managed to make it into a very exciting and eventful time.
How did he manage? Mainly, I would say, in the narrative. It is written in a cool, almost neutral kind of way, but he still manages to put sparkles on the pages. He tells the story of a number of different kinds of people in a very inspiring way. He lets their life be shadowed by real life events, but otherwise you have the feeling that this is the world as it exists. It is highlighted in all the things that is happening with the mines, the village, the workers, the family situations and is woven into a beautiful ‘piece of cloth’.
The other remarkable thing is the characters he has created. They overtake everything, especially the main characters Ross and Demelza. Even when the story is told with other actors, their characters are lingering over the story. Apart from that, you have the people working in Nampara, Ross’ cousin Francis and his wife Elizabeth, George Warleggan, a newly rich banker who is also in love with Elizabeth, other countryside gentry, the miners and people in the village. After four books they are all you friends. Hmm, maybe not all of them!
Just a few notes on the main characters, which hopefully will not destroy it for anyone else.
Ross is a fantastic romantic character. Strong willed, making friends over the class borders, a natural, thinking of other people (most of the time). He is sometimes a little bit too emotional and lets his anger take the better of him, which puts him in difficult situations. There are times when you don’t like him so much, but he always manage to justify the means in the end.
Demelza is another fantastic character moulded out of a miner’s daughter and coming to Nampara by coincidence. She is the one who makes the longest ‘journey’ over the class borders, and has enough power to overcome the obstacles. Slowly, slowly, she works herself into the confidence of people and they very soon realise, that when she is not there, they miss her.
Francis, is a good natured boy, too kind, too easy to lure into a wrong path. Getting disappointed in his marriage rather early, he starts playing and loosing his money. He always have a minority complex towards Ross.
Elizabeth is beautiful and sensitive. Like a beautiful flower who is there to get admiring looks from men, but will bend with the first wind. It is difficult to understand what the men see in her, but maybe this was the ideal at the time. She is the one most difficult to get a grasp of.
Winston Graham wrote many books, and being so impressed by the way he tells a story, I think it is a must to try some of the rest. The first four books in the Poldark series were written in the fifties. It was only twenty years later, that he continued with the other eight(!) books. I only bought the first four, but I have to admit that I just have to read the others as well. Cannot leave this story without knowing how it will be developed. However, since I tend to get so captivated by the books, and have a lot of other books to read, I will not yet buy the rest! I hope you realise how disciplined I am in this venture?
I have some favourite books when it comes to strong stories and characters. Cathy and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, Scarlett and Rhett in Gone With the Wind, and Claire and Jamie in the Outlander series. To this list I can now add Ross and Demelza.
He also wrote Marnie which was a successful Hitchcock film with Sean Connery and Tippi Hedren.
From my blog: thecontentreader.blogspot.com
Addictive! This is the word to describe what happens when you start reading the first book in this
series. Winston Graham has written historical fiction at its best. Cornwall in the end of the 18th century, where people are mainly depending on the tin and copper mines.
The story starts when Ross, a young man from the higher classes, but without money, comes back after having fought in the American wars. Being rather disillusioned by his experience, he is on his way home. Already in the stage coach he gets news that his father has died. Deciding at the spur of the moment, not to go directly home, but visit his uncle to inquire more about the circumstances, he get his second chock when he learns that his first love, Elizabeth, is to marry his cousin Francis. With these devastating news he goes back to his house, Nampara, where he grew up. It is in an appalling state, and no money to take care of it. However, he is determined to take it back to how it once was. The other part of his inheritance is a couple of mines, where his father already had given up on finding anything. His prospects does not look that good.
I don’t want to reveal too much for you, who are still happy enough, to have the enjoyment of reading the books ahead of you. It is a family saga of the Poldark family, and the people surrounding them. It is a tale of family, love and betrayal, the rich and the poor, the mining business which seemed to have thrived during the time, but now in decline, the miners and their miserable life, but with highlights at times, the people making money on banks and businesses, not always fair, the unrest in France, the smugglers of the Cornwall coast and much more. They just go about their daily life, but Winston Graham has managed to make it into a very exciting and eventful time.
How did he manage? Mainly, I would say, in the narrative. It is written in a cool, almost neutral kind of way, but he still manages to put sparkles on the pages. He tells the story of a number of different kinds of people in a very inspiring way. He lets their life be shadowed by real life events, but otherwise you have the feeling that this is the world as it exists. It is highlighted in all the things that is happening with the mines, the village, the workers, the family situations and is woven into a beautiful ‘piece of cloth’.
The other remarkable thing is the characters he has created. They overtake everything, especially the main characters Ross and Demelza. Even when the story is told with other actors, their characters are lingering over the story. Apart from that, you have the people working in Nampara, Ross’ cousin Francis and his wife Elizabeth, George Warleggan, a newly rich banker who is also in love with Elizabeth, other countryside gentry, the miners and people in the village. After four books they are all you friends. Hmm, maybe not all of them!
Just a few notes on the main characters, which hopefully will not destroy it for anyone else.
Ross is a fantastic romantic character. Strong willed, making friends over the class borders, a natural, thinking of other people (most of the time). He is sometimes a little bit too emotional and lets his anger take the better of him, which puts him in difficult situations. There are times when you don’t like him so much, but he always manage to justify the means in the end.
Demelza is another fantastic character moulded out of a miner’s daughter and coming to Nampara by coincidence. She is the one who makes the longest ‘journey’ over the class borders, and has enough power to overcome the obstacles. Slowly, slowly, she works herself into the confidence of people and they very soon realise, that when she is not there, they miss her.
Francis, is a good natured boy, too kind, too easy to lure into a wrong path. Getting disappointed in his marriage rather early, he starts playing and loosing his money. He always have a minority complex towards Ross.
Elizabeth is beautiful and sensitive. Like a beautiful flower who is there to get admiring looks from men, but will bend with the first wind. It is difficult to understand what the men see in her, but maybe this was the ideal at the time. She is the one most difficult to get a grasp of.
Winston Graham wrote many books, and being so impressed by the way he tells a story, I think it is a must to try some of the rest. The first four books in the Poldark series were written in the fifties. It was only twenty years later, that he continued with the other eight(!) books. I only bought the first four, but I have to admit that I just have to read the others as well. Cannot leave this story without knowing how it will be developed. However, since I tend to get so captivated by the books, and have a lot of other books to read, I will not yet buy the rest! I hope you realise how disciplined I am in this venture?
I have some favourite books when it comes to strong stories and characters. Cathy and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, Scarlett and Rhett in Gone With the Wind, and Claire and Jamie in the Outlander series. To this list I can now add Ross and Demelza.
He also wrote Marnie which was a successful Hitchcock film with Sean Connery and Tippi Hedren.
From my blog: thecontentreader.blogspot.com
Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
4.0
This book was read for the Brontë Reading Group. We met yesterday to discuss this classic tale of bigamy, deceit and murder. And what a discussion! Ms Braddon might have been devastated of all the things the group read into the characters and the events, or proud that she has managed to write a story which is so captivating, with its many tricks and turns.
Lucy Graham is a governess with the local doctor when Sir Michael Audley, a middle aged local gentry, falls head over heels in love with her. She is the prettiest thing of earth, good tempered and too good to be true. She is loved by everyone, except Alicia, the daughter of Sir Michael from his first marriage. They marry and all is well until Sir Michael's nephew, Robert Audley, comes to visit with his friend George Talboys. George has been in Australia for several years to seek his luck in the gold industry. He comes back a rich man. On his return he finds that his wife is dead and has left their son with her father. George is devastated, and Robert takes care of him and tries to nurse him back to life. They decide to vist his uncle and his new wife and enjoy the refreshing country life. The situation becomes somewhat tight when Lady Audley, hear the name of Robert's friend and try by all means to avoid meeting him. Now starts a cat and mouse game with avoidance, disappearance, mystery, deceit and murder. It is very well done and it is not until the very end that you know how the story will end. We deal with a cunning lady, maybe with a streak of madness, but definitely one who manages to manipulate her surroundings.
Mary Elizabeth Braddon, born 1835, was one of the most popular novelists of the Victorian era. Her parents were separated and her brother left for India and later Australia. To support herself and her mother, she worked as an actress for some years under the name of Mary Seyton. She never really made it big so she went into writing instead, which we should be grateful for. In 1860 she met John Maxwell, a publisher of periodicals. In 1861 she started living with him. He was married, had five children, and wife in an asylum in Ireland. Quite forward for the time! She got six children with him and they finally married in 1874, when Maxwell's wife died.
Braddon produced more than 80 novels, but Lady Audley's Secret won her recognition and a fortune. She was self sufficient on the profit of this novel alone. She also founded Belgravia magazine in 1866, which contained novels, poems, travels narratives and biographies, essays on fashion, history and science. It came with lavish illustrations and it made literature available at an affordable cost. She died in 1915 in Richmond and is buried in its cemetery. A number of streets in this area are named after characters in her novels.
In a non-fiction book I read recently, Desperate Romantics: The Private Lives of the Pre-Raphaelites by Franny Moyly (my review here), she and Lady Audley's Secret are mentioned.
"Just two months after Lizzie delivered her dead baby, on 6 July 1861, the sensational tale of Lady Audley's Secret began its first serialisation in the weekly Robin Goodfellow magazine. Lizzie had a very specific connection with the story's heroine: they had both been painted by members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
...
Mary Seyton's real name was Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Her experience in the theatre taught her about narrative and storytelling, but more than anything it must have taught her about the popular appetite for a good story. She could read what it was that an audience craved and what chimed with the times.
It is testimony to the fame the Brotherhood had achieved a decade after its incarnation that Braddon chose to define her heroine's beauty within the terms of their work. It is also testimony to Lizzie and the others, such as Annie and Fanny, who so influenced the PRB aesthetic. In this regard Lady Audley's very existence - in terms of her bewitching physical beauty - and the space she quickly occupied in the public imagination owed much to these girls.
---
Quote from Lady Audley's Secret
'Yes, the painter must have been a pre Raphaelite. No one but a pre Raphaelite would have painted hair by hair those feathery masses of ringlets, with every glimmer of gold, and every shadow of pale brown. No one put a pre Raphaelite would have so exaggerated every attribute of that delicate face as to give a lurid brightness to the blonde complexion, and a strange sinister light to the deep blue eyes. No one but a pre Raphaelite could have given to that pretty pouting mouth the hard and almost wicked look it had in the portrait. ' (If you are acquainted with the paintings of the pre Raphaelites, you can imagine the beauty of Lady Audley.)
Braddon chose to make her mesmerising heroine a Pre-Raphaelite subject not least because the real Pre-Raphaelite models had cast a spell on those who painted them. The tales of tangled love affairs and men swept off their feet by their ravishing muses were common currency. Braddon instinctively tapped into this and was rewarded when her fictional siren, with her masses of golden ringlets and crimson robe, captivated the Victorian public."
It is said that through her experience in the theatre, she knew what people wanted to have. That makes sense when one reads her book, it could very well be adapted to the stage, as it also was. There are so many different turns in this book, and even today, 150 years later, it is a pleasure to read. From our discussions yesterday, I gather that most people liked the book. I certainly did. It is, in spite of its age, an easy read, a lot of dialogue, maybe a little bit repetitive from time to time, but a great story that keeps you captivated to the very end. It gives you a taste to read something more of her.
From my blog thecontentreader.blogspot.com
Lucy Graham is a governess with the local doctor when Sir Michael Audley, a middle aged local gentry, falls head over heels in love with her. She is the prettiest thing of earth, good tempered and too good to be true. She is loved by everyone, except Alicia, the daughter of Sir Michael from his first marriage. They marry and all is well until Sir Michael's nephew, Robert Audley, comes to visit with his friend George Talboys. George has been in Australia for several years to seek his luck in the gold industry. He comes back a rich man. On his return he finds that his wife is dead and has left their son with her father. George is devastated, and Robert takes care of him and tries to nurse him back to life. They decide to vist his uncle and his new wife and enjoy the refreshing country life. The situation becomes somewhat tight when Lady Audley, hear the name of Robert's friend and try by all means to avoid meeting him. Now starts a cat and mouse game with avoidance, disappearance, mystery, deceit and murder. It is very well done and it is not until the very end that you know how the story will end. We deal with a cunning lady, maybe with a streak of madness, but definitely one who manages to manipulate her surroundings.
Mary Elizabeth Braddon, born 1835, was one of the most popular novelists of the Victorian era. Her parents were separated and her brother left for India and later Australia. To support herself and her mother, she worked as an actress for some years under the name of Mary Seyton. She never really made it big so she went into writing instead, which we should be grateful for. In 1860 she met John Maxwell, a publisher of periodicals. In 1861 she started living with him. He was married, had five children, and wife in an asylum in Ireland. Quite forward for the time! She got six children with him and they finally married in 1874, when Maxwell's wife died.
Braddon produced more than 80 novels, but Lady Audley's Secret won her recognition and a fortune. She was self sufficient on the profit of this novel alone. She also founded Belgravia magazine in 1866, which contained novels, poems, travels narratives and biographies, essays on fashion, history and science. It came with lavish illustrations and it made literature available at an affordable cost. She died in 1915 in Richmond and is buried in its cemetery. A number of streets in this area are named after characters in her novels.
In a non-fiction book I read recently, Desperate Romantics: The Private Lives of the Pre-Raphaelites by Franny Moyly (my review here), she and Lady Audley's Secret are mentioned.
"Just two months after Lizzie delivered her dead baby, on 6 July 1861, the sensational tale of Lady Audley's Secret began its first serialisation in the weekly Robin Goodfellow magazine. Lizzie had a very specific connection with the story's heroine: they had both been painted by members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
...
Mary Seyton's real name was Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Her experience in the theatre taught her about narrative and storytelling, but more than anything it must have taught her about the popular appetite for a good story. She could read what it was that an audience craved and what chimed with the times.
It is testimony to the fame the Brotherhood had achieved a decade after its incarnation that Braddon chose to define her heroine's beauty within the terms of their work. It is also testimony to Lizzie and the others, such as Annie and Fanny, who so influenced the PRB aesthetic. In this regard Lady Audley's very existence - in terms of her bewitching physical beauty - and the space she quickly occupied in the public imagination owed much to these girls.
---
Quote from Lady Audley's Secret
'Yes, the painter must have been a pre Raphaelite. No one but a pre Raphaelite would have painted hair by hair those feathery masses of ringlets, with every glimmer of gold, and every shadow of pale brown. No one put a pre Raphaelite would have so exaggerated every attribute of that delicate face as to give a lurid brightness to the blonde complexion, and a strange sinister light to the deep blue eyes. No one but a pre Raphaelite could have given to that pretty pouting mouth the hard and almost wicked look it had in the portrait. ' (If you are acquainted with the paintings of the pre Raphaelites, you can imagine the beauty of Lady Audley.)
Braddon chose to make her mesmerising heroine a Pre-Raphaelite subject not least because the real Pre-Raphaelite models had cast a spell on those who painted them. The tales of tangled love affairs and men swept off their feet by their ravishing muses were common currency. Braddon instinctively tapped into this and was rewarded when her fictional siren, with her masses of golden ringlets and crimson robe, captivated the Victorian public."
It is said that through her experience in the theatre, she knew what people wanted to have. That makes sense when one reads her book, it could very well be adapted to the stage, as it also was. There are so many different turns in this book, and even today, 150 years later, it is a pleasure to read. From our discussions yesterday, I gather that most people liked the book. I certainly did. It is, in spite of its age, an easy read, a lot of dialogue, maybe a little bit repetitive from time to time, but a great story that keeps you captivated to the very end. It gives you a taste to read something more of her.
From my blog thecontentreader.blogspot.com