Thursday, February 25, 2016

Post-Deadline films! books! theatre!

Catch up time!  I drowned under my Lesson in Love and Murder deadline; but I am finally coming up for air and seeing friends and doing things and reading and such!






I love Agent' Carter's Agent sousa 
Kinky Boots:

This is the most joyous show of all the shows. It really is amazing. I first saw it with my friend Melanie just after Christmas and my friend Krista was visiting from Halifax this past week for work so we went on a two for one deal .



Agent Carter:

I haven’t had a ton of television watching time these past months because I was on deadline for Lesson in Love and Murder and writing Of Dubious and Questionable Memory. So, when I wasn’t at my real job, I was writing. So much writing.

I did however, manage to work my way through the first season of Agent Carter and then just caught up on the second. I love Jarvis. And Sousa. And Peggy. I love that it is a super feminist show and I love that a core friendship is a platonic one between a man and a woman .



Risen:

Reviewed this for our Breakpoint friends


Hail, Caesar: hilarious spoof of the technicolour big budget films ( read: Ben Hur) of the 1950s. Amazing celebrity cameos and carried by Josh Brolin who plays a Hollywood “fixer.” Lots of sly, tongue-in-cheek nods to classic Hollywood scandals.


Deluge by Lisa T Bergren: This ends the River of Time sequence in a heart-breaking, gorgeously evocative way . Lots of romance, birth and death as sisters Lia and Gabriella finally find temporary happiness with their super-hot Italian nobles. I just love typing Marcello. Bergren is an expert of historical verisimilitude and my brain hurts thinking about the amount of research that went into the creation of her world. The plague is explored in a gritty, grotesque and realistic way: as an enemy force that sparks battle and divide.




The Vintage Guide to Love and Romance
is a potty-mouthed chicklit treat that I read in one sitting. With a truly marvelous heroine who ends up living with her grandmother: once a writer of those etiquette guides of the 60s. A classic makeover story with a surprise love twist. I truly didn’t know who she would end up with.


Dressed for Death: Julianna Deering

Deering does it again! I mean, the only thing better than a Drew Farthering book? : A DREW FARTHERING BOOK with a Regency flair!

I love the cozy, throw-back world with large, rambling estates and an Agatha Christie meets Dorothy L Sayers timbre.

I also really appreciate the development between Drew and the other characters populating his life: especially Madeline.

A smart, classy, high read with the manners of Downton with the clever turn of a Conan Doyle yarn.

Long live Drew!

(and these super awesome covers! )


The Darkness Knows
by Cheryl Honigford

First off, Honigford builds an effortlessly beautiful historical world: from the bridges criss-crossing the river to the broad, lit billboards, to the ins and outs of radio: the airwaves ruled the entertainment of the day and Viv's world is very much coloured within a studio!

This had a light, cozy feel to it: written with the tang of 1930's slang and the raucous optimism and fun of pre-War America. I loved that she never talked down to the reader: assuming that any little idioms, slang or personages of the time would be recognized by the reader. It helped create the sense that you were dropped right into Vivian and Charlie's world.

I also really liked the believable banter, chemistry and romantic hints between Charlie and Vivian (even though there's an Errol Flynn/Robert Taylor lookalike named Graham smooth-talking his way around the edges). Charlie is an ace private eye with a heart and an Archie Goodwin sense of humour that made me want to spirit him off for a night at the Flamingo Club.

An easy book to sink into with a great, winking sense of humour, a glistening old school Chicago of lights and liquor and fun and a hard-to-guess murder mystery.

I am EAGER to follow Viv and Charlie on their next adventure



Sawbones Melissa Lenhardt

I really love stories about women who step out expectations and make careers for themselves in a man's world.

The historical and medical research that went into this tale was impressive---as was the bold and inspiring heroine.

I completely different kind of historical, undercut with the visceral realities of a time and profession 


[ with the exception of Deluge, books provided by Netgalley on behalf of the publishers ]

1 comment:

Kailana said...

I really must catch up on Agent Carter. I started watching it when it came on the air but I am so bad at keeping up!