A beautiful, emotional story centered on a 24-year-old woman living her lifelong dream of studying at Oxford, and what happens when her plans encounteA beautiful, emotional story centered on a 24-year-old woman living her lifelong dream of studying at Oxford, and what happens when her plans encounter something she didn't expect. The author narrates the audiobook, and as always, is wonderful.
I'm putting content alerts in a spoiler tag -- a key plot element was spoiled for me, and I would have preferrred not knowing... but at the same time, I realize the subject matter can be difficult for many people. Read the spoiler section if you want to know.
(view spoiler)[Spoiler: This book deals heavily with terminal illness. The main character's love interest has terminal cancer, which she only discovers after starting to fall for him. The plot includes detailed descriptions of hospitalizations, health emergencies, and frank conversations about end of life. (hide spoiler)]
Highly recommended, but be prepared. I was lulled by the charming academia vibe at first, but the emotional impact really hits hard later in the book....more
The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs is a sequel ten years in the making, following the author's 2009 debut novel The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, aThe Daughters of Temperance Hobbs is a sequel ten years in the making, following the author's 2009 debut novel The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, and the story itself picks up 10 years later too. Former graduate student Connie Goodwin is now a history professor at Northeastern University, under consideration for tenure and living happily with her boyfriend Sam Hartley, whom she met during the events of the first book.
Sam's feelings are hurt by Connie's continuing refusal to discuss marriage. What he doesn't know is that Connie is descended from a line of witches going all the way back to 17th century Salem, and that the male partners of the women in the family all seem to die young, in tragic circumstances. As their relationship becomes complicated in new ways, Connie is determined to find out the truth about the curse, and discovers a startling secret: there is actually one woman in the family's history who managed to break the curse for her own husband.
Armed with this knowledge, Connie races against time to crack the mystery of the "weather work", the elusive and seemingly highly dangerous spell that once upon a time saved her ancestor's mate. Connie applies her scholarly skills as she unearths manuscripts and deciphers centuries old clues, this time enlisting friends, colleagues, and her own mother in a desperate attempt to get it all right.
The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs is a great second chapter in Connie's world. It's quite fun to see her 10 years after the original book, now established and respected as a professor, mentoring up and coming grad students of her own. And it's wonderful to see the enduring love between her and Sam, who is a lovely, kind, and sexy man. The interludes in which we see episodes from Connie's family's past are really engaging in their own way as well, although it's definitely sad to see the persecution of these women who were considered different from the norm.
I enjoyed the characters, the plot, the research, and the historical elements, and the magical aspects are presented in a matter-of-fact way that still manages to have an eerie, otherworldly feel.
I suppose you could read The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs as a stand-alone, but you'd be missing out on big chunks of Connie's personal history as well as all that family history. I'd strongly recommend starting with The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, and continuing on from there. Well worth it!
Spoilers ahoy! (view spoiler)[It felt like Connie managed to put together the spell pretty easily in the end. How did she get all the quantities right? Seemed like a lot of guesswork. And is the book saying that Connie caused climate change? Yikes, that's a pretty heavy outcome. Also, Temperance's weather work only saved her own husband -- it didn't carry down through the generations. So when Connie breaks the curse for Sam, is she aware that her own children will have to do it all over again? Will she save the spell for them? Maybe teach them how to do it when the time comes? And wait, what does this mean for the world's weather patterns?? I did love the twins' names. And I love that they got their own familiars, even though I'm still in morning for Arlo. (hide spoiler)]
Hmm. I tore through By the Book, and definitely had a good time while I was reading it. At the same time, for a book being billed as a retelling of PeHmm. I tore through By the Book, and definitely had a good time while I was reading it. At the same time, for a book being billed as a retelling of Persuasion, it's pretty loose when it comes to making the plot stick.
Anne spends much of the book in a relationship with a smarmy writer who drops lines about being on the front lines in Fallujah and his battle-related PTSD, but it's just so clear from the get-go that he's a con artist and a fraud. When Adam makes a comment to Anne about Rick's shady past, I couldn't help but wonder how Darcy and Wickham sneaked into Persuasion! Anne is a decent protagonist, a smart woman who's chose her professional career over love (although the history of her break-up with Adam on the eve of their college graduation didn't make a whole lot of sense to me.) Of course, as a retelling, the ending is inevitable -- but if I didn't know Persuasion, I wouldn't have been convinced that Anne had actually been mooning over Adam and regretting their break-up the whole time. When they do finally declare their love, it's about as out of the blue as it gets.
Still, I wouldn't want to imply that this isn't a fun read. Anne's best friend Larry is a hoot, even if his romantic indulgences are ill-advised. The big blockbuster movie that's all the rage is called Jane Vampire (a supernatural version of Jane Eyre, of course), and it becomes a pretty silly recurring subject throughout the book. Anne's family life is messy and has a realistic ring to it, and I enjoyed seeing campus life through a professor's eyes, showing that behind the intellectual, scholarly facades are real people, looking for love and friendship and just a little bit of fun once in a while.
Don't expect anything too deep, and don't expect an Austen retelling that's particularly attached to the original -- but given those caveats, By the Book is an entertaining, funny, and even charming read.
Note: I received a review copy courtesy of the publisher and Netgalley....more
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