Brief Encounters, by Phillipa Ashley, Nell Dixon, and Elizabeth Hanbury

What a great way to get back into the swing of things!  I've been bombarded with reading all things homework related since January, so for such a perfect combination of short stories to fall on us here at Bookishly right as I am getting set to read what I want to read makes me very happy!

Brief Encounters is a collection of stories by the above named authors.  There is mix of modern and historical, so all should love these witty works.  The collection starts off with a modern and fun story called Plus One Guest by Nell Dixon.  Lucy is invited to her ex's wedding, and it's the day before and she has not found her "plus one guest".  Not willing to attend the wedding alone, she is somewhat tricked by her coworker Diana into allowing her boss, Harry of the fraying cuffs, to escort her.  The more time Lucy and Harry are together, the more Lucy realizes she rather likes her boss, and he is more than fond of her.  A sweet and funny story that made me smile with every word.  Dixon's next contribution, A Weekend in Venice, is the rather sad story of Kay and her attempt to regain a little of her life back after a tragic accident that took the life of her fiancé.  After becoming lost, she enters a shop where she meets Roberto, a rather gorgeous Italian, and she learns she can heal and live again.  A sad, yet sweet tale that makes you believe in happy endings.  

Author Elizabeth Hanbury is no stranger to Bookishly, and she is a favorite of mine.  Hanbury's first contribution to Brief Encounters is the historical Miss Pattingham Requests, the story of Gyles Beaufort, a leader in the ton, and his brief engagement to Miss Merryn Ward.  After a whirlwind romance, Gyles receives a letter one day, indicating Miss Ward has left for parts unknown and without giving a reason.  Despite his search, Gyles cannot find his fiancée and is devastated.  When a letter from his former governess arrives with a request to visit her, he resists going, but in the end relents.  Imagine his surprise when he enters and sees Miss Ward is a guest as well!  A lovely short about love gone awry, only to come back again.  Hanbury's second contribution is The Virtuous Courtesan, A Midsummer Eve at Rookery End story.  For those of you unfamiliar with the Rookery End stories please see my review here.  This is the story of Leonora and Marcus, the gracious hosts of the previous stories.  The story begins with Leonora breaking into Rookery End, the seat of the Earl of Allingham, to steal a portrait her father sold.  A portrait that was not an original, but a copy.  She is caught, not by a servant, but by the Earl himself- a much younger version than what she expected!  Sparks fly in this sweet tail about housebreaking, and love at first sight.

The final works in this delightful collection are by author Phillipa Ashley, another favorite of mine. (do you see a pattern here?)  Ashley contributes two sweet stories to this collection, starting off with the Feast of Stefan.  And before I go on, you will want to feast on Stefan before you come to the conclusion of this tale!  Nick has had his eyes on Sarah for awhile, but was afraid to ask her out because of the death of her husband.  Then along comes Stefan from Slovakia, tall, handsome, and witty to boot.  Stefan is there for work, which just so happens to be the same place Nick works, and they get to know each other over time.  Everyone in the village loves Stefan, especially after his first gesture is buying the entire pub a round!  Nick’s feelings for Sarah are strong, but he wonders of Stefan and they way they talk to each other.  Sure that Sarah has eyes for Stefan; he slowly resigns himself to losing Sarah.  It’s only after a freak snowstorm and hitting his head do these two come together in what is a very sweet story.  The final story of the collection is A Bolt From the Blue, the story of Lisa and her quest to get over the betrayal of her fiancé.  A weekend of camping and hiking with a friend turns into a mountain rescue as her friend is injured, and Lisa is led back down the mountain by Hagar as they jokingly call him.  Lisa comes face to face with a Viking God or the equivalent in this case, which will set your heart pounding.  After packing up their equipment, Lisa sets off to thank the rescue team and meets up with Hagar again, and this time sparks fly.  We never do learn his name, but it’s not really necessary, and I’m sure you will agree.  I do always love Phillipa’s leading men.

Brief Encounters is a must read, and its size makes it the perfect evening getaway.  Be sure to download this as quickly as you can!  It can be found at all online bookstores, and according to author blogs, the print version will be out in September.  Well done, ladies!

Just Like Heaven, by Julia Quinn

If you are familiar with Julia Quinn's series on the alphabetically named Bridgerton offspring, you are familiar with the infamous and dreaded Smythe-Smith musicales.  I always wondered at the women who comprised the Smythe-Smith quartet. Why would they subject themselves and their audience to those dreaded performances?  We get our answers in this new series.

The first is the story of Honoria Smythe-Smith, a daughter of the Earl of Winstead, a member of the quartet and most definitely not a virtuoso on the violin. She and her brother, Daniel, (now the Earl of Winstead after the passing of his father) have been life-long friends of Marcus Holroyd, the Earl of Chatteris. Marcus grew up motherless and alone, with an absent parent for a father.  Shy and friendless, Marcus is sent to Eton and, with no family to call his own, starts to spend holidays with the Smythe-Smiths, and Daniel, his new best friend. Honoria, the youngest sibling of the prolific Smythe-Smith family, tags along on all their adventures to Daniel's embarrassment and Marcus' amusement. As the trio grows older,  they each go their separate ways.  Marcus and Honoria's paths cross in London numerous times and when Daniel is forced to leave the country, he asks Marcus to watch over Honoria.

Honoria is entering her second year on the marriage mart and is desperate to get married and leave the quartet behind her. When she sets up a situation for a Bridgerton to notice her, what she gets is Marcus instead. And when his life is threatened by her actions, they both realize that they are far more to each other than life-long friends.

It was nice to revisit with some of my favorite characters from the Bridgerton series. We also get an explanation for how the musicales started and why the girls in the quartet stick with it, even though they know they should give it up for the good of the ton.

With no real purpose in mind except the enjoyment of the reader, Just Like Heaven fits the bill for a fun historical romance romp. Unlike the Smythe-Smith musicales, this book is by no means a hardship to get through.

The Winter Sea, by Susanna Kearsley

I know some wonderful authors. When I ask them how they know what to write, they all tell me that their characters "talk" to them; that their protagonists are the conduit through which they, as artists, express themselves and in so doing, produce the story they want to tell. But what if there was more to it than just having a creative imagination and a will to tell a story?

Carrie McClelland is an author, in Scotland to visit her agent and do research on her book about Captain Nathaniel Hooke, an 18th century Jacobite intent on returning King James to the throne of Scotland in 1708. Her agent suggests that she write the book through the eyes of someone other than Hooke, that perhaps a woman as a narrator can get the story moving along at a faster clip. Carrie takes up residence in a cottage by the sea, near a castle called Slains, the ancestral home of the Earl of Erroll. The castle seems to call to her in some way that she finds hard to ignore. And when Carrie takes Jane's suggestion, the story does indeed start to write itself, and so easily that she's is a bit frightened by just how well Sophia Paterson, her narrator, tells it. Effortlessly, Carrie writes about a life lived 300 years earlier, checking actual history against what she has written and starting to realize that coincidence has nothing to do with the fact that she's no longer writing historical fiction, but historical fact.

While you might think that this is a bit gimmicky, or that it's another wonderful time travel story (the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon comes to mind), this is neither. It's an engrossing, at times heart- wrenching love story that's carried on two distinct parallel planes. The first story, that of Sophia and John Moray, comes to life with some of the most romantic lines I've ever read. The description of their wedding night and subsequent parting on the eve of John's exile to France to serve Young King James, is some of the best writing I've come across in a long time. At the same time that we live through Sophia's era, Carrie, in the present day and in her own personal life, helps draw the two parallel lines closer together. It's fascinating reading the history of these turbulent times and at the same time feeling Carrie's sense of confusion and then acceptance over what seems to be to happening to her in writing Sophia's story. To be honest, there were more than a few times, while reading this book, that a chill ran through me, probably not unlike what Carrie feels when she thinks that her surroundings (or a pair of  gray eyes) seems a bit too familiar.

I don't want to give too much away. There are plot twists that are just too exquisite and can only be appreciated by reading the book yourself. While the premise may seem confusing, it's impossible to mistake what century you are in, or from whose perspective the story is being told. From start to finish,  I actually had to force myself to put it down. I didn't want it to end.  If you read one book this year, read The Winter Sea. Historical romance it may be, but it's not like anything you've read before. At least I haven't. It will stay with you long after you're done, and, like Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, will have you asking, as I've been asking myself, "What if...?"

And Only To Deceive by Tasha Alexander

And Only To Deceive is Alexander's first book in the Lady Emily series. The series focuses on our heroine, Lady Emily Ashton, who is a young, rich widow living in Victorian England. She was married only a short time to a man she knew almost nothing about and had very little interest in changing that fact once she was married. She married only to escape her nightmare of a mother (think Mrs. Bennet on steroids with bit more public decorum). The book's main focus is following Emily on her journey to know, understand and truly mourn her stranger of a husband, Philip, while at the same time coming into her own as an independent woman. After coming out of full mourning and beginning to re-enter society, she finds the social strictures as confining as the blasted corsets and unpalatable as the sherry.

As she learns more about her late husband she begins to take an interest in his passions. She begins to learn Greek, read Homer (Lord, deliver me from ever having to pick Homer up again), and develop an interest in Greek antiquities. Through this she finds that her husband had been caught up in a mystery which leads her to question his integrity. She, of course, along with her two friends simply must get to the bottom of things. I must admit that this part did get a bit Nancy Drew and her BFFs, George and Bess, for me but I could fight through it.
Enter the love interests, Colin, her late husband's nearest and dearest and Andrew, another friend of Philip's. The reader is supposed to be far more swoony for Colin even though his unknown part in the mystery makes him seem a bit shady. I'll give him some swoon, but he's no Mr. Darcy or Captain Wentworth or even Brisbane if you read Deanna Raybourn. I have a feeling his swoon factor will improve in the next books.

I liked this book very much. I enjoyed Tasha Alexander's voice and characters. Emily, who I did not care for much at the beginning of the book, grew on me as she continued to evolve and mature. She had her moments of knuckleheadedness but overall she was likable, and I cared about what happened to her. One of the strongest parts of the writing was the excerpts from Philip's journal. It really let the reader get to know him. It felt like we were sharing Emily's journey of discovery along with her. I look forward to reading the next book in the series.

Where Shadows Dance by C.S. Harris

OH MY GOSH! This book was soooooooooooooooooooooooooo good. For those you not in the club of awesomeness known as the St. Cyr Society of Adoration or Team Hero....then you need to get on board!

The St. Cyr mystery series is set in Regency England. The books follow the path of Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin. A tortured and wounded soul that upon his return from the battlefields of Spain, begins solving murders in London. Due to his unique position as a one of the ton, he can go to and ask questions of those that otherwise would be protected from the insult of even being considered as a culprit for murder, much less investigated.

This newest book follows the intrigue surrounding the death of Alexander Ross, a member of the Foreign Office. What is first believed to be a natural death is soon proved to be murder. Devlin is asked by his close friend, Dr. Paul Gibson, to investigate the murder. The trail leads Devlin all over London, into the spy networks maintained by France, Russia, and England, the office of the Foreign Office, and Devlin's archenemy Jarvis. The story is further enriched by the continuing drama between Devlin and Hero Jarvis.

What I love about this series is that while Harris pays attention to the details of the day (dress, decorations, etc) that normally take up chapters of a regency romance or mystery but she doesn't let it rule her writing. Each plot is so intricately woven that it's VERY rare when I actually figure out the identity of the killer before I'm supposed to. She also weaves the politics of the day into her stories and being a bit of a history nut, I love the series even more

This latest book (the 6th in the series) was worth the almost 2 year wait...yes...it was torture for me because I'm a crazy fan like that. It's my favorite so far. My only complaint is that it was too short but that's my normal issue with books when I read them in a day; which was the case here.

So if you like mysteries, Regency, troubled heroes, quirky characters, intrigue, and FANTASTIC writing then give these books a shot! I recommend that you start at the beginning of the series. Each one is WAY too good to miss!!!

Marrying the Captain, by Carla Kelly

The first is a series of three books following the illegitimate offspring of a none too heroic naval officer, Marrying the Captain is the story of Eleanor Massie, also known as Nana.  When her father decides to sell her to the highest bidder to pay his gambling debts, Nana runs from his influence and the school for girls he sent her to. Finding sanctuary with her grandmother in her hometown of Plymouth, she tries her hardest to keep the Mulberry, the boarding house she and her grandmother run, from closing down. Living in a navy town, Nana is reminded time and again of her mother's fall from grace and the circumstances of her birth and swears she will not be persuaded to meet the same end.

Naval Captain Oliver Worthy is given what at first looks like an innocuous assignment by his commanding officer (Nana's father) to find her and keep an eye on her while he is in Plymouth. His ship, the Tireless, is in dry dock for repairs to damage done in a skirmish with the French. As part of the blockade of the French coast, Oliver cannot wait to get back to sea. And as a life-long navy man, he has seen too many comrades die in battle and leave families behind to grieve. He swears that he will never marry and put someone through the pain of waiting for him to come home. Well, you know what they say about good intentions.

Oliver takes up residence at the Mulberry and predictably, he and Nana fall in love. What's not predictable are the obstacles thrown in their path; French spies, kidnapping and cowardly Admirals among them. The ending, when it comes, is a satisfying conclusion to a story whose outcome is not guaranteed.

This is the first Carla Kelly book I've read, and it won't be the last. I have the two sequels on order, and look forward to re-visiting with Nana and Oliver in those.  For a quick read, almost innocent in its story-telling and characterizations, Marrying the Captain is a sweet diversion.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Christianity. Islam. Judaism. Buddhism. When asked about the religions of the United States, these are probably the first answers that pop into your head. But considering the vast melting pot from which this country was formed, have you ever stopped to ask yourself, "What happened to the ideologies of days gone by? What are the new ideologies of the future?" Whether by choice or force, millions of people left their native lands and travelled the Atlantic Ocean for the New World. What if the gods of those lands came with them, but over the years have been forgotten and are struggling for existence. And what if, these gods were preparing for battle against the gods of tomorrow, the gods of the Internet, smart phones, credit cards...

Shadow was never been one to believe or not believe. He lived a simple life with his wife Laura, but a series of unfortunate events had landed him in prison. An early release is the beginning of a road Shadow could not have imagined in his wildest dream of traveling. As circumstance would have it, Shadow joins up with Wednesday, formerly known as the All-father Odin. Their journey takes them across the United States, as Wednesday attempts to rally (or coerce) his fellow forgotten gods to join him in battle against the new gods of the wired age. During all of this, Shadow is plagued by dreams his doesn't understand, escapes numerous hit attempts by the opposition, mixed feelings about his wife, all the while trying to grasp the things he has seen and heard. As his journey comes to an end and as the battle for the Badlands wages, to see which side will survive in the land, Shadow finally understands what everything is about, what he is about, and reaches his true potential.

If you are willing to open your mind to the possibilities of what may really be, to see how our thoughts and beliefs can take shape and mold our world, then take the jump into another one of Neil Gaiman's edgy and amazingly fantastic novels.