21 Sept 2011

New books for September and October

 The following were bought for August and September actually:

  • Jill Mansell - To the Moon and Back (read it and can give it 4 for readability)
  • Mary Balogh - Yes I bought 4 books together because I wanted to read about the Huxtable family all at once. These are : First Comes Marriage ; Then Comes Seduction;  To SEduce an Angel; At Last Comes Love; and the last one to marry - Constantine Huxtable in A Secret Affair
I really enjoyed reading these books and would recommend Mary Balogh for anybody who loves Regency romances. Just a word of caution though - Mary Balogh does not hide the real social scene behind parties and non stop gaiety. The society that she describes has war and its inevitable consequences as well as all the horror of poverty in 18th century England which she integrates so well in her stories that they give us readers different and  seldom shown view of the period.

I also bought a re-telling of a famous and well-known Shakespearean play - Hamlet, called Falling For Hamlet, written by a new comer to the writing scene - Michelle Ray.

Falling for Hamlet follows the Shakespearean tragedy fairly closely but we see the whole thing from the eyes of Ophelia, Hamlet's girlfriend, whose father is the King's advisor - Polonius. OPhelia is a girl of 16 - young and in love with the crown prince of Denmark who is a college student. Although the Queen, Getrude , does not really like it, she bears with the relationship, even befriending the motherless Ophelia and going shopping with her sometimes. Things however change when the King dies suddenly and Hamlet who was close to his father suspects that his father was murdered, and by his own uncle, the greedy Claudius. The rest of the story follows closely to the original, except that this has been modernised, that is the setting is modern day Denmark and Hamlet and Ophelia use phones and send text messages and the media is very much in the picture. In fact the story begins with a television interview - Ophelia is ready to face the press and tell her story. As we can see, Ophelia does not kill herself in this story. She is a young woman who has faced a lot of challenges and heartbreak but is strong against the storm.

THis is one book I literally could not put down until the last page. Its a stupendous read and whether you like Shakespeare or not, I recommend that you read this book. It has everything you want in a book - great characters, superb plot, stunning detail and lots of sex and murder. Shakespeare is ever a master story teller and the re-telling is not half bad!

2 comments:

The Bookworm said...

I've been wanting to read Jill Mansell for a while, I hear only good things.
It looks like you got some nice books, enjoy.
I'm adding Mary Balogh to my wish list also, I am a fan of regency romance. Falling For Hamlet sounds like a great re-telling. Glad you enjoyed it.

Kat said...

Hi Naida, I'm traveling right now and haven't had time to write so much though the reading has never stopped. Right now I just finished a Nora Roberts and Stephanie Laurens. I just started reading Stephanie Laurens and found her just as engrossing as Mary Balogh. She also writes regency novels but her books have mystery and fighting in them.