Spring showers mean rainy days ahead … which means more time for reading. Here are some new books coming out this April. And where better to start than April in Paris… LOVERS AT THE CHAMELEON CLUB, PARIS 1932 By Francine Prose The author begins by telling the reader she was inspired by a particular…
31 Days of Halloween — October 23, 2013
Damaged wax figures after a fire at Madame Tussauds in London, 1925 {via}
REVIEW: THIS HOUSE IS HAUNTED by John Boyne
When Eliza Caine and her father brave the dreadful London weather to listen to the prolific Mr. Dickens read his new story, they could hardly have imagined the consequences. Eliza’s beloved father catches a chill and within hours he is dead. Eliza, alone in the world, and no way to pay the rent of her…
REVIEW: ELIJAH’S MERMAID by Essie Fox
In Fox’s follow-up to The Somnambulist, she eschews the sprawling country estate for the dank warren of the Limehouse district. Found floating in the river, like a Victorian Moses, baby Pearl is plucked from the Thames. But she enjoys no pharoah’s life. She is raised by the mysterious but efficient Mrs. Hibbert. The woman of the House…
REVIEW: THE TOWER By Nigel Jones
Jones’ overview of the Tower of London’s thousand year history was no doubt a massive undertaking. Imagine it: ten centuries worth of sieges, celebrations, world-altering decisions, wrongful deaths and sovereign decrees all held within these walls, on just a few acres of land. Jones visits the (in)famous as well as the less well-known. Henry VIII’s…