The A-Z Reading Challenge seems like a pretty simple way to start my first dive into reading challenges. I wanted a way to be able to cut down on my extensive TBR back log and to have someone else tell me what to start next for a change. This challenge seems like it can do all of that for me!
The premise is pretty simple: Read authors A to Z. Commit to reading 26 books theoretically speaking.
[openbook booknumber=”0099490951″ anchorattributes=”target=_blank”]
[rating:4/5]
Kate Malvern is in desperate straights. She has no family left in the world to take her in, she believes, and so stays with her old nursery maid while considering a job in the working class as a governess, companion or abigail. At her old nurse’s urging a letter is sent to some distant relations in the neighborhood, to everyone’s surprise the relations respond and soon Cousin Kate finds herself settling in at a place called Staplewood with her aunt and uncle and cousin Torquil. The family is strange though, her cousin lives off in one wing, while her uncle lives in another. No one is responding to the letters she sends, and bizarre events begin to unfold. Her aunt’s unexpected generosity may have come at a steep price.
[openbook booknumber=”0451207610″]
[rating:2/5]
Celia Langston has had a run of bad luck. After her parents died she was left an orphan and had to turn to a job in the working class, as a governess to two small boys, to make her way in the world. She is resigned to remaining single and un-marriageable all the days of her life. After a run in with the Duke of Severly at a young age she finds him cold and heartless as he looks to have her new position taken away from her, so it’s no surprise that she is set against him from the start when he turns up again years later.
[openbook booknumber=”1402217706″]
[rating:4/5]
An interesting twist on the “older heroine” story, The Nonesuch is a novel about Ancilla Trent, who is serving as a governess in the household of the Wield’s and has taken on the enormous task of trying to tame the neighborhood beauty Tiffany Wield, mainly though a calming presence and quick thinking, not to mention running circles around her intellectually. Tiffany is stubborn, hot headed, spoiled and completely self absorbed and she is not helped in this by her doting family or legions of admirers. She is a beautiful girl, with nothing in her head but concerns about herself and has a fiery temper when provoked that results in huge temper tantrums and generally shocking behavior. This last fault ultimately lands her and her governess in a potentially devastating scandal.
[openbook booknumber=”0099468085″]
[rating:5/5]
Take the naivety and ignorance of Horatia (from The Convenient Marriage) mix in the spirit and independence of Frederica (from Frederica) and you have Penelope Creed a young woman who is set to have an adventure unlike any other Georgette Heyer novel yet!
