Reading Wednesday was spent reading on a bus

[redbird]

I spent most of yesterday on a bus from Boston to Montreal, where I made the happy discovery that I can comfortably read from my kindle on a moving intercity bus. (Paper books, not so good.)

The trip from Boston to Montreal is about two novels (plus random looking at the landscape) long. So (apologies to Mris, who got most of this in an email):

The Pilgrim of Hate, by Ellis Peters: this is I think #10 in her medieval mystery novels about the Benedictine monk Brother Cadfael and his friend Hugh Beringar, the local sheriff. For some reason, I was able years ago to find approximately 1-7 and then from 14 or so on, and am trying to fill in gaps from the library. Since it is an ongoing story (though each book's mystery stands alone), there were not only references back, but things I knew about from having read about them in books set later.

The Cadfael books are set during the English civil war between King Stephen and Empress Maud (which is not either of the English Civil Wars that most Americans are at least vaguely aware of); this one involves two murders, and the complications of trying to find a missing person based only on his name and the vaguest of descriptions, at a fair (so a place full of strangers) in a time and place where it's taken for granted that he will of course have changed his name when he left home. I enjoyed this, both for the mystery plot (which I didn't figure out early on) and the general story-telling (though I gather that Peters took serious liberties with both history and herbal medicine.

Marionette, by T. S. Markinson: if I had to describe this, it's a sort-of mainstream lesbian novel, about relationships and coming of age (the narrator is 17 and a freshman in college). I read this after a couple of her other books, all found via an email list that sends out announcements of free or discounted ebooks (sorted loosely by genre). Based on this, I have concluded that Markinson is a good writer, and that I hope she has a good therapist—what I have read so far are this, and two books about an unrelated character, and both protagonists have similarreally problematic family backgrounds, not just "they can't deal with me being a lesbian" but "my well-off parents hate me, and don't seem to like each other, and all my father cares about is money and business, and nobody in my family ever had a real conversation while I was growing up" level. I liked this, but it's not exactly light and cheerful: large chunks of the book are set in and around the protagonist's therapy sessions, which she started going to after she attempted suicide and her girlfriend found her in time. (Also, the past, even the recent past, can be a foreign country: this is set in Colorado at the time of the anti-gay Proposition 2, and it's not just that the main character is closeted—given her parents, that makes sense—but the people she's at school with include several who don't think they know any gay people, one of whom apologizes for homophobic remarks when told "my brother is gay."

Comments

[alatefeline]

Thanks for this! While both books sound interesting, I had meant to read the Brother Cadfael series for awhile and had completely lost track of it ... now I think I'll go check at my library.

[redbird]

You're welcome: both for this specific, and to my journal.

[alatefeline]

*bows gratefully* I am pleased and honored by your welcoming me.

[adrian_turtle]

A sort-of mainstream lesbian novel with
"my well-off parents hate me, and don't seem to like each other, and all my father cares about is money and business, and nobody in my family ever had a real conversation while I was growing up"

reminds me of Slow River. Thinking of the recent past being a foreign country, when I first read that one, the science and business felt perfectly ordinary. What felt alien was having everybody casually accepting of lesbian relationships. It's not just that nobody is closeted about their sexual orientation--they never have reason to consider it. That's changed a lot.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

" (which is not either of the English Civil Wars that most Americans are at least vaguely aware of)"

I still remember being downright surprised when I found out about it whilst trying to look up The Wars of the Roses. English people like to fight! <-- said by a double colonial