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December 2019 Reading Round Up

Christmas crept up on me this year and a few reading intentions got lost by the wayside; nevertheless I’m glad for what I did get done and the relative quickness with which I was able to read what I read. I’m picking the remaining books back up again for January.

All books are works of fiction.

The Books

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E T A Hoffman: The Nutcracker And The Mouse-King – A girl takes a liking to the nutcracker her relative has made for her. When her brother breaks the toy and she stays up to nurse it back to health, she finds herself amid a war between toys and her home’s resident rodents. A simple, lovely, story set in the days around Christmas.

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Nancy Bilyeau: Dreamland – Reluctant heiress Peggy is summoned away from the regular bookstore job she loves to attend her family’s holiday, staying in a luxury hotel not far from the amusement parks of early 1900s Coney Island. The upper class stay away from the parks but Peggy can’t resist and when a girl’s body is found and she is amongst a crowd of onlookers, the distance between her circle and the families at the parks shortens considerably. This is a book with a tremendous amount of atmosphere, history, and a great mystery/thriller story line. It’s due to be published on 16th January.

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Nancy Bilyeau: The Crown – In the time of the Reformation: when Sister Joanna is arrested for supposedly helping a condemned woman, she is offered freedom, as well as the freedom of her father, if she will search for the cursed Athelstan crown for Bishop Stephen Gardiner. Very good.

I enjoyed all three books in December but Dreamland was definitely the best. It was an absolute joy to read; I sat beside my Christmas tree for a lot of it and the book managed to make me feel like it was summer, which was rather lovely. Nancy will be on my podcast next week and my review will be posted in tandem.

Apart from the remaining 2019 reads (Sherry Thomas’ Delicious is my current read) I have a new review copy I hope to get to this January, Camilla Bruce’s You Let Me In which, if the press release is anything to go by, will require all the lights to be on.

What were your last books of 2019?

 
 

Freda Mans-Labianca

January 6, 2020, 2:30 pm

Wishing you the best for 2020!!

Kelly

January 6, 2020, 7:19 pm

Dreamland sounds wonderful! I’ll have to watch for it.

I took my cue from you last month and posted a reading wrap-up for the decade.

Charlie

January 13, 2020, 3:10 pm

Freda: You too!

Kelly: It is great. I’ve your post open to read later :)

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