...2022, don't challenge me

First and foremost, happy new year booklovers! 

Such mixed emotions surround New Year for me, a sense of loss for the year left behind, nostalgia for the memories made, grief over things I didn't get to do, or guilt over people I didn't see. As a performer, I always work through midnight and I suppose what I lack is the sense of closure that comes with the celebratory lead up and seeing out the new year, whether you go out or stay home to do so.

Having said that, I wouldn't change a single thing about this arrangement because I love to work and I love my job - especially after two years of sparse bookings! It's just an odd feeling of not being quite ready for new beginnings.

But I digress. It's January 2022, the time when we set our sights on new achievements and adventures, and hope restrictions won't get in the way. This is the time I usually log onto Goodreads and set myself an impossible reading challenge that I stress through the year to reach. I start planning out posts and blog topics, wondering when I'm going to have time, but wanting to be able to say I put out a daily post across social media and a weekly blog.

And in the meantime, whilst I'm stressing, I could be writing. Isn't that why I started this blog in the first place?  To talk about my love of books and to document my own writing journey. A journey that's been at a standstill since the start of the pandemic.

For the past two years, I've sat on my finished novel, neglecting to send it to publishers or agents, lacking the motivation or inspiration to put pen to paper. I wasted time, and that's okay under the circumstances. But now's the time to hold up my hands and say "enough, get back to work".

Readers, I'm putting this into words so you can hold me accountable: this is not a year for reading challenges or marathon blog posts, this is a year for prioritising my writing and re-implementing a dream. My only goal is to fall back in love with my own book and characters. 

That's not to say that I'm going to vanish of the face of the earth and delete social media. Only that I'm relieving myself of the obligation and the pressure. 

Basically this is your advanced apology that this blog is about to get hella inconsistent ha!

Zuzu 🖋

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...(book review) lost for words by stephanie butland

 

It's time to turn the pages of her past...

Loveday Cardew prefers books to people. If you look carefully, you might glimpse the first lines of the novels she loves most tattooed on her skin. But there are some things Loveday will never show you.

Into her refuge - the York book emporium where she works - come a poet, a lover, a friend, and three mysterious delivers, each of which stirs unsettling memories. 

Everything is about to change for Loveday. Someone knows about her past and she can't hide any longer. She must decide who around her she can trust. Can she find the courage to right a heartbreaking wrong? And will she ever find the words to tell her own story?

LOST FOR WORDS by Stephanie Butland

Genre: Fiction, Contemporary Romance, Women's Fiction, Books About Books

Published: 2017

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Lost for Words is a moving contemporary fiction about living with trauma. Surviving. Finding yourself under the layers, and letting other people see you too. There's love, there's grief, there's fear and there's laughter - one of the best healers. And of course, there's books!

"Nobody bothers children who read. I read."

This book captured the heart of the introverted booklover inside of me. I could pull a number of quotes and relate them to my life with an unapologetic laugh. But the main character, Loveday, unlike myself, has a deep and dark secret that makes it hard for her to trust and hard for her to break free of the comfort of the bookstore in which she works.

The mystery of her dark past unfolds with tantalising slowness, and even though at times I suspected what would be revealed about her childhood, I wanted it not be true. I could understand what led her to seek comfort from books for so many years, for books are an escape. But books can also hurt you. They provoke memories that lead us down roads we haven't visited in so long. They remind us of what we can never have, or what we were forced to leave behind. They tell us that not all beginnings are tragic, and not all ending are happy. Sometimes it's the other way around.

Where books offer Loveday a refuge and a confusing link to her past, poetry is a gateway to the truth, giving expression to the emotion's and secrets she's been stifling, and giving a window of insight to those around her.

The poems that feature are quirky, and so fitting to represent the characters. The final poem that features is called The Bookshop and it turned my heart to butter. 

"There's the simple love of books, of course: the knowledge that here is an escape, a chance to learn, a place for your heart and mind to romp and play."

Loveday is a fragile heroine at times, with strength cemented at her core. She's endearingly antisocial, passionately defensive of books and secretly poetic. I was drawn into her story from her first word to her last.

This beautifully multi-layered book is one that I recommend to anyone with an interest in humans, or in literature. You will learn something about both by the time you're through reading.

"A bookshop is not magic, but it can steal away your heart."

Zuzu 🖋

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...(book review) mistress of my fate by hallie rubenhold

 

England, 1789. Under a cloud of scandal, Henrietta Lightfoot flees her home at Melmouth Park. She has little money and no worthwhile talents, for what use is a neat stitch and a pretty voice outside the drawing room? Without family support, her only hope lies with the dashing but elusive Lord Allenham...

In a desperate quest to find him, Henrietta embarks on a journey through London's debauched and glittering underworld. With the aid of new-found skills at the card table and on the stage, will Henriette be able to turn her life around to become mistress of her fate?

MISTRESS OF MY FATE by Hallie Rubenhold

Published: 2011

Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance, Coming-of-age Novel

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Mistress of My Fate: The Confessions of Henrietta Lightfoot. Ahhh, what a revealing confession it was. This book was ruthlessly honest in revealing of the horrors women encountered in the 1700s when cast out in the world to fend for themselves. No dark corner was left unillumined, no woman un-debauched. Had anyone in the 1700s actually got hold of this book to read, I swear they would have been shocked into a swoon, before burning it upon the fire where their daughters would never discover it. This was not your typical regency romance, and I was glad of the refreshing approach. Rather than a romance, I read a sequence of tragic events, grippingly told and unputdownable.

'If I may say, madam, it is for men to do what they ought and women to do what they must. We have not the choices they have. If we desire something, we do what we must to have it, or else...we have nothing, madam."

Henrietta Lightfoot is, by her own admission, a naïve young woman when we discover her at the beginning of her tale. Under the care of her uncle, with no parents to speak of, even Henrietta acknowledges that she has very few prospects. She's resigned to a life in her cousin's shadow, expecting fate to take her where her cousin goes, to be her companion when she marries. The hand she hadn't expected fate to deal, was that the man her cousin Catherine would fall for, would capture Henrietta's heart and return her affections. It's a match that appears destined for disaster, until fate takes another turn and Henrietta is forced to choose an entirely different path for herself and her love. Romance is found and quickly replaced with the grime of the periods realities, when she flees her home to his arms.

This was a remarkable Historical Fiction, that leads from the respectable drawing rooms of London, to the bedrooms of men who 'protect' women who find themselves with no other options. It's coloured with fictional characters, but also features many very real people who would genuinely have been encountered amongst London's seedy ranks. The historical references to people, shops and products from the period give more clout to this novel, for example, descriptions of the effects of elixirs purchased by women to 'remove obstructions from the womb'. 

As historical fictions go, this is one I'm glad to have discovered. I believe it was the author's debut novel of this genre, and I'm eager to read more of her work, particularly The Scandalous Lady W.

If you've had the delight of reading this book or any of Hallie Rubenhold's others, please let me know which you would most recommend in the comments below. 

Happy reading,

Zuzu 

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