Jane Austen's Bookshelf

 Jane Austen's Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend- Rebecca Romney

 Simon & Schuster

Release Date: February 18, 2025

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Long before she was a rare book dealer, Rebecca Romney was a devoted reader of Jane Austen. She loved that Austen’s books took the lives of women seriously, explored relationships with wit and confidence, and always, allowed for the possibility of a happy ending. She read and reread them, often wishing Austen wrote just one more.

But Austen wasn’t a lone genius. She wrote at a time of great experimentation for women writers—and clues about those women, and the exceptional books they wrote, are sprinkled like breadcrumbs throughout Austen’s work. Every character in Northanger Abbey who isn’t a boor sings the praises of Ann Radcliffe. The play that causes such a stir in Mansfield Park is a real one by the playwright Elizabeth Inchbald. In fact, the phrase “pride and prejudice” came from Frances Burney’s second novel Cecilia. The women that populated Jane Austen’s bookshelf profoundly influenced her work; Austen looked up to them, passionately discussed their books with her friends, and used an appreciation of their books as a litmus test for whether someone had good taste. So where had these women gone? Why hadn’t Romney—despite her training—ever read them? Or, in some cases, even heard of them? And why were they no longer embraced as part of the wider literary canon?

Jane Austen’s Bookshelf investigates the disappearance of Austen’s heroes—women writers who were erased from the Western canon—to reveal who they were, what they meant to Austen, and how they were forgotten. Each chapter profiles a different writer including Frances Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Lennox, Charlotte Smith, Hannah More, Elizabeth Inchbald, Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, and Maria Edgeworth—and recounts Romney’s experience reading them, finding rare copies of their works, and drawing on connections between their words and Austen’s. Romney collects the once-famed works of these forgotten writers, physically recreating Austen’s bookshelf and making a convincing case for why these books should be placed back on the to-be-read pile of all book lovers today. Jane Austen’s Bookshelf will encourage you to look beyond assigned reading lists, question who decides what belongs there, and build your very own collection of favorite novels.

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What is a classic and how does it become one? We can probably all name some "classic novels", maybe even some "great American novels", even if we've never read them. And almost all of the early ones will have been written by men, with the undisputed exception of Jane Austen. 

Jane Austen's Bookshelf explores the authors Austen herself enjoyed reading, and the ones who influenced her own writing: Frances Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Lennox, Charlotte Smith, Hannah More, Elizabeth Inchbald, Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, and Maria Edgeworth specifically. These authors are mentioned in Austen's letters and novels, they were among the best sellers of her day. Author Rebecca Romney takes us on two adventures: she explores the lives of each of these remarkable women- their lives, their triumphs, tragedies, and how they came to fall from best selling author status off of the canon of "must-read English authors"; Romney also takes us on her modern journey of discovering these authors herself. 

As a rare book seller and a lover of Jane Austen books, Romney wanted to read the books Austen read and find out what she enjoyed reading. Did they stand up to the test of time or did they deserve their fall off their pedestals as brilliant writers? As much as I enjoyed the biographies Romney crafted of the writers themselves, I enjoyed her discoveries of these women, their lives, their books, and their reinterpretations over the centuries possibly more. Her descriptions of finding the copies of the rare book edition that speaks to her for her own collection, her discoveries of her own particular prides and prejudices towards certain kind of books and how she changes her thinking, and the books themselves, are all wonderful.

Romney makes sure Jane Austen's Bookshelf is never a dull read. If you decide after reading this to add Burney, Lennox, and any of the other women's works (and their biographies) to your TBR piles like I have, Romney includes a wonderfully helpful appendix "Selected Books from the Jane Austen Bookshelf" to get you started.

Not a daunting, scholarly work, but readers who enjoyed Devoney Looser's Sister Novelists or Ramie Targoff's Shakespear's Sisters and the forgotten- or purposely overlooked- women writers  will enjoy Rebecca Romney's Jane Austen's Bookshelf for many of the same reasons.

I received a DRC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

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Yours, Eventually

 

Yours, Eventually- Nura Maznavi

Dutton

Release Date: February 18, 2025

Rating: 📚📚📚📚 (3.5)

Synopsis: The Ibrahim family is facing a crucial Their patriarch just lost his fortune as the result of a Ponzi scheme, and the family is picking up the pieces. At the family’s core is Asma—successful doctor and the long-suffering middle daughter who stepped into the family center after the death of her beloved mother years ago. Despite what the prying aunties think, Asma is living the life she has always wanted, fulfilling her childhood dream of becoming a doctor . . . or so she thinks.

In walks Farooq Waheed, Asma’s college sweetheart whose proposal was cruelly rejected by Asma’s aunt and father. Now, eight years later, Farooq has made his fortune by selling his Silicon Valley startup and is widely considered one of the most eligible bachelors in California. As he enters Asma’s social orbit, she finds herself navigating a tricky landscape—her pushy sisters, gossiping aunties, and her father’s expectations—on her path to reconciling the past and winning Farooq back in the present. If there is still time. 

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Asma Ibrahim has always played by the rules: taking care of her family after her mother died, breaking off her engagement when her father dispproved of the man she loved. Becoming a doctor instead of marrying young was her one rebellion. Now her ex, Farooq, has returned having made his fortune just has Asma's family has lost theirs. And Asma needs to decide if she will continue to follow her family's expectations and do what is easy, or figure out what will make her happy and take a chance with Farooq.

I'm always up for Jane Austen re-tellings and Persuasion is one of my favorite Austen books. This modern day Pakistani-American community retelling fit Austen's vibe in many ways- the pressures of following community and family expectations come across clearly to the reader. Asma thinks her chance of happiness has passed her because she listened to her father and turned Farooq down eight years ago. She looks at her friend Fatima and younger sister Maryam, at the people in their social circles, and can't see happiness by following expectations. 

As much as I enjoy when modern authors stick to the Austen original, I also respect some twists- and Yours, Eventually provides twists as the book progresses. Without giving away too many spoilers, Asma has growing to do throughout the book. She isn't Anne Elliot. She isn't perfect. She makes mistakes, doesn't communicate with family or friends, and takes a long time to learn from and admit her mistakes. But the growth happens, eventually. 

A good modern day Desi retelling of Jane Austen's Persuasion, fans of Sonali Dev will enjoy Yours, Eventually. 

I received a DRC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

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Bonded in Death

 

Bonded in Death (in Death #60)- J.D. Robb

St. Martin's Press 

Release Date: February 4, 2025

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Lieutenant Eve Dallas finds the Rossi case frustrating. She’s got an elderly victim who’d just arrived from Rome; a widow who knows nothing about why he’d left; an as-yet unidentifiable weapon; and zero results on facial recognition. But when she finds a connection to the Urban Wars of the 2020s, she thinks Summerset―fiercely loyal, if somewhat grouchy, major-domo and the man who’d rescued her husband from the Dublin streets―may know something from his stint as a medic in Europe back then.

When Summerset learns of the crime, his shock and grief are clear―because, as he eventually reveals, he himself was one of The Twelve. It’s not a part of his past he likes to revisit. But now he must―not only to assist Eve’s investigation, but because a cryptic message from the killer has boasted that others of The Twelve have also died. Summerset is one of those who remain―and the murderous mission is yet to be fully accomplished…

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The newest In Death book is a fast paced thriller that takes readers where they've probably always hoped to get more info on: the Urban Wars of the 2020s. Eve Dallas' latest victim is an elderly man who, at first glance, has no reason to be dead at all, let alone in the brutal way he was murdered. But when Summerset identifies Eve's victim as an old friend of his- and a former operative during the Wars- everything changes. Because Rossi wasn't the only man identified as having a target on him- just the first on a kill list.

We get all of the good stuff in Bonded. Flashbacks of the Urban Wars, more background than we've ever seen before on Summerset, and an entire network of his comrades coming together to help Eve and the NYPSD to help stop a killer. The pacing stays fast, the dialogue is Robb's go-to blend of sharp wit and suave charm (depending on the character!) that makes for a delightful blend of personalities. The intensity of the story made me not want to put this one down!

A really enjoyable and intense read, this is J. D. Robb at some of her finest.

I received a DRC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

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Realm of Ice and Sky

Realm of Ice and Sky- Buddy Levy

St. Martin's Press

Release Date: January 28, 2025

Rating: 📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Arctic explorer and American visionary Walter Wellman pioneered both polar and trans-Atlantic airship aviation, making history’s first attempts at each. Wellman has been cast as a self-promoting egomaniac known mostly for his catastrophic failures. Instead he was a courageous innovator who pushed the boundaries of polar exploration and paved the way for the ultimate conquest of the North Pole—which would be achieved not by dogsled or airplane, but by airship.

American explorer Dr. Frederick Cook was the first to claim he made it to the North Pole in 1908. A year later, so did American Robert Peary, but both Cook’s and Peary’s claims had been seriously questioned. There was enough doubt that Norwegian explorer extraordinaire Roald Amundsen—who’d made history and a name for himself by being first to sail through the Northwest Passage and first man to the South Pole—picked up where Walter Wellman left off, attempting to fly to the North Pole by airship. He would go in the Norge, designed by Italian aeronautical engineer Umberto Nobile. The 350-foot Norge flew over the North Pole on May 12, 1926, and Amundsen was able to accurately record and verify their exact location. 

However, the engineer Nobile felt slighted by Amundsen. Two years later, Nobile returned, this time in the Italia, backed by Prime Minister Benito Mussolini. This was an Italian enterprise, and Nobile intended to win back the global accolades and reputation he believed Amundsen had stripped from him. The journey ended in disaster, death, and accusations of cannibalism, launching one of the great rescue operations the world had ever seen.

Realm of Ice and Sky is the thrilling narrative of polar exploration via airship―and the men who sacrificed everything to make history.

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I've become fascinated in a trainwreck kind of way with Arctic exploration and really enjoyed Levy's Laybrinth of Ice, so I was eager to give Realm of Ice and Sky a try. I had no idea people were trying to explore the Arctic by dirigible in the early 20th century so this was all new for me. The idea sounded crazy and dangeous, but then, so did going to the Arctic in the first place!

Ice and Sky is three different stories in one book, covering the highlights (and lowlights) of aerial Arctic exploration. There was a lot of science on what the dirigibles needed, most of which went over my head, but I found the human stories of how difficult it was to put the missions together and estimate when the weather would be best for flying to be interesting. The crews faced surprising levels of danger in the air beyond wind currents buffeting the ships.

The third story, of the Italia, is the longest and the bigest tragedy- so probably the one I found most interesting. With it you get the familiar Arctic land dangers as well as the new aerial dangers. You get people of different nations banding together to try and help find the explorers but a surprising lack of coordination among the searchers. I would have been interested to hear if this was common in past searches as well or more unique to the Italia, but Levy doesn't go into that aspect.

Overall an intersting chapter of Arctic exploration I had never heard of before. Readers interested in adding to their knowledge of Arctic exploration will definitely enjoy this book.

I received a DRC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

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Shattering Dawn

 Shattering Dawn (Lost Night Files #3)- Jayne Ann Krentz

Berkley

Release Date: January 7, 2025

Rating: 📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Amelia Rivers, a member of the Lost Night Files podcast team, hires private investigator Gideon Sweetwater to catch the stalker who has been watching her. Amelia suspects the stalker may be connected to the shadowy organization responsible for the night that she and her two friends lost to amnesia—a night that upended their lives and left them with paranormal talents.

Gideon suspects that Amelia is either paranoid or an outright con artist, but he can’t resist the chemistry between them. He takes the case despite his skepticism. For her part, Amelia has second thoughts about the wisdom of employing the mysterious Mr. Sweetwater. She is wary of the powerful attraction between them, and deeply uneasy about the nightmarish paintings on the walls of his home. She senses they were inspired by his own dreamscapes.

Amelia knows she doesn’t have time to find another investigator, and Gideon is forced to reckon with the truth when he disrupts what was intended to be Amelia’s kidnapping. Now the pair is on the run, with no choice but to return to the haunting ruins of the old hotel where Amelia’s lost night occurred. They are desperate to stop a killer and the people who are conducting illegal experiments with a dangerous drug that is designed to enhance psychic abilities. If they are to survive, they will have to trust each other and the passion that bonds them.

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Amelia Rivers is a logical, practical woman with a problem. She has a stalker who is very likely connected to the night she and her friends lost to amnesia, their enhanced psychic talents, and the serious problems her friends have recently had (Sleep No More, The Night Island). There are people in the organization that experimented on them that don't want The Lost Night Files podcast to keep searching for the truth- and Amelia and her friends aren't about to stop. So she hires private investigator Gideon Sweetwater to help her with her stalker problem. 

There's instant attraction between the two, even if Amelia has serious doubts about Gideon as a PI and is pretty sure he thinks she's crazy. But after stopping a kidnapping attempt Gideon realizes how serious things are- and that the hotel where Amelia's lost night occured may be the place to find the answers. The more time Gideon and Amelia spend together the more the get to know each other, which leads to fun misunderstandings, getting on each other's nerves, and learning how well they can work together. 

Amelia is a fun character, dealing with everything life has thrown at her with stubborn determination. Her attempts to psychoanalyze Gideon and 'help' him would have sent most men fleeing for the hills and were pretty funny. Anyone who's read any of JAK's other books with members of the Sweetwater clan will be happy to add Gideon to their ranks. His curiosity, talent, and chemistry with Amelia are delightful. I enjoyed the witty one liners and banter between them.  

Overall a fun way to wrap up the trilogy. You don't need to necessarily read the trilogy in order, though I think it is more fun that way. 

Another excellent addition to the Jayne Anne Krentz cannon!

I received an DRC of this book in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley

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Cure for Women

 

The Cure for Women: Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Medicine THat Changed Women's Lives Forever- Lydia Reeder

St. Martin's Press

Release Date: December 3, 2024

Rating: 📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: After Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to graduate from medical school, more women demanded a chance to study medicine. Barred entrance to universities like Harvard, women built their own first-rate medical schools and hospitals. Their success spurred a chilling backlash from elite, white male physicians who were obsessed with eugenics and the propagation of the white race. Distorting Darwin’s evolution theory, these haughty physicians proclaimed in bestselling books that women should never be allowed to attend college or enter a profession because their menstrual cycles made them perpetually sick. Motherhood was their constitution and duty.

Into the midst of this turmoil marched tiny, dynamic Mary Putnam Jacobi, daughter of New York publisher George Palmer Putnam and the first woman to be accepted into the world-renowned Sorbonne medical school in Paris. As one of the best-educated doctors in the world, she returned to New York for the fight of her life. Aided by other prominent women physicians and suffragists, Jacobi conducted the first-ever data-backed, scientific research on women's reproductive biology. The results of her studies shook the foundations of medical science and higher education. Full of larger than life characters and cinematically written, The Cure for Women documents the birth of a sexist science still haunting us today as the fight for control of women’s bodies and lives continues.

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Once Elizabeth Blackwell broke the glass ceiling and became the first women to graduate medical school, more women demanded the chance to study medicine. In America, men did their best to prevent this so women with means traveled to Europe, getting degrees in France and returning to practice and teach other women. In The Cure For Women Lydia Reeder introduces readers to a few of these early medical pioneers and the challenges they faced, then focuses the rest of the book through Mary Putnam and her research, challenges, and advances.

Like many of the early women who were able to travel to Europe to become doctors, Putnam was from a wealthy family (she was the eldest daughter of publisher George Putnam), though money alone never smoothed all her ways. A combination of money, charm, brilliance, stubbornness, and a refusal to fail when she knew she was in the right were the characteristics needed of all of the early women doctors, and Mary had most of these in spades. 

I knew when I started this book I was going to spend a lot of it angry or fustrated by the challenges men placed in the way of women trying to reach their highest potential. I was blown away by the arrogance shown by many of the male doctors in these pages. There are doctors who treat surgery like a grand spectacle to show off their skills, doctors who refuse anesthesia to their female patients for a variety of horrific reasons. Doctors who seem to genuinely believe women aren't capable of the thought necessary for anything because of their menstral cycles, and plenty of men willing to use (and distort) Darwin's theories to promote eugenics for their own ends to control women's bodies. 

It was fascinating to watch doctors like Mary Putnam Jacobi develop theories and entire processes that we now take for granted (like surveys of patients) to begin undertanding and developing new sciences of the time- hygiene, pediatrics, and women's health and gynecology. But more interesting to me was watching them take these sciences and common sense and begin to apply them to the fight for women's rights across a large spectrum of issues, such as voting and education. Jacobi became a proponent of educating women equally to men, preferrably in equal settings, and she worked with all the big names of the era in women's suffrage to fight for the causes she believed in. 

The Cure for Women is overall a really interesting and well-written book, certainly well researched, accessible to everyone. I do wish the author had used more quotes from the writings of Jacobi and the other women involved to help us get more into their heads, but that's my only real complaint. 

For anyone interested in the development of medical science in the nineteenth century, women's education and fight for equality, or readers of Olivia Campbell's Women in White, The Cure for Women is a book to add to the TBR list!

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review 

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Muse of Maiden Lane

 

The Muse of Maiden Lane (The Belles of London #4)- Mimi Matthews

Berkeley/Penguin

Release Date: November 19, 2024

Rating: 📚📚📚📚

Synopsis:  Stella Hobhouse is a brilliant rider, stalwart friend, skilled sketch artist—and completely overlooked. Her outmodish gray hair makes her invisible to London society. Combined with her brother’s pious restrictions and her dwindling inheritance, Stella is on the verge of a lifetime marooned in Derbyshire as a spinster. Unless she does something drastic…like posing for a daring new style of portrait by the only man who’s ever really seen her. Aspiring painter Edward “Teddy” Hayes knows true beauty when he sees it. He would never ask Stella to risk her reputation as an artist’s model but in the five years since a virulent bout of scarlet fever left him partially paralyzed, Teddy has learned to heed good fortune when he finds it. He’ll do anything to persuade his muse to pose for him, even if he must offer her a marriage of convenience.   After all, though Teddy has yearned to trace Stella’s luminous beauty on canvas since their chance meeting, her heart is what he truly aches to capture….

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The final book in Mimi Matthews' Belles of London series features Stella Hobhouse, a brave rider and friend who knows if she doesn't marry soon she'll find herself buried in the quiet countryside forever. Thanks to her odd gray hair and lively personality, she's had more trouble than her friends when it comes to finding a suitor. Thinking if men could just look past her hair to her they might give her a chance, Stella decides to be daring and dye her hair while attending a houseparty with her friend Lady Anne, since noone else will know her there. 

Edward "Teddy" Hayes is a fustrated artist who briefly met his muse at a museum, only to lose her to his blunt speech. Now he's at a house party he doesn't want to attend and only knows his sister and brother-in-law. Deciding to spend most of his time painting and hiding away to avoid people and dealing with the annoyance of his wheelchair, he's as surprised as Stella when they meet again. 

Muse is a slow burn romance very different from what readers might generally expect- both from Matthews' normal books or traditional romance in general, but I thought it worked very well. At the heart of the story, both Stella and Teddy want independence. They want to discover who they are, what they are capable of in life. While they each start off thinking they need to chart their paths separately, by the end they've discovered that love can make them stronger together. Both have wanted to be truly seen for who they are and what they are capable of beyond their physical appearance- Stella's hair and Teddy's wheelchair. Even early on it is clear (to the reader anyway) that they see each other for who they are. The question is, how long will it take them to figure it out? The suggested marriage of convenience comes late in the book, which might annoy some people. After all, traditionally you have an early marriage of convenience and then love grows from that. But I enjoyed how Matthews played with the expectations and turned the idea into something new- rather like Teddy and his fellow painters were trying to do with what we now call Impressionist art!

One of my absolute favorite things in this book is how Teddy encourages Stella to be herself. Not to be small and quiet, but to be whatever she feels she is, because once they are married they only have to please themselves. That's the kind of support I want in a partner!

This is a story of two people finding their own way, discovering friendship and strengths within themselves that allow for a beautiful, trusting partnership of a loving marriage.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

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