A new stack of books for a new year. A somewhat reduced (for me anyway) stack than in the recent past. I hope to keep it this way, though it may increase in size by one more book. The public library's Winter Reading Program starts this week and runs through the end of Februrary and I usually participate. In any case I hope to have no more than 6 or 7 books on the go at once.
A few of these I actually started last year, but I set them aside when I was trying to catch up on other reading. I'm afraid Wilkie Collins's Armadale has sat untouched through most of my vacation, but since it is back to work tomorrow, I'll be reading it on the bus each day. I'll also be getting back to Georgette Heyer's Cottillion, Nancy Marie Brown's The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman and Winifred Watson's Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. I have small starts on all of them and am anxious to get back to them. I started Jacqueline Winspear's An Incomplete Revenge and Jody Shields's The Crimson Portrait today.
There is something really comforting about reading a Maisie Dobbs mystery. I'd love to go back and read them all from the beginning consecutively, but Winspear does a great job of picking up the thread of Maisie's life and filling in the details in a way that you really don't need to. I always feel like I have forgotten important facts, but she drops subtle reminders so you can easily get back into story. This novel starts out in 1931, and Maisie has taken on a job from the son of her former employer (and patroness) concerning a land deal in Kent. It happens to be the time of year that hop pickers descend on the region to help bring in the harvest. I have a feeling there is going to be some sort of twist--something about Maisie's former life is going to be revealed. I really like Maisie Dobbs, by the way. She's sort of unconventional, but not in an unusual way. It's entirely appropriate for the time period that she is doing what she is doing. She's quite independent, but very proper, too. In so many mysteries with female sleuths they always have a man around helping them out, and the woman is usually only helping or getting mixed up in the mystery. But Maisie is it, and her helper is a man (a bit of a reversal). I also like that Maisie started out in service as a young woman, but pulled herself up in society. Although she is very educated and respectable now, you still understand what she had to do to get there and what her background was. I'm not terribly far into the book, but this looks like it is going to be a very good read.
I also wanted to mention the book by Jody Shields I am reading. A while back I read a mystery by her called The Fig Eater. It was an unusual story set in fin-de-siecle Vienna. Very atmospheric, and not really your run of the mill mystery. I greatly enjoyed it and have been meaning for some time to pick up The Crimson Portrait. I'm not sure what took me so long, as right from the beginning I've slipped easily into the story and didn't want to put it down. WWI England is the setting for this story. It's 1915 and the country estate of a young widow has been requisitioned to become a military hospital. Catherine is still in deep mourning for her beloved husband killed in the war. The soldiers who will come to her home to recover are the worst cases. I don't want to give too much away yet, as I am not very far into the book, but apparently the story is based on true events (though the characters themselves are fictionalized). Another book that looks to be a very good read. I'm looking forward to picking up the other books in the stack as well.