The Wall Street Journal cover blurb compares Ms. Hughes-Hallett to A.S. Byatt. Earlier, I considered that a bit of a stretch, but on reflection, I suspect it's accurate. Last time I reread Possession I wasn't entirely blown away either. I found Peculiar Ground pretty easy to set aside (disqualifying it for the "couldn't put down" square); I just didn't care all that much about the people or their stories--in part, because there are a lot of characters, many of whom seem to share the same traits. Fortunately, there's a "Dramatis Personae" in the front, a feature I considered quite affected initially, but I found myself referring to it repeatedly, mumbling to myself, "Which one is Guy again? Who the hell is Fergus?" In the back there's a discussion with the author about whether it's a "country house novel," a genre with which I was unfamiliar. I sort of thought it was a book about a house which made me think of Visitation; a much shorter book that covers the same peculiar ground far more elegantly.
Beth Jusino pointed out to me that the rules on the back of the bingo card say you can count any book read between May 14th and September 3rd so Slaves of Solitude makes the cut after all. That's the fiction square squandered early on, but I'm having my doubts about how many books I'm going to manage to get read this summer so I'm taking it. I'm also violating one of my own rules and using a work book to fill in "by an author from Mexico or Canada": Sharon Wood's Rising won't be published until October but, as it happens, I spent the last couple of days reading a set of pages for it so there I am, with three squares filled less than two weeks in. Go me.
Odds are I'll next turn to the one-word title category since T.F. Powys' Unclay has an inviting cover and has been sitting on the top of a bookstore day pile that has yet to be shifted. Fingers, as ever, crossed.
