The First Sir Percy could be called The Laughing Cavalier, Part II because it takes up where the previous book leaves off in the highly addictive Scarlet Pimpernel series. The story teeters on the brink of disaster, as again, we wonder just who can we trust, and how in the devil is Diogenes going to get out of this trap, and again, should he? If you have read The Laughing Cavalier, don’t stop there. After all, you’ve already learned the Dutch, you know the characters, so you can sit back, relax, and enjoy The First Sir Percy. Continue reading →.

The first of two prequels to The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Laughing Cavalier is set in Holland in 1623. It tells the story of Percy Blake, a foreign adventurer and ancestor of the Scarlet Pimpernel who goes by the name Diogenes. Unlike The Scarlet Pimpernel, Diogenes has not yet established himself as a man of sterling character or irreproachable moral integrity. Some of the fun of The Laughing Cavalier is that one is uncertain whether he will wind up in jail or on the scaffold, and whether he just might deserve such a fate. Continue reading →.

Today’s reader might find some aspects of the novel moralistic–however Alcott is never preachy. She broaches subjects such as etiquette, feminine behavior, and the roles of the parent, spouse and child in a happy home. These moral teachings can be used by the reader or disregarded, but the completely genuine way Alcott presents her subject matter makes it easy to digest. If you are open to the advice she is giving, Little Women makes for a wonderful self-help book for women and men of all ages. Continue reading →.

Originally published in 1919, Night and Day contrasts the daily lives of four major characters while examining the relationships between love, marriage, happiness, and success. Like Virginia Woolf’s first novel The Voyage Out, Night and Day is a more traditional narrative than her later novels. Unlike her first novel, however, Night and Day relies much more on its characters’ internal struggles to push the its plot forward. Continue reading →.

Meet Peter Wimsey, an English lord with a penchant for solving sordid crimes. Mervyn Bunter, Wimsey’s valet, plays Dr. Watson to Lord Peter’s skewed Sherlock. What makes this a unique detective novel is that before the crime can be solved, the investigators must decide if a crime has been committed and, more importantly, who is this dead man to begin with? And what is he doing in someone else’s bathtub wearing only a pince nez? Continue reading →.

In this first novel (but third in chronological order) of the Scarlet Pimpernel series, the question foremost in the reader’s mind is “Who is the Scarlet Pimpernel?” The plot involves an unintended betrayal by a loved one, a desperate flight into France to save more Aristos, and a daring charade to mislead an unscrupulous French henchman hot on the Pimpernel’s trail. To tell more would be to give away some of the delights of this novel. Continue reading →.

While Woolf can easily be criticized for neglecting to research the technical details and for writing only about the upper classes and their manias, to dwell on these issues would be entirely beside the point. E. M. Forster put it best when he described The Voyage Out as “…a strange, tragic, inspired book whose scene is a South America not found on any map and reached by a boat which would not float on any sea, an America whose spiritual boundaries touch Xanadu and Atlantis.” Continue reading →.

The Professor’s House by Willa Cather was first published in 1925. Split into three parts, the first and last take place in a small college town on Lake Michigan. These two parts tell the story of Professor St. Peter and the changing relationships within his family. The middle section is Tom Outland’s narrative about his adventures in the Southwest where we enter with him into a world of desert mesas and long hidden civilizations. Continue reading →.

If the prior two books lacked romance, this one makes up for it. Anne and two college friends share a quaint house in Kingsport, and there is a constant stream of “beaus” coming through the door. One of the friends, Phillippa Gordon, is an excellent addition to the book. She is vain, but knows it, and that somehow makes her utter superficiality less annoying. Even she has her share of romance, happening upon it–as seems the theme of this novel–where she least expects to find it. Continue reading →.

Womanless, homeless and broke–this is the way Jim Qwilleran finds himself at the beginning of any early Cat Who novel. In The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern Jim is richer only by the company of one cat who shares his interesting in solving crimes. He is older by six months. He has a job, albeit with a shaky future. Continue reading →.