Febregency 2023

Febregency on YouTube
a regency readathon details (here)
#Febregency
The main goal is to read a work that was popular during the regency era/written by a writer who lived during the regency era (1795-1837).

Group read:

Evalina
or The History of a Young Lady's Entrance Into the World
by Frances Burney
Classics, Regency | Published: first 1778 | Goodreads

Stitching Book Club: Jane Eyre

Stitching Book Club
stitch along December 2022 to March 2023
hosted by Sapphire Mountain Handcrafts
details | blog
~*~

Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Bronte
Classic | Published: first 1847 | Goodreads
Orphaned as a child, Jane has felt an outcast her whole young life. Her courage is tested once again when she arrives at Thornfield Hall, where she has been hired by the brooding, proud Edward Rochester to care for his ward Adèle. Jane finds herself drawn to his troubled yet kind spirit. She falls in love. Hard.

But there is a terrifying secret inside the gloomy, forbidding Thornfield Hall. Is Rochester hiding from Jane? Will Jane be left heartbroken and exiled once again?

Spooky Jane

~*~

Northanger Abbey
by Jane Austen
Classics, Historical, Romance | Published: 2005 (first December 1817) | Goodreads
A wonderfully entertaining coming-of-age story, Northanger Abbey is often referred to as Jane Austen's "Gothic parody." Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers give the story an uncanny air, but one with a decidedly satirical twist.

The story's unlikely heroine is Catherine Morland, a remarkably innocent seventeen-year-old woman from a country parsonage. While spending a few weeks in Bath with a family friend, Catherine meets and falls in love with Henry Tilney, who invites her to visit his family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Catherine, a great reader of Gothic thrillers, lets the shadowy atmosphere of the old mansion fill her mind with terrible suspicions. What is the mystery surrounding the death of Henry's mother? Is the family concealing a terrible secret within the elegant rooms of the Abbey? Can she trust Henry, or is he part of an evil conspiracy? Catherine finds dreadful portents in the most prosaic events, until Henry persuades her to see the peril in confusing life with art.

~*~ * Happy Talk Like Jane Austen Day!

* image source: Northanger Abbey pulp cover

* image source: Jane Austin, La Catrina by Alejandra Addison

On The Nightstand: Vampires

On the Nightstand
books about vampires
~*~

Carmilla
by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Classics, Horror, Gothic, Vampires | Published: 2013 (first 1872) | Goodreads | my rating: 4
Predating Bram Stoker' Dracula, Carmilla is the ultimate gothic vampire tale—stylish, menacing, sensual, and spellbinding

You are mine, you shall be mine, you and I are one for ever.

When a mysterious carriage crashes outside their castle home in Styria, Austria, Laura and her father agree to take in its injured passenger, a young woman named Carmilla. Delighted to have some company of her own age, Laura is instantly drawn to Carmilla. But as their friendship grows, Carmilla's countenance changes and she becomes increasingly secretive and volatile. As Carmilla's moods shift and change, Laura starts to become ill, experiencing fiendish nightmares, her health deteriorating night after night. It is not until she and her father, increasingly concerned for Laura's well-being, set out on a trip to discover more about the mysterious Carmilla that the terrifying truth reveals itself.

Dowry of Blood
by S.T. Gibson
Fantasy, Horror, LGBTQ, Vampires | Published: 2021 | Goodreads
A lyrical and dreamy reimagining of Dracula’s brides, A DOWRY OF BLOOD is a story of desire, obsession, and emancipation.

Saved from the brink of death by a mysterious stranger, Constanta is transformed from a medieval peasant into a bride fit for an undying king. But when Dracula draws a cunning aristocrat and a starving artist into his web of passion and deceit, Constanta realizes that her beloved is capable of terrible things. Finding comfort in the arms of her rival consorts, she begins to unravel their husband’s dark secrets.

With the lives of everyone she loves on the line, Constanta will have to choose between her own freedom and her love for her husband. But bonds forged by blood can only be broken by death.

Dracula
by Bram Stoker
Classic, Horror, Gothic, Vampires | Published: 2003 (first 1897) | Goodreads
When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula purchase a London house, he makes horrifying discoveries in his client's castle. Soon afterwards, disturbing incidents unfold in England: an unmanned ship is wrecked; strange puncture marks appear on a young woman's neck; and a lunatic asylum inmate raves about the imminent arrival of his 'Master'. In the ensuing battle of wits between the sinister Count and a determined group of adversaries, Bram Stoker created a masterpiece of the horror genre, probing into questions of identity, sanity and the dark corners of Victorian sexuality and desire.

WATCH OUT: waiting for delivery of this puzzle before I start up the audio version Dracula

Bran Castle
art and puzzle by Holly Carden (here)
(1000 pcs)

Books and Bus: Summer

Summer
by Edith Wharton
Classic, Romance, Massachusetts Berkshires | Published: 1993 (first 1917) | Goodreads | my rating: 4

A tale of forbidden sexual passion and thwarted dreams played out against the lush, summer backdrop of the Massachusetts Berkshires.

Edith Wharton called Summer her 'hot Ethan'. In their rural settings and their poor, uneducated protagonists, Summer (1916) and Ethan Frome represent a sharp departure from Wharton's familiar depictions of the urban upper class.

Charity Royall lives unhappily with her hard-drinking adoptive father in an isolated village, until a visiting architect awakens her sexual passion and the hope for escape. Exploring Charity's relation to her father and her lover, Wharton delves into dark cultural territory: repressed sexuality, small-town prejudice, and, in subtle hints, incest.

First sentence(s):
A girl came out of lawyer Royall's house, at the end of the one street of North Dormer, and stood on the doorstep.