March's Reading List

Well, last month went pretty well, although I didn't start Fitzwilliam Darcy: Such I Was by Carol Cromlin. This is because I usually only read one historical Austenesque at a time, and I am still trying to finish Emma & Knightley by Rachel Billington.  I hope to conquer the latter at least this month, I'm about ⅔ of the way through.  I find it a struggle just because I find it a bit depressing, and I am not the type of reader who does well with sad!

I just borrowed Sense & Sensibility by Joanna Trollope from the library.  I can’t remember if I’ve only read the original S&S once or if it’s twice.  It was the first book by Jane Austen that I read, at around age 14, so if it was only once it was a looooong time ago!  I plan to reread Sense & Sensibility, hopefully sometime this year so I hope that I won’t miss out on anything in Joanna Trollope’s S&S because I am not hugely familiar with the original book.

I hope to read Alias Thomas Bennet by Suzan Lauder which I won (woohoo!).  All I know about this book is that it gives Mr and Mrs Bennet from Pride and Prejudice a different backstory and that he is more of an active father.  Obviously, this would have ripple effects and lead to his children having a different upbringing so by the time Lizzy is 20 much could be different.  Ms Lauder has published some JAFF on A Happy Assembly website (www.meryton.com) and one of her stories there is one of my favourite fanfiction reads, Studio 54, which is based in the 1970s. So I’m hopeful that I’ll enjoy this one.

My other planned reads for March are the rest of Monica Murphy’s One Week Girlfriend series. I've read One Week Girlfriend and Second Chance Boyfriend previously.  These books introduced and continued the story of Drew and Fable.  Now I want to finish off the series with Three Broken Promises, the story of Fable’s boss Colin and her work colleague Jen (I've heard mixed reviews of this book), the novella Drew + Fable Forever, which ties up Drew and Fable’s story, and Four Years Later which is new out in March and tells the story of Fable’s younger brother, who is 14 when we first meet him in OWG. In that book he’s had a pretty neglected childhood, absent father, alcoholic mother, and though Fable has done her best she worries that he’s beginning to go off the rails. Owen is such a sweet kid, so I'm interested to see how he turns out.

 Will I manage all this? Who knows! Wish me luck!