Morning Light by Abigail Reynolds

This is the second book in Abigail Reynold’s Woods Hole series, the first being The Man Who Loved Pride & Prejudice, which is a modern version of Pride & Prejudice, telling the story of Cassie and Calder. In Morning Light we meet a friend of Cassie’s, Annie Wright. Annie runs an art gallery. Her late husband Paul was an artist. He was brilliant, but also had real problems, with depression and manic episodes which would lead to him doing almost unforgivable things which she’d forgive because he was genuinely under the influence of his illness and incapable of self-restraint at the time. Her feelings towards her husband are a mixed bag, partly because of the emotional fall out of his illness, partly due to the fact he committed suicide, and partly because she had very strong feelings for somebody else for the entirety of their marriage.

On the eve of their wedding Annie and Paul went out with a group and Paul went home early. One of Paul’s college friends, Jeremy, had flown in especially for the wedding. He got to the bar after Paul had left and started talking to Annie, not realising she was the bride. Annie and Jeremy had an immediate strong connection, but Annie put down these feelings to cold feet. Jeremy has a bit of a case of love at first sight and he is heartbroken the next day to see Annie marrying Paul. Since Jeremy works abroad it is easy for him to avoid the couple, but when he visits a few years later he realises that he didn’t imagine his feelings for Annie and he stops contacting Paul because it's just too painful to see them together.

Coming back to the present, when Jeremy is in the area and he and Annie meet unexpectedly it seems as though fate might be offering these two a second chance but once Annie finds out he’s kept something a secret from her things are not that simple. Annie has had a history of being abandoned, by her mother, then her stepmother, and then she had the difficult marriage with Paul, which took so much from her. She doesn’t know if she has anything left for a relationship with Jeremy, and there are other complications too.

This book has loose connections to Persuasion by Jane Austen. It differs mainly in that Annie was never persuaded to give Jeremy up, there are very few people who would have called off their wedding on the basis of an evening where nothing was said of any future relationship. There was also more fault here, as both Annie and Jeremy make decisions which are suspect. I felt a bit frustrated with them not talking to each other – she completely shuts him out, and I didn’t understand why he didn’t go to see her. If she’s ignoring phonecalls and letters then to me even if she rejected him he’d be no worse off than just waiting.

Quite a portion of page time is devoted to Cassie and Calder, so I’d recommend that you read The Man Who Loved Pride and Prejudice before Morning Light. I was glad to see them, because both of them, although particularly Calder, had some serious family baggage left outstanding at the end of TMWLP&P so it was good to see them work through some of that, and to catch up with them a couple of years after their book finished.

I really enjoyed Morning Light. It’s not the most happy, light-hearted read, in fact for a while it is pretty sad, because there is so much unhappiness, especially for Annie. However, unlike TMWLP&P I didn’t feel like I’d had my emotions put through a mangle while reading! Also, to balance out the unhappiness there are also some really positive progress, as Annie finds out she was mistaken in some things she believed that she knew, and manages to put some of her issues relating to her marriage behind her.

Planned Reading for July 2014

I did pretty well on June’s reading, reading nearly everything I planned including a book I started all the way back in March. July’s reading is brought to you while I am still under the shocking influence or seeing how much I’ve bought lately and still have unread! So I’m going to try and use up some of the things I’ve already bought.

My Mansfield-inspired read this month will be Finding Favor by Lana Long. This is another young adult version of Mansfield Park that I picked up as a freebie last year. It has pretty good reviews from amazon.com, but hardly any on amazon.co.uk. 

My Austenesque planned read is Pemberley Ranch by Jack Caldwell. This is a story inspired by Pride & Prejudice but set in the midst of the American Civil War, which is something I know very little about. In fact I think most of my knowledge of this conflict has been culled from ‘Who Do You Think You Are’, the US version.

I may have mentioned this before but I am a huge fan of Georgette Heyer. I first read her books after I read the main works of Jane Austen and wanted to read more set in that period. I started reading this author a long time ago, and those of her books that captured me on the first read I’ve re-read, many times, while others I almost skim read the first time and haven’t picked up since. Sprig Muslin is one of those books for me, but I am told that it’s worth giving another chance.

If you are a fan of Jane Austen’s work I’d highly recommend North and South by the Victorian writer Mrs Elizabeth Gaskell. It’s an absolutely wonderful story, kind of like Pride and Prejudice but with a social conscience agenda going on.  There was a four part adaptation of this book made 10 years ago starring the delicious Richard Armitage as Mr Thornton, so if you haven’t read it, you may have watched it, although the ending is a bit different (book is better in my opinion, most other people seem to prefer the series!). Similar to Austenesque fiction there are also a number of books inspired by North and South, and I plan to read one of those, In Consequence by Trudy Brasure.

These are my planned reads for this month, however, I usually read more than this. I don’t know if you saw it, but Meredith over at Austenesque Reviews recently did a Top 10 Summer Austenesque Reads, so I thought I might choose something from there. I have pretty much all of these books, but only read half. Here is the list, with links to my reviews where possible. I'll try and remember to link them back up from here when I post reviews.

Still to Read
All Roads Lead to Austen – Amy Elizabeth Smith
At the Edge of the Sea – Karen M Cox
Austenland – Shannon Hale
Austentatious – Alyssa Goodnight
Echoes of Pemberley – Cynthia Ingram Hensley

Have Read
Find Wonder in All Things – Karen M Cox - 4 star read
Morning Light – Abigail Reynolds - 4 star read
Pirates and Prejudice – Kara Lousie - 5 star read
The Man Who Loved Pride & Prejudice – Abigail Reynolds - 4 star read
When They Fall in Love – Mary Lydon Simonsen – not yet blogged.

I hope you have some good reads lined up for this month. Happy reading!