The heart wants what the heart wants, and our hearts want books.

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Sometimes the beginning is the best place to start, and since we’re talking about The Bronzed Beasts (The Gilded Wolves #3) by Roshani Chokshi today, I want to start at the very beginning.  The Gilded Wolves, which was one of my favorite reads from 2019 that I convinced Ashley to read with me in August 2020, was the beginning of this journey. It ticked so many readerly boxes – ensemble cast, found family, family saga, a touch of magic, and set in Paris, amidst the world fair!  (And it was upon the writing of this that I realized that is also the month when we brought you the first two titles in Lyssa Kay Adam’s Bromance Book Club Series…which is a strange delight as we’re bringing you that comfort read next week.)  The summary is we both gave The Gilded Wolves five stars, and then the cast had a new adventure in Russia, in The Silvered Serpents, which also got double five stars from us!  All that said, this is a trilogy, so don’t skip around.  It won’t make sense, you’ll spoil things that you really want to experience on the page, and we’ll be so sad for you.  

And now, this fall, The Bronzed Beasts picks up where The Silvered Serpents leaves off, like immediately, and then our cast goes to Venice to finish the adventure and drama they started way back when (but it was really only weeks ago for them).  For this book, I want to start at the end – I love this ending.  It is so perfect for the story and the adventure these characters have been on throughout the trilogy.  There’s an epilogue that is just shy of perfection (which Ashley may say is me being extra, we’ll see).  I don’t want to talk about the action in this book, because #nospoilers but I do want to talk about some of the themes in the book.  As with the others, there is found family, and family saga, as well as a bit of a shifting dynamic in our group that started in book two and is so tragic and amazing at the same time, as well as continuing the exploration of good and evil, how Forging (this alternative world’s magic) impacts the world, exploration of the cultures of the characters and how their appearance impacts their treatment, and what it means to hope.  As with many of my favorite books, this tale is layered.  On the surface it’s part adventure and part mystery, both of which do wrap up really nicely, following some fun, grotesque action that is just gorgeously described and scripted.  (This sounds bad, but let’s review – part of book one takes place in the catacombs of Paris, so, yes, grotesque.)  If a reader wants to dig in, we have issues of feminism, colonialism, ambition, vulnerability, living into our best selves, and what it means to be alive.  There is so much for an engaged reader to access amidst lush descriptions, smart, snarky characters, and fast-paced action.  

I feel like I read The Bronzed Beasts slower than I usually do because I didn’t want it to end.  I didn’t get the full trilogy reread I wanted, although I did reread about the last 100 pages or so of The Silvered Serpents, just to really remember where our characters were when last we saw them.  It was helpful and I’m not sad I did, only sad I couldn’t binge the whole thing, but December is a hard month for getting time to sit and binge read, at least the first few weeks are, but I have hope for the last week.  I’m giving The Bronzed Beasts 4.5 stars and rounding up to five, and I do wonder if I would have read it in a slower season with a full trilogy reread if I’d rate it higher, but this is life.  It was a solid ending to a great trilogy, and I’m very excited to read whatever Chokshi writes next, and perhaps catch up on some backlist before her next title comes out (and it was 100% already brought up in blog planning).  It was such a joy to be with these characters again, and I’m only sad I can’t read it again for the first time, and there is no expectation of new pages to spend with them.

What’s a book that was action packed, yet most definitely a comfort read for you?

~Nikki 

The last time we discussed a book by Roshani Chokshi was September of last year and not much has changed in her bio: her parents still talk about how their daughter works in her pajamas, she still has a cat helping the writing process, she is still an award winning and critically acclaimed author, and we are still waiting for a date from Paramount Pictures for when the Aru Shah and the End of Time will be released – it’s still in development. I wonder what studio scooped up the rights to The Gilded Wolves Trilogy  because this whole story is so, so, so, so delicious. I’ve already mentally casted Nicolas Cage. My first highlight speaks right to that casting choice as the book’s dedication reads: “For my friends, who didn’t stop me when I said I wanted to write something like National Treasure meets Faust with a dash of existential crises…but make it sexy. Y’all owe me drinks. And therapy.” I’m so glad for Chokshi’s friends not poo-pooing on her dreams. Chokshi delivered.

Even though Nikki didn’t talk about it, I feel like I can because it’s in the marketing copy: The Bronzed Beasts takes place in Venice! The Floating City is what I would consider a romantic city, similar in appeal to Paris, but I have never traveled there so I just don’t have any lived experience to pull from. Regardless, I’m going to go ahead and mention my favorite Forged item is the gondolas that enclose riders when they become too amorous for public view. How amazing is that? It gives new privacy possibilities to the tunnel of love, so don’t rock the boat.

As Nikki stated above, there are layered themes that if you wanted to dissect you could spend many a book club discussing. The one theme that stood out to me from the very beginning comes from this quote at approximately 8% (the digital book doesn’t give page numbers): 

“I am craving boredom, as if it is the rarest vintage of wine in all the land,” [Hypnos] said. “Such depravity.” Laila nearly laughed. In the past week, she had seen riches that rivaled kingdoms and witnessed the kind of intoxicating power that could unravel the world with a song … but nothing compared to the luxury and allure of being able to waste a whole day and think nothing of it. If she could fill a box with impossible treasures, that was what Laila would hide away: luscious, sun-ripened days and cold, star-strewn nights to waste in the company of loved ones.

How simple and yet profound. If we were to suddenly know how many days we had left to spend on this planet, what would we do with that time we had left? Most people I know would spend it with the people they love, of course, participating in life’s greatest pleasures, good food and good company. It is a reminder to us, especially during the hectic holiday season that the time we have is finite, and time spent doing the things which bring you joy is never wasted. It is also a reminder that habitually doing things you do not enjoy is a waste of the precious and limited time and emotional energy that we have. (I’ll probably talk about this more in the post on The Lazy Genius Way later this month, so let me not digress further.) The moment at a later part of the book where Laila realizes what brings her the most joy made me teary eyed. Email or DM me for details on which part of the book that was, but only after you’ve read it!

What brings me joy, dear readers, is sharing my reading life with you, especially this 4.5 rounded to 5 star read! The epilogue of The Bronzed Beasts did leave me with some unanswered questions, but sometimes we as readers need that mystery to keep our imagination working and thinking about the book long after we’ve finished reading. Now that the series is over, I can’t tell you when I will fit in a re-read, but I will certainly be buying a digital copy once it goes on sale to finish out my collection!

What activities bring you the most joy in life, and how can I help you create the time and space to continually do them?

~Ashley

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The following post includes affiliate links. More details here.  As you’re doing your Amazon shopping, we’d be ever so grateful if you’d use our affiliate link to do so as it helps pay the bills around here!

I just love a bonus post, almost as much as I love getting an invitation to read an Advance Review Copy (ARC)!  Dear readers, that is how today’s title comes to you.  We are so grateful to Mindbuck Media and Black Rose Writing for inviting us to review this novel and for providing the e-ARCs, and want to assure our readers that all opinions are our own.  

Let us begin by counting the ways Daughter of the King by Kerry Chaput ticks our readerly boxes: historical fiction, based on a part of French history that was BRAND NEW to us, centered around French politics, and those of New France, featuring a heroine who is on her coming-of-age journey, and includes some romance, with bonus points for a new author.  

Short review: Just go ahead and preorder the book now, especially if your readerly boxes are similar to ours.  

Isabelle and her mother are on their own in La Rochelle, where they are among the struggling Protestant community, trying to live and practice their faith under the thumb of the dragoons (French military), their informants, and ultimately le Roi Soleil.  Isabelle is trying to navigate being of marriageable age, and all that means in the 17th century, with caring for her ailing, fearful, alcoholic mother, and being a person amidst the perpetual religious persecution of the day.  Drama ensues, and eventually (yes, I’m skipping a lot, and I’m not sorry) Isabelle finds herself as a Filles du Roi – a daughter of the king who is compensated for going to New France to marry the settler of her choice and help populate the area.  As you’d expect, more drama ensues, and Isabelle faces a whole host of challenges, some old and familiar, and others new and unforeseen (at least by Isabelle).  

While Daughter of the King is centered around a character who is persecuted for her religion, this novel isn’t preachy or centered around those pieces, despite their, at times, prominent place in the story.  The focus is very historical and quite interesting.  The story does include romance, although I wouldn’t call it a romance novel (she’s sent to the New World to be married and make babies, so of course it’s included), and there are some bedroom scenes, but they are not very descriptive and do serve the story well.  Some of the issues of colonization, the plight of first peoples, and the ways Eurpoeans took advantage of so much on this continent (*waves from the US*) are featured and add to the story, especially as we read it the week of Thanksgiving.  

I’m giving Daughter of the King 3.5 stars, and contentedly rounding up to 4 stars.  The historical context is new, but also not, as this France-meets-new-world tale includes pieces I’m very familiar with and others that are brand new to me.  Isabelle is a fantastic heroine who makes stupid mistakes for all the right reasons and struggles to find her place in the world, both things that I’m so here for in fiction.  Chaput’s writing paints a beautiful picture of concepts that are familiar to me, but slightly off from my usual (old French architecture, but a port city instead of inland, settlers in Canada instead of the US, etc.)  And, I’m still thinking about this story weeks later, as I’m very interested to know how it’ll turn out, but satisfied enough with the ending of book #1.  I am likely to reread this novel when the next in the trilogy comes out, and I’m very excited to see what you all think about it.  If that’s not a push for a preorder that will magically show up on your kindle or doorstep, I don’t know what is!  Remember, if you’re contemplating a purchase, pre-orders are huge for authors!  

What’s a novel you read that opened your eyes to new aspects of a familiar historical period?

~Nikki 

These are my confessions…

In 2005 I went on exchange to a small, English speaking University in Quebec. Bishop’s University in Sherbrooke was the location of my ‘year abroad’ during my third year in undergrad. I wanted to work on my French (I didn’t) and study French Canadian Nationalism (I did). I took a history course on French Canadian Nationalism as well as two general Canadian History courses. I did all this historical and political study in order to write an undergraduate thesis on French Canadian Nationalism, which I ended up not completing. Sometimes life be that way, even after 5 years of undergrad. But, I don’t remember ever reading about Les Filles du Roi, so reading about them in Daughter of the King by Kerry Chaput was a thrill and a delight. Chaput is a debut author with a publishing house behind her, but she did self-publish two other novels which you can find here. She lives in Oregon with her husband, daughters, and dogs.

Bishop’s is where I met Canadian Adam and learned that snow is beautiful until you have to trudge through it everyday to classes. Layering is great until you have to take off three of them in the classroom or die of overheating. Also, breathable long underwear is the best invention on the planet for cold weather. I highly recommend you invest in a set as well as mid-calf waterproof snow boots. Best winter weather investment, and I am so glad I took that advice from my Canadian girl friends at the time. Quebecois winters are real cold, y’all. Cold and snowy, and even though Montreal and La Rochelle are on the same latitude, the difference in climate for Isabelle and the other Filles du Roi would have experienced in Quebec City would have been way more of a shock than Caput seems to describe. There’s one line that reads: “My hair crackles with ice as I push my way up to sitting.” when Isabelle is out in the winter wilderness. It makes me think of the time when I was walking from the gym with wet hair to my dorm for a shower and I had left a piece dangling outside of my toque. That piece of hair froze into an icicle and broke off when I touched it. I was very shocked and surprised and didn’t allow it to happen again. So, I suppose there are lessons one must learn by experience. This Southern girl had to learn that lesson the hard way.

And Isabelle does learn by experience in Daughter of the King. What I really loved about her coming of age story is that she learns who she is and what she really wants and does find those things in New France, but only when she feels safe within her own capabilities. Not everyone ever realizes their own strength, nor are we all able to use that strength to accomplish what we want. Sometimes we don’t know what we actually want until we realize we can’t have it anymore, just as Isabelle did at a later part of the book. And, I am oh so ready for book two! A rounded up four star read from me, too, and I hope we get advanced copies of the rest of the Defying the Crown series as they are released, because I don’t want to have to wait so long to get them!

~Ashley

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Fellow readers who love to talk about books! Yes, that’s you. And us! TOMORROW is Virtual Book Club! Join us in discussing  A Perilous Undertaking (Veronica Speedwell #2) by Deanna Raybourn. Sign up here to join us on Friday at 7:30 p.m. CST.

It was way back in November 2020 when we brought you the first two books in the A League of Extraordinary Women Series by Evie Dunmore. After reading Portrait of a Scotsman, which is number three in the series, I can tell you that we’re waiting impatiently for the story of Catriona in number four, The Gentleman’s Gambit! Dunmore is a USA Today Bestselling Author for Bringing Down the Duke and the entire series is an homage to Dunmore’s love of romance, women pioneers, Oxford, and all things Victorian. Outside of being a member of the British Romantic Novelists’ Association, she is a consultant with an M.Sc. in Diplomacy from Oxford and loves Scotland. When she can’t get back up to the Highlands she’s adding to her collection of wooly tartan blankets. I feel like she’s our people.

Now to discuss the story! Oh, darling readers, Portrait of a Scotsman is filled with some of my favorite romance tropes. Enemies to Lovers, arranged marriage, and the sneaky favorite, there’s only one bed available! Mwahahahahaha. Harriett Greenfield, called Hattie, is the middle daughter of a wealthy banking family, an artist, and a suffragist. All of the League of Extraordinary Women are suffragists so that’s not a surprise, but Hattie is a kind soul, the cheerleader of her group, the artist who adores decorating the places and people she loves. In the first two books, you find her helping her friends when they are in need of flattering fashion as well as creating the pamphlets and signs needed for their political meetings. Problematic for me about Hattie is that she is described as the shorter, plump girl, with bright red hair, which makes her stand out from her friends in three different ways. She could have been only one of those things to make her different but does she have to be all three? I suppose we will never know.

She knows of Lucian Blackstone, a business leader from the London Underworld who is richer than Midas, through her family mentioning him as a rival of her father’s business dealings. When they meet in person, it is because she goes to his home for a tour of his art collection, after ditching her protection officer and without a chaperone. They kiss and there are shenanigans, and Hattie makes it home with hatred and desire in conflict inside her. The story does have a bit of a comedy of manners as the rules for young Victorian women make for awkward situations that, thank goodness, modern women don’t have to worry about as much. Being alone with a man who is not a relation doesn’t create social pariahs. But, we learn the underworld leader is more than meets the eye, even though he is very pleasing to the eye. 

I best leave something for Nikki to talk about, so I’ll end how I began and how I am SO READY for Catriona’s story even though that would be the end of the League of Extraordinary Women series by Evie Dunmore. Another solid, 4-star read, and once this series is over, I’ll be putting anything else Dunmore writes on the TBR posthaste!

~Ashley

Readers may wonder how we decide who writes first, and y’all, it’s simple.  Whoever writes first, with very rare and specific exceptions.  Sometimes one of us has words burning to escape about a book, and other times, it’s just joyful adoration, like today.  I’ve been contemplating my feelings about Hattie and Lucian’s story since finishing it (and also trying to keep their escapades separate from Veronica and Stoker’s despite their similar time frame) and now for us all to see where they land as I type, because days later, I’m still all over the place with specifics.  I’ve likely shared before that my favorite type of novel is one that has a story, and if a reader is so inclined, she can read the surface story and move on, or, if she’s so inclined, she can also dive into the layers and the nuances of how the story is told to see the multitude of stories and commentary in a well-plotted work.  Portrait of A Scotsman is one of those layered works, however I will say the layers are a bit blunter than my preference, but that does serve the plot and character development well, so I’ll take it.

Ashley got most of the surface plot summed up for you, but she doesn’t discuss Lucian’s being a self-made man, having pulled himself up with luck, work, grit, and even some nefarious means as well, and he has zero regrets, until the pages of Portrait of A Scotsman, and I do love some good character development.  I wish we could have seen more of Hattie’s character development, but much of it happens off the page, and that would have been so great to tag along for, but alas, it was not to be.  As Ashley listed our assorted romance plots (which made me SO happy to see them add up and then how the story played out), she included one bed and you may be wondering how a banking heiress and a business leader in Victorian era England end up with only one bed, well…when one goes to a remote Scottish mining village, there are limited accommodations available.  This does mean we also get miners, which takes me back to Cornwall, although this is coal not copper, but many of the same issues arise with the age of workers, the working conditions, and the general poverty with a touch of a rich savior who is also one of the people.  This is the blunt part of the layers that I prefer to be a bit more subtle, but in this case, it makes sense why it’s not, and it’s also pretty eye opening for Hattie, despite her knowledge of the plight of women.  

There’s just so much to talk through in Portrait of A Scotsman, so I’m going to wrap up with a few random comments:  

• I’m also convinced Evie Dunmore is our people because she posted an article on social about the origins of author’s notes (because readers didn’t believe female authors *eyeroll*) and then we had an exchange in the comments about how they’re used now and the joy and knowledge they bring to readers (the behind the scenes but also the ability to divulge fact versus fiction in historical fiction works).
• We definitely need Catriona’s story sooner than September.  I’m really interested in her relationship with her father and also who Dunmore has selected for her partner.  Oh and more Lady Lucie too is necessary, because she and her fiancé are fantastic characters.
• If a man is willing to read a manual, then I’m impressed, but when Lucian tells Hattie he likes North and South best, I was cheering him on more than ever because it’s one of my favorites too!  And also, I was left wondering just how much of Portrait of A Scotsman was inspired by Persephone and Hades and how much was inspired by Margaret and John.

Portrait of A Scotsman was a delightful read that I’m emphatically giving four stars, and it’s quite possible I’ll reread it, but not necessarily before reading The Gentleman’s Gambit.  These stories are quick, smart tales of women who are finding ways to come into their own, even as the law tries to keep them down, and the men who love them because of their drive and tenacity.  These men have to come to grips with their partners being independent, and wanting the law to reflect that, as well as their feelings about women being *gasp* people separate from their closest male relation.  As always, if you are questioning if this title is right for you, slide into our DMs and we’ll help!  

What is a book you’ve read that has left you struggling to express your reflections of it?

~Nikki

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