New in today is Patronage by Maria Edgeworth, thanks to the publishers Sort of Books.
Maria Edgeworth (1768 – 1849) was a contemporary of Jane Austen, publishing novels at the same time – Patronage was published just 5 months before Mansfield Park in 1814. It will be a while before I read this book, which is to be published on 6 July 2011, because there are already quite a few in my reading queue. But it does look interesting, described as
… one of the most eagerly anticipated novels of Jane Austen’s day. It sold out within hours of publication.
… an adventurous soap opera about the trials and fortunes of two neighbouring families in Regency England, both of which had sons and daughters setting out in the world. … a bright and mischievous critique of the way young men gained careers and young women gained husbands. (from the back cover)
I might just have to bump it up the list.
I also received newbooks magazine a few days ago. This has all sorts of book news, interviews and articles, plus lots of reviews and extracts from six novels – you can choose one for just the cost of p&p. This issue the free books are:
- Tony & Susan by Austin Wright, his fourth and overlooked novel, originally published in 1993, about a divorced couple. Tony asks Susan to read the manuscript of his first novel.
- The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender, about the link between food and our emotions.
- Outside the Ordinary World by Dori Ostermiller, in which Sylvia finds herself following in her mother’s footsteps into an affair she feels powerless to resist.
- Drums on the Night Air: a Woman’s Flight from Africa’s Heart of Darkness by Veronica Cecil, set in the Congo in the early 1960s as civil war breaks out.
- Collusion by Stuart Neville, a crime novel featuring DI Jack Lennon caught up in a web of official secrets and lies as he tries to find the whereabouts of his daughter.
- The Collaborator by Margaret Leroy, in which Vivienne decides to escape from Guernsey to England in June 1940, as the German invasion is threatened, but stays and finds herself in danger.
Tony & Susan looks interesting, as does Drums on the Night Air, but I think I’m going to get The Collaborator.