Aug 7
do you guys ever think about her
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do you guys ever think about her
I know I'm late with the Conversation Hearts, but I had to let you know that I just read "The Ordinary Princess". (Apparently I'd read it before, but I remembered nothing). What a cute little fairy tale! It's so sweet to see Amy get her wholesome and ordinary little romance. I'm glad you convinced me to give it a try!
Delightful! That is one of my all-time favorite books. I read it on repeat, the way you read your favorite fairytale retellings. I like that this one is an original fairytale, not a retelling--and it subverts all the common tropes while still paying tribute to the lovely things in fairy tales. Thank you for trying it!
ROUND 1D, MATCH 4 OUT OF 8!
Who is the best fairy godparent?
Fairy Crustacea (The Ordinary Princess)
Katriona (Spindle's End)
Propaganda Under the Cut:
January Round Up
January Round Up: In brief - Re-read & non-rec of MM Kaye's Far Pavilions plus links.
Monthly Mini Review (well, kind of)
The Far Pavilions by MM Kaye, narrated by Vikas Adam.
The narration by Vikas Adam is excellent.
I picked the audiobook up last year in a sale, largely due to the narrator.
The story is full of colonialism and very not okay things however so I can’t recommend it. I read the book many years ago before I knew much about anything (I was about 15 I think) and it…
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I just finished my last M.M. Kaye mystery Death in Kashmir. In this book, Sarah Parrish gets involved with Janet Rushton, who turns out to be a spy for the British government at the time that the Raj was handing over India to self rule. Sarah is on a ski vacation, and she doesn't want to take the situation seriously until Janet turns up dead. Sarah knows it is murder, but the others in the ski party think that it was an accident on the slopes. However, Sarah knew that Janet was waiting to transfer important information to her superiors, and it did not seem that had happened. A few months later, Sarah gets a letter from Janet's solicitors that Janet had left her boat rental in Kashmir to Sarah. Sarah knows she should just ignore it and go back home to England. However, she can't get over a feeling of obligation to help Janet since Janet took trust in Sarah. Of course, this leads to Sarah being the object of unwanted attention from the person that killed Janet. Can Sarah find the information that Janet left behind and get it to the proper authorities?
As with the other Kaye mysteries, the heroine is some backbone, but lacks in common sense because she gets herself into trouble, which could have been avoided if only the heroine thought about it. Death in Kashmir is a good thriller, and Kaye did keep my guessing about who was the bad guy. Kaye did a great job describing the situation in India in the late 1940s. In the Author's Note, Kaye mentions that the literary agent who was assigned to her was Paul Scott, who went on to write the Raj QuartetDeath in Kashmir.
It's a shame that Kaye only wrote six mysteries. I'll have to check out Far Pavilions and The Ordinary Princess.
In the royal kitchens two hundred and twenty cooks, four hundred scullions, as many servingmen, and five hundred kitchen maids worked like mad, baking cakes and pies and pastries. They stuffed swans and peacocks and boars’ heads and made wonderful sweets—marzipan trees hung with crystalized cherries, and castles and dragons and great ships of sugar candy. Five cooks from Italy worked on the christening cake, which was decorated with hundreds of sugar bells and crystalized roses, and was so tall that they had to stand on silver stepladders to ice it.
The Ordinary Princess, by MM Kaye
What Got You Hooked on Historical Fiction?
My folks read to me from the time I was very young (my favorites were Little Women and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), and I started reading on my own fairly early (I loved the Little House books, of course, and my obsession for a while was my uncle's collection of actual 1950s Hardy Boys books).
My folks were also touched by wanderlust. My dad was in the Air Force (a radio DJ, best job in the military!) and my mom had decided to stay and work in Europe after her visit to Norway in 1964, and they met at biergarten in Wiesbaden. She eventually became a travel agent.
Her wanderlust and love for history found an intersection in the books she read. My dad loves reading, but he's more of a non-fiction history kind of guy (which is awesome is a completely different way). My mom was an avid, nay, obsessive fiction reader, and I reaped the benefits as a kid, getting her books when she was done. I read Shogun by Clavell and Centennial by Michener, I read Ivanhoe and The Thorn Birds (alongside Pride & Prejudice and Jane Eyre, of course).
Later in life, we shared Alison Weir books, Pilgrim by Timothy Findlay, Sharan Newman's Catherine leVendeur mysteries, among so many others.
As a kid, two books that really stood out for me were by M.M. Kaye, Shadow of the Moon and Trade Winds. The former is a story of Kashmir and Afghanistan in the mid-19th century, the latter a story of life in Zanzibar in the 19th century, featuring a wonderfully named heroine, Hero Athena Hollis. I was so impressed by Trade Winds that
I wrote a fan letter in 1986, when I was 15. To my great joy, and continuing glee, she wrote me back. I've carried this letter around in my Box of Special Things ever since, and count it as one of the cooler events of my early life.
April 20, 1986
Dear Ms. Nelson,
I'm so glad to hear that you enjoy reading my books. It was kind of you to write.
I'm afraid you wouldn't like Zanzibar if you went there now! I'm so glad I saw it before it was spoilt. The place is now full of 'worker's flats' on the western model; and the new 'far-left' government have driven a wide--very wide--main street right through Zanzibar City, knocking down all the lovely old Arab houses, and getting rid of all the fascinating, winding, twisting, narrow streets. Oh dear! So sad--
I've had a lovely life, and I am very grateful to have been able to see, and live in, such beautiful places.
Best wishes to you - Mollie M. Kaye
Thank goodness for Mollie Kaye, who took the time to write to a kid in California, and thank goodness for my folks, who took the time to read to me, and thank goodness for my mom, who had great taste in, and abiding love for, historical fiction. I sure miss her.
"Common sense will nearly always stand you in better stead than a slavish adherence to the conventions."
— M.M. Kaye