Golden Urchin

Golden Urchin is another book by Madeleine Brent. I found the book to be very uneven. Brent is a good story teller, but I didn't like this one as well as Moonraker's Bride, but it was still entertaining. I managed to finish the book, knowing the end almost from the start.

Brent seems to have hit upon a successful romance formula. A young orphaned English girl who grows up in a foreign land around the turn of the century. At some point the girl travels to England by boat and discovers she is an heiress. Both Moonraker's Bride and Golden Urchin followed this formula. I briefly flipped through the other Brent stories at the library and they all seem to have the same plot. So I am moving on to the next author.

Book Rating: 3 stars

Next up: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Moonraker's Bride

Moonraker's Bride is a romance written by Madeleine Brent, aka Peter O'Donnell. The fact that this book was written by a man surprised me a bit. Looking through the romance paperbacks at the library, every single one is written by a woman. Because O'Donnell used a female pen name shows how particular his audience is about romance novels. It would only make sense for a woman to write a romance, especially with the main character being a woman.

In any event, O'Donnell, captures his female character well. It is an interesting and suspenseful story set in China and England. The main character is an orphaned English girl raised in an Anglican mission in China. She is more Chinese than English in her thinking, and that is the source of some comedic moments. O'Donnell keeps you guessing as to which love interest will capture her heart. The story is very clean - there is no foul language or explicit scenes.

For a romance, I enjoyed this one.

Book rating: 3 stars.


Up next - another Madeleine Brent story.

End of the Road

There must be something to the idea of Alaska and off-beat characters. Think of Northern Exposure or the new tv series Men in Trees. Perhaps this is where the idea started, or maybe it's really true. In any event, the book The End of the Road by Tom Bodett is a fun entertaining read.

Tom Bodett is an excellent story teller and the characters are completely real. I have never heard his radio show, but the book is collection of his stories from the radio program. The stories are loosely connected to each other, yet could be read separately. This book deserves all of the praise it has received. I wish our library had more of his stories in print or audio.

Book Rating: An enthusiastic 4 stars.

I am now reading Moonraker's Bride by Madeleine Brent.

Lorna Doone

I have been trying to read Lorna Doone for a few weeks now. From what I have read abou R. D. Blackmore is that this is his most famous novel. Not only that, it has inspired ten movies and miniseries. The book was published in 1869.

The difficulty in reading the book is the text itself. Blackmore is an English, Victorian writer. This means flowery language to describe mundane things. It means the characters give each other long looks and meaningful glances. It means the simple touch of hands can make someone fall in love with you. Even more difficult about the text, is Blackmore's use of old English words. I had to take the time to look things up in an Oxford dictionary to get a better grasp of what he was talking about.

Despite that, I can see that the story itself is interesting and of value. In many ways it is a version of Romeo and Juliet. It has action, adventure, and romance. Will the two lovebirds end up together or will the evil Doone gang end up killing everyone?

I am half-way through the story and I am now done. The difficulty of the language slows the reading way down. I am just tired of it. I will wait for the movie to come back around in the library video circuit. What can I say? Good luck to any who may attempt it. Otherwise, read the synopsis at Wikipedia.