Fans of Fforde's amazingly original Shades of Grey have been waiting almost 15 years for the sequel< Red Side Story. It was worth the wait.
Fforde continues the story of Eddie Russett and Jane Grey as they navigate a society where your place, occupations, and who you can marry depend on what color you can see. Eddie and Jane are determined to ignore the many rules of their world and discover how it came to be.
I find the concept of a world organized by color fascinating, and I really loved all the strange creatures and plants Fforde created.
This book is subtitled "An Homage to P.G.Wodehouse," who is one of my favorite authors, and Schott does an excellent job of recreating the characters, plot, and style of one of the best and most entertaining authors in the world.
Having read all of Wodehouse many times, it was great fun to revisit bon vivant Bertie Wooster and his genius valet Jeeves in a brand new adventure. It's almost impossible to summarize the hilarious, intricate plot, which includes all sorts of eccentric character, and of course, a fearsome Aunt.
Thanks to the popularity of Bridgerton, Regency romances have become much more steamy. As someone who loves the novels of Georgette Heyer, I find sex scenes jarring, but despite this, I did enjoy To Marry and to Meddle because the characters were delightful and the setting was a theater, something Lord Julian Belfry owns and performs in, ignoring the scandal this creates for his family.
I found it quite easy to skip over the sex scenes and enjoy the rest of the story, which involves a marriage of convenience and an ornery kitten.
PI Madeline Maclin reluctantly agrees to help her ex-husband, Bill, find his children’s nanny, Nadia Conrad. But while exploring Carson’s Cave, Madeline and her husband, Jerry Fairweather, find Nadia’s body.
Secrets and suspects abound, from Bill, trying to cover up his affair with Nadia, to Nadia’s former high school friends, all of whom witnessed a classmate’s fatal accident in the same cave years ago, to Rodman Fogarty, a self-proclaimed expert on UFOs, who arrives in Celosia to investigate rumors of aliens landing in Carson’s Crater and who has ties to Jerry’s con man past. It’s up to Madeline to uncover secrets that have been buried for way too long.
