Unabridged Chick

Title:Wide Sargasso Sea
Author: Jean Rhys

First line: They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did.

Review: My first read for 2016, and ohemgee, what a stunner.

This brief but sumptuous novel -- originally published in 1966, but reissued this year by Norton with a lovely introduction from Edwidge Danticat -- imagines the life of Bertha Mason, the "madwoman" from Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.

Shifting viewpoints between Antoinette, as she prefers to be called, and a young Englishman we assume to be Rochester, we see a vivacious young woman pinned down by society, powerless and frustrated, pushed to her emotional limits. Is she mad? Rhys suggests she isn't, but her husband -- perhaps a little mad himself -- feels otherwise, and he has the power to punish her and declare her such.

I have to confess that Jane Eyre is not one of my favorites books, so I was predisposed to like Antoinette and hate Rochester. Yet Rhys managed to make Rochester sympathe…

A Wordless Wednesday...and as with all these memes, I'm breaking the rules, and offering some words today.

Some time ago, it turns out I lost my domain, and it was being held hostage for about $3000. Grrr! I finally took the plunge and registered a new domain, www.unabridgedchick.net, which I hope won't confuse things too much. (hopehope)

I lost my blog roll in the process of adopting this new domain (it unlinked from my blogspot blogroll) so if you don't see your blog listed in one of the two blog columns, would you mind leaving a comment with a link? I'm trying to get back into my commenting routine, and I am heartbroken at missing anyone!

Just started Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel and Clarina Nichols: Frontier Crusader for Women's Rights by Diane Eickhoff. And my new joy has been my milk frother, a cheap splurge that has stopped me from spending an excessive amount of money on fancy coffees from the fancy coffee shops by my work.

Tell me about a joy today…

I probably should have arranged my side table (or at least, cleaned up the used tissue) but I wanted to blog honestly about where I am right now.

This is the same stack I've had since January. I'm sure there are some amazing reads here (and there's my e-reader, too, which is loaded up with ARCs, too), but I just can't...

I'm sick, and the baby is sick, and my wife is sick. So I'm tired and cranky. But even before we all got sick, it seems I can only manage to mainline The Great British Baking Show (and we've watched the whole season something like three times, and there's only one season available!).

I've only had one year of a reading funk this bad, and it was a year of terrible personal turmoil. So far, I have no excuse as 2016 is just fine, nothing dramatic or too challenging, so why the seeming disinterest in reading? (And the blogging and reviewing, oh, I am so behind on reviews!)

What do you do to get out of this funk? And is there a point whe…

Title:The Girl from Everywhere
Author: Heidi Heilig

First line: It was the kind of August day that hinted at monsoons, and the year was 1774, though not for very much longer.

Review: I was pretty desperate to get my hands on this book as soon as I read the description: a young woman who time travels to both real and imaginary worlds with her father, a man consumed with the desire to return 1868 Hawaii just before her mother dies.

This was probably the first book of 2016 that I just didn't want to put down; it was a combination of the intriguing premise, charming heroine, and unique setting that made it so compulsively readable for me.

Nix was born in Honolulu in 1868; her mother Lin died while her father Slate was at sea. Slate, born in the 1980s, has the unique ability to travel to any time or place if he has a hand drawn map of that location. With this skill, he's managed to assemble a ragtag crew who travel with him. They make money in their travels but Slate's obsess…

One of my most anticipated reads of 2016, America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie, is out today!

Tackling the supremely complicated Jefferson through the viewpoint of his devoted daughter Patsy, this novel represents what I adore about historical fiction: the humanizing of distant figures. I've been sharingsometidbits about Patsy Jefferson from America's First Daughter, and now I'm especially delighted to be able to share a rather juicy excerpt below! Be sure to enter the giveaway to win a signed copy, too!

AMERICA’S FIRST DAUGHTER by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie William Morrow, March 1, 2016
In a compelling, richly researched novel that draws from thousands of letters and original sources, bestselling authors Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie tell the fascinating, untold story of Thomas Jefferson’s eldest daughter, Martha “Patsy” Jefferson Randolph—a woman who kept the secrets of our most enigmatic founding father and shaped an American lega…