Hello, how have you been? I’m sorry I missed posting last Sunday, but I was feeling under the weather. I’m sure you really missed me, haha.

This week has been full of dramatic weather here in the desert. It rained all day Thursday and Friday and was unusually cold. Some parts of the Phoenix area even had snow! It was so nice to have real February temperatures, but we are on track to have warm days going into March.

Books finished in the past two weeks:

A Long Way from Verona by Jane Gardam – I absolutely adored this book! I listened to an episode of the Backlisted Pod (which I love – do you listen?) where this title was discussed and pulled it off my shelves immediately after. It’s about a young girl, Jessica Vye, and her artistic development during WWII. It’s quirky and funny and has great characters. Jessica is a true heroine. The writing reminded me a bit of Barbara Comyns and that is a good thing!

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold – This is a galley I downloaded to my iPad which will be released in the US in April. It tells the life stories of each of the five women who were victims of Jack the Ripper and is a fascinating social history of working class women’s lives in Victorian London. I love that Rubenhold does not discuss the murders or the identity of Jack the Ripper at all – she purely focuses on the women and how they ended up living on the streets of Whitechapel and makes a point about how we’ve glorified the serial killer and ignored his victims. It made me fairly angry at the lack of choice and power these women had. If you like social histories or books about the Victorian era, you should give this one a go.

This next week I need to finish the two books we’re discussing at the library book clubs on March 4 and I also hope to read my first Persephone of the year. Have a lovely week!