Something I really like about this book is that the family is mostly kind to each other. So many family sagas involve horrible parents. Particularly cool to see the positive mother in law rep! The evil MIL trope is so common in Asian historical fiction, I know it's a common experience, but there must be some good ones out there!

Well my bookstore tour of London has been swathed in heat but I have seen a few that I have really enjoyed. I am saving Goldsboro for my last day because I have been buying books from them for over a decade and can’t wait to go into the physical store. However, I have discovered something interesting about my book buying preferences when I go to a store. Today I went into Daunt Books. I found the store super cool and liked how individual countries were labeled and then would have book set in that country. I liked it in a fun discovery way but disliked it in a completely different way. Many stores I have gone in have sorted all of their fiction together. Not sorting out the genres. I do not like this. I didn’t know I didn’t like it until running into several times. I really want my mysteries, science fiction, and fantasy books off in their own section. I have been looking for new mystery authors on this trip and it is so much more difficult when they are not sorted.

Do you have anything about bookstores that you really want them to have or any book buying habits that your personality strays towards?

I feel like these books scratch a particular spot in my brain. I want to find more to compare how they’re portrayed in books vs their actual selves. I feel like they’re probably a list somewhere…but recs please?

-I read the first book of the Shadow Histories duology by H.G. Parry and loved it. It’s such a wide scope, and the narrator for the audiobook has a great voice. I wished the Haitian revolution was a more central plot point, but alas. -“But One Life” by Samantha Wilsoncox was certainly interesting. The author certainly loves foreshadowing. (There’s a scene where a preacher talks about the story of Esther. Making parallels to the story of Hale to her…? Also that it was basically divine duty for him to serve his country). Relatively accurate.
-For the Pride read along, I loved Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert. The conversations in that book were amazing. -There is currently “Hope Never Dies” by Andrew Shaffer sitting on my shelf. I guess Obama and Biden count as historical figures? Famous figures? I guess they count too.

I also found a couple of others. Like this one author writing about Nathaniel Greene (and an upcoming one about Joseph Warren). Also Dwight D Eisenhower?

(I dont know why it’s so US centric today…maybe some less us centric ones?)