Search

Search only in certain items:

Absinthe
Absinthe
Winter Renshaw | 2017 | Contemporary, Romance
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
This has been borrowed from the Kindle Unlimited Library.

I'll be honest. With how this started I was expecting it to be erotica. That prologue with how "Absinthe" walks into the principles office, sucking on that lollipop, and how they recognise each other from their voices alone. I expected it to be a bit...kinky with them going on to have sex in his office. But then we go back three months and see how their relationship started with the Karma dating app.

I was really rather enjoying this. It had the angst of love that couldn't really happen but them being unable to fight their feelings or stop seeing each other. But then their secret got out and things fell apart around them both. And then years passed. YEARS! I began to get a little fed up with the characters after five years had passed and they hadn't found each other. Yeah, one of them was looking for the other but...it wasn't really going anywhere.

They did eventually find each other but it wasn't great between them for quite a while and my initial enjoyment of the story had waned a little by then. I did like the epilogue and how their love of classic literature worked its way into their lives. That bit was cute.

It was those five years with the travels and the trying to find each other and despising each other...it knocked it down a star for me. It just seemed too long.
  
Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen, Donald Gray, Mary A. Favret | 2016 | Fiction & Poetry
8
8.0 (94 Ratings)
Book Rating
Modest Romance
Contains spoilers, click to show
Everyone always mentions this novel, it’s a classic, how can it not be mentioned? When I picked up this novel, I was just praying that it wouldn’t be one of those clichés where everyone says it’s amazing and once you’ve read it you think to yourself, what was all the fuss about? I’m pleased to say that this was not the case.

Most people know the rough story of this novel but I will give a little recap anyway. You are introduced to a middle-class family with 5 young girls that are ready to be married off. The mother is a hysterical kind of woman that cannot keep herself out of her daughter’s business. The eldest daughter Jane is a very shy individual and she falls in love with a wealthy man Mr. Bingley. When Mr. Bingley arrives in town, he brings with him his friend Mr. Darcy who is constantly described as a disagreeable fellow particularly as he does not enjoy the social norms that were custom in this era. Jane’s sister Elizabeth finds something curious about this man and spends the majority of the narrative expressing her dislike of him. Eventually though, he wins her round but the journey is what is so beautiful about this novel.

When I read this, I really thought it was going to be a cliché novel and I was pleasantly surprised as to how much I enjoyed it. You can see parallels between the relationship with Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet and Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester. Looking back on this, there are quite a lot of similarities between these two novels and the characters that make them.

Austen has created an incredible classic novel that highlights what life was like in this era and how people behaved. You could look at this novel as a study of personalities. The romance between the two is incredibly sweet especially when it seems as though it would be such an unlikely couple. Both characters have to have internal battles before they are both ready to open up to each other and declare how they really feel.

I can now understand why this novel has been such a fascination for literary scholars. It is beautifully written and contains the modest kind of romance that leaves you wanting more. It will be going up there as one of my favourite works of literature.