I had a great time participating in January's Comfort Read challenge, so I'm back for more! This #TBRChallenge is set-up by @SuperWendy (blog). Besides the theme months, this is a pretty relaxing challenge. On the third day of every month participants are encouraged to use the hashtag TBRChallenge and discuss the book they plucked from obscurity. I thought it meant discuss the book all day, so I kind of bombed the hashtag, lol. Now I know people just post one review :) I decided to make a personal rule that a book had to be in my TBR for at least 5 years.
February's theme is New-To-You Author, so I tried to think of an author that I've seen friends talk about a lot but I haven't managed to read yet. Last year @miss_batesreads had a buddy read on Twitter of A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant and I caught a few tweets discussing the book that captured my interest. With this in mind, I checked my GoodReads TBR and lo and behold, A Lady Awakened has been on there since 2016, just making my 5 year rule. Glancing at friend reviews (not enough to spoil!) and ratings, it looks like this is a book that people either love or hate, so many 5 star but also 1 star ratings. This is an author that I feel like I hear something about at least once year, so I can't wait to see where I fall.
For the #TBRChallenge, I'll be making posts like how I do for Buddy Reads. The longer, all my thoughts/comments with book quotes posts will be on my blog and GoodReads will get shorter snippets with a link to blog post. So I don't bomb the hashtag this time, I'll just be tweeting out my final review link on Wednesday.
January's TBRChallenge read was Unbound by Cara McKenna and I ended up loving it, hope I have the same luck!
Chapter 1 discussion (spoilers will be in my posts)........I’m sorry, too. I wish I could want what you offer. I don’t know why I can’t. She swallowed, and kept the words down.
I don't know why, but when I saw this was about a widow, I thought she'd be older but Martha is only 21yrs old. It looks like we're coming in right after her husband has passed away and she finds out that her husband mismanaged her dowry, so there's only 1,000 left of the original 10,000. She at least seems to have a decent brother who is upset on her behalf ands says she can live with him. Martha doesn't like the sound of that dependency, bringing in the acknowledgement of how controlled and limited choices women had at this time.
Of course if she were truly mutinous…well, one heard tales of what desperate childless widows occasionally did.
Martha knows she isn't pregnant but after spending the day fearing for the new school she's been instrumental in starting and learning that her husband's brother who is going to inherit the estate raped at least two housemaids, she decides to take a chance to change that. Definitely could be looked at as black & white choice but I see this more as grey and I'm not going to lie, I'm all "Be mutinous, woman!" over here.
Women could only pray for mercy…That wasn’t true. Women could do more. A desperate woman could do more. Women could only bear what came. But a chance had come. A chance had come and looked her in the eye that very morning.
So, first impression of Theo Mirkwood, we meet him as he's falling asleep in church and wakes up to give Martha a sensual smile, is obviously young and immature, which we're supposed to get. He's the son of the neighboring estate sent to learn some responsibility and away from temptations of London.
When Martha came right out and told him her plan, I loved her honesty and am looking forward to the two bonding without the secret of why Martha wants a baby hovering on the edges. Theo seems to go along with the deal quickly but the set-up of him being a bit of a scapegrace fits.
I can see some not liking the writing style, descriptive with some poetry flow, but I'm loving it right now, it comes off gorgeous to me. A whole book of it? I might feel differently, we'll see. A promising start :)
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