Welcome Blog Hoppers!

For the uninitiated, every Friday Crazy-for-Books hosts the “Book Blogger Hop, “a place just for book bloggers and readers to connect and find new book-related blogs that we may be missing out on.” It’s a great opportunity to learn about and explore book blogs that may be new to you. I’ve found many, many great blogs by participating in The Hop.

To get things rolling, Crazy-for-Books also posts a weekly question. This week’s question is:

TELL US ABOUT THE BOOK YOU ARE CURRENTLY READING.

I’ve just begun The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. When I say “just begun,” I mean that I am literally only on about page 30, so all impressions are very tentative.

The book is billed as a “gothic tale.” If it lives up to the comparisons to Rebecca, Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights, I’m prepared to like it. It’s probably not a book I would have selected myself, but it is the current selection for my book club so I’ll give it my best effort. I have a rule of thumb that I will read 100 pages of nearly anything. If I’m not interested by page 101, I move on to the next book. But blogger Books et al posted a comment here saying that this is one of her favorite books, and we share some favorites, so that gives me hope.

If I’m sounding less than enthusiastic, it’s because the small amount I’ve read suffers from one flaw that can sometimes be fatal for me – it seems to be seriously over-written. A sample of this is in the narrator’s description of a letter she has received:

The crisp-cornered envelope, puffed up with its thickly folded contents, was addressed in a hand that must have given the postman a certain amount of trouble. Although the style of the writing was old-fashioned, with its heavily embellished capitals and curly flourishes, my first impression was that it had been written by a child. The letters seemed untrained. Their uneven strokes either faded into nothing or were  heavily etched into the paper. There was no sense of flow in the letters that spelled out my name.

All this, just to say she received a letter addressed in a childish hand.

I’ll honor my commitment to 100 pages and hope that the story compensates for the style. Come back in a week or so to find out!