Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Lost In Green Darkness




I had another post planned for today, but it never got written. 

Mostly because I got lost in a good book. One that I had read before. It's called Green Darkness and it was written by a Anya Seton. It's about a woman in the early 70s (present day when the book was written) who winds up going back to Tudor England to right wrongs in past lives. 

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not into past lives.  So while I do enjoy reading about the Tudor period of English history, I probably never would have picked this book up had I not loved another historical novel by the same author, a book called Katherine. That book is a historical work as well, chronicling the life of Chaucer's sister-in-law, Katherine Swynford.

A friend mentioned Green Darkness the other day, and I have it in hardback on my shelf. It was calling to me. Maybe I needed to read it because I had so many other things to read, write, do, clean. It had the lure of the forbidden.

I thought to myself, I'll just read the first page. Then I kept reading and reading and reading. The descriptions make you feel like you really are in Tudor England. The plot keeps it moving. I start to worry about the political intrigue of the day even thought I know full well what happens. The main character, Celia Marsdon, is stuck back in Tudor times, the present pulls on her as my every day life tried to pull on me while I was reading. Like Celia, I chose to ignore the real world. It's really that good.

The book was out of print for years, but now Philippa Gregory, author of The Other Boleyn Girl, has help to resurect them so you can get paperbacks and e-book copies. If you decide to take the plunge make sure you have some quality time on your hands. If you have a book you feel that way about, go ahead and list it below. But I might have to wait for a weekend to read it.

So Happy New Year. And may 2013 be filled with days lost in good books.

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