Hello there fellow Book Lovers and welcome to Suggestion Sunday!
This is where I will be suggesting two books I have previously read in order to introduce you to a new read. Today’s picks are A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray and The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde.
A Great and Terrible Beauty – Libba Bray
Its 1895 and, after the death of her mother, 16 year old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma finds her reception a chilly one. She’s not completely alone, though… she’s being followed by a mysterious young man, sent to warn her to close her mind against the visions.
It’s at Spence that Gemma’s power to attract the supernatural unfolds, as she becomes entangled with the school’s most powerful girls and discovers her mothers connection to a shadowy, timeless group called The Order. Her destiny awaits… if only Gemma can believe in it.
Boy oh boy! This book is just full of historical, fantasy goodness. I remember really enjoying my reading experience of this book because of its incorporation of both India and England in 1895. I read this book prior to reading The Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Clare and it was what began my love for books set in the past due to the difference in society, I love the detail about the outfits especially.
I was introduced to A Great and Terrible Beauty via Booktube and it was actually the cover that drew me in, it’s gorgeous as you can tell by the picture. This book is also part of a trilogy however I have only read this first book so far, however after rediscovering it on my bookcase I think I will give it another read and then finish the series this summer.
Goodreads – Book Page| Goodreads- Author Page
The Eyre Affair – Jasper Fforde
Meet Thursday Next, literary detective without equal, fear or boyfriend.
There is another 1985, where London’s criminal gangs have moved into the lucrative literary market, and Thursday Next is on the trail of the new crime wave’s Mr. Big. Acheron Hades has been kidnapping characters from works of fiction and holding them to ransom. Jane Eyre is gone. Missing.
Thursday sets out to find a way into the book to repair the damage. But solving crimes against literature isn’t easy when you also have to find time to half the Crimean War, persuade the man you love to marry you, and figure out who really wrote Shakespeare’s Plays.
The Eyre Affair is a really fun book to read, I actually was introduced to this book by my First Year professor at university and I was a little apprehensive to read it. However I was pleasantly surprised. The Eyre Affair is a new exciting concept on detective fiction, where detectives seek to stop criminals from going into novels and changing the stories. As you can tell the book is full of intertextuality including Jane Eyre, Shakespeare, Wordsworth and more.
This book has a little bit of everything thrown in, romance, mystery, fantasy and crime fiction. Whilst also incorporating bits of Classic Literature.
Happy Suggestion Sunday!
Let me know in the comments if you have read either of these books or if you plan on giving them ago, I would love to discuss your thoughts on them.
I have also done something different and included my own pictures of the books 🙂
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