I didn't want to start my new blogging year without a new installment of Classics & Contemporaries, but recently I haven't been doing enough research to write another, more indepth post. So today, like the previous installment (found here!), I'm going to give you some quick recommendations for one of my new favourite authors whom I discovered at the end of 2014: Daphne du Maurier!
I highly recommend checking du Maurier out! She wrote everything from novels (in genres from historical fiction to post-apocalyptic) to non-fiction and short fiction - the woman was a writing machine!
Due to my little hiatus I couldn't bring you Science Fiction in August, so I figured I'd just do two C&C posts in October as a Halloween treat. Then I discovered Sci-Fi Month, and it seemed a shame to do this installment of C&C outside of Sci-Fi Month!
So, at long last, here we have Science Fiction!
Now sci-fi, and especially classic sci-fi, is a genre I know very, very little about, so instead of the usual layout, today I'm going to be offering you some very simple recommendations. Enjoy!
Happy Halloween!
This month in Classics & Contemporaries we're going to explore a section of the spooky genre that is Victorian Gothic, one of my personal favourites. I did an entire module on Victorian Gothic at university and I loved it, so I've been looking forward to this installment!
When it comes to Victorian Gothic there are some very famous pieces of literature; Bram Stoker's Dracula, Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights just to name a few. Today, however, I've opted to explore some of the lesser known, but equally fabulous, pieces of Victorian Gothic fiction out there.
So today we're going to look at some vampire stories, and neither of them are Dracula!
First published in 1871 (that's right - before Dracula!), J. Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla tells the story of Laura, a young girl who lives in Styria with her retired, widowed father, who has been looking forward to a visit from Bertha Rheinfeldt, the niece of her father's friend. Her father receives a letter from his friend, General Spielsdorf, informing the two of them that Bertha has died under mysterious circumstances which he will soon discuss with Laura's father in more detail.
Disappointed that she will have no companion, Laura's prayers are answered when a carriage accident outside their home leaves a young girl, around Laura's age, in their care. The girl introduces herself as Carmilla, and she and Laura immediately bond when the two of them recognise each other from a strange dream they both claim to have had during their childhood.
Carmilla and Laura grow intimately close, but as the months wear on it is clear there is more to Carmilla than meets the eye.
First thing's first: Carmilla is more of a novella than a novel, my edition is only 108 pages long, so whether you feel intimidated by classics or not I highly recommend giving it a try, especially at this time of year. It's one of my favourite classics, and has one of the most exquisite last lines of any story ever. I love it!
There are plenty of reasons to read Carmilla; it's a pre-Dracula example of vampirism in literature, and when it comes to monsters in literature the Victorian era is possibly the best era to start your exploration; because of the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, Victorian society was terrified by the prospect of devolution. If people really had evolved from apes, did that mean they could revert back to an animalistic state? Was devolution responsible for criminals, homosexuals and over-ambitious women?
Carmilla is beautifully written and utterly haunting, and the relationship between Carmilla and Laura is both fascinating and tragic.
But if you don't feel ready to tackle any 19th century fiction just yet, there's a piece of historical fiction that's perfect for this time of year!
First published in 1999, Sarah Waters' Affinity tells the story of Margaret Prior, a woman who is recovering from a suicide attempt following the death of her beloved father. She decides to volunteer at the nearby women's prison, Millbank, as part of her rehabilitive charity work, where she works as a companion to the inmates. She speaks with them, listens to their stories and their troubles, and is discouraged from growing close to any of them.
One woman in particular, however, intrigues her. Selina Dawes claims to be a spiritualist who has found herself in prison after one of her séances led to the death of one woman and the deep disturbance of another. Though Margaret is initially sceptical of Selina's claims, she slowly becomes enamoured by this mysterious, enchanting woman.
But is Selina all that she appears to be?
Obviously there are many differences between Carmilla and Affinity, the most obvious being that there are no vampires in Affinity! But there are many similarities between them. They are both beautifully written, both claustrophobic and gothic, and both set in the 19th century. I have mentioned Sarah Waters in Classics & Contemporaries before - here! - as an author well known for her LGBT historical fiction, and Affinity is no different. Margaret and Seline's sexuality is not shied away from at all throughout the novel; in fact if you're a lover of historical fiction who would like to see more LGBT characters in the books you read I highly recommend giving her work a try if you haven't already. The majority of Waters' novels include LGBT characters in lead roles, perhaps her most famous works being Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet.
Similarly, if you'd like to see more LGBT characters in your classics then Carmilla is the ideal book for you! It's often described as 'the lesbian vampire story', though whether or not that description is true is debatable; there are certainly elements of the homoerotic throughout the text, but I would be surprised if Le Fanu himself meant it as an LGBT text.
All the same, if Affinity interests you then there's no reason you wouldn't enjoy Carmilla!
Next we have an even shorter and even lesser known 19th century vampire story...
Robert Louis Stevenson is no stranger to the Victorian Gothic genre. He is perhaps most famous for The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Treasure Island, but during his life he also wrote many short stories, and many of those short stories were spooky and included elements of the gothic and fantastical.
Olalla is one such story. First published in 1885, Olalla tells the story of a nameless English soldier who is recovering from his injuries received in the Peninsular War. Still weak, his doctor advises him to stay with a once noble Spanish family, consisting of a mother and her two children: her son, Felipe, and her mysterious daughter, Olalla.
Our narrator feels welcome and comfortable in his temporary home, although he believes his hostess and her son to be slothful and dim-witted, but something seems odd. Though he hears of Olalla he does not see her, and each night when he goes to sleep he hears wild noises as though he were staying in a mad house.
When he finally meets Olalla he discovers that, unlike her mother and brother, she is extraordinarily intelligent and the two of them fall deeply in love with one another. He wishes to take her away from her home, but when he cuts his wrist on some glass while trying to orchestrate their escape, Olalla's family have an incredibly strong reaction to his blood...
Olalla is a very interesting piece of gothic fiction in that it is still being debated as to whether or not it is a vampire story or a werewolf story, for there are strong cases for both. After all, it wasn't only vampires that were popular in Victorian Gothic fiction - werewolves, ghosts and monsters were also very popular!
Just as Carmilla explores the idea of devolution, in Olalla we have an idea common in Victorian vampire fiction: fallen noble families with bad blood. In Olalla it is implied that Olalla's mother and brother, and indeed Olalla herself, are the way they are because they are the product of years and years of inbreeding. This idea of tainted nobility can also be seen in Dracula, the most famous vampire story in history, and it can even be seen in more modern incarnations of the vampire story such as Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque's American Vampire graphic novel series, where a new breed of vampire is able to survive beneath the sun and threatens the existence of vampires who are stuck in their bourgeoisie-esque ways.
But for a 21st century recommendation, I've turned to YA!
Sarah Beth Durst's Drink, Slay, Love is a fun standalone about 16 year old Pearl, a classic vampire - she's allergic to the sun, loves blood and really quite evil - who is stabbed through the heart by a unicorn. Naturally, her family, who just so happen to be the vampire mafia, think she's been attacked by a vampire hunter - because unicorns don't exist! - but what really shocks them, and Pearl, is that she's suddenly able to withstand the sun. In fact, she's slowly becoming less and less vampiric.
Never to waste an opportunity, especially with the Vampire King coming to visit, Pearl's family decide to make use of her new 'talents' and send her to high school. Why? For dinner, of course. But can Pearl really feed her family, and the King, her newfound friends when she's slowly starting to develop a conscience? And does she really have a choice? Because if she doesn't offer up her classmates, she's dead meat anyway...
Drink, Slay, Love is nothing like its 19th century fear-mongering ancestors, but there's certainly elements of the early vampires within the story even when they are being parodied. Like Olalla, Drink, Slay, Love plays on this idea of old, intimidating families who are as threatening to each other as they are to outsiders.
Obviously there are more differences than similarities here - there's a unicorn, for heaven's sake! - but if you enjoy this brilliantly bizarre and self-aware novel, then I don't see why you won't enjoy a 19th century short story.
As always, I hope this has been an interesting installment of Classics & Contemporaries! Happy Halloween!
Back in July I started this new series with Romance and promised that I'd be back in August with the Science Fiction installment. Then I ended up going on a little hiatus while I finished up my MA coursework and there was no C&C post in August!
I thought of just bumping Science Fiction up into September and doing two C&C posts, but considering Halloween is next month, I thought it would be a lot more fun to write up Science Fiction then, alongside the Gothic post I have planned.
So today we're talking about Social Commentary, and I promise you it's a lot less boring and/or intimidating than it sounds!
Social Commentary does what it says on the tin; these are the kind of books that had something to say about the time they were written in, regarding issues from gender to class to race to poverty - you name it, someone's written about it!
Charles Dickens is probably one of the most well known authors for this kind of literature; so many of his stories explore issues with poverty and class - just think of the way he portrayed the workhouses in Oliver Twist.
In fact we're starting our Social Commentary journey in the 19th century, with a brilliant (and sadly underrated) female author...
Anne Brontë is one third of the fantastic Brontë trio, but no one seems to talk about her as much as her sisters. She is most famous for The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which is believed to be one of the first Victorian feminist novels, but today I'm going to be talking about her first, semi-autobiographical novel, Agnes Grey.
Agnes Grey tells the story of its titular character, who decides to take life by the horns and become a governess to help her family after her father loses all of his money through no fault of his own. As the younger of two daughters her family are initially uncertain, but Agnes is determined to prove herself and soon finds herself the governess for the children of the wealthy Bloomfields.
Working for the Bloomfields is nothing short of disastrous; the children are spoilt and cruel, much like their parents who constantly criticise everything Agnes does. Unhappy and lonely, Agnes is relieved when Mr Bloomfield sends her back home, convinced that his children are not learning fast enough, and her mother helps her to find her new position with the Murray family.
Agnes becomes the governess to the Murray's two daughters, Rosalie and Matilda, and though she still often feels the isolation that comes with being a governess, she develops a tentative friendship with the flirtacious Rosalie and befriends the kind curate, Edward Weston.
Throughout Agnes Grey, Anne Brontë reveals how governesses were really treated in the 19th century, and through Agnes's friendship with Rosalie Murray she explores femininity and the way women were treated, even if they happened to be wealthy women. It's an exquisite little novel, and it's one of my favourites, but I think it's something of a marmite read; I loved it, but I've come across many people who found it boring.
So if you're not quite ready for the 19th century, perhaps this piece of historical fiction will be more to your taste...
Eva Ibbotson is a guilty pleasure of mine. She's well known for her children's books, but also for her YA historical romance fiction. A Song For Summer is one such novel, and, like Agnes Grey, it features a feminine heroine, named Ellen, who finds herself working with children when she accepts a job as the housekeeper at a school in Austria.
Ellen becomes intrigued by Marek, the school's mysterious gardener and fencing teacher, but as Hitler's troops advance across Europe their love is endangered by the looming shadow of war.
A Song For Summer is much more romance orientated than Agnes Grey, though Brontë does a wonderful job of portraying the yearning that goes hand in hand with unrequited love, but they both have an innate sweetness which is laced with serious and thought-provoking themes. If you like A Song For Summer, then I definitely believe you would enjoy a classic like Agnes Grey!
Next we have a much more modern classic, written by one of the world's most famous playwrights!
I'm incredibly jealous of anyone who got to study Arthur Miller's The Crucible in school. I had to read Death of a Salesman instead and I loathed it. The Crucible, however, is right up my alley!
The Crucible is Miller's take on the famous Salem Witch Trials of the 17th century. Originally published in the 1950s, it is believed to be an allegory for "McCarthyism", the practice of accusing people of treason or disloyalty without evidence, when the American government began to blacklist suspected communists.
It's a brilliant commentary on hysteria, manipulation and morality, and you don't have to be a history enthusiast to enjoy it! (Though those of you who do enjoy your history might just appreciate it all the more).
However, while The Crucible is a modern classic, and therefore less intimidating than something as huge as War and Peace, it is a play, and often plays are a lot more fun to watch than they are to read.
But have no fear! I have a very recent novel that might just spark your fancy...
Katherine Howe is no stranger to the Salem Witch Trials; not only is she believed to be descended from two of the accused witches, but her first novel, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, is all about witchcraft. Her recent YA novel, Conversion, isn't all that different.
In Danvers, Massachusetts Colleen Rowley, a student at St. Joan's Academy, is trying to get through high school and all the stress that comes with it. She's been reading The Crucible for extra credit, and when the school's queen bee, Clara Rutherford, falls mysteriously ill with seizures and violent coughing fits, an illness which soon spreads to her circle of friends, Colleen's suspicions begin to rise.
After all, Danvers used to be known as Salem Village where, centuries before, another group of girls suffered from the same epidemic...
I think the very fact that Conversion's protagonist is reading The Crucible herself makes it an ideal read for anyone out there who's not quite ready to read Arthur Miller's famous play. Ultimately, Conversion takes the famous story of the Salem Witch Trials, or at least the epidemic that led to them, and places them in the 21st century. So if you enjoy Conversion, I see no reason why you wouldn't enjoy The Crucible!
There's another genre (though I suppose Social Commentary is more of a sub-genre) done and dusted! Check back next month for Science Fiction and Gothic, just in time for Halloween!
J.
On Friday I started my new series, "Classics & Contemporaries", with the first Romance installment centered around the works of Jane Austen. You can find that post here!
Today I'm back with the second installment, which is Austen free, and finishing off the Romance section of this little series.
On Friday we began with one of the most famous love stories in existence and its 21st century retelling, and today we're going to do that again!
I have to admit for a little while I couldn't decide if I wanted to include Romeo and Juliet in this series at all, because I could write an entire post about how it isn't a love story (and perhaps one day I will!), but there's no denying that this play has inspired hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of stories.
In fact I'm so certain of this play's impact on the history of the story that I don't think I really need to tell you what it's about, do I? We all know the story of the two warring families and the star-crossed lovers caught in the middle of them - in fact the names 'Romeo' and 'Juliet' are often names we use to describe people who are in love.
Romeo and Juliet isn't my favourite of Shakespeare's plays - Macbeth has always been my favourite - but it's still worth reading. Sadly though, too many people end up hating Shakespeare because they're introduced to him in the wrong way. Usually in school.
I've always lived in Britain so while I can't speak for people elsewhere in the world, most of us who live in Britain are introduced to Shakespeare in primary school; in fact I first read Macbeth when I was 10 years old! If you have a teacher who can't make Shakespeare fun, however, you're bound to be baffled by him, and so many teachers fail to tell their pupils about all the dick jokes in his plays...
If the thought of reading Shakespeare makes you break out into a nervous sweat, I have just the story for you!
At first sight, you might think a story about flesh-eating zombies would have nothing to do with the most famous love story in the world, but Warm Bodies is nothing if not a retelling.
R (Romeo) falls in love with Julie (Juliet) as soon as he sees her. He murders her boyfriend Perry (Paris), has a best friend called M/Marcus (Mercutio) while Julie's best friend is Nora (the Nurse).
On top of all that, R is a zombie and Julie is not, which is a big problem considering all zombies and the living want to do is kill each other. Then again, all the Montagues and the Capulets want to do is kill each other, so not much has changed in 500 years!
Obviously there's a big difference between the way Warm Bodies is written and the way Romeo and Juliet is written, but at the core they're both the same story - one of them just has zombies!
If you enjoy Warm Bodies there's no reason why you wouldn't enjoy Romeo and Juliet, but if you still feel a little intimidated by the Old English language why not try watching one of the many adaptations of Romeo and Juliet first? Baz Luhrmann's adaptation, originally released in 1996, is particularly useful, as it's set in the 21st century but still uses the Old English language.
Now we're going to travel forward 300 years, to the Victorian era, where another famous classic awaits us...
Charlotte Brontë's most famous work, Jane Eyre, was first published in 1847 under the pseudonym "Currer Bell". Upon its original release The Quarterly Review claimed it was "an anti-Christian composition", and it is a commonly held belief that Brontë wrote the novel as a protest against the Victorian lifestyle.
Gothic and atmospheric, Jane Eyre tells the story of the titular character who suffers neglect and abuse as a child, is sent away to boarding school and then eventually leaves to pursue a position as a governess at Thornfield Hall. Thornfield belongs to the mysterious Mr Rochester, whose ward, Adèle, is Jane's charge.
Coarse and gruff, Mr Rochester is the typical Byronic hero, but Jane gives as good as she gets and in doing so, enchants him, but Mr Rochester is hiding a dark secret that could ruin everything.
I love Jane Eyre, but I know plenty of people who have never been able to get through it because of the novel's slow pace and the density of the text. The truth is that most Victorian novels are very dense - it's rather unusual to come across a short one - as many novels started out serialised in newspapers (such as Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone and Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist) and in the 19th century there were no televisions or cinemas; entire families would enjoy a large novel together, over the course of a couple of weeks!
So if you have a fondness for dark 19th century tales of love that crosses the boundaries of class, I have a piece of historical fiction you just might love.
Sarah Waters' Fingersmith tells the story of orphan Sue Trinder who, under the care of Mrs Sucksby, is raised as a petty thief. One day Gentleman, a beloved thief and con man, comes to Sue with an enticing proposition. If she can win a position as the maid to Maud Lily, a young and naive gentlewoman, and help Gentleman to seduce her, the two of them can make off with her vast inheritance and condemn Maud to a lunatic asylum.
Sue wishes to pay back the kindness of those who raised her and agrees to the plan, but when she meets Maud she begins to care for her in unexpected ways...
Perhaps one of the biggest differences between Fingersmith and Jane Eyre is that while the latter tells the story of a love between a man and a woman, the romance in Fingersmith is between two women. In fact Waters is well known for writing historical fiction featuring LGBT characters.
Other than that difference - and really is it that much of a difference? Love is love is love - there are quite a few similarities between the two stories. Both take place in the 19th century, both feature an orphaned heroine who rises from obscurity into a position at a wealthy home, both feature romances which cross the boundaries of class and both feature madness and deception in some form or another.
Fingersmith may not be the shortest read, for historical fiction also has the capacity to be dense, but as it was written in the 21st century its language is much easier to read, especially for readers who don't read an awful lot of 19th century literature - Fingersmith is a brilliant stepping stone towards a classic like Jane Eyre.
So that wraps up Romance! I hope this has been useful for anyone intimidated by classics, or that it's at least been an enjoyable read - I'll be back next month with an installment centered around Science Fiction!
J.
Last month I said I was going to start a new five part series titled "Classics & Contemporaries", to try and help anyone who feels intimidated by classics find another way of getting into them - you can find the initial blog post I wrote about the series here!
As I said then I promised the first installment would be Romance, but I did tell one little fib: I said for each genre I'd be talking about two classics and their contemporaries, but just this once I'm going to talk about four instead! Why? Why not! Well when I was narrowing down the classics I could talk about and finding their 21st century equivalents, I was torn between talking about some of the world's most famous love stories and some equally well-known modern reads, or talking about classics with some less obvious, and perhaps even lesser known, contemporaries.
So instead I decided to talk about both, and I suppose having double the amount is a good way to celebrate the start of this little series!
Two of the classics I ended up choosing for Romance were written by Jane Austen - one of the most famous romance authors of all time - so I thought I might as well split Romance into two separate posts, and centre one of them around the two Austen picks.
First up, let's start with one of the most famous, and most popular, love stories in the world...
Jane Austen's most famous novel, Pride and Prejudice, was first published in 1813 and is still widely read today. In fact to date the novel has sold 20 million copies worldwide!
When it comes to Jane Austen I can completely understand why someone may struggle to read one of her novels because I'm not one of her biggest fans myself, and I think a big reason for that is that I was simply introduced to her in the wrong way. For years I have said I will always dislike her novels, but recently I've thought about giving her a second chance. She must be well-liked for a reason, and perhaps now that I'm older I will have more patience with her work.
I had to read Pride and Prejudice during the second year of my degree but I just couldn't force myself through it, and yet I can watch an adaptation of any Jane Austen novel and enjoy it. And, in all honesty, I want to like her. I feel like I'm missing out on something!
The story of Pride and Prejudice is the kind of story I should love; give me a story about two characters who hate each other only to grow to love each other and I'm sold. And if you're the kind of reader who enjoys those kinds of love stories but feels too intimidated to jump straight into one of Jane Austen's novels, I have just the book for you!
I'm sure this doesn't come as much of a surprise to most of you; those of you who haven't read Bridget Jones's Diary have probably seen the film, and if Colin Firth playing the part of the modern Mr Darcy isn't enough of a clue that this is a modern day retelling of Pride and Prejudice then I don't know what is!
Though I was still pretty shocked when I realised the connection. I'm dumb.
Just like Elizabeth Bennet, Bridget Jones is a single woman whose mother is desperate for her to be married; so desperate that she tries to set her up with Mark Darcy, a lawyer and old family friend, but Mark and Bridget don't get off to the best start...
This story is so much fun, and because it's basically a direct retelling of the original story I think reading this before you try reading Pride and Prejudice will make reading the classic much easier, and therefore less intimidating!
Next up we have one of Austen's less famous works, and the novel that first introduced me to her when I was 18: Persuasion.
Like Northanger Abbey, Persuasion was published posthumously in 1818 and is the shortest of Austen's novels. You might think that would make it the ideal Austen novel to start with, but this is the novel that made me dislike her work so much as a teenager (although it's also the one novel of hers I'd most like to reread now that I'm older). Having said that, if you are the kind of reader who finds the size of classics more intimidating than their content, this could be the ideal read for you!
Persuasion tells the story of Anne Elliot, an intelligent, 27 year old spinster, who was persuaded to break off her engagement to Captain Wentworth 8 years before because of his poverty and uncertain future. However, due to his success in the Napoleonic Wars, Wentworth is now wealthy and much sought after, and still hurt by Anne's rejection years before. While Wentworth seeks out a suitable bride, Anne struggles with the decision she made all those years ago and the feelings she still has for Wentworth.
If a story about people who are already in love - people who need to work through their troubles rather than try and get together in the first place - is one that interests you, then Persuasion is the novel for you, and I've managed to find a contemporary equivalent. A very recent equivalent!
Rainbow Rowell has quickly become one of the most famous authors of contemporary romance since the success of her YA novel Eleanor & Park. Her second YA novel, Fangirl, took the book community by storm, and this summer she released her second adult novel, Landline.
(I reviewed her first adult novel, Attachments, here!)
Landline tells the story of Georgie McCool and her husband, Neal, who are going through some marital troubles. They decide to spend Christmas with Neal's family in Omaha, but Georgie's job as a TV writer is hectic and something comes up at work. She has to stay in Los Angeles. Neal, however, takes their children and leaves for the airport.
Terrified that she has ruined their marriage for good, Georgie calls him, but the Neal that answers is the Neal from the past. Perhaps Georgie can use this strange connection to fix their future, or perhaps she should end their marriage before it even begins.
Obviously Landline and Persuasion are very different novels, Landline isn't a direct retelling in the way Bridget Jones's Diary is, and yet they share a lot of similar themes. Both feature a heroine who has made a mistake concerning the man she loves, and both include a mixture of maintaining an existing relationship while also including a small dose of 'will they, won't they'. If you're interested in Jane Austen's novels and you like Landline, I see no reason why Persuasion wouldn't be the perfect classic for you!
So there we have it: my 21st century suggestions for a 21st century reader who wants to read some Jane Austen. I really hope this has been useful (or at least fun!) and I'll be back on Monday with my non-Austen Romance installment!
J.
I love a good classic, but I'd be a big, fat liar if I said I wasn't intimidated by some of them. Les Misérables is so big that just the thought of reading it makes me break out into a cold sweat, and Thomas Hardy sends me to sleep, but there are some fantastic stories out there that don't get read because some readers are wary of classics.
If you're one such reader, I don't blame you! If you're introduced to classics in the wrong way you can hate them forever - I, for example, cannot bring myself to enjoy The Great Gatsby because I had to study it in school - but I want to share my love of classics with you and show you another way of getting into them without diving into the deep end!
How? Simple! I'm currently working on five posts in which I have compiled a collection of modern day fiction alongside a collection of classics. Despite being written perhaps hundreds of years apart in some cases, these novels include much of the same themes, characters and/or settings; my hope is that if the modern read interests you, perhaps the classic will, too!
In each post I'll be talking about two classics and their contemporary recommendations. I've divided them all into themes: Romance; Social Commentary; Children's Fiction; Gothic and Science Fiction. These themes mainly apply to the classics rather than the contemporary pieces, but like I said there are still a lot of similarities between them. I've tried to be as diverse as possible with my picks, but the majority of my classics are pieces of Victorian Literature, purely because it's my favourite there are so many different strands of it.
So if this sounds like fun - I hope it does! - look out for the first post, where I'll be talking about Romance, next month! From there, I'll post a different one each month until the end of the year.
See you then!
J.
