A Cup of Tea & Biscuits

I will never get bored of claiming that, to me, one of the greatest love stories ever written is Pride & Prejudice. So far every companion novel, and the so called prequels and sequels, I've read, all recount the love story from different perspectives, hence, I was rather curious to see what a mystery novelist would make of it! Death Comes to Pemberley  written by  P. D. James , author of the Adam Dalgliesh  mysteries, was published in 2011 - I mention this because her first novel Cover Her Face  came out in 1962 and she, the author - Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, is 91 years of age! Why is this significant to me? Personally, she is the oldest living author that I've read. Anyway, the book. The book is about the murder of Captain Denny, whom we know to be George Wickham's comrade-in-arms and, quite possibly, only male friend. Set primarily in Pemberley and the surrounding woods, the story begins with a recap of the events in Pride & P...

I don't normally read things off the 'best-seller's' list. If I do, then it's either by recommendation or I'm so completely bored with everything else that I need to indulge myself in the commercial world of writing. But I'm still uncertain as to what possessed me to pick up Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James . My excuse, which is the whole honest truth, is that I saw it on Amazon's 'Top 10 List', didn't read the reviews, barely skimmed through the book cover summary before I read it. So, in all honesty, I didn't know what I was in for. Quite like the female protagonist, Anastasia Steele, a twenty-one year old soon-to-be college graduate who stumbles into the office of a mega-rich modern day Adonis named Christian Grey. She is instantly attracted to him, what with all his to-die for looks and secret-hiding smiles. She doesn't know it, but he becomes just as, or much more, smitten by her. Quite soon he makes an 'indecent proposal...