I've just been tagged again! While I have several longer posts bubbling in the background (though don't I always say that), I'm going to enjoy getting my teeth into this one first. Thank you for tagging me, Lizzie! The Outline (one cannot say "rules" for fear of sounding overly formal)
1. Link back to who tagged you.
2. Share the Graphic on your blog
3. Share the Outline on your post.
4. Share a detail you love about the season of summer into fall.
5. List at least 7 random/ specific things YOU love to read about in books, big or small.
6. Tag 7 people who would enjoy taking part/whose answers you are curious to read!
Nos. 1, 2, and 3 done, let's share a seasonal detail... only it is now early winter here and I've just got back from a whirlwind trip to the New Forest so I'm feeling keen on winter. So let's share a wintery detail instead.
I love being out in the middle of the open countryside in the winter when it's completely silent and getting to dusk and the cold is so raw that it's biting your cheeks. Then suddenly you see the light from a farmhouse, or smell bonfire smoke, or see smoke coming from someone's chimney, and it feels like home.
On to the listing of seven random things!
1. Sister relationships
I have two sisters myself, and I love love love it when people write realistic sister relationships. Elinor and Marianne Dashwood... Jane and Lizzy Bennet... Frederica and Charis Merrivale from Frederica by Georgette Heyer... it makes me happy when my own relationship with my sisters is mirrored in literature.
Wrong sisters. But realistic, you know?
2. Married couplesI know that Lizzie did this, but I love it in books. I especially like it when the couple go through a character arc together (and it's even better if they have children who then help in that arc).
3. Set in Victorian London
I mean, what can I say? It's just the best setting... Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, et cetera, et cetera.
4. Descriptions of clothing
Yes, yes, I know, I'm vain. But what can I say? It's so fun to be able to imagine exactly what the characters are wearing. Maybe it's the dressmaker in me. Or maybe I'm just superficial. Anne of Green Gables has some lovely descriptions of clothes in it, as do all of Georgette Heyer's books.
5. The marriage of convenience trope
Hear me out with this one. Obviously, a marriage of convenience is not an objectively good thing. However, I like reading about how good can come out of that bad, and about how the married couples can grow to love each other.
Examples? Georgette Heyer again! April Lady, Friday's Child are two that spring to mind.
6. Heroines being bad at things
Isn't it irritating when the main character is just perfect at everything she tries? Girl of the Limberlost springs to mind... Elnora is just so perfect and talented at everything she puts her hand to, which really annoys me, I have to say. I like it when the characters try something new and are bad at it, or have a hobby that they are bad at. It's far more relatable. (I don't mind it when they are good at some things, I should say - I just dislike it when they are perfect at everything.) An obscure example that springs to mind is A Houseful of Girls by Mrs George de Horne Vaizey. I discovered this book at my grandmother's house, and I love it (I may even prefer it to Little Women). The main characters have hobbies in which they do not excel.
7. Cathedral city settings
I love it when the story is set in a cathedral city (even better if it's a university town too). Oxford, Wells, Cambridge... Elizabeth Goudge's The Cathedral Trilogy is the best example I can think of. Though I love the countryside and would usually choose to live in it if I could (I don't at the moment, sadly), there's just something about a historic town or city that makes my spine tingle.
Wells Cathedral, which I visited a while ago.
I tag:
and anyone else who wants to steal it!
That was very fun, Lizzie - thank you!
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