Episode 911: A book set in Victorian times

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Welcome to Reading With Libraries!

Thank you for joining us again on our book group and Reader’s advisory podcast! 

Our organization is the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange, and we work with all types of libraries. Schools, public, academic, history centers, and more! We are here to support you and to bring you new knowledge to inform your library work. 

This season we continue to explore a wide variety of book genres and topics so you can expand your reading horizons, and share more information with your library community. We are looking at the prompt from the 2022 PopSugar reading challenge this season. You can read along with their challenge, linked in our show notes, or just enjoy some different books. 

This week we are taking a step back in time to the Victorian era, to explore all sorts of interesting new books. And of course the best way to explore is with cool people around. So we invited the coolest person we know: Ariel Kirst, our official Podcast Correspondent, from the Great River Regional Library System!

Check out our show notes page for links to our beverages, our resources, and the books we share today.

Beverages:

This is, of course, a book group. And every book group needs to have beverages, so you really get the feel for your reading! 

Our beverages this week come from the article Victorian cocktails: The Golden Age of mixology. There are several fun drinks there, so try them all while you read some new books this week.

Egg Nog (from The Bartender’s Guide)

1 tablespoon of fine sugar, dissolved with 1 do cold water, 1 egg

1 wine-glass of Cognac brandy

½ do Santa Cruz rum

½ tumblerful of milk

Fill the tumbler with ½ full with shaved ice, shake the ingredients until they are thoroughly mixed together, and grate a little nutmeg on top. Every well ordered bar has a tin egg-nogg “shaker,” which is a great aid in mixing this beverage. 

Champagne Cobbler (from Harry Johnson’s New and Improved Bartender’s Manual, 1882)

(Use a large bar glass)

  • Three-quarters of a table-spoon of sugar;
  • One-quarter of a glass of water, dissolved well;
  • 1 or 2 pieces of orange;
  • 1 or 2 slices of orange;
  • 1 ½ wine glass of champagne;
  • Fill the glass with ice;

Stir well with a spoon; ornament the op with grapes, pineapple, berries, etc., and serve with a straw.

White Tiger’s Milk

  • ½ gill apple-jack
  • ½ do. peach brandy
  • ½ teaspoon of aromatic tincture 
  • Sweeten with white sugar to taste
  • The white of an egg beaten to a stiff foam
  • 1 quart pure milk

Mix all of the above and sprinkle with nutmeg

Genre Discussion:

We have some good drinks now, to help us through our historical adventure, and we are about to have some good books to enjoy. But, what is the Victorian Era? We turn to Britannica for more information:

“Victorian era, in British history, the period between approximately 1820 and 1914, corresponding roughly but not exactly to the period of Queen Victoria’s reign (1837–1901) and characterized by a class-based society, a growing number of people able to vote, a growing state and economy, and Britain’s status as the most powerful empire in the world.

During the Victorian period, Britain was a powerful nation with a rich culture. It had a stable government, a growing state, and an expanding franchise. It also controlled a large empire, and it was wealthy, in part because of its degree of industrialization and its imperial holdings and in spite of the fact that three-fourths or more of its population was working-class. Late in the period, Britain began to decline as a global political and economic power relative to other major powers, particularly the United States, but this decline was not acutely noticeable until after World War II.”

So there are a lot of possibilities for all sorts of reading in this area, and a lot of exciting choices of books you can read across genres. People tend to think of this genre label as being romances, and of course there are some wonderful romances set here. And we also have a lot of choices that will give you so many fun things to read and to explore.

Suggested Reading Resources:

Our Book Discussion

We have our beverages, we are familiar with this week’s genre, let’s get to the book discussion! We will give you a list of all the books we share today. You can click on any of these links to go to Amazon.com for more information. If you buy anything while you are there, Amazon will give us a small percent of their profits from your purchase. Thanks in advance for helping to support the mission of CMLE – we appreciate it! 

A Lady’s Formula for Love (Book 1 of 3: The Secret Scientists of London), by Elizabeth Everett   

What is a Victorian lady’s formula for love? Mix one brilliant noblewoman and her enigmatic protection officer. Add in a measure of danger and attraction. Heat over the warmth of humor and friendship, and the result is more than simple chemistry–it’s elemental.

Lady Violet is keeping secrets. First, she founded a clandestine sanctuary for England’s most brilliant female scientists. Second, she is using her genius on a confidential mission for the Crown. But the biggest secret of all? Her feelings for protection officer Arthur Kneland.

Solitary and reserved, Arthur learned the hard way to put duty first. But the more time he spends in the company of Violet and the eccentric club members, the more his best intentions go up in flames. Literally.

When a shadowy threat infiltrates Violet’s laboratories, endangering her life and her work, scientist and bodyguard will find all their theories put to the test–and learn that the most important discoveries are those of the heart.

Cogheart, by Peter Bunzel

Thirteen-year-old Lily Hartman always dreamed of adventure. A strong-willed girl, Lily felt trapped in a life of Victorian stuffiness at her prim boarding school. But after her father – a famous inventor – disappears on a routine zeppelin flight, Lily’s life gets turned upside down. Now cared for by her guardian, the heartless Madame Verdigris, Lily is quite certain that she’s being watched. Mysterious, silver-eyed men are lurking in the shadows, just waiting for their chance to strike. But what could they possibly want from her? 

There are rumors, Lily learns, that her father had invented the most valuable invention ever made – a perpetual motion machine. But if he made such a miraculous discovery, he certainly never told Lily. And all he left behind is a small box – with no key, no hinges. With the help of a clockmaker’s son, Robert, and her mechanimal fox, Malkin, Lily escapes London in search of the one person who might know something about her father’s disappearance – and what he left behind.

A Gentleman’s Proposition, (Book 3

Twelve Minutes to Midnight (Book 1 of 3: Penelope Tredwell Mysteries), by Christopher Edge 

Penelope Tredwell is the feisty thirteen-year-old orphan heiress of Victorian Britain’s bestselling magazine, the Penny Dreadful. Her spine-chilling tales―concealed under the pen name Montgomery Finch―are gripping the public. One day she receives a letter from the governor of the Bedlam madhouse requesting Finch’s help to investigate the asylum’s strange goings-on. Every night at precisely twelve minutes to midnight, the inmates all begin feverishly writing-incoherent ramblings that Penelope quickly realizes are frightening visions of the century to come. But what is causing this phenomenon? In the first book of this smart new series, Penelope is drawn into a thrilling mystery more terrifying than anything she could ever imagine!

Murder on Astor Place: A Gaslight Mystery, by Victoria Thompson

The first novel in the national bestselling Gaslight Mystery series introduces Sarah Brandt, a midwife in the turn-of-the-century tenements of Manhattan who refuses to turn a blind eye to the injustices of the crime-ridden city…

After a routine delivery, Sarah visits her patient in a rooming house—and discovers that another boarder, a young girl, has been killed. At the request of Sergeant Frank Malloy, she searches the girl’s room. She discovers that the victim is from one of the most prominent families in New York—and the sister of an old friend. The powerful family, fearful of scandal, refuses to permit an investigation. But with Malloy’s help, Sarah begins a dangerous quest to bring the killer to justice—before death claims another victim…

Gaslight, by Eloise Williams

1899. All Nansi knows is that her mother disappeared on the day she was fished out of Cardiff docks. She can’t remember anything else.

Now, with no other family to turn to, she works for Sid at the Empire Theatre, sometimes legally, sometimes thieving to order, trying to earn enough money to hire a detective to find her mother.

Everything changes when Constance and Violet join the theatre, both with their own dark secrets. Nansi is forced to be part of Violet’s crooked psychic act. But it’s when Constance recognises her, and realises who her mother must be, that Nansi’s world is turned upside down forever. She is soon on the run for her life and she will have to risk everything if she’s going to find the truth.

The Martian Ambassador, by Alan K Baker

WELCOME TO LONDON, 1899

It has been six years since the discovery of intelligent life on Mars, and relations between the two worlds are rapidly developing. Three-legged Martian omnibuses stride through the streets and across the landscape, while Queen Victoria has been returned to the vigour of youth by Martian rejuvenation drugs. Victorian computer technology is proceeding apace, thanks to the faeries who power the ‘cogitators’ while the first aether zeppelins are nearing completion, with a British expedition to the Moon being planned for the following year.

Everything seems to be going swimmingly until Lunan R’ondd, Martian Ambassador to the Court of Saint James’s, dies while attending a banquet at Buckingham Palace. The discovery of strange, microscopic larvae in his breathing apparatus leads Queen Victoria to suspect that he may have been the victim of a bizarre assassination.

The Martian Parliament agrees, and they are not pleased. No Martian has ever died in such suspicious circumstances while on Earth. An ultimatum is given: if Her Majesty’s Government cannot solve the crime and bring the perpetrator to justice, the Martians will!

Enter Thomas Blackwood, Special Investigator for Her Majesty’s Bureau of Clandestine Affairs. Along with Lady Sophia Harrington, Secretary of the Society for Psychical Research, Blackwood is charged with the task of solving the mystery of Ambassador R’ondd’s death, before the Martians take matters into their own hands, possibly igniting an interplanetary war in the process!

The Woman in the Veil: (Book 4 of 6: A Victorian Mystery  by Laura Joh Rowland

London, June 1890.

Sarah Bain and her friends Lord Hugh Staunton and Mick O’Reilly are crime scene photographers for the Daily World newspaper. After solving a sensational murder, they’re under pressure to deliver another big story. On a foggy summer night, they’re called to the bank of the river Thames. The murder victim is an unidentified woman whose face has been slashed. But as Sarah takes photographs, she discovers that the woman is still alive.

The case of “Sleeping Beauty” becomes a public sensation, and three parties quickly come forward to identify her: a rich, sinister artist who claims she’s his wife; a mother and her two daughters who co-own a nursing home and claim she’s their stepdaughter/sister; and a precocious little girl who claims Sleeping Beauty is her mother. Which party is Sleeping Beauty’s rightful kin? Is someone among them her would-be killer?

Then Sleeping Beauty awakens–with a severe case of amnesia. She’s forgotten her name and everything else about herself. But she recognizes one of the people who’ve claimed her. Sarah is delighted to reunite a family and send Sleeping Beauty home–until one of the claimants is murdered. Suddenly, Sarah, her motley crew of friends, and her fiancé Detective Sergeant Barrett are on the wrong side of the law. Now they must identify the killer before they find themselves headed for the gallows.

THE MALVERN MURDERS (Inspector Ravenscroft Detective Mysteries #1), by Kerry Tombs

Before Jack the Ripper terrorized London, Police Inspector Samuel Ravenscroft patrolled the grimy streets of Whitechapel – but he’s no Inspector Abberline.

Malvern, 1887. Clever and hard-working, Ravenscroft nonetheless has the worst record in the force. He lets a murderer escape during a chase and is banished to the spa town of Malvern for a water treatment to cure his asthma.

MURDER FOLLOWS THE INSPECTOR

Ravenscroft accepts a dinner invitation from a new acquaintance, Jabez Pitzer. Before the dinner gong can sound, the maid finds Pitzer slumped over his desk – dead. Ravenscroft sees two glasses on a small side table. One has a powdery residue at the bottom and the faint smell of bitter almonds.

A BODY IN THE LIBRARY

Ravenscroft immediately recognizes the signs – Pitzer has been poisoned. But the local authorities are reluctant to believe there is a murderer in Malvern.

He may be recovering his strength, but Ravenscroft has all his wits intact. He finds himself pulled into the investigation. Hungry to prove himself, Ravenscroft is determined to solve the case. But the bodies mount up. Someone is killing local luminaries.

WHO WILL BE NEXT?

A mysterious woman in black was witnessed speaking to each of the victims. Who is she and why does death seem to follow her? And does a local cartel of businessmen have anything to do with it?

These Violent Delights, by Chloe Gong

Perfect for fans of The Last Magician and Serpent & Dove, this heart-stopping debut is an imaginative Romeo and Juliet retelling set in 1920s Shanghai, with rival gangs and a monster in the depths of the Huangpu River.

The year is 1926, and Shanghai hums to the tune of debauchery.

A blood feud between two gangs runs the streets red, leaving the city helpless in the grip of chaos. At the heart of it all is eighteen-year-old Juliette Cai, a former flapper who has returned to assume her role as the proud heir of the Scarlet Gang—a network of criminals far above the law. Their only rivals in power are the White Flowers, who have fought the Scarlets for generations. And behind every move is their heir, Roma Montagov, Juliette’s first love…and first betrayal.

But when gangsters on both sides show signs of instability culminating in clawing their own throats out, the people start to whisper. Of a contagion, a madness. Of a monster in the shadows. As the deaths stack up, Juliette and Roma must set their guns—and grudges—aside and work together, for if they can’t stop this mayhem, then there will be no city left for either to rule.

The Doll Factory, by Elizabeth Macneal

Obsession is an art.

In 1850s London, the Great Exhibition is being erected in Hyde Park and, among the crowd watching the dazzling spectacle, two people meet by happenstance. For Iris, an arrestingly attractive aspiring artist, it is a brief and forgettable moment. But for Silas, a curiosity collector enchanted by all things strange and beautiful, the meeting marks a new beginning.

When Iris is asked to model for Pre-Raphaelite artist Louis Frost, she agrees on the condition that he will also teach her to paint. Suddenly, her world begins to expand beyond her wildest dreams—but she has no idea that evil is waiting in the shadows. Silas has only thought of one thing since that chance meeting, and his obsession is darkening by the day.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

ue Trinder is an orphan, left as an infant in the care of Mrs. Sucksby, a “baby farmer,” who raised her with unusual tenderness, as if Sue were her own. Mrs. Sucksby’s household, with its fussy babies calmed with doses of gin, also hosts a transient family of petty thieves—fingersmiths—for whom this house in the heart of a mean London slum is home.

One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives—Gentleman, an elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a naïve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, then they will all share in Maud’s vast inheritance. Once the inheritance is secured, Maud will be disposed of—passed off as mad, and made to live out the rest of her days in a lunatic asylum.

With dreams of paying back the kindness of her adopted family, Sue agrees to the plan. Once in, however, Sue begins to pity her helpless mark and care for Maud Lilly in unexpected ways…But no one and nothing is as it seems in this Dickensian novel of thrills and reversals.

Shadowplay by Joseph O’Connor

Henry Irving is Victorian London’s most celebrated actor and theater impresario. He has introduced groundbreaking ideas to the theater, bringing to the stage performances that are spectacular, shocking, and always entertaining. When Irving decides to open his own London theater with the goal of making it the greatest playhouse on earth, he hires a young Dublin clerk harboring literary ambitions by the name of Bram Stoker to manage it. As Irving’s theater grows in reputation and financial solvency, he lures to his company of mummers the century’s most beloved actress, the dazzlingly talented leading lady Ellen Terry, who nightly casts a spell not only on her audiences but also on Stoker and Irving both.

Bram Stoker’s extraordinary experiences at the Lyceum Theatre, his early morning walks on the streets of a London terrorized by a serial killer, his long, tempestuous relationship with Irving, and the closeness he finds with Ellen Terry, inspire him to write Dracula, the most iconic and best-selling supernatural tale ever published.

The Falconer: Book One of the Falconer Trilogy, by 

Edinburgh, 1844. Beautiful Aileana Kameron only looks the part of an aristocratic young lady. In fact, she’s spent the year since her mother died developing her ability to sense the presence of Sithichean, a faery race bent on slaughtering humans. She has a secret mission: to destroy the faery who murdered her mother. But when she learns she’s a Falconer, the last in a line of female warriors and the sole hope of preventing a powerful faery population from massacring all of humanity, her quest for revenge gets a whole lot more complicated. The first volume of a trilogy from an exciting new voice in young adult fantasy, this electrifying thriller blends romance and action with steampunk technology and Scottish lore in a deliciously addictive read.

The Dark Unwinding by Sharon Cameron

When a rumor that her uncle is squandering away the family fortune surfaces, Katharine Tulman is sent to his estate to have him committed to an asylum. But instead of a lunatic, Katharine discovers a genius inventor with his own set of childlike rules, who is employing a village of nine hundred people rescued from the workhouses of London. Katharine becomes torn between protecting her own livelihood and preserving the peculiar community she grows to care for deeply — a conflict made more complicated by her developing feelings for her uncle’s handsome apprentice. As the mysteries of the estate begin to unravel, it is clear that not only is her uncle’s world at stake, but also the state of England as Katharine knows it. With twists and turns at every corner, this extraordinary adventure will captivate readers with its thrills and romance. 

Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School Series Book 1), by Gail Carriger

Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is a great trial to her poor mother. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper manners—and the family can only hope that company never sees her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. So she enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But Sophronia soon realizes the school is not quite what her mother might have hoped. At Mademoiselle Geraldine’s, young ladies learn to finish…everything. Certainly, they learn the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but they also learn to deal out death, diversion, and espionage—in the politest possible ways, of course. Sophronia and her friends are in for a rousing first year’s education.

Conclusion:

Thank you so much for joining us on Reading With Libraries! 

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Bring your book ideas, bring your beverages, and join us back here on Thursday!