Take me AWAY!

Well, I have had one of those weeks! Overscheduling, duelling deadlines, clients expecting magic and getting lumps of lame-o, one pathetic bout of me crying at a downtown busstop, and one narrowly averted double-scheduling. Where's my evil twin when I need her?

Anyway, I can barely even express how wonderful it has been to be reading Silent in the Sanctuary by Deanna Raybourn this week. Settling into the world of this book every night has saved my sanity.

Much of it takes place in the family ancestral home, a great Abbey in Sussex. The characters dress for dinner, which I always enjoy reading about. Lady Julia Grey's maid sometimes suggests outfits, frequently velvet gowns, as well as accessories. As far as I'm concerned, the book cover is totally Lady Julia in her gray pearls which she wore one night. Even though the pearls are black in the picture.

I love that the family and their houseguests play games after dinner. In the part I read last night, they considered charades, but settled on sardines, a kind of adult hide and seek. And stormy handsome mysterious Brisbane, stormily mulling in the background.

I so want to live there! I have so enjoyed luxuriating in this world. Yes the writing is beautiful, the story amazing, the series one of the best in known existence, but the world! Raybourn, take me away!

Review part 2 - Three things Raybourn is doing that I am loving - here!

Contest: Anybody else want to be transported to this most delicious world? I will personally buy and send you a copy of book #1, Silent in the Grave or book #2, this one plus another goody. Just let me know you are entering in the comments and I'll pick one person on Tuesday. Open to all countries.

Image: Portrait of Madame Paul Poirson by John Singer Sargent, wikimedia