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I thought I was going to love this fantasy without magic. I read the first three chapters before committing to buying it from Amazon as an e-book and it was fascinating. Three protagonists, three viewpoints. Two dukedoms, only recently reconciled after a long and bitter war. Duke Orsea of Eremia, and Duke Valens of the Vadani are uneasy neighbours even though they knew each other as boys. An engineer, Vaatzes, condembed to death in the Perpetual Mezentine Republic for daring to make an unsanctioned mechanical improvement to a mechanism, escapes with more technical knowledge than the Republic is willing to lose.
There's a complicated love triangle - with the third part of it carried out by correspondence between Veatriz (Orsia's wife) and Valens, who only met once, but for Valens it was enough.
Three protagonists, a complex political situeation. Sounds like something I would love... but then more and more viewpoint characters keep popping up. Miel Ducas, Duke Orsea's best friend and right hand man is way more competent to run the dukedom than Orsea, but too loyal to do so, though he does mitigate some of Orsea's bad decisions. Miel is also in love with Veatriz, which is only a slight complication as it's not reciprocated. Then we have viewpoints from easily forgettable officials in the Perpetual Republic, and then even more new characters such as the man in charge of the Republic's mercenary army. Maybe these characters will feature in the second and third part of the trilogy, but they didn't feel to add much to the forward momentum of the story. There's no main character to get behind. All of them evoke some kind of sympathy, initially at least, but I found that there was no one I was really rooting for. I couldn't make up my mind who the main character was supposed to be. Vaatzes is the lynch pin of the plot, and though I was completely on his side in the opening chapter, his machinations turn sociopathic and (for an engineer) somewhat illogical. He 'engineers' a war in which thousands die, and yet there's no clear motive, at lkeast not in this book, and he seems to have no redeeming feature. Orsea means well, but is incompetent as a leader and we don't really see his relationship with Veatriz except through her viewpoint. Miel is much more interesting and I found myself drawn to follow his story more than the others... only to find him sidelined at the end.
This is the first book in a trilogy, so it ends without resolution. I confess I was skimming towards the end. Parker has a tendency to never write ten words where he can use a hundred. His blow by blow accounts of -- well, everything, really, are longwinded. There's a lot of stuff here that doesn't move the story forward, though I'm sure other readers would call it richly textured character building.
KJ Parker is a pseudonym of the comedy fantasy writer Tom Holt. I can see why he's chosen a pseudonym. This isn't exactly a laugh a minute, and anyone expecting the usual Tom Holt style would be sorely disappointed. All in all I'm not rushing to pick up the second volume.
I didn't see Downton on TV the first time around, but bingewatched it on Netflix or Amazon, or one of those catchup services, and I'm glad I did. It's easy to like, and the characters are interesting, both the upstairs and the downstairs ones, from Maggie Smith's redoubtable dowager to Jim Carter's turn as Bates the butler.
Set in Wales, this is a fairly run of the mill Regency style romance, all the better for not being set in the London season. Nikki, half Rom, inherits an Earldom when his Romani mother 'abandons' him to the not-so-tender care of his grandfather. He's the only heir and one his grandfather resents. He's demonised in the eyes of the locals when his wife and grandfather die on the same day. There are rumours but no real answers. Despite Nicholas' reputation, Clare Morgan, the village schoolteacher (daughter of the late and much beloved Methodist minister) approaches him to ask for his help in improving conditions in the local coal mine (which belongs to Nicholas' friend). Taking a fancy to Clare Nicholas strikes a bargain. He has a bad reputation, she has an impeccable one, but if she wants his help she must sacrifice her reputation by living under his roof for three months as his guest. He intends to seduce her and destroy her reputation for real, but not against her will. She is determined to keep it platonic. Yes, you can see where this is going, and you aren't wrong, but there are a few twists that keep it interesting once you get over the initial premise. We meet Nicholas' friends who are probably the other 'fallen angels' who will have their own books in the series.
Pleasantly soppy Christmas romance movie with a twist. It's a pretty movie with Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding as the leads, supported by Michelle Yeoh as the owner of a Christmas Shop, and Emma Thompson as the somewhat cariacatured Eastern European mother. The movie features the songs of George Michael and Wham, but not being a GM or Wham fan at the appropriate time, most of the music, except for the title track, passed me by completely, unlike the recent movies featuring the music of Queen, Elton John and the Beatles, which I could have happily sung along to.
Rhea, a miller's daughter, is less than pleased when Lord Crevan, a wealthy minor noble, makes an offer for her hand in marriage. She's only fifteen, and even if she did want to get married, miller's daughters don't marry lords, especially ones they've never met. He family aren't happy either, but they don't see that they have any choice in giving up their daughter if they want to keep their mill (and probably their lives) so Rhea goes tramping off through a magic wood to the sorceror-Lord's house, which can't possibly exist because surely someone must have noticed it. On the way she acquires a hedgehog, communicative, but not in a talking sort of way. In reaching Crevan's lodge she finds that she's niot actually Crevan's first bride, she's his seventh, and at least three of the previous ones are alive and well and already living in the lodge. Maria, the cook, Sylvie a blind woman, and the silently disapproving Ingeth, are obvious, but then there's also the clock wife and the golem wife, plus Lady Elegans, the only one who's dead and buried. Crevan's home is enchanted. There's no escape. With the help of Maria and Sylvie, Rhea and the hedgehog have to figure out how to beat Crevan before Rhea's wedding. This is a creepy fairytale-type story which draws you into the mystery of what Crevan wants from Rhea, and how she can avoid her fate.
Stylish whodunnit with a star-studded cast including Christopher Plummer, Jamie Lee Curtis, Daniel Craig and Chris Evans. 
This is the fourth of Paul Cornell's Lychford novellas featuring Lizzie, the Anglican vicar, Judith Mawson, elderly hedge witch and wise-woman and Autumn, her apprentice wise woman and magic-shop owner. The three of them keep Lychford free of magical threats. The not-so-sleepy village lies on a confluence between magical worlds, and threats seem to come out of nowere. Judith, always a little 'odd' has Alzheimers. She has moments of clarity but also moments of confusion. Her son, Shaun, who knows about his mum's magic, is contemplating putting her in a home, but for the moment is waiting to see how things develop. When Autumn figures out that there's a magical threat and she and Lizzie track it down to a woman named Mailtalnd Picton who is offering 'wishes' with all the potential damage they can do if carried out literally.. With Judith only intermittently helpful, they think they've discovered what Picton is and neutralised her, but the threat much more than they thought, and might even change reality itself. In the end it's Judith who is the key. I love these novellas. There's a delightful interplay between the three main characters. I admit I had to brush away a tear or two at the end, but there's every indication that there will be more Lychford books. Good!