Read a couple of romance novels: a 1997 "regency" and a contemporary from 1961 with a character probably intended to be read as gay, which I wasn't expecting. The first was better than that author's usual standard in several ways, while the second was more downbeat than I expected albeit with three happy couples and a family reunion at the end.
Second dnf of 2025 at page 75 of 300.
Now halfway through Britannia Mews by Margery Sharp, 1946, a strangely Dickensian novel unlike the author's other more comedic work. I wasn't in the mood for this but it is good.
ETA: I was mining a vein of golden reads earlier this year but now I keep picking the wrong books: not bad books, just unsuited to my current mood (whatever that might be, lol).
The author is Elizabeth Cadell, who wrote about fifty romance genre novels (for the money) and two rather different (and imo better) novels - a funny diary format novel about what happens after marriage titled Mixed Marriage: The Diary of a Portuguese Bride (1963), and a novel about Indian independence titled A Lion in the Way (1982). Her romance novels tend to follow patterns that change over time, with contemporary fashions and also reflecting the author's life experience. One of her persistent patterns is writing what in the UK would be called upper-middle class families as backgrounds, with supporting characters who are working class or not white or both. Some of her supporting characters are interesting and some are stereotypes, usually in the less well-written novels, but they're never hostile stereotypes or looked down on for not being posh/white. She occasionally added in other social issues being addressed in popular fiction of the time, e.g. in this 1961 novel children born outside marriage, with progressive and comparatively socially liberal attitudes and positive outcomes. She's never notably far ahead of her time, as she was writing more for money than pleasure and was a woman of her age and background (upper-middle class white Brit who spent some of her childhood in British India). Other British women authors of similar middle-brow fiction also included LGBT characters (as did literary fiction from the same period) but Cadell generally does not white and working class characters as well or better than most of her peers. I can't say the same for this foray into writing a man coded as homosexual (or effete bisexual or asexual aesthete but mostly homosexual), which probably explains why she didn't include gay characters more often. He's also only a minor supporting character who doesn't get much page space. This novel is generally not one of her better efforts imo.
That said, it was Honey for Tea by Elizabeth Cadell (1961). :-)
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Second dnf of 2025 at page 75 of 300.
Now halfway through Britannia Mews by Margery Sharp, 1946, a strangely Dickensian novel unlike the author's other more comedic work. I wasn't in the mood for this but it is good.
ETA: I was mining a vein of golden reads earlier this year but now I keep picking the wrong books: not bad books, just unsuited to my current mood (whatever that might be, lol).
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That said, it was Honey for Tea by Elizabeth Cadell (1961). :-)