Michaels, Barbara - The Wizard's Daughter

Marianne Ransom has just been orphaned, and she's on her way to London to hopefully find a job as a governess. But Marianne has different plans, and she ends up stumbling into some rather unsavory elements of Victorian London. In the end, she's taken on by a rich duchess for her supposed relationship to a famous spiritualist.

I'm not actually sure if this is a gothic or a mystery; none of the men seemed all that threatening to Marianne after her first London encounter, but on the other hand, there is a forbidding house with secret passages, an overprotective head housekeeper, and a woman who hides her disfigured face under a veil. What made it less gothic-y to me was Marianne's largely unfazed attitude. She's most definitely an ingenue, and very much eighteen years old to boot, but she also learns rather quickly and ends up having a bit of a backbone. I liked her a lot, despite or possibly because of how the omniscient narrator pokes at her faults.

Anyhow, this was a very fun read that drew me in via the plot and the developing relationships between the characters.

Picture spam of food + Hong Kong

There's another typhoon blowing in, and I'm hoping it won't delay my flight on Tuesday.

I already posted my ode to Hong Kong previously, and now I have pictures! Though I make fun of all the metaphorically thrusting buildings in the notes, I love the Hong Kong skyline, I really do.

( Giant pictures of Hong Kong and food )