C.J. Sansom's Matthew Shardlake books set in Henry VIII's reign, and they're quite wonderful.

Consuela, I really owe it to my BFF, who has been in love with Francis Crawford of Lymond since she was a teenager, to read the Lymond Chronicles. Every time I start, I'm overwhelmed by the length and density.

Are the Dunnett books fantasy, or just historical?

Most petulant, entitled, delicate snowflake of genius author rant I've ever seen. Really a thing of beauty.

Consuela, I really owe it to my BFF, who has been in love with Francis Crawford of Lymond since she was a teenager, to read the Lymond Chronicles. Every time I start, I'm overwhelmed by the length and density.

Yeah, I can see that. I wish there was a way to just dip your toe in Dunnett, but she mostly wrote novel series--only ever published one short story in her life (although I have a copy of it if you want to see what her prose was like). Even her contemporary mystery/thrillers are ... odd. Off-kilter.

And her one-off novel about Macbeth is even denser than anything in the other works.

But that's part of the fun: she creates a whole world, and populates and furnishes it so richly, you can't tell which characters are actual historic personages and which aren't -- although the deaths that hurt the most are generally those in the historic record.

If you have the time, I would suggest just... jumping in. Because if you appreciate Lord Peter Wimsey and Miles Vorkosigan, and their mixture of hyper-competence and raw human pain, you're going to like Francis Crawford. He's an alpha-bastard's alpha-bastard, but when he breaks, it's fabulous drama. And she puts him through the ringer: battles & family crises, treason trials, drug addiction, slavery & undercover operations, espionage & shipwrecks, and even a Master Villain to defeat.

Are the Dunnett books fantasy, or just historical?

They are historic; the Lymond series covers 1547-1558, all over Europe and the Mid-East, and Russia. There are hints of psychic abilities/foretelling in the later books, but it's hardly magic.

My MiL loved Dorothy Dunnett. I haven't read her yet, but I plan on reading her one of these days.

I have to admit that on this reread I'm far more aware of a certain amount of slut-shaming and Orientalism that I never noticed when I was younger. But even so, there are multiple women in each novel with power and opinions, and agendas beyond sleeping with the hero.

I mostly read Dunnett's mysteries ... the ... Johnson Johnson was it? the painter with his yacht Dolly? In retrospect, pretty disrespectful of women, but they were kind of fun at the time.

In retrospect, pretty disrespectful of women, but they were kind of fun at the time.

Well, all the POV characters are women. I liked best the one with the makeup artist.

But those are weird books: she wrote them out of internal chronological order, but set each of them in the cultural context of the year they were written. Which is kind of ridiculous, given that she wrote them over at least a twenty-year period.

But the similarity to the Lymond novels is unmistakeable: the highly-controlled and multi-talented lead male, with a tormented past and hidden passions; the wordplay; the ridiculous set pieces; and the way the twist at the end upends everything you thought you knew while you read the novel.

Yes, I liked that one - Dolly and the Bird of Paradise. I think I kept that one, but not the others.

I think I kept that one, but not the others.

I have several of them packed away somewhere, and I heard recently that they're being released in ebook versions. Some of them, I suspect, will have aged better than others...

When I'm done rereading (re-listening?) to the Lymond books, I really need to sit down and reread King Hereafter. That will be epic, and I rather wish there was an audiobook version.

Perhaps I should check Dunnett out. I too, have been put off by their largeness, and also, I somehow thought they were sci-fi.

Has anyone ever read 'Daddy Long Legs?' I think the Fred Astaire movie was based on it. I find it oddly creepy, though I guess not as creepy as Elsie Dinsmore. But the whole book is letters from a orphaned 17 year old who has been sent to college by an anonymous guardian benefactor. They are one sided-- he has asked her to write to him, but only his secretary communicates with her. She calls him "Daddy Long Legs". It is alsmost like a journal because he never writes back, so she is sort of free to write what is in her heart. She ends up with 2 suitors, both brothers of college friends, which she writes about to "Daddy".

And then, it ends up that the one she is in love with IS "Daddy". Which really creeps me out, because he has totally been reading her letters under, I think, false pretences. Also, did he send her to school just to groom her. It is so weird.