Back from holiday with readerly observations aplenty which serves to remind me why I blog as well as providing fodder for blog posts to come

I have returned from a smashing holiday. We had a week in London; another in the country (Gloucestershire and Herefordshire). It was lovely: relaxing and fun and family oriented. We went to lots of very interesting places in London and canoed and cycled and walked in the country, as well as going swimming most days which the children love. This meant I spent a lot of time in a 60cm kiddy pool with my younger one playing a game about sharks and boathooks (inspired by Mrs Armitage and the Big Wave) a game of which he never tired.

I occasionally go to London for work and it's a huge and enormous drag each time I do. I was therefore not hugely predisposed to enjoy it. But I had a fantastic time! My favourite day was Hampton Court (below) which has such a lot of very interesting things under its roof. Lots of original and very famous art. Much of Hampton Court is dedicated to Henry VIII but my personal favourite part was the Georgian apartments. It's very child-friendly and unstuffy too with good interactive things to do and lots of outdoor space including a maze. The gardens are beautiful.

We also went to Greenwich which was lovely. The Royal Naval College there has been turned into a music school so we were wandering through the square with the sound of singing and piano and clarinets drifting out of the rooms around us.

We managed to drag the children round two museums: the Natural History Museum (Mr T's choice) and the V&A (my choice and the clear winner). The children were pretty good but Mr T and I want to go back sans enfants to spend more time going round the Japanese art and fashion sections of the V&A. See above a genuine 'half-boot' from the early 19th century that I marvelled over till dragged away by one of the children. It looks unremarkable in the photo but when you see the real thing, it's a marvel of beauty and detail and the ankle it fitted must have been very very dainty!

Above is the river Wye, upon which I can now say I have rowed. Mr T would refute that. He says he did all the work, therefore I merely floated, while he rowed. This is unfair as I was trying. I am just not the sporty type and he knew that before he married me. I told him I would never change.

Reading-wise, I was true to my intentions, completing Black Ice by Anne Stuart, Skin Game by Ava Gray and The Forbidden Rose by Joanna Bourne. I also read Love's a Stage by Laura London (aka Tom and Sharon Curtis) which has been a previous DNF for me and am almost finished The Indiscretion by Judith Ivory.

What a haul!

I have things to say about Black Ice and Skin Game, certainly, most particularly the fact that I enjoyed both despite my previously stated lack of enthusiasm for romantic suspense and active dislike of heroes who kill without compunction (and the heroes of both these books fall squarely into that category). So some thoughts on that will be my next post.

Black Ice and Skin Game also made me ponder endings again. For different reasons as it happens. Skin Game made me think about the rhythm of the ending and the feelings it leaves the reader with vis-a-vis the HEA. Black Ice made me think about the pace of the resolution and how satisfying the HEA ultimately feels (you may think these two sentences sound like they're talking about the same thing but trust me - it's two very separate things).

I'm enjoying The Indiscretion enormously at the moment. It's reminding me of an exchange I had with Victoria Janssen on her blog about lengthy descriptions of protagonists in romance novels. In short, I'm very much for them (if done right, and I count Ivory as being Top Banana at that) because in my experience, when you fall in love, you look and look and look and feel delight in the other person's physical person. Consequently, a written narrative of precisely that thing gives the feel of falling in love (to me). I'm not sure I'll say more on The Indiscretion than that it does that thing I've just described beautifully.

I will say this about The Forbidden Rose. I loved it. I really adore Joanna Bourne's books, I do. They make me feel (and I mean this in the very nicest way) like giving up attempting to write myself because if I cannot write precisely and EXACTLY a Joanna Bourne book, I don't really see the point (at least not while I'm engaged in reading one). Reading one of her books is envy and admiration all at once. It feels like love but also like snakes writhing in my stomach.

And finally, Love's A Stage? I'm afraid it was slight and dated. If you want to read Tom and Sharon Curtis, I recommend instead Sunshine and Shadows.

Finally, this is the soundtrack of my holiday.

I hope you've all had a lovely fortnight. I'm afraid I marked the 300+ items in my Google reader as read so have probably missed out on a plethora of very exciting and interesting posts...