My Summer of Putney, Part One




I like for my summer reading to have a theme, and most often that means some sort of schooling myself in the classics of historical romance. This summer’s focus is Mary Jo Putney.

While I do prefer a book that is complete in itself, I had set myself a broader study of collecting and reading the first books in many seminal (no puns, kthanx) historical series. Many of those were not intended as series starters, but the spirit or the market moved, and companion volumes followed. In pure business terms, my goal was to find out what made those founding books successful.

No such survey would be complete without Mary Jo Putney’s Fallen Angels. When I found a copy of Thunder and Roses in the UBS, I snagged it, and there it sat in my study shelf until I heard its call and soon snagged the rest. Also the Bride trilogy, as I count that as connected. The Bargain and The Rake are also in that shelf, with the Silk trilogy, and her return to the straight historical, Loving a Lost Lord, is the tippy top of my TBR mountain…after I finish The Bartered Bride. Phew.

Accordingly, I dub this my Summer of Putney. For the last couple of months, my default “don’t know what to read next” book has been a Putney, going through the Fallen Angels and then the Brides in order. (For those who don’t know me, I must read linked books in chronological order, or mountains will crumble, puppies will die and *your* celebrity crush of the moment will wake up ugly. But really, I do it for the puppies.)

More on that later, but for now, I am insanely delighted to have found this in my vault; Mary Jo Putney's one and only western novella. Extra points for having an Anita Mills title in the same volume. (Anita, if you're out there and ever want to come back to historical romance, you can bunk at my place.)