PORTRAIT OF AN UNKNOWN WOMAN by Vanora Bennet

When I read the book, the expression 'You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear' repeatedly came to my thoughts.  This book is basically a Harlequin romance set in the time of Sir Thomas More and Tudor England.  It is the story of Thomas More's ward, Meg Giggs - her education, her interest in medicine, her relationship with her husband (is he who he seems?).  The book is set during a time of religious and political upheaval.

Twice, the painter Hans Holbein the Younger stays in the More home and paints a portrait of the family.  The descriptions of the paintings and the clever descriptions of the hidden meanings in the paintings kept me interested and kept me reading.  I even looked up the two More family paintings on-line and referred to them as I read.

The rest of the book?  The boy meets girl, the unrequited love, the eventual marriage, the second love interest, the happy(ish) ending?  Maybe not so much.

LIBRARY OF SOULS by Ransom Riggs

In Library of Souls, the third and final book in the 'Peculiar Chlldren' series, Jacob has discovered his 'peculiar' power and learns to develop and use it.  The book picks up precisely where the previous one left off.  The children and the ymbrynes have been captured by the wights and Jacob, Emma and Addison (the talking dog) rush to escape the ice fortress and rescue their friends.

Once again, a series of loops allows the group to travel back and forth between modern times and the past - in this case Victorian England - where our heroes discover what really happens to peculiars whose souls have been captured by the villains (who happen to be Miss Peregrine's two brothers).  There is the introduction of an excellent new character - Sharon - a boatman who ferries the group across the river to Devil's Acre.  Sharon serves as navigator, guide, and protector for the group (think 'Charon' of Greek mythology who ferries passengers across the river Styx to Hades).  As Jacob becomes more adept at controlling his peculiar trait, he is able to call upon it throughout to control the group's enemies and, eventually reach a 'happy ending'.

As in the previous books, the narrative is accompanied by a series of vintage postcards from the author's collection.  Here's where this book became a 4 star rather than a 5 star read for me.  In the first two books, the stories seemed to flow hand-in-hand with the illustrations - one enhancing the other.  In this one, I got the feeling that the author had a drawer full of postcards and now needed to figure out how to make the story fit the pictures.  This led to the introduction of characters who contributed nothing to the story - except explain the use of one or another illustration.  I also found the ending to be a bit contrived to give the reader a happy ending.  Still, I don't mind a happy ending and contrived or not, it was still a good read.

A highlight?  The group finds themselves in a convention centre where a Comicon weekend is taking place.  Suddenly, they don't feel so very peculiar.

These are not stand-alone books - to really enjoy them they need to be read as a trilogy and I would very much recommend them.