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The Ladies of Lyndon by Margaret Kennedy

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. It's set in Edwardian times through the aftermath of the first World War, and is very Downton Abbey in its themes and characters. It's very funny with excellent dialogue, but it expounds on some very important themes like class and identity and marriage. The protagonist Agatha is a paragon of Edwardian virtue and breeding, and the novel follows her as she realizes she's made a mistake in marrying her husband though she married him for all the right reasons according to aristocratic society. One of the secondary characters has been deemed mentally unsound by most of his family; they think he's cognitively damaged in some way. Really, he's just very different from them and unwilling to play the social games they all thrive on; Agatha always sees his value and never believes the family narrative that he's an idiot. Her interactions with him are really interesting. The novel ends ambiguously; Agatha is poised on the brink of a decision, and we aren't quite sure what she'll do which I love.

I think anyone who enjoys Downton Abbey or novels of Victorian high society would like this book.



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Guardian Links

List of Character Names in Guardian

Speculative Timeline of Early Haixing History (Guardian)

SID Timeline (Guardian)

A Character History of Shen Wei (Guardian)

Quick Guardian fic recs (assume spoilers for whole series)

things you used to know by china_shop
Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
150 words

This is the rare beast--fan poetry that works both as poetry and as fanfic. You all know that I've been reading more poetry lately and trying to get back into the groove of writing it myself, so I appreciate the imagery in this poem and the way China chooses to break the lines and etc. as much as what it says about the pairing.


always already meant it by trobadora
Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
3050 words

I don't want to say too much about the plot of this for those of you who are still watching (*waves at ponders_life*), but I really like this exploration of their relationship and the way it handles a certain plot point.