Welcome to Smugglivus 2014! Throughout this month, we will have daily guests – authors and bloggers alike – looking back at their favorite reads of 2014, looking forward to events and upcoming books in 2015, and more. Who: Y.S. Lee, YA author of The Agency series, about a women’s detective agency in Victorian times. The first title in the series, A Spy in the House, was published in spring 2010 and the most recent – and final – entry Rivals in the City, will be published in March 2015. Everybody, please, a warm welcome to Y.S. Lee! Hello, devoted observers of Smugglivus! As I thought about the books I’ve read this year, I realized that this was a Year of Major Transition for me because my favourite, most memorable, powerfully transforming reads were non-fiction. (Or possibly this year was a fluke, and next year I’ll be as fiction-centric as ever.) Specifically, I became obsessed with two historical figures: an explorer and soldier called Freddy Spencer Chapman, and Mary Wollstonecraft’s overlooked daughter, Fanny. Let me tell you why I adore them so. Freddy In late 1941 – that is, two years after the start of the Second World War, when the […]