Book Critic
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Review: Engn by Simon Kewin
Finn has been raised to fear the notorious Ironclads and their city, Engn. The Ironclads are sent out to the surrounding villages to recruit children to work in the city. When the Ironclads come, there is no choice but to send the children to Engn even though few return to their homes, parents are required to let the Ironclads take what they want. When Finn was younger, his sister was taken to Engn which was supposed to mean that Finn was safe as the Ironclads can only take one child per family. But when the Ironclads come for him, this changes everything. With Finn on his way to Engn and…
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Review: Tiger’s Quest (The Tiger Saga #2) by Colleen Houck
Kelsey Hayes has just arrived home in Oregon from her adventure packed and emotional summer abroad in India. Kelsey has been helping two brothers, Ren and Kishan, try and break an ancient curse. She and Ren successfully fought off deadly monkeys to break the first part of the curse, but they still have to complete a series of challenges to break the entire curse. While they have been tracking down the clues that will break the curse, Kelsey and Ren have also fallen in love. Kelsey is scared to death that Ren will break her heart so she does what she thinks is best–she runs like hell back to Oregon…
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Giveaway: A Divided Inheritance by Deborah Swift
Get ready for some swash-buckling adventure in this thrilling and vivid historic novel! Take a ride through the splendid Spanish sun and back to London with an action packed historic novel! Thanks to Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tour and the publisher, I am ecstatic to be able to offer a copy of A Divided Inheritance by Deborah Swift for your enjoyment! Giveaway runs 11/13/13 to 11/20/13 Winners will be announced 11/21/13. (how to enter) On this blog you must leave a comment to be entered in the giveaway. Your comment MUST include your email so I can contact you….if you do not enter an email in the comments your entry will be void.…
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Review: A Divided Inheritance by Deborah Swift
In 1609, Elspet Leviston plans on doing something most women wouldn’t dream of–she hopes to take over her father’s lace business. In an age where most women only care about finding husbands and having children, Elspet wants nothing more than the learn the trade. Since her father doesn’t have a male heir the odd of her taking over are pretty good–until a mysterious cousin shows up and starts helping her father with the lace business. Zachary Deane has basically come from nothing. His mother was a prostitute and with three children. They had little money to support themselves but she had high hopes for Zachary. She told him if anything happened…
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Review: Dark Angel: A Gothic Fairy Tale by T.J. Bennett
Strong winds and storm surges batter the hull of a ship carrying the young widow Catherine Briton home to England. Catherine spots land and tells the captain that they should abandon ship and try to make it to the island. To her dismay the captain refuses and denies that he even saw the land. The ship eventually sinks and Catherine is left floating in the ocean waiting for death to overtake her. Instead of dying, she wakes up on the beach of the island she saw from the ship. A stranger rescues her and takes her back to his castle. When she awakes she finds that the man, Gerard, not…
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Review: Tiger’s Curse (The Tiger Saga #1) by Colleen Houck
For recent high school graduate, Kelsey Hayes, the summer is all about finding a job so she can start community college in the fall. But in a sleepy Oregon town, there are not a lot of job opportunities for high school grads so when she is offered a job at a traveling circus she quickly accepts. The jobs sounds pretty easy: selling tickets, helping clean up after shows, and she gets to live on sight….oh and she has to help care for the circus tiger. She isn’t really sure what to do about the tiger, on one hand he scares her but she finds him oddly intriguing and comforting. Every…
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Review: Bellman and Black: A Ghost Story by Diane Setterfield
As a child, William Bellman makes one tragic mistake that will haunt him all his life. Though it doesn’t seem like a big deal, William soon finds out what a big deal it was. William is showing off for a few of his friends. He has perfected his slingshot and to impress his friends he claims he can hit a rook (of the raven family) with absolute precision. When he kills the bird with that fateful shot, he has no idea it will be the mistake that alters his life and the lives of those present that day forever and those that William cares for most. The Bellman family has…
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Review: Banquet of Lies by Michelle Diener
In Sweden one fateful night, the life of a young English woman changes forever. Giselle Barrington witnesses the murder of her father, a spy for the British crown. While in Sweden, Giselle’s (Gigi) father procures a dangerous document that if discovered could mean a political nightmare for England, France, Sweden, and Russia! It’s for this document he is killed for. He gave the document to Gigi to keep safe shortly before he will killed. After witnessing the murder Gigi knows three things–she must take the document safely back to England and second, the person who killed her father was also British which means there is a traitor in her father’s circle, and…
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Review: The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
Reading this book was like peeling the petals off of a flower, each petal a little more beautiful than the one before. This novel is a complex family saga surrounded by the beauty of the budding botanical world. We begin with the base born Henry Whittaker who dares to dream and make something of himself. After stealing his way into some wealth, his father’s employer discovers that poor Henry has been robbing him blind. Instead of turning him over to the authorities, he sends Henry on a voyage with the famous explorer Captain Cook. On that voyage Henry learns a great deal about botany and life, and when he returns to…
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Review: Mrs Poe by Lynn Cullen
The greatest love affairs are between two souls that speak to each other in a language that no one else but them can understand. On a fateful night in 1845, Frances Osgood meets the most famous writer in all of New York society, the dark and mysterious Edgar Poe. From the moment they are introduced, Frances can’t help but feel a strange and unexplainable connection to Poe. A writer herself, they run in the same circles of New York society. At the time, Frances’s philandering husband has taken up with a rich divorcee and basically abandoned Frances and their children. Frances and the girls are staying at the home of…