Review: Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles #1) by Marissa Meyer

This novel has literally been all over my social media feed for what feels like years. Every time a new Lunar Chronicles book comes out it’s like it’s everywhere!

So when the last book Winter came out, I saw this whole series clogging my social media feeds with rave reviews. So that settled it, it was time to read this book!

Cinder’s life isn’t terribly exciting…she’s a lowly mechanic and a cyborg to boot.

She works on androids all day and caters to her step mother and step sisters by night. Well when the crown prince, Kai, comes into her little market cart shop seeking help repairing his android, Cinder is completely speechless.

What could the crown prince want with her? Just help repairing his android? Well of course that’s all he wants from her….he’s the prince for crying out loud!

Cinder agrees to repair his android as soon as she can….but then an outbreak of plague, ‘blue fever’ or otherwise known as Letumosis. It’s a deadly disease that the citizens of New Beijing are desperately trying to find a cure for. Cinder’s life is directly effected by the Letumosis and it forces her right into the path of prince Kai once more.

Continue reading “Review: Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles #1) by Marissa Meyer”

Review: The Secret Life of Anna Blanc by Jennifer Kincheloe

Young socialite Anna Blanc is one walking scandal after the other. She is expected to be a good girl and do exactly what her father wants, however she is impulsive and longing for excietment in her life…..bad combo.

When she runs off to elope with a handsome, but rather rake-ish gentleman, her father intervenes and gets the marriage annulled and takes Anna back to his mansion in LA and basically puts her under house arrest.

Feeling more confined than ever, her eludes her chaperon on a rare afternoon out so she can attend a suffragette rally, but ends up getting arrested instead. While she is at the police station, she discovers that she could actually work in the police office….where excitement happens!

Continue reading “Review: The Secret Life of Anna Blanc by Jennifer Kincheloe”

Review: Home Fires: The Story of the Women’s Institute in the Second World War by Julie Summers

I am a sucker for anything about WWI or WWII and women! This book totally caught my eye from the title alone and I knew instantly that I had to read it!

Julie Summers has written a lot on the subject of women and WWII especially (I have my eye on one of her other books, Fashion on the Ration, as well!) and her book Jambusters (AKA Home Fires) was the inspiration for the new PBS series Home Fires.

This book focuses on what was happening at home while the boys were away a war. In towns and villages across Great Britain, ordinary women were playing a vital role in their country s war effort. Summers focuses her research on the Women’s Institute which was an organization the ran canteens, knitted garments, and collected herbs to replace medicines. They advised the government on issues such as evacuation housing, children’s health, and reconstructed.

Not every woman was cut out for war and battlefield nursing so what did they do? Well they made jam!

Continue reading “Review: Home Fires: The Story of the Women’s Institute in the Second World War by Julie Summers”

Review: Home by Nightfall (Charles Lenox Mysteries #9) by Charles Finch

The once arm chair detective, Charles Lenox, has now successfully made the big shift to being in ‘trade’ with his detective agency and partners. Things seem to be going well for Lenox, Dallington, and Polly….they have after all hired a ‘staff’ of detectives to help with their work load, but their rival LeMire also threatens to take away some of their business.

All of London is buzzing with the disappearance of a famous German pianist….everyone is speculating  that the Yard will call in a consulting detective firm….Lenox hopes it’s his. While he waits to hear if he will be brought in, his brother Edmund is grieving the loss of his wife and asks Lenox to come to Sussex to help him get re-adjusted to his house and being alone on the estate.

Lenox gladly accepts, he hasn’t been home for an extended visit in ages and when the news comes that LeMire has been called in as the consulting firm….Lenox gladly goes to Sussex.

Continue reading “Review: Home by Nightfall (Charles Lenox Mysteries #9) by Charles Finch”

Review: The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

I am not really into horror literature or super scary stories….I haven’t read any Stephen King or V.C. Andrews because I would like to be able to sleep at night.

However this Halloween season, I got inspired to pickup a ghost story. Maybe it’s because I went to watch Crimson Peak and was eager to read something similar…..but I decided to pick up The Woman in Black as I am a sucker for Gothic novels so this sounded right up my alley.

Arthur Kipps is a young London solicitor who has been dispatched to the small windswept town of Crythin Gifford with its salt marshes and fog that rolls in and leaves the town feeling rather ghostly. Kipps is there to attend a funeral and settle the affairs of his client, Alice Drablow of Eel Marsh House.

Mrs. Drablow’s crumbling old house stands at the end of Nine Lives Causeway, a small strip of land that leaves the house cut off from the rest of the town at high tide. It’s a house cloaked in fog and mystery, but Kipps is unaware of the tragic secrets that lie hidden behind its sheltered windows.

Continue reading “Review: The Woman in Black by Susan Hill”