Book Critic
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Review: In a Book Club Far Away by Tif Marcelo
I have read a couple of Tif Marcelo’s books and I have to say that my favorite has been The Key to Happily Ever After. Her books are always so great and written with so much heart and perspective not to mention rich with family relationship complexities. I have really enjoyed reading them and when I saw that her latest novel In a Book Club Far Away, was a Book of the Month pick, I was even more excited to get my hands on it! Even though I had a digital copy of the book to read, I did make this one my BOTM pick not just because the book…
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Review: What the Devil Knows (Sebastian St. Cyr #16) by C. S. Harris
I absolutely love Sebastian St Cyr. I read the entire series last year in one long binge read. I adore the books and even if some of them have fallen into a bit of a formula, I still enjoy the characters so much. This one was high up on my TBR pile. I always set aside time in the early spring to read a new Sebastian mystery and I am never sorry about that. The mysteries are intelligent, a little on the gritty side, and full of questionable characters all with their own motives. Going into this one, I was fully ready for just that and I wasn’t disappointed! But…
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Review: To Love and to Loathe (The Regency Vows #2) by Martha Waters
When I read Martha Waters debut novel, The Have and to Hoax, I laughed out loud multiple times and absolutely fell in love with the characters and writing! Waters is funny and cheeky, I adored the banter and chemistry between the characters. Which is why this one went on my auto buy list! I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this one! I picked this one up while I was waiting for my son’s soccer camp to finish and I was looking for something that was easy reading that would put me in a good mood and that I could put a bookmark in as needed and then pickup…
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Review: Good Girl, Bad Blood (A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder #2) by Holly Jackson
One of my book club’s very first books was A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder last spring and we absolutely loved it and couldn’t put it down! So needles to say this book was our pick for March. While we all range in age from late forties to early thirties, the first YA mystery novel in this series kept us all inthralled! We all had high expectations for this one too. I will say though, we do have people in the book club who haven’t read the first book so we were a little nervous picking this one. But most of the early reviews that I read noted that this…
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Review: Lost, Found, and Forever by Victoria Schade
This is my second novel by Victoria Schade and I have absolutely fallen in love with her novels! They are light hearted reading with romance and tons and tons of sweet dogs! The adorable doggies on the cover just get me every time and this one is no different. I jumped at this one because it sounded too cute and that dog on the cover was screaming ‘read me!’. By Schade’s books are more than just adorable dogs on the cover, I have really loved the romances that are woven into the story. This one was especially tender and adorable. I fell in love with Griffin about as fast as…
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Review: The Women of Chateau Lafayette by Stephanie Dray
This book has been long awaited. It’s been on so many ‘most anticipated’ lists and receiving a ton of hype which normally would make me a little wary, but not going to lie, I have been excited for this one since I participated in the cover revel last spring! The cover plus the multigenerational story of a stunning French chateau sounded too promising to pass up. I also read Stephanie Dray’s, My Dear Hamilton , a couple of years ago and was impressed with Dray’s historical research and writing. Dray has written a number of historical fiction novels and contributed her skills to other compilations. Some of her stories are…
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Review: Under the Light of the Italian Moon by Jennifer Anton
When I was pitched this book, what sold me was the sensational cover! The cover is a show stopper and so eye catching and promises something exotic and romantic. But then I read the description and I couldn’t wait to read it, especially since it was based on a true story. While it is set during WWII, it’s not set in the traditional countries of France and England, but rather Italy as the title implies. I think Italy often gets overlooked in the WWII historical fiction genre so I was really excited to read about a familiar event in history through a unique pair of eyes. Plus I was super…
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Review: The Girl in the Painting by Tea Cooper
I discovered Tea Cooper through a blog tour with one of my long time friends and book bloggers, Amy over at Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, and I fell in love with her book The Woman in the Green Dress! It was well written, beautiful and fun. So when this latest book from Cooper came up for review, it was an easy yes for me! Cooper has written a number of other books but so far these are the only two that I have read and when I picked this one up, I expected the same polish and research that was in The Woman in the Green Dress. While I…
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Review: The Rose Code by Kate Quinn
I have only read a handful of Kate Quinn’s books, and while I have enjoyed them, it wasn’t until I read The Alice Network that I really fell in love with her books. After reading The Alice Network, I saw that The Rose Code was coming out and I knew that I had to get my hands on this one. Not only did I love the idea of women code breakers but Quinn’s writing ability has really grown over her books so I was so excited to check this one out! Quinn is a great writer but the polish she put in The Alice Network really shined and I was…
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Review: Surviving Savannah by Patti Callahan
This book has been on my radar for months—ever since I was part of the cover reveal I have been counting down the days until this one! I have read a couple of Patti Callahan’s books prior to this one and loved them! But this book sounded like it was going to be one of her best yet! The cover is absolutely captivating and promises a wonderful historical fiction novel contained within, but as we all know, we can’t judge a book by it’s cover—however tempting it might be. Even with that thought in mind, my expectations were high for this one simply based on the cover. But if reading…