Book Review
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Review: Cascade by Maryanne O’Hara
Make way for the modern woman. Small town America saw substantial changes during the Great Depression. People were not just out of jobs and desperate for money, another notable shift was the role of women in the workplace and family. The golden age of traditional, Middle American values were on the way out which left many feeling nostalgic for a simpler time. Asa Spaulding felt this shift in society acutely in Maryanne O’Hara’s novel, Cascade. In the small, rural Massachusetts town of Cascade, Asa runs a small pharmacy, owns a nice house in town, is well known among the locals as a stand up man, and he has married a…
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Review: His Majesty’s Hope (Maggie Hope Mystery #3) by Susan Elia MacNeal
Maggie Hope has finally gotten the opportunity she has been waiting for to prove herself. After serving as a secret agent and saving Princess Elizabeth in the previous book, Maggie’s performance has earned her a full-fledged membership into the newly formed black ops organization. She is now a Special Operations Executive—or more commonly known as a spook. Britain plans to drop her behind enemy lines in Germany where she will bug the office of a high ranking Nazi official who just happens to be her estranged mother. The mission is only supposed to last a couple of days—in and out. But when an opportunity presents itself for Maggie to stay…
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Review: Murder as a Fine Art by David Morrell
Terror has gripped the foggy streets of London in 1854. A family of five has been found brutally murdered–beaten to death with their throats slit–the youngest victim was an infant. Since nothing was taken and the crime scene neatly staged, it can only be considered a crime of the deranged. Constable Becker was first on the scene, only missing the murderer by a matter of minutes. After raising the alarm, Detective Inspector Sean Ryan arrives and he immediately sees potential in Becker as an assistant. They gather what few clues were left at the crime scene and realize they aren’t dealing with a mad man, but rather an educated man…
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Review: Blood Between Queens (Thornleigh #5) by Barbara Kyle
Religious differences have torn England in half, many side with the Protestant Queen Elizabeth while others rally support for the Catholic heir and cousin to Elizabeth, Mary Queen of Scots. Elizabeth sits an uneasy throne when Mary crossed into England seeking refuge. But asylum isn’t the only thing that Mary is hoping to gain…..she secretly hopes to recapture the English crown. Elizabeth suspects Mary has ulterior motives and a plan is hatched to protect her crown, she will plant a spy in Mary’s service to report on Mary’s activities….and what better companion and spy than Justine Thornleigh. Justine has been taken in by the Thornleigh family as a ward. Lord…
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Review: The Fifth Knight by E.M. Powell
Sir Benedict Palmer and a group of four other mercenaries were to arrest one of England’s most powerful men, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket. But what was supposed to be a simple arrest quickly turns deadly. Sir Palmer suspects the real target was a beautiful nun named Theodosia. The knight in charge of the arrest party, Fitzurse, means to kidnap Theodosia and also her missing mother. Sir Palmer is puzzled by this and begins questioning the motives of the other knights. He frees Theodosia and helps her escape Fitzurse’s clutches but they must now rely on each other to survive and try and get to her mother before Fitzurse…
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Review: Royal Mistress by Anne Easter Smith
Jane Lambert is not exactly a woman of means. She is a merchant’s daughter but what she lacks in monetary value and peerage, she makes up for in wit, intellect, charm, and beauty. Jane’s father is quick to be rid of her though, and thus arranges a match between a colleague, William Shore, and Jane. William is much older than Jane and clearly not interested in her female charms….under any circumstance but he hopes a marriage to her will mean advancement for his business. The negotiations move forward but Jane still holds out hope that a mysterious man she met by chance in the street will speak for her hand…
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Interview and Giveaway: The Chalice by Nancy Bilyeau
I recently had the pleasure of The Chalice as part of The Chalice Virtual Book Tour thanks the the lovely Amy over at Historic Fiction Virtual Book Tours! The Chalice is the second book in The Crown series, and though it is part of a series, this book could easily be read as a stand alone. Joanna is a nun in the Tudor period who is fighting against a deadly prophecy that implies she is the ‘one who will come after’ and restore the Catholic faith in England. Will Joanna embrace her destiny or continue to fight against it and what will happen to those that she loves? Will she destroy everything she holds dear…
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Review: The Chalice (The Crown #2) by Nancy Bilyeau
Henry VIII changed the face of England when he broke with the Catholic Church to marry his great love, Anne Boleyn. This decision was felt by all those at court and those in the monastic sects. Joanna Stafford was once both a noble and a novice nun in training. Once King Henry made the choice to split from the church, Joanna struggles to make a common life for herself in the small village of Dartford. As the world around her takes shape based on the whims of a tyrannical king, Joanna and those closest to her, feel King Henry’s decisions acutely. All Joanna really wants is to start her tapestry…
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Review: The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards by Kristopher Jansma
How do you trust someone who lies for a living? Don’t all writers lie to some degree or another? In Kristopher Jansma’s debut novel The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards, we follow one man’s quest to become a writer, but his is a story told through a bunch of short stories with one very unreliable narrator. We never learn what the narrator’s real name is, but there are two things we know for sure: he has lost every novel he has ever written and he follows Emily Dickens famous advice to the letter, ‘tell all the truth but tell it slant’. In the first short story the narrator is a teenager whose…
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Review: Oleanna by Julie K. Rose
Nestled away in the fjordlands of Norway lies a little farm, home to Oleanna and her family–but Oleanna’s family is about to change. After already trying to come to grips with the recent tragic deaths of her mother and sister only a few months before, Oleanna and her sister Elisabeth are losing their brother, John, to the American dream! Not only will Oleanna be responsible for Elisabeth and Elisabeth’s son, Torjus, but it will be up to them to make the farm thrive. Though both sisters are angry at John for leaving they are, in their own individual ways, jealous that he is getting to have his own adventures. Neither…



