Category: Book Review

Book Critic, Book Review, Books, Literary Criticism, Reading

Review: The Girl from the Paradise Ballroom by Alison Love

by The Lit Bitch2 Comments on Review: The Girl from the Paradise Ballroom by Alison Love

Soho, 1937. When struggling Italian singer Antonio meets the wife of his wealthy new patron he recognizes her instantly: it is Olivia, the captivating dance hostess he once encountered in the seedy Paradise Ballroom.

Olivia is afraid that Antonio will betray the secrets of her past, but little by little they are drawn together, outsiders in a glittering world to which they do not belong.

At last, with conflict looming across Europe, the attraction between them becomes impossible to resist – but when Italy declares war on Britain, the impact threatens to separate them for ever…

That’s the description of this latest historical fiction novel and to my surprise…..the description didn’t really match the novel which was unusual for me. I noticed other reviewers noted the same thing.

I think what caught me off guard was the implication of an ‘epic romance’ based on the description of the novel. The description, to me, implies epic based on using the war as a backdrop. In most war time romances that I’ve read, they are typically pretty long and the war plays a larger role in the story overall.

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Book Critic, Book Review, Books, Literary Criticism, Reading

Review: The Winemakers by Jan Moran

by The Lit Bitch2 Comments on Review: The Winemakers by Jan Moran

Caterina Rosetta has got some big time choices to make in her life but her options are limited.

She’s had a daughter out of wedlock with a man who she thinks has abandoned her….and since it’s the 1950’s, having a child out of wedlock basically means social suicide.

She hasn’t told her mother about the baby because she knows her mother will basically disown her so she needs to give the baby up for adoption…..but she can’t bring herself to do that either.

Her mother basically raised her all on her own, so why can’t she raise her daughter by herself? Caterina is an accomplished sommelier who has grown up in a family of winemakers. She is sure she can support herself in some way.

On a fateful trip to visit her mother, she confesses that she has a child and after a row between the two, Caterina is not sure what to do about her situation. Then a man shows up at the vineyard looking for Caterina.

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Review: Waging War (The Immortal Descendants #4) by April White

by The Lit Bitch1 Comment on Review: Waging War (The Immortal Descendants #4) by April White

For the last couple of years I’ve been a big fan of the Immortal Descendants series! It’s been really fun watching the series evolve and mature over the years!

I love the main characters and the premise for the story so when Waging War came out I naturally agreed to review it!

In the previous books, Clocker Saira Elian, time travels through multiple different periods to save friends, family, of course stop the Mongers from gaining power. This book is no different….this time we find Saira time traveling to WWII to try and stop a brutal massacre.

Saira and her friend Ringo, travel back to WWII Bletchley Park to team up with vampire (and Saira’s love interest) to try and stop said massacre. Together they work to crack the Nazi code and expose a Monger traitor intent on changing the course of history.

They also meet up with some new characters, one being a female commando from the French resistance, to hunt down an elite unit of Monger soldiers – Hitler’s Werewolves – before the terror squad can strike a fatal blow at the heart of the Allied war effort.

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Review: Lies and Other Acts of Love by Kristy Woodson Harvey

by The Lit Bitch8 Comments on Review: Lies and Other Acts of Love by Kristy Woodson Harvey

I don’t typically read a lot of ‘Southern fiction’ or women’s fiction, but there was something about this intriguing cover and description that lured me in.

After sixty years of marriage and five daughters, Lynn “Lovey” White knows that all of us, from time to time, need to use our little white lies.

Her granddaughter, Annabelle, on the other hand, is as truthful as they come. She always does the right thing—that is, until she dumps her hedge fund manager fiancé and marries a musician she has known for three days. After all, her grandparents, who fell in love at first sight, have shared a lifetime of happiness, even through her grandfather’s declining health.

But when Annabelle’s world starts to collapse around her, she discovers that nothing about her picture-perfect family is as it seems. And Lovey has to decide whether one more lie will make or break the ones she loves.

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Review: Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye

by The Lit Bitch3 Comments on Review: Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye

This has been the year of Jane Eyre inspired literature and this latest Jane Eyre revisitation was something quite unexpected.

Any book that has the passage ‘reader I murdered him’ so eloquently stated and matter-of-factly, instantly holds a special place in my heart!

When we first meet Jane Steele she is living with her mother in a small cottage on the grande estate of Highgate House. All her life Jane is told she is to inherit Highgate House but when her mother dies unexpectedly Jane’s evil aunt purposes to send her away to a school where she will learn to be a governess.

After first hearing this news, Jane runs onto the estate to weep and is accompanied by her cousin Edwin who proceeds to try and sexually assault her……but rather than let it happen Jane fights back and suddenly Edwin is dead by Jane’s hand.

Suddenly boarding school doesn’t sound so bad so off she goes. From there we follow Jane through not only a tedious childhood but often uncertain adulthood full of little lies and of course…..a few murders!

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