Review: A Curious Beginning (Veronica Speedwell Mystery #1) by Deanna Raybourn

Veronica Speedwell is finally free from her spinster aunts! Not that she is rejoicing in their deaths or anything but she has longed to be free to travel the world in pursuit of butterflies and a few romantic liaisons. She is not just an amateur butterfly collector, but a scientist, lepidopterist, and lover of natural science in particular.

When a mysterious German baron shows up on the day of her aunt’s funeral proclaiming that it is a matter of life and death that she come with him to London, she agrees but not because she is afraid for her life but because he promises a free ticket to London.

When they arrive in London, the Baron leaves her in the care and custody of a washed up scientist named Stoker….supposedly only for the night but when the Baron is murdered Stoker and Veronica are forced together into a mystery that’s resolution could alter the course of English history. Pursued by persons unknown, they know that their lives are in danger, but the question becomes who can they trust?

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Review: The House of Hawthorne by Erika Robuck

Sophia is a talented artist and writer. Her well known Salem family has discouraged her from pursuing traditional women’s roles such as marriage, in favor of pursuing her creative and educational talents. Plagued by debilitating headaches, Sophia spends a lot of time in bed and her parents even send her to Cuban in hopes of curing her headaches.

While she is in Cuba, she begins writing about some of the slavery she has witnessed in her journal, when she returns to Salem, Massachusetts she catches the eye of upcoming writer Nathaniel Hawthorne.  From their first meeting, Nathaniel and Sophia begin an intense romantic relationship that despite many setbacks leads to their marriage.

Together, they will cross continents, raise children, and experience all the beauty and tragedy of an exceptional partnership. Sophia’s vivid journals and her masterful paintings kindle a fire in Nathaniel, inspiring his writing. But their children’s needs and the death of loved ones steal Sophia’s energy and time for her art, fueling in her a perennial tug-of-war between fulfilling her domestic duties and pursuing her own desires.

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Review: The Middle of Somewhere by Sonja Yoerg

Intense is about the only word I can use to describe this novel!

This book is about one woman’s quest to find herself on the John Muir trail in the western U.S. for 18 day of backpacking.

Liz Kroft’s 30th birthday is coming and she is literally heading for the hills. Liz, is in conflict over secrets she harbors and is suffering remorse over her past actions. Her emotional baggage weighs her down more than her backpack, but a three week trek promises the solitude she craves—at least until her inexperienced hiker boyfriend, Dante, decides to tag along. She is clearly less than happy about that situation.

His broad moral streak makes the prospect of confessing her sins more difficult, but as much as she fears his judgment, she fears losing him more. Maybe.

They set off together alone under blue skies, but it’s not long before storms threaten and two strange brothers appear along the trail. Amid the jagged, towering peaks, Liz must decide whether to admit her mistakes and confront her fears, or face the trail, the brothers and her future alone.

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Review: The Gates of Evangeline by Hester Young

If you like Southern Gothic novels and ghost stories then this is the perfect novel to curl up with on a chilly fall night!

Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Cates is a recently bereaved mother whose child died of a brain aneurysm. Not to mention her husband left her for another woman. Charlie begins experiencing very vivid dreams about children, which makes sense based on the tragedy she has gone through. But she soon realizes the dreams are something more, they are messages and warnings that will help Charlie and the children she sees, if only she can make sense of them.

After a little boy in a boat appears in Charlie’s dreams asking for her help, Charlie finds herself entangled in a thirty-year-old missing-child case that has never ceased to haunt Louisiana’s prestigious Deveau family. When her old boss asks her to write a book about a 30 year old case involving a missing boy from a prominent Louisiana family, and she has a dream that she believes is tied to it.

Armed with an invitation to Evangeline, the family’s sprawling estate, Charlie heads south, where new friendships and an unlikely romance bring healing. But as she uncovers long-buried secrets of love, money, betrayal, and murder, the facts begin to implicate those she most wants to trust—and her visions reveal an evil closer than she could’ve imagined.

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Review: Decompression by Juli Zeh

German attorney Sven Fiedler and his girlfriend, Antje, move to the Cayman Islands, where he hopes to escape a culture of materialism. On the Cayman Islands, Sven hopes things will be simpler and more relaxing….less of a rat race, which is exactly what Sven finds. Basically, life couldn’t be better for Sven and Antje.

Sven and Antje open up a diving business and Sven’s approach was simple: take the mechanics of diving seriously, instruct his clients clearly, and stay out of their personal business as best he can. Life is going well for them….until two German tourists–Jola von der Pahlen, a daytime soap star on the verge of cinematic success, and Theo Hast, a stalled novelist–engage Sven for a high-priced, intensive two-week diving experience. The tourists will stay with Sven and Antje in their guest house….but things soon become a little….tense.

Sven is struck by Jola’s beauty, her evident wealth, and her apparently volatile relationship with the much older Theo. Theo quickly leaps to the conclusion that Sven and Jola are having an affair, but, oddly, he seems to facilitate it rather than trying to intervene. Antje, looking on, grows increasingly wary of these particular clients.

A game of delusion, temptation, and manipulation plays out, pointing toward a violent end. But a quiet one, down in the underwater world beneath the waves.

This book was a bit of a chance read for me. I like psychological thrillers but this one just didn’t up and grab me right away as a ‘must read’ for me. But I was between books and looking for something just different….and this sounded like a good option. German writer, modern psychological thriller, about diving, alternating POVs, set in the tropics……sounds about as far from my normal reading as I can get.

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