Review: A Thread in the Tangle (Legends of Fyrsta #1) by Sabrina Flynn

Isiilde is a young nymph who is destine to be sold into service once she comes of age.

As a royal nymph, the emperor’s daughter, she will fetch a hefty price.

Isiilde has one problem though….she can’t help but catch things on fire!

When she catches the royal nursery on fire with the heir’s in it, by accident or course, the emperor has no choice but to send her to the dungeon.

That’s when Oen steps in and saves Isiilde  from the dungeons. He begs the emperor to allow him to take her to his home island until she comes of age.

Reluctantly, the emperor agrees but he plans on keeping a watchful eye on his most prized financial investment.

Continue reading “Review: A Thread in the Tangle (Legends of Fyrsta #1) by Sabrina Flynn”

Review: The Secret Rooms: A True Story of a Haunted Castle, a Plotting Duchess, and a Family Secret by Catherine Bailey

Non-fiction books are often a double edged sword for me. I love that I get the historical information and facts about a period in history or a specific person etc, however often the material is presented in a very scholarly manor and can at times be on the dry side.

However ever once in a while I get a non-fiction book for review that really catches my eye and that was the case with The Secret Rooms but Catherine Bailey.

This book promised a Downton Abbey-esque, real life mystery in the upper echelons of WWI English society…how could I pass it up? This story roped me in almost immediately.

Continue reading “Review: The Secret Rooms: A True Story of a Haunted Castle, a Plotting Duchess, and a Family Secret by Catherine Bailey”

Review: The God’s of Heavenly Punishment by Jennifer Cody Epstein

Yoshi Kobayash is a young fifteen year old girl living in Japan like many others when one night her life changes forever.

The Doolittle regiment dumped napalm on her city, changing her life inexplicably–thousands are dead and her city is in ruins.

The book opens with the courtship and marriage of Cam and Lacy in New York and then shifts to Japan where we meet Billy Reynolds, an American boy whose father designs public buildings in Japan.

Billy’s mother gives him a camera for his birthday which is a central theme in this story. We then meet Kenji and Hana Kobayashi and their daughter, Yoshi.

Continue reading “Review: The God’s of Heavenly Punishment by Jennifer Cody Epstein”

Review: The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

Hetty and Sarah have grown up very differently. Hetty (“Handful”) was given to Sarah on her eleventh birthday as a slave.

Sarah is from a wealthy family in pre Civil War South Carolina….one of the ‘first families’ in fact.

Though she tries to free Hetty, her parents remind her that she is expected to own salves and she must simply make the best of things.

So the two girls who are similar in age grow up together.

The story of these two girls is told in two separate narratives. We learn a little about each of the girls families and upbringing as the story goes along.

Sarah and Hetty grow close and share secrets and learn from each other as any other young girls would. Continue reading “Review: The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd”

Review: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

In the exotic vacation destination of Monte Carlo, we find a quiet and insecure woman on holiday. The young lady is a companion to a wealthy eccentric woman.

While in Monte Carlo the young lady meets a dark, mysterious widower named Maxium de Winter.

They fall in love and marry almost immediately. Maxium is a wealthy man who’s wife just passed away back in England.

The circumstances surrounding her death don’t sounds sinister in nature but they are horrific. Supposedly the first Mrs de Winter was killed in a boating accident.

Many years his junior, the new Mrs de Winter returns with Maxium to his country estate of Manderley on the British coast. She arrives to find the ghost of Rebecca haunts the estate….not literally but figuratively.

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