Review: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Trapped in a love less marriage to a man with good social standing, Anna Karenina does the unthinkable–she enters into a doomed, passionate love affair with another man.

Society will torment her, her husband will ridicule her, but her own guilt will drive her to the breaking point.

With one of the most memorable opening scenes in western literature, Anna Karenina is a literary masterpiece about life, passion, and love.

This lengthy novel is spread over eight parts featuring two alternating protagonists, Konstantin Levin and Anna Karenina.

The elegant and proper Anna, is married to a high-ranking government official, Alexei Karenin. For the past eight years they have maintained a fragile facade. On the outside their marriage appears amiable but in the absence of love, there is nothing but respect and understanding to fill the missing pieces.

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Review: On the Island by Tracey Garvis-Graves

Is age really just a number? Does true love transcend all things? Even through extreme, desperate situations? Even through a large age gap? Does wanting different things or being in a different spot matter when love is involved?

Thirty year old Anna is an English teach. She needs time to think about her life. She has been with her boyfriend of eight years and they still aren’t married. She feels like she is just waiting and waiting for a life that isn’t going t happen. So when the opportunity to get away comes….she takes it.

TJ is a sixteen and recovering from cancer. His parents want to take a celebratory vacation in the Maldives where he can both recover and study. TJ’s parents hired Anna as his tutor for the summer.

Anna and TJ board a seaplane bound for a remote island in the Maldives when suddenly their pilot has a heart attack and dies. The plane goes down somewhere in the ocean. When they wash ashore on a deserted island, they think it’s only a matter of time before a search party discovers them.

Three and a half years go by.

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Review: The Hangman’s Daughter (Hangman’s Daughter #1) by Oliver Pötzsch

A scream rips through the early morning fog of the small Bavarian town known as Schongau.

The body of a young boy washes ashore, tattooed with a suspecious mark…..a witches mark to be precise.

The people are in a frenzy when the local hangman, Jakob Kuisl, arrives to investigate the body and determine if witchcraft was indeed involved.

Before Kuisl can make a final decision, the townspeople jump to their own conclusions and go after the only person who could be capable of witchcraft….the midwife.

With the dark memories of witch trials and stake burnings stil fresh in their minds, the townspeople arrive at the midwifes house demanding answers. Kuisl takes her into custody though he is convinced of her innocents.

Determined to prove her innocents, Kuisl and a local physician, Simon, begin their investigation.

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Review: Mine to Take (Matrix of Destiny #3) by Dara Joy

Mystical galaxies, wizards, shapeshifters, aliens, adventure, and sizzling romance lurk in the pages of the para-romance novel, Mine to Take by Dara Joy. 

The beautiful Jenise is more or less a prisoner in her own home. The evil Karpon desires her and yet also wants to kill her. Jenise longs to be free of him before he can conquer her making her his wife.

As luck would have it, Karpon holds a fierce Familiar (shapeshifter) in his dungeons. If Jenise can some how free the Familiar, she too might be free of Karpon.

The Familiars are a wild and sexual people, therefore Jenise bargains with the captive using the only thing she has in her favor….her virginity.

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Review: Fire (Graceling Realm #2) by Kristin Cashore

Before gracelings came monsters.

Fire has vibrant, flaming red hair. She is able to influence, control, and read peoples minds. Everyone who comes near her is attracted to her in a savage way. Monsters crave her blood. But she too is a monster….a special human monster….the only one left in the Dells.

Outside of the Seven Kingdoms are the Dells, a wild countryside full of monsters. Monsters are variations of a regular animals but their fur, claws, feathers etc, come in a unique pallet of colors (magenta, gold, silver etc). But above all, they are savage creatures motivated by blood and they all posses the ability to control the minds of others.

Since she was a young girl, Fire has been under the care and protection of Archer and his father, Brocker. Their duty is to protect the last human monster. But when a would-be assassin posing as a poacher is found on Archer’s grounds, everyone is uneasy for Fire’s safety.

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