Books
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Review: Our Lady of Guadalupe: Mother of the Civilization of Love by Carl A. Anderson, Eduardo Chávez
I don’t often read a lot of nonfiction but ever once in a while a book catches my eye that I simply must read and that’s what happened with this book. Our Lady of Guadalupe’s feast day is Dec 12 and even though I am a Catholic myself (albeit a new one), I wasn’t very familiar with anything to do with her. I first started becoming interested in Our Lady back when I was living in Arizona over ten years ago. In Arizona she is huge as there is a large Hispanic population there. It was amazing to see the devotional level to Our Lady yet as a non-Hispanic person,…
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Review: The Woman in the Camphor Trunk (Anna Blanc Mysteries #2) by Jennifer Kincheloe
About a couple of years ago, I read the first Anna Blanc mystery and was in love with her character and eager to see the romance develop between her and Joe. It seemed an age before the next book would come out but then suddenly it was out and I quickly picked it up from my library before anyone else could get their hands on it! This time we find a very different Anna from the Anna we met in the first book. A once rich society girl, we now find a poor Anna struggling to get by. Los Angeles, 1908. In Chinatown, the most dangerous beat in Los Angeles,…
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Review: Mumpreneur on Fire by Estelle Keeber
Like many mom’s the decision to stay home or return to work was agonizing. It was a topic of discussion in our house for months after my little boy was born. Like many mom’s I returned to work after 3 months maternity leave but it was awful. So much so, that my husband and I made some sacrifices so I could eventually stay home full time. It’s hard only having one income and I often find myself wondering how other mom’s do it. I am personally not crafty so cottage industries are out for me, and I am terrible at selling things so direct sales are also out. I am…
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Review: Whispers Beyond the Veil (A Change of Fortune Mystery #1) by Jessica Estevao
This was definitely my year of DNF books. I did not start out this year thinking I would have so many, but when I put down The Gunslinger earlier this year, something happened to me. I suddenly felt like it was ok to put books down that I wasn’t enjoying rather than suffer through something I was not interested in. So here we are with year another book that I DNF this year and I was shocked when this one went back to the library earlier than expected. This should have been a book that I had great things to say about. I was willing to give it a few…
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Review: Death Below Stairs (Kat Holloway Mysteries #1) by Jennifer Ashley
This book kept hoping up all over my Twitter feed and I had my eye on it for so long. I had been searching for something a little different from the usual high society murder mystery series. And this looked like the perfect combo, cook from a big house tuned sleuth…sounds intriguing. So I was thrilled when I got the chance to review an early copy! Highly sought-after young cook Kat Holloway takes a position in a Mayfair mansion and soon finds herself immersed in the odd household of Lord Rankin. Kat is unbothered by the family’s eccentricities as long as they stay away from her kitchen, but trouble finds…
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Special Feature: Release Day of Calling Time, Book #1 The Razor Series by K A Sands
Today is the day! It’s the release day of Calling Time, Book #1 The Razor Series by K A Sands! Genre – Romantic Suspense Cover Design – K A Sands Blurb Life can change in a split second, a minute moment, an infinite hour. For Laura Hamilton, her split second lasted 2,880 minutes. 48 hours to be exact. She barely escaped with her life. With a body full of scars and a heart full of hurt, the twenty-nine-year old clothes designer spent the following eight years clouded with grief, believing herself to be too broken to ever see the beauty in her surroundings again. After a last-ditch attempt to scrape…
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Review: The Villainous Viscount Or The Curse Of The Venns by Lucinda Elliot
This is a new author for me and frankly I only agreed to read this novel because of the tag line: “An appreciative satire of the cliches of classical Gothic”. I love Gothic romances. I lived for Gothic romances as a little girl and as I’ve gotten older I cannot tell you how much I love them. It’s embarrassing. So how could I pass up this book about Gothic romances? I couldn’t! When Clarissa Greendale inherits the fortune of disreputable uncle she hardly knows, she does not expect to find herself forced into marriage with an aristocratic fortune hunter and wild, brawling, debauched social outcast. Not only that, but her…
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Review: This Side of Murder (Verity Kent #1) by Anna Lee Huber
As many of you know, I binge read almost all of Anna Lee Huber’s books this year. I love the Lady Darby books and I also loved her Gothic Myths book as well! Huber rapidly became a favorite author of mine and I was eager to read her latest book series about Verity Kent. I saw a lot of this book on Twitter so I tried to procure a copy before it’s release but sadly I waited too long! So I had to resort to my local library….which I waited like 3 weeks for it to come in. By then I had almost lost interest in reading it but when…
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Review: Bloodstains with Bronte (Crime with the Classics #2) by Katherine Bolger Hyde
Full disclosure, I decided to review this book because of the catchy title. I am a huge Bronte lover and I am easily swayed by all things Bronte. But, after the initial excitement over the title evaporated, I was left with a book that I wasn’t sure I was going to love. So it sat on my review calendar for a few weeks and I was not looking forward to reviewing it but I knew the time was coming. So I picked it up to start on a cold rainy morning (which suites anything Bronte related) and went to town. After about 3 pages I had a renewed excitement to…
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Review: Murder on the Orient Express (Hercule Poirot #10) by Agatha Christie
A few years ago I read one Agatha Christie novel and found that while entertaining, it wasn’t as good as I had hoped. I found the language and some of the literary devices dated and a little boring. However, like many many many readers I wanted to see the Murder on the Orient Express movie which sparked a renewed interest in this classic crime novel. I did go see the movie before I actually read the book, mostly because I didn’t think I would have time this year to fit it into my review schedule but after seeing the movie, I wanted to read it even more. Mostly because I…