Books
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Review: When Gods Die (Sebastian St. Cyr #2) by C.S. Harris
I was approached a few years ago to read the Sebastian St Cyr series and at that time it was on book 12! I decided to give it a go, but I wanted to read the first book before I started book 12—so I did. I read the first book and I thought it was really good but I didn’t have a desire to go back and read the series from beginning to end so that I could read book 12. So read book 1 and then started book 12. Since then I have read books 12-14 with book 15 coming out later this spring. As I was approaching the…
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Review: The Little Bookshop on the Seine (The Little Paris Collection #1) by Rebecca Raisin
It’s the last day of the decade and I can’t believe a new year and decade is already here! I am closing out this year with a fun little romance number here that is set in Paris. This book wasn’t a hard sell for me. I mean come on…..a bookshop romance set in Paris with a little holiday flair? No brainer right there. Everything I hoped to get out of this book, I got. I hoped for romance, a happy ending, and a fun trip through Paris—check, check, check. I especially was looking forward to revisiting some of my favorite things about Paris with this one and I totally felt…
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Review: We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya #1) by Hafsah Faizal
I have been following Hafsah Faizal on Twitter since the beginning of time it feels like. She was first a designer of websites and other bookish merch and I was thrilled to see that she was working on her very own novel! Watching her journey unfold on social media has been wonderful to watch and I couldn’t wait for the release of this novel. I had it on pre-order for months and when it finally showed up I was eager to crack it open. The cover is stunning and the premise sounds so exciting with a strong middle eastern flavor and I was totally here for it!
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Review: Fireborn (Born Prophecy #1) by Katie MacAlister
This author is a new to me author, but she has written a number of other series that are paranomal romances. I was approached about reading her new release in this series, Starborn, and I wasn’t sure that it would work as a standalone so I asked to read the first book in the series first which was this one, Fireborn. Honestly I didn’t really know what to expect, I just knew that I liked the sound of Starborn and wanted to read it, but knew that in many fantasy books it’s difficult to jump around so I decided to start here. At just under 300 pages, this one was…
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Review: The Lonely Hour (Bryant & May: Peculiar Crimes Unit #16) by Christopher Fowler
When I picked up this series a few years ago, one of the things that stood out to me was how much it focused on the mystery rather than the actual characters. I mean the characters are well drawn and developed on their own, but the idea is to really look at the mysteries of the Peculiar Crimes Unit and I love that the author has kept that the focus throughout this series. I read the first two or three books in this series and then was on to something else and now here I have picked up this one and the fifteenth book before this one and found that…
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Review: The Glittering Hour by Iona Grey
Sometimes I get pitched books months and months in advance and sometimes I simply forget a title until I pull up my calendar for the following month to see what I have coming up to read. That’s what happened with this book. I pulled up my December calendar…..the day after I made my Book of the Month selection for December. If you guys didn’t know, this book was a Book of the Month pick for December and Evie Dunmore who wrote Bringing Down the Duke (one of my favorite read of the year) recommended it so before I could look at my upcoming calendar, I selected this one and was…
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Review: The Girl I Left Behind by Andie Newton
WWI or WWII novels are usually a pretty easy sell for me. I love them. There is something about the back drop of a war that adds drama and interest to a novel and I always enjoy reading modern war time novels set in this period. That said, not all WWI or WWII novels are created equal. While I enjoy books set in this time period, I don’t always love every single story that is set here. Often the historical fiction market is saturated with books set in WWII and I sometimes find myself worrying that the books I have read will just run together and not stand out. When…
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Re-Post Review: The Lost Queen (The Lost Queen Trilogy #1) by Signe Pike
As we approach the ending of a decade and another year, the one question I get asked is what was your favorite read of 2019? This book, The Lost Queen, I read back in 2018 but it was late 2018 (October) and I feel like it still resonates with me over a year later. I gave it five stars and constantly recommend it to everyone I meet and I also gave it to both my sister and mom for Christmas last year. It was released in paperback in June 2019 so I am still going to count this as a favorite book for 2019 because of the paperback release…..is that…
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Review: The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern (Audible Edition)
This was my most anticipated read of the year. I had it on pre order for months and I even got the Audible edition because I knew I would never be able to put it down! The book arrived and it was beautiful and it has been all over my IG feed because I simply love it. I also loved Erin Morgenstern’s debut novel, The Night Circus, and I couldn’t imagine a world in which I wouldn’t feel the same about this book. So the fateful day came and I downloaded the Audible edition and started reading the day after it was released…..and finally almost 6 weeks later I simply…
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Release Day Feature: The Ghost of Madison Avenue by Nancy Bilyeau
The Ghost of Madison Avenue by Nancy Bilyeau Publication Date: December 13, 2019 eBook, 108 pages Genre: Historical Mystery Christmas Ghost Story in Old New York In this compelling and poignant story, bestselling author Nancy Bilyeau takes readers to New York City’s Morgan Library in December 1912, when two very different people haunted by lost love come together in an unexpected way. Helen O’Neill, part of a tight-knit Irish-American family in the Bronx, is only too happy to report to work at the spectacular private library built on Madison Avenue by millionaire financier J. P. Morgan. The head librarian, the brilliant and beautiful Belle da Costa Greene, had…