Reading
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Review: Meet Me in Monaco by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb
As a little girl, I was obsessed with Grace Kelly. I was fascinated by her love story and in the end, her tragic death, and longed for the day that I too could become a real American princess. But as I got older I moved on from princess dreams to horses and didn’t look back. That is until the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markel. It was another famous American, marrying royalty and becoming a princess that reignited my interest in Grace Kelly. When I saw that this book was coming out, I squealed in excitement. Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb have written some of my favorite novels both…
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Review: Death in a Desert Land (Agatha Christie #3) by Andrew Wilson
I would venture to say that most people have heard of the great mystery writer Agatha Christie. She’s written so many classic mysteries and I would be hard pressed to meet someone who hasn’t heard of at least one of her books in one way or another. Because she is so recognizable and such a classic mystery writer, I was thrilled to see that someone had turned her into her own fictional sleuth. My first thought when I saw that someone had done this, was that it sounded hokey. Agatha Christie is such an icon and to mess with that and turn her into a fictionalized detective sounded trite…..but at…
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Interview: ACROSS THE RIVER by Richard Snodgrass
Civil War buffs, this is a novel you might want to put on your radar! In the summer of 1863, Judson Walker, a captain of Morgan’s Raiders, and Jonathan Reid, a young engineer, come to Furnass to appropriate two of Colin Lyles’ steam-powered road engines. The purpose is to outfit the engines with iron plate and the newly developed Gatlin Guns, and, with Morgan, deliver the war engines to General Lee’s army in Central Pennsylvania. Amid Walker’s growing involvement with Lyle’s wife Libby, deserting soldiers, and Reid’s own agenda, Walker learns Morgan isn’t coming. The novel reaches its climax with Lyle trying to sabotage the war engines. Walker must decide…
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Review: Murder in the City of Liberty (Van Buren and DeLuca Mystery #2) by Rachel McMillan
When this book popped up for review, I was thrilled! I haven’t read the first book in the series, but it has been on my radar. Then this one came up and I was eager to dive in. I am absolutely in love with the cover and can’t get enough of the colors and the gorgeous art deco details in the background. I felt like the cover absolutely captures the time period and would make readers excited to pick this one up……I know I was excited! With this being the second book, I was hopeful that I hadn’t missed too much of the character back stories and that I wouldn’t…
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Review: Crashing the A-List by Summer Heacock
Last spring, I was completely obsessed with the royal wedding and as a result looked for a number of books on the royals and a-listers. Sadly I didn’t get to read as many as I wanted but I adore modern fairy tale type books with a basically unknown female meeting a huge star or royal, and having it turn into a romance. So when this book came across my desk many months later, I was so excited to read something kind of in that same vein. I thought this one sounded like a feel good, romance which was just what I needed to read! Though it doesn’t feature the royals,…
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Review: Last Summer by Kerry Lonsdale
This was a book that I completely forgot about. I honesty couldn’t remember how it ended up on my review calendar but some how it did. But as I went combing back through my emails to find out how this book ended up on my calendar, it started coming back to me. My March self said yes to this one and now here I was, my July self, and I wasn’t even sure I was in the mood to read this book. Not to mention that I’ve been reading a TON of women’s fiction lately, I almost felt like I needed a break from women’s fiction but as I said,…
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Special Feature and Excerpt: The Turncoat by T.J. London
The Turncoat by T.J. London Publication Date: May 23, 2019 eBook & Paperback Series: The Rebels and Redcoats Saga, Book 3 Genre: Historical Fiction Spy. Redcoat. Traitor. After Captain John Carlisle’s dance with death, he’s retreated to the serenity of the Oneida village with his beloved Dellis McKesson, trying to hide from the inevitable truth: war is coming. But when duty calls, and John’s expertise is needed to negotiate a treaty between the Six Nations of the Iroquois and the Crown, he’ll once again be faced with a decision: his King or his conscience. Many truths that have yet to be revealed, and a deal with the Devil made…
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Special Feature and Interview: THE SATURDAY NIGHT GHOST CLUB by Craig Davidson
I think I am part of the 1% of the population that hasn’t watched Stranger Things. It’s on my list to watch but lately I’ve been reading so much and mourning the ending of Game of Thrones, that I have struggled to find something new to watch. But Stranger Things could easily be that show! When I saw that this book was for fans of Stranger Things, I couldn’t help but be interested, because I know so many people adore that show, but then the publisher went the extra mile and likened this book to a cross between Stand By Me and Stranger Things. How could I say no?! I…
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Product Review: Plum Deluxe Teas
There is nothing like the marriage of tea and books in my opinion! I almost always have a cup of tea on hand when reading. It’s so relaxing and soothing. I gave up drinking coffee a little over a year ago and though I have been known to sneak a cup or two here and there, tea has all but replaced coffee for me. I found a couple of teas that I was pretty excited about, but I am always looking for new tea to try and as I was scraping the bottom of my latest tin, I was approached by Plum Deluxe Teas to see if I would like…
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Review: Rouge: A Novel of Beauty and Rivalry by Richard Kirshenbaum
As a young girl growing up in the late 80’s, early 90’s at the height of the ‘glamour’ industry (well at least for me!), there was no way I could pass on this book. I was exceptionally interested in cosmetics and the ‘glamor’ industry starting in my early teens, a passion the carried on into my early 20’s. In my youth, there was nothing like seeing who the new ‘Cover Girl’ was going to be, or what new makeup promised to revolutionize my beauty routine. I was the girl who wore every single cosmetic from age 13. I had horrible acne as a elementary child and because I went to…