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Review: A Lady’s Guide to Gossip and Murder (Countess of Harleigh Mystery #2) by Dianne Freeman
You all know how much I love a fun historical mystery and Kensington Publishing has a bevy of fabulous authors to choose from. And I have read a number of them and consistently enjoy many of their authors. So when this one came up for review, I was counting on Kensington Publishing to not let me down! This author is new to me and even though it’s the second in a series, it is only the second book so I hoped that I hadn’t missed too much by starting on book 2 rather than book 1. The cover of this book is so bright, cheerful, and eye-catching…..I almost forgot that…
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Review: The Vanishing Man (Charles Lenox Mysteries 0.2) by Charles Finch
I have been a long time fan of the Charles Lenox mystery series. I believe I binge read the first three books and then had to wait for the next one to come out and when it did, it was in my Kindle on release day since I had it on pre-order months in advance! Charles Lenox has been a wonderfully entertaining detective and I adore so many of the mysteries in this series! Sadly I got sidetracked by other books and missed a couple in the middle, but I always came back to the series and found something to love in many of the books! When I saw that…
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Review: The Alchemist of Lost Souls (Bianca Goddard Mysteries #4) by Mary Lawrence
As many of you know, I have a weakness for historical mysteries. I adore them and can’t get enough. However, so many of them are written during Victorian or Edwardian era England that often the books blend together, no matter how well written they are. That’s why this book set itself apart for me….it’s set in Tudor England. When I think of historical mysteries, I don’t think of Tudor England as an optimal setting, but rather a period full of obstacles to detecting/investigating, so I was eager to see how the author used this to her advantage. I haven’t read any of the other books in the series, so I…
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Review: A Murderous Malady (Florence Nightingale Mystery #2) by Christine Trent
Christine Trent is an author I have had on my radar forever it seems like. When her Lady of Ashes series first came out, I tried to win a copy for months to no avail. Then as always seems to happen….I was on to another book. But I did continue to see her Lady of Ashes series pop up all over the place….my library, bookstores, social media. But then the timing just never seemed right. Now she has a new series out, The Florence Nightingale Mysteries, and I was eager to try and work this latest book into my review schedule. It is the second book in a series, but…
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Review: Who Slays the Wicked (Sebastian St. Cyr #14) by C.S. Harris
This is another series that I came into way late in the game. I read the first book in the series and then skipped a head to books 12 and 13. And of course now, here we are at book 14. I love Sebastian, AKA Viscount Devlin, though so I couldn’t pass up this book when it came up for review. I will get into how jumping around in the series effected my reading experience later on in my review, but for now I want to talk a little bit about why this series appealed to me. When I was pitched the 12th book, I hadn’t heard of this series…
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Review: The Victory Garden by Rhys Bowen
I stopped reading the review pitch once I saw ‘WWI’ in the description, which was basically the first line in the summary. I have read a lot of stand alone novels by Bowen and have been impressed with her writing and historical research. Her stand alone books have mostly been set in WWII, but WWI is truly my favorite period in historical fiction, so seeing that this book was set during that time earned this book and instant and enthusiastic, ‘yes’ from me. I have consistently enjoyed reading Bowen’s books, whether they are one of her historical mysteries or her stand alone novels. She as an incredible gift for writing…
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Review: One Day in December by Josie Silver
One of my absolute favorite holiday movie is Love Actually. I watch it every year and it never gets old no matter how cheesy and unrealistic is it. My favorite couple David (Hugh Grant) and Natalie (Martine McCutcheon) followed closely by Juliet (Kira Knightly) and Mark (Andrew Lincoln). So when I saw this book so heavily compared to Love Actually and the Juliet/Mark couple, I was eager to read it. It was my December Book of the Month pick and truth be told I almost passed on all the books for December on BOTM but, I saw so many excellent reviews about this one and decided at the last minute…..why…
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Review: Hall of Mirrors (Bryant & May #15) by Christopher Fowler
I happened to pick up the first book in the Bryant and May series a couple of years ago at my local used book shop. The first thing that caught my eye was the interesting and quirky cover. In a sea of mystery novels the early Bryant and May covers really caught my eye. I would probably have never picked up the books had I not seen these lovely covers. When I read the first book, the one thing that stood out head and shoulders above the rest was the dead pan banter between the two detectives—they had so much chemistry and it made the story fun to read and…
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Excerpt: THE PHANTOM TREE by Nicola Cornick
Attention all Tudor era historical fiction fans…..here is a new release that you might be interested in! See reading to see a sneak peak excerpt below! It sounds like such an exciting book, in fact it might make me come out of my self imposed Tudor era hiding, just to read it! Book: THE PANTOM TREE by Nicola Cornick Paperback: 384 pages Publisher: Graydon House; Original edition (September 1, 2018) Browsing an antiques shop in Wiltshire, Alison Bannister stumbles across a delicate old portrait—identified as the doomed Tudor queen, Anne Boleyn. Except Alison knows better. The subject is Mary Seymour, the daughter of Katherine Parr, who was taken to Wolf Hall in…
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Review: The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan
Like millions of people, I got royal wedding fever so bad about 3 days before Prince Harry and Megan Markel wed. Not personally I prefer Kate Middleton over Megan but who doesn’t love a royal wedding?! The glitz and glamour and all the pomp is just too much for me to resist. After the wedding was over I was desperate for something to read that would be similar to the real life fairy tale. I wasn’t entirely sure that I wanted to read a biography on Megan or Kate or Diana or the royal family, but I was sure that I wanted to read something in that vein. That’s when…