Review: The Garden of Intrigue (Pink Carnation #9) by Lauren Willig

This year I decided to officially participate in Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon for the first time ever. I had some time on my hands and some good books to start reading so I was eager for an excuse to sit and read undisturbed while my husband watched out little one.

I started The Garden of Intrigue almost immediately after completing The Orchid Affair and I’ll be honest, I was supposed to read it for Readathon but I almost finished it before Readathon even started!

Again, I’ll be honest and say that I was not looking forward to reading this one. Augustus Whittlesby was the singularly most annoying character in The Orchid Affair. His poetry was so over the top and I just couldn’t stomach him for more than a page or two.

I had serious reservations about this book but it’s the next in the series so I didn’t feel like I could avoid it.

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Review: The Orchid Affair (Pink Carnation #8) by Lauren Willig

After diving back into the Pink Carnation series with the sixth book, The Betrayal of the Blood Lily, I was eagerly ready to continue reading.

I have already read the seventh book so I moved on to The Orchid Affair instead. As with the previous books we meet a likable heroine in a decidedly awkward situation and a headstrong bachelor with the last thing on his mind being love.

While many of Willig’s books have a decidedly obvious formula, that has never turned me off to the series. I think what I love most is her ability to make me buy into the romance no matter how odd or challenging it is.

Veteran governess Laura Grey joins the Selwick Spy School expecting to find elaborate disguises and thrilling adventures in service to the spy known as the Pink Carnation. She hardly expects her first assignment to be serving as governess for the children of André Jaouen, right-hand man to Bonaparte’s minister of police.

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Special Feature: LOVE UNCOVERED (Babes of Brighton #2) by Laura Barnard

BOOK BLITZ & GIVEAWAY – LOVE UNCOVERED

This week’s special feature is for a charming and romantic novel by Laura Barnard!

Have you read Love Uncovered by Laura Barnard yet?  This sweet and sexy romantic comedy is the second standalone in the Babes of Brighton series.  It follows Brooke and Nicholas and their whirlwind of a romance.  myBook.to/LoveUncovered

Synopsis:

Independent woman to her core, Brooke Archer has always been happy to hit it and quit it with the men in her life. But when her beloved Nan suffers from poor health, Brooke realises just how precious life is and decides it’s time to face her daddy issues and seek out her estranged father. Without so much as a name or photo, and a cagey Mum withholding vital information, it’s going to be no easy task. 

Nicholas Parker is a relationship guy and always has been. Abandoned by his mum when he was seven he craves love and security. But finding a woman who can conquer his trust issues is no easy feat. Brooke is exactly the kind of woman he doesn’t need.

Pulled together by some invisible force, can Brooke and Nicholas overcome their differences to uncover true love?
 

With reviews like this what are you waiting for?

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Special Feature and Giveaway: HIMSELF by Jess Kidd

The latest novel by best selling author, Jess Kidd is now available in paperback as of 10/10! Do not miss out on this exciting opportunity to read an outstanding and riveting book this fall! There is also a giveaway being hosted here: a Rafflecopter giveaway

HIMSELF is the spellbinding tale of a young man who returns to the provincial Irish village where he was born in search of the truth about his long-lost mother.

When Mahony returns to Mulderrig, a speck of a place on Ireland’s west coast, he brings only a photograph of his long-lost mother and a determination to do battle with the village’s lies.

His arrival causes cheeks to flush and arms to fold in disapproval. No one in the village – living or dead – will tell what happened to the teenage mother who abandoned him as a baby, despite Mahony’s certainty that more than one of them has answers.

Between Mulderrig’s sly priest, its pitiless nurse and the caustic elderly actress throwing herself into her final village play, this beautiful and darkly comic debut novel creates an unforgettable world of mystery, bloody violence and buried secrets.

‘An intriguing story of family secrets and haunting.’ Andrew Michael Hurley, author of The Loney

‘I love this book. It’s a magic realist murder mystery set in rural Ireland, in which the dead play as important a part as the living. It’s one of those books that has you smiling as you read, and that you plan to read again very soon.’ Louis De Bernieres, author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

‘Himself is a sort of Under Milk Wood meets The Third Policeman meets Agatha Christie. It’s a highly unusual tale set in a highly unusual Irish village full of dark secrets and engaging characters (not all of them still alive). Lushly imagined, delightfully original and very, very funny, it hurtles along from the very first page. A hugely enjoyable read.’ ML Steadman, author of The Light Between Oceans

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Review: Ross Poldark (The Poldark Saga #1) by Winston Graham

Sometimes you just have years where the books that you read surprise you–in good ways and in bad. This has been the year that I decided to make a huge effort to read books on my TBR list that continue to haunt me and wreak havoc on my reading schedule.

Meaning, I always get the urge to read one of these books when I have a billion other books to read on my review schedule. So I built in time to try and get to those reads. One such book was Ross Poldark. I’ve not watched the show but I hear such fantastic things about the show and the books that I had to pick up a copy of this book to read.

It was one of those that had been on my radar forever and suddenly the mood struck and I knew I simply had to read it.

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