Review: The Winemakers by Jan Moran

Caterina Rosetta has got some big time choices to make in her life but her options are limited.

She’s had a daughter out of wedlock with a man who she thinks has abandoned her….and since it’s the 1950’s, having a child out of wedlock basically means social suicide.

She hasn’t told her mother about the baby because she knows her mother will basically disown her so she needs to give the baby up for adoption…..but she can’t bring herself to do that either.

Her mother basically raised her all on her own, so why can’t she raise her daughter by herself? Caterina is an accomplished sommelier who has grown up in a family of winemakers. She is sure she can support herself in some way.

On a fateful trip to visit her mother, she confesses that she has a child and after a row between the two, Caterina is not sure what to do about her situation. Then a man shows up at the vineyard looking for Caterina.

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Book Blast: The Dark Lady’s Mask by Mary Sharratt

02_The Dark Lady's Mask
The Dark Lady’s Mask by Mary Sharratt
Publication Date: April 19, 2016
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Hardcover, eBook, Audio Book
Genre: Historical Fiction
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Shakespeare in Love meets Shakespeare’s Sister in this novel of England’s first professional woman poet and her collaboration and love affair with William Shakespeare.

London, 1593. Aemilia Bassano Lanier is beautiful and accomplished, but her societal conformity ends there. She frequently cross-dresses to escape her loveless marriage and to gain freedoms only men enjoy, but a chance encounter with a ragged, little-known poet named Shakespeare changes everything.

Aemilia grabs at the chance to pursue her long-held dream of writing and the two outsiders strike up a literary bargain. They leave plague-ridden London for Italy, where they begin secretly writing comedies together and where Will falls in love with the beautiful country — and with Aemilia, his Dark Lady. Their Italian idyll, though, cannot last and their collaborative affair comes to a devastating end. Will gains fame and fortune for their plays back in London and years later publishes the sonnets mocking his former muse. Not one to stand by in humiliation, Aemilia takes up her own pen in her defense and in defense of all women.

The Dark Lady’s Mask gives voice to a real Renaissance woman in every sense of the word.

The Dark Lady’s Mask will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in April 2016 to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.

Amazon (Kindle) | Amazon (Hardcover) | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble

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Review: Waging War (The Immortal Descendants #4) by April White

For the last couple of years I’ve been a big fan of the Immortal Descendants series! It’s been really fun watching the series evolve and mature over the years!

I love the main characters and the premise for the story so when Waging War came out I naturally agreed to review it!

In the previous books, Clocker Saira Elian, time travels through multiple different periods to save friends, family, of course stop the Mongers from gaining power. This book is no different….this time we find Saira time traveling to WWII to try and stop a brutal massacre.

Saira and her friend Ringo, travel back to WWII Bletchley Park to team up with vampire (and Saira’s love interest) to try and stop said massacre. Together they work to crack the Nazi code and expose a Monger traitor intent on changing the course of history.

They also meet up with some new characters, one being a female commando from the French resistance, to hunt down an elite unit of Monger soldiers – Hitler’s Werewolves – before the terror squad can strike a fatal blow at the heart of the Allied war effort.

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Book Blast: Paperback Release of The Tapestry (Joanna Stafford #3) by Nancy Bilyeau

02_The TapestryThe Tapestry (Joanna Stafford #3)
by Nancy Bilyeau

Paperback Publication Date: March 22, 2016
Touchstone/Simon & Schuster
Paperback; 416 Pages

Series: Joanna Stafford
Genre: Historical Mystery

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Fans of the Tudor era, you’re in for a treat” –InStyle magazine

Henry VIII’s Palace of Whitehall is the last place on earth Joanna Stafford wants to be. But a summons from the king cannot be refused.

After her priory was destroyed, Joanna, a young Dominican novice, vowed to live a quiet life, weaving tapestries and shunning dangerous conspiracies. That all changes when the king takes an interest in her tapestry talent.

With a ruthless monarch tiring of his fourth wife and amoral noblemen driven by hidden agendas, Joanna becomes entangled in court politics. Her close friend, Catherine Howard, is rumored to be the king’s mistress, and Joanna is determined to protect her from becoming the king’s next wife–and victim. All the while, Joanna tries to understand her feelings for the two men in her life: the constable who tried to save her and the friar she can’t forget.

Ina world of royal banquets, jousts, sea voyages and Tower Hill executions, Joanna must finally choose her future: nun or wife, spy or subject, rebel or courtier.

The Tapestry is the final book in a trilogy that began in 2012 with The Crown, an Oprah magazine pick. Don’t miss the adventures of one of the most unforgettable heroines in historical fiction.

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Review: Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye

This has been the year of Jane Eyre inspired literature and this latest Jane Eyre revisitation was something quite unexpected.

Any book that has the passage ‘reader I murdered him’ so eloquently stated and matter-of-factly, instantly holds a special place in my heart!

When we first meet Jane Steele she is living with her mother in a small cottage on the grande estate of Highgate House. All her life Jane is told she is to inherit Highgate House but when her mother dies unexpectedly Jane’s evil aunt purposes to send her away to a school where she will learn to be a governess.

After first hearing this news, Jane runs onto the estate to weep and is accompanied by her cousin Edwin who proceeds to try and sexually assault her……but rather than let it happen Jane fights back and suddenly Edwin is dead by Jane’s hand.

Suddenly boarding school doesn’t sound so bad so off she goes. From there we follow Jane through not only a tedious childhood but often uncertain adulthood full of little lies and of course…..a few murders!

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