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Review: Pleasing Mr Pepys by Deborah Swift
I’ve been fortunate enough to read a few of Deborah Swift’s books, though not as often as I would like because when they are released I am almost always in the middle of another book and then by the time I am done I’ve forgotten about her latest release. Luckily, I had some time for reviews in early Oct which coordinated with the book tour for Pleasing Mr Pepys hosted by Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours. So naturally I had to hop on this one! From acclaimed historical novelist Deborah Swift, Pleasing Mr Pepys is the story of Deb Willet, Samuel Pepys’s servant, told from a fresh perspective. Well-educated but,…
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Review: Woman Enters Left by Jessica Brockmole
Letters From Skye by Jessica Brockmole is one of my favorite reads in recent years and of course At The Edge of Summer was also a stunning read, so I was exceptionally eager to read her latest book Woman Enters Left. Needless to say I had high expectations. I personally think that Brockmole is at her best when she is writing a romance, but this book sounded intriguing and was told in journal form (which I love) so I was eager to see how it unfolded. In the 1950s, movie star Louise Wilde is caught between an unfulfilling acting career and a shaky marriage when she receives an out-of-the-blue phone…
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Review: Last Christmas in Paris by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb
When this one came up for review, I almost passed on it. I am not entirely sure why…..maybe because it was up for review in September and I wasn’t ready to start thinking about anything Christmas related until at least November. Or maybe it was because it was a collaboratively written novel, or that the title wasn’t grabbing me. I don’t know, for some reason I almost passed but I am terribly glad that I didn’t pass on this one! August 1914. England is at war. As Evie Elliott watches her brother, Will, and his best friend, Thomas Harding, depart for the front, she believes—as everyone does—that it will be…
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Review: A Most Extraordinary Pursuit (Emmeline Truelove #1) by Juliana Gray
About three chapters into A STRANGE SCOTTISH SHORE, I knew that I needed to read the first book in this series. For one, I thought it would help me figure out some of the little nuances in the book that I was missing, as well as the backstory for many of the characters and their relationships. So confession….I put down A STRANGE SCOTTISH SHORE about five chapters in and started reading this one instead. I just felt like there were so many little things that I was missing and I felt like I was cheating myself by skipping the first book. As the personal secretary of the recently departed Duke…
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Review: The Essence of Malice (Amory Ames #4) by Ashley Weaver
Here I am, yet another late comer to a new mystery series and I find myself wondering how in fact I missed this series in the first place! Picking up a book mid series is always a risk, but I have found that more often than not, the author tries to fill in the missing links for new readers so they don’t feel like they need to start at the beginning. However sometimes it’s just not possible to go back and try to recap everything that a new reader might have missed. While this book was well written and fun to read, I did feel like I needed the other…
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Special Feature: A COLUMN OF FIRE (Kingsbridge #3) by Ken Follett
There is a reason that Ken Follett is a #1 best selling author–his novels are fantastic. I read his book THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH while I was visiting London in 2009 and never looked back. His writing was unparalleled and I loved that book with all my heart. I couldn’t put it down the entire vacation and I happened to be cathedral hopping in England so it was a fitting read to be sure. I didn’t continue on with the Kingsbridge series though, only because I felt like the way Pillars ended, it was enough. I was happy with where it ended and where all the characters were in…
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Review: A Strange Scottish Shore (Emmeline Truelove #2) by Juliana Gray
Sometimes you pick up a book in a series and immediately know you are going to love it. That’s what happened with this one. Just the cover and title alone was enough to entice me to read this one and next thing I know, within a couple of pages, I already know I desperately need the first book in the series. For a number of reasons though, not just because I liked Emmeline Truelove and wanted more, but mostly because I felt like I needed to know more about what was going on with the characters and the over all story. Scotland, 1906. A mysterious object discovered inside an ancient…
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Review: The Cottingley Secret by Hazel Gaynor
When you first glimpse the cover of this book, it doesn’t shout ‘magical realism’. It shouts ‘family saga’. At least to me it does. Admittedly, I skimmed the review pitch very lightly and didn’t really pay close attention to it because like it or not, I knew I would review this one based on the cover and title. It just sounded like a title that said ‘family saga’ in the vein of Kate Morton for some reason. Then you add in that cover and there you have it, I was convinced at face value that this was a family saga (something that I love). So imagine my surprise when there…
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Review: The Library of Light and Shadow (Daughters of La Lune #3) by M.J. Rose
MJ Rose has a talent for writing romantic, magical, and passionate historical fiction novels. I love her Daughters of La Lune series even if at times, the books didn’t end on a high note, overall they are really fun to read and have progressively improved between book I and book II. I was super excited to see this one come up for review, ironically I had just been wondering when the next Rose book was due out and I was thrilled to see that it was this one! Her writing style is sensual and lyrical and the story is almost always a promising romance, so you can’t go wrong with…
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Review: Cocoa Beach by Beatriz Williams
I am a total fan girl of Beatriz Williams, let’s just get that out of the way right off the bat. I love her books. She has a beautiful, lyrical story telling style and I am almost always completely engrossed in her novels! This novel was all over my Twitter feed for weeks and I broke down and bought it because I couldn’t pass up such an interesting sounding novel plus it’s set in WWI so you know I was all over that! Burdened by a dark family secret, Virginia Fortescue flees her oppressive home in New York City for the battlefields of World War I France. While an ambulance…