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Special Feature: THE BOY AT THE DOOR by Alex Dahl
This book came up for review this summer but I couldn’t fit it in with my summer review books. However, I will be reviewing it in September as part of my fall reading and mystery features. This book caught my eye for one reason alone—genre. This book is a Scandinavian thriller. Scandinavian thrillers are always a little different, edgy, and dark. I didn’t want to miss out on this one and wanted to get the word out about this book before I reviewed it. It sounds really interesting and different so if you are looking for a thriller, then this might be the one for you! Cecilia Wilborg is the…
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Review: Murder at the Mansion (Victorian Village Mysteries #1) by Sheila Connolly
This is a new series but definitely not a debut novel for Sheila Connolly (she is already a nest selling author). I personally haven’t read any of Connolly’s books but I was intrigued by the summary of this one and the fact that it was a brand new series. Not going to lie the fact that it said ‘Victorian’ in the series title also was a contributing factor. I love all things Victorian and when I saw it in the title I was immediately saying ‘sold’ loudly in my head. Katherine Hamilton’s goal in high school was to escape from her dead-end hometown of Asheford, Maryland. Fifteen years later she’s got…
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Review: Echo Moon (Ghost Gifts #3) by Laura Spinella
This book appealed to me for a couple of reasons, but one in particular stood out above all the other general ‘pick me’ signs that I saw in the pitch. The thing that caught my eye was the twist between historical fiction and magical realism/paranormal. This book is set during the Great War (hello my favorite era) but yet has paranormal characters and the combo between the two interested me. They sound like two very conflicting different genres and the first thing that I thought was ‘this could go one of two ways—really bad or really good’. So I agreed to review this one. Knowing that it was the third…
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Review: A Sin Such As This (Love Lies Beneath #2) by Ellen Hopkins
I’ve been curious about Ellen Hopkins for quite some time. Her books are always being checked out at my local high school library and I’ve seen a ton of students walking around with Crank in their backpack. Many of her books are YA novels so I was curious to see what it is that so many teens love about her work. From the sound of it, she writes really really edgy stuff so needless to say I was intrigued. Reading for high school students is like pulling teeth so when they are eagerly awaiting the next Ellen Hopkins book in droves, clearly there is something interesting happening there. When A…
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Review: Limelight (Penny Green #1) by Emily Organ
Like many other bibliophiles, I subscribe to BookBub. Basically every day I get an email telling me about all the great deals for ebooks in categories that I have selected. This service is free so if you like book and want to hear about good deals on ebooks, subscribe! So in one of my emails last week there was a special ad feature at the bottom of the email that said ‘have you discovered Penny Green yet?’ with this great foggy London photo in the background. And in my mind all I could hear was ‘no I have not discovered her yet!’. The first book in this series was on…
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Review: The Dante Chamber (The Dante Club #2) by Matthew Pearl
To say that Matthew Pearl likes literature is an understatement. Many of his books are literary related in some way or another, making them really intriguing to me. My first experience with Pearl was with the book THE LAST BOOKANEER which was a wonderful read, but more importantly it was different. I have also had THE DANTE CLUB on my radar for the better part of six years, so when this one came up for review I was stoked. So why haven’t I read THE DANTE CLUB you ask…..I have no idea. Maybe it’s because it’s been on my TBR list for so long that I’ve forgotten about it as…
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Review: Something In The Water by Catherine Steadman
When this book came across my desk for review, the first thing that caught my eye was that the author was also an actress, most notably an actress in Downton Abbey. I’m always intrigued by people with dual talents. Being an actress is difficult enough but then you add author in the mix and it seems almost impossible so when I see things like this that aren’t memoirs or autobiographies etc, I am always curious to see how the author’s talents translate from big screen to pages. SOMETHING IN THE WATER stood out besides the fact that Steadman is an actress though…..it’s set in Bora Bora. I was instantly intrigued.…
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Review: The Fleur de Sel Murders: A Brittany Mystery (Kommissar Dupin #3) by Jean-Luc Bannalec
I am always open to reading quirky books. Don’t get me wrong, I love traditional story telling with traditional themes and relatable stories but I also tend to gravitate toward strange or unusual books that are off the beaten path. Sometimes that works out and other times it doesn’t. It’s 50/50 for me….either weird works or it doesn’t. This mystery series sounded quirky. I debated about reviewing it but ultimately decided on picking it up. How does one make the ‘sea salt industry’ look glamorous and intriguing to the average reader? Even with a mystery? I was up for the challenge and dug right in. The old salt farmers have…
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Review: Black Amber by Phyllis A. Whitney
Phyllis Whitney is an author who has been on my radar since I was old enough to read and appreciate romantic suspense books…..so basically since like thirteen or fourteen. So for over 20 years I’ve been trying to motivate myself enough to read one of her books. I mean she’s written tons and tons and tons of books so she must be doing something right. So why haven’t I picked up her books? I honestly have worried that they would be ‘dated’. I mean, Victoria Holt (my all time favorite romantic suspense writer), wrote books that were very clearly meant to be historical fiction. They were always set in the…
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Review: The Girl I Used to Be by Mary Torjussen
I was introduced to Mary Torjussen last year when I read GONE WITHOUT A TRACE. While there were a few things that didn’t work for me in that book, I was impressed enough by her writing that when THE GIRL I USED TO BE came up, I was willing to review her latest thriller. She doesn’t write series books and for that I am thankful. Don’t get me wrong I love series however sometimes it’s nice to have a full story and resolution in just one book. As a reader it helps me get closure and I personally hate when authors or publishers milk a series just for the sake…