Tag: Romance

Book Critic, Book Review, Books, Literary Criticism, Reading

Review: How to Find Love in a Book Shop by Veronica Henry

by The Lit Bitch2 Comments on Review: How to Find Love in a Book Shop by Veronica Henry

Full disclosure…..the title of this book alone would make me want to read it and don’t even get me started on the charming cover. If you are a book lover and always dreamed of finding love in a bookshop then this is the book for you based on the title alone!

A quaint bookshop in the Cotswolds and a town full of people all of whom have found love (in one way or another) all thanks to the town bookshop, Nightingale Books. As cheesy as it sounds I feel like every single person should have a HEA in this story.

Everyone has a story . . . but will they get the happy ending they deserve?

Emilia has just returned to her idyllic Cotswold hometown to rescue the family business. Nightingale Books is a dream come true for book-lovers, but the best stories aren’t just within the pages of the books she sells – Emilia’s customers have their own tales to tell.

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Book Critic, Book Review, Books, Literary Criticism, Reading

Review: Cocoa Beach by Beatriz Williams

by The Lit Bitch1 Comment on 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 driver for the Red Cross, she meets a charismatic British army surgeon whose persistent charm opens her heart to the possibility of love. As the war rages, Virginia falls into a passionate affair with the dashing Captain Simon Fitzwilliam, only to discover that his past has its own dark secrets—secrets that will damage their eventual marriage and propel her back across the Atlantic to the sister and father she left behind.

Five years later, in the early days of Prohibition, the newly widowed Virginia Fitzwilliam arrives in the tropical boomtown of Cocoa Beach, Florida, to settle her husband’s estate. Despite the evidence, Virginia does not believe Simon perished in the fire that destroyed the seaside home he built for her and their young daughter. Separated from her husband since the early days of their marriage, the headstrong Virginia plans to uncover the truth, for the sake of the daughter Simon never met.

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Book Critic, Book Review, Books, Literary Criticism, Reading

Review: The Dream Keeper’s Daughter by Emily Colin

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This book has a lovely cover which is what caught my eye enough to read the description as well.

I am a huge fan of authors like Menna van Praag and this one is marketed to fans of her work so I instantly felt like this one was worth a read…….eye catching cover and the promise of a time slip romance, easy yes for me.

Eight years after the unsolved disappearance of her boyfriend Max Adair, archaeologist Isabel Griffin has managed to move on and rebuild her life with her young daughter, Finn, her last tie to Max. But after a series of strange incidents, Isabel begins to wonder if Max might still be alive somewhere, trying to communicate with her.

She has no idea that the where isn’t the problem—it’s the when. Max has slipped through time and place, landing on his ancestral family plantation in 1816 Barbados, on the eve of a historic slave uprising.

As Isabel searches for answers, Max must figure out not only how to survive the violence to come, but how to get back to his own century, the woman he loves, and the daughter he has only ever met in his dreams (summary from Goodreads).

There were things that I really liked about this one, but there were things that were problematic for me as well.

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Review: The Sumage Solution (San Andreas Shifters #1) by G.L. Carriger

by The Lit Bitch4 Comments on Review: The Sumage Solution (San Andreas Shifters #1) by G.L. Carriger

I have been a fan of Gail Carriger for YEARS. Her series The Parasol Protectorate has been one of my favorites since reading it for the first time like six years ago. I’ve read some of her short stories as well which have a distinguishable cheek. I love just about everything she puts out.

I haven’t read a lot of LGBTQ books, in fact I think the only one I have read was also by Carriger. It’s not really a genre that I readily pick up to read, but Carriger has such fantastic writing skills that I am always eager to read her latest book or story! Not to mention her mainstream novels like The Parasol Protectorate series, feature many LGBTQ characters so it’s a theme that I have come to anticipate in her writing.

When this one came up for review, I was eager to read it because it’s set in the same world as her other books so much of the world is familiar so it sounded like a good read even if I am not into M/M romance novels (or werewolves for that matter).

Max fails everything – magic, relationships, life. So he works for DURPS (the DMV for supernatural creatures) as a sumage, cleaning up other mages’ messes. The job sucks and he’s in no mood to cope with redneck biker werewolves. Unfortunately, there’s something oddly appealing about the huge, muscled Beta visiting his office for processing.

Bryan AKA Biff (yeah, he knows) is gay but he’s not out. There’s a good chance Max might be reason enough to leave the closet, if he can only get the man to go on a date. Everyone knows werewolves hate mages, but Bryan is determined to prove everyone wrong, even the mage in question.

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Review: The Scribe of Siena by Melodie Winawer

by The Lit Bitch3 Comments on Review: The Scribe of Siena by Melodie Winawer

This book was marketed to fans of Outlander and I can totally see why. Lady doctor some how time travels back hundreds of years and falls in love.

Sounds a lot like Outlander right? If you want to get that basic, then yes it is similar to Outlander, however this book is not Outlander so if you are looking for another book series that’s basically like Outlander, then I suggest looking elsewhere. Now that said, if you liked Outlander this book has similarities that you might find intriguing and interesting so if you like time slip novels then keep reading this review.

Accomplished neurosurgeon Beatrice Trovato knows that her deep empathy for her patients is starting to impede her work. So when her beloved brother passes away, she welcomes the unexpected trip to the Tuscan city of Siena to resolve his estate, even as she wrestles with grief. But as she delves deeper into her brother’s affairs, she discovers intrigue she never imagined—a 700-year-old conspiracy to decimate the city.

After uncovering the journal and paintings of Gabriele Accorsi, the fourteenth-century artist at the heart of the plot, Beatrice finds a startling image of her own face and is suddenly transported to the year 1347. She awakens in a Siena unfamiliar to her, one that will soon be hit by the Plague.

Yet when Beatrice meets Accorsi, something unexpected happens: she falls in love—not only with Gabriele, but also with the beauty and cadence of medieval life. As the Plague and the ruthless hands behind its trajectory threaten not only her survival but also Siena’s very existence, Beatrice must decide in which century she belongs.

The Scribe of Siena is the captivating story of a brilliant woman’s passionate affair with a time and a place that captures her in an impossibly romantic and dangerous trap—testing the strength of fate and the bonds of love (summary from Goodreads) Continue reading “Review: The Scribe of Siena by Melodie Winawer” →