Review: The Sharp Hook of Love by Sherry Jones

For her entire life, Heloise has known what her future would hold. She has been preparing to become an abbess.

All her education, grooming, and introductions have been carefully planned for her to ascend to that position.

She has long accepted that she will likely never know love or a life outside the service of God and she is ok with that, until she meets Pierre Abelard.

Pierre is the headmaster at the Notre Dame Cloister School. He has had many intelligent pupils and is well known in many academic circles as simply ‘the best’ and he is equally as notorious in those circles when it comes to women.

Heloise’s uncle manages to convince Pierre to tutor his niece as part of her final preparation into her future career. Pierre is immediately captivated by Heloise.

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Pink For All Seasons: Flower Symbolism in The Seduction of the Crimson Rose by Lauren Willig

Many of you die hard ‘Pink Carnation‘ fans will undoubtedly notice that flowers play a huge role in the books and are meant to convey some symbolism and foreshadowing in the series and books.

Each character embodies the title flower in some way or another. For me, one of my favorite Pink heroines was Mary Alsworthy from The Seduction of the Crimson Rose.

The rose is not only beautiful and alluring but thorny and at times dangerous to an inexperienced handler. It’s a classic flower long associated with beauty and love. It’s chic, regal, and alluring, while at the same time the thorns remind us of suffering and sacrifice.

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Review: The Bronze Horseman (The Bronze Horseman #1) by Paullina Simons

In Leningrad, life is about to change in a big way. Seventeen year old Tatiana, has known nothing but long summers full of ice cream and day dreams.

But all that changes when the declaration of war is announced. Germany has invaded Russian and they march toward Leningrad. Tatiana’s parents send her to the store to buy all the food she can.

On her way to the store, Tatiana stops for an ice cream when she spots a soldier staring at her from across the street. The soldier, Alexander, gets on the same bus as Tatiana and rides with her all over the city, and then eventually back home.

When she returns home, she is eager to introduce her new friend to her family, but Alexander and her older sister, Dasha, already know each other…..quite well in fact. Dasha has been sneaking off each night to meet Alexander and claims she is in love with him.

Tatiana is crushed because she felt sure that her and Alexander had a connection….Alexander felt it too.

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Review: The Night Garden by Lisa Van Allen

In upstate New York there is a small farm that appears to be just another farm in the country. Normal. Ordinary.

However the Pennywort farm is anything but ordinary and normal….it’s magical. At the heart of the farm there is a magical garden full of imagination and color.

The locals have long said that entering the garden can gain insight to life’s most difficult issues by just walking through the gates, ironically the garden’s caretaker has never experienced any kind of revelation by entering the garden.

Olivia Pennyworth has been caring for the garden and has spent her entire life on the farm while harboring a dark secret which forces her to keep everyone at arms length…..until her childhood friend, Sam, shows up.

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Review: The Firebird (Slains #2) by Susanna Kearsley

Nicola Marter is a seemingly normal women, with an extraordinary gift. She can touch an object and see it’s past history.

But she doesn’t like using her gift. She is afraid of being called a ‘freak’ and that people won’t accept her.

So she hides her gift. While working in an art gallery specializing in Russian art, an old woman arrives with a wood carving of a firebird, claiming it belonged to Catherine the Great.

Nicola’s boss doesn’t have any way of authenticating it and thus, it has no value to an art dealer. But when she touches it she sees that it was in fact given to a girl named Anna by Catherine the Great…..but how can she prove it?

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