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Review: Sugar Pine Trail (Haven Point #7) by RaeAnne Thayne
Yes I know it’s a little early to be thinking about holiday reading. Every year, I swear that I will hold all holiday related reviews until at least November so I can reserve October exclusively for crime fiction, thrillers, and mystery reads. However, some how a book always manages to grab my eye and I end up sneaking at least one holiday book in well before my November holiday kick off. This book sounded like a charming holiday romance and sometimes you just need a little holiday cheer and romance. Librarian Julia Winston is ready to ditch the quiet existence she’s been living. She’s made a list of new things…
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Review: Ross Poldark (The Poldark Saga #1) by Winston Graham
Sometimes you just have years where the books that you read surprise you–in good ways and in bad. This has been the year that I decided to make a huge effort to read books on my TBR list that continue to haunt me and wreak havoc on my reading schedule. Meaning, I always get the urge to read one of these books when I have a billion other books to read on my review schedule. So I built in time to try and get to those reads. One such book was Ross Poldark. I’ve not watched the show but I hear such fantastic things about the show and the books that…
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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: 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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Cover Reveal: THE SECRET TO SOUTHERN CHARM (Peachtree Bluff #2) by Kristy Woodson Harvey
I have been a huge fan of Kristy Woodson Harvey for the last few years. I love her Southern charm and effortless ability to spin a tale. I love her novels and am anxiously awaiting the release of her next book, THE SECRET TO SOUTHERN CHARM. Today the cover for THE SECRET TO SOUTHERN CHARM is being revealed and nothing could make me more excited for this one! As in Woodson Harvey’s signature style, the cover says ‘beach’. I can’t wait to take this one with me on vacation in the spring! It makes me sad that it’s almost winter and I have to wait until April for this one!…
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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 One That Got Away by Melissa Pimentel
Unlike most Jane Austen fans, Pride and Prejudice is NOT my favorite by her Austen novel. Nor are the other more popular novels: Emma, or Sense and Sensibility. My favorite Jane Austen is the lesser known Persuasion. Of course all of her novels are fantastic and her heroines memorable, but none stood out to me more than Anne Elliot and her ever so charming, Captain Wentworth. So when I saw that the novel by Melissa Pimentel was a retelling of Persuasion, I was all eyeballs. Ruby and Ethan were perfect for each other. Until the day they suddenly weren’t. Now, ten years later, Ruby is single, having spent the last decade…
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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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Excerpt: THIEF’S MARK (Sharpe & Donovan #7) by Carla Neggers
With fall coming up, I am starting to move into mystery mode. There is something about the turning of the leave and the colder nights that just screams ‘read a mystery’. So as we go into fall, I thought it would share and except from the upcoming mystery, THIEF’S MARK by Carla Neggers. As a young boy, Oliver York witnessed the murder of his wealthy parents in their London apartment. The killers kidnapped him and held him in an isolated Scottish ruin, but he escaped, thwarting their plans for ransom. Now, after thirty years on the run, one of the two men Oliver identified as his tormentors may have surfaced.…