Review: Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe by Melissa de la Cruz

Let the Christmas reading commence! Some years I have a ton of holiday themed books (like this year) and other years I stretch my ‘scary reads’ from September to January.

But this year I have had a lot of Christmas reading come my way and I can’t tell you how excited I am about that!

While this book has a nod to the classic Jane Austen novel, Pride and Prejudice, it is a modern retelling rather than a Regency retelling.

Darcy Fitzwilliam is 29, beautiful, successful, and brilliant. She dates hedge funders and basketball stars and is never without her three cellphones—one for work, one for play, and one to throw at her assistant (just kidding).

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Review: The Passion of the Purple Plumeria (Pink Carnation #10) by Lauren Willig

I don’t know why but I always seem to go into the later Pink Carnation books with a preconceived notion of the romance.

With the last book, I was so not looking forward to it but found it was one of the more enjoyable ones! So one would think that I would keep an open mind. But I didn’t.

I was not really looking forward to an ‘old person romance’ in this book…not that I’m a spring chicken mind you but still…something about Miss Gwen and Colonel Reid just didn’t scream sexy to me.

In my mind, Miss Gwen is this old lady chaperone with pursed lips and grey hair while Colonel Reid seemed like this rough around the edges ladies man with grey hair….both charming in their own right but not anyone that I would fancy reading a romance about.

I am continually shocked with Willig’s ability to make me love her romances in spite of myself and my preconceived notions. Mind blown.

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Review: The Silent Fountain by Victoria Fox

There is nothing like fall to make you want to read a mystery or a Gothic novel…..well at least for me! Fall is the perfect time to curl up with a creep or suspenseful book and spend the day lost in the mystery. That’s exactly what I did with The Silent Fountain!

I read this book as part of Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon, it was hard to break with my Pink Carnation book but somehow I found the ability to read something else, and I was not sad in the least. This book was a great Gothic novel!

Hollywood, 1978:

Tragedy sends troubled film star Vivien Lockhart into the arms of Giovanni Moretti–and it seems her fortunes have finally changed. Until she meets his sister and learns that her new husband’s past holds dark secrets…

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Review: The Garden of Intrigue (Pink Carnation #9) by Lauren Willig

This year I decided to officially participate in Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon for the first time ever. I had some time on my hands and some good books to start reading so I was eager for an excuse to sit and read undisturbed while my husband watched out little one.

I started The Garden of Intrigue almost immediately after completing The Orchid Affair and I’ll be honest, I was supposed to read it for Readathon but I almost finished it before Readathon even started!

Again, I’ll be honest and say that I was not looking forward to reading this one. Augustus Whittlesby was the singularly most annoying character in The Orchid Affair. His poetry was so over the top and I just couldn’t stomach him for more than a page or two.

I had serious reservations about this book but it’s the next in the series so I didn’t feel like I could avoid it.

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Review: The Orchid Affair (Pink Carnation #8) by Lauren Willig

After diving back into the Pink Carnation series with the sixth book, The Betrayal of the Blood Lily, I was eagerly ready to continue reading.

I have already read the seventh book so I moved on to The Orchid Affair instead. As with the previous books we meet a likable heroine in a decidedly awkward situation and a headstrong bachelor with the last thing on his mind being love.

While many of Willig’s books have a decidedly obvious formula, that has never turned me off to the series. I think what I love most is her ability to make me buy into the romance no matter how odd or challenging it is.

Veteran governess Laura Grey joins the Selwick Spy School expecting to find elaborate disguises and thrilling adventures in service to the spy known as the Pink Carnation. She hardly expects her first assignment to be serving as governess for the children of AndrĂ© Jaouen, right-hand man to Bonaparte’s minister of police.

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