I am glad I read this book a year after it released. I originally wanted to read it upon release day because there was so much hype about it in the blogger world/twitterverse. But again, so glad I did not. I think I would have been monumentally disappointed if I had. Instead, I was just a little disappointed after reading it last week. The poetic name and aesthetic appeal of the novel set the bar […]
Check out my review of Jennifer Laam’s The Secret Daughter of the Tsar HERE. Catherine Zeta-Jones as Catherine the Great 1995 I enjoyed Laam’s debut, The Secret Daughter of the Tsar, and this follow up did not disappoint. Straddling the worlds of 18th century and 21st century Russia, the author bravely tackles some complex political and cultural issues that very much resonate with topics that are flooding American headlines today. It was absolutely genius how […]
As one customer aptly put it in her review on Amazon, “Reading this book is a GREAT idea.” I concur. If you are like me and have never had the pleasure of visiting Paris, then you probably have a stack of travel books and travel fiction as tall as the Eiffel Tower. Not to mention ones with the word “Paris” in the title. Queue my NON-reluctance to read JUST ONE MORE book set among the […]
Yeaaaaah, I was supposed to post a review about this AMAZING book (more than) a few months ago but lets move on, shall we? *clears throat* The thing is, I enjoyed this re-telling of Jane Eyre so much that I was waiting for my intellect to catch up. RE JANE was incredibly clever, insightful, poignant, and funny. Sometimes it’s hard to come up with the words to review such a smart book. I bow down […]
Disclaimer: I read Illuminae in ARC format over the summer but won the hardcover version on a blog. I am reviewing the ARC version in this post but any quotes/excerpts used were checked against the published version. It seems pointless to do a review of ILLUMINAE this long since its release date. I’m sure there are already a billion and one blog reviews of the book out there and it’s unlikely that I will have […]
” What if British Magic kept the American Revolution from ever occurring?” The premise of this book is pretty amazing. My synapses salivate at the thought of how Shanna Swendson conjured this story question. There are two story worlds in this novel. One is out in the open, filled with proper aristocrats and those who wish they were. The other is clandestine, filled with working-class folk who walk on the radical side. I loved how […]
You can find my reviews of C.J. Archer’s Freak House series HERE and her stand alone novel, Surrender, HERE. Don’t forget to ENTER to WIN at the bottom! Victorian Era London, England ATTENTION POLDARK FANS: You will LOVE the dynamic between the Female and Male protagonists in this novel. I wish I could buy stock in C.J. Archer. Once again, she’s blown me away with the start of another great series, The Ministry of Curiosities. […]
You can check out my review of the first book in this series, Flappers, Flasks and Foul Play HERE. “”Boardwalk Empire” meets “Miss Universe” in 1927 Galveston, Texas-the “Sin City of the Southwest.” Jasmine (“Jazz”) Cross is an ambitious 21-year-old society reporter for the Galveston Gazette who wants to be taken seriously by the good-old-boy staff, but the editors only assign her fluffy puff pieces, like writing profiles of bathing beauties.” Here’s a fun alternate […]
I didn’t realize this was the second book in a series when I got it for review. Otherwise, I would have read Skovron’s Man Made Boy before diving into TBWW. This book was like reading a graphic novel for me- something completely out of my comfort zone and my predictable preferences. The fact that I ended up enjoying this book (a lot, actually), makes me question how well I know myself. TBWW is rife […]
You can find my other reviews of Paula Brackston’s novels HERE. I was sent a copy of Once Upon A Crime from the publisher in exchange for an honest review, so I have not had the pleasure of reading the first book in this series. In fact, I didn’t even know this series existed until the publisher emailed me. I’m going to have to start stalking Paula Brackston so I can stay in the loop […]
You can check out my review of the first book in this series, Palace of Spies #1 HERE. (I love this series. HARD.) I love Historical Fiction and Non-Fiction and read quite a bit of both, so I wouldn’t say I’m easily impressed. There’s just something so clever about Sarah Zettel’s characters/dialogue, and something so sneaky-educational about her writing. I’ve never learned so much about the time period and customs of King George I’s […]
You can check out my reviews for the first Freak House Series HERE: and for C.J. Archer’s The Medium trilogy HERE: My review of The Memory Keeper, The 1st book in the 2nd Freak House series can be found HERE. C.J. Archer is my go-to-author for Historical Romance and luckily for me, she puts out books faster than I can keep up with. Especially concerning the Freak House series. The second book revolving around Charity […]
It’s Summer time and when I’m sitting at my desk in the most air-conditioned city in the country, I close my eyes and imagine that I’m lounging on the Spanish steps, my face raised towards the Sun, my skin turning as golden as freshly pressed olive oil while pistachio gelato drips off the waffle cone in my hand and down my toasty decolletage… *Snaps out of it* Okay. I’ll continue to my book review before […]
A fresh and funny take on the classic possessed-doll-poltergeist story. I love Katie Alender. Her writing is clever and carries that kind of quick-wit charm you see on the big screen or current television shows aimed at teens. I really enjoy Katie’s writing and her simple yet effective characterization. I first fell in love with Katie’s writing in her book, Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer. You can check out my review of that one, here. Alexis […]
Check out my reviews of Gravity (The Taking #1) and Hover (The Taking #2). Collide is a show-stopping, blood-pumping, heart-pounding finish to The Taking series, and hard-core Sci-Fi fans will be just as blown away by this finale as romance fans will be. Ari is a bad-ass of EPIC PROPORTIONS in Collide and Melissa West didn’t hold back with Ari’s character. Ari fully transforms into a fearless leader in this last book of the […]
This book was gifted to me from my lovely friend, Kristen over at My Friends Are Fiction. I probably wouldn’t have picked up this book on my own or even heard about it if it weren’t for her. That being said, the experience of reading this book was like a mental tug of war. There were parts of it that I was in love with, and then aspects of the story that left me a […]
Let’s start with the AWESOME book trailer, shall we? Fans of Etiquette and Espionage will (should) love Palace of Spies. I try to refrain from doing this- but after reading the book and giving it five stars on Goodreads, I scanned some of the less than stellar reviews of the novel. One reviewer commented that the book had ”casual racism” in it and I was a little perplexed by this. There were no instances […]
It’s almost been a year since I read this book, but I can’t let the New Year ring in without reviewing it because A Mad, Wicked Folly was one of my FAVE books of 2014. Imagine the lush world created in 1998’s Titanic film or the luxurious settings of PBS’s Downton Abbey, and you have the story world of A Mad, Wicked Folly. As if that isn’t enough to make someone run to their nearest […]
Magical Realism in a historical setting makes me HAPPY. Think “The Young and The Restless” meets ” Camelot” on steroids. TR & TC unfolds against the unstable historical setting of London during the Franco-British empire and Melissa De La Cruz immediately dazzled me with the sensibilities of her characters just as much as she did with the story setting. There are several key players in this book that move around like pieces on […]
You can find my previous Academy posts and reviews here. Sometimes you’re hot because you’ve been playing futbol in Brazil in tropical temperatures. And sometimes you’re hot because you’ve been reading a C.L. Stone book. C.L. Stone is a dominatrix with her pen in Push and Shove, whipping out the hot and heavy in full force. You can’t blame a girl for playing the field and that’s exactly what Sang does in this latest installment […]
If words be the medium of Georgina Guthrie, write on Georgina. Write on! I feel like I should pay Georgina Guthrie tuition or something. I definitely feel smarter in a literary sense after reading her work. Better Deeds Than Words is a sophisticated romance junkie’s dream come true. I’m sure I stated this in my review of the first amazing book in this trilogy, The Weight of Words, but I love how Georgina works […]