BOHEMIAN GOSPEL WAS ONE OF MY FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2015. “A fast-moving, seductive read. A fascinating mix of dark fantasy and rich historical detail.” Author of The Bloodletter’s Daughter Like any good book, Bohemian Gospel is a book for all seasons. However, I suggest you hurry and go buy a copy to read now, during the Winter months, so you can cuddle up under a fuzzy blanket by a toasty fire. This book will make […]
The Last Midwife was the most scandalous Western Mystery I have ever read. I LOVED it. By the late 19th century, women like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were making a name for themselves in the first Women’s Suffrage movement and Gynecology had just been professionalized. Where women’s care and the delivery of their babies had previously been left up to midwives, the culture was changing as men crowned themselves Gynecologists and cursed […]
(WARNING: To my Southern friends- I may use a couple of Northern slang words in place of ”awesome” or ”super cool”. I don’t know why. Can you spot them?) I’m not really a Fantasy fan but damn, this book was wicked good. An Inheritance of Ashes is one of the BEST BOOKS I’ve read so far this year. I was completely taken by the atmospheric story world and the haunting characters. Hallie, the female […]
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 discovered Ellen Mansoor Collier’s Jazz Age Mystery series while doing some Historical research of my own, and by God, I feel like I struck gold, babies! GOLD! We’ve all read the 1920s Historical Fiction set in New York, Chicago, Paris, New Orléans, but I never would have thought about experiencing the Jazz Age via Galveston, Texas until I read Flappers Flasks, and Foul Play. To be honest (I admit with my head hung […]
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 […]
ILLUMINAE by Amie Kaufman, Jay Kristoff Series: The Illuminae Files #1 on October 20, 2015 Pages: 608 Add to your Goodreads shelf. Pre-Order: Amazon • B&N • iTunes • Kobo This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’ d have to do. This afternoon, her planet was invaded. The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’ s little more than an ice-covered speck […]
All the Rage is written by a new to me author. The synopsis sounded really interesting so I thought I’d give it a try. For the most part I think the book was okay. It didn’t really blow me away. At times it was slow going. The suspense aspect was good, but I was easily able to figure that it out pretty easily. I found Romy to be quite a strange girl. I can’t really […]
The Queen’s Dwarf was a completely engrossing historical tale of turmoil and intrigue from the perspective of the cherubic, 18 inch tall Jeffrey Hudson- a spy planted in the Queen’s Menagerie of freaks. Jeffrey Hudson, The Queen’s Dwarf, and Queen Henrietta Maria I have not read much historical biography or fiction from the reign of King Charles I, and this book was such a great introduction to the time period. The Stuart era […]
This book is a little different then any I’ve read. The synopsis caught my attention and I thought I’d give it a shot. It’s definitely different. I do believe it was self published first and then picked up by a publisher after the author rewrote some of it. I really liked it for the most part. There were a few things I found to be a little bit unrealistic, but not so much that I […]
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 […]
(Skip to the end of the post for the SHORT VERSION of my review) August, 2014. I walk into my local Barnes and Nobel and am stopped in my tracks by a “New Releases” display table. There is one obvious ”winner” to this display: The Miniaturist. Shiny hardcovers of it are stacked left and right, on top, below, and facing me on one of those nifty display stands. It feels like Christmas in July. The […]
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 […]
When I was a kid I had a favorite sugar cereal called Count Chocola. Now, as an adult, I have a favorite steamy serial and it’s called Mister Black. Appearances can be deceiving but the eyes never lie. When 19 year-old Talia attends a masquerade party in the Hamptons intent on getting the scoop on a big story for her school newspaper, she never imagined she would run into someone from […]
WARNING: Do not attempt to start this book at night before you go to bed. If you do, YOU WILL BE UP ALL NIGHT LONG. This book will not allow you to put it down once you start reading. This book is about a girl who finds herself wandering down a road covered in blood. She doesn’t have any clue as to where she’s at, why she’s there and who she even is. She finds […]
You can find my review of Destiny (BKoD #3) here and a short interview I did with P.T. Michelle featured on Scriptland about self-publishing here. P.T. Michelle knows how to write romance. I have a problem with guys sprouting wings in books. It’s one of the main reasons why I didn’t get into the Fallen series by Lauren Kate. But P.T. Michelle does wings right! I LOVE the male MC, Ethan, in this series, wings and […]
So I was at Barnes & Noble trying to decide if I wanted to splurge on Tasarina or The Winner’s Curse and I couldn’t make up my mind because I had heard such great things about the latter. I decided to read the first few pages of both books to help me decide and ended up going with Tsarina. I can’t remember the first time I ever learned about the Romanov’s but I do remember […]