This is a weekly meme hosted by Wandering Words, where you give the first few lines of a book to hook your readers before introducing the book.
Here are my first lines:
“‘James, darling, what are you doing?’ He looked around him, disoriented, then staggered forward. She caught him just before he fell. ‘You’ve been sleepwalking, haven’t you? Come on, let’s take you back to bed.'”
Do you recognize these first lines?
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And the book is… The Royal Secret by Lucinda Riley.
Goodreads synopsis:
Keeping secrets is a dangerous game.
When Sir James Harrison, one the greatest actors of his generation, passes away at the age of ninety-five, he leaves behind not just a heartbroken family but also a secret so shocking, it could rock the English establishment to its core.
Joanna Haslam, an up-and-coming reporter, is assigned to cover the legendary actor’s funeral, attended by glitzy celebrities of every background. But Joanna stumbles on something dark beneath the glamour: the mention of a letter James Harrison has left behind—the contents of which many have been desperate to keep concealed for over seventy years. As she peels back the veil of lies that has shrouded the secret, she realizes that she’s close to uncovering something deadly serious—and the royal family may be implicated. Before long, someone is on her tracks, attempting to prevent her from discovering the truth. And they’ll stop at nothing to reach the letter before she does.
Full of salacious scandal, shocking twists, and captivating romance, and written in Lucinda Riley’s signature “vividly drawn and lushly atmospheric” (RT Book Reviews) prose, The Royal Secret is “a full-throttle escapist adventure” (Lancashire Evening Post).
Have you read The Royal Secret? What did you think of it?
Title: Local Woman Missing Author: Mary Kubica Genre: Thriller Publisher: Park Row Source: Publisher via NetGalley Format: Ebook Release Date: May 18, 2021 Rating: ★★★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
People don’t just disappear without a trace…
Shelby Tebow is the first to go missing. Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, vanish just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen, striking fear into their once-peaceful community. Are these incidents connected? After an elusive search that yields more questions than answers, the case eventually goes cold.
Now, eleven years later, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone wants to know what happened to her, but no one is prepared for what they’ll find…
In this smart and chilling thriller, master of suspense and New York Times bestselling author Mary Kubica takes domestic secrets to a whole new level, showing that some people will stop at nothing to keep the truth buried.
Review:
New mom Shelby Tebow went missing. Then a few days later Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter Delilah disappear without a trace. Now, eleven years later, Delilah has emerged. Told between alternating perspectives and time periods, this story uncovers what really happened to these missing women.
This story started out a little confusing. Each of the chapters jump between different perspectives and time periods. When I didn’t know the characters, it was difficult to keep track of everyone. After reading a couple of chapters, I figured out who everyone was and it was easier to follow.
This story kept me guessing until the end. Once I figured out what was happening in the story, I was glued to the book because I had to know what happened. I had a couple of guesses as to what happened, but I was wrong. It was actually quite chilling at a few parts. There were a couple of graphic scenes, involving a traumatic childbirth, child captivity, and murders. This story was quite intense but really hard to put down.
I really enjoyed this thriller! I highly recommend it for an addicting read.
Thank you HarperCollins for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
What to read next:
The Girl from Widow Hills by Megan Miranda
Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell
About the author:
Mary Kubica is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of six novels, including THE GOOD GIRL, PRETTY BABY, DON’T YOU CRY, EVERY LAST LIE, WHEN THE LIGHTS GO OUT, and THE OTHER MRS. A former high school history teacher, Mary holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in History and American Literature. She lives outside of Chicago with her husband and two children. Her last novel THE OTHER MRS. was an instant New York Times bestseller; is coming soon to Netflix; was a LibraryReads pick for February 2020; praised by the New York Times; and highly recommended by Entertainment Weekly, People, The Week,Marie Claire, Bustle, HelloGiggles,Goodreads, PopSugar, BookRiot, HuffingtonPost, First for Women, Woman’s World, and more.Mary’s novels have been translated into over thirty languages and have sold over two million copies worldwide. She’s been described as “a helluva storyteller,” (Kirkus Reviews) and “a writer of vice-like control,” (Chicago Tribune), and her novels have been praised as “hypnotic” (People) and “thrilling and illuminating” (Los Angeles Times). LOCAL WOMAN MISSING is her seventh novel.
Have you read Local Woman Missing? What did you think of it?
TBR Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly Faye Reads, where you post a title from your shelf or e-reader and find out what others think about it.
My pick this week is House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland.
Goodreads Synopsis:
Seventeen-year-old Iris Hollow has always been strange. Something happened to her and her two older sisters when they were children, something they can’t quite remember but that left each of them with an identical half-moon scar at the base of their throats.
Iris has spent most of her teenage years trying to avoid the weirdness that sticks to her like tar. But when her eldest sister, Grey, goes missing under suspicious circumstances, Iris learns just how weird her life can get: horned men start shadowing her, a corpse falls out of her sister’s ceiling, and ugly, impossible memories start to twist their way to the forefront of her mind.
As Iris retraces Grey’s last known footsteps and follows the increasingly bizarre trail of breadcrumbs she left behind, it becomes apparent that the only way to save her sister is to decipher the mystery of what happened to them as children.
The closer Iris gets to the truth, the closer she comes to understanding that the answer is dark and dangerous – and that Grey has been keeping a terrible secret from her for years.
Have you read this book? What did you think of it?
Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë–faced with an ailing father and an alcoholic brother–pursue independence through art in this graphic vision of the lives of three legendary writers.
Despite their family’s stormy fortunes, the Brontë sisters resolved to write. To thwart the nineteenth century’s double standards, they took the names of men, becoming the Bell brothers. Their works incited controversy and speculation, while at home, the sisters contended with the rages of Branwell Brontë, their self-destructive sibling. Manuela Santoni presents a time before Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall were known as literary masterpieces, when winds shook the Brontë house and determination held it together.
Review:
Emily, Anne, and Charlotte Brontë are three famous sisters who wrote in the 1800s. They had to look after their aging father and their alcoholic brother, while trying to make a name for themselves. The sisters ended up publishing under male pen names before revealing their identities.
The Brontës had tragic lives. They lost their two oldest sisters and their mother before they were ten years old. All of the siblings died as young adults, under the age of forty. Their brother, Branwell, was addicted to drugs and alcohol, so his sisters had to look after him as well as their father. I read a few reviews of this book and many people criticized it saying that it was so tragic and inaccurate. Some of the timelines may have been changed to fit into the story, but the Brontës did lead lives full of tragedy, which was reflected in their gothic novels.
The illustrations in this graphic novel were in black and white. The images were simply drawn without a lot of detail. I would have liked to see more detailed drawings. However, the simplicity and harsh black lines reflected the dark nature of the lives of the Brontë family.
I enjoyed this graphic novel biography of the Brontë sisters.
Thank you Graphic Universe for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
What to read next:
Jane Austen: Her Heart Did Whisper by Manuela Santoni
Why She Wrote by Lauren Burke, Hannah K. Chapman, and Kaley Bales (illustrator)
This is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine. In this post we highlight a book that’s highly anticipated.
The book that I’m waiting on this Wednesday is Of Princes and Promises (St. Rosetta’s Academy #2) by Sandhya Menon. The expected publication date is June 8, 2021.
Goodreads Synopsis:
From the New York Times bestselling author of When Dimple Met Rishi comes the second installment in a brand-new series set an elite boarding school that’s a contemporary spin on fairy tales, this one a delightful, romantic twist on The Frog Prince.
Caterina LaValle is determined to show she’s still the queen of St. Rosetta’s Academy. Sure, her crown may be slightly askew after her ex-boyfriend, Alaric, cheated on her, but she’s a LaValle. She’ll find a way to march right back in there, her hands clutching the strings to the whole puppet show. This time, she’s going to be untouchable.
Rahul Chopra knows that moment he shared with Caterina LaValle at the winter formal meant something. Surely she feels it, too. He’s a little uncertain how someone like him (socially inept to a point way past “adorkable”) could fit into her world, but he’s loved Caterina for years. He knows they’ll find a way.
When Caterina finds out Alaric is taking a supermodel to the upcoming gala, she knows she cannot arrive without the perfect date. But the thought of taking another superficial St. R’s boy exhausts her. The solution? Sweet-but-clueless Rahul Chopra and a mysterious pot of hair gel with the power to alter the wearer into whatever his heart desires.
When Rahul tries it, he transforms instantly into RC—debonair, handsome, and charming. But transformation comes with a price: As Rahul enjoys his new social standing, the line between his two personas begins to blur. Will he give up everything, including Caterina, to remain RC? Or will this unlikely pair find their way back to each other?
Title: Lucky Girl Author: Jamie Pacton Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary Publisher: Page Street Kids Source: Publisher via NetGalley Format: Ebook Release Date: May 11, 2021 Rating: ★★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
A hilarious and poignant reflection on what money can and cannot fix
58,642,129. That’s how many dollars seventeen-year-old Fortuna Jane Belleweather just won in the lotto jackpot. It’s also about how many reasons she has for not coming forward to claim her prize.
Problem #1: Jane is still a minor, and if anyone discovers she bought the ticket underage, she’ll either have to forfeit the ticket, or worse . . .
Problem #2: Let her hoarder mother cash it. The last thing Jane’s mom needs is millions of dollars to buy more junk. Then . . .
Problem #3: Jane’s best friend, aspiring journalist Brandon Kim, declares on the news that he’s going to find the lucky winner. It’s one thing to keep her secret from the town — it’s another thing entirely to lie to her best friend. Especially when . . .
Problem #4: Jane’s ex-boyfriend, Holden, is suddenly back in her life, and he has big ideas about what he’d do with the prize money. As suspicion and jealousy turn neighbor against neighbor, and no good options for cashing the ticket come forward, Jane begins to wonder: Could this much money actually be a bad thing
Review:
Seventeen-year-old Fortuna Jane Belleweather buys a lottery ticket on a whim one day and ends up winning the $58 million jackpot. There are a few reason she can’t cash it. First of all, she’s underage. She could wait until she turns eighteen, but she still bought the ticket while underage so she would face a misdemeanor if she claimed it. She could let her mother cash it, but that is another problem. Her mother is a hoarder who has been filling their home with other people’s discarded mementos since Jane’s father died. If Jane’s mother cashed in the lottery ticket, Jane is afraid of what she would spend it on. Jane’s best friend Bran wants to be a journalist, so he investigates the mysterious lottery winner. At the same time, Jane’s ex-boyfriend also wants to find out who the winner is because he has big plans of what he would do with the jackpot. As time goes on, there is more excitement around who won the lottery ticket in their small town, and Jane has to decide what she’s going to do with it.
This is the third novel that I’ve read in the past month about someone winning the lottery. In two of those books, the person couldn’t cash it in because they are or would be in trouble with the law. Everyone dreams of winning the lottery, but it isn’t the dream that is seems. Jane and Bran researched past lottery winners and read about the horrible turns their lives took after winning. Many ended up dead or bankrupt. The lottery seems like it would solve all of life’s problems, but it causes a lot of new problems.
One thing I didn’t really believe was the ending of the story. I won’t give away what Jane’s ultimate decision was in terms of if she cashed in the ticket or not. She talked so much about what the future could be like if she cashed in the ticket, and I don’t think the future she had planned at the end of the story was believable. It went against what he learned throughout the story about past lottery winners. This was a YA story, so it had a positive outcome, but I don’t think it was the most realistic ending.
This is a thought-provoking read!
Thank you Page Street Kids and TBR and Beyond for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
What to read next:
Jackpot by Nic Stone
The Life and (Medieval) Times of Kit Sweetly by Jamie Pacton
About the author:
Jamie Pacton is a Young Adult and Middle Grade author who grew up minutes away from the National Storytelling Center in the mountains of East Tennessee. She has a BA and MA in English Literature, and currently teaches English at the college level. While pursuing her dream of being an author, she worked as a waitress, pen salesperson, lab assistant, art museum guard, bookseller, pool attendant, nanny, and lots of other weird jobs in between. Her writing has appeared in national and local magazines, and she spent many years blogging for Parents.com. Currently, Jamie lives in Wisconsin with her family and a dog named Lego. The Life and (Medieval) Times of Kit Sweetly is her YA debut novel and her sophomore novel, Lucky Girl, is forthcoming in Spring 2021. She has also published a MG novel, Farfetched, under the pen name Finn Colazo.
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and it is now hosted by The Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s theme is Books with Nature on the Cover, so I decided to do Books With Flowers on the Cover. Here’s my list:
1. Blood and Honey by Shelby Mahurin
2. Felix Ever After by Karen Callender
3. Lies Lies Lies by Adele Parks
4. Invisible Girl by Lisa Jewell
5. Pride and Premeditation by Tirzah Price
6. Misfit in Love by S.K. Ali
7. The Sweeney Sisters by Lion Dolan
8. Ever Cursed by Corey Ann Haydu
9. A Treason of Thorns by Laura E. Weymouth
10. The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams
(All book covers from Goodreads)
What’s your list of books on your Top Ten Tuesday?
Title: To Love and to Loathe (The Regency Vows #1) Author: Martha Waters Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance Publisher: Simon and Schuster Canada Source: Publisher via NetGalley Format: Ebook Release Date: April 6, 2021 Rating: ★★★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
The widowed Diana, Lady Templeton and Jeremy, Marquess of Willingham are infamous among English high society as much for their sharp-tongued bickering as their flirtation. One evening, an argument at a ball turns into a serious wager: Jeremy will marry within the year or Diana will forfeit one hundred pounds. So shortly after, just before a fortnight-long house party at Elderwild, Jeremy’s country estate, Diana is shocked when Jeremy appears at her home with a very different kind of proposition.
After his latest mistress unfavorably criticized his skills in the bedroom, Jeremy is looking for reassurance, so he has gone to the only woman he trusts to be totally truthful. He suggests that they embark on a brief affair while at the house party—Jeremy can receive an honest critique of his bedroom skills and widowed Diana can use the gossip to signal to other gentlemen that she is interested in taking a lover.
Diana thinks taking him up on his counter-proposal can only help her win her wager. With her in the bedroom and Jeremy’s marriage-minded grandmother, the formidable Dowager Marchioness of Willingham, helping to find suitable matches among the eligible ladies at Elderwild, Diana is confident her victory is assured. But while they’re focused on winning wagers, they stand to lose their own hearts.
With Martha Waters’s signature “cheeky charm and wonderfully wry wit” (Booklist, starred review), To Love and to Loathe is another clever and delightful historical rom-com that is perfect for fans of Christina Lauren and Evie Dunmore.
Review:
The widowed Diana, Lady Templeton, likes to flirt and argue with her brother’s friend Jeremy, Marquess of Willingham. One evening, they make a bet for a hundred pounds that Jeremy will marry within the year. Soon after that wager, Jeremy ends the romance with his current mistress, which leads her to spread rumors about his skills in bed. Jeremy wants an opinion on his skills, so he proposes a brief affair with Diana to get her honest critique. Diana hopes to start her own rumors with this affair, to signal that she is ready to take a lover. What Jeremy and Diana don’t expect is to fall for each other.
I’ve read a few stories with a similar plot to this one, but this type of storyline never gets old. This enemies to lovers trope is so much fun. The tension between Jeremy and Diana when they argued easily led to romantic tension between them.
This story had some different scenarios that a woman would have been in during the Regency period when finding a husband. Diana didn’t have any money so she had to find a husband when she was young. He died a couple of years later, making her a wealthy widow who didn’t need to find another husband. Her friend Violet found a husband in the previous novel To Have and to Hoax. They had some drama but they were mostly a happy couple. Another character did not want to find a husband for a secret reason, so she manipulated her public image to make her seem unappealing to potential suitors. Though these women were all in a similar position, following society’s standard of looking for a husband, they each had different motivations behind what they were doing.
This was such a great Regency romance!
Thank you Simon and Schuster Canada for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This blog meme is hosted by Book Date. It is a place to meet up and share what you have been, are and about to be reading over the week. It’s a great post to organize yourself. It’s an opportunity to visit and comment, and er… add to that ever growing TBR pile!
What I just finished:
This weekend I finished To Love and to Loathe by Martha Waters.
What I’m currently reading:
I’m currently reading Lucky Girl by Jamie Pacton.
What I’m reading next:
Next I will be reading How to Save a Queendom by Jessica Lawson.
What are you guys reading this week? Have you read any of these books?
Jill's Book Blog 