Jill's Book Blog

Review: The Honey-Don't List

Title: The Honey Don’t List
Author: Christina Lauren
Genre: Fiction, Romance, Contemporary
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Canada
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Format: Ebook
Release Date: March 24, 2020
Rating: ★★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Carey Douglas has worked for home remodeling and design gurus Melissa and Rusty Tripp for nearly a decade. A country girl at heart, Carey started in their first store at sixteen, and—more than anyone would suspect—has helped them build an empire. With a new show and a book about to launch, the Tripps are on the verge of superstardom. There’s only one problem: America’s favorite couple can’t stand each other.
James McCann, MIT graduate and engineering genius, was originally hired as a structural engineer, but the job isn’t all he thought it’d be. The last straw? Both he and Carey must go on book tour with the Tripps and keep the wheels from falling off the proverbial bus.
Unfortunately, neither of them is in any position to quit. Carey needs health insurance, and James has been promised the role of a lifetime if he can just keep the couple on track for a few more weeks. While road-tripping with the Tripps up the West Coast, Carey and James vow to work together to keep their bosses’ secrets hidden, and their own jobs secure. But if they stop playing along—and start playing for keeps—they may have the chance to build something beautiful together…
From the “hilariously zany and heartfelt” (Booklist) Christina Lauren comes a romantic comedy that proves if it’s broke, you might as well fix it.
From the New York Times bestselling author behind the “joyful, warm, touching” (Jasmine Guillory, New York Times bestselling author) The Unhoneymooners comes a delightfully charming love story about what happens when two assistants tasked with keeping a rocky relationship from explosion start to feel sparks of their own.

Review:

Carey works for a designing couple, Melissa and Rusty. She is Melissa’s assistant. Her and James, Rusty’s assistant, join Mel and Rusty on their book tour. The problem is that Rusty is having an affair. Carey and James have to work together to make the tour run smoothly, making them closer to each other.

There was actually a lot of tension in the story, even though it was a light romance most of the time. Some of the chapters, alternating between Carey’s and James’s perspectives, ended with their police interviews. The actual incident that they were being interviewed about isn’t revealed until the end of the book, which kept up the tension. I didn’t think the incident was as big a deal as the police interview made it seem, especially since they moved on pretty quickly after the fact.

Carey had a condition I had never heard of before. She had dystonia, which is a condition that affects the muscle movement in her hands. That condition played into some of the decisions that she made in the story.

Sexism in the workplace was also an important part of the story. Even though Carey had worked with Melissa for a decade, she wasn’t given the same privileges as James, who had only worked for Rusty for two months. This was addressed a little in the book, but this is an important problem in the world that I’m glad was included.

I really enjoyed this book!

Thank you Simon and Schuster Canada for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Top Ten Tuesday – Genre Freebie: Favourite Nineteenth Century Novels

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 a Genre Freebie, so I decided to list my Favourite Nineteenth Century Novels. Here’s my list:

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

3. Emma by Jane Austen

4. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

5. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

6. The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

7. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

8. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

9. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

10. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

(All photos taken from Goodreads)

What’s your list of books on your Top Ten Tuesday?

Happy Pub Day – March 24

Happy Pub day to all of these new books!

Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown by Anne Glenconner

The Honey-Don’t List by Christina Lauren

Thorn by Intisar Khanani

Lola: A Ghost Story by J. Torres, Elbert Or (illustrator)

Scaredy Monster by Meika Hashimoto, Steve Lambe (illustrator)

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

If I Never Met You by Mhairi McFarlane

Problem Child by Victoria Helen Stone

What books are you most excited for this week?

Review: Blame the Dead

Title: Blame the Dead
Author: Ed Ruggero
Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Forge Books
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Format: Ebook
Release Date: March 3, 2020
Rating: ★★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

The nurses of the US Army’s Field Hospitals, mobile units that operate just behind the battle lines, contend with heat, dirt, short-handed staffs, the threat of German counterattack and an ever-present flood of horribly wounded GIs. At the 11th Field Hospital near Palermo, Sicily in the bloody summer of 1943, nurses also live with the threat of violent assault by one of their own–at least until someone shoots Dr. Myers Stephenson in the head.
Enter Eddie Harkins, a tough former Philadelphia beat cop turned Military Police lieutenant, who is first on the scene. Although he has never been a detective, Harkins soon finds himself the lone investigator, either because the Military Police are under-staffed or because someone in power thinks this rank amateur will never get close to the real killer. When the hospital commander tries to derail Harkins’ investigation by transferring or harassing key witnesses, it becomes clear to Harkins that the unit is rotten to its core, that the nurses are not safe, and that patients who have survived Nazi bullets are still at risk after they arrive at this place that is supposed to save them.
Harkins fights–and worries that he is losing–multiple battles. He is driven to give hope to nurses who just want to do their life-saving work, to right at least a few of the wrongs around him, and to do penance for sins in his own past. The one bright note for Harkins is a rekindled relationship with Kathleen Donnelly, a nurse from Harkins’ old neighborhood; but even that is complicated when Donnelly becomes a victim.

Review:

Eddie Harkins was a traffic cop in the United States before World War II began. When a surgeon is murdered at a hospital base in Sicily, he is brought to the base to investigate. He discovers many secrets and coverups that have been happening at the base, which makes his investigation complicated.

The writing in this story was clear and concise. I immediately felt sympathy for the characters. Harkins got some bad news fairly early on in the book, and I could feel his pain. The story was detailed, but also concise, so words weren’t wasted. The story was also fast paced, so it was difficult to put down.

There are some sexual assaults and rapes that Harkins uncovers in his investigation. One thing that I noticed right away was that the men in charge treated these accusations in the same way that they are often treated today. They either brushed them off as being a misunderstanding or blamed the women for leading them on or wanting to be touched like that. Unfortunately, that’s still often the response decades later. However, this made the story very timely, since there is more awareness about sexual assaults today.

I loved this book! I highly recommend it!

Thank you Forge Books for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

It's Monday, What Are You Reading? – March 23

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 Blame the Dead by Ed Ruggero.

What I’m currently reading:

I’m currently reading The Honey-Don’t List by Christina Lauren.

What I’m reading next:

Next I will be reading Darling Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel.

What are you guys reading this week? Have you read any of these books?

Jill's Weekly Wrap-Up – March 22

Here are my reviews for the week with my ratings:

The Grace Kelly Dress ★★★★★
Fight Like a Girl ★★★★★
My Plain Jane (The Lady Janies #2) ★★★★★
Twisted Fairy Tales: Little Rude Riding Hood ★★★★
break your glass slippers ★★★★★
A Conspiracy of Bones (Temperance Brennan #19) ★★★★

I did 8 weekly blogging memes:

How was your week? What did you guys read?

Sundays in Bed With… Blame the Dead

The meme that dares to ask what book has been in your bed this morning? Come share what book you’ve spent time curled up reading in bed, or which book you wish you had time to read today! This meme is hosted by Midnight Book Girl.

This Sunday I’m reading Blame the Dead by Ed Ruggero.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is goodreads-badge-add-plus-71eae69ca0307d077df66a58ec068898.png

Goodreads Synopsis:

The nurses of the US Army’s Field Hospitals, mobile units that operate just behind the battle lines, contend with heat, dirt, short-handed staffs, the threat of German counterattack and an ever-present flood of horribly wounded GIs. At the 11th Field Hospital near Palermo, Sicily in the bloody summer of 1943, nurses also live with the threat of violent assault by one of their own–at least until someone shoots Dr. Myers Stephenson in the head.
Enter Eddie Harkins, a tough former Philadelphia beat cop turned Military Police lieutenant, who is first on the scene. Although he has never been a detective, Harkins soon finds himself the lone investigator, either because the Military Police are under-staffed or because someone in power thinks this rank amateur will never get close to the real killer. When the hospital commander tries to derail Harkins’ investigation by transferring or harassing key witnesses, it becomes clear to Harkins that the unit is rotten to its core, that the nurses are not safe, and that patients who have survived Nazi bullets are still at risk after they arrive at this place that is supposed to save them.
Harkins fights–and worries that he is losing–multiple battles. He is driven to give hope to nurses who just want to do their life-saving work, to right at least a few of the wrongs around him, and to do penance for sins in his own past. The one bright note for Harkins is a rekindled relationship with Kathleen Donnelly, a nurse from Harkins’ old neighborhood; but even that is complicated when Donnelly becomes a victim.

What book are you in bed with today?

Six for Sunday – Characters I'd Love to Go on a Date With

This meme is hosted by Steph at A little but a lot. The weekly prompts for 2019 can be found here.

This week’s prompt is Characters I’d Love to Go on a Date With. Here’s my list:

1. Prinz Soren (Ash Princess Trilogy)

2. Aaron Warner (Shatter Me series)

3. Fitzwilliam Darcy (Pride and Prejudice)

4. Noah Shaw (Mara Dyer trilogy)

5. Ezra Mason (The Illuminae Files)

6. Prince Kai (The Lunar Chronicles)

(All book cover images from Goodreads)

Did you make a Six for Sunday list?

Review: A Conspiracy of Bones (Temperance Brennan #19)

Title: A Conspiracy of Bones (Temperance Brennan #19)
Author: Kathy Reichs
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Canada
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Format: Ebook
Release Date: March 17, 2020
Rating: ★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

#1 New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs returns with a new riveting novel featuring her vastly popular character forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, who must use all her tradecraft to discover the identity of a faceless corpse, its connection to a decade-old missing child case, and why the dead man had her cell phone number.
It’s sweltering in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Temperance Brennan, still recovering from neurosurgery following an aneurysm, is battling nightmares, migraines, and what she thinks might be hallucinations when she receives a series of mysterious text messages, each containing a new picture of a corpse that is missing its face and hands. Immediately, she’s anxious to know who the dead man is, and why the images were sent to her.
An identified corpse soon turns up, only partly answering her questions.
To win answers to the others, including the man’s identity, she must go rogue, working mostly outside the system. That’s because Tempe’s new boss holds a fierce grudge against her and is determined to keep her out of the case. Tempe bulls forward anyway, even as she begins questioning her instincts. But the clues she discovers are disturbing and confusing. Was the faceless man a spy? A trafficker? A target for assassination by the government? And why was he carrying the name of a child missing for almost a decade?
With help from a number of law enforcement associates including her Montreal beau Andrew Ryan and the always-ready-with-a-smart-quip, ex-homicide investigator Skinny Slidell, and utilizing new cutting-edge forensic methods, Tempe draws closer to the astonishing truth.
But the more she uncovers, the darker and more twisted the picture becomes…

Review:

In this book, Temperance enters a world of conspiracy theories. A faceless man turns up at the morgue, which Temperance is forbidden from working in from the new doctor. She starts her own investigation, which leads her to discover child abuse, missing children, and conspiracy theories, all while dealing with her own health issues.

One thing that Temperance always does is follow her own rules. She didn’t have permission to do a lot of the investigating that she did in this book, but she did it regardless. This was sometimes a problem, because she got in trouble or lost valuable clues.

This book also had some eerie mentions of pandemics. Those mentions follow the conspiracy theories in the book, but it was creepy to read mentions about pandemics and SARS in a book when we are currently experiencing a pandemic in the world.

I love learning about the sources for stories. At the end of this book, Kathy Reichs talks about the real new stories that she borrowed from for this novel. She also has a personal connection to Temperance, which was touching to read about.

This was a great Bones story.

Thank you Simon and Schuster Canada for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.