Happy Pub Day to these authors!
Happily Never After by Lynn Painter
The Other Lola by Ripley Jones
Thank you Berkley and Wednesday Books for providing copies of these books!
What books are you most excited for this week?
Happy Pub Day – March 12
Review: Yours from the Tower
Title: Yours from the Tower
Author: Sally Nicholls
Genre: Young Adult, Historical Fiction, Romance
Publisher: Walker Books US
Source: Publisher
Format: Paperback arc
Release Date: January 30, 2024
Rating: ★★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
Bridgerton fans rejoice! This epistolary confection—told in letters among three school friends—is perfect for devotees of gossipy costume drama.
Tirzah, Sophia, and Polly are best friends who’ve left boarding school and gone back to very different lives. The year is 1896, and Polly is teaching in an orphanage, Sophia is scouting for a rich husband at the London Season, and Tirzah is stuck acting as an unpaid companion to her grandmother. In a series of letters buzzing with atmosphere and drama, the friends air their dreams, hopes, frustrations, and romances. Can this trio of very different young women—one industrious, one artful, and one in exile—find happiness and love near the dawn of the Edwardian era? From the award-winning author of the Carnegie Medal–nominated historical romance The Silent Stars Go By comes a playful, feel-good story of friendship and aspiration pitched just right for fans of Jane Austen and her contemporary disciples.
Review:
1896: Tirzah, Polly, and Sophia are friends from boarding school who keep in touch through letters after they’ve finished school and moved on in their lives. Tirzah is living with her strict grandmother. Polly is working at an orphanage. Sophia is staying with her wealthy aunt and uncle for the season to find a husband. All three girls have to deal with tough problems as they move away from their teenage years and become young women.
This was a great epistolary novel. The short letters made the story fly by. It was easy to differentiate the three storylines since the girls were each leading such different lives. Polly was working, Sophia was looking for a husband, and Tirzah was still being treated like a child at home. They all had serious issues to deal with, such as a parent with alcoholism and a parent who abandoned their children. Despite these hardships, the story had a happy ending.
Yours From the Tower was a great coming of age story.
Thank you Walker Books US for sending me a copy of this book.
Content warnings: alcoholism, parental abandonment, death of parent
Have you read Yours from the Tower? What did you think of it?
Review: Five Survive
Title: Five Survive
Author: Holly Jackson
Genre: Young Adult, Thriller
Publisher: Electric Monkey
Source: Purchased
Format: Hardcover
Release Date: November 29, 2022
Rating: ★★★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
Eight hours.
Six friends.
One sniper . . .Eighteen year old Red and her friends are on a road trip in an RV, heading to the beach for Spring Break. It’s a long drive but spirits are high. Until the RV breaks down in the middle of nowhere. There’s no mobile phone reception and nobody around to help. And as the wheels are shot out, one by one, the friends realise that this is no accident. There’s a sniper out there in the dark watching them and he knows exactly who they are. One of the group has a secret that the sniper is willing to kill for.
A game of cat-and-mouse plays out as the group desperately tries to get help and to work out which member of the group is the target. Buried secrets are forced to light in the cramped, claustrophobic setting of the RV, and tensions within the group will reach deadly levels. Not everyone will survive the night.
Review:
Eighteen-year-old Red is traveling with her five friends on an RV for their spring break vacation. Along the way, they lose signal and get lost down a dark road. As they try to turn around, their tires are shot out by a sniper hidden in the darkness. One of the six people in the RV has a secret that the sniper wants, and they can’t leave until he gets it. Over the course of eight hours, each person reveals their secrets as the tension in the RV builds, and only five of them survive.
This was such an intense story! It took place in the limited space of an RV, which made the pace fairly slow, yet it was so suspenseful. Each of the characters had dark secrets in their past, and they were revealed in an attempt to get them to safety. The whole story was cleverly plotted, with clues to the ending sprinkled throughout.
Five Survive is a dark and suspenseful thriller with a great ending!
Content warnings: death of parent, gun violence, abuse, murder
Have you read Five Survive? What did you think of it?
Review: The Dead Romantics
Title: The Dead Romantics
Author: Ashley Poston
Genre: Romance, Contemporary
Publisher: Berkley
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Format: Ebook
Release Date: June 28, 2022
Rating: ★★★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
Florence Day is the ghostwriter for one of the most prolific romance authors in the industry, and she has a problem—after a terrible breakup, she no longer believes in love. It’s as good as dead.
When her new editor, a too-handsome mountain of a man, won’t give her an extension on her book deadline, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye. But then she gets a phone call she never wanted to receive, and she must return home for the first time in a decade to help her family bury her beloved father.
For ten years, she’s run from the town that never understood her, and even though she misses the sound of a warm Southern night and her eccentric, loving family and their funeral parlor, she can’t bring herself to stay. Even with her father gone, it feels like nothing in this town has changed. And she hates it.
Until she finds a ghost standing at the funeral parlor’s front door, just as broad and infuriatingly handsome as ever, and he’s just as confused about why he’s there as she is.
Romance is most certainly dead… but so is her new editor, and his unfinished business will have her second-guessing everything she’s ever known about love stories.
Review:
Florence Day is a ghostwriter for a famous romance author, but now she doesn’t believe in romance anymore. She’s been stuck and hasn’t been able to finish her latest novel. She meets with her new editor, Benji Andor, who insists that she finish the book. Then, Florence is called home when her father dies suddenly. When she’s at her family’s funeral parlor, she opens the door to find a handsome ghost, who also happens to be Benji. Now Florence has to plan her father’s funeral, finish her novel, and figure out how to help Benji complete his unfinished business and move on. But she may find her own unexpected romance with a forbidden ghost.
This was such a great romance! I love stories with ghosts. Florence not only had the ability to see ghosts, but she was also a ghostwriter who wrote romance novels for a famous author. I loved the forbidden romance between Florence and Benji since he was a ghost and they couldn’t be together. I guessed one of the big twists involving Benji, but there was another one later that really surprised me. I will say that this story had a happy ending!
The Dead Romantics is a fun romance!
Thank you Berkley Romance for providing a digital copy of this book.
Content warnings: death, car accident, coma
Have you read The Dead Romantics? What did you think of it?
Happy Pub Day – February 27
Happy Pub Day to these authors!
Finally Heard by Kelly Yang
A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle L. Jensen
Where the Dark Stands Still by A.B. Poranek
Tender Beasts by Liselle Sambury
Miss Austen Investigates by Jessica Bull
Daughter of the Bone Forest by Jasmine Skye
Thank you Simon and Schuster Canada, Penguin Random House Canada, Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing, HarperCollins Canada, and Macmillian Audio for providing copies of these books!
What books are you most excited for this week?
Review: The Mystery Guest (Molly the Maid #2)
Title: The Mystery Guest (Molly the Maid #2)
Author: Nita Prose
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Contemporary
Publisher: Viking
Source: Publisher
Format: Paperback
Release Date: November 28, 2023
Rating: ★★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
When an acclaimed author dies at the Regency Grand Hotel, it’s up to a fastidious maid to uncover the truth, no matter how dirty—in a standalone novel featuring Molly Gray, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid, a Good Morning America Book Club Pick.
Molly Gray is not like anyone else. With her flair for cleaning and proper etiquette, she has risen through the ranks of the glorious five-star Regency Grand Hotel to become the esteemed Head Maid. But just as her life reaches a pinnacle state of perfection, her world is turned upside down when J.D. Grimthorpe, the world-renowned mystery author, drops dead—very dead—on the hotel’s tea room floor.
When Detective Stark, Molly’s old foe, investigates the author’s unexpected demise, it becomes clear that this death was murder most foul. Suspects abound, and everyone wants to know who killed J.D. Grimthorpe? Was it Lily, the new Maid-in-Training? Or was it Serena, the author’s secretary? Could Mr. Preston, the hotel’s beloved doorman, be hiding something? And is Molly really as innocent as she seems?
As the case threatens the hotel’s pristine reputation, Molly knows she alone holds the key to unlocking the killer’s identity. But that key is buried deep in her past—because long ago, she knew J.D. Grimthorpe. Molly begins to comb her memory for clues, revisiting her childhood and the mysterious Grimthorpe mansion where she and her dearly departed Gran once worked side by side. With the entire hotel under investigation, Molly must solve the mystery post-haste. If there’s one thing Molly knows for sure, it’s that dirty secrets don’t stay buried forever…
Review:
Molly Gray is now the Head Maid at the Regency Grand Hotel. At an event at the hotel, the famous author J.D. Grimthorpe drops dead, leaving the hotel staff as the prime suspects. However, Molly keeps it a secret that she knew Grimthorpe as a child. To figure out who the killer is, Molly revisits memories of visiting the Grimthorpe mansion with her Gran as a child.
I was so glad to revisit Molly in this story. She’s a unique character who doesn’t understand many social cues, so she’s viewed as “different” by many people she encounters. Despite this, she perseveres and works to solve the murders that occur at the hotel. It was nice to see some of Molly’s memories with Gran, but I would have liked to see the story stay more in the present mystery. The murder mystery was suspenseful, with an ending I didn’t expect.
I hope we get to revisit Molly Gray in the future.
Thank you Penguin Random House Canada for sending me a copy of this book!
Content warnings: addiction, alcoholism, poisoning, death, theft
Other books in the series:
Have you read The Mystery Guest? What did you think of it?
Review: Drop, Cover, and Hold On (The Improbable Meet-Cute #4)
Title: Drop, Cover, and Hold On (The Improbable Meet-Cute #4)
Author: Jasmine Guillory
Genre: Romance, Novella, Contemporary
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Source: Purchased
Format: Ebook
Release Date: January 23, 2024
Rating: ★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
It takes nothing less than a fateful natural disaster to throw two opposites together in a ground-shakingly charming short story by the New York Times bestselling author of Drunk on Love.
This Valentine’s Day, Daisy Murray has her heart set on binge-watching rom-coms. Instead, an earthquake traps her inside a bakery with its impossibly rude and insufferably handsome owner and head baker. They already have a history: she’s always smiled, he’s always scowled. Where better to finally get to know each other than amid the disaster? Then again, they have no choice. Besides, it could have its sweet, undeniable, and unpredictable perks.
Jasmine Guillory’s Drop, Cover, and Hold On is part of The Improbable Meet-Cute, irresistibly romantic stories about finding love when and where you least expect it. They can be read or listened to in one sitting. Let’s make a date of it.
Review:
On Valentine’s Day, Daisy Murray ends up trapped in her favourite bakery after an earthquake. The problem is that she’s trapped with the owner of the bakery who clearly hates her. Daisy had even decided not to come to the bakery anymore because of the dirty looks he would give her, but she wanted to give it one last shot on Valentine’s Day. However, as they talk and snack on her favourite treats, she realizes that maybe she misunderstood his feelings.
This was the most extreme grumpy/sunshine story I’ve read. Daisy was super bubbly and happy, and Harris was scowling at Daisy all the time. It wasn’t clear why he was acting angry all the time when he really liked Daisy. There wasn’t an explanation for why he scowled all the time. The romance also escalated very quickly at the end once they knew they liked each other, which seemed unrealistic, since they hadn’t even spoken to each other until a few minutes before.
Drop, Cover, and Hold On had potential to be a good story but didn’t seem realistic.
Content warnings: earthquake
Other books in the series:
- The Exception to the Rule (The Improbable Meet-Cute #1)
- Worst Wingman Ever (The Improbable Meet-Cute #2)
- Rosie and the Dreamboat (The Improbable Meet-Cute #3)
- With Any Luck (The Improbable Meet-Cute #5)
- Royal Valentine (The Improbable Meet-Cute #6)
Have you read Drop, Cover, and Hold On? What did you think of it?
Review: Diary of an Artist in Love
Title: Diary of an Artist in Love
Author: The Muse Frequency
Genre: Poetry
Publisher: Independently Published
Source: BookInfluencers.com
Format: Audiobook
Release Date: August 15, 2023
Rating: ★★★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
A slender, beautifully illustrated volume of 30 poems, enumerating love in all its configurations and through enchantment, presence, magnetism, illusion, nature, restlessness, wonder, and memories that rise from our past, and follow us into our future. Readers will be immersed in a series of 15 poems called “Love is” I through XV, with 15 additional poems that sit between them, threading the eye of the needle that we call love, with topics that seem to successively build on one another and chronicle the different phases of this intangible marvel that rules our lives. These poems · “We Start Here”
· “Stay With Me”
· “Wondering”
· “Beautiful Things”
· “Limitless”For seekers, artists, lovers, moon-gazers, anyone that dares to glimpse the beating heart within, this collection is a goldmine of inspiration and magical fairy dust. On Audible
Diary of an Artist in Love is an intimate new audiobook of prose poetry best listened to with headphones on and eyes closed. The Muse Frequency presents listeners with a calming and ethereal meditation on love. Throughout this profoundly serene and uplifting experience, the artist and sound designer gently coax us into a meditative state using Solfeggio frequencies and by communicating in the most direct possible way through a sacred one-on-one conversation.Originally inspired by the work of diarist Anaïs Nin, The Muse Frequency aims to design an audio experience that feels confessional and personal. At the heart of it all, this wholly unique project creates intimate experiences meant for one listener, where they can close their eyes, shut out the rest of the world and drift off to beautiful places.
Sound Design for Audiobook by Sébastien Nouat
Review:
Diary of an Artist in Love is a collection of poems about love. There are 30 poems, with 15 of them called “Love Is” alternating between the other poems.
The audiobook is beautiful. It is in an ASMR style, with relaxing, meditative music playing along with the narrator. The auditory experience is unlike any other audiobook I’ve heard.
I highly recommend Diary of an Artist in Love for poetry lovers.
Thank you The Muse Frequency and Book Influencers for providing a copy of this audiobook.
Have you read Diary of an Artist in Love? What did you think of it?
Review: The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder
Title: The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder
Author: C.L. Miller
Genre: Mystery, Contemporary, Cozy Mystery
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Format: Ebook
Release Date: January 10, 2024
Rating: ★★★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
In this irresistible and thrilling debut novel, a former antique hunter investigates a suspicious death at an isolated English manor, embroiling her back in the dangerous world of tracking stolen artifacts.
What antique would you kill for?
Freya Lockwood is shocked when she learns that Arthur Crockleford, antiques dealer and her estranged mentor, has died under mysterious circumstances. She has spent the last twenty years avoiding her quaint English hometown, but when she receives a letter from Arthur asking her to investigate—sent just days before his death—Freya has no choice but to return to a life she had sworn to leave behind.
Joining forces with her eccentric Aunt Carole, Freya follows clues and her instincts to an old manor house for an advertised antiques enthusiast’s weekend. But not all is as it seems. It’s clear to Freya that the antiques are all just poor reproductions and her fellow guests are secretive and menacing. What is going on at this estate and how was Arthur involved? More importantly, can Freya and Carole discover the truth before the killer strikes again?
Review:
When Freya Lockwood’s former mentor, Arthur Crockleford, dies under mysterious circumstances, she returns to her hometown. She has avoided her hometown for the past twenty years, when she had a falling out with Arthur and gave up her dream of hunting for antiques. When she returns to her aunt’s home where she grew up, Freya discovers that Arthur left a letter for her saying that his death was not accidental and he asks her to investigate. Freya and her Aunt Carole follow Arthur’s clues to an antique enthusiast’s weekend getaway, where only Freya can find the truth behind Arthur’s death.
I didn’t know anything about antiques or the business of antique forgery before reading this book, so it was fascinating to read about. It was a dangerous world with murders happening over reproduced antiques or pieces of art, and lots of money behind the business. The ending of the story suggests that this is the beginning of a series, so I’m excited to see what adventure Freya goes on next!
The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder is an entertaining cozy mystery!
Thank you Simon and Schuster Canada for sending me a copy of this book!
Content warnings: death, fire, gun violence
Have you read The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder? What did you think of it?
Review: Rosie and the Dreamboat (The Improbable Meet-Cute #3)
Title: Rosie and the Dreamboat (The Improbable Meet-Cute #3)
Author: Sally Thorne
Genre: Romance, Novella, Contemporary
Publisher: Amazon Original Publishing
Source: Purchased
Format: Ebook
Release Date: January 23, 2024
Rating: ★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
For a hopeful and hopeless romantic, it’s love at first sight—with a little twist.
Rosie Whittaker and her sister are up for some Galentine’s pampering at a day spa. Getting locked inside a flotation tank is so Rosie. Enter a firefighter hero determined to pry this luckless pearl out of her high-tech shell. All Rosie has to go on is a dreamy voice and a flirty sense of humor. Remain calm, Rosie. This could be what you’ve been waiting for. Is this the man she’s waited for her whole life?
Review:
Rosie Whittaker takes her sister to a spa for Galentine’s Day for some pampering. When they go in the brand new flotation tanks, Rosie gets stuck inside. The fire department has to be called in to rescue her, and Rosie listens to the attractive voice of one firefighter as he tries to rescue her.
This novella was quite short, at just around 40 pages, but it felt like it dragged on. Most of the story was spent with Rosie in the tank, speaking to the firefighter, and not much was happening. The way that Rosie was trapped in the tank was also making me feel claustrophobic, so it didn’t feel like a particularly romantic setting.
Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy this romance novella.
Content warning: claustrophobia
Other books in the series:
- The Exception to the Rule (The Improbable Meet-Cute #1)
- Worst Wingman Ever (The Improbable Meet-Cute #2)
- Drop, Cover, and Hold On (The Improbable Meet-Cute #4)
- With Any Luck (The Improbable Meet-Cute #5)
- Royal Valentine (The Improbable Meet-Cute #6)
Have you read Rosie and the Dreamboat? What did you think of it?
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