Title: A Lady’s Formula for Love (The Secret Scientists of London #1) Author: Elizabeth Everett Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance Publisher: Berkley Source: Publisher via NetGalley Format: Ebook Release Date: February 9, 2021 Rating: ★★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
What is a Victorian lady’s formula for love? Mix one brilliant noblewoman and her enigmatic protection officer. Add in a measure of danger and attraction. Heat over the warmth of humor and friendship, and the result is more than simple chemistry—it’s elemental.
Lady Violet Hughes is keeping secrets. First, she founded a clandestine sanctuary for England’s most brilliant female scientists. Second, she is using her genius on a confidential mission for the Crown. But the biggest secret of all? Her feelings for protection officer Arthur Kneland.
Solitary and reserved, Arthur learned the hard way to put duty first. But the more time he spends in the company of Violet and the eccentric club members, the more his best intentions go up in flames. Literally.
When a shadowy threat infiltrates Violet’s laboratories, endangering her life and her work, scientist and bodyguard will find all their theories put to the test—and learn that the most important discoveries are those of the heart.
Review:
Lady Violet Hughes is a young widow who used her status to form a society for female scientists. It’s a secret society because the rest of the population wouldn’t approve of women being scientists. Violet is able to use her secret talents on a mission for the Queen. However, things start going wrong at the society. Fires are started, things blow up, and someone is trying to steal her work. Her stepson hires counter-assassin Arthur Kneland to protect Violet from these attacks. Arthur has his own secret history that has affected the way he looks at his job and his life. He wants to get through this last job of protecting Violet and then he can retire to the country. Neither of them were expecting to fall for each other, which throws off their plans for the future.
In this story, Violet organizes a secret society of female scientists. It’s difficult to imagine a world where women have to hide their intelligence. There were some female scientists during the Victorian era, but they weren’t common.
This book explored gender conformities and relationships. Since the women wanted to practice science, they had to do it in secret. They had strained relationships with the men in their lives because of their desire to do more in life. One woman was oppressed and abused by her father. Violet felt like she couldn’t be the true person she was when she was married to her much older husband. Luckily, they did have some men, like Arthur and Violet’s stepson, who encouraged the women to pursue their dreams.
A Lady’s Formula for Love is a great Victorian romance.
Thank you Berkley for providing a copy of this book.
What to read next:
A Perfect Equation by Elizabeth Everett
Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore
Other books in the series:
The Perfect Equation
Have you read A Lady’s Formula for Love? What did you think of it?
Title: The Unhoneymooners Author: Christina Lauren Genre: Romance, Contemporary Publisher: Gallery Books Source: Publisher via NetGalley Format: Ebook Release Date: May 14, 2019 Rating: ★★★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
Olive is always unlucky: in her career, in love, in…well, everything. Her identical twin sister Ami, on the other hand, is probably the luckiest person in the world. Her meet-cute with her fiancé is something out of a romantic comedy (gag) and she’s managed to finance her entire wedding by winning a series of Internet contests (double gag). Worst of all, she’s forcing Olive to spend the day with her sworn enemy, Ethan, who just happens to be the best man.
Olive braces herself to get through 24 hours of wedding hell before she can return to her comfortable, unlucky life. But when the entire wedding party gets food poisoning from eating bad shellfish, the only people who aren’t affected are Olive and Ethan. And now there’s an all-expenses-paid honeymoon in Hawaii up for grabs.
Putting their mutual hatred aside for the sake of a free vacation, Olive and Ethan head for paradise, determined to avoid each other at all costs. But when Olive runs into her future boss, the little white lie she tells him is suddenly at risk to become a whole lot bigger. She and Ethan now have to pretend to be loving newlyweds, and her luck seems worse than ever. But the weird thing is that she doesn’t mind playing pretend. In fact, she feels kind of… lucky.
Review:
Olive Torres has always had bad luck, but her twin sister Ami is the luckiest person in the world. Ami is getting married to her dream guy and is getting her wedding practically for free because of all the sweepstakes she won. However, Ami’s lucky streak runs out when everyone who ate the seafood buffet at her wedding gets sick with food poisoning. Olive and Ami’s new brother-in-law Ethan are the only two who didn’t eat the buffet and didn’t get sick. Since Olive and Ethan are the only ones who didn’t get sick, Ami insists that they use the Hawaiian honeymoon that she had won so that it doesn’t go to waste. The problem is that Olive and Ethan have hated each other since the moment they met. They plan to do their own things on the vacation, until they run into people they know and end up pretending that they just got married. Olive and Ethan pretend to be newly weds on the trip, and as they get closer and closer, Olive begins to wonder if her luck is finally changing for the better.
This was such a fun romance. I wish I had read it sooner. It had laugh out loud moments, and also some awkward moments. There was love and devastating heartbreak, but I really enjoyed it.
This story features some of my favourite romance tropes: fake dating/engagement/marriage and enemies to lovers. These two tropes give lots of space for tense moments and there was loads of tension throughout this story. The story was very well plotted and everything happened for a reason.
The Unhoneymooners is a fun romcom!
Thank you Simon and Schuster Canada for providing a copy of this book.
What to read next:
The Honey-Don’t List by Christina Lauren
Twice in a Blue Moon by Christina Lauren
Have you read The Unhoneymooners? What did you think of it?
Title: Anne of West Philly Author: Ivy Noelle Weir, Myisha Haynes (illustrator) Genre: Middle Grade, Graphic Novel, Contemporary Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Source: Publisher via NetGalley Format: Ebook Release Date: March 1, 2022 Rating: ★★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
Anne of Green Gables with a twist: in this follow-up to Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy and The Secret Garden on 81st Street, this full-color graphic novel moves Anne Shirley to modern-day West Philadelphia, where where she finds new friends, new rivals, and a new family.
When Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert decide to foster a teenage girl for the first time, their lives are changed forever. Their redheaded foster daughter, Anne Shirley, is in search of an exciting life and has decided that West Philly is where she’s going to find it. Armed with a big personality and unstoppable creativity, Anne takes her new home by storm as she joins the robotics club, makes new friends in Diana and Gilbert, experiences first love, and turns the ordinary into the extraordinary. But as Anne starts to get comfortable, she discovers one thing she wasn’t looking for: a family.
Review:
Anne Shirley moves in with her new foster family, siblings Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert. This is their first time with a teenage girl as their foster child. Anne has a big personality, which contrasts with Marilla’s and Matthew’s quiet demeanors. Anne makes new friends, joins the robotics club, and takes this quiet West Philadelphia neighbourhood by storm.
This is a fun, modern adaptation of Anne of Green Gables. Anne had a spunky personality, which made her stand out from the crowd. It took a while, but she eventually wins over everyone’s hearts.
Most of the events from the original story were updated in a way that made sense for today’s world. The only part that I didn’t think fit in as well was the part where Anne gives Diana the cordial. In the original story, Anne accidentally gives her friend cherry cordial which makes them drunk, so that couldn’t be in a children’s book today. In this modern version, they eat too many chocolates with liquor that make Diana sick. I don’t think those chocolates would make her drunk like the liquor did in the original story, so it felt a little forced to me. Other than that part, I think this modern adaptation was true to the feel of the original story.
Anne of West Philly is a great, modern graphic novel adaptation of Anne of Green Gables.
Thank you Little, Brown Books for Young Readers and TBR and Beyond Book Tours for providing a copy of this book.
What to read next:
The Secret Garden on 81st Street by Ivy Noelle Weir, Amber Padilla (illustrator)
Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Rey Terciero, Bre Indigo (illustrator)
Ivy Noelle Weir is a writer of comics and prose. She is the co-creator of the Dwayne McDuffie Award-winning graphic novel Archival Quality (Oni Press), the upcoming The Secret Garden on 81st Street (Little, Brown for Young Readers), and her writing has appeared in anthologies such as Princeless: Girls Rock (Action Lab Entertainment) and Dead Beats (A Wave Blue World). She lives in the greater Boston area with her husband and their two tiny, weird dogs.
For the past 5 years, I’ve reviewed about 1,600 books on my blog. For the first 3 years, I reviewed a book a day. Then I reviewed 6 books per week and since July, I’ve reviewed 5 books per week. This has taken a lot of my time and I was reading in any spare moment I could, whether that was while I was waiting in a check out line in a store or listening to audiobooks while driving.
For those of you who don’t know, I’m also a writer. I’m currently revising my 5th manuscript. I queried a manuscript to agents last year but I didn’t get much response from that (querying is when you send out a letter to literary agents to see if they would represent your book). I feel really good about the manuscript I’m currently working on, and I’m planning on querying it in the next few months.
I’ve decided to take a step back from reading and reviewing books to focus more on my writing career. I will still be reading, reviewing, and posting on social media daily but I won’t be reviewing a book a day. I’ve proven to myself that I can do it, but I can’t sustain that pace anymore. I want to be honest about my writing and blogging journey. Since I decided to read less last week, I’ve felt much less stressed out and I’ve gotten a lot more work done for my own manuscript. Reading has always been a source of self-care to me, but it was becoming more stressful than it was helping me. I’m looking forward to moving closer to my goal of becoming a published author.
Title: Gallant Author: V.E. Schwab Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy Publisher: Greenwillow Books Source: Publisher Format: Paperback arc Release Date: March 1, 2022 Rating: ★★★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
Everything casts a shadow. Even the world we live in. And as with every shadow, there is a place where it must touch. A seam, where the shadow meets its source.
Olivia Prior has grown up in Merilance School for girls, and all she has of her past is her mother’s journal—which seems to unravel into madness. Then, a letter invites Olivia to come home—to Gallant. Yet when Olivia arrives, no one is expecting her. But Olivia is not about to leave the first place that feels like home, it doesn’t matter if her cousin Matthew is hostile or if she sees half-formed ghouls haunting the hallways.
Olivia knows that Gallant is hiding secrets, and she is determined to uncover them. When she crosses a ruined wall at just the right moment, Olivia finds herself in a place that is Gallant—but not. The manor is crumbling, the ghouls are solid, and a mysterious figure rules over all. Now Olivia sees what has unraveled generations of her family, and where her father may have come from.
Olivia has always wanted to belong somewhere, but will she take her place as a Prior, protecting our world against the Master of the House? Or will she take her place beside him?
Review:
Olivia Prior has grown up at Merilance School for girls, with only her mother’s old journal as company. Olivia doesn’t speak and she doesn’t have friends at school. One day, she receives a letter from her uncle inviting her to live at Gallant, the one place that her mother warned her never to go. However, once she arrives there, she discovers that her uncle is dead and no one at the house is expecting her. The house is full of ghouls and secrets. Olivia has finally found the place where she belongs, but she must convince the residents, and the manor, that she belongs there.
This story was like a fairytale. Olivia is school age, but her actual age wasn’t given. Though she’s not an adult, there were some more mature themes, like the image of death, that would appeal to an older audience. The story seemed like it could have been part of our world, but also a fantasy world. It had a timeless quality, which also made it feel like a fairytale.
This book was filled with gorgeous illustrations that were replicas of the drawings in Olivia’s mother’s journal. The illustrations were of things in the past, but they also reflected what was going on in Olivia’s present life. They were a gorgeous addition to this book.
Gallant is a beautiful dark fairytale.
Thank you HCC Frenzy for providing a copy of this book.
Title: Your Birthday Was the Best! Author: Maggie Hutchings, Felicita Sala Genre: Children’s, Picture Book Publisher: Tundra Books Source: Publisher via NetGalley Format: Ebook Release Date: February 22, 2022 Rating: ★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
The story of an eager cockroach who gate-crashes a birthday party — with hilarious results. For fans of I Don’t Want to Be a Frog.
It’s your birthday, and little do you know that an unwelcome guest has joined in on the festivities. A friendly cockroach has snuck undetected into the house, and has proceeded to join in on all of your fun party games. You were so excited to finally spot him napping on top of your birthday cake, having eaten his fill, that you couldn’t help but scream! You think he’s gone when your dad sucks him up in the vacuum cleaner . . . but with a birthday party this good, he’s going to be nearly impossible to keep away!
This laugh-out-loud picture book from bestselling author Maggie Hutchings and acclaimed illustrator Felicita Sala is the perfect birthday gift for young readers.
Review:
A cockroach was watching a boy’s birthday party from outside of his house. He decided to go inside and join in the festivities. After all the games, the cockroach fell asleep on the cake, and was vacuumed up by the boy’s father. But he wouldn’t give up on the party that easily, so he found his way back inside.
This book’s release day is my birthday, so I thought I was meant to read it! The idea of having a cockroach at your birthday party is quite gross. The kids at the party were scared of it, but the cockroach thought they were screaming in excitement. It was cute the way he misinterpreted what they were doing, but it’s hard to get over the gross factor of the story.
Your Birthday Was the Best was a cute children’s book, but it doesn’t make me want to invite a cockroach to my party!
Thank you Tundra Books for providing a copy of this book.
What to read next:
Megabat and the Not-Happy Birthday by Anna Humphrey, Kass Reich
Have you read Your Birthday Was the Best!? What did you think of it?
