Category: blog tours

Review: Cursed at Dawn by Heather Graham

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Cursed at Dawn by Heather GrahamCursed at Dawn: A Novel (The Blackbird Trilogy, 3) by Heather Graham
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook
Genres: paranormal, suspense, thriller
Series: Blackbird Trilogy #3
Pages: 304
Published by Mira on August 22, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Dracula lives—and he’s hunting for his bride.
Vampires may not walk among us, but FBI agents Della Hamilton and Mason Carter know real monsters exist. They’ve witnessed firsthand the worst humankind has to offer. They’re still catching their breaths after the apprehension of two such monstrous killers when they’re met with horrific news. Stephan Dante, the self-proclaimed king of the vampires, has escaped from prison, followed only by a trail of blood.
All too familiar with Dante’s cruelty, Della and Mason know the clock is ticking. But as Dante claims more victims, a chilling message arrives. The vampire killer seeks his eternal bride—Della herself. Playing into Dante’s desires might be the only way to stop the carnage once and for all, assuming they can outwit him. Della is confident the agents have the upper hand, but Mason knows every gamble runs the risk of not paying off, and this time, the consequences could be deadly.

My Review:

The story of the Blackbird Trilogy, Whispers at Dusk, Secrets in the Dark and this final book in the trilogy, Cursed at Dawn, is the story of one very long, dark night for the members of Blackbird – at least in the metaphorical sense because the action in this paranormal romantic suspense series takes place over more than one night – and on more than one continent.

When the series began in Whispers at Dusk, the original members of Blackbird, Special Agents Della Hamilton and Mason Carter were tasked with tracking down a serial killer calling himself the ‘King of the Vampires’ who led them on a not-so-merry chase from the bayous of Louisiana to Castle Bran in Transylvania and all points in between until he was brought to justice.

Or so they believed. Although maybe it was more like hoped even then.

The second book in the series, Secrets in the Dark, takes place while Stephen Dante was awaiting trial in a secure U.S. facility. Blackbird, now a fully international team, traveled to London to track down one of Dante’s apprentices, a man who decided that since he couldn’t beat the so-called ‘King of the Vampires’ using the ‘King’s’ own tricks of the trade he’d be better off appropriating a much older title from a much scarier killer, and took to calling himself the ‘King of the Rippers’ as he stalked Whitechapel and decorated the same streets with a fresh coating of blood and gore.

Blackbird caught him as well, and was taking a few days of well-earned R&R when they learned that Stephen Dante had orchestrated his escape from prison and was on the loose yet again, using his tried and true methods of charming or bribing a new network of acolytes and informations, stalking a new brace of beauties he intended to kill, and yet again with Agent Della Hamilton in his sights with an eye to making her his final victim.

Only this time he’s come to Edinburgh, Scotland, a city full to the brim with history, mystery and magic, abounding in ghost stories and banshee myths, with a twisty layers of buried geography that Dante knows like the back of his hand.

But so do the ghosts of Scots long ago, haunting the city from all the way back to the time of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, who are more than willing to help the living fight one more righteous battle against evil.

Dante believes he is all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful, but the ghosts level the playing field for Blackbird with powers that he can neither imagine nor counter. Even as they help to bring his reign of terror to a crashing end.

Escape Rating A-: I’ve enjoyed the entire Blackbird Trilogy, and certainly have been caught up in each entry as soon as I started it, but I liked this one just a tick better because we spent next to no time in Stephen Dante’s head, nor that of any of his proteges. His is not the point-of-view I want to experience. I want to see the case through the investigators’ eyes to watch as the solution fits and starts and eventually falls into place. I don’t need to see the bodies drop to be caught up in the drama and terror, I just need to know they’ve fallen – which we certainly do in this story.

Although it probably helped a bit that there are few actual deaths in this entry in the series. Dante and particularly his minions, keep snatching people but he’s made too many mistakes, he’s let the Blackbird team, especially Della Hamilton, get to know him a bit too well, and this time around they manage to get there in time to save people considerably more of the time.

Which makes this one more about the psychological terror that they know he’s going to strike again – and has and does – than the actual horror of quite so many of his staged tableaux of pale, cold, bloodless, ‘sleeping’ beauties.

(But speaking of what has come before, although the Blackbird Trilogy is an offshoot of the Krewe of Hunters series, you don’t have to read that to get into this. There’s just the right amount of catching up infodumping that Cursed at Dawn probably stands alone – but it would be better to start with Whispers at Dusk to see the team come together.)

The Blackbird Trilogy is a combination of paranormal romance and romantic suspense, and it’s a combo that holds a near and dear place in my reading heart. We began with watching Della and Mason find each other, set against the backdrop of the team coming together and following Dante’s trail of blood and death. As the trilogy has continued, it’s been fun to watch more members get swept into the action, as they band together to track an intelligent, organized and elusive – also illusive – killer.

The trilogy is riveting from its bloody beginning to its killer’s crushing end. Justice has been served after a harrowing investigation, and it’s righteous. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of Blackbird, and I know I’ll pick up the Krewe of Hunters again whenever I’m looking for more deliciously chilling paranormal romantic suspense.

Review: Women of the Post by Joshunda Sanders

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Women of the Post by Joshunda SandersWomen of the Post by Joshunda Sanders
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, World War II
Pages: 368
Published by Park Row Books on July 18, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

An emotional story, based on true events, about the all-Black battalion of the Women's Army Corps who found purpose, solidarity and lifelong friendship in their mission of sorting over one million pieces of mail for the US Army.
1944, New York City. Judy Washington is tired of working from dawn til dusk in the Bronx Slave Market, cleaning white women’s houses and barely making a dime. Her husband is fighting overseas, so it's up to Judy and her mother to make enough money for rent and food. When the chance arises for Judy to join the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) and the ability to bring home a steady paycheck, she jumps at the opportunity.
Immediately upon arrival, Judy undergoes grueling military drills and inspections led by Second Officer Charity Adams, one of the only Black officers in the WAC. Judy becomes fast friends with the other women in her unit—Stacy, Bernadette and Mary Alyce—who only discovered she was Black after joining the army. Under Charity Adams’s direction, they are transferred to Birmingham, England, as part of the 6888th Central Postal Battalion—the only unit of Black women to serve overseas in WWII. Here, they must sort a backlog of over one million pieces of mail.
The women work tirelessly, knowing that they're reuniting soldiers to their loved ones through the letters they write. However, their work becomes personal when Mary Alyce discovers a backlogged letter addressed to Judy that will upend her personal life. Told through the alternating perspectives of Judy, Charity and Mary Alyce, Women of the Post is an unforgettable story of perseverance, female friendship, romance and self-discovery.

My Review:

American women had many and various reasons for signing up for the Women’s Army Corps in World War II, from the Corps’ beginning as the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps in 1942 through its transition to the WAC in 1943 – and all the way through its eventual disbanding in 1978.

For the three African-American women portrayed in Women of the Post, the reasons were every bit as varied, but underlying those reasons was that their options for highly paid civilian war work were practically non-existent because of the color of their skin. They all wanted to make a difference – not just for themselves but in how women of color were treated both during and after the war.

And it was the best job they thought they were ever likely to have.

The story of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion is told through the experience of three characters, one based directly on a real historical figure, and two who are composites of the real women who served in the 6888th.

Through Major Charity Adams’ eyes we see the perspective of the first African-American female officer in the WACs. She knows that the future rides on the shoulders of her unit, and that they will all have to be three times as good with less than half the training and equipment in order to stay the course they’ve set for themselves. A course that few in the Army or outside it believe that women like them are capable of.

From the point of view of Judy Washington we experience the way that the world looks and especially works from someone who is closed out of every opportunity except for poorly paid domestic work conducted under the thumbs of privileged white women who can steal the meager coins from their purses and pay it back to them as ‘wages’. That the work is solicited through an institution named the Bronx Slave Market is bitter icing on a terrible cake. (But another facet of U.S. history that needs more exposure)

But Judy wants more from her life and her world. She wants a decent wage for a day’s work. She wants to see a broader horizon than her mother does or expects her to settle for. And she wants to see if she can catch word of her husband, himself in uniform, who she hasn’t heard from in months.

Mary Alyce Dixon is the character who gives readers the clearest picture of what life is like for an African-American woman in the WAC’s, because it’s not the life she ever expected to have. Her long-deceased father was ‘colored’, but her mother never told her. When the Army receives her birth certificate, her world shifts under her feet. She doesn’t know how to be the person she has just learned that she is, and her education in living on the other side of the color line is sometimes harsh but always an eye-opener for readers who have not lived her experience.

That this unit comprised entirely of women of color, from its officers on down, forms into a band of sisters is not a surprise, but is a delight. That they exceed every goal set for them in clearing the seemingly years’ worth of backlogged mail to and from U.S. troops stationed in Europe is a boost to morale on both the front lines AND the homefront.

And the story of these unsung heroines is one that absolutely cried out to be told.

Escape Rating B+: I ended up with some mixed feelings about this story, a bit of a conflict between what I thought of the true history that inspired it vs. what I felt about the fictionalized version presented between these pages.

Women of the Post is a story of ‘hidden figures’, very much like the book of that title. It’s one of those stories that isn’t widely known, but truly should be. However, that the story is not as well-known as it should be allows this fictionalization of it to rise above the overcrowded field of World War II fiction.

I loved seeing this important and inspiring story brought to such vivid life.

The Six-Triple-Eight really existed, and they performed the work outlined in the book. They were the only unit of African-American women to serve overseas during the war. The ONLY unit. Think about what that says about racism and bigotry in the U.S. during the war.

The story also feels true to life in its depiction of the pervasive racism, sexism and all the other heinous bigotries that these women, and in fact ALL women of color, faced not just during their military service, but also before and after it.

Those prejudices provide a harsh, driving drumbeat that persists throughout the narrative. As it did in real life. It can make for a hard read but a necessary one. It has to have been, and still be in too many ways, even more difficult to live.

But that drumbeat does have an effect on the story as it’s told, because it’s always there and confronts the characters around pretty much every corner.

The story being told, however, creates its dramatic tension out of the interactions of the characters, and from the war that is being waged all around their postings. From a certain perspective, not a lot happens – although plenty is happening all around them. For a story that takes place in the midst of war, the pace can seem a bit leisurely even as it pulls the reader along. It’s more of a slice of life in wartime story than a big drama.

What makes it work are the three characters we follow, Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Charity Adams, Judy Washington, and Mary Alyce Dixon. While Major Adams is the real-life heroine of this story, it’s through Mary Alyce’s learning curve that the reader gets the sharpest picture of what life is really like for the Women of the Post, before, during and after their wartime service.

Review: The Housekeepers by Alex Hay

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Housekeepers by Alex HayThe Housekeepers by Alex Hay
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery, thriller
Pages: 368
Published by Graydon House on July 4, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

The night of London's grandest ball, a bold group of women downstairs launch a daring revenge heist against Mayfair society in this dazzling historical novel about power, gender, and class.
Mrs. King is no ordinary housekeeper. Born into a world of con artists and thieves, she’s made herself respectable, running the grandest home in Mayfair. The place is packed with treasures, a glittering symbol of wealth and power, but dark secrets lurk in the shadows.
When Mrs. King is suddenly dismissed from her position, she recruits an eclectic group of women to join her in revenge: A black market queen out to settle her scores. An actress desperate for a magnificent part. A seamstress dreaming of a better life. And Mrs. King’s predecessor, with her own desire for vengeance.
Their plan? On the night of the house’s highly anticipated costume ball—set to be the most illustrious of the year—they will rob it of its every possession, right under the noses of the distinguished guests and their elusive heiress host. But there’s one thing Mrs. King wants even more than money: the truth. And she’ll run any risk to get it…
After all, one should never underestimate the women downstairs.

My Review:

It’s 1905, the somber colors and repressive sensibilities of the Victorian era are gone along with the 19th century, and the glittering Edwardian era is in its full if brief splendor of wretched excess in the pursuit of pleasure while so-called ‘Radicals’ agitated towards reform and the world lurched towards the Great War that upended society, killed a generation of young men and hastened the British Empire towards its sunset.

This is a heist story, and like all the best heist stories, it starts kind of in the middle. In this particular story it starts with a beginning AND an ending, although neither is either the beginning or the ending of the story.

First, there’s an invitation. The oh-so-correctly worded and printed invitation to an opulent masquerade ball at the recently inherited and ridiculously opulent Park Lane mansion of the wealthy Miss de Vries. A young woman who should still be in full mourning for her recently deceased, utterly unlamented and very obviously nouveau riche father. A man who may have been buried as Wilhelm de Vries but was born plain old Danny O’Flynn but made his fortune and his name – literally in both cases – in the diamond mines of South Africa.

Second, there’s a dismissal. Mrs. King, housekeeper to the late Mr. de Vries was caught entering the male servants’ quarters the night before. Everyone believes it was for an assignation, and she’s dismissed without a character or a reference from her respected, respectable and well-earned job. It’s just the first of many such dismissals, as Miss de Vries is determined to set her own course with her own people around her, so ALL of her father’s ‘loyal’ servants will have to go.

But Mrs. King had her own reasons for entering service in this particular household and rising through its ranks. Her dismissal, as much as it most definitely rankles, frees her up to begin step one of a fiendishly clever plan.

Her plan to strip the entire mansion down to its foundations, to take back her own from the man who, by turns, sired her, protected her, abandoned her, and hid her from the world he created for himself. Mrs. King, born Dinah O’Flynn, plans to get the biggest piece of her own she can grab.

While the biggest ball of the season is in progress under the very same roof at the very same time.

Escape Rating B: The Housekeepers is all about the heist. Which means that the characters take a back seat to the caper on this thrill ride, and the story is more about putting the operation together and taking the target apart than it is about the gang who are pulling it off.

At the beginning we don’t know much about any of the principals. We know a bit more by the end, but this isn’t the kind of story where character development takes center stage. After all, we don’t need to know a whole lot about either Danny or Debbie Ocean’s backstory or motivations to get caught up in the capers that they pull off. (And yes, The Housekeepers does ring a lot of the same bells as Ocean’s Eleven and Ocean’s 8.)

The focus of the first two-thirds of The Housekeepers is pulling together the operation to strip Stanhope House bare to the walls (Stanhope House really did exist although the O’Flynn/de Vries family did not). The final third of the story is, naturally, the edge of the seat thrill nail-biter of pulling off the meticulously planned caper.

But the two principals of the story, Mrs. King and Miss de Vries, are both women who keep their cards close to the vest and their emotions even closer. They release bits of their motivations and their backstories, but reluctantly, as if each bit of history was a diamond to be guarded zealously under all conditions. We see them but we don’t know them, and we don’t care about them nearly as much as I hoped.

But it’s a caper story, which means we don’t need to know their motivations, only whether they can make good on their ambitions. Which Mrs. King manages to do in spite of the odds against her and her gang as well as all the things that can go wrong and inevitably do.

This story, with its blend of Ocean’s 8, Comeuppance Served Cold, The Sting, Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey, keeps the reader compulsively turning pages to see if Mrs. King and her gang can manage to pull off the heist of their newly born century. The inner reticence of the story’s principals, Mrs. King and Miss de Vries does leave the story a bit cold at its heart, much like The Forty Elephants, which is based on a true story about an female-led gang operating in New York City during the same time period as The Housekeepers.

Howsomever, like so many of the stories which The Housekeepers reminds readers of, this will make a terrific movie someday, blending the pace of Ocean’s 8 with the costumes of Downton Abbey. I hope it happens!

Review: Whispers at Dusk by Heather Graham

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Whispers at Dusk by Heather GrahamWhispers at Dusk: A Novel (The Blackbird Trilogy, 1) by Heather Graham
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: paranormal, romantic suspense, thriller
Series: Blackbird Trilogy #1
Pages: 320
Published by Mira on June 27, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

When darkness falls, there’s nowhere to hide.
Four bodies have been discovered along Europe’s riverbanks, placed with care—and completely drained of blood. Pinpricks on their throats indicate a slender murder weapon, but DNA found in the wounds suggests something far more sinister. Tasked with investigating, the FBI recruits Agents Della Hamilton and Mason Carter to Blackbird, an international offshoot of the Krewe of Hunters. If you want to catch a vampire killer, you need agents who can speak with the dead.
The pair travel to Norway, where the shadowy forests of Lillehammer reveal a gruesome scene. The killer is thirsty for more victims, and the bloodless trail soon leads Della and Mason to a group that believes drinking blood is the key to immortality. To catch the culprit of such an intimate crime, the agents will have to get close. Mason’s already lost one partner; he’s not ready to risk Della as bait. But sometimes justice requires a sacrifice…

My Review:

Bram Stoker used every myth and legend of blood-drinking ghouls – and there were plenty of them – and added just a pinch of history (and a tiny pinch at that) to create his legendary blood-sucking monster, Count Dracula.

The vampire killer that the latest members of the Krewe of Hunters are chasing, on the other hand, just cribbed off of Hollywood to create his own version of that legendary villain. Which does not make him any less frightening or any less of a monster.

Perhaps even a bit more so, as he seems to have all the mesmerizing charm of those movie villains, as well as an uncanny ability to choose “apprentices” who can be persuaded to carry on his work with just the right promises of infamy and immortality couched in cult-like justification.

But this serial killer is absolutely not a “real” vampire – even if he is a blood-sucking fiend. He’s still only human – and crazy like a fox.

The Krewe of Hunters is a very special unit of the FBI, as established in the first book in the long-running series, Phantom Evil. As part of the FBI, the Krewe operates in the United States, based out of New Orleans. But this wannabe vampire killer is operating in Europe. Mostly. So far. But not for long.

With murders attributed to this madman scattered from London to Paris to Lillehammer in Norway – when this story begins – Interpol and the various local police agencies are in the hunt up to their necks – so to speak – when the FBI assigns two new members of the Krewe to the international team hunting the killer.

Or killers.

Although the Krewe often deals with supernatural crimes, there isn’t anything woo-woo about the vampire killer – no matter his method of draining the blood of his victims. But that doesn’t mean that the special abilities that the Krewe’s members have won’t come to excellent use in this hunt.

Agents Della Hamilton and Mason Carter, both new to the Krewe, are able to see – and speak to – ghosts. A talent that is going to help them catch this killer before any more of his victims join the dead.

Escape Rating B+: I picked this up because I was looking for something with more of a romantic suspense vibe, I had vague memories of having read at least a few of the early books in the Krewe of Hunters series, and this looked like a good place to jump back in.

And so it proved.

The Krewe of Hunters series is 38 books and counting, and I’ll admit I didn’t feel like starting back near the beginning. At least not right now, although I certainly liked this more than enough for the series to go into my comfort reads rotation. But I don’t remember any more of the setup than is provided in this first book in the new Blackbird subseries, so you don’t need to be familiar with the Krewe to start here.

Whispers at Dusk struck me as a combination of Jayne Ann Krentz’ contemporary entries in her Arcane Society/Harmony series, as the team has a mix of psychic or other special talents which are useful to solving the case without necessarily being integral to it. The quick flash and hot burn of the romance between Della and Mason also has a similar vibe to the romances in that series. At the same time it blends the putting the band together and police procedural aspects of Andrea Kane’s Forensic Instincts series (another series I need to get a round tuit to get back to!)

The case in this one is taut and chilling. While no one – at least on the police side – is fool enough to believe there’s a real vampire, the idea that a serial killer has chosen to strike fear by mimicking one is bad enough. That the killer is training others in his methods and leaving a cult of killers in his wake is enough to give anyone the heebie-jeebies, vampire or no.

What keeps the reader on the edge of their seat is the relentless pace of the story, as the killer leads the newly-formed team on a not-merry-at-all chase from one remote and historically significant location to another, from Lillehammer to the Orkneys to the swamps around Lake Pontchartrain, leaving clues and victims in their wake while dropping hints of their next kill and their intent to make Della their crowning achievement – either by turning her to their ‘dark side’ or leaving her drained corpse as a final monument to their twisted genius.

This one is a creeping, blood-sucking thrill ride from beginning to end. I will absolutely be back for the second installment in this suspenseful chase for next in this series of serial killers with in twist in Secrets in the Dark, coming next month!

Review: A Rogue at Stonecliffe by Candace Camp

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: A Rogue at Stonecliffe by Candace CampA Rogue at Stonecliffe (Stonecliffe, #2) by Candace Camp
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical romance
Series: Stonecliffe #2
Pages: 384
Published by Canary Street Press on June 27, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

New York Times bestselling author Candace Camp invites you back to Stonecliffe, where an unwelcome reunion between a lady and a rogue calls up old feelings…and new dangers.
When the love of her life left without any explanation, Annabeth Winfield moved on despairingly, knowing she’d never have a love as thrilling as her first ever again. Sloane Rutherford was roguish and daring, but as Annabeth grew up, she realized that their reckless romance was just a passing adventure, never meant for stability. Twelve years later, Annabeth is engaged to someone new, ready to start her life with a dependable man.
That’s when Sloane returns. And he brings with him a serious warning: Annabeth is in trouble.
After spending the past dozen years working as a spy, Sloane thought he’d left espionage behind him. But now a dangerous blackmailer is after Annabeth. Sloane offers to hide his former lover at Stonecliffe, the Rutherford estate, but stubborn Annabeth demands to be part of the investigation. As the two embark on a dangerous and exciting journey, memories of their past romance resurface. Sloane and Annabeth aren’t the wide-eyed children they used to be, but knowing they’re wrong for each other makes a nostalgic affair seem very right…
A Stonecliffe Novel
Book 1: An Affair at StonecliffeBook 2: A Rogue at Stonecliffe

My Review:

Fictionally speaking, the Napoleonic Wars are a gift that just keeps on giving. And taking, as happens in this second book in the Stonecliffe series, after last year’s An Affair at Stonecliffe. (Which I have not read – yet – but am now looking forward to!)

The Napoleonic Wars are long over when that rogue of the title returns home to Stonecliffe, but that is not when this story begins. It began twelve years earlier, in 1810, when the war within the war known as the Peninsular War was still going hot, and the cold and chill war of spies and smugglers was complicating progress on both sides of the Channel.

Sloane Rutherford and Annabeth Winfield were young, in love, and expecting to marry as soon as Anna attained her majority at 21. As the children of somewhat spendthrift second sons of the aristocracy, they’ve been raised on the fringes of the ton without ever being truly part of it. They can marry for love – and that’s exactly what they intend to do.

At least until the seemingly endless war interferes with their hopes and dreams, in the person of Britain’s spymaster, Asquith. Asquith needs someone to pose as a disaffected spy and smuggler, and has decided that Sloane is the perfect man for a job that the younger man has no desire to do.

But Asquith has leverage. Not against Sloane himself, but against Anna’s beloved father, who has turned traitorous spy because someone in France has leverage on him. Sloane is faced with an impossible choice, whether to give up Anna, let everything think he has turned his back on his own country, and steal back the incriminating documents that keep her father in thrall, or let Asquith expose her father’s treachery and let the ensuing scandal fall on Anna and her family.

Sloane is damned if he does – literally – and equally damned if he doesn’t. So he does, because his choice is always going to be action over inaction. He leaves Anna in the painful lurch, and pretends to be everything that the ton ends up believing, that he’s a rogue, a smuggler, and a spy.

Even after the wars are over, and Sloane is back in England running the shipping empire that was his well-earned pay for a deadly and dangerous game, he and Anna stay far, far away from each other.

Until that incriminating paper that was once held over her father’s head puts Anna’s life in danger. So Sloane does what he always does – he acts. He’s the only one who takes the danger seriously enough to protect Anna at any and all costs – especially to his own heart.

Escape Rating B: The story in A Rogue at Stonecliffe reads like a combination of the chickens coming home to roost and an old truism about it not being the original crime that gets someone in trouble nearly half so much as it’s the coverup that does them in.

Mixed with a second chance at love story whose tension isn’t “will they, won’t they” because they already did, or even “should they or shouldn’t they”, because it’s obvious early on that they should, but much more about whether they can manage to get past all the damage that they’ve already done to each other.

Or more to the point, all the damage that Sloane has already done to Anna. Because he seriously effed up by taking solely unto himself a whole heaping helping of decisions that should rightfully have been shared. And that’s something they’re going to have to work on together in order to have any kind of future.

And it’s not easy to do that when bullets are flying and people are trying to kill one or both of them and there’s a dangerous secret at the bottom of the dirty barrel that neither of them knows the full depths of until it’s nearly too late.

There’s more than a bit of romantic suspense in this, as Sloane and Anna are searching for a secret that once damned her father and has the capacity to take the rest of the family down with him now that he’s dead. All the while, Sloane is trying to keep both of them a few steps ahead of a traitor who has been hiding in plain sight for over a decade.

But what makes this one so much fun is Anna and her relationship with Sloane. Not the hazy dream they had in the past, but the real, and increasingly honest and equal one they have in the present. Sloane wants to keep her safe. Anna has the right to know all the truths and make her own decisions. Navigating that minefield is even more of a threat to any possibility of their future happiness than any sharpshooters taking potshots from the woods.

The Stonecliffe series has proved to be a fascinating mix of historical romance and romantic suspense, at least based on this second book in the series. So I’ll be reaching back for that first book, An Affair at Stonecliffe, and looking forward to the third, A Scandal at Stonecliffe, coming next year.

Review: Famous in a Small Town by Viola Shipman

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Famous in a Small Town by Viola ShipmanFamous in a Small Town by Viola Shipman
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, relationship fiction, women's fiction
Pages: 352
Published by Graydon House on June 13, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

"Full of summertime delight…and sweet, nostalgic charm, Famous in a Small Town is a beautiful reminder to…fully embrace the magic that lives inside you." —Heather Webber, USA TODAY bestselling author of Midnight at the Blackbird Café
For most of her eighty years, Mary Jackson has endured the steady invasion of tourists, influencers and real estate developers who have discovered the lakeside charm of Good Hart, Michigan, waiting patiently for the arrival of a stranger she’s believed since childhood would one day carry on her legacy—the Very Cherry General Store. Like generations of Jackson women before her, Cherry Mary, as she’s known locally, runs the community hub—part post office, bakery and sandwich shop—and had almost given up hope that the mysterious prediction she’d been told as a girl would come true and the store would have to pass to…a man.
Becky Thatcher came to Good Hart with her ride-or-die BFF to forget that she’s just turned forty with nothing to show for it. Ending up at the general store with Mary is admittedly not the beach vacation she expected, but the more the feisty octogenarian talks about destiny, the stronger Becky’s memories of her own childhood holidays become, and the strange visions over the lake she was never sure were real. As she works under Mary’s wing for the summer and finds she fits into this quirky community of locals, she starts to believe that destiny could be real, and that it might have something very special in mind for Becky…
Bursting with memorable characters and small-town lore, the enchanting new novel from the bestselling author of The Clover Girls is a magical story about the family you’re born with, and the one you choose.

My Review:

In the summer of 2023, “Cherry Mary” Jackson is eighty years old and holding both a record and legacy in Good Hart, Michigan.

Mary Jackson has held the world record, officially certified by the Guinness Book of World Records, for the furthest distance a cherry pit (from a Michigan cherry, of course) has ever been spit. By anyone, male or female, man, woman or child. It’s a record she’s held since 1958, when she was 15 years old and cherry spitting was considered to be utterly unladylike.

But Mary has never thought of herself as a lady – and neither did either her mother or grandmother.

Which relates to the legacy that Mary is holding. She’s the latest in a long, unbroken line of female owners of the Very Cherry General Store in the heart of Good Hart. It’s not exactly an untarnished legacy, as Mary is all too aware. That Mary’s grandmother was able to pass the store intact to her daughter, who was, in her turn, able to pass it intact to Mary herself, had a rather active hand in making it happen in more ways than just the obvious.

Mary has always known she’s supposed to pass the store to another woman in her family when it’s her time to go. At age eighty, Mary is all too aware that her time is coming sooner than she’d like to think. But her only child was a son, and now, her son’s only child is a son in his mid-30s who seems to be following in his father’s footsteps far away from Mary and the store.

Meanwhile, just-turned-forty Becky Thatcher (yes, her parents really named her that and the inevitable schoolyard taunts and bullying were every bit as awful as one might imagine) has also always known that she had a destiny out there waiting for her to find it. A destiny she learned about when she was a child, spending summers with her beloved grandparents on the shores of Lake Michigan.

They’re gone now, but the memories remain, including Becky’s memory of a dream, or a vision, or a Fata Morgana mirage out of the lake, of a group of three women coming towards her and herself walking towards them.

This summer of 2023, after breaking up with her long-term utter douche-sponge of a boyfriend, Becky and her BFF Monique (AKA Q) take a ride back through time. Not time travel, more like a reboot. They take a ‘Girl’s Vacation’, just like they used to before adult responsibilities sucked them under, and they drive to Lake Michigan, back to where Becky’s grandparents used to take her, to take a summer off from real life to decide if the real life they have to go back to is the one they really want for the next forty years.

Becky and her fate run straight into “Cherry Mary” and her legacy – along with Mary’s yummy grandson – and it finally all comes together. For all of them. In the ‘Blue Hours’ and ‘Golden Hours’ of one beautiful Lake Michigan summer.

Escape Rating A: Famous in a Small Town is an utterly charming take on “we are too soon old and too late smart” applied across multiple generations, from 80-year-old Mary to 40-year-old Becky while in between Mary’s parents are trapped in their own fears and expectations and need to drive a cherry red convertible out of their damn garage and into a life they can both love.

But to give the story a bit of spice (and body!) it also includes just a pinch of the bad decisions and ruthless practicality that seasoned those Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.

It’s also a marvelous if sometimes bittersweet tale of the power of women’s enduring friendships – as well as the lifelong enmity that can be spawned when those friendships go sour. As much as the laughter in this story is buoyed by the rock solid, lifelong sisterhood between Becky and Q, it is salted with tears over the even longer relationship between Mary, Francine and Virgie, who now in their sunset are celebrating both the support that Mary and Francine have always given each other as well as the once-upon-a-time kick-in-the-pants that Virgie administered to Mary when she needed it the absolute most.

Sometimes friendship involves standing side by side, and sometimes it manifests as a boot up the backside – even if that boot pulls that friendship apart.

I picked up this book because I loved the beautifully “sad fluff” of the author’s earlier novel, The Clover Girls. (I’ve liked the author’s subsequent books but I just haven’t loved them the way I did The Clover Girls.)

At least not until now.

The very cherry flavored fluff of Famous in a Small Town isn’t nearly as sad as The Clover Girls. There is a touch of bittersweetness in the chocolate the cherries are enrobed in, but the story as a whole is considerably lighter – even though there are some absolutely appropriate and completely justified dark spots.

Then again, I like dark chocolate considerably better than milk because it has just the bit more bite.

I think that’s because the characters in this one, especially Mary and Becky, are at much better places in their lives than any of The Clover Girls were when their story begins. That Becky’s part of this one begins just as she’s kicked her dead weight of an ex to the curb starts her part on a bit of a celebratory note – even as she’s kicking herself for having tolerated the situation for so long.

But still, this one starts out at a point where no one is in dire straits. Things could be better, things will be worse on the horizon, but they’re at a point where they begin by being open to something good happening, so the fact that it does and that the good happening is the story bakes the whole thing into a delicious Cherry Chip Cake with Cherry Vanilla Buttercream Frosting – the recipe for which is included at the end!

Spotlight + Excerpt: Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | blog tours> Excerpts> Spotlight
Spotlight + Excerpt: Cassandra in Reverse by Holly SmaleCassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale
Formats available: hardcover, large print, ebook, audiobook
Genres: Chick Lit, time travel romance
Pages: 368
Published by Mira on June 11, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads


If you had the power to change the past…where would you start?

Cassandra Penelope Dankworth is a creature of habit. She likes what she likes (museums, jumpsuits, her boyfriend, Will) and strongly dislikes what she doesn't (mess, change, her boss drinking out of her mug). Her life runs in a pleasing, predictable order…until now.• She's just been dumped.• She's just been fired.• Her local café has run out of banana muffins.
Then, something truly unexpected happens: Cassie discovers she can go back and change the past. One small rewind at a time, Cassie attempts to fix the life she accidentally obliterated, but soon she'll discover she's trying to fix all the wrong things.

Welcome to the blog tour for Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale. I’ll be reviewing this book later this month, but in the meantime, here’s a bit of a teaser to whet ALL of our reading appetites!

Here’s how Cassandra’s story starts…(Excerpt from the first chapter of Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale)

WHERE DOES A STORY START?

   It’s a lie, the first page of a book, because it masquerades as a beginning. A real beginning—the opening of something—when what you’re being offered is an arbitrary line in the sand. This story starts here. Pick a random event. Ignore whatever came before it or catch up later. Pretend the world stops when the book closes, or that a resolution isn’t simply another random moment on a curated timeline.

  • But life isn’t like that, so books are dishonest.
  • Maybe that’s why humans like them.
  • And it’s saying that kind of shit that gets me thrown out of the Fentiman Road Book Club.

Here are some other things I’ve been asked not to return to:

  • The Blenheim Road Readers Group
  • A large flat-share I briefly attempted in Walthamstow
  • My last relationship
  • My current job

   The final two have been in quick succession. This morning, Will—my boyfriend of four months—kissed me, listed my virtues out of nowhere and concluded the pep talk by ending our relationship.

   The job situation I found out about eighty seconds ago.

   According to the flexing jaw and flared nostrils of my boss, I’ve yet to respond to this new information. He seems faint and muted, as if he’s behind a pane of thick frosted glass. He also has a dried oat on his shirt collar but now doesn’t seem the right time to point it out: he’s married—his wife can do it later.

   “Cassie,” he says more loudly. “Did you hear me?”

   Obviously I heard him or I’d still be giving a detailed report on the client meeting I just had, which is exactly what I was doing when he fired me.

   “The issue isn’t so much your work performance,” he plows on gallantly. “Although, Christ knows, somebody who hates phone calls as much as you do shouldn’t be working in public relations.”

   I nod: that’s an accurate assessment.

   “It’s your general demeanor I can’t have in this office. You are rude. Insubordinate. Arrogant, frankly. You are not a team player, and do you know what this office needs?”

   “A better coffee machine.”

   “That’s exactly the kind of bullshit I’m talking about.”

   I’d tell you my boss’s name and give him a brief description, but judging by this conversation, he isn’t going to be a prominent character for much longer.

   “I’ve spoken to you about this on multiple occasions— Cassandra, look at me when I’m talking to you. Our highest-paying client just dropped us because of your quote, unquote relentlessly grating behavior. You are unlikable. That’s the exact word they used. Unlikable. Public relations is a People Job. For People People.”

   Now, just hang on a minute.

   “I’m a person,” I object, lifting my chin and doing my best to stare directly into his pupils. “And, as far as I’m aware, being likable is irrelevant to my job description. It’s certainly not in my contract, because I’ve checked.”

   My boss’s nostrils flare into horsiness.

   I rarely understand what another human is thinking, but I frequently feel it: a wave of emotion that pours out of them into me, like a teapot into a cup. While it fills me up, I have to work out what the hell it is, where it came from and what I’m supposed to do to stop it spilling everywhere.

   Rage that doesn’t feel like mine pulses through me: dark purple and red.

   His colors are an invasion and I do not like it.

   “Look,” my boss concludes with a patient sigh that is nothing like the emotion bolting out of him. “This just isn’t working out, Cassie, and on some level you must already know that. Maybe you should find something that is better suited to your…specific skill set.”

   That’s essentially what Will told me this morning too. I don’t know why they’re both under the impression I must have seen the end coming when I very much did not.

   “Your job has the word relations in it,” my boss clarifies helpfully. “Perhaps you could find one that doesn’t?”

   Standing up, I clear my throat and look at my watch: it’s not even Wednesday lunchtime yet.

   Relationship: over.

   Job: over.

“Well,” I say calmly. “Fuck.”

So that’s where my story starts.

It could have started anywhere: I just had to pick a moment. It could have been waking up this morning to the sound of my flatmates screaming at each other, or eating my breakfast (porridge and banana, always), or making an elaborate gift for my first anniversary with Will (slightly preemptive).

   It could have been the moment just before I met him, which would have been a more positive beginning. It could have been the day my parents died in a car accident, which would have been considerably less so.

   But I chose here: kind of in the middle.

   Thirty-one years into my story and a long time after the dramatic end of some others. Packing a cardboard box with very little, because it transpires the only thing on my desk that doesn’t belong to the agency is a gifted coffee mug with a picture of a cartoon deer on it. I put it in the box anyway. There’s no real way of knowing what’s going to happen next, but I assume there will still be caffeine.

   “Oh shit!” My colleague Sophie leans across our desks as I stick a wilting plant under my arm just to look like I’m not leaving another year of my life behind with literally nothing to show for it. “They haven’t fired you? That’s awful. I’m sure we will all miss you so much.”

   I genuinely have no idea if she means this or not. If she does, it’s certainly unexpected: we’ve been sitting opposite each other since I got here and all I really know about her is that she’s twenty-two years old and likes tuna sandwiches, typing aggressively and picking her nose as if none of us have peripheral vision.

   “Will you?” I ask, genuinely curious. “Why?”

   Sophie opens her mouth, shuts it again and goes back to smashing her keyboard as if she’s playing whack-a-mole with her fingertips.

   “Cassandra!” My boss appears in the doorway just as I start cleaning down my keyboard with one of my little antiseptic wipes. “What the hell are you doing? I didn’t mean leave right now. Jesus on a yellow bicycle, what is wrong with you? I’d prefer you to work out your notice period, please.”

   “Oh.” I look down at the box and my plant. I’ve packed now. “No, thank you.”

   Finished with cleaning, I sling my handbag over my shoulder and my coat over my arm, hold the box against my stomach, awkwardly hook the plant in the crook of my elbow and try to get the agency door open on my own. Then I hold it open with my knee while I look back, even though—much like Orpheus at the border of the Underworld—I know I shouldn’t.

   The office has never been this quiet.

   Heads are conscientiously turned away from me, as if I’m a sudden bright light. There’s a light patter of keyboards like pigeons walking on a roof (punctuated by the violent death stabs of Sophie), the radiator by the window is gurgling, the reception is blindingly gold-leafed and the watercooler drips. If I’m looking for something good to come out of today—and I think I probably should—it’s that I won’t have to hear that every second for the rest of my working life.

   It’s a productivity triumph. They should fire people for fundamental personality flaws more often.

   The door slams behind me and I jump even though I’m the one who slammed it. Then my phone beeps, so I balance everything precariously on one knee and fumble for it. I try to avoid having unread notifications if I can. They make my bag feel heavy.

Dankworth please clean your shit up

   I frown as I reply:

Which shit in particular

   There’s another beep.

   Very funny. Keep the kitchen clear

It is a COmmUNAL SPaCE.

   It wasn’t funny a couple of weeks ago when I came down for a glass of water in the middle of the night and found Sal and Derek having sex against the fridge.

   Although perhaps that is the definition of communal.

   Still frowning, I hit the button for the lift and mentally scour the flat for what I’ve done wrong this time. I forgot to wash my porridge bowl and spoon. There’s also my favorite yellow scarf on the floor and a purple jumper over the arm of the sofa. This is my sixth flat-share in ten years and I’m starting to feel like a snail: carrying my belongings around with me so I leave no visible trace.

   I send back:

OK.

My intestines are rapidly liquidizing, my cheeks are hot and a bright pink rash I can’t see is forming across my chest. Dull pain wraps itself around my neck, like a scarf pulled tight.

   It’s fascinating how emotions can tie your life together.

   One minute you’re twelve, standing in the middle of a playground while people fight over who doesn’t get you as a teammate. The next you’re in your thirties, single and standing by the lifts of an office you’ve just been fired from because nobody wants you as a teammate. Same sensations, different body. Literally: my cells have cunningly replaced themselves at least twice in the interim.

   The office door swings open. “Cassandra?”

   Ronald has worn the same thing—a navy cashmere jumper—every day since he started working here a few months ago. It smells really lovely, so I’m guessing there must be plural. He walks toward me and I immediately panic. Now and then I’ve caught him looking at me from the neighboring desk with an incalculable expression on his face, and I have no idea what it could be. Lust? Repulsion? I’ve been scripting a response to the former for a month now, just in case.

I am honored by your romantic and/or sexual interest in me given that we’ve only exchanged perfunctory greetings, but I have a long-term boyfriend I am almost definitely in the process of falling in love with.

   Well, that excuse isn’t going to work anymore, is it.

   Ronald clears his throat and runs a large hand over his buzz-cut Afro. “That’s mine.”

   “Who?” I blink, disoriented by the grammar. “Me?”

   “The plant.” He points at the shrubbery now clutched under my sweaty armpit. “It’s mine and I’d like to keep it.”

   Ah, the sweet, giddy flush of humiliation is now complete.

   “Of course,” I say stiffly. “Sorry, Ronald.”

   Ronald blinks and reaches out a hand; I move quickly away so his fingers won’t touch mine, nearly dropping the pot in the process. It’s the same fun little dance I do when I have to pay with cash at the supermarket checkout, which is why I always carry cards.

   I get into the lift and press the button. Ronald now appears to be casually assessing me as if I’m a half-ripe avocado, so I stare at the floor until he reaches a conclusion.

   “Bye,” he says finally.

   “Bye,” I say as the lift doors slide shut.

And that’s how my story starts.

   With a novelty mug in a box, a full character assassination and the realization that when I leave a building I am missed considerably less than a half-dead rubber plant.

Excerpted from CASSANDRA IN REVERSE. Copyright © 2023 by Holly Smale. Published by MIRA, an imprint of HarperCollins.

 

About the Author:

Holly Smale is the internationally bestselling, award-winning author of the Geek Girl (soon to be a Netflix series) and The Valentines teen series, which have sold 3.4 million copies worldwide. In January 2021, Holly was diagnosed autistic at the age of 39. Suddenly a lot of things made sense. Holly regularly shares, debates about, and celebrates neurodiversity on Twitter and Instagram @holsmale. Cassandra in Reverse is her adult debut and was named A Reese’s Book Club Pick, an Amazon Editors’ Top Pick of the Month, and a June Must Listen on Apple.

Social Links:
Author Website: https://www.hollysmale.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/holsmale
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/holsmale/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5824402.Holly_Smale

Review: The Little Italian Hotel by Phaedra Patrick

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Little Italian Hotel by Phaedra PatrickThe Little Italian Hotel by Phaedra Patrick
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: relationship fiction, travel fiction, women's fiction
Pages: 320
Published by Park Row on June 6, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

When a relationship expert’s own marriage falls apart, she invites four strangers to Italy for a vacation of healing and second chances in this uplifting new novel from the author of 
The Messy Lives of Book People
.
Ginny Splinter, acclaimed radio host and advice expert, prides herself on knowing what’s best for others. So she’s sure her husband, Adrian, will love the special trip to Italy she’s planned for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. But when Ginny presents the gift to Adrian, he surprises her with his own very different plan—a divorce.
Beside herself with heartache, Ginny impulsively invites four heartbroken listeners to join her in Italy instead while live on air. From hiking the hills of Bologna to riding a gondola in Venice to sharing stories around the dining table of the little Italian hotel, Ginny and her newfound company embark on a vacation of healing.
However, when Adrian starts to rethink their relationship, Ginny must decide whether to commit to her marriage or start afresh, alone. And an unexpected stranger may hold the key to a very different future… Sunny, tender and brimming with charm, The Little Italian Hotel explores marriage, identity and reclaiming the present moment—even if it means leaving the past behind.
Look for Phaedra Patrick’s previous charming bestsellers! The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper Rise and Shine, Benedict Stone The Library of Lost and Found The Secrets of Love Story BridgeThe Messy Lives of Book People

My Review:

There are a slew of really good reasons why doctors make the worst patients and lawyers who represent themselves have fools for clients. In both cases the practitioner, no matter how successful they are in their profession, are generally incapable of having the emotional distance necessary to do that job well when it comes to their own lives.

The same thing is true of therapists – and undoubtedly advice columnists. It’s easy to give advice to other people, but hard to see one’s own problems – even when they are staring you in the face.

And that’s where Ginny Splinter’s journey to The Little Italian Hotel begins, when a caller into her radio talk show/advice column tells her that her so-called ‘perfect life’ is anything but. A truth that Ginny has been trying to keep herself from looking into for a whole lot longer than she is willing to admit. Even to herself. Especially to herself.

Ginny’s marriage has, not a communications problem, but a communications chasm. She keeps trying to patch it over, while her husband Adrian has just detached himself from it and from her. Neither of them is innocent. Neither of them is particularly guilty – at least not yet – either.

Although there’s a vat of acid waiting for Adrian because he IS a real douche about the whole thing. But that’s attitude and not adultery – at least not yet.

When the feces hits the oscillating device Ginny is left with an empty house, a hole in her heart, an adult daughter she’s not ready to rip the emotional bandage off of just yet – and an over-the-top, romantic-to-the-max, totally non-refundable, three week holiday in Italy that she has no idea what to do with.

Her solution to that one practical part of her dilemma sits right on that fine line between genius and insanity – and could tip either way at a moment’s notice. She can’t get her money back, but she can switch the trip from expensive and uber-romantic for two to a much less expensive family-run small-town pensione for five. Since the trip is already paid for, she invites four of her listeners to come along with her on a trip to hopefully heal all of their broken hearts.

She has no plan, no itinerary, and no previous knowledge of ANY of her new traveling companions. It’s either going to be three weeks of wonder, three weeks of limbo, or three weeks of hell on Earth.

But it just might work. And it will absolutely, positively (or perhaps negatively) be an adventure!

Escape Rating B: The thing that struck me about The Little Italian Hotel, once we start getting to know the whole ensemble, is that the story doesn’t give any one kind of grief more weight than any other. And that was terrific because of the way it validates all the feelings in ways that we don’t often see jumbled together in one story.

While the group wasn’t as diverse as it could have or possibly should have been, it did represent a spectrum of the different ways that life can fall completely apart and just how hard it is to get out of your own head to get yourself on a positive trajectory after the fact.

Ginny, as is obvious from the blurb, is 50 and is looking at a marriage that wasn’t nearly as ‘perfect’ as she thought it was. A revelation that will change the course of the rest of her life, whether they patch things back together or go their separate ways. And I loved that even though some of the blurbs refer to this as a romance, it really isn’t. This is Ginny’s journey to finally learning what she wants out of her life for her ownself and that’s lovely.

Her travel companions range from 20 something Eric who has lost his best friend, to 80 something Edna who lost her husband and special needs daughter decades ago and has just sold her house full of memories to move to a retirement village. The griefs and losses weighing down 30 something Curtis and 40 something Heather are just as heartbreaking and completely different from each other’s and everyone else’s.

What makes the story fun is that it is a journey of discovery for everyone, including the pensione’s owner and his college-age daughter. The group as a whole grows together, sometimes drifts apart, drives each other crazy and individually and collectively goes places both emotionally and physically they never thought they’d go.

And wouldn’t have been able or willing to go alone.

This is also a bit of a slice-of-life/slice-out-of-life story, and like life itself, it doesn’t really come to a definitive ending, at least not for Ginny herself. She decides to continue her journey of discovery, but not by either traveling around the world or falling in love as happens in Eat, Pray, Love. (The whole thing is a bit of Eat, Pray, Love mixed with The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, making it charming all the way around.) But it’s not quite a happy ever after, and it’s not exactly a romance, and it’s just a tiny bit equivocal in its finish that is not exactly an ending.

And isn’t that just like life?

Review: The Benevolent Society of Ill Mannered Ladies by Alison Goodman

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Benevolent Society of Ill Mannered Ladies by Alison GoodmanThe Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies (The Ill-Mannered Ladies, #1) by Alison Goodman
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery
Series: Ill-Mannered Ladies #1
Pages: 464
Published by Berkley on May 30, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

A high society amateur detective at the heart of Regency London uses her wits and invisibility as an 'old maid' to protect other women in a new and fiercely feminist historical mystery series from New York Times bestselling author Alison Goodman.
Lady Augusta Colebrook, "Gus," is determinedly unmarried, bored by society life, and tired of being dismissed at the age of forty-two. She and her twin sister, Julia, who is grieving her dead betrothed, need a distraction. One soon presents itself: to rescue their friend's goddaughter, Caroline, from her violent husband.
The sisters set out to Caroline's country estate with a plan, but their carriage is accosted by a highwayman. In the scuffle, Gus accidentally shoots and injures the ruffian, only to discover he is Lord Evan Belford, an acquaintance from their past who was charged with murder and exiled to Australia twenty years ago. What follows is a high adventure full of danger, clever improvisation, heart-racing near misses, and a little help from a revived and rather charming Lord Evan.
Back in London, Gus can't stop thinking about her unlikely (not to mention handsome) comrade-in-arms. She is convinced Lord Evan was falsely accused of murder, and she is going to prove it. She persuades Julia to join her in a quest to help Lord Evan, and others in need—society be damned! And so begins the beguiling secret life and adventures of the Colebrook twins.
A rollicking and joyous adventure, with a beautiful love story at its heart, about two rebellious sisters forging their own path in Regency London

My Review:

Lady Augusta Colebrook is an ape-leader. She’s a 42 year old spinster with no prospects of marriage whatsoever – and she’s content in that state, living with her twin sister Julia in rather well-upholstered circumstances. Lady Augusta and Julia may still be under the control of the younger brother who inherited the title, but his control is limited to general opprobrium and ownership of the house they live in as they have independent means of their own.

What makes Lady Augusta (generally called Gus by her friends and intimates) an ape-leader? The term is from an old English adage which said that a spinster’s punishment after death, for failing to procreate, would be to lead apes in hell. Technically both Gus and Julia are ape-leaders, but Gus’ personality tends toward leading considerably more than Julia’s does or ever will.

Julia is a peacemaker who thinks the best of everyone. Gus is the person in whose wake Julia is generally trying to make peace after Gus has refused to kowtow to the behavioral expectations due to her gender.

The sisters should be content to sit on the sidelines of Regency society and mind their own behavior while observing the misbehavior (amorous and otherwise) of the younger and livelier members of the ton.

But there’s life in both of these “old girls” yet, and Gus at least is determined to make sure that both of them experience that life to the fullest – for whatever time her sister might have left. Which leads them to the kind of dangerous derring-do that neither of them ever expected.

The kind of adventure in the kinds of places that may very well get them killed – even as it opens their eyes to the kinds of things that no well-bred, well-behaved woman is expected to see or know.

But once they’ve seen, once they know, they can’t unsee. And they can’t help but try to fix what they can with as much benevolence as possible.

Escape Rating B+: “Well behaved women seldom make history” or so goes the famous quote by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, which may be a quote from 1976 rather than the Colebrook sisters Regency – but very much still applies.

It’s also the reason I picked this book up.

The cover, and the blurb, both lead readers to the impression that this book is going to be on the light and frothy side, but that is far from the case. Rather than being a look at the frivolities and minor disgraces in the life of the ton, as so many Regency romances are, The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies shines its light in very dark places, in a way that is not dissimilar to C.S. Harris’ Sebastian St. Cyr series.

Both the Colebrook sisters and St. Cyr are conducting their investigations during the Regency period, in this book specifically 1812 – which is also the year in which books 4 through 8 of the St. Cyr series (Where Serpents Sleep, What Remains of Heaven, Where Shadows Dance, When Maidens Mourn, What Darkness Brings) take place. Both series expose the slimy underbelly of the glittering Regency, but they do it from different perspectives.

St. Cyr, as a member of the aristocracy, operates within the halls of power, while the Colebrook sisters, as disregarded females on the outskirts of the ton, expose the dangers that specifically affect women in that society merely for living while female. In a way, it’s as though Sebastian’s wife Hero, a social reformer in her own right, was the focal point of his series.

(This is all a very large hint that if you enjoy the one series you’ll probably enjoy the other, as they are shining their lights into the dark places of the same historical period. Just not the same dark places.)

What makes the dark places that the Colebrook sisters so chilling is that the places their so-called ill-behavior takes them were all much too real. And it’s much too easy for a reader to imagine themselves in those circumstances. Women really were not just their husband’s property in this era, but his to seemingly dispose of as he pleased, even into an early grave whether indirectly by way of an insane asylum or by an outright murder which was entirely too easy to cover up in a world where a man’s word was law, his wife was chattel and forensic science hadn’t even reached infancy yet.

It’s no wonder that Gus has no desire to marry – she’s too intelligent not to be aware that for a woman with both independent means and an independent streak a mile wide, the costs for her could be deadly.

The conditions that Gus and Julia investigate in the three stories that make up this book are dark, gruesome and inescapably real, to the point where this book needs a whole lot more trigger warnings than that blurb would lead one to believe.

Whether or not a reader will stick through those dark places is going to depend a lot on how one feels about Gus and Julia, because they, especially Gus, are the ones leading us through multiple valleys of the shadow of death, and if they aren’t people you’re willing to follow, then it doesn’t work.

I felt for Gus, and liked her intelligent observations of the conditions she was supposed to live under and decided to refuse from her position of relative privilege. I’m not totally sure she successfully walked that fine line between giving a historical-set heroine enough agency to do the things we need her to do to be the protagonist without making her more of a creature of our time than hers. Julia does feel like a woman of her times, which is why she drove me a bit crazy as a character as I couldn’t get into her head at all.

Your reading mileage may vary when it comes to Gus and Julia, but there seems to be no debate on the personality of their brother Duffy. Duffy is used to demonstrate just how circumscribed their lives are supposed to be by the lights of their society. He’s also a total arsehat, a person whose head is so far up their arse that they are wearing it for a hat. And in Duffy’s case, only the British spelling will do. He’s the character we all love to hate. If this were the froth that the cover picture leads you to believe, he’d be both the villain AND the comic relief.

Instead he’s a symbol of everything that’s wrong and just why Gus needs to fight back so damn much and so damn hard.

While there is a bit of a romance hinted at, this is far, far, far from being what is usually meant by a Regency romance – and it’s a much more interesting book for it, but perhaps not for the faint of heart.

Review: The Boyfriend Candidate by Ashley Winstead

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Boyfriend Candidate by Ashley WinsteadThe Boyfriend Candidate by Ashley Winstead
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, Romance, romantic comedy
Pages: 384
Published by Graydon House on May 9, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

“Charming, swoony, and utterly unputdownable. I LOVE this book!”—LYNN PAINTER, New York Times bestselling author of Better Than the Movies
A laugh-out-loud rom-com about learning to embrace living outside your comfort zone.
As a shy school librarian, Alexis Stone is comfortable keeping out of the spotlight. But when she’s dumped for being too meek—in bed!—the humiliation is a wake-up call. She decides she needs to change, and what better way to kick-start her new more adventurous life than with her first one-night stand?
Enter Logan, the gorgeous, foul-mouthed stranger she meets at a hotel bar. Logan is audacious and filterless, making him Alexis’s opposite—and boy, do opposites attract! Just as she’s about to fulfill her hookup wish, the hotel catches fire in a freak lightning storm—and in their rush to escape, Logan is discovered carrying her into the street, where people are waiting with cameras. Cameras Logan promptly—and shockingly—flees.
Alexis is bewildered until breaking news hits: pictures of her and Logan escaping the fire are all over the internet. It turns out Logan is none other than Logan Arthur, the hotshot politician challenging the Texas governor’s seat. The salacious images are poised to sink his career—and jeopardize Alexis’s job—until a solution is proposed: to squash the scandal, he and Alexis could pretend to be in a relationship until election day…in two months. What could possibly go wrong?

My Review:

We’ve probably all done some really weird, out of our comfort zones things while getting over an ex. Or getting vicarious revenge on said ex. Most of us don’t get struck by lightning while we’re doing those things. Or get caught on camera, whether in deshabille or not, while doing said things. Whether or not we’ve been doing those things we might someday regret with someone currently running for governor – of our state or any other.

Not that both Alexis Stone AND Texas gubernatorial candidate Logan Arthur don’t look fairly ungoverned in the pic that has taken the internet by storm. And thrown Logan’s candidacy in a tempest of its very own – one that the opposition is guaranteed to take advantage of – unless Logan’s people get ahead of it first and very, very fast.

Both Logan and Ashley are single and unattached. This isn’t THAT kind of political scandal. It’s just that in the looks department Logan makes Justin Trudeau look like he isn’t really trying, AND he has a well-deserved reputation as a playboy. His older, settled, highly respected opponent has made a great deal of political hay over Logan’s inability to commit to a relationship with anyone and questioned whether he’s mature enough to commit to a relationship with the entire state. Of Texas.

Logan’s campaign wants Alexis to agree to a fake relationship with the candidate until after the election is over, win or lose. If Logan wins, they can break up quietly and he can go on to become the first Democratic governor of Texas in entirely too damn long. If Logan loses, it won’t matter anyway.

Or so everyone believes. Whether it’s going to matter to either Logan or Alexas after two months of fake dating in front of seemingly all the cameras in Texas is a question that no one seems to have asked.

Whether a shy, downright introverted school librarian is willing or able to put herself in front of those same ever-present cameras and put her entire life on display on the campaign trail is a huge, ginormous ask.

Whether Ashley can keep her heart to herself while she’s doing it is something that she needs to ask herself. Seriously. Before it’s much too late. For her heart. And, much to Ashley’s surprise, for his.

Escape Rating B: The Boyfriend Candidate starts out with one of the most sizzling meet-cutes ever. As Alexis and Logan are seducing each other with words over an increasing number of drinks and over-the-top stories they tell each other, the steam practically rises off the page. To the point where it’s not all that surprising that the sparks they strike from each other result in an actual lightning strike.

And that’s where the story really heats up!

The fun part of this one is the way it tackles the “fake dating” trope and then uses it to say a whole lot of really important things about how important it is to love yourself first and figure out what you really want in life before you inflict yourself on anyone else.

Both Logan and Alexis have dreams to fulfill but both of them have been too caught up in being what other people want to take the necessary hard look at what they themselves really want. They are both, in entirely different ways, people pleasers. For Alexis that means twisting herself into an emotional pretzel out of fear that if she rocks the boat even a little bit people will leave her. As her father left her mother – and then was killed in a car crash. As her sister emotionally abandoned her after those same events. Although their relationship is better now the stress of those dark days still lingers. On Alexis at least.

Logan wants to do good. Really, truly, seriously. He knows that being governor will give him the kind of reach and influence, not to mention the really tall bully pulpit, that he can use to make good things happen. But being a candidate is making him squeeze his outsize, blunt, profane and argumentative personality into a tiny, meek, mild-mannered little box. And it’s not working for either him or the campaign.

But to make his campaign work, Alexis needs to get on board. To make that work for her, she has to find a voice of her own no matter how much it scares her. And Logan needs to own his own truth to have a real chance, both with the voters and with Ashley.

There’s a lot to love in The Boyfriend Candidate. While Ashley’s journey is the toughest, and the one we’re most intimate with as she’s the one telling the story, Logan’s journey is just as important to making the whole thing work, both for them and for the reader.

There’s also a lot that gets said about the state of politics in general and in Texas in particular. Especially about the state of libraries and education and education funding, as those issues become Ashley’s platform in a huge and necessary way. The best and worst thing is that all of the issues that Ashley raises in her platform, from decreasing funding for education, year after year, to increasing book bans everywhere, are all substantially true. For this librarian, the inclusion of those issues was a huge plus. Some readers may not and your reading mileage may vary.

Howsomever, as a reader I did have one issue with this story, and it’s an issue that took me completely out of the story to the point where the grade landed on B. It’s clear throughout the book that whatever Ashley and Logan might be saying out loud, neither of them has managed to keep their hearts to themselves. There’s going to be a crash before the final HEA. The way that crash came about, when Ashley’s sister forced her between a rock and a hard place in a way that was guaranteed to explode all over Ashley, Logan, and his campaign, read like the kind of sabotage that was not part of Ashley’s current relationship with her sister. It came out of left field in a way that didn’t work for me at all.

Which doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy the book as a whole, because I most definitely did. (It also reminded me quite a bit of Jasmine Guillory’s Party of Two, and I adored that book and the whole Wedding Date series it’s a part of, so I was a bit pre-determined to like The Boyfriend Candidate. And I did. I just wish there’d been a way to stage that inevitable explosion that felt more organic to the story.