Tag: fiction

Book Review: All Rhodes Lead Here, by Mariana Zapata

Image belongs to Avon and Harper Voyager.

Title: All Rhodes Lead Here   
Author: Mariana Zapata    
Genre: Fiction     
Rating: 5 out of 5

The people we lose take a part of us with them…but they leave a part of themselves with us too.

Aurora De La Torre, or Ora to her friends, knows moving back to Pagosa Springs, Colorado, a place that was once home and is now full of bittersweet memories of her late mother, isn’t going to be easy. Starting your whole life over probably isn’t supposed to be.

But after breaking up with her longtime, famous musician boyfriend, hiding out in a small town in the mountains might be the perfect remedy for a broken heart. And checking out her landlord who lives across the driveway just might cure it, too.

Only Tobias Rhodes didn’t rent out the apartment to her, rather it was his teenage son, Amos. Fiercely protective of his family and distrusting of strangers, gruff and grumpy Rhodes initially keeps little miss sunshine Ora at a distance. But over days and weeks, long hikes and fireside chats, Aurora breaks down his walls and soon an unbreakable friendship blossoms into a once-in-a-lifetime love.

This book was so much fun to read! Aurora’s interval voice was hysterical, and she was always getting herself into such funny situations. I laughed through the whole thing! Big Girls Don’t Cry—that scene really had me laughing! I loved Aurora’s determination to learn and grow, no matter the obstacles, and her friendship with Amos was lovely. Rhodes was such an appealing man, and I loved how their relationship went from animosity to tolerance to friendship to love. This is a fantastic weekend read!

Mariana Zapata is a bestselling author. All Rhodes Lead Here is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Avon and Harper Voyager in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review and Blog Tour: The Missing Witness, by Allison Brennan

Image belongs to Harlequin/MIRA.

Title: The Missing Witness
Author: Allison Brennan     
Genre: Mystery/thriller   
Rating:  4.5 out of 5

Detective Kara Quinn is back in Los Angeles to testify against a notorious human trafficker, finally moving past the case that upended her life. But when the accused is shot by a masked man in broad daylight, the chaotic scene of the crime turns up few reliable bystanders. And one witness—a whistleblower who might be the key to everything—has disappeared.

After the prosecuting DDA is stabbed to death, it’s clear that anyone who knows too much about the investigation is in danger, and tracking down the witness becomes a matter of life or death. With government corruption running rampant and someone on the inside trying to pin anything they can on Kara, she trusts nobody except FBI special agent Matt Costa and a handful of allies.

But when explosive secrets begin to surface within the LAPD and FBI, Kara questions everything she thought she knew about the case, her colleagues and the life she left behind months ago.

Now Quinn and Costa must race to find the missing witness and get to the bottom of the avalanche of conspiracies that has rocked LA to its core…before it’s too late.

I’ve really enjoyed the Quinn & Costa series, and I think this was my favorite so far. Kara actually showed a loot of character growth here and it was nice to see how she’s changed since the first back. Her going back to the scene of her past was interesting to watch—and seeing the ghosts from her past life as she interacted with the case that got her to the FBI Mobile Response team added a lot of depth to her character. I really enjoyed this, and stayed up until 2 a.m. binge-reading it.

 Allison Brennan is a bestselling author. The Missing Witness is the newest Quinn & Costa novel.

(Galley courtesy of Harlequin/MIRA in exchange for an honest review.)

Sundays are for Writing #261

This was a fantastic writing week! I got in five fiction-writing sessions, and I wrote three book reviews, too: A Body at the Seance, The Missing Witness (up on Tuesday), and It Takes a Rake (up on Thursday). I’m very happy with this amount of writing.

How was your writing week?

Book Review: A Body at the Séance, by Marty Wingate

Image belongs to Bookouture and the author.

Title: A Body at the Séance   
Author: Marty Wingate     
Genre:  Mystery    
Rating:  4.2 out of 5

When a body turns up at a glamorous séance, Mabel Canning’s sleuthing skills are put to the test. Because it appears the victim died twice…

London, 1921: As a winter wind blows through the streets of London, Mabel Canning is hired by the Useful Women’s Agency to attend a séance at the home of famous medium Madame Pushkana. But when Mabel hears a choking noise and a loud thud, she quickly turns on the lights to find herself at the scene of a murder.

The victim is none other than Stamford Plomley, whose widow arranged the séance after he died in a fire eight months ago. How did he come back from the dead without a scorch mark on him? And could one of their assembled party of gentlewomen have killed him… again?

When Scotland Yard arrive, the police try to stop Mabel from interfering. But having just formed the London Ladies’ Murder Club, Mabel isn’t going anywhere. And with the help of former detective Park Winstone, she begins to piece together what really happened at the ghostly gathering.

But when Mabel receives a threatening letter warning her to stay away from the case, she realises the murderer may have another victim in mind. With time running out, will she hit a dead end? Or can she keep herself from becoming the next one to be sent to an early grave?

This was a fun read! I think I enjoyed this more than the first book in the series. The characters felt a little more real to me, especially Perkins:  I absolutely loved him and would like to see more of him. I didn’t have any idea who the murderer was, so that was a big surprise, and all of Mabel’s investigations were a lot of fun to read. This is a great series!

Marty Wingate is a bestselling author. A Body at the Séance is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Bookouture in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review:  Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherland, by Heather Fawcett

Image belongs to Random House-Ballantine, Del Rey.

Title:  Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherland      
Author: Heather Fawcett    
Genre: Fantasy    
Rating:  4 out of 5

When mysterious faeries from other realms appear at her university, curmudgeonly professor Emily Wilde must uncover their secrets before it’s too late in this heartwarming, enchanting second installment of the Emily Wilde series.

Emily Wilde is a genius scholar of faerie folklore—she just wrote the world’s first comprehensive of encylopaedia of faeries. She’s learned many of the secrets of the Hidden Folk on her adventures . . . and also from her fellow scholar and former rival, Wendell Bambleby.

Because Bambleby is more than infuriatingly charming. He’s an exiled faerie king on the run from his murderous mother, and in search of a door back to his realm. So despite Emily’s feelings for Bambleby, she’s not ready to accept his proposal: Loving one of the Fair Folk comes with secrets and danger.

And she also has a new project to focus a map of the realms of faerie. While she is preparing her research, Bambleby lands her in trouble yet again, when assassins sent by Bambleby’s mother invade Cambridge. Now Bambleby and Emily are on another adventure, this time to the picturesque Austrian Alps, where Emily believes they may find the door to Bambley’s realm, and the key to freeing him from his family’s dark plans.

But with new relationships for the prickly Emily to navigate and dangerous Folk lurking in every forest and hollow, Emily must unravel the mysterious workings of faerie doors, and of her own heart.

This was a fun read! I enjoyed the first book, Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, and this book just continued the fun. Emily felt like she’d loosened up a little bit and learned to be around people better, but she was still a bit awkward and fumbling. When she tends to overthink things, she gets herself in trouble, but her instincts are good. This was a fun adventure;

Heather Fawcett is a bestselling author who lives on Vancouver Island. Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherland is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Random House-Ballantine, Del Rey in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: Somewhere in the Deep, by Tanvi Berwah

Image belongs to Sourcebooks Fire.

Title: Somewhere in the Deep  
Author: Tanvi Berwah     
Genre:  Scifi, YA    
Rating:  3.5 out of 5

Seventeen-year-old Krescent Dune is buried under the weight of her dead parents’ debt and the ruinous legacy they left behind. The only way she can earn enough money to escape her unforgiving island is by battling monstrous creatures in an underground fighting pit. After a fight goes terribly wrong, she’s banned from the pits. Now hopeless, she is offered a deal: in exchange for the erasure of her debts, she must join and protect a hunting party for a rescue mission deep within the mining caves beneath the island.

Krescent is determined to keep her head down and fulfill her role as the dutiful bodyguard, even though she is trapped underground with her childhood enemy and a company of people who would gladly kill her if they knew who her parents were. As they come across creatures she believed only existed in legends, it becomes clear they are in far more danger than she could have imagined. But someone doesn’t want her to make it out alive. And she’ll have to figure out who before she’s left alone… in the dark.

I enjoyed this author’s first novel, Monsters Born and Made, but this one felt quite a bit more jumbled and chaotic. I loved Kress and Rivan and their friendship/potential for more, but I felt bombarded with new characters, new cultures, new historical “facts” that hadn’t even been mentioned in passing but were new suddenly key plot elements—deus ex machina. It just didn’t feel like a cohesive story, more like the author was grasping at straws.

Would a character and his culture, who had lived underground for generations in the dark and previously thought of as myth, really be able to speak coherently to surface dwellers able to use technology? I highly doubt it. But an inability to communicate didn’t work for the story, so they could—perfectly, no less—and there was no explanation for that bit of nonsense.

Tanvi Berwah graduated from the University of Delhi. Somewhere in the Deep is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Sourcebooks Fire in exchange for an honest review.)

Sundays are for Writing #260

I didn’t write any book reviews this week, but it was another great fiction-writing week: five more sessions! So far, two weeks in, I’m really happy I set specific writing goals, instead of just “writing.” This makes me much more focused.

Frigid temps blew in here last night—it’s 12 degrees right now. In Texas. No, thank you—so I’m huddled inside trying to stay warm. As long as it doesn’t turn into an ice storm and we lose power, I’ll write some fiction tomorrow. too.

Happy writing!

Book Review: Sun Seekers, by Rachel McRady

Image belongs to Alcove Press.

Title: Sun Seekers  
Author: Rachel McRady     
Genre: Fiction     
Rating:  4.5 out of 5

Six-year-old Gracie Lynn is perpetually curious and big-hearted. Convinced she knows how to save her beloved grandfather John from the “worm” that is eating his brain—a metaphor her mother once used to explain John’s dementia and sundown syndrome—she helps him break out of his nursing home, and the two disappear together on a quest to chase the sun. But what’s an adventure for Gracie is a nightmare scenario for her estranged parents, LeeAnn and Dan. There’s no way to predict where John might have taken their young daughter, or if he’s capable of keeping her safe.

Jaded beyond her years, and struggling with her own mental health, LeeAnn has no delusions about what might happen if they don’t locate Gracie soon. Dan is no less frantic, but communicating with LeeAnn isn’t easy, even under the circumstances—too much stands between the hopeful young couple they once were and the people they’ve become.

I enjoyed this a lot! It reminded me vaguely of Fredrik Backman’s My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry because a lot of the story is from Gracie’s point-of-view. LeeAnn…I did not like her at all, except towards the very end. She is completely self-absorbed and wants to blame everyone but herself for all her problems. I found her to be almost hateful for most of the book and had a hard time being sympathetic. Dan…I didn’t have a lot of sympathy for him, either. He cheated on his wife, after all, but I liked that he was actively trying to figure out how to fit in Gracie’s life. This ended up being a deeply engrossing read, and I recommend it.

Rachel McRady is an award-winning entertainment journalist. Sun Seekers is her debut novel.

(Galley courtesy of Alcove Press in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review:  The Heiress, by Rachel Hawkins  

Image belongs to St. Martin’s Press.

Title:  The Heiress       
Author: Rachel Hawkins    
Genre: Thriller    
Rating:  4.3 out of 5

When Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore dies, she’s not only North Carolina’s richest woman, she’s also its most notorious. The victim of a famous kidnapping as a child and a widow four times over, Ruby ruled the tiny town of Tavistock from Ashby House, her family’s estate high in the Blue Ridge mountains. In the aftermath of her death, that estate—along with a nine-figure fortune and the complicated legacy of being a McTavish—pass to her adopted son, Camden.

But to everyone’s surprise, Cam wants little to do with the house or the money—and even less to do with the surviving McTavishes. Instead, he rejects his inheritance, settling into a normal life as an English teacher in Colorado and marrying Jules, a woman just as eager to escape her own messy past.

Ten years later, Camden is a McTavish in name only, but a summons in the wake of his uncle’s death brings him and Jules back into the family fold at Ashby House. Its views are just as stunning as ever, its rooms just as elegant, but coming home reminds Cam why he was so quick to leave in the first place.

Jules, however, has other ideas, and the more she learns about Cam’s estranged family—and the twisted secrets they keep—the more determined she is for her husband to claim everything Ruby once intended for him to have.

But Ruby’s plans were always more complicated than they appeared. As Ashby House tightens its grip on Jules and Camden, questions about the infamous heiress come to light. Was there any truth to the persistent rumors following her disappearance as a girl? What really happened to those four husbands, who all died under mysterious circumstances? And why did she adopt Cam in the first place? Soon, Jules and Cam realize that an inheritance can entail far more than what’s written in a will––and that the bonds of family stretch far beyond the grave.

Okay, the McTavish family is horrible. All of the McTavish family, blood relatives or not. This was an engrossing read, but these people were horrible. Lots of twists and turns here, and Ruby’s POV was fascinating—and horrifying. I liked Cam and Jules, but there’s more to them than meets the eye, too. If you’re looking for a twisty thriller read, give this a try.

Rachel Hawkins is a bestselling author who lives in Alabama. The Heiress is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review and Blog Tour: Principles of Emotion, by Sara Read

Image belongs to Harlequin/Graydon House.

Title: Principles of Emotion    
Author: Sara Read   
Genre: Romance    
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Mathematical genius Dr. Meg Brightwood has just completed her life’s work—a proof of a problem so impenetrable it’s nicknamed the Impossible Theorem.

Reclusive and burdened by anxiety, Meg has long since been dismissed by academia. Now everyone wants to get their hands on what she alone possesses—especially her own mathematician father.

Having grown up a prodigy in a field plagued by sexism and plagiarism, Meg opts for a public presentation so there will be no doubt of her authorship. But a panic attack obliterates her plans. In defeat, she goes home and locks away the one and only manuscript of her proof.

Then chance sends her the unlikeliest of allies: Isaac Wells—carpenter, high school dropout, in trouble with the law. And the one love of Meg’s life. Fifteen years ago, they did little more than hold hands. Now, they find a tenuous space where they can love and be loved for who they are—not who the world expects them to be.

But when Meg goes to retrieve the Impossible Theorem, she finds it missing. Her fight for the achievement of the century will test the limits of her brilliance and the endurance of two vulnerable hearts.

I enjoyed this read quite a bit! I couldn’t relate to Meg’s brilliant math mind—I don’t like math much, although I’m decent at it—but the way her anxiety worked felt faintly familiar. I really enjoyed the juxtaposition between her and Isaac—and how they accepted their differences so easily. Meg’s dad was a total jerk, and I really wanted to see how the fallout played out with him. This was an engrossing read that made me smile and root for the characters along the way.

Sara Read lives in Virginia. Principles of Emotion is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Harlequin/Graydon House in exchange for an honest review.)