Tag: fiction

Book Review: The Austen Escape, by Katherine Reay

TEA
Image belongs to Thomas Nelson.

Mary Davies is an industrial engineer in Austin, Texas. She’s happy with her job and her life, although she wishes there was a bit more going on with cute, funny consultant Nathan. Then Mary’s childhood friend, Isabel, offers her a trip to England, for a two-week immersive stay in a Regency-style manor house, where everyone will be living as Jane Austen characters. Mary wants distance between her and her beautiful, manipulative, vindictive friend, but finds herself agreeing.

At first, the experience is fun, as Mary meets a group of people all pretending to be her favorite characters, but then Isabel wakes up one morning really thinking she is her chosen character, and with no memory of reality. Mary finds herself dependent on strangers as she waits for Isabel to regain her memory. Then Mary realizes she and Isabel’s lives are more entwined than she thought, and must decide if she’ll let her pain go and move on with her life, or hold it against Isabel forever.

I loved this book! This is my first (but not last) Katherine Reay book, and I loved the voice, the characters, and the setting. An immersive Jane Austen vacation? Yes, please! (I do love Austen.). Mary is such a complex character, given to spur-of-the-moment impulses and jumping to conclusions (That’s my own personal form of exercise, too.) Her friendship with Isabel is fraught with tension bordering on anger, and the relationship is vividly portrayed on the pages of this novel.

Katherine Reay has lived in Texas, England, Ireland, Washington, and now Chicago. The Austen Escape is her newest novel.

(Galley provided by Thomas Nelson via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: Rosemarked, by Livia Blackburne

rosemarked
Image belongs to Disney-Hyperion.

Zivah has barely become a healer when she is tasked with caring for the ill soldiers of the nation oppressing her own. Eager to save as many soldiers as she can—to keep her people safe—she cares for the commander, who survives, but Zivah falls victim to the plague. She knows she’ll die from the plague, she just doesn’t know when.

Given the chance to continue helping her people. Zivah agrees to a spying mission with Dineas, a warrior broken by torture who lives only to overthrow the empire intent on crushing both their people. The two will have only each other to rely on as they journey into the heart of enemy territory, desperate to find any chance of saving their people.

Rosemarked is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. From the first page, I was enthralled by the world, the plot, and especially the characters. The concept of the rose plague is fascinating—a deadly virus that kills most of its victim, leaving only some alive as carriers destined to die, and a few lucky immune, both forever marked by the virus. Zivah struggles with pitting her beliefs against her loyalty to both her people and Dineas, and her conflict weaves throughout the story. Dineas is so emotionally scarred all he can see is revenge, yet he is conflicted after getting to know some of the enemy. The dynamic between the two is absolutely riveting. You MUST read this! I cannot wait for the next book.

Livia Blackburne is the New York Times-bestselling author of the Midnight Thief series. Rosemarked is her newest novel, the first in a new series.

(Galley provided by Disney-Hyperion via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: The Beautiful Ones, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

the beautiful ones
Image belongs to St. Martin’s Press/Thomas Dunne Books.

Antonina Beaulieu is more used to country living and studying beetles, but when she comes to the city of Loisail for her first Grand Season, that changes. Under the guidance of Valérie Beaulieu, her beautiful and cold aunt, Nina sets out to find a husband. She’ll just have to keep her tendency to say what she thinks and her telekinetic powers under wraps if she wants to keep the gossip at bay.

Then Nina meets Hector Auvray, a telekinetic performer who sees her powers as a gift. As Hector helps Nina develop her talents, she falls in love with him. But Hector is keeping a dark secret that could tear Nina’s world apart.

The Beautiful Ones is both magical and beautiful, with a Jane Austen-like feel for its also being a comedy of manners. Nina is a brave girl who stumbles as she enters a new world she doesn’t understand. Nina’s propensity to speak her mind and act without thinking gives her trouble at the hands of the elite of society, but her love for Hector gives her hope.

Hector is battling demons from his past, and his good intentions are often derailed at the hands of long-held dreams. The battles he faces are as hard as those of Nina, and the darkness threatens to overtake them both. I loved this book! Very different, with hints of steampunk twisted with a classical literary feel.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia is an award-winning author. The Beautiful Ones is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of St. Martin’s Press/Thomas Dunne Books via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

 

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Book Review: The Midnight Dance, by Nikki Katz

Midnight-Dance
Image belongs to Swoon Reads.

Seventeen-year-old Penny loves dancing at the Grande Teatro, a school where she and eleven other girls are training to become the best dancers in all of Italy. She loves to dance. And she loves the Master, the handsome owner of the school. Or…does she?

When Penny starts seeing flashes of a life she doesn’t remember living, she starts asking questions, which lands her in trouble with the Master. But Cricket, the kitchen boy, helps her and she realizes that her life is not what it seems. Desperate to find out the truth, Penny searches for answers, but the Master is one step ahead of her every move. If she does not find the answers she seeks, her memories will be stolen from her forever.

The Midnight Dance starts off when Penny first notices something strange, and the reader sees everything through her eyes, sharing her confusion and fear. This dark novel is both captivating and creepy, told in alternating timelines as the Master’s past is revealed. Penny struggles with the mystery and with the pain of having her memories removed, but she keeps fighting despite the overwhelming odds. I enjoyed this very much, and am looking forward to more from this author.

Nikki Katz has a degree in rocket science. The Midnight Dance is her newest novel.

(Galley provided by Swoon Reads via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: The House at 758, by Kathryn Berla

 

the house at 758
Image belongs to Amberjack Publishing.

As if being 16 weren’t bad enough, Krista is still dealing with the death of her mother. Her father has moved his new girlfriend in and wants Krista to start acting normal again and find something to do. Her best friend is going to Maine for the summer. And Krista feels like she has no one to talk to about her pain.

So, she spends her time in a tent on top of the house, shoplifting, and watching a mysterious house. She’s not ready to act normal again. Then she meets Jake, who works at the store she shoplifts, and her dad tells her that her grandfather, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor, is coming to visit. Krista starts to feel better, but if she never deals with the past, will she ever feel normal again?

The House at 758 took me by surprise. First, I feel like Krista is my spirit animal. Living in a tent on top of the house because you don’t want to be around people? Sign me up for that! Krista is hurting desperately, but she doesn’t want to ask for help. She’d rather brood and act like everything is okay, because shouldn’t people know what she’s going through? Dealing with dark emotions like grief, anger, and guilt isn’t easy, and Krista fights against it for a long time, until she starts to realize that there is more than one side to every story. This was an engrossing read that drew me into Krista’s head and kept me rooting for her to make a breakthrough and start to see light again.

Kathryn Berla is the author of Dream Me, Twelves Hours in Paradise, Going Places, and The Kitty Committee. The House at 758 is her newest novel.

(Galley provided by Amberjack Publishing via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: Select, by Marit Weisenberg

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Image belongs to Charlesbridge Teen.

Julia Jaynes is part of a group of highly-evolved humans living in Austin, Texas. Rich, beautiful, and powerful, they keep to themselves and try not to draw more attention to their media-popular circle. Then Julia saves her sister from drowning, and the media attention she causes makes her powerful father punish her by sending her to public high school.

There Julia meets John, a tennis prodigy and a nice, regular guy. When Julie discovers she can read his mind—sometimes—she uses the power to encourage John, and her feelings start to grow. Living with the regular humans isn’t as bad as she thought, but Julie is desperate to get back in her controlling father’s good graces, before their circle disappears from society for good.

So…the cover of this book is what caught my eye first, and the premise is fantastic. I read all of it, but Julia was a bit too erratic for me. Does she hate her father? Does she love him? Does she want to stay with the super humans? Does a life of freedom with the regular humans sound more appealing?  What is really going on with the evolved humans and Julia’s powerful father? And why did he separate the younger members and try to destroy the more powerful ones’ talents?

I don’t actually know the answers to any of these questions, and that bothers me. Julia can’t make up her mind, and a first-person narrative should have some insight into the character, but it doesn’t. (I saw several comparisons to Twilight in other reviews, and that is sadly accurate.) I loved the premise of this book, but the execution and character development was lacking.

Despite her name, Marit Weisenberg is only a quarter Norwegian. She lives in Austin, Texas. Select is the first book in the Select series.

(Galley provided by Charlesbridge Teen via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: The Indigo Girl, by Natasha Boyd

the indigo girl
Image belongs to Blackstone Publishing.

 

In 1739, Eliza Lucas is sixteen years old when her father leaves her in charge of the family’s three South Carolina estates so he can go chase his dreams of a military career. With the estates floundering on the edge of ruin, Eliza decides that producing indigo is the family’s only hope.

But not even her family wants her to succeed, and no one will share the thousand-year-old secret to making indigo dye, so Eliza must form a forbidden friendship with a slave who promises to teach her—if she breaks the law and teaches the slaves to read. Eliza is on her own as she fights against tradition and the law, except for the friendship of an aging horticulturalist and the married lawyer who is a friend of the family.

Somehow, I did not realize The Indigo Girl was historical fiction until I finished reading it. Though the issues of slavery and women’s rights in the book bothered me, that stuff happened, and erasing history means we won’t learn from it. Eliza was a wonderful character—and the fact that the character is at least partially based on a real-life woman who fought tradition and oppression is even better—strong, determined, and with the courage to stand up for what she believes in and fight even her family to do what’s right. This is a great read!

Natasha Boyd was born in Denmark, lived all over the world, and now lives in the United States. The Indigo Girl is her newest book.

(Galley provided by Blackstone Publishing via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: Sea of Doubt, by Jeremy D. Holden

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Image belongs to Clean publishing.

Mal Thomas is done with the crazy advertising world. All he wants to do is relax and enjoy time with his wife in their Blue Ridge Mountains home. His relaxation comes to an end when he gets the call of a lifetime:  a world-famous billionaire wants to meet with him about a job.

Alfredo Baptiste started with nothing and became the world’s most famous industrialist. Now he wants Mal and his team of brilliant minds to convince the world that his adopted son, Sebastian, is the second coming of the Messiah. Mal and his team face their own doubts and those of the entire world as they put together the most ambitious advertising campaign ever.

I’m of two minds about this book:  on one hand, it drew me in even as the subject matter horrified me. Mal’s voice is at times very compelling, but somewhat erratic. This is an intriguing look at the inside of advertising, and the thought processes that go into it. I liked seeing a main character who was older and happily married, instead of the opposite. And I loved the idea of The Hug Challenge!

Jeremy D. Holden was born in England, but relocated to America in 1995. Sea of Doubt is the first book in the Mal Thomas Mystery series.

(Galley provided by Clean Publishing via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

 

 

Book Review: A Short History of the Girl Next Door, by Jared Reck

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Image belongs to Knopf Books for Young Readers.

Matt Wainright has lived in the same cul-de-sac as long as he can remember. His best friend, Tabby, has always lived just across the street. They’re inseparable, and Matt can’t imagine anything ever changing. Except his feelings for Tabby. Matt never saw that coming, and he has no idea how to tell her, but he will. Probably. Until a senior basketball star falls for Tabby, and suddenly everything changes.

Now his best friend is always too busy, and instead of shining on the JV basketball court, Matt finds himself fumbling. Even his younger brother is driving him crazy. Only his favorite class, creative writing, seems to make any sense. Then a tragedy occurs, and Matt can’t make sense of anything, as his life spins out of control and he teeters on the edge of self-destruction.

I was not prepared for this book. At all. I loved Matt’s voice from the very beginning. (With that movie-director voice in his head, of course he’s going to be a writer.) He has grand visions of himself, but his follow-through doesn’t always live up to his hype. This book captures the hope and the confusion of high school, as well as the gobsmacked feeling of first love. I laughed, I hoped, and I cried, right along with Matt. You MUST read this! I’m looking forward to seeing what Jared Reck writes next.

Jared Reck is a teacher who writes alongside of his middle school students. A Short History of the Girl Next Door is his debut novel.

(Galley provided by Knopf Books for Young Readers/Random House in exchange for an honest review.)

 

 

More reviews at <a href=” https://tamaramorning.com/”>Tomorrow is Another Day</a>

 

Book Review: Hanna Who Fell from the Sky, by Christopher Meades

hanna
Image belongs to Harlequin/Park Row.

Life in Clearhaven is all Hanna has ever known, so her father’s four wives and her fourteen siblings are normal to her. In Clearhaven, all the young men leave town, and the girls, at age 18, marry men old enough to be their fathers. In one week, Hanna will be 18, and she’ll take her place as the fifth wife of a wealthy man.

Then Hanna meets Daniel, a boy her age who makes her question her life in Clearhaven and what she wants for herself, and her mother tells her a secret—one that Hanna can scarcely believe. Hanna doesn’t want the life she sees around her, but is she strong enough to leave behind the sister she adores and the only life she’s ever known?

Clearhaven and its customs creeped me out on a lot of levels. I know there are communities/cultures like this, but I don’t want to have anything to do with them. However, they are vividly portrayed in the book, and the characters leap off the page with startling intensity. Hanna is both easy to relate to—her love for her sister, her confusion over what she wants from her life—and mysterious. I rooted for Hanna for the entire novel, eager for her to escape the future laid out for her and grasp her fate in both hands.

Christopher Meades is an award-winning author from Vancouver. Hanna Who Fell from the Sky is his newest novel.

(Galley provided by Harlequin/Park Row via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)