Tag: reading

What I Read in December (2023)

Books Read in December: 19
Books Read for the Year:  207/200

Yearly Books: 

NIV Grace and Trruth Study Bible.
Unshakeable, by Christine Caine.

Topical Books/Monthly Goal Books:
The Iron Knight, by Julie Kagawa (Maybe a TBR, maybe a re-read.). I have no memory of actually having read this before, but I really enjoyed it!

Flora’s Traveling Christmas Shop, by Rebecca Raisin (TBR). This has been on my TBR list for a while. It made me laugh, but the the characters were a bit too liberal for me. And Flora…apparently learned nothing from all of her lies and manipulations. Only Colin seemed to change.

The Josiah Manifesto, by Jonathan Cahn (TBR, audio). I generally enjoy Cahn’s books a lot, but this one felt very repetitive to me, making my mind wander quite a bit. I understand the author was trying to illustrate his points, but it felt a little bit like being hit over the head repeatedly.

My Jane Austen Summer, by Cindy Jones. A selfish, ineffectual MC who believes she sees her own personal Jane Austen everywhere made this a chore to read. Do not recommend.

Maggie, by Charles Martin (TBR, audio). Like all of Martin’s other books, I loved this.

For Review:

The Paris Housekeeper, by Renee Ryan. I do love WWII fiction, and I enjoyed this one, although Vivian’s situation horrified me.

An Inconvenient Earl, by Julia London. I’ve enjoyed the books in this series, but I didn’t really care for this one. The MC is a liar, and that just doesn’t work for me.

Public Anchovy #1, by Mindy Quigley. This was a cute read. I hadn’t read any of the others in this series, but I enjoyed this one—especially the cats.

Northwoods, by Amy Pease (review forthcoming). At first, I wasn’t too sure about the MC, a self-destructive alcoholic. But he grew on me, although I still found the setting kind of depressing.

Principles of Emotion, by Sara Read (review forthcoming). I enjoyed this quite a bit! Definitely an opposites-attract romance, and I enjoyed how accepting they were of their differences.

A Body on the Doorstep, by Marty Wingate (review forthcoming). This was a cute, fun cozy mystery that was actually set in London (not very cozy-mystery-ish), but it woorked quite well.

The Heiress, by Rachel Hawkins (review forthcoming). This was a twisty thriller about a family of terrible people.

Sun Seekers, by Rachel McRady (review forthcoming). I enjoyed this a lot! It’s hard to do a child’s point-of-view well, but this was very well-done!

Just Because:

Iron’s Prophecy, by Julie Kagawa. I enjoyed this novella in one of my favorite series.

The Prince & The Apocalypse, by Kara McDowell. This was a cute read! I enjoyed the characters, and I’m looking forward to reading more.

Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell. A re-read of my favorite book. Yeah, Scarlett still sucks.

Seven Girls Gone, by Allison Brennan. I somehow missed reading this book in the Quinn & Costa series, and I couldn’t have that before reading and reviewing the fifth book.

Left Unfinished:

The Lace Widow, by Mollie Ann Cox. The POV was just too stiff/formal/distant for me in this. I felt like I couldn’t connect with Eliza, so it didn’t hold my interest.

The Book of Fire, by Christy Lefteri. This is the second book from this author I’ve DNFed, so I should accept that her writing style just isn’t for me.

A Fragile Enchantment, by Allison Saft. If I feel like the author is trying too hard to be diverse (or going out of her way to be diverse, when it doesn’t make sense for the character), this makes me ask, “Do I really want to spend the time to read this book?” In this case, I feel like the author was trying to shove square characters into round holes—just so she could say she’d written a diverse book. Not because she was being true to the characters. And dishonesty like that makes a book a DNF for me—and probably everything else this author writes, too.

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years, by Shubnum Khan. This just started off way too slowly for me.

Sundays Are for Writing #258

This was an absolutely crazy week at work! Despite that, I still, somehow, wrote three book reviews: A Body on the Doorstep, by Marty Wingate, Principles of Emotion, by Sara Read, and The Heiress, by Rachel Hawkins, all forthcoming. I didn’t get any fiction written this week, but I actually set a monthly fiction word count goal for January, so I’ll start chipping away at that this week. I’ll also have my December reading post up tomorrow, a 2023 reading post up Tuesday, and the best books I read in December up Wednesday.

Happy New Year, and happy writing!

Book Review:  Public Anchovy #1, by Mindy Quigley    

Image belongs to St. Martin’s Press.

Title: Public Anchovy #1
Author: Mindy Quigley   
Genre:  Mystery   
Rating:  4 out of 5

While Geneva Bay’s upper crust gets ready to party down at a Prohibition-themed fundraiser, pizza chef Delilah O’Leary is focused on seeing her struggling restaurant through the winter slow season. The temperature outside is plummeting, but Delilah’s love life might finally be heating up, as hunky police detective Calvin Capone seems poised to (finally) make a move.

But Delilah’s hopes of perfecting a new “free-from” pizza recipe for a charity bash are dashed when a dead body crashes the party. Soon, Capone, Delilah, and her entire staff are trapped in an isolated mansion and embroiled in a dangerous game of cat and mouse.

To catch an increasingly-desperate killer, Delilah will have to top all of her previous crime-solving accomplishments, and a few pizzas, too.

This is the first one of the Deep Dish Mysteries I’ve read, but I’d read the others. The descriptions of the food made me hungry! I loved the idea of a Prohibition-themed party—such vivid characters in that time period, and I love the fashion. I never truly figured out who the killer was, but to be honest, the secondary conflicts, like the Capone and Delilah interactions, interested me more. Great secondary characters here, making this a fun read, and the cats added another level of entertainment.

Mindy Quigley lives in Virginia. Public Anchovy #1 is her newest novel.

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

Book Review and Blog Tour: An Inconvenient Earl, by Julia London

Image belongs to Harlequin/Canary Street Press.

Title:  An Inconvenient Earl     
Author: Julia London    
Genre: Romance  
Rating:  3 out of 5

It’s been over a year since Emma Clark’s no-good husband left on an expedition. The Countess of Dearborn has played the abandoned wife, but people are beginning to presume the earl is dead, which doesn’t suit Emma at all. Emma likes being head of household in Albert’s absence and does her best to keep his family believing he is alive and well. She’s thirty years old and finally having some fun. If the earl is in fact dead, his family is waiting in the wings to swoop in and throw Emma out, leaving her destitute.

Then along comes Luka Olivien, the Weslorian Earl of Marlaine. He’s traveled all the way from Egypt, duty bound to return to the countess her deceased husband’s precious pocket watch—only to discover she doesn’t know he’s dead… Or does she? It’s hard to tell. Luka catches glimpses of the desperate vulnerability beneath the party girl exterior and can’t help being drawn into the beguiling countess’s ruse.

I’ve really enjoyed the other books in the A Royal Match series, but this one, not so much. I liked Luka a lot, but Emma just came across as selfish, crazy, and delusional. Plus, she’s a liar—and thinks that’s okay—so she’s not my kind of people. The question asked in the blurb—does Emma know Albert is dead—has an obvious answer for the entire novel, so using that as a hook really lets the reader down, too. I liked seeing glimpses of the characters from the other books in this series, but that was really the highlight of the book, not these characters and their story.

Julia London is an award-winning and bestselling author. An Inconvenient Earl is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Harlequin/Canary Street Press in exchange for an honest review.)

Sundays Are for Writing #257

This was an okay writing week and a crazy work week, so any writing is better than none. I wrote one book review, Northwoods, by Amy Pease. This was a solid mystery with an alcoholic, self-destructive main character. I wasn’t too sure about him at first, but he grew on me. And I DNFed one book, The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years, by Shubnum Khan. This just started off way too slow for me, and I was bored almost immediately.

Happy writing!

Book Review:   The Paris Housekeeper, by Renee Ryan

Image belongs to Harlequin.

Title:  The Paris Housekeeper
Author: Renee Ryan    
Genre: Historical fiction     
Rating:  4.2 out of 5

Paris, 1940

German tanks rumble through the streets of Paris, forcing frightened citizens to flee. But not everyone has the luxury to leave. Camille Lacroix, a chambermaid at the world-famous Hôtel Ritz, must stay to support her family back home in Brittany. Desperate to earn money, Camille also acts as a lady’s maid for longtime guest Vivian Miller, a glamorous American widow—and a Nazi sympathizer.

Despite her distrust of the woman, Camille turns to Vivian when her friend and fellow hotel maid Rachel Berman needs help getting out of Paris. It’s then that Camille discovers that Vivian is not what she seems… The American has been using her wealth and connections to secretly obtain travel papers for Jewish refugees.

While hiding Rachel in an underground bunker under a Nazi’s nose, a daring escape plan is hatched. But as the net grows tighter, and the Germans more ruthless, Camille’s courage will be tested to the extreme…

I love WWII historical fiction, and this was a great read. Vivian’s situation absolutely horrified me, and I felt so sorry for her. I enjoyed Camille’s story, and Rachel’s as well. This was a really good story, and I loved how the three women’s stories intertwined. This was a really solid historical fiction read!

Renee Ryan is an award-winning author. The Paris Housekeeper is her newest novel.

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

Book Review: Our Cursed Love, by Julie Abe   

Image belongs to St. Martin’s Press.

Title:  Our Cursed Love      
Author: Julie Abe    
Genre:  YA   
Rating:  4 out of 5

Six days to remember.

Love or lose him forever.

Remy Kobata has always wished she was destined to be with her best friend, Cam Yasuda. All the way from being neighbors from birth to mixing up magical prank potions together to their “just friends” homecoming date during their senior year in high school, nothing’s a secret between Remy and Cam―except for how much she is in love with him.

Remy is trying to work up the courage to confess her feelings during their winter break trip to Japan, when she gets selected for a mystical tea leaves reading and it reveals that they’re not meant to be together. After they stumble upon a secret magical apothecary in the back alleys of Tokyo, Remy and Cam are offered an ancient soulmate elixir, created before all love potions were banned by the magical government. They each have their reasons for wanting to take it, but what could go wrong with finding your soulmate a little earlier?

Except, after they drink up, their senior year trip flips into the worst vacation: Cam has forgotten who Remy is. If she can’t help Cam remember her by midnight New Year’s Eve, they’ll both be cursed to forget each other. To unravel their past and rewrite the future, Remy and Cam must travel through Tokyo to rediscover Cam’s memories and make new ones―and maybe even fall in love all over again.

I enjoyed this setting a lot! This Tokyo with a hint of magic was fascinating and believable, and I wanted to hop on a plane! I really enjoyed Cam and Remy’s friendship—in both realities—and loved all their memories of past experiences together. Even the secondary characters were a lot of fun, making this a sweet, engrossing read.

Julie Abe lives in Southern California. Our Cursed Love is her newest novel.

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

Book Review: This Cursed Light, by Emily Thiede  

Image belongs to St. Martin’s Press.

Title:  This Cursed Light  
Author:  Emily Thiede   
Genre: YA    
Rating:  5 out of 5

When the gods make the rules, the players must choose: Sacrifice their love to save the world, or choose love and let it burn?

Six months after saving their island from destruction and almost losing Dante, Alessa is ready to live happily ever after with her former bodyguard. But Dante can’t rest, haunted by a conviction that the gods aren’t finished with them yet. And without his powers, the next kiss from Alessa could kill him.

Desperate for answers, Dante enlists Alessa and their friends to find the exiled ghiotte in hopes of restoring his powers and combining forces with them to create the only army powerful enough to save them all. But Alessa is hiding a deadly consequence of their last fight–a growing darkness that’s consuming her mind–and their destination holds more dangers than anyone bargained for. In the mysterious city of the banished, Dante will uncover secrets, lies, and ghosts from his past that force him to ask himself: Which side is he on?

When the gods reveal their final test, Dante and Alessa will be the world’s last defense. But if they are the keys to saving the world, will their love be the price of victory?

I loved this so much! I loved the first book, This Vicious Grace, and this one was just as good. Alessa and Dante are great characters: both are flawed and struggling but learning and growing towards becoming better people. Their relationship is so much fun, with their teasing and bantering, and their friendships with those around them are just as vibrant and fascinating. I loved all of this!

Emily Thiede was born in New Jersey but grew up in Virginia. This Cursed Light is her newest novel.

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

Sundays Are for Writing #255

This was a solid writing week. I wrote two book reviews, Our Cursed Love, by Julie Abe, and The Paris Housekeeper, by Renee Ryan. I also did some brainstorming on the new story idea, and got in one writing session with it. I’m still trying to figure some things out with the setting and genre, so that’s making it a bit difficult to get much real work on it, but my goal is two writing sessions on it this week.

I hope you had a good writing week. Happy writing!

Book Review:  The Curse of Penryth Hall, by Jess Armstrong

Image belongs to St. Martin’s Press.

Title:  The Curse of Penryth Hall
Author:  Jess Armstrong   
Genre:  Mystery/thriller   
Rating:4.5 out of 5

After the Great War, American heiress Ruby Vaughn made a life for herself running a rare bookstore alongside her octogenarian employer and house mate in Exeter. She’s always avoided dwelling on the past, even before the war, but it always has a way of finding her. When Ruby is forced to deliver a box of books to a folk healer living deep in the Cornish countryside, she is brought back to the one place she swore she’d never return. A more sensible soul would have delivered the package and left without rehashing old wounds. But no one has ever accused Ruby of being sensible. Thus begins her visit to Penryth Hall.

A foreboding fortress, Penryth Hall is home to Ruby’s once dearest friend, Tamsyn, and her husband, Sir Edward Chenowyth. It’s an unsettling place, and after a more unsettling evening, Ruby is eager to depart. But her plans change when Penryth’s bells ring for the first time in thirty years. Edward is dead; he met a gruesome end in the orchard, and with his death brings whispers of a returned curse. It also brings Ruan Kivell, the person whose books brought her to Cornwall, the one the locals call a Pellar, the man they believe can break the curse. Ruby doesn’t believe in curses―or Pellars―but this is Cornwall and to these villagers the curse is anything but lore, and they believe it will soon claim its next Tamsyn.

To protect her friend, Ruby must work alongside the Pellar to find out what really happened in the orchard that night.

I liked Ruby a lot in this novel. She’s mostly very sure of herself, confident, and capable. She’s spunky, and I like her attitude. I also enjoyed Ruan a lot, the inscrutable, enigmatic Pellar. There were a lot of layers in this novel:  old relationships, memories, current relationships, changed people and friendships, the local culture, the murder mystery…

The author did an excellent job of weaving all these layers together into a rich tapestry of story. I never figured out who the killer was, and the reveal surprised me. I enjoyed this read, and wondering how everything was going to work itself out kept me reading far too late into the night.

Jess Armstrong lives in New Orleans. The Curse of Penryth Hall is her debut novel.

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