Book Review | The Bear and the Nightingale | Katherine Arden

Jan 24

I received this book for free from in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Book Review | The Bear and the Nightingale | Katherine ArdenThe Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
Published by Del Rey on January 10, 2017
Genres: Adult, Folklore, Historical Fiction, Russia
Pages: 336
Format: eARC
Amazon • Barnes & Noble • Goodreads
five-stars

At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses. But Vasilisa doesn’t mind—she spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, listening to her nurse’s fairy tales. Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil.

After Vasilisa’s mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa’s new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.

And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa’s stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent.

As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed—this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse’s most frightening tales.

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Filed Under: Adult, Reviews

Blog Tour Book Review + Giveaway | In Some Other World, Maybe | Shari Goldhagen

Jan 17

I received this book for free from eARC from the Publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Blog Tour Book Review + Giveaway | In Some Other World, Maybe | Shari GoldhagenIn Some Other World, Maybe by Shari Goldhagen
Published by St. Martin's Griffin on January 13, 2015
Genres: Adult Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, Relationships
Pages: 288
Format: eARC
Source: eARC from the Publisher via NetGalley
Amazon • Barnes & Noble • Goodreads
four-stars

In December 1992, three groups of teenagers head to the theater to see the movie version of the famed Eons & Empires comic books. For Adam it’s a last ditch effort to connect with something (actually, someone, the girl he’s had a crush on for years) in his sleepy Florida town before he leaves for good. Passionate fan Sharon skips school in Cincinnati so she can fully appreciate the flick without interruption from her vapid almost-friends—a seemingly silly indiscretion with shocking consequences. And in suburban Chicago, Phoebe and Ollie simply want to have a nice first date and maybe fool around in the dark, if everyone they know could just stop getting in the way.

Over the next two decades, these unforgettable characters criss-cross the globe, becoming entwined by friendship, sex, ambition, fame and tragedy.

A razor-sharp, darkly comic page-turner, In Some Other World, Maybe sheds light on what it means to grow up in modern America.

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Filed Under: Adult, Blog Tour, Giveaway, Reviews

On the Same Page | Landline | Rainbow Rowell

Jun 30

on the same page

Landline • Rainbow Rowell

We were all so stoked to read LANDLINE, friends, that we bumped it up in our monthly schedule when all three of us managed to snag advanced copies. Because RAINBOW. And because reading any of her books, whether they are geared towards young adults or full grown-ups, always have an impact on all three of us.

Book cover Landline Rainbow RowellLANDLINE is about a relationship that is struggling. Rainbow tells amazing stories about relationships, and the one between Georgie McCool (I KNOWWW) and her husband, Neal, is fraying. Georgie writes for a TV comedy and Neal is a stay-at-home dad to their two girls. When Georgie and her long-time friend and writing partner get news of a potential big break right before Christmas, Georgie and Neal’s relationship goes from “just ok” to “MAYDAY! MAYDAY!” Neal heads off with the girls to Nebraska as the family planned, and Georgie stays behind in LA to work on her TV show. Except when she starts spending time in her old bedroom at her mom’s house, she finds an old rotary phone in her closet and uses it to call Neal’s parents’ house to talk to her husband. And THAT’S when things get INTERESTING.

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Filed Under: Adult, On the Same Page, Reviews Tagged With: , , ,

All Hallows Read Review | We Have Always Lived in the Castle | Shirley Jackson

Oct 31

All Hallows ReadFriends, All Hallows Read is just the most fun. Giving a book instead of candy?! This is my DREAM! Although, let’s be real, I love candy. But I probably love books more, and I’m always looking for reasons to give them as gifts, so this is perfect. In honor of this most wonderful event, Brittany, Alyssa, and I did a little Halloween book gifting so that we could all participate and have fun, and I’m so excited to be reviewing WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE by Shirley Jackson, gifted to me by the lovely Alyssa. I’m going to be reading Brittany’s gifts (YES OMG she gave us two books) and reviewing them SOON. I’m still actually reading them. But! There is a book to review today! Let’s get to it.
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Filed Under: Adult, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , ,

Blog Tour Review | Blackmoore | Julianne Donaldson

Oct 1

Book cover for Blackmoore by Julianne DonaldsonTitle: Blackmoore
Author: Julianne Donaldson
Genre: Historical Romance
Amazon | Goodreads | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Release date: September 9, 2013
Source: ARC from the publisher via NetGalley

Summary: Kate Worthington knows her heart and she knows she will never marry. Her plan is to travel to India instead—if only to find peace for her restless spirit and to escape the family she abhors. But Kate’s meddlesome mother has other plans. She makes a bargain with Kate: India, yes, but only after Kate has secured—and rejected—three marriage proposals.

Kate journeys to the stately manor of Blackmoore determined to fulfill her end of the bargain and enlists the help of her dearest childhood friend, Henry Delafield. But when it comes to matters of love, bargains are meaningless and plans are changeable. There on the wild lands of Blackmoore, Kate must face the truth that has kept her heart captive. Will the proposal she is determined to reject actually be the one thing that will set her heart free?

Set in Northern England in 1820, Blackmoore is a Regency romance that tells the story of a young woman struggling to learn how to follow her heart. It is Wuthering Heights meets Little Women with a delicious must-read twist.

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Filed Under: Adult, Blog Tour, Reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Five-Star Friday: The Name of the Wind

Jul 20

Five-Star Friday is a periodically regular (say what?!) feature that I’m planning on running on Fridays (but not every Friday) in which I talk about (or verbally drool over) a book that I’ve read and ADORED (sometimes they’ll be recent releases and other times they might be older…my piles are tall and the bottoms are old). Yay! I always feel so happy and light and wonderful when I am beside myself with delight over a book, and I want to share the love with you all in the hopes that we can all get together and have an embarrassing, squeal-filled love-fest full of lots of high-pitched “Ohmygod, I KNOW!s” and chest-clutching sighs of contentedness. Huzzah!*

There are not many words for how much I ADORED THE NAME OF THE WIND by Patrick Rothfuss. I will endeavor to get them all written down here. Because guys? This book is SO LEGIT, I don’t even know if it’s possible for me to do it justice by talking about it.

Book cover for The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

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Filed Under: Adult, Five-Star Friday, Reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

Blog Tour Review: Edenbrooke by Julianne Donaldson

Mar 30

Edenbrooke by Julianne Donaldson

Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Visit Julianne: Twitter | Website

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Filed Under: Adult, Blog Tour, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , ,

Book Review | The Garden Intrigue | Lauren Willig

Feb 16

I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Book Review | The Garden Intrigue | Lauren WilligThe Garden Intrigue by Lauren Willig
Series: Pink Carnation #9
Published by Dutton Adult on February 16, 2012
Genres: Adult, Europe, Historical Fiction, Historical Romance
Pages: 388
Format: eARC
Source: the publisher via NetGalley
Amazon • Barnes & Noble • Goodreads
five-stars

Secret agent Augustus Whittlesby has spent a decade undercover in France, posing as an insufferably bad poet. The French surveillance officers can’t bear to read his work closely enough to recognize the information drowned in a sea of verbiage.

New York-born Emma Morris Delagardie is a thorn in Augustus’s side. An old school friend of Napoleon’s stepdaughter, she came to France with her uncle, the American envoy; eloped with a Frenchman; and has been rattling around the salons of Paris ever since. Widowed for four years, she entertains herself by drinking too much champagne, holding a weekly salon, and loudly critiquing Augustus’s poetry.

As Napoleon pursues his plans for the invasion of England, Whittlesby hears of a top-secret device to be demonstrated at a house party at Malmaison. The catch? The only way in is with Emma, who has been asked to write a masque for the weekend’s entertainment.

Emma is at a crossroads: Should she return to the States or remain in France? She’ll do anything to postpone the decision-even if it means teaming up with that silly poet Whittlesby to write a masque for Bonaparte’s house party. But each soon learns that surface appearances are misleading. In this complicated masque within a masque, nothing goes quite as scripted- especially Augustus’s feelings for Emma.

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Filed Under: Adult, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , ,