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Stolen Kisses – Suzanne Enoch

July 16th, 2010

A scoundrel so dark and a heroine so consumed with propriety is doomed for disaster, but of course, Suzanne Enoch carries it off as no one else can.  Lillith’s mother ran away with another man when she was only twelve.  Now it is up to her to live down the scandal through an advantageous marriage.  Her father’s obsession with her becoming a duchess sets a series of events in motion that have you racing for the end of the story.

Jack, the hero and a Marquis in his own right, has a reputation so black and lurid Lillith cuts him when he steps forward for an introduction.  Now he is out for revenge and that revenge is to ruin her, literally.

One really nice twist in this story is Lillith’s brother, William.  The typical younger brother who gets away with everything while the older sister has to not only save the family name, but fend off a myriad of suitors, pacify the hateful aunt, and make sure said brother stays out of trouble.  The difference in this story is the brother is not an idiot.  And I love how this brother comes through for his sister.

Ms. Enoch is truly a master when it comes to telling the story through her characters.

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Victorian Girl Spies

July 2nd, 2010

For my first YA review, I’m keeping safely within my comfort zone. (This will change, I promise.) I am a huge fan of historicals and mysteries — particularly those set in the Victorian era — and thus when I saw Y.S. Lee’s The Agency: A Spy in the House, I knew I couldn’t leave the store without it. And what a great read!

In Victorian London, a young girl is doomed to hang for stealing. At the last moment, however, she is whisked away to a very special female academy . . . to be trained as a spy. For her first assignment, seventeen-year-old Mary Quinn poses as a lady’s companion to young Miss Thorold in order to gather intelligence on the father’s illegal dealings in the shipping industry. Mary is quick to throw herself into the task, and during her initial (& somewhat clumsy) attempt at sleuthing she encounters James Easton, who is investigating Mr. Thorold for his own reasons. Sparks fly between Mary and James, and soon the two are working together — though not always agreeably — to get to the bottom of what’s really going on with Thorold’s business. Author Y.S. Lee skillfully plays upon the gritty aspects of the setting (near the noxious Thames River in the “seedy” Chelsea district) as she packs her story with mystery, suspense, and startling revelations — not to mention delicious romantic tension!

Apparently, this novel was first published in 2009 but was reissued earlier this year with a new cover. If the premise intrigues you, please note that the sequel — The Body at the Tower – is due to be released this August.

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Posted in Historical Fiction, Young Adult

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His Other Lover, Forever Waiting

December 31st, 2009

Time is running out on the year, but lucky for us we can still read ‘09 releases in 2010! Here are a couple we think deserve some attention, so without further ado, our new Books in Bloom…

40466577.JPGHIS OTHER LOVER by Lucy Dawson

From the publisher:
To Mia, the devastating proof is right there on her boyfriend’s cell phone. In the dead of night she discovers Pete—her lover, her soul mate, her future—is having an affair. Instead of waking him with accusations, Mia begins to look for answers. What woman wouldn’t want to know everything, after all? But her desperate search only begins a frightening series of lies and deceptions.

Everything important to Mia may be on the line, but she’s also about to cross it. Desperation, obsession, and heartache can only lead to catastrophe, and if the cold, hard truth is not what Mia imagines, pursuing it could be the worst mistake she has ever made.

Just how far is too far?
Get LOVER now.

47447967.JPGFOREVER WAITING by DeVa Gantt

From the publisher:
The gripping saga of the Duvoisins—an extraordinary American family both blessed and cursed—reaches a stunning conclusion. . .

In the wake of heartbreaking tragedy and volatile revelations, the once-great Duvoisin family of Virginia teeters on the brink of disintegration. And trusted governess, Charmaine Ryan, suffers with them.

Their world has exploded—and aging patriarch, Frederic Duvoisin, desperately tries to salvage what remains of his shattered family. His mercurial son John has left, vowing never to return, taking a piece of Charmaine’s heart with him. Paul, the roguish, illegitimate son and aspiring heir to the Duvoisin shipping empire, offers love to the vulnerable Charmaine. And Agatha, Frederic’s shrewish wife, plots to destroy anyone who stands in her way. Haunted by the past, John returns, inadvertently unearthing the most devastating scheme of all.

Buy FOREVER here.

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Posted in Books in Bloom, Historical Fiction, Mainstream

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The Little Stranger

December 29th, 2009

by Malena Lott

35837811The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Stephen King recommended The Little Stranger in his best of 2009 list for Entertainment Weekly. The next day I read a tweet by thriller author MJ Rose who was reading it and loving it. (See how powerful frequency and word-of-mouth is?) Within thirty seconds I had purchased the hardback in Kindle format for my iPhone, only the second purchase I’ve made on my iPhone. I figured a ghost story might be just the thing I needed for holiday distraction. I was right.

What Waters has pulled off is a ghost story that may or may not be a ghost story – depending on whether or not you believe in ghosts. I happen to, full disclosure, so everything that happens in Hundreds Hall, the mansion which is the main character in the novel, feels haunted to me from the get go. That being said, the “ghost” part of the story is very minor, and the major aspects of the story are the history and functioning (and falling apart) of the house itself and the Ayres family who reside there. Mrs. Ayres and her two living children, a “hearty spinster” Caroline, her younger brother Roderick, who suffered burns and has a bum leg from the war.

The story is really about a man, our protagonist Dr. Faraday, a forty-ish bachelor whose parents gave up everything to see that he could become a doctor, and his relationship with the Ayres and Hundreds Hall. One quickly believes he loves the mansion, even in its tired state, more than he loves Caroline. His visits to the mansion begin as doctor-patient only and grow into a friendship. Throughout the story, the various members of the family confide in Dr. Faraday to determine what exactly is happening in Hundreds Hall – the burn marks on the walls and the bruises and marks appearing on the family members and later a bigger fire and suicide. As a medical doctor, Faraday explains it all away – clumsiness, candles too close to walls, and ultimately mental illness.

Does isolation and losing one’s standing in society – having to sell off parcel after parcel of your land, make you go crazy? In that way, can a house turn against you? Ruin your life? Or it something more – one’s own energy and anxiety causing things to physically happen within the house? Or could it be the ghost of little Susan, the first child of Mrs. Ayres, who the mother admits she was completely in love with and loved more deeply than her other two? Does the child miss her mother, want her on the other side?

Even if you don’t believe in ghosts, but acknowledge that places have chi – energy – then it’s easy to see how locking away whole sections of a mansion and letting it get to a dilapidated state because you can’t afford the upkeep or repairs, could change the home’s positive energy negative and stagnant.

Waters is a gifted writer for sure – and just scanning the acknowledgments in the back of the book on all the research she did to get the setting, time period, medicine and architecture right truly is astounding. While I would’ve preferred more haunted and less house, it’s an impressive book and certainly stands out as a literary exploration of the psyche and the supernatural.

Get LITTLE here.

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Posted in Historical Fiction, Mainstream, Uncategorized

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Soulless: The Parasol Protectorate

December 28th, 2009

by Malena Lott

41098430Soulless by Gail Carriger

Soulless came into my life like many great books do: by referral. It was a Book End Babes HoLITday gift guide recommendation by one of our book club queenBs, and I knew from the cover it would be a quirky fun read (kudos to the art director for that spot-on design).

Carriger say she knew she wanted to write urban fantasy (supernatural/werewolf/vampires) and noticed that a lot of the genre is contemporary. But she figured these creatures had to have been around for a long time, right? So she set her story in the Victorian times in England and gifts us with a wonderful protagonist, Alexia, who is a preternatural, meaning she has no soul. This doesn’t make her mean, but it does mean she can’t be harmed by vampires, and in fact, kills a vampire at the beginning of the book (self-defense, of course.)

The book has mystery (what’s happening to the vampires?), politics (BUR, where all vampires and werewolves must be registered), and romance (Alexia falls for the area Alpha, Lord Maccon, a handsome werewolf). I loved SOULLESS not just for the adventure, but because Alexia is so easy to love – she’s tough, no-nonsense and must work harder for her position because she is a spinster (and a homely one, at that) and she’s a preternatural, which she must hide from her family, as well as society.

Carriger knows how to world-build and suck us in to this delightful story of a co-mingling proper society where things like the full moon and daylight matter, but only as much as serving delicious tarts at your party. If you haven’t tried urban fantasy, but enjoy historical romance, this would be an easy add. If you like urban fantasy, but are looking for something different, give SOULLESS a try. While the spinsterhood, romance, Victorian angle seems ripe for women’s readership, I think men who enjoy historicals and urban fantasy would get a kick out of it, too.

Buy it at Amazon.

I’m looking forward to CHANGELESS, Carriger’s second book in the series, due in 2010.

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Posted in Historical Fiction, Mainstream, Romance, Uncategorized

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Long Live the Queens

September 28th, 2009

Our Books in Bloom this week features queens in all their glory…and agony. If you haven’t read a historical in awhile, check out these beauties:

amemoirsThe Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots by Carolly Erickson
From the publisher:
In this dramatic, compelling fictional memoir Carolly Erickson lets the courageous, spirited Mary Queen of Scots tell her own story—and the result is a novel readers will long remember.

Born Queen of Scotland, married as a young girl to the invalid young King of France, Mary took the reins of the unruly kingdom of Scotland as a young widow and fought to keep her throne. A second marriage to her handsome but dissolute cousin Lord Darnley ended in murder and scandal, while a third marriage to the dashing, commanding Lord Bothwell, the love of her life, gave her joy but widened the scandal and surrounded her with enduring ill repute.

Unable to rise above the violence and disorder that swirled around her, Mary plucked up her courage and escaped to England—only to find herself a prisoner of her ruthless, merciless cousin Queen Elizabeth.

Here, in her own riveting account, is the enchanting woman whose name still evokes excitement and compassion—and whose death under the headsman’s axe still draws forth our sorrow.

In The Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots, Carolly Erickson provides another in her series of mesmerizing historical entertainments, and takes readers deep into the life and heart of the sixteenth century’s most fascinating woman.

About the Author
Among CAROLLY ERICKSON’s twenty-six critically acclaimed, prize-winning, bestselling books are biographies, histories and the recent series of fictional historical entertainments. Her range is wide, her audience worldwide. She lives in Hawaii.
Order yours here.

adevilsqueenThe Devil’s Queen: A Novel of Catherine de Medici by Jeanne Kalogridis
From the publisher:
From Jeanne Kalogridis, the bestselling author of I, Mona Lisa and The Borgia Bride, comes a new novel that tells the passionate story of a queen who loved not wisely . . . but all too well.

Confidante of Nostradamus, scheming mother-in-law to Mary, Queen of Scots, and architect of the bloody St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, Catherine de Medici is one of the most maligned monarchs in history. In her latest historical fiction, Jeanne Kalogridis tells Catherine’s story—that of a tender young girl, destined to be a pawn in Machiavellian games.

Born into one of Florence’s most powerful families, Catherine was soon left a fabulously rich heiress by the early deaths of her parents. Violent conflict rent the city state and she found herself imprisoned and threatened by her family’s enemies before finally being released and married off to the handsome Prince Henry of France.

Overshadowed by her husband’s mistress, the gorgeous, conniving Diane de Poitiers, and unable to bear children, Catherine resorted to the dark arts of sorcery to win Henry’s love and enhance her fertility—for which she would pay a price. Against the lavish and decadent backdrop of the French court, and Catherine’s blood-soaked visions of the future, Kalogridis reveals the great love and desire Catherine bore for her husband, Henry, and her stark determination to keep her sons on the throne.

About the Author
Jeanne Kalogridis lives with her partner in North Carolina, where they share a house with two dogs. She is the author of the critically acclaimed novels The Borgia Bride and I, Mona Lisa and other numerous dark fantasy and historical novels.

Get your very own here.

Did you know you, too, can be a queen? Be a queenB, a hostess with the mostess, by hosting your own book club in Book End Babes. Already have a book club? No problem. Just join our network and get all the privileges of membership. Any queenB to sign up in September has the chance to win a book bag with books for you or your chapter.

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What Happens in London

August 14th, 2009

  

38007322What Happens In London by Julia Quinn

First line:  By the age of twelve, Harry Valentine possessed two  bits of knowledge that made him rather unlike other boys of his class in
England of the early nineteenth century. Give me an understated hero every time, and I am unlikely to go to bed at a decent hour until he convinces the heroine why he is right for her.

The hero in this story is employed by a boring branch of the War Office.  He translates documents from French and Russian to
English.  A desk job.  He did not like war.  Deep in his heart, he was an academic.

Due to gossip, the heroine takes it upon herself to spy on him from her home next door.  Her bedchamber is located a couple of stories above his home office giving her a direct view into his sanctuary.

 

This is a very funny story.  To top it off, when the hero happens to glance up and catch her watching she drops to the floor, where her twin brother finds her.

This story would not work if Ms. Quinn did not utilize the natural chaos between a brother and sister who each have their own agendas.  One of those being to drive the other crazy.  I’m sure you see what I mean.

For:  Readers who grew up with annoying siblings and live to see  the happy ending. –   Kathy Wheeler

Get it now! 

  

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To Beguile A Beast –

May 15th, 2009

 

To Beguile A Beast by – Elizabeth Hoyt 

First line:  ”It was as the carriage bumped around a bend and the decrepit castle loomed into view in the dusk that Helen Fitzwilliam finally, – and rather belatedly, – realized that the whole trip may’’ve been a horrible mistake.”

Beast:  Man, disfigured in a terrible war he shouldn’’t have been a part of in the first place.

Beguiled:  A beauty whose need to hide is greater than her fear of the monster who opened the door to her and her two very tired children. 

Hiding from the powerful duke who fathered her two children,  Abigail, nine, and Jamie, five, the duke’s tentacles stretch as far and wide, as his money.

Abigail is a serious child with dark moods and deep introspection.

Jamie, however, is ruled by his stomach and stray animals.

I love how Ms. Hoyt’’s characters had to reach past a man’’s terrifying appearance to see his beauty.  How both children are still children, fearing the future, yet living in the moment.

Interesting twist for the heroine, as former lover of the duke.  How could you not be drawn in?

For:  Readers who want charm and emotion.  You will be swayed. -   Kathy Wheeler

 

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Between the Devil and Desire

May 11th, 2009

 

Between the Devil and Desire by Lorraine Heath

First line:  When I was five years old, my mum sold me.

This is a tough story, full of emotional highs and lows, including the disturbing subject of child abuse, overcome.

The heroine’’s husband, the Duke of Lovingdon, died unexpectedly.  The death appears suspicious, and she is a suspect.  But the reading of the will in the opening of the story shows a hero who is not a smooth talker.  A hero who lives his life for money.  So when the duke bequeaths his entire unentailed fortune to this man who grew up in the stews of London as a pickpocket – a good one, no less  - no one is more surprised than he.  Or happier.  He’s richer than he’d ever thought possible.

The heroine is devastated, furious, blindsided.  Who wouldn’’t be when a stranger has invaded her life?  Follow a man who goes through her home evaluating the value of each and every object?  Her five-year-old son is now the ward of a man who abhors society and authority and good manners.  As London’’s most virtuous duchess, she may find she is all too human.

 

 

For:  Readers who want the satisfaction of circle completion.  A good read. -   Kathy Wheeler

Get it at Amazon. 

 

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Highland Scandal

May 7th, 2009

Highland Scandal by Julia London

First line:  ”From his vantage point in the middle of a brambly thicket –- which Jack noted gloomily, had torn his best buckskins –- he could see the road through the branches.”

Jack Haines is running from the Prince of Wales.  Accused of adultery with the Princess, worthy of high treason.  The Prince’’s men are hot on his trail – in Scotland.  Suddenly, he is confronted by four men and taken prisoner.

Only it’’s not the Prince’’s men.  Lucky.  It’s Carson Beal, Laird Lachlan.  His choices?  Handed over to the Prince’’s men, or handfasted (literally bound by wrist, at least through the ceremony) to Lizzie Beal, the Laird’’s niece.  For one year and one day. 

Lizzie, of course, is furious.  Her first act of rebellion is slipping through a window, somewhat high, and dropping to the ground, almost giving Jack a heart attack.  Of course, she is caught and brought back.

While Lizzie is a very beautiful woman, her older sister even more so.  Only, she is crippled and cannot walk. 

Highland Scandal is a most entertaining story.  Definitely worth your time.  Suspense, trickery and humor guide your adventure along.

For:  Readers who want to see how a man and a woman might get a handfasting annulled.  Or not. -   Kathy Wheeler

Get it at Amazon.

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