Review: Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey

Review: Magic for Liars by Sarah GaileyMagic for Liars by Sarah Gailey, Xe Sands
Format: audiobook
Source: purchased from Audible
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: mystery, urban fantasy
Pages: 336
Published by Tor Books on June 4th 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

Sharp, mainstream fantasy meets compelling thrills of investigative noir in this fantasy debut by rising star Sarah Gailey.

Ivy Gamble has never wanted to be magic. She is perfectly happy with her life—she has an almost-sustainable career as a private investigator, and an empty apartment, and a slight drinking problem. It's a great life and she doesn't wish she was like her estranged sister, the magically gifted professor Tabitha.

But when Ivy is hired to investigate the gruesome murder of a faculty member at Tabitha’s private academy, the stalwart detective starts to lose herself in the case, the life she could have had, and the answer to the mystery that seems just out of her reach.

My Review:

Magic for Liars is a mystery in the exact same way that American Magic is a spy thriller. It follows all of the conventions of its genre – except for one thing. Magic is real.

Another way of putting it would be to say that Magic for Liars takes place in the world of either Harry Potter or The Magicians. It’s very much a murder mystery, but the setting is a high school for mages, whether they are called witches, wizards or magicians, or whether they are simply said to “be magic”.

Ivy Gamble is not magic – but her twin sister Tabitha is. And is a teacher at exclusive Osthorne Academy for Young Mages, where young magic users go through high school and learn how to manage their talents.

So when one of Tabitha’s fellow teachers dies in what seems to be a spectacular case of experimental magic gone very, very wrong, the school’s headmaster, Marian Torres, comes to Ivy to investigate. The official investigation has ruled the case as an accidental death, but Torres is not convinced.

She wants Ivy to look into it. After all, Ivy is a licensed private investigator, and more importantly, Ivy won’t have to be convinced that magic is real. She’s already well-aware of that fact. And still resents the way that magic took her sister away from her.

Ivy doesn’t want the job. She doesn’t want to become immersed in a world where she’ll always be an outsider. She doesn’t want to have to deal with the sister she still loves but also deeply resents and no longer speaks to.

But she can’t resist the opportunity – or the paycheck. In spite of just how many of her own ghosts she’ll have to deal with along the way. Or drink to oblivion.

None of Ivy’s assumptions and presumptions turn out to be remotely true. Her hopes and fears on the other hand – all too desperately real – if not worse than she ever imagined.

Escape Rating A+: I listened to this one, and this is one of the rare cases where the audio doesn’t merely tell the story, it actually makes it better. Better for something that is already damn good equals awesome.

Magic for Liars is told in the first person by Ivy, who is seriously a hot mess. Her story is very noir, her internal voice sounds like one of those cliched hard-boiled detectives. What the narrator manages to do is capture both the world-weariness of her voice and her internal wistfulness. Because Ivy needs to solve the case, but what she desperately wants is to belong. More even than that, she wants her sister back. And that’s what the narrator manages to capture in a way that is, honestly, magical.

The story itself is sad and fun in equal measures. On the one hand, we have high school. With all of its drama and melodrama. One of Ivy’s frequent observations is just how trivially the students use their incredible gift for magic. But they are high school students, and that’s what high school is for.

At the same time, as an outsider she is able to see the dark underbelly in all its seedy disgustingness. The need to “fit in”, even at the cost of self. The fear of exposure. And the constant bullying and manipulation, by teachers, by siblings, by enemies and especially by friends.

But the case eludes her – not because she doesn’t understand magic, but because she doesn’t want to face her own truths. When she finally does, it all becomes clear – and clearly, heartbreakingly awful.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 9-29-19

Sunday Post

First things first. Now that it is, at least theoretically Fall, it’s time to begin thinking about the holidays. Including the annual Black Friday Giveaway Hop, hosted again by yours truly and the Caffeinated Reviewer. So if you can participate in the hop, sign ups are now open. If you’re hoping to avoid the Black Friday shopping crowds and stay home and curl up with a good book, we’ll be here to give you opportunities to win a present or two or three.

Speaking of giveaway hops, the Follow the Yellow Brick Road Hop ends tomorrow – just in time for Spooktacular to begin on Tuesday! It’s still so hot in Atlanta that the Wicked Witch would melt just by standing out in the sun – no water required!

Current Giveaways:

$10 Amazon Gift Card or $10 Book in the Follow the Yellow Brick Road Giveaway Hop (ENDS TOMORROW!!!!)
Coming Home for Christmas by RaeAnne Thayne
The Price of Grace by Diana Muñoz Stewart

Winner Announcements:

The winner of the September to Remember Giveaway Hop is Kelly

Blog Recap:

B+ Review: Lies in White Dresses by Sofia Grant
B+ Review: Coming Home for Christmas by RaeAnne Thayne + Giveaway
A- Review: Kiss of Eon by Anna Hackett
Black Friday Giveaway Hop Sign Up
B+ Review: The Price of Grace by Diana Muñoz Stewart + Giveaway
A- Review: The MacInnes Affair by Blair McDowell
Stacking the Shelves (359)

Coming This Week:

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey (review)
Spooktacular Giveaway Hop
Ribbons of Scarlet by Kate Quinn, Sophie Perinot, Laura Kamoie, Stephanie Dray, E. Knight, Heather Webb (blog tour review)
The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley (review)
This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (review)

Stacking the Shelves (359)

Stacking the Shelves

I know this list looks long, but it isn’t really. It also sort of is. Confusing, isn’t it? I didn’t get many review copies this week, but there were multiple irresistible sales at Amazon and Audible. The Forward Collection is a freebie for Prime Members, and Audible is doing another one of their sales on selected not-so-recent audios. And then there’s the books I just couldn’t resist. I’m loving Jade City on audio and want to continue with Jade WarI’ve also loved the Mycroft Holmes series by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Whitehouse, so when The Empty Birdcage released this week I got the ebook/audio bundle. If it’s as good as the previous books in the series, which were awesome, I know I’m going to want to switch back and forth from the audio to the book and back depending on where I’m at.

For Review:
Gold Digger by Rebecca Rosenberg
The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
Otaku by Chris Kluwe
Shatner by Michael Seth Starr

Purchased from Amazon/Audible:
Ark (Forward Collection #1) by Veronica Roth
Elantris by Brandon Sanderson (audio)
Emergency Skin (Forward Collection #3) by N.K. Jemisin
Eye of Truth (Agents of the Crown #1) by Lindsay Buroker
Jade War (Green Bone Saga #2) by Fonda Lee (book and audio)
The Last Conversation (Forward Collection #5) by Paul Tremblay
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers #1) by Becky Chambers (audio)
Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage (Mycroft Holmes and Sherlock #3) by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse (book and audio)
Randomize (Forward Collection #6) by Andy Weir
Summer Frost (Forward Collection #2) by Blake Crouch
A Trick of Light (Stan Lee’s Alliances) by Stan Lee and Kat Rosenfield
You Have Arrived at Your Destination (Forward Collection #4) by Amor Towles

Review: The MacInnes Affair by Blair McDowell

Review: The MacInnes Affair by Blair McDowellThe MacInnes Affair by Blair McDowell
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: historical fiction, Romance, timeslip fiction
Pages: 318
Published by The Wild Rose Press on September 30, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleBookshop.org
Goodreads

On holiday in Scotland, Lara MacInnes discovers the journals of a woman who loved Lara's own very-great grandfather, Lachlan MacInnes, in the mid-eighteen hundreds. With the help of Iain Glendenning, a handsome Highlander, Lara traces the path of this long-ago romance. Their research unearths mystery and murder. Uncovering the truth, a hundred and fifty years later, is a torturous and frustrating trail. Along the way, Lara and Iain in fall in love. Can they put an end forever to the feud between the MacInnes and Glendenning Clans that has persisted since the Battle of Culloden?

My Review:

The MacInnes Affair is the finest kind of time-slip romance, one where the dive into the past illuminates but does not overshadow the story in the present – and the other way around. It is a marvelous story every step of the way.

Lara MacInnes arrives at Athdara Castle during her summer break from teaching school in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She’s come to the Scottish Highlands to visit her mother’s best friend, to research her own family history – and to put some time and distance between herself and her breakup with her overbearing ex-fiance.

She is first rescued by, and then falls in love with, Iain Glendenning, the son and heir of the Laird of Athdara – and also the son of her mother’s best friend. And who is also just about to break his engagement with his very own overbearing about-to-be-ex fiance.

That should be enough for the two of them to have in common, but that barely scratches the surface. And it’s what’s under that surface that makes this book so special.

The MacInnes and the Glendennings represent two sides of a bitter mid-18th century feud. At Culloden they fought on opposite sides, with the MacInnes part of the Jacobite cause, and the Glendennings on the side of “German Geordie”, the eventual King George I.

(If the name Culloden sounds familiar, you might be remembering Jamie Fraser from Outlander. The MacInnes Affair is nothing like Outlander, but Culloden and its aftermath cast a long and bloody shadow over the history of Scotland. It’s one of those fixed-points in time that ANY work of historical fiction dealing with 18th and 19th century Scotland has to touch upon.)

But Lara and Iain do not represent the first time that a MacInnes and a Glendenning have fallen in love across that bloody divide. The family history that Lara has come to investigate revolves around that first time, even though they are not aware of it when they begin their research.

Once upon a time, Lachlan MacInnes rescued Elspeth Glendenning, even more spectacularly than the 21st century event. That same Lachlan MacInnes emigrated to Canada to become Lara’s great-great-(and possibly a couple more greats)-grandfather. Very little seems to be known about him.

But Lara and Iain find Elspeth’s diaries. In her private writings she laid her own soul bare. And gives her 21st century descendants – and us – a heartbreaking story of love and duty, loss and redemption.

Escape Rating A-: There’s a lovely sense of history coming full circle in this story. Lara leaves home for Scotland to discover the truth about her ancestor, Lachlan MacInnes. And she returns home to discover that the truth was right there waiting for her all along.

But the journey along the way is what makes this one so good.

It’s interesting, looking back at the story, to think, on the one hand, that Lara and Iain’s story runs fairly smoothly. There are a couple of bumps in their road, but nothing that can’t be, and isn’t, overcome.

But when they get caught up in the search for Lachlan’s, and eventually Elspeth’s story, we do too. We read the diaries with them and feel both the heartbreak of Elspeth’s story as well as Lara and Iain’s compulsion to discover those hidden truths.

And even though Elspeth’s story is a “bigger” story, it’s tragic and heartbreaking at so many points, somehow it doesn’t overshadow Lara and Iain’s. That’s one of the things that this author does so very well, tell a story in two time frames and make them both equally compelling.

There are people who will see the synopsis for The MacInnes Affair with its time-slip storyline and its Scottish Highland setting and make an instant comparison to Outlander. That comparison is a mistake. Please don’t mistake me, I love the Outlander books and have read them all. But it’s a massive series that goes much more deeply into the 18th century and dives much farther into its history than a single-volume work could or should.

The MacInnes Affair is the story of one single pair of star-crossed lovers and their one small corner of history. And it’s lovely exactly as it is.

The way that their history wraps around and both influences the now and is in turn resolved in that now – well, that’s magic.

Review: The Price of Grace by Diana Munoz Stewart + Giveaway

Review: The Price of Grace by Diana Munoz Stewart + GiveawayThe Price of Grace (Black Ops Confidential, #2) by Diana Munoz Stewart
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: romantic suspense
Series: Black Ops Confidential #2
Pages: 352
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca on September 24, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

Who can you trustWhen family, truth, and love are all on the line?

Gracie Parish knows the true cost of trust. Rescued as a child by the infamous Parish family, she became a member of their covert sisterhood of vigilantes. Gracie saw her most precious relationships destroyed by secrecy. She learned long ago to protect her heart as well as her family's secrets.

Special Agent Leif "Dusty" McAllister will do anything to uncover the truth about the Parish family's covert operations. Dusty knows Gracie is his ticket in. He'll use everything he's got—fair, unfair, and just plain wrong—to break through her defenses. But the more he gets to know Gracie and her family's mission, the harder he starts to fall. Neither one is sure they'll get out of this with their lives—or their hearts—intact.

Black Ops Confidential series:I Am Justice (Book 1)The Price of Grace (Book 2)The Cost of Honor (Book 3)

My Review:

Sometimes there’s justice, and sometimes there’s “just us”. This series is about a family that has decided where that line gets drawn, to be that “just us” for women all over the world who desperately need some of that justice. No matter who, or what, gets in the way.

This particular entry in the series is all about the price that gets paid, on both sides of the equation. The Price of Grace is the second book in the Black Ops Confidential series, after last year’s terrific I Am Justice.

The series is very much romantic suspense, but it isn’t exactly like any other romantic suspense series. And that’s because of the Parish family. So often in romantic suspense, there’s a heroine in jeopardy being rescued by some lone wolf hero with a badge and a guarded heart of titanium.

That’s not the case here. The Parish family is a family of adoption rather than birth – and it’s a family of survivors, from its founding mother, Mukta Parish down to every cohort of her children. Survivors of brutality or abuse or trafficking or all of the above, every single one.

The Parish family is bound into a tribe – or a cult if you don’t like what they are doing – of nearly all women who have vowed to be that “just us” in countries all around the world where women’s and girls’ rights are trampled upon with legal impunity by governments and warlords alike.

In the United States, Mukta Parish uses her wealth and social standing to, let’s call it influence, legislation and politicians, all to further her agenda of making the world safer and fairer for women.

Of course, some people see her adopted children as brainwashed soldiers rather than clear-headed volunteers – or revolutionaries. And plenty of people at home and abroad want to keep on doing business as usual without her interference.

And, like any family, some children are less than willing to toe the family line, or just want to live an ordinary life rather than devote themselves to a cause, even a righteous one.

The Price of Grace is a story where those conflicting desires intersect in the person of Grace Parish, a woman who left a husband and child behind in order to keep them safe from her family’s retribution – or so she believes.

Grace’s need to carve out a bit of a life for herself conflicts with one FBI agent’s desire to rescue Grace and her siblings from what he perceives as their indoctrination into a cult of vigilantism. And it runs headlong into one woman’s insane need to preserve her position at the apex of privilege and self-indulgence – at any cost.

Escape Rating B+: In the first book in this series, whatever second thoughts Justice Parish may have had about deceiving Sandesh Ross about her mission – or her purpose on his mission – there are none about the mission itself, or her family’s determination to take on traffickers, slavers and abusers wherever they might be found.

But the location of that first story gives the Parish family’s vigilantism a bit of distance. Intellectually, we know that variations of the same crap that Justice Parish is fighting “over there” also happens right here at home, but the reader isn’t forced to confront the “outside the law” nature of the Parish’ activities in the same way.

(BTW I Am Justice is kickass awesome but it isn’t necessary to read it to get into The Price of Grace.)

All of the action in The Price of Grace – except for its explosive opening intro – takes place right here in the U.S. of A. In the light of Grace’s own desire to distance herself from her family’s field operations, and her semi-successful attempt to carve out a life of her that isn’t completely under her mother’s well-meaning but heavy-handed thumb, there’s a bit of uneasiness about the Parish family, not so much the mission itself but certainly the methodology.

And that’s reflected in the perspective of FBI Agent Dusty McAllister. His childhood was chock to the brim of first-hand experience with indoctrination into cult beliefs, and to his admittedly suspicious eyes, that’s exactly what it looks like Mukta Parrish is up to. Creating an army of child soldiers who are so indoctrinated into her way of thinking that they continue the dangerous and deadly mission into adulthood.

Dusty initially saw Grace’s attempts at independence as the weak link in the Parish family chain – he planned to use her to pry a way into the Parish family compound. But once he meets her he’s caught between his need to expose Mukta Parish and his need to explore every last inch of Grace Parish. A latter need  that is very much mutual.

But this story, partly through Dusty’s investigations and partly through the machinations of some very interested third parties gives the reader – and especially Grace – a view into some of the family’s operations that are not so savory as she, and the reader, have been led to believe. Giving the story some fascinating and slightly equivocal dimensions that add to the suspense as both Grace and the reader are forced to wonder just how much dirt is hiding under that righteous mission.

The reveal of who exactly is behind what, and why, gives this page-turner a surprising – and explosive, ending.

I think we’ll see more dimensions, and even more second thoughts, in the third book in this series, The Cost of Honor, later this year. And I’m all in for that!

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

I’m giving away a copy of The Price of Grace to one lucky US commenter on this tour!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.

Black Friday Giveaway Hop Sign Up

It’s that time again! Welcome back to the NINTH annual Black Friday Book Bonanza.

Even if you think it’s too soon for the holidays, they are right around the corner!

Just like last year (and the year before that, and the year before that) Black Friday is a great day for a hop. It’s the perfect opportunity to share a bookish prize or two, and also to stay home and surf the web instead of crowd-surfing at the mall.

The hosts for this year’s event are Reading Reality (yours truly) and the Caffeinated Reviewer.

The giveaway will run from 12:01 am on November 29 through 12:01 am December 2. That’s Black Friday through Cyber Monday

Hop Details

  • Giveaway must be book-related (books, book etailer (i.e. Amazon, etc) gift cards, pre-orders, bookish crafts, etc.)
  • If you are an author, you can include book swag, but you must also include a book or gift card
  • Please specify if your giveaway is US-only or International in the linky
  • If using Rafflecopter or Giveaway Tools, please limit your entries to no more than 5
  • Your post must be easy to find from your front page
  • Your post must be live by 9am EST on November 29th (aka Black Friday). Any links not live by this time will be removed from the linky
  • Please announce your winners within 72 hours of giveaway end
  • Sign-up closes November 26th so link up today 🙂

PLEASE include US or INT on the linky! Pretty please with candy canes on it it!

p.s. Be sure to sign up on this form (https://forms.gle/zZa7jNyHWbPVXfUK9) if you want a reminder before the hop begins!

The more blogs to hop, the better! Put our grab button on your blog and help spread the word!

Review: Kiss of Eon by Anna Hackett

Review: Kiss of Eon by Anna HackettKiss of Eon (Eon Warriors #4) by Anna Hackett
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: ebook
Genres: science fiction romance, space opera
Series: Eon Warriors #4
Pages: 211
Published by Anna Hackett on September 22, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsiteAmazon
Goodreads

When the vital alliance between Earth and the Eon Empire depends on her playing war games with an arrogant, infuriating Eon warrior, what could go wrong?
Terran Captain Allie Borden has her orders. Take her ship, the Divergent, and strengthen the alliance with the Eon by carrying out training exercises with the Eon warship, the Desteron. The only problem…one annoying warrior who gets on her nerves like nobody else. Forced to work with Second Commander Brack Thann-Felis, Allie finds her diplomacy skills stretched to the limit…and her body betraying her with a white-hot desire that’s getting hard to ignore.

Brack Thann-Felis is dedicated to his ship, his warriors, and his job. Watching his parents’ disastrous marriage has ensured that he will never mate or fall in love. Working with feisty, opinionated Allie tests his patience, but the more time he spends with the dedicated captain, the more he finds he can’t stay away from her.

As mysterious, dangerous sabotage events strike their ships, it becomes evident that someone wants their alliance to fail. They might have traitors among their crew and they both know it has to lead back to their enemy—the ravenous insectoid Kantos. Soon, Brack and Allie find themselves in a fight for their lives, with only each other to depend on, and a growing desire that will not be denied.

My Review:

If you blend a bit of fated mates with a touch of “Mars needs women” and stir vigorously with the tentacles of rapacious alien bugs you get something like the Eon Warriors series. And in spite of the tentacle stirrer, the mixture makes for a surprisingly delicious space opera-type science fiction romance.

Back in Edge of Eon, the first book in this series, we saw how it all began. Well, sort of.

Really, it all began several decades ago, when the Eon Empire first made contact with Earth. And the Terrans completely screwed the pooch. The Eons are superior in every way, and the humans acted like they were the totally “the shit” and that the Eons should give them everything they wanted just because they said so.

And the Eons, quite rightfully, told them to go away and grow up – and closed the borders of their empire.

But the alien insectoid Kratos have also discovered Earth, and they think it’s a juicy, ripe plum tailor-made for them to chew up and spit out. It’s what they are, and it’s what they do. Whether the Kratos are actually evil or just obeying a species imperative is up to the reader. But Earth doesn’t have the technology to survive repeated Kratos incursions over the long term. They just haven’t advanced enough yet.

Earth wants the Eons to get involved – on their side, of course. Their methods for involving the Eons, as exhibited in the first three books in the series, do make the reader wonder if the powers-that-be on Earth have learned a damn thing. It feels as if the Terran spaceforce succeeds in bringing the Eons onside in spite of themselves.

But succeed they did. Now that the initial overtures have been made and accepted, it’s up to the actual, serving officers and crew of the Eon Warriors and the Terran spaceforce to find a way to work together – after decades of thinking the worst of each other – to take the fight to the Kratos and kick them out of this sector of the galaxy.

Kiss of Eon is the first story where the action has fully shifted from just getting the Eons on board to truly working together. It’s a bit of a rocky start.

Dedicated Sub-Commander Brack Thann-Felis isn’t sure what the Terrans have to bring to the alliance. Not that they aren’t scrappy and determined, but they just haven’t made the necessary advances to be a real partner. Captain Allie Borden is determined to prove exactly what the Terrans bring to the table – and if she can manage to extract the stick that seems to be firmly wedged up Thann-Felis’ ass along the way, so much the better.

Especially since it’s a very, VERY nice ass. Even when he’s being one.

Allie and Brack strike sparks from each other from the first minute they met. Now they have to work together and overcome decades of prejudice on both sides. While the Kratos are doing their level best – or worst – to drive a wedge into their alliance before it can fully unite against them.

Escape Rating A-: For a relatively short book, there is a lot to love in Kiss of Eon – and not just the shape of Brack’s ass. Not that Allie doesn’t find that quite “admirable” all by itself.

Like many of the author’s previous series (Hell Squad, Phoenix Adventures, Treasure Hunter Security) there is both an individual romance and progress towards an overarching story in each entry in the series.

That overarching story is where my initial comments about fated mates and “Mars needs women” come in. The Eons are only able to naturally reproduce with their “fated” mate. The problem is that the Eon Warriors as a group, particularly the ones who become dedicated to their service to the empire, don’t seem to be finding their mates. Artificial insemination seems to have solved that problem – otherwise their people would be dying out.

However, as discovered in Edge of Eon, the Eon Warriors have discovered that humans are not merely prospective mates, but almost perfectly suited to become so. This seems to have more to do with the scrappy, never-say-die, take-no-prisoners attitude rather than anything physical, but it keeps happening, and the Eon Emperor has noted it explicitly. That an excellent reason for the Eons to help the Terrans is in the hopes that more Eon Warriors will find their mates among the Terrans.

It doesn’t seem to be coercive in any way – which keeps this trope from going haywire. It seems like they have to fall in love first – and THEN the mating drive kicks in, rather than the other way around. But it adds an interesting twist to the stories so far.

The Kratos are the “big bad” in this series. A big part of the overall story is the Kratos many, many attempts to conquer Earth, and the allies constant battles to push them away. This feels like the “long-haul” part of the story, and that conquering or subduing the Kratos will end the series. Eventually. Someday. Hopefully not anytime soon.

If the Kratos and the Gizzida (from the author’s Hell Squad series) don’t turn out to be some kind of intergalactic cousins, I’ll eat someone’s hat. They aren’t exactly the same beyond their function in the story, but there is definitely a “family” resemblance!

And then there’s the individual romance of this particular entry. It’s kind of a frenemies-into-lovers story. Brack and Allie aren’t really enemies per se, they just rub each other the wrong way and begin the story resisting a very strong impulse to rub each other the right way.

Brack isn’t sure what the Terrans bring to the table – but then neither are a lot of the Eon Warriors. Allie is well aware of that attitude, and feels the need to prove herself at every turn. Additionally, Allie is the Captain of her ship, a position that she has earned, and has plenty of ego to bring to the table along with that never surrender, never give up Terran attitude.

In addition to their differences, they also come to their romance from a similar point of view in that neither of them believes in love and that both of them have been dedicated to their careers. They both feel that they have plenty to prove on a personal level and that love only gets in the way of what they need to accomplish.

Watching them learn the lesson that loving someone doesn’t make you weak, but makes you strong, is the heart of their romance and makes their journey lovely to see.

Review: Coming Home for Christmas by RaeAnne Thayne + Giveaway

Review: Coming Home for Christmas by RaeAnne Thayne + GiveawayComing Home for Christmas (Haven Point, #10) by RaeAnne Thayne
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, holiday romance
Series: Haven Point #10
Pages: 336
Published by Hqn on September 24, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

Hearts are lighter and wishes burn a little brighter at Christmas…

Elizabeth Hamilton has been lost. Trapped in a tangle of postpartum depression and grief after the death of her beloved parents, she couldn’t quite see the way back to her husband and their two beautiful kids…until a car accident stole away her memories and changed her life. And when she finally remembered the sound of little Cassie’s laugh, the baby powder smell of Bridger and the feel of her husband’s hand in hers, Elizabeth worried that they’d moved on without her. That she’d missed too much. That perhaps she wasn’t the right mother for her kids or wife for Luke, no matter how much she loved them.

But now, seven years later, Luke finds her in a nearby town and brings Elizabeth back home to the family she loves, just in time for Christmas. And being reunited with Luke and her children is better than anything Elizabeth could have imagined. As they all trim the tree and bake cookies, making new holiday memories, Elizabeth and Luke are drawn ever closer. Can the hurt of the past seven years be healed over the course of one Christmas season and bring the Hamiltons the gift of a new beginning?

My Review:

The holiday season has begun. Oh, not the official Xmas season, but the holiday romance season, definitely. It seems as if the first of the holiday romances start hitting the shelves right around the first official week of fall, and here we are.

As the year starts winding down, and the weather starts drawing in – or at least cooling off – it just starts to feel like it’s time to curl up under a cozyblanket, with a cup of hot cocoa or tea, a sleepy cat or two, and a heartwarming holiday romance.

Today’s book, Coming Home for Christmas by RaeAnne Thayne, is a great way to open this year’s holiday reading splurge.

Haven Point is one of those little towns that seem like great places to love. It’s a tight-knit community, people generally get along, and the economy has been looking up throughout the course of the series.

But life, and especially people, are not perfect. And not everyone’s life is going along swimmingly.

That’s where our hero, Luke Hamilton, comes in. Because seven years ago, his wife Elizabeth walked out into a snowstorm, leaving Luke and their two small children behind.

Along with a giant cloud over his head. Elizabeth never came back. Neither was her body ever found. No proof has ever been discovered to implicate Luke in either her disappearance or her presumed death.

But the court of public opinion convicted him long ago. And now the new District Attorney wants to make a name for herself by making it official. She plans to charge him with murder.

So Luke drives out in yet another snowstorm, making the 8 hour drive from Haven Point to the Oregon Coast, because he knows one thing that the DA doesn’t want to hear. Or believe.

His missing wife, Elizabeth Sinclair Hamilton, is living in Oregon under the name of Sonia Davis. And has been for years. She left him, she left their kids, and she never came back to them.

But he refuses to leave his children with no parent at all because his wife is too selfish to come back to them. There’s no way that he’s going to jail, or even on trial, for a murder that he not only didn’t commit, but particularly for the killing of a woman who isn’t even dead – even if she’s dead to him after years of betrayal. Or that’s what he believes.

The truth, well, that’s another matter entirely.

Escape Rating B+: Coming Home for Christmas is a quick read, and makes for a lovely second-chance-at-love holiday romance. Surprisingly so, considering the themes of the story and the underlying heartbreak behind Elizabeth’s actions.

It also reads like perfect fodder for one of those Hallmark Xmas movies – with more than a bit of a soap opera plot – complete with amnesia and reconstructive surgery. And the happy ending wraps up a bit quick and seems a touch contrived.

I’m not saying that this couple couldn’t find their way back to each other, in spite of the past, but it should have taken a bit more time and effort. No one needed to grovel in this one, it’s not that kind of story. But they have a LOT to get over, and doing it over the course of a single week after seven years of separation and justifiably hurt feelings seems like more than a bit of a holiday miracle.

At the same time, there’s a lot of “meat” to this one – and not just the traditional Xmas turkey.

The reason that Elizabeth stayed away from Haven may sound like a soap opera plot, but the reason she left was deadly serious. Suffering from clinical depression compounded by postpartum depression, overwhelmed by her grief, lost in a dark pit of despair, she couldn’t climb out on her own. No one could. And Luke, coping with a baby and a toddler, a business start up that required too much attention but had to succeed to support them all, tired and out of options or support of his own, still dealing with his own emotional issues, couldn’t handle it all.

Elizabeth got sicker and Luke became less able to cope and neither had a support network. Elizabeth left because she was lost in a spiral and was sure her family would be better off without her. And that part of her story happens more frequently than anyone wants to think.

So there is a bit of a holiday miracle in this one. It’s a miracle that would have felt more earned if it had taken a bit more time – but it’s more than enough for a lovely holiday read!

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

I am giving away a copy of Coming Home for Christmas to one very lucky US or Canadian commenter on this tour!

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Review: Lies in White Dresses by Sofia Grant

Review: Lies in White Dresses by Sofia GrantLies in White Dresses by Sofia Grant
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, women's fiction
Pages: 384
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks on September 17, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

In the 1940s and 50s, women who needed a fast divorce went to Nevada to live on a ranch with other women in the same boat. This historical novel was inspired by the true stories of those who “took the Reno cure.”

Francie Meeker and Vi Carothers were sold a bill of goods: find a man, marry him in a white wedding gown, and live happily ever after. These best friends never expected to be on the train to Reno, those “lies in white dresses” shattered, their marriages over.

On board the train they meet June Samples, who is fleeing an abusive husband with her daughter, and take the vulnerable young mother under their wing. The three decide to wait out the required six weeks together, and then they can toss their wedding bands into the Truckee River and start new lives as divorcees.

But as they settle in at the ranch, one shocking moment will change their lives forever. As it brings their deceptions and fears into focus, it will also demand a reckoning with the past, and the choices that a person in love can be driven to make.

My Review:

This is a story about secrets, and lies. The lies we live with, and the lies we discover that we can’t. It’s also a story about female friendship and paying it forward and figuring out who we are when we have to stand on our own.

And it’s a slice of a tiny but important portion of women’s history, when divorce, while still not commonplace, and still stigmatized, was at least possible – if you had enough time and enough money – or enough moxie to carry you through.

The “Reno cure” could be thought of as the hidden shadow behind the post-war late 1940s and the 1950s – that era of supposed normalcy and happy nuclear families – between the war years and the swinging 60s. Not all marriages were happy, and not all women were thrilled to give up the jobs and the freedom that they’d experienced during the war.

But this isn’t exactly that story either, although it is the same era, and probably owes inspiration to those circumstances. Or, the Reno Cure itself is the product of those circumstances.

Frannie and Vi, middle-aged best friends from San Francisco, have come to Reno to get divorced from their cheating husbands. It seems as though they have finally both had enough, and that their well-to-do husbands are more than willing to pay for their six-week stay in Reno so that they can get divorced and live happily-ever-after, with other people.

Or that’s what the husbands’ want, and the wives have finally acquiesced.

Along the way, Frannie and Vi rescue young June Samples and her little daughter Patty, on their own way to Reno to endure those same six weeks at the cheapest and most down-at-heel hotel June could find, in the hopes that June can stay hidden long enough to get her own divorce.

The three women, a generation apart, bond together over their shared and secret truths. None of which turn out to be quite what the others thought as their journey began.

But in the end, they are all the better for it – no matter where that future leads them.

Escape Rating B+: The “lies in white dresses” that the title refers to are all those dreams that little girls have about so-called “perfect” weddings, a dream that is force-fed to those girls long before they are old enough to understand that their “dream” wedding is not the important part.

It’s a lesson that we’re still learning.

In their own ways, Frannie, Vi and June each bought into that “lie”, only to have discovered that they hadn’t looked nearly carefully enough at the hazy figure putting the ring on their fingers before it was far too late. Or is it?

June’s husband is an abuser. Frannie’s husband is gay – not that Frannie didn’t know. Vi’s is a narcissist who is constitutionally incapable of keeping his pants zipped.

June wants to be safe. Frannie wants to be free. And Vi wants it to be over.

In the wake of that “over” she gives her friends, both new and old, the gift of a fresh start. If they can manage to reach out and grasp it.

What makes this story work is the slow reveal, not of the secrets which are mostly obvious fairly early on – although Vi’s is a doozy that remains hidden the longest, and appropriately so. It works because we witness the events in the wake of Vi’s departure, and watch as her friends, her family, and their families move forward together, drawing closer ties between them every step of the way.

The story switches first-person perspective through every one of its major players, from the three women at its center, to the woman who plans to take Vi’s place, both her adult children and Frannie’s, and the hidden witness to the whole drama, the young wannabe detective whose mother runs the divorce ranch.

They all have their own secrets, they all tell their own lies, and they are all trying to make their way as best they can. Readers will identify and empathize with them each differently, depending on where we are and our experiencea in relation to theirs. I’ll admit that I found the pre-teen “Nancy Drew” crossed the line between precocious and “too precious”, and not in a good way. At the same time, the way that she redeemed herself at the end was a terrific moment.

In the end Lies in White Satin is a surprisingly involving story about just how supportive and empowering true women’s friendship can be. I do not envy them the times they lived in or the circumstances in which they found themselves, but the depth of their love for each other was wonderful to read.

P.S. One of last week’s books gave me a terrible earworm, as its title was a popular song in the 1980s. Lies in White Dresses also gave me an earworm, as its title scans exactly like Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues, a song I remember being popular in the 1970s. The lyrics also fit in a peculiar way. But now both songs are endlessly repeating in my poor head!

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 9-22-19

Sunday Post

Reading-wise, this was a terrific week, with not just one but TWO A+ books. That both are female-led space operas probably says a lot about where my headspace is at the moment. I also finished another one, and absolutely adored it, but haven’t written it up yet. It was a FANTASTIC week for space opera – or at least for me to go on them.

But this week is also fantastic, as it is Banned Books Week. The reason for Banned Books Week is, of course, not so fantastic. As a librarian, the idea that some people want to prevent other people from reading whatever they want is pretty much anathema. That someone does not personally want to read a particular book, a particular genre, or a particular author is not the issue. You do you – but I’ll do me, thank you very much. There are plenty of things I have no interest in, and find abhorrent or can’t be bothered with – or occasionally both. But I won’t stop you. And you shouldn’t stop me either.

If you check out any of the Banned Books Week lists at the American Library Association website, you will see some extremely surprising books on those list. Many books that are thought of as classics have been banned at one point or another, and some, like Slaughterhouse Five, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Grapes of Wrath, downright frequently. As has the entire Harry Potter series – and Dr. Seuss!

Celebrate your freedom to read, and see what it’s all about!

 

Current Giveaways:

$10 Amazon Gift Card or $10 Book in the September to Remember Giveaway Hop (ENDS TUESDAY!)
$10 Amazon Gift Card or $10 Book in the Follow the Yellow Brick Road Giveaway Hop

Winner Announcements:

The winner of the Hello Autumn Giveaway Hop is Stephanie

Blog Recap:

Follow the Yellow Brick Road Giveaway Hop
A+ Review: Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes
A+ Review: A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
B Review: Don’t You Forget About Me by Mhairi McFarlane
B+ Guest Review: H20 by Irving Belateche
Stacking the Shelves (358)

Coming This Week:

Lies in White Dresses by Sofia Grant (blog tour review)
Coming Home for Christmas by RaeAnne Thayne (blog tour review)
Kiss of Eon by Anna Hackett (review)
The Price of Grace by Diana Muñoz Stewart (blog tour review)
The MacInnes Affair by Blair McDowell (review)