Publisher: Mira

Review: Danger in Numbers by Heather Graham

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Danger in Numbers by Heather GrahamDanger in Numbers by Heather Graham
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, large print, ebook, audiobook
Genres: mystery, romantic suspense, thriller
Pages: 336
Published by Mira on March 23, 2021
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

On the edge of the Everglades, an eerie crime scene sets off an investigation that sends two agents deep into a world of corrupted faith, greed and deadly secrets.
A ritualistic murder on the side of a remote road brings in the Florida state police. Special Agent Amy Larson has never seen worse, and there are indications that this killing could be just the beginning. The crime draws the attention of the FBI in the form of Special Agent Hunter Forrest, a man with insider knowledge of how violent cults operate, and a man who might never be able to escape his own past.
The rural community is devastated by the death in their midst, but people know more than they are saying. As Amy and Hunter join forces, every lead takes them further into the twisted beliefs of a dangerous group that will stop at nothing to see their will done.
Doomsday preppers and small-town secrets collide in this sultry, twisty page-turning thriller.

My Review:

I got sucked into Danger in Numbers from the first page, but there were two things that I admit it took me a while to get. The first was that the story reminded me of something but I couldn’t put my mental finger on exactly what for the longest time. (Surprisingly, it’s Faithless in Death by J.D. Robb. Humans are still screwed up and still falling for stupid stuff even in the future.)

The second was that the title is a play on words. That hit me upside the head somewhere in the middle and just didn’t let go.

Neither did the story.

At first I thought this might be my second serial killer story in a row. Then I realized it was way more gruesome than that. One person, or even two people, who have gone bloodily off the deep end is horrible enough. But the idea of dozens or hundreds being brainwashed into evil by a cult and its charismatic leader – and we know that it does happen in the real – is on a completely other level of insanity.

FBI Special Agent Hunter Forrest rushes from Micanopy in north Florida to the edge of the Everglades – most of the way down Florida the long way – because he’s dead certain that the horrifically dead body that the FDLE (Florida Department of Law Enforcement) has just discovered is related to the murder he’s investigating at his end of the state.

He’s sure because he’s seen it before. Not just because he’s made a career out of investigating cases like this one, but because, once upon a time, he was inspired to join the FBI because of a case much too much like this.

The land around the Everglades is a patchwork of federal, state, private and tribal land. The towns that are near its edge are too small to have much in the way of police forces of their own, and this case is already too big and too sensational for local cops to handle, leaving the FDLE in a slightly uneasy partnership with the FBI to locate and catch the killers.

Because this isn’t the work of an individual or even a gang. It takes an entire town – or an entire cult – to plan and carry out this kind of murder as well as an entire town – or cult – to provide both the reason for it and the means to pull it off and cover up not the crime – because they want that to be found to send a twisted message – but to hide or obscure the identities of the perpetrators.

FDLE Special Agent Amy Larson is going to have to work WITH the FBI whether she – or Forrest – like it or not. Her senior FDLE partner is in the hospital, the murder site is on disputed land, and as good as the FDLE is, the FBI is better.

Larson doesn’t like the feds moving in on the FDLE’s case. Forrest isn’t sure that Larson, still in her 20s and with only four years at the state bureau, is up to the task. And neither of them can resist the pull between them – no matter how much they try.

While the cult – and the man behind it all – is after both of them.

Escape Rating A-: I slipped into this book easily because we spend the story following Hunter and especially Amy. We don’t get into the minds of the cultists, nor is the cult either glorified or sensationalized. We follow Amy and Hunter and their cause is righteous. There’s a lot of understanding on both of their parts but particularly Hunter’s, on how easy it is for people to get sucked in and how practiced the cult leaders are at finding and sucking in the desperate and the easily swayed.

There is, after all, just a hint of truth at the heart of the very big lie that the con artist cultists are peddling – just as there is at the heart of all “Big Lies”.

It helps that Amy and Hunter are both interesting characters, who are good at their jobs and keep their focus on the victims at all times. They are in this to help people and it’s easy for the reader to be on their side from the beginning, even as they wonder whether they can manage to be on the same side without friction – of one kind or another.

I liked them both as investigators quite a bit, but I have to say that the romance that develops between them just didn’t feel necessary. I expected it but would have liked the book just as much, or maybe a bit more, without it.

A part of the story that I personally found fascinating was the location in Micanopy. I lived in Alachua County for three years so the area felt familiar. The only thing missing from what I remember of the town is that there was still quite a bit of memorabilia around town from the filming of the movie Doc Hollywood in 1991.

Nevertheless, the familiarity made the location easy to visualize.

While the fact that Hunter and his family had been part of a cult very much like the one they’re tracking felt pretty obvious from the flashback start even though the family was not named, something that took me completely by surprise was just how well the title’s play on words worked in the story.

“Safety in numbers” is a catchphrase that comes up all the time – and it even does in the story as Hunter and Amy and the members of their team try very hard to not work by themselves on this case. The times that Amy is in direct danger are the few times that she is alone.

But there is also a danger in numbers. In this story, it’s the danger of numbers of people big enough to become a cult, or a mob, or the perilous combination of the two that is at the center of the series of ritualistic murders and a whole lot of broken lives and families. Alone, most of these people would have been harmless – or more likely whining complainers or even argumentative blowhards. Even if they had succumbed to their own personal dark sides their crimes would have been, at least in comparison, few and most likely much harder to cover up.

Together they make a self-righteous, self-feeding, murderous mob.

There’s another danger in numbers. Even though it’s clear that the “Divine Leader” will face justice the last page turns, he’s left behind entirely too many true believers who will carry out his mission either for the promise of eternal glory or the filthy lucre of leading a gigantic con. The cult members were following a plan to either court or appease the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to bring about the End Times.

As the story ends, the cult is one horse down – and three to go.

Review: Meant to Be by Jude Deveraux

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Meant to Be by Jude DeverauxMeant to Be by Jude Deveraux
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, large print, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, family saga, historical fiction, women's fiction
Pages: 416
Published by Mira on March 16, 2021
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

An inspiring new family saga by New York Times bestselling author Jude Deveraux
Two headstrong sisters are bound by tradition but long to forge their own path.
It’s 1972 and times are changing. In the small farming community of Mason, Kansas, Vera and Kelly Exton are known for their ambitions. Vera is an activist who wants to join her boyfriend in the Peace Corps. But she is doing her duty caring for her widowed mother and younger sister until Kelly is firmly established. Kelly is studying to become a veterinarian. She plans to marry her childhood sweetheart and eventually take over his father’s veterinary practice.
But it’s a tumultuous time and neither sister is entirely happy with the path that’s been laid out for her. As each evaluates her options, everything shifts. Do you do what’s right for yourself or what others want? By having the courage to follow their hearts these women will change lives for the better and the effects will be felt by the generations that follow. Meant to Be delivers an emotional, smart, funny and wise lesson about the importance of being true to yourself.

My Review:

Shakespeare said that “the course of true love never did run smooth”. That’s especially true when you don’t know where it’s going in the first place. Or rather, when everyone around you is dead certain that you are “meant to be” with someone – everyone except you, that is.

Because what you’re really meant to be is – you.

Everyone in tiny Mason, Kansas knows that Vera Exton is meant to be with Adam Hatten, and that they are meant to run off together, far away from Mason. That same everyone is equally certain that Vera’s younger sister Kelly is meant to be with Paul, the stepson of the local vet.

What that same everyone did NOT know was that Vera loved escaping from Mason considerably more than she loved Adam, and that Kelly loved her future as a veterinarian, going into partnership with Paul’s stepfather Dr. Carl, more than she ever did Paul. That Adam loved taking over his responsibilities to the Hatten holdings way more than he did Vera, while Paul loved his fledgling organic apple orchard considerably more than he ever loved Kelly.

The story that opens Meant to Be in the summer of 1972 is the story of that entire herd of drama llamas sorting themselves out into a configuration that no one in town had the remotest thought might ever come to be.

Except for one important part. When the dust settled – and was there EVER a lot of dust – Vera Exton left Mason, just as she had always planned to.

Vera became a world-famous journalist and war correspondent, while life in Mason went on its slightly altered way, as Kelly married Adam, the man that Vera was supposed to marry. Paul’s organic farm became a very successful part of a growing trend – and he finally came out of the closet.

While, the man that Vera really loved stayed in Mason to raise the daughter that he fathered the night he deliberately drove Vera away to seek her fame and fortune, and fulfill her dreams and her destiny. He set her free – and she flew.

When Vera returns home for a brief visit 20 years later, the family she left behind is broken and hurting. It turns out that there are plenty of secrets still left to reveal from the mess of that singular summer so long ago.

It’s time for all of Vera’s, and everyone else’s, chickens to come home to roost – and maybe even lay a few more eggs.

Escape Rating B: I have to say that it is weird seeing a time period that I remember living through portrayed as historical. I was in high school in 1972, and the ferment about the Vietnam War was very present and feels true to life. It was also a time when attitudes towards women’s careers and women’s accomplishments were just beginning to change. We were told we could do and be anything, but faced a lot of skepticism when we tried and had few examples to follow.

Which meant that parts of both Vera’s and Kelly’s dilemmas felt very real, while at the same time their situations felt like a bit of a throwback. And it may very well be that I remember this period a bit too well and that I’m too close to it to step back and see it as “historical”.

At the same time, this is very much of a “family saga”, more women’s fiction or relationship fiction than romance. Romances definitely occur, but the backbone of the story feels like it’s wrapped around all of the many, many interrelationships among the families and the town itself.

Mason is small enough that everybody knows everyone else’s business whether they want it known or not. Expectations and assumptions are impossible to escape.

Vera and Kelly are both caught on the horns of multiple familiar dilemmas. Vera is expected to stay in Mason to take care of her mother and her sister until Kelly finishes vet school and gets married so she and her husband can take over that job. And then Vera can leave town as she’s always wanted to.

Kelly feels like the only way she can get to stay in Mason, where she wants to stay, and be a vet is to go into partnership with her boyfriend’s stepfather. Because her boyfriend’s mother is snooty and hates everyone and won’t allow a young woman to become her husband’s assistant unless that young woman is married to her son.

It seems like a lot of the story in 1972 is set up that way, where each person assumes that they have to take care of someone or something else in order to have half a shot at getting what they want. In a place where everyone relies on everyone else, no one seems to be allowed to just reach out and grab their own dreams – especially if they are female.

The first two thirds of this story, the 1972 part, read a lot like a soap opera. Everyone seems to be saying one thing, doing another, and hiding all of it from as many people as possible, until all the secrets blow up in everyone’s face, with all the mixed results and circling drama llamas that one might imagine.

What lifts this story from something typical to something a bit more interesting is the way that it continues from that 1972 soap opera start into the 1990s and eventually comes almost to the present. We get to see the consequences of the earlier events into a troubled middle and a bittersweet end.

All of the characters manage to find, not necessarily a happy ever after, which is why this isn’t strictly speaking a romance, but rather, to not just find out but to actually live as the people they were Meant to Be.

Spotlight + Excerpt: Her Dark Lies by J.T. Ellison

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | blog tours> Excerpts> Spotlight
Spotlight + Excerpt: Her Dark Lies by J.T. EllisonHer Dark Lies by J.T. Ellison
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: mystery, suspense, thriller
Pages: 416
Published by Mira on March 9, 2021
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

At the wedding of the year, a killer needs no invitation
Jutting from sparkling turquoise waters off the Italian coast, Isle Isola is an idyllic setting for a wedding. In the majestic cliff-top villa owned by the wealthy Compton family, up-and-coming artist Claire Hunter will marry handsome, charming Jack Compton, surrounded by close family, intimate friends…and a host of dark secrets.
From the moment Claire sets foot on the island, something seems amiss. Skeletal remains have just been found. There are other, newer disturbances, too. Menacing texts. A ruined wedding dress. And one troubling shadow hanging over Claire’s otherwise blissful relationship—the strange mystery surrounding Jack’s first wife.
Then a raging storm descends, the power goes out—and the real terror begins…

Welcome to the Excerpt tour for Her Dark Lies by J.T. Ellison. Ellison is a new author for me, but as I’ve been reading a bit more suspense recently it looks like an absolutely riveting read. I’m looking forward to reading and reviewing Her Dark Lies in the weeks ahead, so here’s a teaser to whet all of our reading appetites!

Excerpt from Her Dark Lies by J.T. Ellison (continued from yesterday’s excerpt at Berit Talks Books)

There is something…wistful on his face. I run my hand from his cheek to his temple, smoothing back his too-long hair. There is the lightest sprinkling of silver in his part, just a few hairs here and there, lending him a serious, studious air.

“A magic bed? What, does it fly?” I tease.

“In a way. Rumor has it ladies tend to get knocked up on their wedding nights. My grandmother and my mother swear by it.”

“Ah.” A deep sense of foreboding seizes me, and I instinctually scan my body for any signs of pregnancy. It’s a reflex, something I’ve done regularly since we first became intimate. An accidental pregnancy terrifies me. I can only imagine the headlines, how I’d be portrayed. Prevailing wisdom: a woman like me can only land a man like Jackson Compton if I get pregnant and he is forced to do the right thing.

I run my mind over our sexual escapades from the past month. I had my implant taken out; it was making me feel terrible. I have been taking my pills on time, haven’t I? We’ve been careful, yes?

Stop it. You’re being paranoid.

Yes, of course we’ve been careful. The dull ache deep in my stomach is certainly my impending monthly, just in time to ruin our wedding night. The malaise I’ve been feeling for the past couple of days is stress and travel related. I’ve never flown well, even short hops leave me with a headache, clammy and uncomfortable. Add in a mild concussion and a boat on slightly stormy seas? I’d gone to the doctor for a preventative motion sickness patch before we left; it is helping tamp down some of the nausea from the bump on my head, too.

The long night coupled with the long journey from Nashville to Naples is catching up to me. We’d been forced—quelle horreur—to fly first class on Delta instead of being chauffeured across the sea in the family jet. Jack’s father is flying in from Africa, where he’s been on business with Jack’s brother Elliot. As heads of the company, their travel needs take precedence.

Yes, it was a terrible burden for me to be waited upon by the dark-eyed flight attendants with their prettily accented Italian and sly smiles for Jack. The wine was plentiful, the carbonara and crusty bread delicious, the lay-down beds surprisingly comfortable. I’d only disliked being separated from Jack. He was in the cozy suite behind me, and I felt all alone, watching the flight attendants’ faces light up with pleasure as they walked past me to tend to Jack’s needs.

The breeze picks up, and I realize Jack is looking at me curiously. “Everything okay?”

“Yes, but good grief, don’t wish a baby on us just yet. I want to be married for a while, first.”

“No promises, darling. My parents will explode with happiness at the idea of another heir.”

There is a certain hopefulness in his voice. Jack is a decade older than me. A widower. His first life was stolen from him. He is ready to start a family. I understand. He’s already experienced so much. I’m only getting started. I’m not ready for a child. I might not ever be ready. I need to tell him that, before the wedding. In case it’s a deal breaker.

I take a deep breath. “Jack?”

“Yes, darling?”

But we are interrupted by a call from the upper deck. Gideon, beckoning. “We need you for a moment, Jack.”

Jack squeezes my shoulder. “Be right back.”

I watch Jack stride away and wrestle my urge to confess back into place. What purpose will it serve? He’ll just get upset, and who knows, maybe I’ll change my mind.

You know what they say about digging your own grave.

I turn back to the island.

Unlike the smoky gray open waters of the bay, the water in the shallower edges of the channel is cerulean and almost clear; schools of dark fish race away. What are they running from? The boat? A predator?

The breeze cools, the azure Mediterranean early summer sky turning hazy. Bad weather is coming. Italy is under a Red warning this long weekend, a severe weather alert, expecting the worst storms in a decade.

I hope everyone gets here in time. The channel crossing to Isle Isola is too dicey to manage anything smaller than the yacht or the hydrofoil ferry in bad weather, and the hydrofoil normally runs to Isola only once a week, though it’s running three days in a row for us to get all the guests on the island. And obviously, the choppers can’t fly if the storm is too bad.

The Hebrides is approaching the cliff’s edge now. The imposing granite face is sheer and unforgiving. We’re so close I can see the striations of the stone, the moss growing in the cracks. At the top, there is a flash of white. What is that?

A scarf, my mind fills in. A woman’s scarf.

And then it is gone.

Someone is watching for us.

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

Review: The Emperor’s Wolves by Michelle Sagara

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Emperor’s Wolves by Michelle SagaraThe Emperor's Wolves (Wolves of Elantra #1) by Michelle Sagara
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: epic fantasy, fantasy, urban fantasy
Series: Wolves of Elantra #1,
Pages: 512
Published by Mira on October 13, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

At the Emperor’s command
Multiple races carefully navigate the City of Elantra under the Dragon Emperor’s wing. His Imperial Wolves are executioners, the smallest group to serve in the Halls of Law. The populace calls them assassins.
Every wolf candidate must consent to a full examination by the Tha’alani, one of the most feared and distrusted races in Elantra for their ability to read minds. Most candidates don’t finish their job interviews.
Severn Handred, the newest potential recruit, is determined to face and pass this final test—even if by doing so he’s exposing secrets he has never shared.
When an interrogation uncovers the connections to a two-decade-old series of murders of the Tha’alani, the Wolves are commanded to hunt. Severn’s first job will be joining the chase. From the High Halls to the Tha’alani quarter, from the Oracles to the Emperor, secrets are uncovered, tensions are raised and justice just might be done…if Severn can survive.
The Wolves of Elantra
Book 1: The Emperor’s Wolves

My Review:

In the beginning, a 5-year-old girl named Elliane and a 10-year-old boy named Severn were two scared orphans doing the best they could to raise each other in a place so dangerous that no one expected them to live another year. And no one could afford to care because everyone was too busy attempting to make their own survival last more than another day, another hour, another minute.

That dangerous place was the fief of Nightshade, in the no-being’s-land that surrounds the city of Elantra. A place entirely designed and maintained as a buffer zone between Elantra and the Shadow at the heart of the world.

Their lives and their story should have been both brutal and short. It was often brutal, and always on the knife’s edge of destruction.

But it was not short.

Elliane’s story has been told in the Chronicles of Elantra, beginning with Cast in Moonlight. It is the story of a young woman with a terrible gift and an equally terrible secret, set in the high-fantasy world of Elantra, but often told with an urban fantasy sensibility. It is the story Elliane, now called Kaylin Nera, as she becomes first the mascot of and later a Private in the Imperial Hawks who serve as the equivalent of police in the empire. (Occasionally she rises to Corporal in the Hawks, but usually not for long.)

Elantra is an empire that is ruled by a Dragon and protected as his hoard. An empire that contains citizens of all races, Barrani (read as Elves), Leontine (yes, they’re lions), Aerians (feathered and flying) and more humans than all of the above.

And the Tha’alani. The telepathic Tha’alani who serve as the Emperor’s inquisitors when the need is great – or desperate.

But The Emperor’s Wolves is not Kaylin’s story, although it touches on her story and will undoubtedly connect to it eventually. Because Severn always connects to Kaylin, whether she wants that to happen or not. And initially in the story from her perspective, it’s very much not.

Instead, this is the story of that once upon a time 10-year-old boy, Severn Handred. Severn swore an oath to Elliane’s mother before she died, that he would protect Elliane no matter what. When Elliane couldn’t live with the price of that protection, they separated, walking through very dark places on entirely different paths.

Paths that have now converged. Elliane – as Kaylin – is now 15 and the mascot of the Imperial Hawks. To keep watch over her, Severn, now 20, becomes a member of the Imperial Wolves, the branch of the Halls of Law that investigates major crimes – and serves as the hand of the Emperor when those criminals are brought to summary justice in his name.

The story of The Emperor’s Wolves is Severn’s story. A story that fans of the series have been waiting and hoping for since we first met Kaylin in 2001.

A story that was definitely, utterly, fantastically worth the wait.

Escape Rating A+: I finished this book and now I have a terrible book hangover. But then I always do after a trip to Elantra. This world feels so complex and so complete than when I’m forced to leave it at the end of a story a part of me feels like it’s still back there and doesn’t want to come out.

As if part of my memory has been captured and held by the telepathic gestalt of the Tha’alani.

cast in shadow by michelle sagaraThe Emperor’s Wolves is a bit of a contradiction in terms. It is, without a doubt, the first book in the author’s new Wolves of Elantra series. It is also a prequel for nearly all of the Chronicles of Elantra series, taking place between the prequel novella, Cast in Moonlight, and the first novel in the series, Cast in Shadow.

But this book doesn’t feel like either a prequel or the opening of a new series. Instead, it feels like…enlightenment. Those of us who have followed the Chronicles have already met Severn Handred. We’ve witnessed most of his protective partnership with Kaylin Nera – a partnership that involves a great deal of love but no romance at all – through that series. We’ve also become immersed in Elantra and traveled much of the city and the places outside of the Emperor’s Hoard in Kaylin and Severn’s company.

But Severn, well, Severn is a man of much depth and very few words. He’s an enigma in pretty much everything except his tie to Kaylin – although that has plenty of enigma-ness in it, in ways that neither Severn nor Kaylin understand – at least not yet.

And the period of Severn’s life when he became one of the Imperial Wolves – the time that he spent without Kaylin – has been the biggest enigma of them all. He doesn’t talk about this time period, and we haven’t heard much about what he did – although there have been plenty of enigmatic hints. So this story, and whatever follows it, sheds light on an otherwise dark corner of the history of Elantra – or at least of the people we have come to know and love there. And provides a few tantalizing hints of events that we already know but are yet to come from Severn’s perspective at this point in his life.

Which means that, in spite of seeming like a beginning, The Emperor’s Wolves really isn’t. It’s a missing piece of the complex puzzle that is Elantra, and will be best appreciated – and enthusiastically so – by those who have already made the journey. If you’ve never been to Elantra and are thinking of going there, it’s a marvelous trip but this is not the place to begin.

If you’re already acquainted, however, one of the things that The Emperor’s Wolves does well is return to some of the elements that made this series so fascinating in the first place. As the longer story has continued, while Kaylin is still a member of the Imperial Hawks, her world has expanded beyond the streets of the city and she has become, sometimes willingly, sometimes unwittingly, sometimes dragged kicking and screaming, a power in this world and has moved among the high and mighty – although she would be the first to admit that she herself is neither.

But the series began as an epic-set urban fantasy, and The Emperor’s Wolves returns fantastically to that kind of story. Severn’s first case as one of the Wolves is to solve a crime. To open a case that everyone thought was closed and cold. As part of his investigation, he is forced to navigate the Barrani High Halls, the telepathic mindscape of the Tha’alani group consciousness, the mean streets of the city and the Emperor’s Palace.

Along the way he discovers friends, obfuscates foes and is confronted yet again with the choice that he’s been forced to make over and over since his childhood. That there are all too many times when the cost of justice is more unjust than any crime.

When I picked up The Emperor’s Wolves, I looked forward to learning more about Severn. But now that I’ve seen this world through his eyes, I’ve discovered that I want more. I need it. I hope to see more of Elantra from both Severn’s and Kaylin’s perspectives as their series continue.

Review: Return to Virgin River by Robyn Carr + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: Return to Virgin River by Robyn Carr + GiveawayReturn to Virgin River (Virgin River, #19) by Robyn Carr
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, large print, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, small town romance, women's fiction
Series: Virgin River #21
Pages: 320
Published by Mira on October 13, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

#1
New York Times
bestselling author Robyn Carr returns to the beloved town of Virgin River with a brand-new story about fresh starts, new friends and the magic of Christmas.
Kaylee Sloan’s home in Southern California is full of wonderful memories of the woman who raised her. But the memories are prolonging her grief over her mother’s recent death. A successful author, Kaylee hoped she could pour herself into her work. Instead she has terrible writer’s block and a looming deadline.
Determined to escape distractions and avoid the holiday season, Kaylee borrows a cabin in Virgin River. She knows the isolation will help her writing, and as she drives north through the mountains and the majestic redwoods, she immediately feels inspired. Until she arrives at a building that has just gone up in flames. Devastated, she heads to Jack’s Bar to plan her next steps. The local watering hole is the heart of the town, and once she crosses the threshold, she’s surprised to be embraced by people who are more than willing to help a friend—or a stranger—in need.
Kaylee’s world is expanding in ways she never dreamed possible. And when she rescues a kitten followed by a dog with a litter of puppies, she finds her heart opening up to the animals who need her. And then there’s the dog trainer who knows exactly how to help her. As the holidays approach, Kaylee’s dread turns to wonder. Because there’s no better place to spend Christmas than Virgin River.

My Review:

The story in Return to Virgin River is all about Kaylee Sloan’s, well, return to Virgin River. But Kaylee was never a resident of that much-loved little town. Rather, Kaylee was an occasional visitor during her childhood, and her most recent visit was ten years in the past, during a previous crisis in her life. Because Kaylee has never really been a part of this community when she returns to Virgin River less than a year into her mourning for her beloved mother, she makes an excellent point of view character to introduce new readers (like me) to this well-loved place and series.

As Kaylee is introduced to everyone who has come to, or come back to, live in this lovely little place, we get to meet them for the first time along with her. For readers who have been here before, It’s undoubtedly lovely to catch up with old friends from previous books in the series.

But Kaylee’s advent makes this a great place for new readers to jump in without feeling like they missed the plot. I knew these people had history, as one does whenever one is introduced to new people in real life, but I didn’t feel like I had missed something important to this story by not knowing everyone’s past.

This turned out to be a great way of getting involved in Virgin River, right along with Kaylee.

And for any long-term readers who may have lost track of everyone in the 8 year hiatus since the previous book in the series, My Kind of Christmas, Kaylee’s arrival in town should serve as a great way to get caught back up!

Kaylee returns to Virgin River because she needs a long, quiet, productive getaway. She inherited her mother’s house, and has been living there since her mother’s death. She and her mom were very close, best friends, and Kaylee feels surrounded by her grief in that house – no matter how much she loves it.

Kaylee makes her living as a mid-list author of suspense thrillers, and she has a book on contract that is not merely due but overdue. She hasn’t been able to write since her mother’s diagnosis, but she has to get her own life on track in order to support herself. She has a cushion, but it isn’t infinite.

They seldom are.

So Kaylee returns to Virgin River, the place her mother took her to several times during her childhood, and the place her mother brought her to heal after her divorce. Kaylee comes to Virgin River to be close to her memories of her mother but not so close that she continues to drown in them.

She arrives to find her planned six-month rental house on fire. Literally on fire. She can’t go home because she’s rented out her own house until after New Year’s – and it’s currently AUGUST. She feels both overwhelmed and stuck.

And that’s where her life takes its unexpected turn. As one door closes – or catches fire – another door opens. The door to Landry Moore’s guest house.

As Kaylee’s life opens up and fills up, between her rescue of the orphaned kitten Tux, the abandoned dog Lady and her puppies, and everyone in the welcoming town of Virgin River – especially her handsome landlord – Kaylee discovers that her grief for her mom, while it hasn’t exactly gotten less has become a less all-consuming part of her much-expanded life.

And that those we love never leave us, not even when they’re gone.

Escape Rating A-: There’s definitely a life imitates art imitates life thing going on here. Kaylee is supposed to be writing a suspense novel – which she eventually manages to do. But she also begins a kind of fictionalized journal or a contemporary romance/women’s fiction novel, which is also the category that Return to Virgin River fits into.

Kaylee’s novel-of-her-heart is a story about a woman who comes to a small town for a fresh start after a death in HER family. Her fictional character falls for her equally fictional landlord – except that neither of them actually is. Fictional, that is. Kaylee pours her growing feelings for Landry into her character’s growing feelings for “Landon”. The disguise is adorably cute and rather “paper” thin. But fun and a great way for Kaylee to process both her hope and her grief.

But the course of true love never does run completely smooth, and in this story the waves are provided by Landry’s long-absent wife. Yes wife. He and Laura have lived apart for 10 years of their 11-year marriage, but neither of them ever bothered to file for divorce.

So naturally, just as Landry realizes that he wants a divorce so that he can become more involved with Kaylee, Laura decides that her acting career, the reason for their separation, isn’t going anywhere and that she wants Landry – or at least the security he can provide – back.

I have mixed feelings about this plot thread. Something had to derail what would have otherwise been Landry and Kaylee’s straightforward amble towards domestic bliss. But the Laura angle felt particularly tacked-on. It was so obvious that she only wanted the security, to the point where not even Landry took her “act” all that seriously.

On the surprising but definitely plus side of the reading equation, Return to Virgin River turned out to be an unexpectedly poignant counterpart to yesterday’s book, Millicent Glenn’s Last Wish. Both stories are about mothers and daughters, but Kaylee and her late mother had the kind of mother-daughter relationship that Millicent and Jane had stopped dreaming of long ago. These two stories make a great back-to-back read if you are well-prepared with plenty of tissues.

Closing on a much happier note, I enjoyed my first trip to Virgin River and now that I’ve met everyone, I’ll be back. Whether by starting at the very beginning with the first book in the series, Virgin River, continuing on with the next whenever it comes around, or maybe BOTH!

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

I’m giving away a copy of Return to Virgin River to one very lucky US commenter on this tour!

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Review: The Woman Before Wallis by Bryn Turnbull

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Woman Before Wallis by Bryn TurnbullThe Woman Before Wallis by Bryn Turnbull
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction
Pages: 416
Published by Mira on July 21, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

This novel is the fictionalised story of the American divorcée who captured Prince Edward’s heart before he abdicated his throne for Wallis Simpson.
In the summer of 1926, when Thelma Morgan marries Viscount Duke Furness after a whirlwind romance, she’s immersed in a gilded world of extraordinary wealth and privilege. For Thelma, the daughter of an American diplomat, her new life as a member of the British aristocracy is like a fairy tale—even more so when her husband introduces her to Edward, Prince of Wales.
In a twist of fate, her marriage to Duke leads her to fall headlong into a love affair with Edward. But happiness is fleeting, and their love is threatened when Thelma’s sister, Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, becomes embroiled in a scandal with far-reaching implications. As Thelma sails to New York to support Gloria, she leaves Edward in the hands of her trusted friend Wallis, never imagining the consequences that will follow.

My Review:

The Woman Before Wallis takes a bit of the classic “poor little rich girl” trope, mixes it with a splash of royal scandal, stirs it with more than a dash of the over-the-top behavior of the rich and famous and splashes into a punch bowl of history’s froth. It’s the kind of gossipy, scandal-ridden story that is easy to eat up with a very large reading spoon, because it’s just so delicious and decadent.

And both the fun of it and the tragedy of it is that we already know how it ends, because the worst excesses of the story are part of history.

Thelma and the Prince in 1932

Thelma Morgan Converse Furness was a secondary character in not one but two of the great society scandals of the 1930s, one on each side of the Atlantic. In England, as her marriage to the Viscount Furness was in the process of falling apart, she became one of the Prince of Wales’ many lovers. That she was the one who introduced him to her friend and fellow American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson is the stuff of which tragic romances are made – both hers and theirs.

At the same time, she left England and “David” to Wallis’ not-so-tender mercies in order to go to New York and support her twin sister, Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, in what at the time was considered the custody trial of the century, referred to in the tabloids as “The Matter of Vanderbilt”. Thelma’s little niece, Gloria Vanderbilt (yes, THE Gloria Vanderbilt) was kidnapped by her aunt, the artist Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who sued Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt for custody of the little heiress and won, based on some rather questionable evidence provided by members of both families who seem to have hated the mother much more than they cared what was best for the child. Little Gloria seems to have been a pawn of the older women in her life until she reached adulthood.

That the same person was a secondary player in both of these history-making scandals makes Thelma an ideal candidate for a salacious, gossipy, scandal-ridden story of epic proportions.

This is her story, from her ring-side seat to history. And it’s a juicy one.

Escape Rating B: I have mixed feelings about this story. On the one hand, it’s a very juicy story of debauchery and decadence, a gossipy melange of well-known historical figures with a whole lot of dirt and scandal.

On the other hand, as glitzy and glittery as this story is, the people covered in that glitz feel shallow. I think we’re meant to feel that both Thelma and Gloria, the twin Morgan girls, were in the end somewhat hard done by. That they loved and lost and didn’t have nearly enough control of the circumstances under which they lived or the choices they made. Poor little rich girls who made one hell of a lot of mistakes.

Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt with her daughter at age eight

In the end, it felt like the only person really hard done by in this story is little Gloria, whose custody and whose fortune end up being the prize in a long-running battle between her mother, her aunt and her grandmother over who hates whom the most and who can throw the most muck at whom fast enough to win. The problem with this kind of muck-racking fight is that no one emerges from it either clean or unscathed. And so it proved in this case.

Thelma, in the end, feels like a secondary player in her own life, supporting her twin sister at the cost of her own happiness. And that’s after ending her second marriage to have an affair with the Prince of Wales, only to be abandoned in favor of Wallis Simpson when the scandal of her sister’s custody trial began to turn in her direction – and his.

That all adds up to very mixed feelings. The book is compulsively readable, and I enjoyed the portrait of life among the rich and famous in the years just before and after the start of the Great Depression. But there’s a sense of “fiddling while Rome burns”, that there’s just no there there under the glamour.

I can’t help but think of the true definition of the word glamour, however. That a glamour is, according to Merriam-Webster, “An exciting and often illusory and romantic attractiveness.” By that definition, this story is glamorous indeed.

Review: Sunrise on Half Moon Bay by Robyn Carr + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: Sunrise on Half Moon Bay by Robyn Carr + GiveawaySunrise on Half Moon Bay by Robyn Carr
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: relationship fiction, women's fiction
Pages: 304
Published by Mira on April 14, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Sometimes the happiness we’re looking for has been there all along…

Adele and Justine have never been close. Born twenty years apart, Justine was already an adult when Addie was born. The sisters love each other, but they don’t really know each other.

When Addie dropped out of university to care for their ailing parents, Justine, a successful lawyer, covered the expenses. It was the best arrangement at the time, but now that their parents are gone, the future has changed dramatically for both women.

Addie had great plans for her life but has been worn down by the pressures of being a caregiver and doesn’t know how to live for herself. And Justine’s success has come at a price. Her marriage is falling apart despite her best efforts.

Neither woman knows how to start life over, but both realize they can and must support each other the way only sisters can. Together they find the strength to accept their failures and overcome their challenges. Happiness is within reach, if only they have the courage to fight for it.

Set in the stunning coastal town of Half Moon Bay, California, Robyn Carr’s new novel examines the joys of sisterhood and the importance of embracing change.

My Review:

Sunrise on Half Moon Bay is an absolute heartbreaker of a story that leads its heroines through some very dark places. But when they emerge on the other side, they are all made stronger by the journey. And they beautifully earn their peace, their joy, and their happy ever afters.

Even if – or perhaps especially because those HEAs are not dependent on the men in their lives. But rather on their love for each other as sisters, daughters, aunt and nieces. The women of the Descaro family have learned to help each other stand tall and strong. And it’s marvelous.

The story is focused on the Descaro sisters, successful Justine in her early 50s, and rudderless Adele, their parents’ surprise baby, in her early 30s. But as the story begins, both of them are at crossroads in their lives.

Adele’s situation is the more obvious. She’s depressed, unfocused and not sure how to pick up her life and her dreams after 8 years of being her invalid parents’ caregiver. Now that her mother has died, her life is her own again. She just doesn’t know what to do with it now that she has it back.

Justine, a successful corporate attorney, is facing a decision. The company she has worked long nights and weekends for for over 20 years has just gone through a merger. Positions are being eliminated right, left and center, and she knows that hers is on the chopping block. She’s burned out and wants to do something different, but her family, her stay-at-home husband, her two high school age daughters, AND her sister are all dependent on her income. An income that is now in jeopardy.

But so is her marriage. When Addie witnesses her brother-in-law passionately kissing a woman other than his wife at the local pizza parlor, she feels compelled to tell her sister what she saw.

And that’s where everyone’s life goes more than a little pear-shaped, as the perfect life that Justine thought she had goes up in flames. Leaving her with a choice. She can continue putting her time and energy into a relationship based on lies, and into a job that has long since lost its appeal. Or she can choose another path. She can divorce the cheating husband and find work that fills her soul.

While Addie, shocked into motion at the shattering of her sister’s life, begins to take charge of her own.

Together they find a way forwards into the future. And finally into becoming the friends, the sisters, the family that they never really were.

Escape Rating A: I didn’t expect to love this as much as I did. But I really, really did. I found it to be a completely compelling read, and I basically lost a day between its pages, pulled along in this story of growth and change and sisterhood.

I loved Justine’s side of the story. I found her easy to identify with and enjoyed the time spent in her head, even when there was so much in her headspace that was hard and painful. She thought her life was perfect. She believed her marriage was good. She counted on her husband as her partner in life and in raising their girls. The arrangement where she worked and he took care of their daughters was one that they had agreed to, and that appeared to be working for both of them. Until she learned that it wasn’t.

I adored her decisiveness in the face of her discovery. She didn’t waffle or dilly-dally. She was fortunate to have a successful career, and she picked up the pieces and started moving on. There were painful days when the pieces seemed to scatter all over again, but she kept moving forward and eventually got through.

Of the sisters, Addie was the dilly-dallier, but her journey was a portrait of a different kind of learning and growing. She started by just putting one foot in front of the other, but learned to find a new purpose as well as let go of old baggage. It was only in her search for love that she kept holding herself back.

I liked the way that the two sisters grew up, grew together and grew towards each other. And that they did their level best to provide examples of strong women who learned to stand their ground to Justine’s two daughters.

I also liked the fact that while romantic relationships do eventually become part of their lives, those romances are not the reward. Finding a new man is never the be-all and end-all of either woman’s journey, and that’s a great example for the teenagers.

Instead, they both get their own stuff together first and then reach out for someone who not merely loves but genuinely respects them and their strength.

A great story with the best kind of happy ending!

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

I’m giving away a copy of Sunrise on Half Moon Bay to one lucky US commenter on this tour!

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Review: Sisters by Choice by Susan Mallery

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Review: Sisters by Choice by Susan MallerySisters by Choice (Blackberry Island, #4) by Susan Mallery
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, women's fiction
Series: Blackberry Island #4
Pages: 400
Published by Mira on February 11, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

From the
New York Times
 bestselling author of
California Girls
 comes an all new original Blackberry Island novel told with Susan Mallery's trademark humor and charm.
Sisters by Choice
 is a heartfelt tale of love, family and the friendships that see us through.


Cousins by chance, sisters by choice...

After her cat toy empire goes up in flames, Sophie Lane returns to Blackberry Island, determined to rebuild. Until small-town life reveals a big problem: she can't grow unless she learns to let go. If Sophie relaxes her grip even a little, she might lose everything. Or she might finally be free to reach for the happiness and love that have eluded her for so long.

Kristine has become defined by her relationship to others. She's a wife, a mom. As much as she adores her husband and sons, she wants something for herself--a sweet little bakery just off the waterfront. She knew changing the rules wouldn't be easy, but she never imagined she might have to choose between her marriage and her dreams.

Like the mainland on the horizon, Heather's goals seem beyond her grasp. Every time she manages to save for college, her mother has another crisis. Can she break free, or will she be trapped in this tiny life forever?

My Review:

I picked this book because I generally enjoy Susan Mallery’s explorations of small-town sisterhood, whether those sisters are by blood or by choice. In this particular story it’s a little bit of both. And I also chose it because I was part of an Excerpt Tour for the book a couple of weeks ago, and the teaser was more than enough to make me want to read the story!

I’d say this was a story about three women whose lives have gone off the rails, but that’s not quite right. As the story opens Sophie’s life has just gone spectacularly off the rails – and up in flames. Kristine’s life is about to go off the rails, and she just doesn’t know it yet. Heather’s life, however, has never been ON the rails, so it can’t actually go off those rails. The issue in Heather’s life is that she has been letting someone else drive her train and it’s not working for her. It’s doubtful if it’s even working for them.

Sophie, Kristine and Heather are cousins who all grew up in the little town of Blackberry Island. Sophie and Kristine grew up together, but Heather is kind of a half-generation behind them. Her mother was closer to Sophie and Kristine in age, but much further from them in spirit.

The three are also at different points in their lives when everything goes completely pear-shaped. Sophie’s business empire has just gone up in flames, Kristine’s marriage runs into tsunami-sized waves and Heather is just plain drowning.

In a strange way, all of their troubles end up wrapped around the issue of control. Sophie, restarting from scratch, doesn’t want to acknowledge that she cannot do every single job in her business and still lead and grow the business. She has to learn to let go enough to trust people to do their jobs, and to trust that people who promise to be there for her will be.

Kristine, on the other hand, in the course of her 16-year marriage has ceded all control to her husband. He gets everything he wants, and she gives in whenever there is any conflict between them. But now that their three sons are growing up, she knows it’s time for her to finally reach for some dreams of her own, a bakery business that she has planned for years but the time has never been right to execute – until now. Only to have the entire thing explode in her face when her husband turns Neanderthal and leaves rather than let her have anything of her own.

Meanwhile, Heather feels trapped. She’s 20 years old and working 4 jobs to support herself and her mother. Her mother isn’t even 40 year, perfectly healthy and refuses to either hold down a job or even begin to see that mooching off her daughter and being completely unwilling to lift a finger to do anything except spend more money is only working for her. But then, Amber twists every situation to make herself the victim. In order to save herself, Heather needs to bring her courage to the sticking point and just leave – before she ends up just like her mother.

The fire at Sophie’s business brings Sophie back home to start again. Her return to Blackberry Island sets events in motion. Where all three women will be in terms of their lives, their personal relationships and their relationship with each other by the time that Sophie is back on her feet provides the tension through the entire book.

It is terrific watching them all find their way – especially because the ways that they are all different pull them together.

Escape Rating B: Reading Sisters by Choice felt a bit like watching three snowballs roll down the hill, picking up speed, along with plenty of grass and twigs, as they go. And then, at the halfway point, one by one those snowballs start to brake. Until they each suddenly get a grip on their trajectory, and somehow learn to ski like an Olympic gold medal contender.

The first half of this book was a hard read. I felt for all of the characters and all of their lives are going to hell in a handcart in ways that felt very familiar. I wanted them all to get better, but I didn’t enjoy suffering through their pain. And it was extremely painful.

Heather’s situation was the hardest. She’s in so deep, and there’s just no hope. Her mother is not going to change and the situation is not going to get better. Heather’s only choices are leaving and drowning, and we’re not sure until near the end which she is going to choose. (Someone I know had a mother just like hers, and there are just no other options. You can only save yourself because the other person does not want to be saved and doesn’t even see the need to be saved. They’re doing just fine because you’re doing all the work and they’re perfectly happy with that arrangement no matter how much they complain.)

Kristine’s situation felt equally awful. She wants to open a bakery. She’s been selling baked goods for years, every weekend, to the tourist venues around town, and she has all the business she can handle without professional sized ovens and equipment. Her sons are all between 10 and 14, so while they still need her, they don’t NEED her the way they did when they were all under 5. But when her husband refuses to even listen to her, let alone support her dreams the way she’s always supported his, she is forced to acknowledge that she’s always been the one to give in and she just can’t anymore. Marriage is supposed to be 50/50, but she’s been giving both 50s for way too long. But standing up for herself is hard. Necessary, but damn difficult every step of the way.

Sophie has the easiest time, and it’s still difficult. But most of her wounds feel self-inflicted. She’s a control freak who can’t let go – and she needs to. But it’s a hard lesson. In the end, it feels like she learns more from the two pregnant cats – and their kittens – that she fosters than she does from any of the humans who keep trying to tell her that she can’t and shouldn’t do it all. And that’s OK. Part of Sophie’s frenetic pace is to keep her from grieving for the cat who saw her through college and was the foundation of her business. It takes Lily and Mrs. Bennett to clue her in that life goes on, even after a loss, or two, or all ten of their kittens off to furever homes.

In the end, these three women build a stronger relationship with each other and find their completely different versions of happy. Heather spreads her wings towards college and freedom. Kristine and her husband repair their marriage on a more equal footing. And Sophie, along with Lily and Mrs. Bennett, make their home with a man who loves them as they are and has no intention of changing them.

And that’s just the way it should be.

The beginning of this one was rough, but the way it turned around at the halfway makes me want to go back and read the previous books in the series, starting with Barefoot Season. The next time I want to spend some quality time in a lovely place with interesting people and just the right amount of drama and romance!

Review: Cast in Wisdom by Michelle Sagara

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Cast in Wisdom by Michelle SagaraCast in Wisdom (The Chronicles of Elantra, #15) by Michelle Sagara
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: epic fantasy, fantasy, urban fantasy
Series: Chronicles of Elantra #15
Pages: 544
Published by Mira on January 28, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

SOMETHING IS WAKING

The fiefs that exist at the heart of the city of Elantra are home to sentient Towers that guard the world against the incursion of Shadow. But between the fiefs exists the gray world of the border zone. In it, geography changes between one passage across a border and the next. The rules of magic are different there—and yet somehow familiar to Kaylin Neya.

When a Shadow escapes, Kaylin must find out how…and why. If Shadows can breach the barrier erected by the Towers, the whole of Elantra will be devoured. It’s happened on other worlds. Bellusdeo, Kaylin’s Dragon companion, absolutely believes it can happen on theirs.

The border zone holds secrets and ancient histories, and people are gathering there in search of its power. Without even understanding what that power is, or why it exists, Kaylin is in a desperate race against time to find those secrets first. She doesn’t know who her enemies are. She doesn’t know how many she’ll face. But she won’t face them alone.

My Review:

“Do not underestimate librarians.” Words to live by, as said by Lannagaros, the Arkon of the Dragon Empire, in Cast in Wisdom. He’s talking about the importance of returning a book, a very particular book, to the Library of the Academia, an Academia that has been lost in the borderlands between the fiefs of Elantra for a very long time. A time measured in centuries if not millennia. A time when Elantra was whole, Ravellon had not yet fallen, and Lannagaros was a young student at the Academia in a time before the wars between the Dragons and the Barrani devastated both of their peoples and the world on which they lived.

A time that has lived forever in his heart. A time that is so far back in the distant past that Kaylin Nera cannot imagine such a thing ever existed. To her brief, mortal eyes, Lannagaros has always been ancient beyond reckoning, and he has always been the Arkon.

We see this world through Kaylin’s eyes. She is human and mortal and fragile in a world that is dominated by the immortal Dragons who rule Elantra and the equally immortal Barrani whose political infighting often threatens to tear the world they all inhabit down to its foundations.

Elantra is a world with epic fantasy proportions, but its stories are often on an urban fantasy scale. Kaylin is a ground Hawk, the equivalent of a police officer who serves the Halls of Law, which are more or less what their name implies. Kaylin’s job is to help keep the peace – even as her extracurricular activities threaten to break it.

Due to incidents that have happened to or around Kaylin in her past, she is mixed up in both the Dragon and Barrani Courts, and her actions often shake the world – to the surprise of nearly everyone around her – especially herself.

Kaylin’s adventures began in the novella Cast in Moonlight almost 20 years ago, with Cast in Shadow the first full-length novel in the series. This is definitely a series where you need to start in the beginning to get a grasp on this world, Kaylin herself, and the found family that has gathered around her – sometimes without any of her intention at all. And we discover ourselves caring about these people because she does. And because we care about her.

Kaylin is a chaos magnet – she is a person to whom things happen – whether she wishes it or not.

The story of Cast in Wisdom is absolutely a case where Kaylin is given an assignment – an official one even – that seems relatively simple and unambiguous on the surface but as is usual turns out to be anything but. And as so often happens to Kaylin, those complexities uncover plots and counterplots that are intended to change this world in a way that will likely lead to destruction.

But no plot seems to survive contact with Kaylin Nera – not even her own.

cast in shadow by michelle sagaraEscape Rating A: I love this series for Kaylin, her snarky voice, and the even snarkier characters she has gathered around her. I fell for it because the opening books were definitely in the urban fantasy vein, even if the world in which they were set felt more like epic fantasy. As the series has continued, Kaylin’s initially small world has gotten bigger and wider, and events have often taken her out of her city.

You can take the girl out of the city, but you can’t really take the city out of the girl. Cast in Wisdom is a story that explores a tiny and obscure portion of Elantra and gives that exploration huge implications without ever leaving the city borders.

Well, not exactly leaving, but that’s part of the story.

I’ll admit that I especially fell for this one because the entire thing is set in a school that has been lost in time – a school that considers its heart and soul to be its library. And that, of course, had me from the beginning.

But it’s also a story about fighting for what you believe in, and it’s a story that breathes life by dragon fire into the idea that it’s never too late to be what you were meant to be. So as much as the series is absolutely Kaylin’s journey, Cast in Wisdom is Lannagaros’ journey. Kaylin is barely two decades old, while Lannagaros has lived for not just centuries but actually millennia. His whole life has been dedicated to preserving the past and learning from it. All he wanted was to be an academic, but he left his studies to serve in a war that is long past. By the time it was over, the Academia he loved was lost to the shadows between the fiefs.

When it is found again, broken and barely functioning as a ghostly shadow of the place he once loved, he is forced to rethink his entire life in order to defend the place where his heart has always belonged – even when he believed it no longer existed.

As the fight for the heart and soul of a school and a library, Cast in Wisdom is a terrific adventure. As a story about it never being too late to grasp the dream of your heart, it is marvelous. As the latest in a continuing saga, it is a wonderful addition to the series.

And now that I have left Elantra for the nonce, I am in withdrawal until the next book in the series, whenever it appears.

Review: The Country Guesthouse by Robyn Carr + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: The Country Guesthouse by Robyn Carr + GiveawayThe Country Guesthouse (Sullivan's Crossing #5) by Robyn Carr
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, small town romance, women's fiction
Series: Sullivan's Crossing #5
Pages: 336
Published by Mira on January 7, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

A summer rental, a new beginning…

Hannah Russell’s carefully crafted plans for her life have been upended without warning. When her best friend died suddenly, Hannah became guardian to a five-year-old named Noah. With no experience at motherhood, she’s terrified she’s not up to the challenge. She and Noah need time to get to know each other, so she decides to rent a country house with stunning views on a lake in rural Colorado.

When they arrive at the house, they are greeted by the owner, a handsome man who promises to stay out of their way. But his clumsy Great Dane, Romeo, has other ideas and Noah immediately bonds with the lovable dog. As Hannah learns to become a mother, Owen Abrams, who is recovering from his own grief, can’t help but be drawn out of his solitude by his guests.

But life throws more challenges at this unlikely trio and they are tested in ways they never thought possible. All three will discover their strengths and, despite their differences, they will fight to become a family. And the people of Sullivan’s Crossing will rally around them to offer all of the support they need.

My Review:

It has been my experience that bosses who LOVE sending their staff on lots of “team building” retreats have other bad habits. Especially the ones who send the “team” but not themselves. Hannah’s boss seems to be the exception that proves the rule – lucky for her!

In the end, the only important thing about that team-building retreat is its location. Because it’s held in photographer Owen Abrams’ beautiful house across the lake from Sullivan’s Crossing. And as much as Hannah hates the retreat, she adores the house. Her escape by way of Sully’s general store only sweetens the deal and makes her long to return.

So she does, after two crises that would make anyone need to schedule a getaway from at least parts of the real.

Hannah returns home early from that retreat to find her about-to-be-ex fiance banging Hannah’s assistant in not just their house – that Hannah pays for – but their bed. She tosses them both out on their asses, him from her life and her from her job.

But that’s not the real crisis. In the end it’s just a blip on the radar. (He’s a blip, too.) Hannah’s best friend for nearly two decades, through college and beyond, dies suddenly of complications from pneumonia. Leaving Hannah as the grieving and scared but willing instant mother of her BFF’s 5 year old son.

So Hannah and Noah “escape” for two weeks in Sullivan’s Crossing. Hannah has rented Owen’s house while Owen is supposed to be on a photo shoot in Vietnam. But the shoot has been cancelled and Hannah needs the escape too badly to take a raincheck on the Airbnb rental.

She and Owen both expect to not see much of each other while she and Noah are there. Owen expects to live in his studio, as he often does when his plans fall through but the Airbnb doesn’t.

Instead, Owen’s dog Romeo and Noah bond instantaneously – and so do Owen and Hannah.

The surprising friendship blossoms rapidly, not just between the boy and the dog – or even the one between the two love-scarred adults. In two short weeks they are well on their way to being a family – even if none of them had the remotest thought such a thing could happen.

Extending Hannah’s vacation into an entire summer only makes it clearer that this family is meant to be – and meant to be in Sullivan’s Crossing. But every paradise has its own particular snake – and Sullivan’s Crossing is no different.

But Hannah is. She’s determined to make the best life possible for Noah, no matter what ugliness from his birth mother’s past tries to take it away. With the entire town of Sullivan’s Crossing standing squarely behind her.

Escape Rating B+: Sullivan’s Crossing and the nearby town of Timberlake just seem like a great place to live. Also a nice place to visit, as Hannah discovers during her escape from that disastrous team-building retreat.

One of the things I love about this type of small-town women’s fiction/contemporary romance is just how terrific these tiny towns are. Timberlake seems to have just enough of everything to make it a great place to live. And it’s within a half day drive of Denver – at least in good weather.

Hannah brings Noah to Sullivan’s Crossing because they need to get away from the location of their recent grief – even though the grief itself comes along with them. In Owen Abrams’ house they are not confronted with every single memory every single minute. They need this chance to bond as well as this respite to heal.

One of the things that makes this story special is the way that the town rallies around them when trouble comes calling. As it inevitably does. The past may be reaching out to grab them, but everyone in town stands ready, willing and able to help them beat it back.

That the nature of the trouble is not dissimilar to previous events in the series doesn’t mean that this time around isn’t just as heartwarming. The nature of the place just seems to bring it out of everyone who stays. (And this story stands alone, but the series is simply lovely, starting with What We Find. Just saying…)

The romance between Hannah and Owen feels like it happens just a bit too quickly, especially in a situation where Hannah is in the throes of re-figuring out her entire life. Owen’s response makes more sense – he’s been carrying his baggage for over a decade and Hannah and Noah are the catalyst that finally allows him to let some of it go.

But she’s just picked hers up, along with picking up Noah and working out their new life together. She’s grief-stricken at her friend’s death, she’s scared about being an instant mother, and she’s grateful for Noah’s presence in her life. But adding a romance feels like something that she would either shy away from or would be a bit co-dependent. Possibly both.

Which doesn’t mean that the romance between Owen and Hannah isn’t sweet, because it certainly is.

The blast from the past is frightening in a very real way. One thing that was very well done was the way that the reader initially thinks the problems will be coming from Hannah’s ex-fiance. That turns out to be a bit of easily resolved misdirection. The true threat is also carefully hidden. We know that Noah’s bio-family have never been part of his life, we think we know why, then we discover that the situation is both not quite what we thought but even more dangerous than we expected.

And the dog is a delight. Owen’s big, clumsy, adorable Great Dane, Romeo, steals hearts at every turn. Romeo and his person find their Juliet in Hannah – without the messy ending of his namesake.

I always adore visiting Sullivan’s Crossing, and my trip to The Country Guesthouse was no exception. I hope my next visit will be soon!

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

I’m giving away a copy of The Country Guesthouse to one very lucky US commenter on this tour!

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