Truly Devious
Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson is $1.99! This book released in January and I bought it in a huge YA book haul, though I haven’t gotten to read it yet. It’s also a Kindle Daily Deal and is being price-matched. Readers love the mystery and the setting, but warn that the ending feels like a cliffhanger.
Something is wrong at Ellingham Academy: Its murderous past won’t stay in the past.
Ellingham Academy is an American institution. Students can’t buy admission, they have to earn it: these are the brightest of their generation, the thinkers, inventors, artists, dreamers, and schemers who will change the world. Ellingham is the brainchild of philanthropist and tycoon Edward J. Ellingham, who happened on a remote, idyllic spot outside of Burlington, Vermont in the 1920s, the perfect setting for his “dream school of the future.” For Ellingham, the dream ended a decade later, when his wife and child were kidnapped, then murdered, in what would become the crime of the century. Ellingham pledged everything to find the killer—he ended up giving his life.
It was an empty sacrifice: For years, the killer remained at large. He taunted the police, signing his letters Truly, Devious. Eventually, someone was caught, found guilty, and executed for the heinous crimes… but questions lingered. Why, for example, did Ellingham write these words on the day he died?
Where do you look for someone
who’s never really there?
Always on a staircase
but never on a stair.
Every institution has its ghost stories; every school imagines itself haunted. Ellingham Academy is, officially, beyond such silliness: it is devoted to greatness, and everyone accepted achieves it.
This includes Stevie Bell, who gained her fame by solving a murder when she was thirteen years old. Clever murders don’t happen along very often, and Stevie has been struggling to find her place in the competitive atmosphere of Ellingham. Then she finds out about the decades-old Ellingham riddle: Problem solved. She’ll solve the riddle, name the real killer, and prove herself exceptional. True Ellingham material.
Her investigation into the cold case is interrupted by a fresh one. When one of her classmates, internet superstar Hayes Major, turns up dead, Stevie is the first to question the official explanation. An accident? Really? Everyone else is convinced that Ellingham’s murderous past is just that, which leaves justice up to Stevie.
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Beyond Compare by Candace Camp is 99c at Amazon! This is also a Kindle Daily Deal, but isn’t being price-matched yet. This historical romance was originally published in 2004 and re-released earlier this year. While readers enjoyed the mystery, the felt the romance faltered. Have you read this one?
Though Kyria Moreland is beautiful enough to earn the sobriquet “The Goddess” and rich enough to attract London’s most sought after gentlemen, she has yet to find love and refuses to marry without it. When she receives a strange package under mysterious circumstances, she is confronted with danger, murder and a handsome American whose destiny is entwined with hers….
Rafe McIntyre has enough charm to seduce any woman, but his smooth facade hides a bitter past. Still, he has seen enough of the world to know Kyria is in danger, and he refuses to let her solve the riddle of this package alone. But even he is mesmerized by the events that unfold as Kyria begins to sort out the mystery put to her by the arrival of a priceless antiquity. Who sent her this treasure steeped in legend? And who is willing to murder to claim its secrets and its glory for themselves?
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RECOMMENDED: Mad About the Marquess by Elizabeth Essex is 99c! Elyse recently read and loved this book, giving it an A:
This book is delightful. It’s actually fucking delightful now I think about it, which is like delightful times ten. The dialogue is wonderful and sass wars are just about my favorite thing ever. The plot is just enough crazysauce layered on top of historical goodness. There was literally nothing about Mad About the Marquess that I didn’t like.
From acclaimed author Elizabeth Essex comes the adventurous first book in the Highland Brides, a quartet of bold, brilliant lasses determined to make their own happily ever afters.
WHEN A LADY TAKES TO THE ROAD TO PLAY ROBIN HOOD
Lady Quince Winthrop has been robbing from society’s rich and giving to Edinburgh’s poor for years. But everything changes the day she can’t resist the temptation to steal from the Marquess of Cairn.
SHE MUST BE ON HER GUARD AGAINST HER SHERIFF OF NOTTINGHAM
Alasdair, Marquess of Cairn, has come back to Scotland to stop a thief, never thinking that the lass he’s trying to woo is about to give a lesson in larceny he won’t be able to forget. From the twisted streets of Auld Reeky, to the hills of the highlands, Quince leads Alasdair on a merry chase, and finds the one man she shouldn’t fall for, is the one man she can’t resist.
LOVE IS EVEN HARDER TO RESIST THAN TEMPTATION.
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As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!The Importance of Being Wicked
The Importance of Being Wicked by Miranda Neville is $1.99! For those who don’t know, Neville passed away last October. This historical romance is the first book in her Wild Quartet series. In short, a duke has his sights on a heiress but winds up falling for her cousin instead. Though readers loved the theme of badly behaved women, many seemed to take issue with the immature heroine.
The rules of society don’t apply to Caro and her coterie of bold men and daring women. But when passions flare, even the strongest will surrender to the law of love…
Thomas, Duke of Castleton, has every intention of wedding a prim and proper heiress. That is, until he sets eyes on the heiress’s cousin, easily the least proper woman he’s ever met. His devotion to family duty is no defense against the red-headed vixen whose greatest asset seems to be a talent for trouble…
Caroline Townsend has no patience for the oh-so-suitable (and boring) men of the ton. So when the handsome but stuffy duke arrives at her doorstep, she decides to put him to the test. But her scandalous exploits awaken a desire in Thomas he never knew he had. Suddenly Caro finds herself falling for this most proper duke…while Thomas discovers there’s a great deal of fun in a little bit of wickedness.
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I really recommend TRULY DEVIOUS especially at that price- it was a very fun & intriguing YA mystery that I thoroughly enjoyed. It’s a very intriguing set up and you get a lot of flashbacks to the original crime throughout the book, and I enjoyed getting into both story lines. Maureen Johnson in general writes engaging & distinctive YA, and I think this will be a great trilogy from her.
Caveat: This is 100% a ramp up book designed to hook you in; tbh, it would have been stronger if it was shorter or, I’m guessing, if they had made this a duology rather than a trilogy. If you’re not into waiting for the subsequent 2 books, or you hate something not being resolved, this won’t be for you.
@Mara- Thanks for the warning! I bought Truly Devious when it first came out but haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. I love Maureen Johnson’s writing, but I’m having a really hard time with waiting for her to finish other series. I think I’ll wait until the next books are out to start Truly Devious.
Murmuration by TJ Klune (m/m, angsty) is on sale at Amazon for $1.99.
Been wanting to try Klune’s more angsty works. I’ve only read his books that have made me laugh out loud (AND feel feelings) such as Tell Me Its Real, The Queen and the Homo Jock King and The Lightening-Struck Heart (all of which I highly recommend)!
@Alexandra- Glad to help! I know, she’s really got to finish up that Shades of London series. I was getting really feisty about it and then I heard that she was dealing with a bout of cancer… so I went from feeling feisty to feeling like an asshole :(. That being said– I really want her to finish that one up, haha
@Peggy, I recently read and enjoyed Murmuration. Curiously, I’ve rarely finished Klune’s lighter works though I did enjoy Wolfsong (I’m not how you’d categorize that one). I hope you like it, too.
Susannah Nix’s Remedial Rocket Science is free right now at Amazon. It’s a KU title, so Amazon-only. I happened to finish it last week, and thought it was OK. It felt more like NA chick-lit than romance to me, if that distinction makes sense. I enjoyed some of the female friendship more than the romance, and thought the story could be more fleshed out, but went on to the sequel, on the basis of a stronger review for that installment.
(I do mean currently free-free, not KU-free, just to be clear.)
*gasp* I didn’t know that Miranda Neville passed away! I had some lovely Twitter exchanges with her a few years ago and realized I hadn’t seen her on my Twitter feed lately, but thought it was because I was so busy and never got around to creating that author list I’d been meaning to. I love, love her books, and I will miss her greatly.
The Importance of Being Wicked is OK. I did find the heroine a bit obnoxious and it’s my least favourite of the series. However it’s definitely worth getting at $1.99!
I enjoyed Truly Devious a lot. I made bad book decisions to finish it and I’m not even that mad about the cliffhanger.