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The English Wife
The English Wife by Lauren Willig is $2.99! This is historical fiction with a mystery element, and I love this cover. Some readers found the plot a bit hard to follow. However, others love the dialogue and layers to story. Have you read this one?
From the New York Times bestselling author, Lauren Willig, comes this scandalous Gilded Age novel full of family secrets, affairs, and even murder.
Annabelle and Bayard Van Duyvil live a charmed life: he’s the scion of an old Knickerbocker family, she grew up in a Tudor manor in England, they had a whirlwind romance in London, they have three year old twins on whom they dote, and he’s recreated her family home on the banks of the Hudson and renamed it Illyria. Yes, there are rumors that she’s having an affair with the architect, but rumors are rumors and people will gossip. But then Bayard is found dead with a knife in his chest on the night of their Twelfth Night Ball, Annabelle goes missing, presumed drowned, and the papers go mad.
Bay’s sister, Janie, forms an unlikely alliance with a reporter to uncover the truth, convinced that Bay would never have killed his wife, that it must be a third party, but the more she learns about her brother and his wife, the more everything she thought she knew about them starts to unravel. Who were her brother and his wife, really? And why did her brother die with the name George on his lips?
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Widdershins
Widdershins by Jordan L. Hawk is 99c! This is a gay historical romance with magic. Carrie gave this book a C. She said it didn’t particularly hold her interest, but she also had a ton of other new releases that she wanted to read. Aside from that, reviewers loved the pairing of a nerdy, scholarly hero and a dashing P.I.
Some things should stay buried.
Repressed scholar Percival Endicott Whyborne has two skills: reading dead languages and hiding in his office at the Ladysmith Museum. After the tragic death of the friend he secretly loved, he’s ruthlessly suppressed any desire for another man.
So when handsome ex-Pinkerton Griffin Flaherty approaches him to translate a mysterious book, Whyborne wants to finish the job and get rid of the detective as quickly as possible. Griffin left the Pinkertons following the death of his partner, hoping to start a new life. But the powerful cult which murdered Glenn has taken root in Widdershins, and only the spells in the book can stop them. Spells the intellectual Whyborne doesn’t believe are real.
As the investigation draws the two men closer, Griffin’s rakish charm threatens to shatter Whyborne’s iron control. When the cult resurrects an evil sorcerer who commands terrifying monsters, can Whyborne overcome his fear and learn to trust? Will Griffin let go of his past and risk falling in love? Or will Griffin’s secrets cost Whyborne both his heart and his life?
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Tomboy
Tomboy by Avery Flynn is 99c! This is a contemporary romance with an athlete hero and a fake relationship. It sounds really fun and I think I’ll be picking this one up. This is the third book in The Hartigans series and readers either say this one is their favorite by far, or it’s their least fave. Have you read the series?
How exactly has one good deed landed me in the penalty box?
Ice Knights defenseman Zach Blackburn has come down with the flu, and my BFF—his PR manager—begs me to put my nursing degree to use and get him back to health. Of course she would call in a favor for the most hated man in Harbor City.
But when he’s finally on the mend and I’m sneaking out of his place, everything goes sideways. Paparazzi spot me and pictures, plus accusations that I slept with him, fly faster than a hockey puck.
At first, all of Harbor City wants my blood—or to give me a girlie-girl makeover. But then…the team finally wins a game. And now this fickle town wants me with the big jerk twenty-four seven.
Argh. I never slept with him the first time! But no one will listen. Then the grumpy bastard goes and promises to break his no-fan-appearances rule to help raise money for a free health clinic—but only if I’m rink-side at every game. That’s not a deal I can turn down.
But when the team keeps winning, and I realize there’s more to him than his bad reputation, suddenly remembering to keep my real hands off my fake date gets harder and harder to do.
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Lethal Game
Lethal Game by Julie Rowe is 99c! This is the second book in the Biological Response Team romantic suspense series. Readers say you can read this one without needing to read the first book. However, others warn that this book is intense in its descriptions of sex, violence, and gore.
As the nation’s youngest virologist and hematologist, Captain Sophia Perry has always been one step ahead of her peers. But there’s one thing she can’t beat—cancer. She wants to make a difference in the time she has left, so when she’s sent to investigate a breakout at a Syrian refugee camp, she goes, saying nothing of her diagnosis. But saving the masses isn’t easy when the man tasked to protect her is so irresistible.
Communications Sergeant Connor Button is back on active duty after a deadly explosion, but he doesn’t feel whole again until he meets Sophia. Assigned to keep her safe, he’s prepared to die for her, but for the first time in months he truly wants to live—if only she wasn’t so determined to put them both in danger.
With a secret to keep and nothing to lose, Sophia is determined to find the source of the breakout at any cost. Violent attacks on the camp convince her that someone wants her to pay dearly. But as Sophia’s health deteriorates, Connor must find a way to help her defeat her enemies before her body defeats her.
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Artificial Condition (Murderbot #2) by Martha Wells is $2.99 everywhere, for those who balk at a regular price of $9.99 for a novella. *raises hand*
And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts is on sale at amazon for 2.99. This about the AIDs crisis and was also adapted into a mini-series on HBO a few years ago. I can remember this time period, but the book and the mini-series are worth revisiting as a reminder of how far we’ve come since the 1980s.
Also, there are several books from Lindsey Davis’ Falco series on sale for 2.99. These are historical mysteries set in Rome during the rule of Vespasian. Falco is a wise-cracking “informer” (aka PI) and the female characters are strong and really interesting. The books are mid-series and I don’t know that it makes sense to read them out of order — but if you are trying to dupe a physical library (like me), these are good deals.
I liked English Wife better than some of Willig’s other standalone books (I am looking at YOU ‘That Summer’). The plot is pretty good and the transitions between present and past are handled better.
Thanks for the heads up on Davis. I’ll check that out.
Can anyone speak to the possible racism of the characterization of the villain in Lethal Game? I’m reading reviews on Goodreads and… A terrorist named Akbar sounds like it is a potentially terrible racist trope.
I’m super interested to know, because my inclination is to buy both this book and book 1 of the series. I love medical stuff and virology (shout out to the TV adaptation of the nonfiction book the Hot Zone).
But not if the premise is trading in the “bad Arab” trope.
Confession time: I didn’t like The Pink Carnation at all. I just couldn’t with the heroine. However, this was before I threw myself into romance as a genre. Are Willig’s other books worthwhile if I didn’t like that one?
“The English Wife” is fairly light on the romance (it’s not even really a secondary plot, its like a tertiary plot) but BIG on the effed-up family dynamics. IDK if that helps you decide? I did like the heroine, she kind of starts out rather timid and really comes into her own. It was probably about a B- for me–I enjoyed it, but it’s not the kind of book I’m going to think about again. I also do have a soft spot for atmospheric mysterious historical fiction.
@EllenM
Actually that sounds up my alley. Thanks!
Adding to @Another Anne’s comments about the Falco books. The plots are stand-alone and resolved within each book. The relationships, especially between Falco and Helena, develop over the course of the series. But you definitely want to leave Nemesis until last.
“Come What May”, the first book in A.M. Arthur’s All Saints series, is $1.99 on Amazon. The cover is lovely!
“Come What May”, the first book in A.M. Arthur’s All Saints series, is $1.99 on Amazon and maybe elsewhere. The cover is lovely!
I DNF’d The English Wife despite my love of (the first few books in ) Willig’s Pink Carnation series. The more byzantine her plots get, the slower the pacing, the less I stick with them.
Also, I want my Bachelorette recap. I’m a demanding woman, i know, but it’s summer break around here and I made paint with my kid today. And we baked cookies. And I need some grown up humor, mmkay?
EJ, I thought the first book in the Pink Carnation series was the weakest. The heroine quickly gave up her desire to be a secret agent and just wanted romance. And the language seemed overwrought. I thought the rest of that series was better. I’ve read it twice now.
The Anatomist’s Wife, the first book in Anna Lee Huber’s Lady Darby Mystery series is 2.99 on Amazon, Google, BN and Apple.
I highly recommend the Whyborne & Griffin series. Widdershins is definitely one of those “first book in the series” that lays out a lot of the characters & information to provide a base for the following books to rest on, but I still loved it. It’s one of my favorite series & the evolution of the relationship between the two men is lovely to read. There are some LOL parts & some gory bits, so it has broad appeal! May as well try it when the first book is on sale!
I enjoyed Tomboy, my lease favorite in the series was actually the middle one (plus size heroine whose only trait is she’s plus size). In any case, Avery Flynn’s books are all about to go up in price by at least a dollar, so if you were on the fence and that sways you, FYI.
I tried the Widdershins series after it was first recommended at an SBTB reader gatehering at RT. The first novel is good, but each subsequent story is better because everything builds on events that happen in previous books. It can get a little gory but the humor is well-placed to balance things out.
There are tons of Easter eggs for Lovecraft fans. I’m not one of them;thank goodness for the “look-up” feature in my reading app. There is a hopeful tone that cuts through and lifts the characters from being bleak and downtrodden.
M/m romances are not my thing, but I highly recommend this series. The characters and story are great; lots of range for almost all of them. The last book is supposed to come out later this year
I’ve enjoyed the Widdershins series … and, as someone who’s read a good amount of Lovecraft, I’ve enjoyed seeing elements of his work included.
I enjoyed The English Wife – I liked the uncertainty as to what was going on in a lot of it. As for the Pink Carnation series – I enjoyed it more when I skimmed over most of the contemporary story and just read it for the historical story.
Penny, i’ve read (albeit awhile ago) Lethal Game, and although it isn’t perfect I remember the villain being rather more than a stereotype, if that helps. He’s clever, and there are as many layers to him as to any of the other main characters (depth, of course, being relative).
I’m not Muslim, so there are definitely elements I could have missed, but I think the bigger trope in the series is how many named and unnamed (but mostly POC and non-American) characters are sacrificed to drive home how high the stakes are?
Anyway, if you read it and I’ve horribly missed out on some Islamophobia I’d appreciate it if you let me know!
I love the Whybourne and Griffin series also! It had an awesome female sidekick in Christine who is an archeologist specializing in Egypt. She also is an amazing shot and doesn’t see why women shouldn’t be allowed to do things like archeology simply because ancient man was so fascinated with the phallus! I also really enjoyed the exploration of a Lovecraftian universe – it is refreshing to have a change from standard paranormal tropes.