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The English Wife
The English Wife by Lauren Willig is $1.99! This is a Kindle Daily Deal and is being price-matched. 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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My Not So Perfect Life
My Not So Perfect Life by Sophie Kinsella is $2.99! I bought this book on the recommendation of one of my book group members because she said it was absolutely hilarious. However, I have yet to read it (story of my life). I’ve heard Kinsella’s books are great palate cleanser reads. What do you think?
Part love story, part workplace dramedy, part witty critique of the false judgments we make in a social-media-obsessed world, this is New York Times bestselling author Sophie Kinsella’s most timely and sharply observed novel yet.
Everywhere Katie Brenner looks, someone else is living the life she longs for, particularly her boss, Demeter Farlowe. Demeter is brilliant and creative, lives with her perfect family in a posh townhouse, and wears the coolest clothes. Katie’s life, meanwhile, is a daily struggle—from her dismal rental to her oddball flatmates to the tense office politics she’s trying to negotiate. The final, demeaning straw comes when Demeter makes Katie dye her roots in the office. No wonder Katie takes refuge in not-quite-true Instagram posts, especially as she’s desperate to make her dad proud.
Then, just as she’s finding her feet—not to mention a possible new romance—the worst happens. Demeter fires Katie. Shattered but determined to stay positive, Katie retreats to her family’s farm in Somerset to help them set up a vacation business. London has never seemed so far away—until Demeter unexpectedly turns up as a guest. Secrets are spilled and relationships rejiggered, and as the stakes for Katie’s future get higher, she must question her own assumptions about what makes for a truly meaningful life.
Sophie Kinsella is celebrated for her vibrant, relatable characters and her great storytelling gifts. Now she returns with all of the wit, warmth, and wisdom that are the hallmarks of her bestsellers to spin this fresh, modern story about presenting the perfect life when the reality is far from the image.
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Mystery Man
Mystery Man by Kristen Ashley is $1.99! This is the first book in the Dream Man series and for many, was their first entry into Ashley’s books. For me, Ashley’s heroes are huge hits or misses, no real in between. Super alpha; sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.
Night time is the right time…
Gwendolyn Kidd has met the man of her dreams. He’s hot, he’s sexy, and what started as a no-names-exchanged night of passion has blossomed into a year and a half-long pleasure fest. Sure, it’s a little strange that he only appears in her bed at night, but Gwen is so sure he’s the one, she just can’t turn him away…
Hawk Delgado knows more about Gwen than she could ever imagine. She’s gorgeous, headstrong, and skittish about relationships. But Hawk is facing his own demons, demons that keep him from connecting with anyone. Yet when Gwen is drawn into Denver’s lethal underground scene, Hawk’s protective nature comes out full force. The problem is, when Gwen gets a dose of Hawk’s Alpha attitude in the daylight, she’s not so sure he’s the one anymore…
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The Devil’s Daughter
RECOMMENDED: The Devil’s Daughter by Katee Robert is 99c at Amazon! Elyse read this and gave it a B grade, saying that it could have used a bit more romance:
The Devil’s Daughter is high on tension, but light on gore and scares, so readers typically leery of suspense might consider this novel.
Growing up in a small town isn’t easy, especially when you’re the daughter of a local cult leader. Ten years ago, Eden Collins left Clear Springs, Montana, and never once looked back. But when the bodies of murdered young women surface, their corpses violated and marked with tattoos worn by her mother’s followers, Eden, now an FBI agent, can’t turn a blind eye. To catch the killer, she’s going to have to return to the fold.
Sheriff Zach Owens isn’t comfortable putting Eden in danger, even if she is an elite agent. And he certainly wasn’t expecting to be so attracted to her. As calm and cool as she appears, he knows this can’t be a happy homecoming. Zach wants to protect her—from her mother, the cult, and the evil that lurks behind its locked gates. But Eden is his only key to the tight-lipped group, and she may just be closer to the killer than either one of them suspects…
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Ooh, is the Kristen Ashley a deliberate take on Cupid and Psyche?
I… am not really interested in reading Kristen Ashley, in all honesty. But the Cupid and Psyche/East of the Sun West of the Moon trope is to me what e.g. Beauty and the Beast is to a lot of people, and it’s not a usual setup for a romance. In fact, I’m not sure if I’ve ever encountered one before. Does anyone know of any romances not by Kristen Ashley that use this trope?
I tried to read that Kristin Ashley book and it was so BAD. The heroine is tstl and the “hero” .
I enjoyed the Katee Robert and ended up reading the other two books in this series (about other FBI agents that are mentioned). I love a good cult storyline. This series felt a bit like Katee Robert’s attempt Nora Roberts type romantic suspense. I wouldn’t say they quite reach that level, but they’re definitely binge-able. They’re all in KU if you have that.
I had mixed feelings about the Kinsella book. Yes, it was funny and cute in places. But it was also a bit mean-spirited and, it turns out, not entirely appropriately directed. (I don’t want to give too much away.) There’s someone with ulterior motives, and it should have been pretty obvious to everyone who it was.
But my biggest issue was how Katie would dig herself into holes with lies, mostly innocuous lies that would start out small but would then mushroom as she got caught up in them. I know it’s a common comedy ploy, but I just find it distressing.
@Star – I don’t think it’s deliberate. It’s not as similar as the blurb makes it seem.
@Susan that was my biggest issue with the Shopaholic books, that the protagonist kept digging herself deeper and then some rich deus ex would bail her out. It really put me off of Kinsella as an author.
@star thar is my absolute favorite trope too! The Cupid and Psyche. If you know of any books that have it I’d love to read them. And I’ll be following to see if anyone recommends any.
I read The English Wife and liked it a lot. There was a certain amount of uncertainty about the wife’s past and there was the whole mystery of who killed the husband. Meanwhile, the husband’s sister forges ahead trying to find out what happened.
The only Cupid and Psyche I know it’s Till We Have Faces by CS Lewis. I remember I enjoyed it, but that was when I was much younger, so not sure what I’d think now. I’d love to know of others
The Eyre Affair by Fforde is a kindle daily deal today! Super fun book with a touch of 2nd chance romance
That whole Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde is just a ton of fun. Much recommended.
Ashley’s books are very hit or miss with me. I liked her Burg series, but hated that Dream Man series. Way too many alphaholes.
@MaryK – Thank you! You have successfully cured me of trying to read it anyway.
@Amina – *fistbump* I’ve been trying since yesterday and can’t think of a single one! The only thing coming to mind is the Norwegian film version of the East of the Sun variant of the story. The Polar Bear King. I saw it when I was like ten and remember nothing other than that it was beautiful to look at.
Now I’m doubly curious: a) who else has a favourite fairy-tale/mythology trope that we don’t hear about as often, and b) what romance novels have tried retelling them? We get a lot of Beauty and the Beast retellings and Cinderella retellings, but others not so much. (Elizabeth Hoyt uses that cool gimmick of having a fairy tale run in parallel with her novels, but iirc those are mostly her own creations.) Sf/f (and maybe YA? I don’t read YA) seem to have more diversity on this front.
@Star – Jessica Day George wrote a retelling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon. It’s more YA fantasy than romance, I read it years ago so don’t remember details other than beautiful writing. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1210754.Sun_and_Moon_Ice_and_Snow
@Star Katy Regnery has a whole Modern Fairytale series where each book takes on a different fairy tale – I haven’t read these yet, but they’ve been on my TBR forever. They go in and and out of KU.
JT Geissinger’s Slow Burn series are sort of loose fairy tale retellings (Ache for You is Cinderella, Burn For You is Beauty and the Beast). The best one in the series though is Melt for You, and I don’t really know what fairy tale trope it follows.
@Star: If you don’t mind dark stuff (and keeping in mind how dark the original Grimm’s fairy tales are), Skye Warren’s WHO WILL SAVE YOUR SOUL? is a collection of four novellas, two of which are fairy tale reimaginings: MAFIA CINDERELLA is obviously a Cinderella retelling. BEDTIME STORY is a Sleeping Beauty retelling. Warren’s work is very dark and these stories are no exception. (Warren also has a connected series called BEAUTY & THE PROFESSOR, obviously a B&TB retelling.) A. Zavarelli’s STEALING CINDERELLA is an extremely dark (cw/tw for absolutely everything) retelling of Cinderella.
“Til we have faces” holds up very well. Just FYI – it is from the viewpoint of one of Psyche’s sisters; not Psyche herself. The first half is the sister justifying all her decisions while the second half has her reconsidering them. I like the book a lot and have reread it several times