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The Five
The Five by Hallie Rubenhold is $2.99! This is part of today’s Kindle Daily Deals, which has some other great options! Elyse was incredibly excited about this one and mentioned is a few times on the site podcast. I swore she wrote a review, but I think I’m confusing this one with another book about Jack the Ripper
Miscast in the media for nearly 130 years, the victims of Jack the Ripper finally get their full stories told in this eye-opening and chilling reminder that life for middle-class women in Victorian London could be full of social pitfalls and peril.
The “canonical five” women murdered by Jack the Ripper have always been dismissed as society’s waste, their stories passed down to us wrapped in a package of Victorian assumptions and prejudice. But social historian Hallie Rubenhold sets the record straight in The Five. In reality, only two of the victims were prostitutes, and Rubenhold has uncovered entirely new research about them all–in some cases, material no one has ever seen before.
The Five tells for the first time the true stories of these fascinating women. It delves into the Victorian experience of poverty, homelessness, and alcoholism, but also motherhood, childbirth, sexuality, child-rearing, work, and marriage, all against the fascinating, dark, and quickly changing backdrop of nineteenth-century London. From rural Sweden to the wedding of Queen Victoria, from the London of Charles Dickens to the factories of the Industrial Revolution and the high-class brothels of the West End, these women were not just victims but witnesses to the vagaries and vicissitudes of the Victorian age.
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Thorn
Thorn by Intisar Khanani is $1.99! I believe this falls more into YA than adult fantasy, but please correct me if I’m wrong. We don’t have a review of this one up, but it has the Sneezy stamp of approval. She’s mentioned it several times on site and I believe read it before it was picked up by a traditional publisher.
A princess with two futures. A destiny all her own
Between her cruel family and the contempt she faces at court, Princess Alyrra has always longed to escape the confines of her royal life. But when she’s betrothed to the powerful prince Kestrin, Alyrra embarks on a journey to his land with little hope for a better future.
When a mysterious and terrifying sorceress robs Alyrra of both her identity and her role as princess, Alyrra seizes the opportunity to start a new life for herself as a goose girl.
But Alyrra soon finds that Kestrin is not what she expected. The more Alyrra learns of this new kingdom, the pain and suffering its people endure, as well as the danger facing Kestrin from the sorceress herself, the more she knows she can’t remain the goose girl forever.
With the fate of the kingdom at stake, Alyrra is caught between two worlds and ultimately must decide who she is, and what she stands for.
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The Memory of You
The Memory of You by Jamie Beck is $1.99 at Amazon! This looks to be an emotional, small town, contemporary romance, judging by the description. Readers definitely recommend having tissues handy for this one, while others felt all the emotional turmoil was too much at times.
When Steffi Lockwood returns to Sanctuary Sound to start over, she has no idea she’ll also get a second chance with her first love.
Steffi Lockwood has survived more than most. Recovering from an assault, she returns to her coastal Connecticut hometown to rebuild her life the best way she knows how: with her hands. But starting a remodeling business with one longtime friend puts her in the middle of a rift with another. Worse, being hired by her ex-boyfriend’s mother forces her to confront old regrets.
Public defender Ryan Quinn wasn’t shocked when his wife left him, but he was floored when she abandoned their daughter. With his finances up in the air, the newly single dad returns to his childhood home in Sanctuary Sound. The last person he expects, or wants, to see working on his family house is Steffi Lockwood—his first love who shattered his heart.
Although Steffi and Ryan are different people now, dormant feelings rekindle. But when Steffi’s secrets begins to surface, will it bring them together…or tear them apart for good?
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A Lady’s First Scandal
A Lady’s First Scandal by Merry Farmer is 99c! This is the first book in the May Flowers series and features a second chance romance. This is a spin-off series, but is able to read on its own. It’s also a Victorian romance, for those who may want a break from the Regency era.
Four years ago, Lady Cecelia Campbell fell head over heels in love with Lord Rupert Marlowe, the young Earl of Stanhope. Everybody knew they would marry and live happily ever after.
But then Rupert did the unthinkable. He took up a commission as an officer in the army and left England for a post in the Transvaal. Cecelia was left alone in England, loving, yearning, and worrying about him from a distance.
Now Rupert has returned. He is ready to take up his seat in the House of Lords, to take over the administration of the Stanhope estate from his mother, Lady Katya, and most importantly of all, to finally marry Cecelia.
Cece isn’t the same woman Rupert left behind, however. She has grown and flourished and become a woman of strength and opinion. And she’s not going to sit back and let Rupert get away with leaving her for so long.
But when Cece takes a stand and declares her independence in a very public way, the scandal her defiance causes blows every expectation for her future happiness with Rupert to smithereens. It also gains her an exclusive invitation to join the elite group of politically-minded women known as the May Flowers. But the May Flowers are a group of shocking, defiant, sometimes wicked women. They are a bundle of scandals waiting to happen.
Can Rupert convince the new, more powerful Cecelia to forgive him for abandoning her, and can he woo her all over again? Will the scandal of their break-up tear them apart forever, or will it make their love stronger…and hotter?
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Buy Thorn if you can, it’s amazing!
Is Thorn a standalone or part of a series? It looks fantastic but right now I’m not really up for a full trilogy and it seems like every interesting YA fantasy romance is actually a trilogy in disguise.
(Also, if anyone has any recs for standalone YA fantasy romance, I would love it? I can only reread Sorcery of Thorns so many times)
It’s been a while since I read it, but as I recall Thorn is a stand-alone, and very good. Be aware that a character-not the heroine-is sexually assaulted,if that’s a trigger. It doesn’t happen on-page, but it’s significant.
I’ve seen the Merry Farmer book in this list before. I still don’t get how a British soldier serving in the Transvaal can ever be considered a hero. Does the book deal directly with the atrocities the hero would have had to — at a minimum — witnessed his fellow-soldiers carrying out?
@2 @3
There is a sequel to Thorn coming out on March 23, but it looks from the descriptions like Thorn is probably a compltete story on its own.
(There’s also a short (and currently free) prequel called Brambles)
@Annie Kate I highly recommend Allison Saft’s debut Down Comes the Night. I loved it. Lots of Gothic tropes, good magic, and a swoony romance.
@ Laura George I became curious after reading your post and I have to say,the history of that region is super complicated. I read several articles and looked at timelines/maps and am still somewhat confused. Since what is generally called the Transvaal War was in 1880, it was not the time of the concentration camps–that was the second war. It would be interesting to know if this story takes place after the Transvaal war,or after the Second Boer War that ended in 1902.
Anyway,thank you for inspiring me to look into this. I’m embarrassed I didn’t know more about this history.
@Annie Kate – The False Princess by O’Neal is AMAZING. I also liked Brightly Woven by Alexandra Bracken, and though it is technically shelved in adult (but I think it straddles the line): Summers at Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn. Those are the main stand-alone novels that come to mind – hope that helps 😉
@Laura George
Yeah, I thought the same thing upon reading the blurb–the hero goes to war in South Africa? Do they… deal with that carefully in the novel? Because that is not a great backstory for modern sensibilities, I’d think. There is a lot of danger that the book is at least really careless of race issues.
I read some Goodreads reviews and it doesn’t sound like this was dealt with appropriately, and the author might just be relying on people not to know much history? One reviewer said that the hero witnesses his white friend getting beaten in England, and comments that the beating was way worse than anything he’d seen in South Africa. Can anyone who read this confirm?
“The Five” is a really, really good book. Made me think a lot.
“The Five” is absolutely fascinating. It cries out to be made into a mini-series based on the lives of the victims instead of speculation about the unknown and, after 133 years, probably unknowable killer.
Quick note on “Thorn”. I marked it as the absolute BEST book I won’t finish. Basically the story’s central trope is one that is a hard NOPE for me (the type of story, not what happens within it), but I was SO MAD at myself because the writing is just SO GOOD. I got about 60+ pages in before I realized the central trope (which, again, is a personal boundary and seems to be handled beautifully) and I was just giddy at finding an author who’s writing was so entirely my jam.
Also total content warning re: fairy-tale-typical family dynamics, but not just hand-waved, and actually pointed out and disapproved of.