-
Every Rogue Has His Charm
Every Rogue Has His Charm by Susanna Craig is 99c! This is book four in the Love and Let Spy series. Prior books in the series have been favorably reviewed on the site and this one was mentioned in a Hide Your Wallet.
Love, intrigue, and a fresh spin on historical romance make a sexy and suspenseful mix in the latest novel in Susanna Craig’s Regency-set series—as the wife one man left behind becomes the woman he can’t live without…
Caroline, Marchioness of Chesleigh, has been married for six years—at least in name. In fact, Caro has hardly seen her husband since the early days of their union. Scarred and reclusive, Maxim wasn’t ready to trust his wife with his secrets—or his heart. Instead, he quickly resumed his life of espionage in France, believing Caro was better off alone.
When the spy who left her returns upon inheriting the Dukedom, he finds his wife is not the girl she once was. Her heart is a little harder. She’s learned to stand on her own. Yet the desire that once ignited between them burns as hotly as ever…
Now, the more Caro learns about the past Maxim tried to hide from her, the deeper their bond grows. But danger haunts her husband’s every move, jeopardizing their passionate reunion…
Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
This book is on sale at:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks! -
At Your Service
RECOMMENDED: At Your Service by Sandra Antonelli is $2.99! Claudia wrote a guest review for this one before becoming a staff reviewer. She gave it a B+:
At Your Service is a very well written, funny, fast-paced read, and one that offers the rare opportunity to dwell among mature characters, emotionally and otherwise. For all that and for best use of a toilet brush in a romance novel, this book gets a B plus from me.
After three years in the employ of a former British army officer turned Risk Assessment Specialist, widowed butler Mae Valentine is familiar with Major Kitt’s taste for scrambled eggs, bourbon, and brawling. Kitt knows of Mae’s fondness for order, her beloved dead husband, and the millions the man left her in trust. Their easy bond is tested the day Mae kills the man sent to murder her and the trust fund vanishes.
Soon, a volcano, a hand roasting in an oven, and a fish named Shirley accentuate sinister machinations that involve Mae and the missing money. To keep her safe from women in ugly shoes, homicidal bankers, and Mafia henchmen, Kitt risks exposing his true profession, which doesn’t trouble him as much as being in love with a woman who’s still in love with a dead man. If he can’t protect Mae, he’ll lose the best butler—and scrambled eggs—a spy ever loved.
Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
This book is on sale at:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks! -
Wolf Hall
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel is $2.99! This is the story of Henry VIII’s court from the perspective of Thomas Cromwell. This is the first book in Mantel’s series, and the second book is also on sale. Some readers mentioned that had trouble getting into the writing, but it was still very popular. Have you read this one? Did you love it or hate it?
In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII’s court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king’s favor and ascend to the heights of political power
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king’s freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum.
Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters, overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death.
Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
This book is on sale at:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks! -
Dance of a Burning Sea
Dance of the Burning Sea by E.J. Mellow is 99c! This is book two in a fantasy romance series, with each book focusing on a different sister with magical talents. We’ve featured the first book on sale a couple times if you’re looking to accumulate the series.
From award-winning author E. J. Mellow comes the thrilling second installment in the Mousai series, featuring a powerful sorceress who finds her loyalties tested by a ruthless pirate lord.
Within the world of Aadilor, there is a hidden place called the Thief Kingdom, where both magic and pleasure abound. There, the Mousai, a trio of deadly sorceresses bound by oath and blood, use their powers to protect the kingdom’s treasures.
Niya Bassette brings the potent gift of dance to the Mousai, but behind her tempting twirls, she carries a heavy secret—that the infamous pirate lord, Alōs Ezra, has been threatening to exploit for years. Now banished from the Thief Kingdom for smuggling, Alōs resurfaces in Niya’s life with a plot to hold her hostage, leveraging what he knows to extort a pardon from the Thief King.
But Niya makes her own deal with Alōs to guard her secret and guarantee her freedom—yet in doing so binds herself aboard his pirate ship, where she must navigate deadly waters, a bloodthirsty crew, and her own traitorous heart. Soon, a simmering attraction between her and Alōs threatens their delicate truce and makes for a tumultuous ride on the open seas. Far from her kingdom, Niya is entangled in a dangerous dance indeed.
Welcome to the world of Aadilor, where dark deeds can mask noble hearts and the most alluring of sways often ends with a burn. Care for a spin?
Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
This book is on sale at:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!
Don't want to miss an ebook sale? Sign up for our newsletter, and you'll get the week's available deals each Friday.
I had trouble with, and eventually gave up on, Wolf Hall because there would be a couple of pages of dialog with JUST the dialog. No, ‘King Henry said’ or whatever. And I kept losing who was talking.
I read ‘At Your Service’ and liked parts of quite a lot. It is indeed well-written, funny, and fast-paced. But it is very, very violent, so don’t expect a frolic.
Ever seen the Cary Grant/Audrey Hepburn movie, Charade? That’s what At Your Service reminds me of. But here the secret service agent scrambles around Sicily trying to keep up with his butler. He soon discovers her appeal far exceeds her exemplary management of his hearth and home. This is a James Bond novel with the expanded depth and perspective of a woman telling the story. Also sexier IMHO.
Indeed there are flashes of violence typical of action adventure movies. Antonelli has spent a good deal of time in Sicily, and the island and the volcano are vivid secondary characters in the story. There are two more books in the At Your Service series. Food, drink and location befitting the genre star in each.
Antonelli’s books are all winners. I highly recommend For Your Eyes Only, “By day, Willa Heston is a mild-mannered Quantum Physicist; by night, she’s on the trail of stolen classified documents,” and Next To You, “A witty, quirky and unexpectedly moving story about cinema, secrets and a complicated love affair.”
Every Rogue Has its Charm isn’t my absolute favorite Craig, but it’s perfectly solid.
I really enjoy and admire Hilary Mantel’s books. I agree that Wolf Hall requires a bit of work- it’s not the easiest book to read if you are tired or distracted. I read A Place Of Greater Safety many years ago, and re-read it periodically – it’s one of my favourite books of all time. Set in the French Revolution, it follows Danton, Robespierre and Camille Desmoulins and their kin. It’s no spoiler to say that there isn’t a happy ending. But her humour and observations are a delight throughout. She has a real gift for fleshing out the two-dimensional monsters of history into almost sympathetic, flawed individuals.
Or for a short, sweet read, try Fludd, which is almost a romance. Sort of.
I truly enjoyed Wolf Hall. I’ve also been a Tudor nerd since I was in high school thirty years ago. Wolf Hall and the subsequent books are somewhat easier to follow if you have some familiarity with who the major players were in Henry VIII’s court.
@MirandaB I’ve never tried Wolf Hall, but that is a huge pet peeve for me. I even messaged an author when the dialog tags in her book were so lacking in a scene that it was completely impossible to tell which of three characters said a certain line. (It turned out her publisher hadn’t included a lot of her last set of corrections to that book, including that. *facedesk*) –But a whole book like that? Just, why?
It reminds me of Raymond E Feist straight up *starting* blocks of dialog with tags. Because why not just make it clear, right? When you’re reading, dialog tags mostly just fall away, stage direction for your mind, and there’s something just so arrogant and hipsterish about insisting your readers struggle to understand the basics of what’s happening.
At Your Service was ok, but very Bond-ish, which was a definite turn off for me.
I don’t normally have strong feelings about covers, but WHAT is up with that font on the Susanna Craig cover? It makes it feel like an elementary grade graphic novel.
I read Wolf Hall and the sequel when they each came out and really enjoyed them but, as mentioned by Melanie above, it’s much easier to get through when you have a passing familiarity with the background and know what events happen when. Also, I never read book 3 because it was 8 years later and I didn’t have the bandwidth to reread 1 & 2.
Not book related, but I got a pop up saying something on the site wanted to access my camera.
I’m guessing some sort of malicious ad. Not sure if anything can be done, but I figured giving people a heads up was a good idea. (I selected block, so I’m hoping that prevents any issues for me.)
Re: long passages of dialog with no identified speakers: I’m reminded of my college era attempt to read Ivy Compton-Burnett, a mid-century British writer whose subject matter was mainly upper a middle-class families–all of them utterly dysfunctional. Her books are notorious for having pages of dialog with no way to identify who is speaking. I did try a couple of her books and got so frustrated with them, I gave up. How hard is it to include “Jane replied” or “Eric said” before or after a line of dialog? Why be deliberately confusing or obtuse?
@LostShadows: that happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I left the site and then reopened it. Also, after a few days of being able to open Smart Bitches on my iPhone, I’m back to getting the CloudFlare error message when I try to open the site.
I found reading Wolf Hall (which I loved) was a great deal easier if I just assumed that “He” was Cromwell (which it usually is) and read it in long sessions.
I imagine it also helps to know the broad outlines of Tudor history (I’ve been a Tudor freak for over 50 years).
As for “why?” Mantel is equally an author of historical fiction, and a “serious novelist,” and Wolf Hall was a surprise breakout publishing hit. (Enough people complained about the narration that it’s not nearly as bad in the other books.)
@Susanna, @MirandaB, @AtasB, I think Mantel misses out the “he said, she said” because in some ways it increases immersion. When it works, it helps you forget that you are being told a story by a narrator, and feel instead that you are eavesdropping on a conversation. It does take some getting used to, though. After reading one of her books, I often get irritated by other authors who go too far the other way, naming their characters every couple of lines. Perhaps different fonts should be used for different characters so that we can have the best of both worlds (joke).
@Susanna, Wolf Hall was incredible. I also felt the same with you that “He” was Cromwell as well.
This one felt more of a college lay-back and read while I’m in-between study sessions.
Thank you for another amazing share.
@DiscoDollyDeb Dialog confusion is infuriating. Nothing interrupts my immersion in a story faster. Once or twice might be forgivable oversight. More than that is DNF and never buy another book from that author. I generally take it to be slipshod editing. I’ll take profuse she said/he said tags any time. They disappear as I read like punctuation, but they’re there to distinguish speakers if I need them.
I think one of the reasons the dialogue in Wolf Hall was confusing is that there were so few first names for the male characters – all of them seemed to be named Henry, George, Edward or Thomas – and the women were mostly Ann, Mary, or Catherine. It wasn’t simply lack of dialogue tags, it was the need to figure out which George or whomever within the dialogue was being referred to.
Despite the potential confusion, I loved the book. Cromwell was such a fascinating, 3-dimensional character, and the book is about real people and events with real world – at times Life or Death – consequences. Cromwell was usually the smartest man in the room (and he knew it) and his varied experience as soldier and banker in England and abroad served him well. As noted, Cromwell is both an idealist and an opportunist. I rooted for him in the first book, wept for him as he suffered heartbreaking personal losses, and marveled as he used his ferocious intelligence to maneuver his way through the Court. The tragedy occurs when that talent is perverted and the opportunist overwhelms the idealist. Part of the tragedy is that Cromwell is smart enough to know how it will end for others but foolish enough to think he can escape the consequences for himself. I, for one, would not have wanted to be part of Henry VIII’s court; the danger far outweighed the money and the pretty clothes.