Girl Waits With Gun is a historical fiction about the first female deputy sheriff in the USA and her two sisters. It is set just before the outbreak of WWI and just after a major strike by silk-factory workers. It is absolutely delightful, with a heroine who is tall, loud, smart, and deeply protective of her family. The narrator and protagonist of the book is Constance Kopp. She lives in a farmhouse with her older … Continue reading Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart →
Mild trigger warning for deeply negative, damaging descriptions of mental illness common during WWI. I love epistolary novels, especially those with a solid thread of romance, so Last Christmas in Paris was a hefty dose of my catnip. While I was entirely absorbed by this novel when I was reading it, I found the ending and the finale of the emotional journey way too rushed, and not as finely wrought as the first 85% of … Continue reading Last Christmas in Paris by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb →
When I saw that Lauren Willig was one of three authors of what was described as “a blend of romance, historical fiction and family saga,” I was like OMG PUT THAT IN MY HANDS RIGHT NOW. The Forgotten Room checks the box for all three categories, but unfortunately I found a lot of the tropes within the book to be tired and I struggled to really engage with the heroes. As family saga/ historical fiction … Continue reading The Forgotten Room by Karen White, Beatriz Williams and Lauren Willig →
Outcasts: A Novel of Mary Shelley is about three days in the life of Mary Shelley. I have a burning interest in the life of Mary Shelley, so I was both excited and poised to nitpick. I also should confess having a bias in favor of the author, Sarah Stegall, because we like to sit on panels together and scream about how much we hate Byron. As it turns out, I couldn’t find a damn … Continue reading Outcasts: A Novel of Mary Shelley by Sarah Stegall →
This is going to be a somewhat brief review. I have a longer and more in-depth review scheduled for elsewhere later in the week, and Carrie is working on reading this book as well. But A Study in Scarlet Women releases today and I couldn’t let the release go by without telling you HOW MUCH I ENJOYED IT OH MY GOSH. You might have heard my podcast interview with Sherry Thomas last week wherein she talked a … Continue reading A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas →
Help A Bitch Out - SOLVED!
We have something a little different this Sunday. Recently, we received an email from Diana about her recent love of fishing village settings. She remembers reading a particular series set in Nova Scotia, but can’t figure out the title or author, and she’d love to read some similar books. Maybe we can help her out, either by reuniting her with the series she loved or giving her some great recs: I’m completely stuck. I’m a … Continue reading A Rec League HaBO: Fishing Towns →
The Lake House by Kate Morton is part historical fiction, part gothic mystery and part family saga–which means it’s 100% Elyse-bait. The mystery that binds this book together involves the disappearance of an eleven-month-old baby, Theo Edevane, in 1933. The Edevanes were a prominent family in England, and they were hosting their annual Midsummer’s Night party at their summer home in Cornwall the night he vanished from his nursery. The book centers around three women: Alice … Continue reading The Lake House by Kate Morton →
Hope at Dawn by Stacy Henrie is $1.99 right now. This is the first book in Henrie’s Of Love and War series, which is set during WWI. The heroine teaches German-American students at a time when there is rampant and vicious prejudice against them. This book has a 4+ star average, and readers found it to be very moving, absorbing, and thoughtful.
The book also received a B grade as part of this year’s RITA® Reader Challenge. Tealadytoo wrote:
On the plus side, we have the very interesting background, and intriguing questions of what patriotism and loyalty really mean. We have a nicely developing relationship where the conflict starts out as a matter of trust and understanding (Is she just as bigoted as the other townsfolks? Is she being loyal to her family if she is kind to a non-combatant German when her brothers are fighting overseas, possibly even fighting relatives of his?) and then evolves to issues of whether it is safe to purse the relationship when a love affair between an American girl and a “Bosch” would inflame an already tense situation.
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RECOMMENDED: The Good Girl by Mary Kubica is $2.99 digitally. Elyse discussed this book in her recent post Good Girl, Gone Girl and Women in Psychological Thrillers. She wrote, “Parts of the novel takes place during the period of time of Mia’s disappearance and others take place after. The hook is that after her traumatic rescue, Mia cannot remember the months she spent with her abductor. I won’t ruin it for this audience, but the book is not the typical female-in-jeopardy situation.” So if you’re looking for thrillers, this might really work for you.
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The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo is 99c! This is a mixture of historical fiction, fantasy, and romance. The Ghost Bride has actually been recommended to me by so many friends that I had to take notice, though I haven’t had a chance to read it just yet. Readers can’t say enough good things about the setting and Chinese folklore, though some mention the book reads more like a young adult novel, which they weren’t really expecting. It has a 3.7-star rating on GR.
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Black Raven’s Lady by Kathleen Harrington is $1.99! This is the third and final book in the Highland Lairds Trilogy. The heroine boards a ship under “false pretenses” and at first, I was hoping these pretenses were that she was posing as a boy because I’m a sucker for that trope, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. While the book can be read as a standalone, many readers have said they enjoyed it more after reading the other two books in the trilogy. Is anyone else familiar with these books?
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