2015 Book #27 – The Vintner’s Daughter by Kristen Harnisch

Posted in #ReadingMyLibrary Reading Challenge, 2015, Book reviews, Fiction, Historical fiction, Reading Challenges by rebeccabook17

Title: The Vintner’s Daughter
Author: Kristen Harnisch
Date finished: 4/5/15
Genre: Historical romance
Publisher: She Writes Press
Publication Date: August 15, 2014
Pages in book: 355
Stand alone or series: Rumored to be the first of a future series on winemaking through the centuries

Blurb from the cover:

Loire Valley, 1895. When seventeen-year-old Sara Thibault’s father is killed in a mudslide, her mother sells their vineyard to a rival family whose eldest son marries Sara’s sister, Lydia. But a violent tragedy compels Sara and her sister to flee to New York, forcing Sara to put aside her dream to follow in her father’s footsteps as a master winemaker. Meanwhile, Philippe Lemieux has arrived in California with the ambition of owning the largest vineyard in Napa by 1900. When he receives word of his brother’s death in France, he resolves to bring the killer to justice. Sara has travelled to California in hopes of making her own way in the winemaking world. When she encounters Philippe in a Napa vineyard, they are instantly drawn to one another, but Sara knows he is the one man who could return her family’s vineyard to her, or send her straight to the guillotine. This riveting tale of betrayal, retribution, love, and redemption, Kristen Harnisch’s debut novel immerses readers in the rich vineyard culture of both the Old and New Worlds, the burgeoning cities of late nineteenth-century America and a spirited heroine’s fight to determine her destiny.

My rating: 4.75 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will count for the challenge I am participating in for April, the #ReadingMyLibrary reading challenge. I saw this book at the Bristol Library and thought it might be interesting. I have found over the past few years that I have a fascination with wine, I have taken a number classes to learn more about the different kinds of grapes and the winemaking process. So I picked this book up due to it being about wine. It turned out to be just fantastic. It was very well-paced, I can honestly day I wasn’t bored once. It had everything you could like in a novel; murder, love, family, death, new birth. This book is rumored to be the first in a series about winemaking throughout the last century, and I honestly just can not wait for this author to publish her next novel. This book was so good, I was hooked on the story pretty much from the beginning and I couldn’t let go. The characters came alive for me and I would get so engrossed in the story that I would have trouble dragging my mind back to reality. The descriptions of the rolling hillsides of Napa as well as the description of the Saint Martin vineyard in France (Loire Valley) was just beautiful. Very good novel.

The bottom line: LOVED this book! Love love love, can’t wait for her to publish her next one. I can not say enough good things about this book.

Link to author website
Link to Amazon

31Mar2015

2015 Book #25 – I Loved a Rogue by Katharine Ashe

Posted in 2015, Book reviews, Book series, Historical Romance, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2015 checklist, Prince Catchers, Reading Challenges by rebeccabook17

Title: I Loved a Rogue
Author: Katharine Ashe
Date finished: 3/30/15
Genre: Historical romance
Publisher: Avon
Publication Date: February 24, 2015
Pages in book: 365
Stand alone or series: Prince Catchers series #3

Blurb from the cover:

In the third in Katharine Ashe’s Prince Catchers series, the eldest of three very different sisters must fulfill a prophecy to discover their birthright. But if Eleanor is destined to marry a prince, why can’t she resist the scoundrel who seduced her?She can pour tea, manage a household, and sew a modest gown. In short, Eleanor Caulfield is the perfect vicar’s daughter. Yet there was a time when she’d risked everything for a black-eyed gypsy who left her brokenhearted. Now he stands before her—dark, virile, and ready to escort her on a journey to find the truth about her heritage.
Leaving eleven years ago should have given Taliesin freedom. Instead he’s returned to Eleanor, determined to have her all to himself, tempting her with kisses and promising her a passion she’s so long denied herself. But if he was infatuated before, he’s utterly unprepared for what will happen when Eleanor decides to abandon convention—and truly live . . .

My rating: 3.75 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will be counting towards my goal for the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2015 checklist under the “a book set in a different country” check box. This is the third book in a series about three sisters who have no idea who their real mother and father are. Since Arabella (I Married the Duke) and Ravenna (I Adored a Lord) are both married and preoccupied now, Eleanor has been asked to take up the lead on the investigation into how the three girls ended up on a boat with just their nanny so many years ago. Arabella asks an old family friend, Taliesin, to help Eleanor on the journey. I liked Eleanor’s character alot too, she was a fairly strong character and held her own. But the drugging scene was so awful I could barely read it.

I was hooked on the story, I couldn’t put the book down. I liked this book much better than the first two in the series. That being said, I was disappointed with the ending and with how many inconsistencies there were in the story. After being drugged and not eating for like two weeks she’s able to recover enough in a few days to travel, that I can understand, but then to have sex like 4 times in one night? Seriously? That seemed a bit, well, not do-able. And the same with the previous two books in the series, I felt as if the book alternated between sections that were too fast and too slow parts. And I didn’t feel like the ending fit with the story, it just made me feel weird.

The bottom line: This was a good ending to the series, and while there were some holes and I didn’t love the end, I thought it was a good book and I would likely recommend it.

Author website
Link to Amazon

5Feb2015

2015 Book #10 – Dare Me by Megan Abbott

Posted in Book reviews, Bookish Bingo: Jan-March 2015, Reading Challenges, Young Adult by rebeccabook17

First of all, I’d like to announce that today is the one year anniversary of the RebeccaBookReview blog! Thank you to all of my readers and followers. The past year has been full of exciting twists and turns, and I am looking forward to growing even more with my blog in the coming year.

Title: Dare Me
Author: Megan Abbott
Date finished: 2/5/15
Genre: Weird thriller? Maybe YA?
Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books
Publication Date: July 31, 2012
Pages in book: 290
Stand alone or series: Stand alone

Blurb from the cover:

Addy Hanlon has always been Beth Cassidy’s best friend and trusted lieutenant. Beth calls the shots and Addy carries them out, a long-established order of things that has brought them to the pinnacle of their high-school careers. Now they’re seniors who rule the intensely competitive cheer squad, feared and followed by the other girls — until the young new coach arrives.
Cool and commanding, an emissary from the adult world just beyond their reach, Coach Colette French draws Addy and the other cheerleaders into her life. Only Beth, unsettled by the new regime, remains outside Coach’s golden circle, waging a subtle but vicious campaign to regain her position as “top girl” — both with the team and with Addy herself.
Then a suicide focuses a police investigation on Coach and her squad. After the first wave of shock and grief, Addy tries to uncover the truth behind the death — and learns that the boundary between loyalty and love can be dangerous terrain.
The raw passions of girlhood are brought to life in this taut, unflinching exploration of friendship, ambition, and power. Award-winning novelist Megan Abbott, writing with what Tom Perrotta has hailed as “total authority and an almost desperate intensity,” provides a harrowing glimpse into the dark heart of the all-American girl.

My rating: 2.75 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will count towards my “Bookish Bingo” reading challenge, marking off the “Forgotten Friday” square. The Forgotten Friday category is from the Bookish Bingo site, they read books that were published over a year ago that they never got around to reading. You can see their post on the book here.
Honestly, this book was weird. I read through the posting on the Bookish Bingo site and I have to agree with Lyn when she said “F*** this book.” I felt like I was lost through the whole book, the story line was scattered and the plot twists didn’t really make any sense and nothing was connected. Around halfway through the story I did become interested in the outcome. There were parts of the book that made me like the overall story, in kind of a train wreck sort of way. You know, you know you shouldn’t look and that what’s going on shouldn’t be “interesting” but you can’t seem to look away. The relationships in this book (all of them) were extremely screwed up and unhealthy. There was not one healthy relationship in the entire book. How awful is that. Addy and Beth’s relationship (though way more screwed up) did remind me a tiny bit of Rachel and Darcy’s relationship from Something Borrowed.
I did find certain pieces of this book interesting. Like how the girls in the cheerleading squad became almost like women warriors. The book was dark and kind of scary and scrapes at you in a way. Beth should probably be under some kind of psych evaluation.
If you’re interested, the Reading Guide for this book can be found here. Reading these questions made me like the book a little more because I could see more where the author was trying to go with the story line of the book.

The bottom line: I don’t think I would recommend this book. I was riveted by the middle but overall I can’t in good conscience say I liked the book. It might make a good book for a book club accompanied with the reading guide though.

Author website: http://www.meganabbott.com/
Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Dare-Me-Novel-Megan-Abbott/dp/0316097772/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1423177442&sr=8-1

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16Sep2014

2014 – Book #83

Posted in Book reviews, Fiction by rebeccabook17

The eighty-third book I read in 2014 was The Glass Kitchen by Linda Francis Lee. I finished this book on 9/16/14. I rated this book 4.5 stars out of a scale of 5. This book is about Portia Cuthcart, who discovers she has “the knowing” when she is still only a small child. “The knowing” is a form of future-telling through food that has run in her family for generations. Portia hopes to learn what this gift means through the help of her grandmother, but as the years pass her grandmother doesn’t end up directly teaching her anything about their shared gift. Portia seems to figure most things out on her own though, and muddles through until her fiance tells her that he needs her to give up “the knowing” and be normal. Soon after, her grandmother dies in a very odd way and Portia blames herself, so she shuts herself off from “the knowing” for three long years.

When her husband divorces her because he got her supposedly best friend pregnant though, Portia flees to New York City and it is there that she discovers herself again. She becomes infatuated with her upstairs neighbor, Gabriel, and though she keeps telling herself not to, she can’t help but become involved in his life and his two girls’. Things start sliding downhill though when Portia and her sisters try to open a trial restaurant in Portia’s apartment. And all the while Ariel (one of the daughters) is trying to do a school report on her family and is uncovering some troubling secrets. She’s also trying to cope with the trauma of watching her mother die in a car crash, while also dealing with her fear of becoming invisible herself.

Overall, this was just such a great book. It was touching, emotional, funny, heart-wrenching, and riveting all at once. Though I thought that the bad guys could’ve gotten a harsher punishment, the happy ending was for the most part exactly what I wanted it to be. And I loved the depth of the characters in the story, they came alive to me. This was the first book I’ve read by this author, I’ll definitely have to check out some of her other books!

Link to author website: http://www.lindaleebooks.com/

Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Glass-Kitchen-Novel-Sisters/dp/0312382278/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410907140&sr=8-1&keywords=the+glass+kitchen

23Jul2014

2014 – Book #59

Posted in Book reviews, Book series, Cynster family series, Historical Romance by rebeccabook17

The fifty-ninth book I read in 2014 was The Taming of Ryder Cavanaugh by Stephanie Laurens. I finished this book on 7/22/14. This is the second book in the Cynster Duo and the twentieth book in the Cynster family series. The Cynster Duo is actually a sub-series within the Cynster family series. I have read other books in the Cynster series and have many other blog posts on them (see link below). I rated this book 3.5 stars out of a scale of 5. This book tells the story of Mary Cynster and Ryder Cavanaugh.

Mary Cynster is the last unwed Cynster of her generation and as such is a great catch. The last available Cynster of her generation, she pretty much has her pick of who she’d like to marry. And her pick is not Ryder Cavanuagh, who annoys her and who she believes would be a dictator-like husband. The hilarious twists of fate though bring them together and Mary realizes that her and Ryder would actually suit, their strong personalities melding to form a powerful force.

Ryder has been looking for a woman to share his life with, a woman who will bring the broken pieces of his family together. And he knows that Mary Cynster, with her extended family and their obvious familial bond, is just the woman to help him accomplish that. But when an unknown villain starts threatening Mary’s life, Ryder knows he must do whatever it takes to save the woman he is falling in love with.

Overall this book was good and was an interesting addition to the series. Honestly as this point it is starting to get hard to get all the branches and members of the family straight because there are just so many of them. This book ends with all the Cynsters and connections gathering for a summer family picnic and the author spends like 3 pages alone just listing out all the children and who belongs to who and what not. It just gets to be a bit long. Otherwise is a good book and I look forward to hopefully seeing more books about the “Next Generation” of Cynsters from this author. Currently only one on the drawing board per her website is an in between book about the tutors of 2 of the Cynster Next Generation. I want to see Lucilla’s (future Lady of the Vale’s) story though.

Link to other reviews in the Cynster family series: https://rebeccabookreview.wordpress.com/category/book-reviews/book-series-book-reviews/cynster-family-series/

Link to author website: http://www.stephanielaurens.com/

Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Taming-Ryder-Cavanaugh-Cynster-Sisters/dp/0062068652/ref=tmm_mmp_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1406125599&sr=8-1