2016 Book #82 – I Take You by Eliza Kennedy

Posted in Book reviews, Fiction by rebeccabook17

Title: I Take You
Author: Eliza Kennedy
Date finished: 9/3/16
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Crown
Publication Date: May 5, 2015
Pages in book: 305
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: Library Thing NOTE: I received this book for free from Library Thing in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

Meet Lily Wilder: New Yorker, lawyer extraordinaire, blushing bride. And totally incapable of being faithful to one man.
Lily’s fiancé Will is a brilliant, handsome archaeologist. Lily is sassy, impulsive, fond of a good drink (or five) and has no business getting married. Lily likes Will, but does she love him? Will loves Lily, but does he know her? As the wedding approaches, Lily’s nights—and mornings, and afternoons—of booze, laughter and questionable decisions become a growing reminder that the happiest day of her life might turn out to be her worst mistake yet.
Unapologetically sexy with the ribald humor of Bridesmaids, this joyously provocative debut introduces a self-assured protagonist you won’t soon forget.

My rating: 3.75 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book is about Lily Wilder and her upcoming wedding to fiance Will. We first meet Lily as she is out with her bridesmaids partying it up. She gets called into work while she is drunk and high, and she goes in and ends up having sex with her boss. Shocker! Bigger shocker, this is not the first time she’s cheated. Lily is a lawyer, not that this is specifically relevant to her having sex with her boss, just relevant to the overall plot. Lily is getting married very soon in her hometown of Key West, FL, but finds out while she’s down there to get married she also has to prepare a witness to be deposed as part of a multi-billion dollar case her firm is defending for their client, EnerGreen. Also once she gets down there she is bombarded by her parents with demands that she reconsider such a hasty marriage. Oh and don’t forget the family drama, what with her mom, two of her three step-moms, and her Dad all in one place. And as they get closer to the wedding date, Lily starts to realize that she doesn’t know Will as well as she thought.
Overall I really liked this book a lot. Lily overall was a really interesting character, she is significantly flawed and yet the reader can’t help but find her endearing. She is hilarious, and when paired with her friend Freddy I swear I couldn’t stop laughing. Lily gets in over her head with pretty much everything while in Key West, her personal life and her work life both included. We watch as she valiantly struggles to right herself after a couple tumbles, and although we as the reader have seen all her flaws, we also end up rooting for her to triumph in the end!

The bottom line: I liked this book a lot, it was hilarious at many points and I found myself continually laughing out loud. I found the ending to be a little unconventional/unpredictable. The book was funny and held my interest though, I would definitely recommend!

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

29Aug2016

2016 Book #81 – Circling the Sun by Paula McLain

Posted in Book Clubs, Book reviews, Fiction, Historical fiction, Online Book Clubs by rebeccabook17

Title: Circling the Sun
Author: Paula McLain
Date finished: 8/29/16
Genre: Historical fiction
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: May 31, 2016 (Paperback)
Pages in book: 400
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: BookBrowse NOTE:I received this book for free from BookBrowse in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

Paula McLain, author of the phenomenal bestseller The Paris Wife, now returns with her keenly anticipated new novel, transporting readers to colonial Kenya in the 1920s. Circling the Sun brings to life a fearless and captivating woman—Beryl Markham, a record-setting aviator caught up in a passionate love triangle with safari hunter Denys Finch Hatton and Karen Blixen, who as Isak Dinesen wrote the classic memoir Out of Africa.
Brought to Kenya from England as a child and then abandoned by her mother, Beryl is raised by both her father and the native Kipsigis tribe who share his estate. Her unconventional upbringing transforms Beryl into a bold young woman with a fierce love of all things wild and an inherent understanding of nature’s delicate balance. But even the wild child must grow up, and when everything Beryl knows and trusts dissolves, she is catapulted into a string of disastrous relationships.
Beryl forges her own path as a horse trainer, and her uncommon style attracts the eye of the Happy Valley set, a decadent, bohemian community of European expats who also live and love by their own set of rules. But it’s the ruggedly charismatic Denys Finch Hatton who ultimately helps Beryl navigate the uncharted territory of her own heart. The intensity of their love reveals Beryl’s truest self and her fate: to fly.
Set against the majestic landscape of early-twentieth-century Africa, McLain’s powerful tale reveals the extraordinary adventures of a woman before her time, the exhilaration of freedom and its cost, and the tenacity of the human spirit.

My rating: 4.75 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. I received this book from Book Browse in order to participate in an online book discussion on the book. If you’ve read it please come join the discussion! This book is about Beryl Clutterbuck, who later became Beryl Purves and then Beryl Markham. This book’s story is inspired by the true story of Beryl Markham, famous aviator, with some fictionalizing. In the book (and some of this stays true to her real life story), Beryl was brought to Africa with her family at a young age, but left alone there with her father when her mother decided to move back to England. Her father is not an overly sentimental man and does the best he can in raising her, though in doing so he makes her a more wild woman than society is used to seeing. Trying to curb that in her early teens, he sent her away to school but she rebelled until she was returned to the home that she loved. The book follows Beryl’s life through her childhood, teens, and eventually into her adulthood. She marries multiple times, has a handful of affairs, and also blazes down any open trail without any trace of fear. Many times in the story she is set back to where she began career-wise and has to start from scratch. She does it though, again and again, always wanting to be successful and most important, to do what she loves. For most of the book this means training horses but eventually it encompasses flying as well.
Overall I just loved this book. Beryl’s character was rough but it had a vulnerable side that made her so easy to related to. I loved her fearlessness and how accomplished she was. She never let anything beat her down, she managed to turn her career around time and time again with nothing but her friends’ support and her own hard work. The other characters in the book were entirely engaging and the story line was so interesting, I didn’t want to put the book down for fear that I would miss something. McLain’s descriptions of the African terrain was just amazing, I felt transported just through reading her words, as if I was actually in Africa standing by Beryl’s side through the story. And I love the way McLain writes and how much emotions were put into the story, I could feel them coming off the pages and it was just wonderful. This one is a must read, I would most definitely recommend it.

The bottom line: I just loved this book. It was extremely engaging and amazingly transporting. I felt like I was there in Africa beside Beryl throughout the whole story. The story line was interesting, I just couldn’t put this one down. I would definitely recommend!

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

21Aug2016

2016 Book #77 – The Form of Things Unknown by Robin Bridges

Posted in 2016, ARC August 2016, Book reviews, Reading Challenges, Young Adult by rebeccabook17

Title: The Form of Things Unknown
Author: Robin Bridges
Date finished: 8/18/16
Genre: Young adult
Publisher: Kensington
Publication Date: August 30, 2016
Pages in book: 304
Stand alone or series: Connected to previous publication, Dreaming of Antigone
Where I got the book from: Author/publisher NOTE: I received this book for free from the Author/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

Natalie Roman isn’t much for the spotlight. But performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream in a stately old theatre in Savannah, Georgia, beats sitting alone replaying mistakes made in Athens. Fairy queens and magic on stage, maybe a few scary stories backstage. And no one in the cast knows her backstory.
Except for Lucas—he was in the psych ward, too. He won’t even meet her eye. But Nat doesn’t need him. She’s making friends with girls, girls who like horror movies and Ouija boards, who can hide their liquor in Coke bottles and laugh at the theater’s ghosts. Natalie can keep up. She can adapt. And if she skips her meds once or twice so they don’t interfere with her partying, it won’t be a problem. She just needs to keep her wits about her.

My rating: 3.75 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book will count towards my ARC August 2016 Reading Challenge. This book tells the story of Natalie Roman, who has recently moved with her family to Savannah to take care of her grandmother, a once stable woman who has recently decided to stop taking her prescription medication to treat her schizophrenia. Natalie herself was somewhat glad to move since all the kids at her new school won’t know that she recently spent some time in a psych ward. So Natalie begins her new life in Savannah and makes new friends. But she’s worried about what will happen when her new friends find out that she’s not quite sane. And there seems to be a good chance they’ll find out since one of the guys in Savannah spent time in the same psych ward as Natalie.
Overall I liked this book. I liked Natalie for the most part, although I thought she became a tad bit whiny at times. I think that those scenes were supposed to underscore her extreme insecurities but it made it hard for me to connect with the character. And while overall I liked the plot line, the premise behind some of it didn’t really make sense. Like why would Natalie’s parents put her in a psych ward after one drug-induced psychotic episode, when her only other history was that her grandmother also has schizophrenia. I feel like Natalie should have shown more of a psychotic pattern before being hospitalized? Other than that is was a cute and sweet story about second chances and learning to appreciate who you are and I thought it was nice that Natalie found someone that she cares about. I would recommend.

The bottom line: I liked this book, though not as much as I liked Dreaming of Antigone. I had more trouble connecting to Natalie’s character. I still think the author did a great job of dealing with common teen issues in this book though: bullying, insecurities, drugs, alcohol and mental illness. A good read and I would recommend it.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

21Aug2016

2016 Book #74 – The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

Posted in Book Clubs, Book reviews, Fiction, Terryville - Fiction Lovers by rebeccabook17

Title: The Rosie Project
Author: Graeme Simsion
Date finished: 8/14/16
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: June 3, 2014
Pages in book: 295
Stand alone or series: There is a sequel to this, The Rosie Effect
Where I got the book from: Purchased (I believe from Book Outlet)

Blurb from the cover:

The art of love is never a science: Meet Don Tillman, a brilliant yet socially inept professor of genetics, who’s decided it’s time he found a wife. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which Don approaches all things, he designs the Wife Project to find his perfect partner: a sixteen-page, scientifically valid survey to filter out the drinkers, the smokers, the late arrivers.
Rosie Jarman possesses all these qualities. Don easily disqualifies her as a candidate for The Wife Project (even if she is “quite intelligent for a barmaid”). But Don is intrigued by Rosie’s own quest to identify her biological father. When an unlikely relationship develops as they collaborate on The Father Project, Don is forced to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie―and the realization that, despite your best scientific efforts, you don’t find love, it finds you.

My rating: 4.5 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I read this book for the Terryville Library’s Fiction Lover’s Book Discussion group discussion for this month (August). This book follows a part in the life of Don Tillman, a genetics professor who has recently decided to try and find a wife to share his life with. Since Don is not skilled at social interaction (he is autistic), he decides to use a questionnaire to help him weed out any unsuitable candidates. The double sided 16 page questionnaire covers many topics, including mathematics, daily habits and personal interest. Rosie Jarman is definitely not what Don would call a suitable candidate: a barmaid, a smoker, and a woman currently experiencing many emotional issues. She is everything Don is trying to avoid in his search fora wife. But while he is helping her with a genetics project, he finds himself drawn to her personality on a number of occasions. But can he convince her to love him for who he is, eccentricities and all?
Overall I really greatly enjoyed this book. Don as a character was witty, charming, and entirely captivating. I loved the intricacies of Don’s character and how truthfully he was presented as an autistic lead role. It was really interesting to see how his character progressed through the story and how his relationship with Rosie changed his outlook on many different aspects of his life. The antics he gets into throughout the book due to his different mental abilities are hilarious. I loved this book and I can’t wait to read the sequel.

The bottom line: I loved this book from beginning to end. Don was an entertaining and endearing character and I found his antics very humorous. I can’t wait to read the sequel, The Rosie Effect. An excellent and engaging read, I would most definitely recommend!

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

10Aug2016

2016 Book #73 – Results May Vary by Bethany Chase BLOG TOUR

Posted in 2016, ARC August 2016, Blog tour, Book reviews, Fiction, Reading Challenges, Women's fiction by rebeccabook17

Title: Results May Vary
Author: Bethany Chase
Date finished: 8/9/16
Genre: Fiction, women’s fiction
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: August 9, 2016
Pages in book: 352
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: NetGalley NOTE:I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

Can you ever really know the person you love?
She never saw it coming. Without even a shiver of suspicion to warn her, art curator Caroline Hammond discovers that her husband is having an affair with a man—a revelation that forces her to question their entire history together, from their early days as high school sweethearts through their ten years as a happily married couple. In her now upside-down world, Caroline begins envisioning her life without the relationship that has defined it: the loneliness of being an “I” instead of a “we”; the rekindled yet tenuous closeness with her younger sister; and the unexpected—and potentially disastrous—attraction she can’t get off her mind. Caroline always thought she knew her own love story, but as her husband’s other secrets emerge, she must decide whether that story’s ending will mean forgiving the man she’s loved for half her life, or facing her future without him.
Compassionate and uplifting, Results May Vary is a bittersweet celebration of the heart’s ability to turn unexpected troubles into extraordinary strength.

ResultsMayVary_Ecard_2b

My rating: 4.75 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book will count for my ARC August reading challenge for this month. This book is about Caroline Hammond, whose life up until we meet her could be described as ideal. She has a husband who worships her, a beautiful home in a town she loves, and a fulfilling job as curator at a museum, MASS MoCA (real place). Her life seems to shatter though when she discovers (accidentally) that her husband has been having an affair. With a man. Having had no inkling that her husband was attracted to men, or a lying jerk either, she calls into question everything she thought she knew about the man she’s been with for 17 years (half her life). This book is really about Caroline’s journey on the road to forgiveness and independence, as she discovers what may become of her marriage and what may become of her future.
Overall I really just loved this book. Caroline as a character was easy to relate to and interesting to talk to. Honestly one of my favorite things about her was that her sister could tell she was drinking when she started to talk more formally, I think I’m going to start doing that from now on because it is too funny! As a reader I was drawn into the story right from page one and just could not put this book down. The author really paints such a vivid picture for the reader, I would look up from reading and not have any idea where I was. The author was extremely talented at giving descriptions of the backdrop and Caroline’s internal monologue without being too wordy. And I really loved how Caroline talked about art and the museum, it was inspiring to see how passionate she was about her job and about art overall. This book deals with a lot of ups and downs for each of the characters as they make their way through the story, including devastating blows to the heart and to the ego. It was amazing the wealth of emotions that the author was able to draw out of me as I read this book: frustration, anger, love, and eventually forgiveness. The plot was riveting and really had some great plot twists to keep the reader engaged. I think that this is one of my favorite books of the year so far, I would definitely recommend reading this one!

The bottom line: This book was awesome, the author really taps into the emotions of the reader and makes the story come alive. I would look up from reading and not know where I was. Story was heart-wrenching and touching, with some good twists in the plot to keep the reader on their toes. I would definitely recommend!

ResultsMayVary_Ecard_6b

ADDITIONAL CONTENT!!!

As part of the blog tour I was given access to some additional content from the author, Bethany Chase. Since I’m a New England girl through and through her narrative on why she picked the Berkshires for the setting to this book really spoke to me. I’d like to share this with you readers as well!

The Setting: Why Bethany chose the Berkshires for Results May Vary

I set Results May Vary in the Berkshires because, like Caroline, I went to college at Williams and fell in love with the region. It reminds me a little bit of the Virginia Blue Ridge where I grew up—I am a mountain girl, through and through—but it has its own flavor, which is very much a New England one. It has beautiful old 18^th-century houses, and a winding river or two, and maple trees everywhere that really do turn just the most outrageous colors of coral and red and gold in October.

The area is an interesting cultural hotspot—in Williamstown itself you have not just the college but also the world-class Clark Art Institute (I debated long and hard between having Caroline be a curator at the Clark vs MASS MoCA, but went with the latter in the end because it suited the plot better), and the Williamstown Theater Festival. Nearby you have the Tanglewood concert series, the beautiful Hancock Shaker Village, and then of course MASS MoCA, which is not just one of the largest contemporary art museums in the country but also a multi-disciplinary facility that hosts music, dance and theater as well as visual art. North Adams is interesting because it is a former industrial town that has been in a resurgence for the last 15 years or so, which is very intentionally led by the museum. One of the reasons I think the region is so great is that it has the beauty and charm of a small town, rural environment, yet packs this amazing cultural punch that far exceeds what you might expect from its population.

And, of course, it is beautiful. Those leaves! Those mountains! Those velvety white snowstorms, and the way they make you hunker down inside in front of a roaring fire. And then the spring that slinks slowly over the landscape, apologizing for the months that preceded it, until it bursts into the full green roar of May. I hope everyone gets to experience the Berkshires in their lives, not just in one season but in all of them.

ResultsMayVary_Ecard_1b

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

25Jul2016

ARC August 2016 Reading Challenge Sign Up

Posted in 2016, ARC August 2016, For the love of books, Reading Challenges by rebeccabook17

Woot! ARC August is here again, and honestly it couldn’t have come at a more perfect time. I fell WAY behind in June and July so I have accumulated an ARC backlog of 28 books from those two months. Plus the 12 ARC’s I’m scheduled to read in August gets us to a grand total of 40 ARC’s to read this month. Ha, no way will I be able to read 40 books in a month, but I’m still really glad to be participating in ARC August again this year to try and decrease my backlog a little bit at least. For those of you that don’t know, ARC August is a month-long reading challenge hosted by Read.Sleep.Repeat. and the only participation requirement is reading ARC’s! I participated in this reading challenge last year and it worked out really well for me, I hope to be super productive with this challenge this year since I have so much to read! Plus in a beyond perfect twist of events I will on an island for a week in August with no wi-fi and no cell service and no electricity! What else is there to do but read!

So here is the list I’m going to be working off of for this year’s challenge (more or less):

-The Secret Ingredient of Wishes by Susan Elizabeth Crispell
-Results May Vary by Bethany Chase
-Sting by Sandra Brown
-The Form of Things Unknown by Robin Bridges
-Quarter Life Poetry by Samantha Jayne
-Behave by Andromeda Romano-Lax
-Thirty Days to Thirty by Courtney Psak
-All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda
-Dear Amy by Helen Callaghan
-The Killing Game by Nancy Bush
-Luck, Love, and Lemon Pie by Amy E. Reichert
-The Singles Game by Lauren Weisberger
-If You Left by Ashley Prentice Norton
-All Is Not Forgotten by Wendy Walker
-To Have and To Hold by Laura McHugh
-The Book That Matters Most by Ann Hood
-My Husband’s Son by Deborah O’Connor
-First Comes Love by Emily Giffin
-Stormswept by Sabrina Jeffries
-Once a Soldier by Mary Jo Putney

Obviously I don’t expect to read through 20 books in one month but this will give me a little wiggle room to pick what I want to read as I go rather than being stuck with a set schedule. Happy reading everyone!

5Jul2016

2016 Book #67 – How The Duke Was Won by Lenora Bell

Posted in Book reviews, For the love of books, Historical Romance by rebeccabook17

Title: How the Duke Was Won
Author: Lenora Bell
Date finished: 7/5/16
Genre: Historical romance
Publisher: Avon
Publication Date: April 26, 2016
Pages in book: 384
Stand alone or series: #1 in the Disgraceful Dukes series
Where I got the book from: The Reading Room NOTE:I received this book for free from The Reading Room in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

The pleasure of your company is requested at Warbury Park. Four lovely ladies will arrive… but only one can become a duchess.
James, the scandalously uncivilized Duke of Harland, requires a bride with a spotless reputation for a strictly business arrangement. Lust is prohibited and love is out of the question.
Four ladies. Three days. What could go wrong?
She is not like the others…
Charlene Beckett, the unacknowledged daughter of an earl and a courtesan, has just been offered a life-altering fortune to pose as her half-sister, Lady Dorothea, and win the duke’s proposal. All she must do is:
* Be the perfect English rose [Ha!]
* Breathe, smile, and curtsy in impossibly tight gowns [blast Lady Dorothea’s sylph-like figure]
* Charm and seduce a wild duke [without appearing to try]
* Keep said duke far, far from her heart [no matter how tempting]
When secrets are revealed and passion overwhelms, James must decide if the last lady he should want is really everything he needs. And Charlene must decide if the promise of a new life is worth risking everything . . . including her heart.

My rating: 4.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book tells the story of James, who has returned home as the Duke that he never expected to be. Following the death of both his father and only brother though, he is forced to become responsible for an estate that he didn’t ever think of as his. In order to make sure that his lineage continues, he has to get married and beget an heir, and fast. So he decides to invite 4 eligible ladies over to his country estate and spend time with them to decide which one he should marry. Unfortunately for Lady Dorothea though, who is currently returning from Italy, she won’t be able to attend the competition. That is unless she has a half-sister that could pass for her twin, which oh hey guess she has one of those. Charlene Beckett is Dorothea’s half-sister and agrees to masquerade as Dorothea at the competition in exchange for certain monetary payments. Charlene has her reasons for agreeing to this arrangement, not the least of which is that she wants to arrange for her younger sister to have formal training for her painting talents.
Overall, I liked this book a lot. According to the author website this was her first book and I thought it was really great for a debut novel! It was romantic and sweet and heart-wrenching. It had a Cinderella-like feel to it which I really liked. The characters in this book were all witty and interesting and very funny and I didn’t want to put the book down. I am really looking forward to the next book in the series, If I Only Had a Duke, coming out in late August.

The bottom line: I really enjoyed this book. It was a quick read and was well-paced and interesting throughout. It was very romantic and somewhat of a Cinderella story, which I loved. I would definitely recommend.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

27Jun2016

2016 Book #64 – Beauty and the Highland Beast by Lecia Cornwall

Posted in 2016, Blog tour, Book reviews, Historical Romance, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2016 checklist, Reading Challenges by rebeccabook17

Title: Beauty and the Highland Beast
Author: Lecia Cornwall
Date finished: 6/26/16
Genre: Historical romance
Publisher: Swerve
Publication Date: June 21, 2016
Pages in book: 273
Stand alone or series: #1 in the Highland Fairy Tales series
Where I got the book from: NetGalley NOTE:I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

Powerful and dangerous highlander Dair Sinclair was once the favored son of his clan, The Sinclairs of Carraig Brigh. With Dair at the helm, Sinclair ships circled the globe bringing home incredible fortune. Until one deadly mission when Dair is captured, tortured and is unable to save his young cousin. He returns home breaking under the weight of his guilt and becomes known as the Madman of Carraig Brigh.
When a pagan healer predicts that only a virgin bride can heal his son’s body and mind, Dair’s father sets off to find the perfect wife for his son. At the castle of the fearsome McLeods, he meets lovely and kind Fia MacLeod.
Although Dair does his best to frighten Fia, she sees the man underneath the damage and uses her charm and special gifts to heal his mind and heart. Will Dair let Fia love him or is he cursed with madness forever?

My rating: 4.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. Also, this book will count towards my “PopSugar 2016 Checklist” reading challenge, marking off the “a book based on a fairy tale” since this book is based around the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale. This book tells the story of Dair Sinclair and Fia MacLeod. Dair’s father is desperate to save him from the madness that has consumed him since watching his cousin’s brutal murder. When an old midwife prophesizes that a virgin will save Dair, his father goes off in search of one. He finds one, but crippled and scarred Fia is not what anyone expects that Dair needs. As Dair and Fia spend more time together though, Dair does in fact feel himself pulling back from the brink of insanity and instead spending more and more time thinking about this girl his father brought home that he wants nothing to do with.
Overall I really liked this book. I thought the author did a really good job of inciting that mass hysteria mentality within the Sinclair clan. I was definitely scared for Fia’s life at a number of points in the story. This story definitely kept me on my toes, the plot line was fast paced and I was interested throughout the book. The story line was appropriately romantic and also thrilling. What happened to Dair’s cousin was definitely awful and tragic though and I definitely felt sadness throughout the story over the tragic events that led to the story’s beginning. I think this was a really good book though and I am looking forward to reading the next book in the series, When A Laird Finds A Lass.

The bottom line: I really enjoyed this book. It was a quick read and was well-paced and interesting throughout. It was scary and thrilling and romantic, pretty much everything you could want from a Highlanders novel. I would definitely recommend.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

10Jun2016

2016 Book #60 – The Wedding Sisters by Jamie Brenner

Posted in Book reviews, Fiction, Women's fiction by rebeccabook17

Title: The Wedding Sisters
Author: Jamie Brenner
Date finished: 6/9/16
Genre: Fiction, women’s fiction
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Publication Date: June 7, 2016
Pages in book: 317
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: NetGalley NOTE:I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

Meryl Becker is living a mother’s dream. The oldest of her three beautiful daughters, Meg, is engaged to a wonderful man from one of the country’s most prominent families. Of course, Meryl wants to give Meg the perfect wedding. Who wouldn’t? But when her two younger daughters, Amy and Jo, also become engaged to celebrated bachelors, Meryl has to admit that three weddings is more than she and her husband, Hugh, can realistically afford.
The solution? A triple wedding! At first, it’s a tough sell to the girls, and juggling three sets of future in-laws is a logistical nightmare. But when Hugh loses his teaching job, and Meryl’s aging mother suddenly moves in with them, a triple wedding is the only way to get all three sisters down the aisle. When the grand plan becomes public, the onslaught of media attention adds to Meryl’s mounting pressure. Suddenly, appearances are everything – and she will do whatever it takes to keep the wedding on track as money gets tight, her mother starts acting nutty, and her own thirty year marriage starts to unravel.
In the weeks leading up to the nuptials, secrets are revealed, passions ignite, and surprising revelations show Meryl and her daughters the true meaning of love, marriage and family. Jamie Brenner’s The Wedding Sisters invites readers to the most unpredictable wedding of the year.

My rating: 4.5 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book tells the story of Meryl Becker, along with her husband and their three daughters: Meg, Amy, and Jo. Hugh has always had a keen interest in Louisa May Alcott, and had even written a book chronicling the life of the author’s mother, which was published when he first met Meryl. Meg Amy, and Jo are all grown up now, and through an interesting series of events all three sisters find themselves engaged within a couple months of each other. And when Hugh loses his job, Meryl realizes the only way they could possibly afford to marry off all three daughters within a year is to have all three weddings at the same time. And thus the idea of a triple wedding was born. And due to the fact that all three daughters are marrying what can only be described as “well-off” men, once the media gets wind of the triple wedding the press circus begins. As the wedding looms closer though, each sister starts to see cracks in their relationships that weren’t there before.
Overall I really enjoyed this book so much. It was tension and drama filled, it was fast-paced and I just didn’t want to put it down. I thought the book really did a great job of examining multiple types of relationships: mother and daughter, husband and wife, sister and (other) sister, and also friendship and new love. It was interesting to hear the sisters three very different stories. And the ending was heart warming and inspiring. There was a lot going on in this book between all the characters’ separate dramas but the author combined the stories flawlessly and I thought the story line flowed very well. I would highly recommend this book, this is one of summer’s must reads!

The bottom line: I immensely enjoyed this book. It was tension and drama filled and kept me interested through the whole story. I also liked the view this book gave on a number of different relationship categories. Very interesting and exciting read, I think this is a great summer read! I would definitely recommend.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

30May2016

2016 Book #53 – Sweetest Scoundrel by Elizabeth Hoyt

Posted in Book reviews, Book series, Historical Romance, Maiden Lane series by rebeccabook17

Title: Sweetest Scoundrel
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt
Date finished: 5/27/16
Genre: Historical romance
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Publication Date: November 24, 2015
Pages in book: 328
Stand alone or series: #9 in the Maiden Lane series
Where I got the book from: Purchased

Blurb from the cover:

SHE’S TAKING CHARGE
Prim, proper, and thrifty, Eve Dinwoody is all business when it comes to protecting her brother’s investment. But when she agrees to control the purse strings of London’s premier pleasure garden, Harte’s Folly, she finds herself butting heads with an infuriating scoundrel who can’t be controlled.
HE’S RUNNING THE SHOW
Bawdy and bold, Asa Makepeace doesn’t have time for a penny-pinching prude like Eve. As the garden’s larger-than-life owner, he’s already dealing with self-centered sopranos and temperamental tenors. He’s not about to let an aristocratic woman boss him around . . . no matter how enticing she is.
BUT LOVE CONQUERS ALL
In spite of her lack of theatrical experience-and her fiery clashes with Asa-Eve is determined to turn Harte’s Folly into a smashing success. But the harder she tries to manage the stubborn rake, the harder it is to ignore his seductive charm and raw magnetism. There’s no denying the smoldering fire between them-and trying to put it out would be the greatest folly of all . . .

My rating: 4.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I hadn’t read this book yet even though it was released last year, and this is one of the series that I usually try to stay up to date on. But I was approved for the next book in the Maiden Lane series on NetGalley so I decided to catch up before reading the newest release, out this next Tuesday May 31^st! This book is about Eve Dinwoody, sister to the wicked Duke of Montgomery. The Duke of Montgomery has been a semi-villanous character in the last few novels in the series, though he doesn’t really seem truly evil. His actions towards his half-sister show that the Duke of Montgomery is in fact soft-hearted. Eve is acting as her brother’s “man-of-business” while he’s exiled to the Continent. Because of this, she is put in direct contact with Asa Makepeace, also known as Mr. Harte and the owner of Harte’s Folly, a theatre and pleasure gardens. At first meeting, Asa doesn’t find Eve appealing at all but the more he gets to know her, the more he falls for her.
Overall I liked this book a lot. When Asa was first introduced, I didn’t think there was going to be any way he could redeem himself as a character. I was pleasantly surprised in that I actually enjoyed his surly attitude by the end of the book and found his personality endearing. And Eve as a heroine was wonderful, she inspires empathy from the reader but at the same time we’re not encouraged to pity her since she really is a strong person. You can feel the tension between Eve and Asa coming off the pages and there are some pretty steamy scenes between these two. And I thought it was great that a lot of the characters from previous books were brought back in this book for a variety of scenes. I think that this book did a really great job of setting the stage for the next book, The Duke of Sin, which features the awful Duke of Montgomery. I find that to be a prevailing characteristic in some of Hoyt’s novels in that the heroes aren’t always a paragon of gentlemanly ways and honor. They’re a little crude and rough around the edges but she still gets you to fall for them all the same. There aren’t many authors who attempt that, let alone succeed so continuously. I’m looking forward to the next book, which by the time I post this I’ll have already read!

The bottom line: This was a good book and a great addition to the series. Hoyt does a great job of making the heroes rough around the edges but also endearing. I would definitely recommend this one!

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page