Muse of Maiden Lane

 

The Muse of Maiden Lane (The Belles of London #4)- Mimi Matthews

Berkeley/Penguin

Release Date: November 19, 2024

Rating: 📚📚📚📚

Synopsis:  Stella Hobhouse is a brilliant rider, stalwart friend, skilled sketch artist—and completely overlooked. Her outmodish gray hair makes her invisible to London society. Combined with her brother’s pious restrictions and her dwindling inheritance, Stella is on the verge of a lifetime marooned in Derbyshire as a spinster. Unless she does something drastic…like posing for a daring new style of portrait by the only man who’s ever really seen her. Aspiring painter Edward “Teddy” Hayes knows true beauty when he sees it. He would never ask Stella to risk her reputation as an artist’s model but in the five years since a virulent bout of scarlet fever left him partially paralyzed, Teddy has learned to heed good fortune when he finds it. He’ll do anything to persuade his muse to pose for him, even if he must offer her a marriage of convenience.   After all, though Teddy has yearned to trace Stella’s luminous beauty on canvas since their chance meeting, her heart is what he truly aches to capture….

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The final book in Mimi Matthews' Belles of London series features Stella Hobhouse, a brave rider and friend who knows if she doesn't marry soon she'll find herself buried in the quiet countryside forever. Thanks to her odd gray hair and lively personality, she's had more trouble than her friends when it comes to finding a suitor. Thinking if men could just look past her hair to her they might give her a chance, Stella decides to be daring and dye her hair while attending a houseparty with her friend Lady Anne, since noone else will know her there. 

Edward "Teddy" Hayes is a fustrated artist who briefly met his muse at a museum, only to lose her to his blunt speech. Now he's at a house party he doesn't want to attend and only knows his sister and brother-in-law. Deciding to spend most of his time painting and hiding away to avoid people and dealing with the annoyance of his wheelchair, he's as surprised as Stella when they meet again. 

Muse is a slow burn romance very different from what readers might generally expect- both from Matthews' normal books or traditional romance in general, but I thought it worked very well. At the heart of the story, both Stella and Teddy want independence. They want to discover who they are, what they are capable of in life. While they each start off thinking they need to chart their paths separately, by the end they've discovered that love can make them stronger together. Both have wanted to be truly seen for who they are and what they are capable of beyond their physical appearance- Stella's hair and Teddy's wheelchair. Even early on it is clear (to the reader anyway) that they see each other for who they are. The question is, how long will it take them to figure it out? The suggested marriage of convenience comes late in the book, which might annoy some people. After all, traditionally you have an early marriage of convenience and then love grows from that. But I enjoyed how Matthews played with the expectations and turned the idea into something new- rather like Teddy and his fellow painters were trying to do with what we now call Impressionist art!

One of my absolute favorite things in this book is how Teddy encourages Stella to be herself. Not to be small and quiet, but to be whatever she feels she is, because once they are married they only have to please themselves. That's the kind of support I want in a partner!

This is a story of two people finding their own way, discovering friendship and strengths within themselves that allow for a beautiful, trusting partnership of a loving marriage.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

The Eagle and the Hart

 

The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Hnry IV- Helen Castor

Penguin

Release Date: October 15, 2024

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Richard of Bordeaux and Henry of Bolingbroke, cousins born just three months apart, were ten years old when Richard became king of England. They were thirty-two when Henry deposed him and became king in his place. Now, the story behind one of the strangest and most fateful events in English history (and the inspiration behind Shakespeare’s most celebrated history plays) is brought to vivid life by the acclaimed author of Blood and Roses, Helen Castor. 

Richard had birthright on his side, and a profound belief in his own God-given majesty. But beyond that, he lacked all qualities of leadership. A narcissist who did not understand or accept the principles that underpinned his rule, he was neither a warrior defending his kingdom, nor a lawgiver whose justice protected his people. Instead, he declared that “his laws were in his own mouth,” and acted accordingly. He sought to define as treason any resistance to his will and recruited a private army loyal to himself rather than the realm—and he intended to destroy those who tried to restrain him. 

Henry was everything Richard was a leader who inspired both loyalty and friendship, a soldier and a chivalric hero, dutiful, responsible, principled. After years of tension and conflict, Richard banished him and seized his vast inheritance. Richard had been crowned a king but he had become a tyrant, and as a tyrant—ruling by arbitrary will rather than established law—he was deposed by his cousin Henry, the only possible candidate to take his place. Henry was welcomed as a liberator, a champion of the people against his predecessor’s paranoid despotism. But within months he too was facing rebellion. Men knew that a deposer could in turn be deposed, and the new king found himself buffeted by unrest and by chronic ill-health until he seemed a shadow of his former self, trapped by political uncertainty and troubled by these signs that God might not, after all, endorse his actions.

 Captivating, immersive, and highly relevant to today’s times, The Eagle and the Hart is a story about what happens when a ruler prioritizes power over the interests of his own people. When a ruler demands loyalty to himself as an individual, rather than duty to the established constitution, and when he seeks to reshape reality rather than concede the force of verifiable truths. Above all, it is a story about how a nation was brought to the brink of catastrophe and disintegration—and, in the end, how it was brought back.

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I knew the basics about King Richard II and Henry IV, but not much else before reading this book, and The Eagle and the Hart  did an amazing job of explaining the how, why, and who of what I knew, what I didn't know, and all the parts in between if the controversial rule of Richard II and his shocking deposition by Henry Bolingbroke (aka King Henry IV).

This is the first of Helen Castor's books that I've read and she dis an incredible job of breaking down the complicated facts of Richard's government, Parliament, and the rebellions, wars, laws, and everything else going on at the time to make the reader understand what was happening- both from Richard's point of view and everyone else's. She sets up what Richard does at a young age so you understand where he's going as he gets older and more capable of controling things himself. The small amount I'd read before on Richard II focused a lot on scholars debating what kind of mental illnesses he might have had. Castor doesn't do anything like that. She gives his story, how he grew up, what he does and lets you decide about him for yourself. The historical sources seem to suggest he was an incredibly immature, vain, egotistical man who felt all the power belonged with him and no one could tell him what to do. Which became a serious problem for much of England.

Henry gets less of the limelight until the later part of the book, but is equally interesting. I thought studying the two men together made the book really effective and memorable.

 This is the kind of well-researched, meaty book I love to read and will read multiple times, knowing I will get more out of it each time I read it (and hopefully retain more each time). Well written and  excellent for people who know little about the time period or are just looking for a new angle on a subject they already know about, The Eagle and The Hart is just the kind of fabulous work of history I enjoy.

Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective

 

The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective- Sara Lodge

Yale University Press

Release Date: November 5, 2024

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis:  From Wilkie Collins to the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the traditional image of the Victorian detective is male. Few people realise that women detectives successfully investigated Victorian Britain, working both with the police and for private agencies, which they sometimes managed themselves.

Sara Lodge recovers these forgotten women’s lives. She also reveals the sensational role played by the fantasy female detective in Victorian melodrama and popular fiction, enthralling a public who relished the spectacle of a cross-dressing, fist-swinging heroine who got the better of love rats, burglars, and murderers alike.
 
How did the morally ambiguous work of real women detectives, sometimes paid to betray their fellow women, compare with the exploits of their fictional counterparts, who always save the day? Lodge’s book takes us into the murky underworld of Victorian society on both sides of the Atlantic, revealing the female detective as both an unacknowledged labourer and a feminist icon.

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This was a fascinating book exploing the early days of women in the world of detective work- both in fiction and reality. Sara Lodge makes an impressive argument that women were involved in police work long before they 'officially' began being counted as police women, and it was these women who perhaps became the inspiration for the 'female detectives' of the early fictional stories.

Stories of female detectives were being sold by the 1860s, with the detectives donning disguises and blending into the background as servants to gather the proof needed to solve their cases because, the stories argued, it was easier for women to hide in plain sight than men. Often (possibly a case of wish fulfillment?) these fictional detectives were saving women from cruel husbands and bad marriages, accidental bigamy, or other abuses that they didn't see coming, but which the law couldn't protect them from. I loved how Lodge was able to find 19th century plays of female detectives where the women became early action heroes- beating the villanous men and police alike to save the day, with frequent disguises, cross-dressing, guns, and the physical ability to protect both themselves and their clients.

But as much as these heroines of the stage were looked up to, real life detectives occupied a murkier reality. As divorce became more common, many were involved in gathering evidence against spouses - and sometimes creating that evidence.  At a time when public and private spheres was undergoing a shift, the private detective's role itself was being defined, and the women in the profession tended to take the blame if things went wrong. 

Brilliantly researched and well-written, this is a book for any mystery lover to read. If you think the lady detective begins with Agatha Christie, think again!

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review 

The Northwomen

 

The Northwomen- Heather Pringle

National Geographic

Release Date: September 10, 2024

Rating: 📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Until Scandinavia converted to Christianity and came under the rule of powerful kings, the Vikings were a dominant force in the medieval world. Outfitted with wind-powered sailing ships, they left their mark, spreading terror across Europe, sacking cities, deposing kings, and ransacking entire economies. After the Vikings, the world was never the same.

But as much as we know about this celebrated culture, there is a large missing piece: its women. All but ignored by contemporary European writers, these shadowy figures were thought to have played little part in the famous feats of the Vikings, instead remaining at home as wives, mothers, and homemakers.

In this cutting-edge, revisionist portrait, renowned science journalist Heather Pringle turns those assumptions on their head, using the latest archaeological research and historical findings to reveal this group as they actually were. Members of a complex society rich in culture, courage, and a surprisingly modern gender ideology, the women of the Viking age were in fact forces to be reckoned with, serving as: Sorceresses, Warriors, Traders, Artisans, Explorers, Settlers, Landowners, Power brokers, Queens

Both ambitious and compelling, THE NORTHWOMEN is the true story of some of the most captivating figures of the Viking world—and what they reveal about the modern age.

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I'm always interested people who look at history and ask the question: where are the women? Obviously they were there, but women and their stories aren't recorded as often as men, and so are frequently overlooked and forgotten. 

In The Northwomen, journalist Heather Pringle searches for women in Viking world and talks to expert archaeologists who are looking at new (and old) evidence to rewrite what has been "established fact" for so long about the Viking world. 

Pringle does an amazing job here, helping to tell the stories that archaeologists are discovering in ways that laypeople can understand, bringing us into the world of explorers, traders, artisans, raiders, and sorceresses to think about how Viking women could have lived- and when (and if) they might have held power in that world.   

I loved how archaologically focused this book was, making the world very concrete and evidence based. One of my favorite chapters, surprisingly, was on weavers. Pringle interviewed people who have been studying and actually re-creating as much as possible the original Viking weaving methods, and used them to help make a woolen sail for a recreated Viking ship. The amount of work that went into the project and what they learned about the work the women would have done was amazing, and really captured me. There were even descriptions of woolen 'armor' that men would have worn when going into battle- in much of the world, not just among the Vikings! And all of it would have been created by women. 

Pringle doesn't try to completely rehabilitate the Vikings as a people, but recognizes the negative aspects of their society as well as the positive. She talks about them as a slave trading society (as were most societies of their day) and does a really interesting comparison to modern psychological studies in the slave trade to try to understand what it would have been like for women who were subjected to this. 

Overall, The Northwomen was a wonderfully written, well researched book that makes the latest archaeological research on women in the Viking world accessible to anyone who is interested in finding out about it. I definitely recommend this book!

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Haunted Ever After

 Haunted Ever After- Jen DeLuca

Berkley

Release Date: August 13, 2024

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Small Florida coastal towns often find themselves scrambling for the tourism dollars that the Orlando theme parks leave behind. And within the town limits of Boneyard Key, the residents decided long ago to lean into its ghostliness. Nick Royer, owner of the Hallowed Grounds coffee shop, embraces the ghost tourism that keeps the local economy afloat, as well as his spectral roommate. At least he doesn’t have to run air-conditioning. 

Cassie Rutherford possibly overreacted to all her friends getting married and having kids by leaving Orlando and buying a flipped historic cottage in Boneyard Key. Though there’s something unusual with her new home (her laptop won’t charge in any outlets, and the poetry magnets on her fridge definitely didn’t read “WRONG” and “MY HOUSE” when she put them up), she’s charmed by the colorful history surrounding her. And she's catching a certain vibe from the grumpy coffee shop owner whenever he slips her a free slice of banana bread along with her coffee order. 

As Nick takes her on a ghost tour, sharing town gossip that tourists don't get to hear, and they spend nights side-by-side looking into the former owners of her haunted cottage, their connection solidifies into something very real and enticing. But Cassie's worried she’s in too deep with this whole (haunted) home ownership thing… and Nick's afraid to get too close in case Cassie gets scared away for good.

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When Cassie decides to leave Orlando and buy her own house after years of rentals, a historic cottage in the costal town of Boneyard Key seems like a great idea. Granted, the town leans a little hard on the touristy haunted vibe, but as a Florida native, she understands how tourist dollars make decisions. Things get a little weird when her laptop refuses to charge- even though other electronics are just fine- meaning she has to go down the street to the local coffee shop to get any work done. The bright side of that is the coffee and banana bread are great and the shop owner may be a little phone obsessed and rough around the edges, but he's pretty cute too. When the magnetic poetry words on her fridge start moving without her help and coffee shop owner Nick confirms that the haunted vibe is more than just a tourist thing, Cassie has to question whether she's cut out for living in Boneyard Key. 

I absolutely love Jen DeLuca's Well Met series (Renaissance Faire romcom!) so as soon as she announced she was doing a new book (beach town ghosts) I was there. And Haunted Ever After doesn't disappoint. Cassie is a big city girl trying to start a new chapter in a tiny town and has more to get used to than learning that you can only get pizza delivery on days when the owner feels like working. DeLuca made her someone I could connect to and like right away, and I was pulling for her to make the adjustments she needed to make to handle living in a permanently haunted town.

Cassie's chemistry with Nick was there from the beginning, and he was a fun person to introduce us to the town. The only one in his family to love Boneyard Key, poor Nick has some abandonement issues to work through, which might be why his closest friend is a texting ghost. On the surface he seems to roll with everything life hands his way, but he isn't fooling anyone- except maybe himself. He settles for casual because he's afraid to get close to anyone. Is Cassie going to be the next person to disappoint him, or be the one he can risk it all for?

Jen DeLuca's relaxed and humorous writing style, witty character banter, and delightful characters all stand out in Haunted Ever After. The quirky small town of Boneyard Key is a character all its own and I'm hoping for several more books to take place here so I don't have to leave it any time soon. 

A definite must read for Jen DeLuca fans and all romcom fans!

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party

 

Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party: How an Eccentric Group of Victorians Discovered Prehistoric Creatures & Accidentally Upended the World- Edward Dolnick

Scribner

Rating: 📚📚

Synopsis: In the early 1800s the world was a safe and cozy place. But then a twelve-year-old farm boy in Massachusetts stumbled upon a row of fossilized three-toed footprints the size of dinner plates—the first dinosaur tracks ever found. Soon, in England, Victorians unearthed enormous bones—bones that reached as high as a man’s head. 

Outside of myths and fairy tales, no one had imagined that creatures like three-toed giants once lumbered across the land. And if anyone conjured up such a scene, they would never imagine that all those animals could have vanished hundreds of millions years ago. The thought of sudden, arbitrary disappearance from life was unnerving and forced the Victorians to rethink everything they knew about the world. Celebrated storyteller and historian Edward Dolnick leads readers through a compelling true adventure as the paleontologists of the first half of the 19th century puzzled their way through the fossil record to create the story of dinosaurs we know today.

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If you're looking for a carefully explained, well-thoughtout, and logical, chronological explanation of how the Victorians accidentally created paleontology, discovered dinosaurs, and rethought everything they knew about the world- this is not that book.

If you're just interested enough in the idea of discovering dinosaurs where the world had never acknowledged them before, and wondering how Victorian science dealt with that, where any book is a good starter, then Dolnick is probably as good a start as any.

I am by no means an expert on dinosaurs. But I'm a huge reader of everything related to Victorian history and hadn't come across a book devoted to describing the fossil craze of the Victorian period and how it changed the scientific thought process. So the title hooked me. From Mary Anning to William Buckland to Richard Owen, this book introduces you to the English (and one or two French) who thrilled in hunting fossils or those happier in museums trying to understand fossils. It explains the original Victorian view that nature, science, and religion all fit happily together. Fossils and the startling idea of dinosaurs began to erode those views, despite how hard a few clung to them. Before Darwin threw his new explanation of evolution onto the scene, people were already prepared for the change in thinking he was suggesting.

My problem wasn't the more simplistic approach Dolnick took in his explanations or way of writing. Everyone has their own style and the reader can get used to it if the story is good. Or the number of times he would lament about how if only those early scientists had had access to the kinds of equipment etc. that modern scientists have. Which seemed like kind of the point to me. When you're discovering something, you work with what you have. It was the unbelieveable amount of repetition in the book. Read a chapter and then had to take a break for a few days? No problem, you could read the next one and not have missed anything. Different words, saying exactly the same thing. It was like he couldn't figure out what version of a chapter he liked better, so he just left them all in. Occasionally new things would come in, a new person would be introduced, etc. Then they would get the same repeat treatment, hammering away at the reader until I had to skim sections to be able to move forward at all. By the time we got to the famous dinner party in the Crystal Palace dinosaur statues I was pretty numb to all of it.  

Overall, a fantastic idea for a research idea and book, very poorly and repetitiously executed. Definitely made me not want to pick up another book by this author, but did make me interested enough to look through his biblioghraphy to see if anyone had done a better job of writing on the subject.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review 

Primal Mirror

 

Primal Mirror (Psy/Changeling Trinity #8)- Nalini Sigh

Berkley

Release Date: July 25, 2024

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Daughter of two ruthless high-Gradient telepaths, Auden Scott is not the child her Psy parents wanted or expected, even before her brain injury. Her thoughts are scattered, her memories fuzzy—or just terrifyingly blank. The only thing she knows for certain is that she must protect her unborn baby . . . a baby she has no recollection of conceiving and who draws an unnerving depth of interest from her dead mother’s closest associates.

Leopard alpha Remi Denier is a man driven by the primal instinct to protect. Protect his pack, protect his allies . . . and protect the mysterious woman who has become a most unlikely neighbor. With eerie eyes that see too much and a scent that alters in ways disturbing and impossible, Auden Scott is the enemy . . . but nothing about this strange Psy is what it seems, and Remi’s feline heart is as fascinated by her as his human half.

Then Auden asks Remi to help her shatter the wall of secrets that is the Scott bloodline. What they unearth will reveal a nightmare beyond imagination. This time, the battle is to the death. . . .

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Leopard alpha Remi Denier is building a new pack in the Smoky Mountain area of the United States. They may be allies to Arrows and larger packs, but they themselves are small and fly under the radar. Until the day Auden Scott moves into a small cabin at the edge of their territory. The daughter of two powerful and ruthless former Councilors, no one in the PsyNet has ever heard of her. A woman with an impossibly changing scent, Auden is both an enemy and someone Remi wants very much to get to know better. Especially when she comes to him for help: her home isn't safe, and people are much more interested in her unborn child than they should be. Can he protect them when Auden herself may be one of the threats?

Primal Mirror is a tough book to review without giving away spoilers. Nalini Sigh does her usual wonderful job of world building, giving us the large view of a failing PsyNet and the people we know from other books trying to save the Net and prevent what would basically be the death of the Psy race; and the personal story of Auden and Remi. Both have their own damaged pasts to overcome. Remi is working on building a new pack and proving to himself that he is capable of being the good alpha that everyone else knows is he. Auden has the bigger baggage, which includes us getting to learn about a new designation of Psy: psychometrics. Learning about objects by touching them sounds great, until you really think about it, and it doesn't take long into this book before that sounds like the last 'gift' you'd want!

Remi and Auden are great together, and I loved meeting a new pack- with definite hints that we might get to follow some of these members in the future. There are a few guys here crying out for mates so hopefully Singh will set them up in future books. The way Singh wove the stories of the big picture PsyNet and the smaller romance together I thought worked really well, and reminds us that everyone has an important part to play in the world. 

Some of the bigger picture PsyNet story will help if you've read some of Singh's earlier books, at least Obsidian Heart if not also the earlier Psy/Changeling Trinity books like Resonance Surge. I recommend reading them anyway because they are awesome (I'm a huge fan of all Singh's Psy/Changeling series if you can't tell). If you can't wait and have to start with this book, just accept the fact that there's backstory- you'll get the gist of it enough to follow along, and it won't effect Remi and Auden's main story.

Nalini Singh fans will love the newest addition to her Psy/Changeling world. I'm already set to read it again and can't wait for the next book!

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Daughter of Fair Verona

Daughter of Fair Verona- Christina Dodd

Release Date: June 25, 2024

Rating: 📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Once upon a time a young couple met and fell in love. You probably know that story, and how it ended ( badly). Only here’s the That’s not how it ended at all.

Romeo and Juliet are alive and well and the parents of seven kids. I’m the oldest, with the emphasis on ‘old’—a certified spinster at twenty, and happy to stay that way. It’s not easy to keep your taste for romance with parents like mine. Picture it—constant monologues, passionate declarations, fighting, making up, making out . . . it’s exhausting.

Each time they’ve presented me with a betrothal, I’ve set out to find the groom-to-be a more suitable bride. After all, someone sensible needs to stay home and manage this household. But their latest match, Duke Stephano, isn’t so easy to palm off on anyone else. The debaucher has had three previous wives—all of whom met unfortunate ends. Conscience forbids me from consigning another woman to that fate. As it turns out, I don’t have to . . .

At our betrothal ball—where, quite by accident, I meet a beautiful young man who makes me wonder if perhaps there is something to love at first sight—I stumble upon Duke Stephano with a dagger in his chest. But who killed him? His late wives’ families, his relatives, his mistress, his servants—half of Verona had motive. And when everyone around the Duke begins dying, disappearing, or descending into madness, I know I must uncover the killer . . . before death lies on me like an untimely frost.

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 If Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet didn't end in death, what would have happened? The "happily ever after" everyone wanted. Then 20 years later, we would get The Daughter of Fair Verona. Romeo and Juliet now have 6 kids and another on the way. The oldest, Rosaline (call me Rosie) is practical, hates poetry, and has managed to get out of her previous betrothals by matchmaking the men with women they were better suited for. She's smart, can do math, studies alchemy with the Friar who married her parents and promises he doesn't make those pesky sleep-like-death potions anymore. But when Duke Stephano insists on a betrothal, Romeo can't say no and Rosie doesn't know how to get out of it. It's rumored the man has murdered each of his three wives, no one likes him, so what is Rosie to do?

Nothing as it turns out. He's found dead at their engagement party, a knife in his chest. Which would be great, especially since Rosie meets a guy she's sure is her True Love the same day. But people start thinking she's the one who killed the Duke. More bodies follow and Rosie, her Nurse (who's gotten a lot tougher since her days trying to keep Juliet in line) and Prince Escalus need to find out who is killing people before Rosie is attacked by a mob- or gets killed herself. Rosie wants to be able to marry her love Lysander and not get killed, Prince Escalus really doesn't want a mob in his city, and Nurse was hoping at some point her job would involve less drama. Will anyone get their wish?

This was a fun rom-com historical mystery. Rosie's description of what actually happened to her parents instead of Shakespeare's version in the first few pages will have you laughing out loud (you've been warned!). Rosie herself is a delightful mix of snarky humor, self-awareness, and Montague temper that sometimes overrides good sense. And while she may be a good matchmaker for others, let's just say I saw what was coming her way by the time they'd hauled the first dead body out while she didn't figure it out until the surprise scene at the end. Everyone has blind spots for themselves I guess. 

Solving the murder was a fun combination of Rosie, Nurse, Prince Escalus, Lysander, Friar Laurent, and others each combining knowledge and clues. What was kind of fun was even when you had a good suspicion of who did it, you still didn't know who did it or why until the end, even though all the clues were there for you. 

I enjoyed how Christina Dodd played with the world and the characters, allowing Rosie's parents or the Nurse to be blind to something until Rosie realizes they are just pretending to not see it. Romeo teaches all his children sword skills and Juliet pretends not to know until she gets mad at him and then says he better make sure to step up the secret training- and Romeo and the kids realize they aren't as sneaky as they thought they were! There are beautiful descriptions of what it would be like to walk down the streets, what you'd see and smell and experience, that I loved. The foods and wines leap off the pages in wonderful descriptions.

The one thing that took a little getting used to was the odd combination of more 'historic' speech with very modern language. I'm still not sure how I feel about that. I'm glad the whole book didn't go for a 'Shakespeare' feel to the language, since that would have slowed the pacing and this worked really well as a fast paced romantic comedy. The older' language tended to stay in more 'formal' situations, which worked, but sometimes it inched out into others, which didn't. The more modern language mostly stayed in casual interactions, which worked, or when Rosie is talking to us as a narrator, which worked, but then sometimes bled over into other situations, where it didn't.  That's the reason I'd give the book an actual rating of 3.5.

Overall a fun read. Fast and humorous, with entertaining nods to Shakespeare if you look but nothing that won't ruin things if you aren't a big Shakespeare fan. Definitely note- this is book one of a series. The mystery gets solved, but there will be further adventures to look forward to!

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Tangled Up In You

 

Tangled Up In You- Christina Lauren

Hyperion Ave

Release Date: June 25, 2024

Rated: 📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: She has a dream. He has a plan. Together they’ll take a leap of faith. 

Ren has never held an iPhone, googled the answer to a question, or followed a crush on social media. What she has done: Read a book or two, or three (okay, hundreds). Taught herself to paint. Built a working wind power system from scratch. But for all the books she’s read, Ren has never found one that’s taught a woman raised on a homestead and off the grid for most of her twenty-two years how to live in the real world. So when she finally achieves her lifelong dream of attending Corona College, it feels like her life is finally beginning. 

Fitz has the rest of his life mapped out: Graduate from Corona at the top of his class, get his criminal record wiped clean, and pass himself off as the rich, handsome player everyone thinks he is. He’s a few short months from checking off step one of his plans when Ren Gylden, with her cascading blonde hair and encyclopedic brain, crashes into his life, and for the first time Fitz’s plan is in jeopardy. 

But a simple assignment in their immunology seminar changes the course of both their lives, and suddenly they’re thrown out of the frying pan and into the fire on a road trip that will lead them in the most unexpected directions. Out on the open road, the world somehow shifts, and the unlikely pair realize that, maybe, the key to the dreams they've both been chasing have been sitting next to them the whole time.

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In a departure from their normal books, Christina Lauren does Tangled Up In You, a contemporary riff on Disney's Tangled, a retelling of the Rapunzel fairy tale. Here Ren is a 22 year-old going to college for the first time. She's lived off the grid her whole life, her parents always keeping her on the farm and isolated from the big, bad world with its evil influences. But they relucantly allow college when Ren gets a full scholarship and Ren's horizons start expanding. She's brilliant but naive, friendly, outgoing, impulsive- kind of like a golden retriever puppy. She wants to experience all college life has to offer, so when her immunology professor gives the class the option to take a DNA test, she does- even knowing her parents wouldn't approve. When it comes back with a match, she has questions and knows her parents won't answer them. So she convinces Fitz to drive her to Atlanta so she can get the answers she needs.

Fitz took a little warming up to, mostly because you know from nearly the start that he isn't who he pretends to be, but you can't quite figure him out. On the road trip I really started to like him because despite how annoying Ren could be, he really started to get why she was the way she was and he couldn't bring himself to deny her the full road trip experience. It was kind of cute watching him try to figure out how to deal with the changing feelings he had over the course of the trip, and his total confusion.

The book is a slower pace than most of Christina Lauren's books, sometimes almost too slow, until the very end when everythig speeds up to the conclusion. There's almost no spicy scenes in the book, Fitz and Ren fall for each other slowly and sweetly. Readers will probably see the twists for the ending coming even if they haven't seen Tangled (have to admit, I haven't) and I thought it was handled very well. 

Regular fans will find this one a change from their normal books, but give it a try. Slow for large parts but I thought the feels at the end paid off. And the grumpy/sunshine vibes through the whole book are delightful

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Paradise Problem

 

The Paradise Problem- Christina Lauren

Gallery Books

Release Date: May 14, 2024

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Anna Green thought she was marrying Liam “West” Weston for access to subsidized family housing while at UCLA. She also thought she’d signed divorce papers when the graduation caps were tossed, and they both went on their merry ways.

Three years later, Anna is a starving artist living paycheck to paycheck while West is a Stanford professor. He may be one of four heirs to the Weston Foods conglomerate, but he has little interest in working for the heartless corporation his family built from the ground up. He is interested, however, in his one-hundred-million-dollar inheritance. There’s just one catch.

Due to an antiquated clause in his grandfather’s will, Liam won’t see a penny until he’s been happily married for five years. Just when Liam thinks he’s in the home stretch, pressure mounts from his family to see this mysterious spouse, and he has no choice but to turn to the one person he’s afraid to introduce to his one-percenter parents—his unpolished, not-so-ex-wife.

But in the presence of his family, Liam’s fears quickly shift from whether the feisty, foul-mouthed, paint-splattered Anna can play the part to whether the toxic world of wealth will corrupt someone as pure of heart as his surprisingly grounded and loyal wife. Liam will have to ask himself if the price tag on his flimsy cover story is worth losing true love that sprouted from a lie.

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If you took Christina Lauren's The Unhoneymooners, Samantha Young's The Love Plot, and mixed in Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians series, you'd get a feel for the vibes of The Paradise Problem. In all the best ways. 

Broke students Anna Green and Liam "West" Weston made the unusual choice to get married in order to make it into subsidized family housing while they were in UCLA- despite not knowing each other. They were ships passing in the night during college and Anna thought she'd signed divorce papers when West graduated. He went on to be a Stanford professor, she went on to be a starving artist trying to pay her bills (and her father's medical bills) paycheck to paycheck. 

After getting fired by her sexually harassing 18 year old creeper boss, Anna finds out some surprising truths. She's still legally married to West, and he isn't as broke as she thought. He's heir to a fortune and part of a highly toxic family. Now he needs her help: his sister is getting married and he needs to show up- with his wife.

Anna is a loyal and loving person. She may be an artist and highly creative (and super fun!), but she's also practical. She loves her dad and knows that helping West will get her the money to pay her dad's bills. Plus, she likes West and he's clearly miserable and needs the help. She knows there are plenty of things that could go wrong, but agrees anyway. The more time she spends with West, the more she likes him-and feels sorry for him. The crazy excess of the wedding and West's (mostly) awful family show her money really doesn't buy happiness- or love. 

West has made up plenty of reasons why his family have never met Anna and lots of lies about her to make her 'fit' an image his parents might accept. He's terrified they'll be found out and knows it is all his fault. He has lots of legitimate reasons for not wanting anything to do with his family (especially his father!) and Christina Lauren does a good job of letting us discover new ones throughout the book. You feel the weight of his troubles on him, even before you know what they all are. I loved how Anna supported him, and was so sad for West that it confused him because he'd never just had someone on his side before. 

The Paradise Problem is a fast paced, fun and flirty, enjoyable, and entertaining book that I didn't want to put down. Anna and West have great chemistry that they try to ignore (and are much happier when they stop ignoring!) and they may be my new favorite Christina Lauren couple. 

This is a definite must read for Christina Lauren fans and romance fans!

I received an arc of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

   

Author Interview: Lancy McCall

 I recently got to talk with Lancy McCall, author of Left Turn, about her book and her writing process. Here’s our interview!

 

Lancy McCall

Left Turn follows Alex Tanner, a corporate rising star who meets and falls for Scottish actor Finley McAlister, a celebrity looking to escape the spotlight. What inspired your story? 

I used to travel to and from England on business. When they adapted the Outlander books for TV, I thought, “What would happen if I got on the plane home from London and Sam Heughan sat next to me? What would he say? What would I say?” From there, it just bloomed into this story of a professional woman bumping into a celebrity who changes her life.

 

Alex and Fin live in very different worlds but find common ground. What inspired their characters' interactions and backstories?

Alex’s world came easily to me as we share a common background. I worked for years in her industry and experienced the same things she’s been through.

For Finley, I’ve always enjoyed listening to celebrity interviews where they talk about their craft. Their dedication to acting shaped how I thought Fin would view his world. And I’ve always sympathized with those chased by the paparazzi and the disruption to their lives this must cause.

 

Do you carefully plot out every scene in your books or see where the characters take you? What’s your writing process?

My characters often come to me first. Often, a scene will pop into my head and I wonder about it. What’s going on here? How did they get here? Where did they come from? What’s going to happen next? From there, I flesh out a story about what’s happening to these people and how they will react.

I am an outliner, but it’s a loose outline subject to change. It’s more like a GPS route… I know my destination, and a few stops we’re making along the way, but while I’m driving, I may take an unexpected detour. Then I need to “recalculate the route” and figure out how to get back on track to that final destination.

 

What kind of research do you do and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?

As a project manager, I live in this strange world where you must be comfortable moving from the high-level overview down into the details. As a writer, I find it’s the same. You need to keep your eye on the bigger arc and where the story’s going, while also giving enough details to bring that world or those characters to life. When I start a story, there are obvious details I know I’m going to need to research to round out my characters. For example, for Left Turn, I knew ahead of time, I would need to know how movie stars are paid. But once I started writing, I realized I also needed to research how celebrities stay under the radar while traveling. Much of my research occurs while I’m writing, because I want the story to be believable, and if I don’t understand how something happens, how will my readers?

 

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

It’s always amazed me how people perceive the world so differently. I think it’s important to understand that each individual defines success as unique to them, and what you see on the outside doesn’t always reflect how people feel on the inside. Along those same lines, how people measure their success changes as their priorities in life change.

 

Another important concept I wanted to convey is the bias that women encounter in the corporate world. Sometimes it’s in your face and hard to miss, but usually, it’s so subtle, you don’t realize it’s happening until you have distance from it.

And the last theme I wanted to explore was the effect of all the attention we give to celebrities and how destructive it can be. 

 

Is this the first book in the series? If so, when is the next book coming out and what can your fans expect in the next story?

Left Turn is the first book in the Women of Caprock series. This series features interconnected stand-alone novels, each centering on strong women, their careers, and the relationships in their lives.

 

The next book in the series, Code Block, features Claire Broussard, an application developer who’s trying to find her place in a new company and finding her progress consistently blocked by the grumpy operations manager, Noah Raines.

 

Left Turn just became a Literary Titan’s Book Award Winner! Find out more about Lancy McCall and Left Turn at Lancy’s website.