Blog Tour Review: The Illusionist's Apprentice by Kristy Cambron

From the Back Cover:

Harry Houdini’s one-time apprentice holds fantastic secrets about the greatest illusionist in the world. But someone wants to claim them . . . or silence her before she can reveal them on her own.

Boston, 1926. Jenny “Wren” Lockhart is a bold eccentric—even for a female vaudevillian. As notorious for her inherited wealth and gentleman’s dress as she is for her unsavory upbringing in the back halls of a vaudeville theater, Wren lives in a world that challenges all manner of conventions.

In the months following Houdini’s death, Wren is drawn into a web of mystery surrounding a spiritualist by the name of Horace Stapleton, a man defamed by Houdini’s ardent debunking of fraudulent mystics in the years leading up to his death. But in a public illusion that goes terribly wrong, one man is dead and another stands charged with his murder. Though he’s known as one of her teacher’s greatest critics, Wren must decide to become the one thing she never wanted to be: Stapleton’s defender.

Forced to team up with the newly formed FBI, Wren races against time and an unknown enemy, all to prove the innocence of a hated man. In a world of illusion, of the vaudeville halls that showcase the flamboyant and the strange, Wren’s carefully constructed world threatens to collapse around her. Layered with mystery, illusion, and the artistry of the Jazz Age’s bygone vaudeville era, The Illusionist’s Apprentice is a journey through love and loss and the underpinnings of faith on each life’s stage.

My Thoughts:

I have long been wanting to read one of Kristy Cambron's novels, and I even have The Butterfly and the Violin on my tablet, I just haven't had time to catch up on the thousands of ebooks I've acquired. (Maybe because I keep acquiring more? But that's a topic for another post!) So I jumped at the chance to review The Illusionist's Apprentice. And I have very mixed feelings about it. I'm going to skip the plot recap since this is a mystery and I don't want to risk giving anything away. And the blurb does a good job of telling you what the story is about. So I'm just going to tell you what I think. And what I think is that this story had a lot of potential, but it just didn't take full advantage of all it had to offer.

Mailbox Monday: December 26

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. (Library books don’t count, but eBooks & audiobooks do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles, and humongous wish lists!

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia @ A Girl and Her Books, is on a blog tour! Next month's host: At Home with Books.

This is my second December hosting Mailbox Monday, and I love that it coincides with my favorite time of the year! Fa la la la la . . .

Hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!

Last week's Mailbox Monday giveaway winner was Ryan @ Wordsmithonia

I received three for review last week:

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . .

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

Joanna Stafford, a Dominican nun, learns that her favorite cousin has been condemned by Henry VIII to be burned at the stake. Defying the sacred rule of enclosure, Joanna leaves the priory to stand at her cousin’s side. Arrested for interfering with the king’s justice, Joanna, along with her father, is sent to the Tower of London.

The ruthless Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, takes terrifying steps to force Joanna to agree to spy for him: to save her father’s life she must find an ancient relic—a crown so powerful, it may hold the ability to end the Reformation. Accompanied by two monks, Joanna returns home to Dartford Priory and searches in secret for this long-lost piece of history worn by the Saxon King Athelstan in 937 during the historic battle that first united Britain.

But Dartford Priory has become a dangerous place, and when more than one dead body is uncovered, Joanna departs with a sensitive young monk, Brother Edmund, to search elsewhere for the legendary crown. From royal castles with tapestry-filled rooms to Stonehenge to Malmesbury Abbey, the final resting place of King Athelstan, Joanna and Brother Edmund must hurry to find the crown if they want to keep Joanna’s father alive. At Malmesbury, secrets of the crown are revealed that bring to light the fates of the Black Prince, Richard the Lionhearted, and Katherine of Aragon’s first husband, Arthur. The crown’s intensity and strength are beyond the earthly realm and it must not fall into the wrong hands.

With Cromwell’s troops threatening to shutter her priory, bright and bold Joanna must now decide who she can trust with the secret of the crown so that she may save herself, her family, and her sacred way of life.

He never saw her coming…

Spencer Lark already knows too many secrets about Arizona Storm, including the nightmare she survived and her resulting trust issues. But in order to expose a smuggling ring—and continue avenging his own tragic past—the bounty hunter reluctantly agrees to make Arizona a decoy. Yet nothing has equipped him for her hypnotic blend of fragility and bravery, or for the protective instincts she stirs in him.

Arizona wants to reclaim her life, which means acting as bait to lure the enemy into a trap. Sure it's dangerous, especially with a partner as distractingly appealing as Spencer. But as their plan—and their chemistry—shifts into high gear, Arizona may discover there's an even greater risk in surrendering her heart to a hero…

And I received four books from my wishlist for Christmas!

(Click the pics to read their descriptions)

   

That's it for me!

Have you read any of these books?

Thank you for joining me this month!

Mailbox Monday: December 19

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. (Library books don’t count, but eBooks & audiobooks do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles, and humongous wish lists!

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia @ A Girl and Her Books, is on a blog tour! Next month's host: At Home with Books.

This is my second December hosting Mailbox Monday, and I love that it coincides with my favorite time of the year! Fa la la la la . . .

I've got the Christmas spirit and December is going to be full of giveaways, including one just for Mailbox Monday participants! If you've shared your Mailbox Monday post on Mr. Linky this week, leave a comment on this post and you'll be entered to win a book of your choice ($15 or less) from Barnes & Noble (U.S. residents) or The Book Depository (International residents). The Linky will be live until the following Monday when a new MM post goes up. Thanks for joining me this month!

Last week's winner is . . .

Anne @ The Book Garden

So, I didn't actually get any books last week, but I'm posting this one in anticipation of it's arrival later this week. I hope to have a few to put in my Mailbox the day after Christmas :)

The Merchant's Daughter from Amazon Vine. Supposed to be a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. An unthinkable danger. An unexpected choice.Annabel, once the daughter of a wealthy merchant, is trapped in indentured servitude to Lord Ranulf, a recluse who is rumored to be both terrifying and beastly. Her circumstances are made even worse by the proximity of Lord Ranulf's bailiff---a revolting man who has made unwelcome advances on Annabel in the past.

Believing that life in a nunnery is the best way to escape the escalation of the bailiff's vile behavior and to preserve the faith that sustains her, Annabel is surprised to discover a sense of security and joy in her encounters with Lord Ranulf. As Annabel struggles to confront her feelings, she is involved in a situation that could place Ranulf in grave danger. Ranulf's future, and possibly his heart, may rest in her hands, and Annabel must decide whether to follow the plans she has cherished or the calling God has placed on her heart.

That's it for me!

Please share your Mailbox through Mr. Linky, and don't forget to leave a comment to be eligible for the giveaway!

Dec. 11: Mailbox Monday: December 12

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. (Library books don’t count, but eBooks & audiobooks do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles, and humongous wish lists!

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia @ A Girl and Her Books, is on a blog tour! Next month's host: At Home with Books.

This is my second December hosting Mailbox Monday, and I love that it coincides with my favorite time of the year! Fa la la la la . . .

I've got the Christmas spirit and December is going to be full of giveaways, including one just for Mailbox Monday participants! If you've shared your Mailbox Monday post on Mr. Linky this week, leave a comment on this post and you'll be entered to win a book of your choice ($15 or less) from Barnes & Noble (U.S. residents) or The Book Depository (International residents). The Linky will be live until the following Sunday when a new MM post goes up. Thanks for joining me this month!

Last week's winner is . . .
Teddy Rose
@ So Many Precious Books, So Little Time

I treated myself to two 99-cent ebooks this week:

Once Upon a Winter's Eve (Spindle Cove). I've already read and enjoyed this one, here's my review. Violet Winterbottom is a quiet girl. She speaks six languages, but seldom raises her voice. She endured bitter heartbreak in perfect silence. The gentlemen aren't beating down her door.

Until the night of the Spindle Cove Christmas ball, when a mysterious stranger crashes into the ballroom and collapses at Violet's feet. His coarse attire and near-criminal good looks would put any sensible young lady on her guard. He's wet, chilled, bleeding, and speaking in an unfamiliar tongue. Only Violet understands him. And she knows he's not what he seems.

She has one night to draw forth the secrets of this dangerously handsome rogue. Is he a smuggler? A fugitive? An enemy spy? She needs answers by sunrise, but her captive would rather seduce than confess. To learn his secrets, Violet must reveal hers—and open herself to adventure, passion, and the unthinkable... Love.

Angelfall. It's been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back.

Anything, including making a deal with an enemy angel.

Raffe is a warrior who lies broken and wingless on the street. After eons of fighting his own battles, he finds himself being rescued from a desperate situation by a half-starved teenage girl.

Traveling through a dark and twisted Northern California, they have only each other to rely on for survival. Together, they journey toward the angels' stronghold in San Francisco where she'll risk everything to rescue her sister and he'll put himself at the mercy of his greatest enemies for the chance to be made whole again.

I downloaded an audiobook from iTunes:

My Soul to Save (Soul Screamers #2). When Kaylee Cavanaugh screams, someone dies. So when teen pop star Eden croaks onstage and Kaylee doesn't wail, she knows something is dead wrong. She can't cry for someone who has no soul.

The last thing Kaylee needs right now is to be skipping school, breaking her dad's ironclad curfew and putting her too-hot-to-be-real boyfriend's loyalty to the test. But starry-eyed teens are trading their souls: a flickering lifetime of fame and fortune in exchange for eternity in the Netherworld—a consequence they can't possibly understand. Kaylee can't let that happen, even if trying to save their souls means putting her own at risk…

And I received one for review:

The Legacy of Eden. Upcoming Blog Tour & Scavenger Hunt! "To understand what it meant to be a Hathaway, you'd first have to see Aurelia."

For generations, Aurelia was the crowning glory of more than three thousand acres of Iowa farmland and golden cornfields. The estate was a monument to matriarch Lavinia Hathaway's dream to elevate the family name - no matter what relative or stranger she had to destroy in the process. It was a desperation that wrought the downfall of the Hathaways - and the once prosperous farm.

Now the last inhabitant of the decaying old home has died - alone. None of the surviving members of the Hathaway family want anything to do with the farm, the land, or the memories.

Especially Meredith Pincetti. Now living in New York City, for seventeen years Lavinia's youngest grandchild has tried to forget everything about her family and her past. But with the receipt of a pleading letter, Meredith is again thrust into conflict with the legacy that destroyed her family's once-great name. Back at Aurelia, Meredith must confront the rise and fall of the Hathaway family... and her own part in their mottled history.

That's it for me!

Please share your Mailbox through Mr. Linky, and don't forget to leave a comment to be eligible for the giveaway!

Mailbox Monday: December 5

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. (Library books don’t count, but eBooks & audiobooks do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles, and humongous wish lists!

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia @ A Girl and Her Books, is on a blog tour! Next month's host: At Home with Books.

This is my second December hosting Mailbox Monday, and I love that it coincides with my favorite time of the year! Fa la la la la . . .


I've got the Christmas spirit and December is going to be full of giveaways, including one just for Mailbox Monday participants! If you've shared your Mailbox Monday post on Mr. Linky this week, leave a comment on this post and you'll be entered to win a book of your choice ($15 or less) from Barnes & Noble (U.S. residents) or The Book Depository (International residents). The Linky will be live until the following Sunday when a new MM post goes up. Thanks for joining me this month!


I received one for review this week:

The Flight of Gemma Hardy from Amazon Vine. Fate has not been kind to Gemma Hardy. Orphaned by the age of ten, neglected by a bitter and cruel aunt, sent to a boarding school where she is both servant and student, young Gemma seems destined for a life of hardship and loneliness. Yet her bright spirit burns strong. Fiercely intelligent, singularly determined, Gemma overcomes each challenge and setback, growing stronger and more certain of her path. Now an independent young woman with dreams of the future, she accepts a position as an au pair on the remote and beautiful Orkney Islands.

But Gemma's biggest trial is about to begin . . . a journey of passion and betrayal, secrets and lies, redemption and discovery that will lead her to a life she's never dreamed.

According to the author, this novel was strongly influenced by her passion for Jane Eyre and her desire "to recast Jane's journey to fit her own courageous heroine and the possibilities of her time and place." I'm 180 pages in and loving it!

That's it for me!

Please share your Mailbox through Mr. Linky, and don't forget to leave a comment to be eligible for the giveaway!

Mailbox Monday: November 21

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. (Library books don’t count, but eBooks & audiobooks do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists!

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia @ A Girl and Her Books, is on a blog tour! This month finds the meme back with its creator on the Mailbox Monday blog! Next month's host is . . . ME!!

Three for review this week:

Isle of Night. When Annelise left for college, it meant good riddance to her abusive father and stepmother—until a bureaucratic screw-up left her without a diploma, flat broke, and facing an uncertain future Then she met Ronan—tall, dark, and way too seductive for her own good. He promised Annelise a new life, if she had the courage to chance the unknown. One look at him and she certainly had the desire. Sure enough, accepting rides from strangers does yield surprises.

Whisked away to a mysterious island in the North Sea, Annelise is pitted against other female recruits in tests of skill, smarts, and strength. To win is to become a member of the Watchers, an elite and unique partnership—with vampires—that dispatches its teams on the most dangerous missions imaginable. It’s not exactly what Annelise had in mind for a new beginning but it’s livelier than the alternative. Because on the Isle of Night, to lose the challenge doesn’t just mean dishonor. It means death. Let the games begin.

A very cool special format copy of Keowee Valley. Spring, 1768. The Southern frontier is a treacherous wilderness inhabited by the powerful Cherokee people. In Charlestown, 25 year-old Quincy MacFadden receives news from beyond the grave: her cousin, a man she’d believed long dead, is alive—held captive by the Shawnee Indians. Unmarried, bookish, and plagued by visions of the future, Quinn is a woman out of place… and this is the opportunity for which she’s been longing.

Determined to save two lives, her cousin’s and her own, Quinn travels the rugged Cherokee Path into the South Carolina Blue Ridge. Defying her furious grandfather and colonial law, she barters for leverage against the Shawnee with a notorious Cherokee chief—and begins building a daring new home in the Keowee River Valley, a fiercely beautiful place.

But in order to rescue her cousin, Quinn must trust an enigmatic half-Cherokee tracker whose loyalties may lie elsewhere. As translator to the British army, Jack Wolf walks a perilous line between a King he hates and a homeland he loves.

Together they journey across the Appalachian Mountains and into the heart of Cherokee country. They encounter wily trappers, warring Indians, British soldiers, desperate settlers, and a contested backcountry on the brink of changing forever.

When Jack is ordered to negotiate for Indian loyalty in the Revolution to come, the pair must decide: obey the Crown, or commit treason…

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The Realmsic Conquest, upcoming blog tour. Throughout its history, the kingdom known as the Realm has never known peace. From its establishment, it has possessed the gift of magic, which is a treasure that exists no other place in the world. As a result, the Realm has endlessly defended itself against conquerors, but now faces its greatest peril.

 

As our heroes battle the wicked and unlock mysteries, they must also face overwhelming circumstances as they are guided by ancient lore on a quest to find the greatest treasure their kingdom will ever know . . . peace.

And a gift:

The Border Lord and the Lady. Lady Cicely Bowen, daughter of the Earl of Leighton, is sent away by her father when her jealous stepmother threatens her safety. Soon the exiled Cicely becomes best friends with Lady Joan Beaufort, the king's cousin-and when Joan is married to King James I of Scotland she chooses Cicely as one of the ladies accompany her north...

At the Scot's court Cicely finds herself pursued by two men-elegant Andrew Gordon, the laird of Fairlee, and Ian Douglas, the laird of Glengorm, a rough-spoken border lord. When Ian kidnaps Cicely just as Andrew is about to propose, the royal court is sent into an uproar. The queen is demanding the return of her friend and the Gordons are threatening to set the border on fire. But the border lord is difficult to tame-and the lady's heart is even harder to claim.

That's it for me!

Have you read any of these books?

If so, I'd love to know!

Please leave a link to your Mailbox so I can visit :)

Mailbox Monday: November 14

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. (Library books don’t count, but eBooks & audiobooks do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists!

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia @ A Girl and Her Books, is on a blog tour! This month finds the meme back with its creator on the Mailbox Monday blog! Next month's host is . . . ME!!

One for review this week, for an upcoming blog tour with

Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours:

The King’s Agent is based loosely on the life of Battista della Palla-a patriotic plunderer, a religious rogue-of the 16th century, a lifelong friend to the great Michelangelo. As the cloistered ward of the Marquess of Mantua, Lady Aurelia is a woman with a profound duty, and a longing for adventure. In search of a relic intended for the King of France, Battista and Aurelia cross the breathtaking landscape of Renaissance Italy. Clues hide in great works of art, political forces collide, secret societies and enemies abound, and danger lurks in every challenge, those that mirror the passages of Dante's Divine Comedy. It is an adventurous quest with undercurrents of the supernatural, powers that could change the balance of supremacy throughout Europe.

I absolutely loved Ms. Morin's last novel, To Serve A King, and I am so excited to be on the tour for her newest historical thriller!

And two wins from Paranormal Wasteland:

When Abbey's best friend, Kristen, vanishes at the bridge near Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, everyone else is all too quick to accept that Kristen is dead and rumors fly that her death was no accident. Abbey goes through the motions of mourning her best friend, but privately, she refuses to believe that Kristen is really gone. It only makes things worse that everyone now treats Abbey like either a freak show or a charity case. Thank goodness for Caspian, the gorgeous and mysterious boy who shows up out of nowhere at Kristen's funeral, and keeps reappearing in Abbey's life. Caspian clearly has secrets of his own, but he's the only person who makes Abbey feel normal again, but also special. Just when Abbey starts to feel that she might survive all this, she learns a secret that makes her question everything she thought she knew about her best friend. How could Kristen have kept silent about so much? And could this secret have led to her death? As Abbey struggles to understand Kristen's betrayal, she uncovers a frightening truth about Caspian that will challenge her emerging love for Caspian, as well as her own sanity.

New-girl Lindsay discovers all is not right at the prestigious Marlwood Academy for Girls. Ethereal, popular Mandy and her clique are plotting something dangerous. Lindsay overhears them performing strange rituals, and sees their eyes turn black. It doesn't help that the school itself is totally eerie, with ancient, dilapidated buildings tucked into the Northern California woods, a thick white fog swirling through campus. There are hidden passageways, odd reflections in the windows at night, and scariest of all is the vast lake rumored to have captured the ghost of a girl who drowned many years ago.

What Lindsay doesn't yet realize is that Mandy and her cohorts are becoming possessed by spirits who have haunted the school for two hundred years. Spirits who want someone dead . . . And that someone is Lindsay.

That's it for me!

Have you read any of these books?

Please leave a link to your Mailbox so I can visit!

And don't forget to enter to win a copy of

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi while you're here!

Mailbox Monday: November 7 ~ The Early Edition

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. (Library books don’t count, but eBooks & audiobooks do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists!

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia @ A Girl and Her Books, is on a blog tour! This month finds the meme back with its creator on the Mailbox Monday blog! Next month's host is . . . ME!!

Two came for review this week:

The Hum and the Shiver from Tor. No one knows where the Tufa came from, or how they ended up in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee, yet when the first Europeans arrived, they were already there. Dark-haired, enigmatic, and suspicious of outsiders, the Tufa live quiet lives in the hills and valleys of Cloud County. While their origins may be lost to history, there are clues in their music—hints of their true nature buried in the songs they have passed down for generations.

Private Bronwyn Hyatt returns from Iraq wounded in body and in spirit, only to face the very things that drove her away in the first place: her family, her obligations to the Tufa, and her dangerous ex-boyfriend. But more trouble lurks in the mountains and hollows of her childhood home. Cryptic omens warn of impending tragedy, and a restless “haint” lurks nearby, waiting to reveal Bronwyn’s darkest secrets. Worst of all, Bronwyn has lost touch with the music that was once a vital part of her identity.

With death stalking her family, Bronwyn will need to summon the strength to take her place among the true Tufa and once again fly on the night winds. . . .

A Good Man from Amazon Vine. Wesley Case is a former soldier and son of a Canadian lumber baron who sets out into the untamed borderlands between Canada and the United States to escape a dark secret from his past. He settles in Montana where he hopes to buy a cattle ranch, and where he begins work as a liaison between the American and Canadian militaries in an effort to contain the Native Americans’ unresolved anger in the wake of the Civil War. Amidst the brutal violence that erupts between the Sioux warriors and U.S. forces, Case’s plan for a quiet ranch life is further compromised by an unexpected dilemma: he falls in love with the beautiful, outspoken, and recently widowed Ada Tarr. It’s a budding romance that soon inflames the jealousy of Ada’s quiet and deeply disturbed admirer, Michael Dunne. When the American government unleashes its final assault on the Indians, Dunne commences his own vicious plan for vengeance in one last feverish attempt to claim Ada as his own.

Vanderhaeghe skilfully weaves a rich tapestry of history with the turns of fortune of his most vividly and compellingly drawn cast of characters yet. Vanderhaeghe entwines breathtaking, intriguing, and richly described narratives that contain a compelling love story, a tale of revenge and violence, a spectacular battle scene, the story of an incident in Welsely's past that threatens his relationship with Ada, and much, much more. While raising moral questions, this novel weaves the historical with the personal and stands as Vanderhaeghe's most accomplished and brilliant novel to date.

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And I won these!

To Love a London Ghost from Kelsey's Book Corner! When Queen Victoria orders Sexton Dukenfield, premiere phantom hunter, to track down England’s missing ghost he stumbles into Ceridwen, a phantom warrior woman of an ancient Celtic tribe. Not only does he find her intriguing as a piece of the puzzle of the missing spirits, but he’s also haunted by her sultry sensuality. Though they both burn with desire, it’s difficult to quench their fiery passion since Ceridwen is so translucent. Every time Sexton touches her, his hands pass through her misty body. On a mission through the bustling narrow streets of London, to a dreary match factory, and even to the Otherworld and back, to stop a genius scientist and his phantasm debilitater machine, the ghost and the ghost hunter also seek the secret to freeing the boundaries of life and death.

Mr. Darcy's Bite from Diary of an Eccentric! Darcy is acting rather oddly. After months of courting Elizabeth Bennet, no offer of marriage is forthcoming and Elizabeth is first impatient, then increasingly frightened. For there is no denying that the full moon seems to be affecting his behavior, and Elizabeth's love is going to be tested in ways she never dreamed...

Darcy has more than family pride to protect: others of his kind are being hunted all over England and a member of Darcy's pack is facing a crisis in Scotland. It will take all of Elizabeth's faith, courage, and ingenuity to overcome her prejudice and join Darcy in a Regency world she never knew existed.

That's it for me!

Please leave a link to your Mailbox so I can visit!

And be sure to enter my

International Giveaway of The Faerie Ring!

Mailbox Monday: October 31 ~ Happy Halloween!

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. (Library books don’t count, but eBooks & audiobooks do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists!

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia @ A Girl and Her Books, is on a blog tour! This month's host is Savvy Verse & Wit.

Two came for review last week:

Tess, an aspiring seamstress, thinks she's had an incredibly lucky break when she is hired by famous designer Lady Lucile Duff Gordon to be a personal maid on the Titanic's doomed voyage. Once on board, Tess catches the eye of two men, one a roughly-hewn but kind sailor and the other an enigmatic Chicago millionaire. But on the fourth night, disaster strikes.

Amidst the chaos and desperate urging of two very different suitors, Tess is one of the last people allowed on a lifeboat. Tess’s sailor also manages to survive unharmed, witness to Lady Duff Gordon’s questionable actions during the tragedy. Others are not so lucky.

On dry land, rumors about the survivors begin to circulate, and Lady Duff Gordon quickly becomes the subject of media scorn and later, the hearings on the Titanic. Set against a historical tragedy but told from a completely fresh angle, The Dressmaker is an atmospheric delight filled with all the period's glitz and glamour, all the raw feelings of a national tragedy and all the contradictory emotions of young love.

Juliette hasn't touched anyone in exactly 264 days. The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette's touch is fatal. As long as she doesn't hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don't fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war- and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she's exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.

I purchased this special edition as part of Penguin's Read Pink campaign for breast cancer awareness:

Plagued by rumours that she poisoned her fiance, Lucinda Bromley manages to live on the fringes of polite society, tending her beloved plants - and occasionally consulting on a murder investigation. For the notorious botanist possesses a unique talent: she can detect almost any type of poison. But the death of a lord has shaken Lucinda to her core. At the murder scene, she picks up traces of a poison containing a very rare species of fern - stolen from her conservatory just last month. To keep her name out of the investigation, and to find the murderer, Lucinda hires fellow Arcane Society member, Caleb Jones. As a nearly overwhelming desire blooms between them, they are drawn into a deadly conspiracy that can be traced to the early days of the Arcane Society - and to a legacy of madness that could plunge Caleb into the depths of his own tortured soul...

Downloaded a free NookBook:

From the day she arrives at the Biltmore, Tillie Reese is dazzled—by the riches of the Vanderbilts and by Mack Danvers, a mountain man turned footman. When Tillie is enlisted to help tame Mack's rugged behavior by tutoring him in the ways of refined society, the resulting sparks threaten Tillie's efforts to be chosen as Edith Vanderbilt's lady's maid. But the stakes rise even higher when Mack and Tillie become entangled in a cover-up at the town orphanage. They could both lose their jobs...and their hearts.

And I treated myself to the entire Iron Fey series. I read them all as eARCs and now that the series is over I wanted to have them all on my bookshelf!

   

That's it for me!

Have you read any of these books?

If so, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Please leave a link to your Mailbox so I can visit!

And don't forget to enter my Spooktacular Giveaway!

Win your choice from the spooky books I've read this year!

Mailbox Monday: October 17 - The Early Edition

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. (Library books don’t count, but eBooks & audiobooks do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists!

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia @ A Girl and Her Books, is on a blog tour! This month's host is Savvy Verse & Wit.

Two freebies for me this week!

This one is my first win from Booktrib. I've been entering their weekly giveaways since they started. Just goes to show, persistence pays off!

Duncan Armstrong, laird of Duffdour, has sworn not to wed unless it is to a lass he truly loves. But when he needs a favor from King James, Duncan never expects what he's forced to pay in return: the taking of a bride he neither loves nor desires.

When Highland heiress Ellen MacArthur's marriage plans are thwarted by a murder attempt, she has no choice but to beg the king for help. The cost for her urgent plea: to surrender her heritage and become a border lord's bride.

The price to be paid by two strangers thrown together by fate is higher than they can imagine. And more dangerous than the passion--and betrayal--that could consume them.

And I had one credit left to use before Goodreads Bookswap

closes down for good, so I chose this one:

Reporter Jane Colby covers crime for the local paper, but the most recent murder is especially shocking--leaving even the most hardened detectives shaken. What she doesn't know is that this killer has struck before--hundreds of years ago--and now he's jumped through time again to find his next victim--Jane . . .

Her only hope is a man names Baran Arvid--a genetically engineered warrior from three hundred years in the future. He's been sent to capture the predatory time traveler, and he intends to trap him any way he can--even if it means using Jane as bait.

Despite her reluctance to trust Baran, Jane can't resist his sexual allure. And this fierce warlord never imagined he could feel such insatiable desire--or that he would risk everything to seduce the woman he was sent to protect. But will their passion survive the galaxies that come between them--and the killer intent on destroying them?

That's it for me! If you've read either of these, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please leave a link to your Mailbox so I can visit :)

Mailbox Monday: October 10

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. (Library books don’t count, but eBooks & audiobooks do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists!

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia @ A Girl and Her Books, is on a blog tour! This month's host is Savvy Verse & Wit.

I purchased two new releases last week:

Sharon Kay Penman is one of my favorite authors, and I think she's one of the best historical fiction writers working today. If you love historical fiction and you haven't read The Sunne in Splendour or her Welsh trilogy, starting with Here Be Dragons, you are missing out on some truly fantastic reading! This one picks up where her Henry II and Eleanor of Acquitaine trilogy ended and focuses on, you guessed it, Richard I.

And because one of my favorite series had a big re-release this week, I had to treat myself to a signed, hardcover collector's edition of the book that started it all, Dark Lover, of the fabulous Black Dagger Brotherhood series. Dark Lover is not the best book in the series, (I think books two through five are the best), but as soon as I learned the first book in a series I am absolutely addicted to was coming out in a collector's edition, I had to have it. And how cool that J.R. signed it for me? It even came wrapped in red and black paper with a BDB seal!

That's it for me!

Have you entered my International Giveaway for A Night to Surrender? It's one of the best historical romances I've read this year and the giveaway ends Wednesday, October 12th at midnight!

Mailbox Monday: October 3

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. (Library books don’t count, but eBooks & audiobooks do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists!

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia @ A Girl and Her Books, is on a blog tour! This month's host is Savvy Verse & Wit.

I received two more for review from the Amazon Vine:

A Night to Surrender. Spindle Cove is the destination of choice for certain types of well-bred young ladies: the painfully shy, young wives disenchanted with matrimony, and young girls too enchanted with the wrong men. It is a haven for those who live there.

Victor Bramwell, the new Earl of Rycliff, knows he doesn't belong here. So far as he can tell, there's nothing in this place but spinsters...and sheep. But he has no choice, he has orders to gather a militia. It's a simple mission, made complicated by the spirited, exquisite Susanna Finch--a woman who is determined to save her personal utopia from the invasion of Bram's makeshift army.

Susanna has no use for aggravating men; Bram has sworn off interfering women. The scene is set for an epic battle...but who can be named the winner when both have so much to lose?

Archon. Angela Mathers is plagued by visions of angels, supernatural creatures who haunt her thoughts by day and seduce her dreams by night. Newly released from a mental institution where she was locked away for two years, she hopes that her time at the Vatican’s university, the West Wood Academy, will give her a chance at a normal life. Unlike ordinary humans, Angela is a blood head — a freak, a monster, the possible fulfillment of a terrifying prophecy of overwhelming death and destruction. Only in Luz, the Vatican’s wondrous enclave, are blood heads accepted and encouraged to discover what kind of powers or special abilities they might possess.

But within West Wood, a secret coven plots, and demons and angels roam the streets searching for the key to open Raziel’s book — a secret tome from a lost archangel. Some are determined to destroy Raziel, while others, like the beautiful Supernal Israfel, one of the highest of the high, wish to free him. And when the Archon — the human chosen to possess the spirit of a dead angel — rises as foretold, they will control the supernatural universe.

Torn between mortal love and angelic obsession, Angela holds the key to Heaven and Hell — and both will stop at nothing to possess her.

Treated myself to this discounted ebook. I've heard it's a Must-Read for historical romance lovers:

Lord of Scoundrels. Tough minded Jessica Trent's sole intention is to free her nitwit brother from the destructive influence of Sebastian Ballister, the notorious Marquess of Diain. She never expects to desire the arrogant, amoral cad. And When Daine's reciprocal passion places them in a scandalously compromising, and public, position, Jessica is left with no choice but to seek satisfaction... Damn the minx for tempting him, kissing him...and then for forcing him to salvage reputation! Lord Dain can't wait to put the infuriating bluestocking in her place -- and in some amorous position. And if this means marriage, so be it -- though Sebastian is less than certain he can continue to remain aloof...and steal his heart to the sensuous, head strong lady's considerable charms.

And I snatched up a trio of free ebooks:

       

That's it for me!

Have you read any of these books? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Please leave a link to your Mailbox so I can visit :)