Review: The Marriage Season

The Marriage Season by Jane Dunn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Mrs Sybella Lovatt and her younger sister Lucie live a pleasant pastoral life in their family manor in Wiltshire with Sybella's young son James, her husband was killed in the Napoleonic Wars before even finding out she was pregnant.

Now it's Lucie's turn for a London season to find a husband, she may be charming and beautiful but without a fortune she may struggle to find a match.

Staying in town with her godmother, Lucie attracts the attention of two young bucks, the byronic Lord Freddie Lynwood and the angelic looking Lord Valentine Ravenel. For her part, Bella also seems to have caught the interest of Freddie guardian Mr Anthony Brabazon and the charming but dangerous Lord Rockliffe. Having believed she would never love again this trip to London could change her mind.

I feel kind of mean writing this review because I did really enjoy the book. It was reminiscent of historical romances of a gentler era (eg nothing happens before marriage, language and behaviour appear historically accurate etc), my only gripe was that Lord Brabazon was too keen on reprimanding Bella as if he were her father. But then when I sat down to write this review I downgraded my rating from 4 stars to 3.5 stars because it didn't really engage my emotions in the same way as, say, a Georgette Heyer novel would. In fact, the romance was largely muted on all sides and there were no lines that got me right in the feels, it was pleasant but no more.

However, since it is rare to find an historical romance these days which isn't full of anachronisms and inaccuracies I am happy to read more by Jane Dunn.

Read on my Kindle Unlimited subscription.

View all my reviews

Review: The Stand-In

The Stand-In by Lily Chu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Gracie is a people-pleaser, and it has only got worse since her mother's Alzheimer's diagnosis. Now she's stuck in a job she sort of hates, being sexually harassed by her sleazebag boss, doing work for others to take the credit. When she gets mistaken in her local coffee shop for famous Chinese actress Fangli, who is in Toronto to star in a play with the World's Most Handsome Man Sam Yao, it's all the excuse her boss needs to fire her, how will she pay her mum's nursing home fees if she's unemployed.

Then the unthinkable happens, Fangli approaches Grace and asks her to be her stand-in for two months. The play is taking all her energy and she can't go to all the premieres, dinners, charity balls etc on top of that. She will get Grace a suite adjoining hers in the swanky hotel she is staying in and Sam will help her learn how to walk and talk like Fangli. The only trouble is, just looking into the magnificence that is Sam Yao is enough to make Grace lose her mind.

This was okay, a pleasant enough rom-com, but I've read it all before. I don't really understand why this book has received all the accolades it has. I was going to say I had read characters just like Grace before and she didn't bring anything new to the table, but now I see that I have also read The Comeback where the MC is very similar. I much preferred The Comeback.

View all my reviews

Review: Three Card Murder

Three Card Murder by J.L. Blackhurst
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

** WARNING ** Cliffhanger **

DI Tess Fox and Sarah Jacobs are half-sisters. They were brought up apart, but Tess met Sarah and her father, conman extraordinaire Frank Jacobs when she was in her late teens/early twenties. At first Tess and her new family get on well, but the tragic events of one night led her choose law enforcement over a life of crime.

Now, fifteen years later, Tess is given her first murder case to investigate and its a doozy. A man fell/jumped from the balcony of his flat, but when the police arrive at the scene his throat has been slashed. Yet no-one was seen entering or leaving his flat in the 24 hours before his death and there is no forensic evidence to suggest anyone else was ever there. A classic closed room mystery! Tess would be thrilled, but she recognises the victim's name - he was one of the men involved in the incident that night.

As the bodies pile up, all linked in some way to the events of that night the only evidence at each site points to Sarah, herself a talented con-artist. But the clues are so obvious they must be misdirection ... or does she want you to think that?

This was clever, and the killer's motivation for staging the murders the way they did is perfectly plausible, but when the book came abruptly to an end I was more puzzled than eager to find out what happened next. I don't think the reality lived up to the blurb TBH. But then I'm not very keen on films like Now You See Me so a book which relies heavily on the illusionists' trick of misdirection isn't really my thing.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

View all my reviews

Review: Shattered Rainbows

Shattered Rainbows by Mary Jo Putney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This flits back and forth a little and goes back in time for a large portion of the book which I found a bit odd.

Lord Michael Kenyon first encounters Mrs Catherine Melbourne when he lays wounded, perhaps dying after being injured in the Napoleonic Wars. She fed him water (is that right?) and he lay there listening to her comfort a young dying soldier who wanted his mum.

Fast forward a few years, Napoleon has escaped from prison and is rallying the French behind him. Michael re-enlists and is appointed to help the Duke of Wellington in Brussels, someone suggests that Michael should secure accommodation at a boarding house run by Mrs Melbourne, whose husband is a captain in the cavalry, and another army wife.

I don't believe I've read any of the previous four books in this series, but apparently Michael fell in love with the wife of one of his best friends who turned out to be a scheming, nasty woman and nearly broke their friendship forever. having thought he had learned his lesson, Michael is troubled to discover that he has yet again fallen for a married woman. This time however he is determined to do what is right, even if he can see that her husband is cheating on her every chance he gets.

Fast forward again, it is some time later, Napoleon has been defeated, Catherine's husband has been murdered, but the British Consulate are trying to hush the matter up, and Catherine and her daughter have returned to England. Catherine is the heir to a title and wealth through her paternal grandfather who is Laird of the Isle of Skoal. However, her grandfather is very old-fashioned and expects women to be married and obey their husbands. Catherine begs Michael to help her by pretending to be her husband for a short visit to see her grandfather who is very ill.

I found the very first bit confusing as Michael met up with his friends, I couldn't keep his ex (the sultry Caroline), his other friend's wife Claire, and Caroline straight in my head, not having read the previous books, but that was a temporary confusion.

Then the section of the book set in Brussels was very well done. It set the scene for Catherine and Michael to fall in love whilst also behaving with the utmost propriety. It also allows the reader and the characters to get to know them better.

Finally, the third section (although I hesitate to suggest each section was actually a third of the book) is set on the ancient Viking island of Skoal where the inevitable contenders for the inheritance lend a gothic note to the romance.

I see this was originally published in 1995 and I definitely get that vibe, the detailed backstory, the two MCs being (in their own minds) broken characters, their nobility, it all just has that ring - but not at all in a bad way.

I am actually interested to read the previous books in the series now.

A Kindle freebie.

View all my reviews

Review: Magic Claims

Magic Claims by Ilona Andrews
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

All the feels. Words escape me!

Kate and Curran are approached by a canny local businessman to help rescue a small town in the forest which is being terrorised by some mysterious creatures which appear to demand human tribute. What they find in the forest defies description, just when you think Ilona Andrews can't pull something new and different out of the bag, BOOM they did it!

And OMG the vampire piloting had me in stitches.

Perhaps even more interesting are the decisions that Kate and Curran reach in the book which open up the possibilities for the rest of the series.

View all my reviews

Review: Forget Me Not

Forget Me Not by Julie Soto
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Four and a half stars.

Ama is a wedding planner .Having served her apprenticeship with the city's premier wedding planner Whitney she has struck out on her own, mainly catering to those with smaller budgets. But Ama has a secret, she's a wedding planner who doesn't believe in marriage, but then having a mother who's been married sixteen times might do that to you. Heck that's how Ama started in the wedding planning business, planning her mother's weddings.

Then she is approached by Hazel Renee, a famous Instagram make-up star, and her fiancée Jackie. Their budget is way beyond Ama's normal clientele and she's half ecstatic and half overwhelmed by the prospect. She tries to suggest Whitney would be a better fit but it seems they only want Ama. The only fly in the ointment is that they want Elliot Bloom to do the flowers, not just because he is one of the most talented florists around, but also because he happens to be the son of Jackie's boss, Senator Laura Gilbert. Ama has been avoiding Elliot Bloom ever since she planned Senator Gilbert's second wedding, doing everything within her power to not see or speak to him, using other florists and declining to take weddings where he is the florist. While she's thinking of a polite way of declining Hazel and Jackie's wedding Hazel announces it as a done deal on Instagram and now she has no choice.

This is a slow reveal, present day narrative by Ama, historical narrative by Elliot all amongst the over-the-top extravaganza of a wedding with such a huge budget. All among the most gorgeous descriptions of flowers and flower arrangements, if what Elliot designs can be called anything so mundane.

I'm not going to deny I sobbed great big tears twice reading this book, it was beautiful and heart-rending and I loved it. I definitely think this is one I will read more than once.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

View all my reviews

Review: This Spells Love

This Spells Love by Kate Robb
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Gemma has just split up from her safe, boring boyfriend of four years and she's devastated, after a lifetime of her older sister basically bringing her up because her parents were too flaky she was looking for dependable, a man with a ten year life plan.

When her kooky Aunt Livi tells her about a love cleansing spell she found in an old book she has just picked up for her New Age book shop Gemma decides to give it a whirl (alcohol may have been involved), in order for the spell to work it needs to be sealed with a kiss - and who better than Gemma's best friend Dax? In fact, if things had gone slightly differently four years ago Gemma and Dax might have been dating, but Stuart swept in with his confident swagger and the moment was lost. When Dax and Gemma kiss something clicks, but could Gemma risk losing her BFF if things went South? Gemma's not someone who likes change and unpredictability, she even makes her sister watch The Bachelor first so that she knows in advance who gets the rose. Gemma goes to bed thinking 'what if?'.

When Gemma wakes up she's no longer in her swanky apartment, she's in a strange man's bed, the doorman at her apartment doesn't know her, her phone has changed from an iPhone to a Samsung, the keys on her keyring are different and apparently she now lives in a grotty basement apartment. Worst of all, Dax doesn't even know her, in fact he suspects she's a stalker because she knows so much about him. It appears that Aunt Livi's spell has worked and since it can only take place at the time of a waning gibbous moon.

Things aren't all bad, the reason Gemma lives in such an awful apartment is that in this reality she has fulfilled her fantasy of opening a clean beauty shop, not far away from Dax's custom sneaker shop in fact. Some of her friends remain the same, although there are a few awkward moments when Gemma is greeted by people she's never met before. It turns out that the Gemma in this reality has done a lot of things that the other Gemma wanted to do but didn't because Stuart didn't like it or thought it would be a bad idea. Slowly Gemma comes to realise that she can try different things and experiment.

As Gemma gets to know the Dax in this reality she realises that she loves him (in either reality) and it seems as though this Dax is falling in love with her, but can she stay in this reality for love, fun, and the job of her dreams or should she return to her own reality with a job she only took for the salary and benefits, but has the advantage of her long-standing friendship with Dax?

Once again, I liked it but I didn't love it. I think the reader was waaaay ahead of Gemma in both realities and she seemed pretty self-absorbed, not noticing problems with her sister or Dax until long after they were first signalled. Also the book relied on Aunt Livi having psychic flashes at opportune times to move the plot along.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

View all my reviews

Review: Piece of Cake

Piece of Cake by Mary Hollis Huddleston
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As the middle daughter to wealthy successful Dallas socialites, Claire Sommers has always had to compete for her parents' affections and approbation. Her elder sister Evelyn was always the best at everything she did and now runs three thriving businesses, oh and she and her husband are expecting their first child. Her younger sister Lucille is a lawyer, universally adored, and engaged to a guy the family all loves. A few years ago, in an attempt to please her parents and get ahead in the wedding planning company she was working for at the time, Claire did something underhand that not only cost her her job, but also any sniff of her Trust Fund before the age of forty.

Unable to bear the gossip and her family's disappointment, Claire has moved to Nashville where she works on a bridal magazine called Piece of Cake. Having worked her way up, Claire is now a journalist on the magazine but the print world is in decline and the magazine is facing a digital-only future unless it can find new revenue streams or increase subscriptions. The editor has decided to run with one of Claire's ideas, to create a docuseries featuring some of the most lavish weddings, but has brought in a social media content creator from New York called Dominic Gravino who has a hugely successful socials account called The Brides' Man to produce the series.

Whilst initially hostile, Claire and Dom soon develop a good working relationship, even if it is often bonding over the ridiculous extravagance of some of the weddings, and it could be more ... but Dom is only in Nashville as a consultant for a few months to see whether the docuseries could generate enough interest to keep Piece of Cake afloat.

I liked this but I didn't love it. Reading the blurb at the end the writers are an events planner and a journalist and I think it shows, there's a lot about the different events, the décor, the flowers, the seating arrangements etc and the burgeoning romance between Dom and Claire gets lost in the detail. Also Claire's heinous crime is hinted at for so long that when it is finally revealed it feels like a bit of an anti-climax (or maybe it is a big deal in the wedding planning world but not so much for me).

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

View all my reviews

Review: Seven Exes

Seven Exes by Lucy Vine
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Despite loving her job and her friends, Esther doesn't feel fulfilled without a man, especially now she's staring down the barrel of her thirties. So when she reads an article which says a woman will have seven relationships before she finds The One (The First Love, The Work Mistake, The Overlap, The Friend With Benefits, The Missed Chance, The Bastard, and The Serious One). Despite the article being from a old magazine which is no longer in print Esther takes it as gospel truth and determines to track down her seven exes to see whether they could have been The One That Got Away.

Let's be fair, I'm probably too old for the demographic this book is aimed at. To me Esther's behaviour is more that of a nineteen year old than a woman of twenty-nine and after the way she treated some of her exes I am astonished that they would ever speak to her again, let alone want to date her again. Also, Esther seems like an unreliable narrator, not least because she lies to herself about what she's doing and why she's doing it. At one point she tells us that she and her friends were the misfits at school, bullied and ostracised and called names, but one of her exes remembers them as the cool girls looking down their noses at everyone else. Maybe we see ourselves differently, certainly the way Esther frames herself doing her job and how her assistant sees it are two very different things (and I suspect there was an attempt to roll-back some of the rhetoric).

Overall, I just didn't think it was very funny. Esther seemed determined to fall in love with one of her exes regardless of chemistry or connection, and pursued her mission to the detriment of friends and her job.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

View all my reviews

Review: A Game of Lies

A Game of Lies by Clare Mackintosh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

The second book in a series featuring Detective Constable Ffion Morgan, divorced, owner of a huge dog with separation anxiety, born and brought up in the small Welsh town of Cwm Coed on the border with Cheshire.

A new reality TV series called Exposure is being shot on Pen y Draig mountain near Ffion's home, she wouldn't normally be interested but Ceri Jones, her local postie is one of the contestants and Ffion's baby sister Seren's boyfriend Caleb is the producer's unpaid runner so she feels obliged to watch the first episode. But in a shock twist none of the contestants foresaw, the first episode reveals that this isn't a survival show, instead each contestant has a shocking secret and the only way to avoid their secret being revealed on screen is to win the competition.

Then one of the contestants escapes, too ashamed of his family and friends hearing his secret and the police are called in to help trace him before he dies of exposure (or kills himself). As the contestants are exposed one after the other it becomes clear that everyone has a reason to loath the series producer and originator of the show Miles Young so it can only be a matter of time before someone makes good on their threats to kill him off.

I enjoyed this book, but not quite as much as the first book. I suspected the twist right from the very beginning which lessened my enjoyment, although I wasn't able to connect the dots to determine the killer's identity. I do wonder how many more books Clare Mackintosh can get in this series when it is set in a small Welsh town where everyone knows everyone else, surely there's a limit to how many groups of outsiders can come en masse to stay with one of them being murdered? Maybe the next book will be set in Cheshire, current base of DS Leo Brady, where Welsh language skills are required?

Anyway, a good detective story that kept me guessing with lots of interesting Welsh characters.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

View all my reviews

Review: A Winter in New York: A Novel

A Winter in New York: A Novel by Josie Silver
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Chef Iris is an orphan. Devastated by the untimely death of her vivacious mother she got into an abusive relationship with Adam but finally managed to extricate herself. She fled England and flew to New York with just one suitcase and her trusty gelato machine. Iris' mother had a secret recipe for vanilla gelato, one which must never be shared with anyone, written only on a napkin which Iris treasures, her mother's gelato was the background to all her childhood memories, the ultimate celebratory food, but also what she ate when she was sad.

After escaping from Adam's clutches Iris finds it hard to meet people or socialise, her only friends are Robin and Bobby, her boss and landlords who live upstairs above the noodle bar where she now works six days a week. On a rare day out with Bobby enjoying a local food festival, Iris notices an unusual painted glass door to Belotti's Italian Gelateria, one that is identical to a picture her mother treasured of a young man standing outside that same door. It turns out that Belotti's is famous for its vanilla gelato, a secret family recipe known only to two people at any one time, but tragedy has struck and the only family member alive who knows the recipe has had a stroke and lost his memory. Iris gets talking to the latest generation of Belotti's who work in the Gelateria, Gio, a young widower single father, and his sister Sophia, Gio is trying to recreate the recipe whilst Sophia and her sisters are urging him to diversify, at least until their father Santo recovers enough to recall the recipe. Once she tastes a mouthful of the last precious batch of gelato, Iris realises that she has their secret family recipe - but how did her mother come to have the napkin and how can Iris help the family without revealing that Santo must have betrayed the family by sharing the recipe with her?

As romance blossoms between Iris and Gio she feels trapped by the lies she has told him about her ex and about her mother's relationship with Santo and his brother Felipe, but most of all about having the secret family recipe, how can he ever forgive her?

I was invited to read this book and I hesitated because it felt a bit too sickly sweet for me, I succumbed but I was right in my first assessment. I spent most of the time reading this book internally shouting at Iris to just sit down with Gio and tell him the truth, at least about Adam, instead she gets mired deeper and deeper, it was frustrating and ultimately I felt the drama was manufactured. It was a pleasant enough romance but not for me.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

View all my reviews