Month: July 2022

#BookReview The German Wife by Kelly Rimmer @Kelrimmerwrites @HarperCollinsCa @HarlequinBooks @Bookclubbish #BooksofHCC #TheGermanWife #KellyRimmer #GraydonHouse #HTPBooks

#BookReview The German Wife by Kelly Rimmer @Kelrimmerwrites @HarperCollinsCa @HarlequinBooks @Bookclubbish #BooksofHCC #TheGermanWife #KellyRimmer #GraydonHouse #HTPBooks Title: The German Wife

Author: Kelly Rimmer

Published by: Graydon House on Jun. 28, 2022

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 464

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: HarperCollins Canada

Book Rating: 9/10

Berlin, Germany, 1930—When the Nazis rise to power, Sofie von Meyer Rhodes and her academic husband benefit from the military ambitions of Germany’s newly elected chancellor when Jürgen is offered a high-level position in their burgeoning rocket program. Although they fiercely oppose Hitler’s radical views, and joining his ranks is unthinkable, it soon becomes clear that if Jürgen does not accept the job, their income will be taken away. Then their children. And then their lives.

Huntsville, Alabama, 1950—Twenty years later, Jürgen is one of many German scientists pardoned and granted a position in America’s space program. For Sofie, this is a chance to leave the horrors of her past behind. But when rumors about the Rhodes family’s affiliation with the Nazi party spread among her new American neighbors, idle gossip turns to bitter rage, and the act of violence that results tears apart a family and leaves the community wondering—is it an act of vengeance or justice?


Review:

Moving, thought-provoking, and tragic!

The German Wife is a vivid, tender tale set in Berlin, Germany, as well as Huntsville, Alabama, between 1930 and 1950 that takes you into the lives of the Rhodes family. A family whose individual actions, decisions, choices and secrets made during the war will have long-lasting effects and irrevocably change lives forever.

The writing is emotional and tense. The characters are intelligent, torn, and distrustful. And the plot is an evocative tale of life, loss, heartbreak, prejudices, hope, tragedy, survival, friendship, love, community, and wartime politics.

Overall, The German Wife is an absorbing, heart-wrenching, beautifully written tale by Rimmer inspired by real-life events, Operation Paperclip, that does an exceptional job of highlighting her impressive research into this intelligence program that brought Nazis chemists, physicists and rocket specialists to America after WWII, without being tried for their previous crimes, in order for them to use their acquired knowledge to benefit NASA and other US government agencies.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

 

Thank you to HarperCollins Canada for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Kelly Rimmer

Kelly Rimmer is the worldwide and USA TODAY bestselling author of five novels, including Me Without You and The Secret Daughter. She lives in rural Australia with her husband, two children and fantastically naughty dogs Sully and Basil. Her novels have been translated into more than twenty languages.

#BookReview They Drown Our Daughters by Katrina Monroe @AuthorKatM @PPPress #TheyDrownOurDaughters #KatrinaMonroe #inkedinpoison

#BookReview They Drown Our Daughters by Katrina Monroe @AuthorKatM @PPPress #TheyDrownOurDaughters #KatrinaMonroe #inkedinpoison Title: They Drown Our Daughters

Author: Katrina Monroe

Published by: Poisoned Pen Press on Jul. 12, 2022

Genres: Fantasy, Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 304

Format: Paperback

Source: Poisoned Pen Press

Book Rating: 8/10

If you can hear the call of the water,
It’s already far too late.

They say Cape Disappointment is haunted. That’s why tourists used to flock there in droves. They’d visit the rocky shoreline under the old lighthouse’s watchful eye and fish shells from the water as they pretended to spot dark shapes in the surf. Now the tourists are long gone, and when Meredith Strand and her young daughter return to Meredith’s childhood home after an acrimonious split from her wife, the Cape seems more haunted by regret than any malevolent force.

But her mother, suffering from early stages of Alzheimer’s, is convinced the ghost stories are real. Not only is there something in the water, but it’s watching them. Waiting for them. Reaching out to Meredith’s daughter the way it has to every woman in their line for generations-and if Meredith isn’t careful, all three women, bound by blood and heartbreak, will be lost one by one to the ocean’s mournful call.

Part modern gothic, part ghost story, They Drown Our Daughters explores the depths of motherhood, identity, and the lengths a woman will go to hold on to both.


Review:

Atmospheric, menacing, and dark!

They Drown Our Daughters is an eerie, gripping, multi-generational story that transports you to Cape Disappointment and into the lives of the Strand family and all the powerful emotions, spooky traditions, long-buried secrets, strange behaviours, and unimaginable tragedy that has tied them together for more than a century.

The prose is tight and intense. The characters are multilayered, vulnerable, and troubled. And the plot told in a back-and-forth style is an unsettling tale of life, loss, tragedy, desperation, familial drama, legends, secrets, tortured souls, supernatural phenomena, and the complex relationships that exist between mothers and daughters.

Overall, They Drown Our Daughters is a haunting, ominous, chilling tale that kept me engaged and intrigued from the very first page and is undoubtedly a unique, creative, promising debut by Monroe.

 

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

          

 

 

Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Katrina Monroe

Katrina Monroe is the author of They Drown Our Daughters, coming July 2022 from Sourcebooks. She lives in Minnesota with her wife, two children, and Eddie, the ghost who haunts their bedroom closets.

#BookReview The Kingdoms of Savannah by George Dawes Green @CeladonBooks #KingdomsOfSavannah #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads #partner

#BookReview The Kingdoms of Savannah by George Dawes Green @CeladonBooks #KingdomsOfSavannah #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads #partner Title: The Kingdoms of Savannah

Author: George Dawes Green

Published by: Celadon Books on Jul. 19, 2022

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 304

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Celadon Books

Book Rating: 8.5/10

Savannah may appear to be “some town out of a fable,” with its vine flowers, turreted mansions, and ghost tours that romanticize the city’s history. But look deeper and you’ll uncover secrets, past and present, that tell a more sinister tale. It’s the story at the heart of George Dawes Green’s chilling new novel, The Kingdoms of Savannah.

It begins quietly on a balmy Southern night as some locals gather at Bo Peep’s, one of the town’s favorite watering holes. Within an hour, however, a man will be murdered and his companion will be “disappeared.” An unlikely detective, Morgana Musgrove, doyenne of Savannah society, is called upon to unravel the mystery of these crimes. Morgana is an imperious, demanding, and conniving woman, whose four grown children are weary of her schemes. But one by one she inveigles them into helping with her investigation, and soon the family uncovers some terrifying truths—truths that will rock Savannah’s power structure to its core.

Moving from the homeless encampments that ring the city to the stately homes of Savannah’s elite, Green’s novel brilliantly depicts the underbelly of a city with a dark history and the strangely mesmerizing dysfunction of a complex family.


Review:

Haunting, complex, and intense!

The Kingdoms of Savannah is a charged, gripping mystery that sweeps you away to Savannah, Georgia, and into the lives of the prominent, dysfunctional Musgrove family as they reluctantly, at the persistence of their matriarch Morgana, band together to solve the callous murder of a young homeless man and the disappearance of a middle-aged woman who seems to have discovered some long-buried secrets that at least one person is willing to kill to keep hidden in the past.

The prose is powerful and polished. The characters are flawed, ruthless, and self-absorbed. And the plot is a captivating, menacing mix of life, loss, secrets, deception, privilege, resentments, greed, corruption, homelessness, familial drama, and harrowing truths.

Overall, I found The Kingdoms of Savannah to be a gritty, provocative, tight novel by Green that’s a must read for anyone who loves a well-written mystery interlaced with a dramatic, family saga all mired in the dark, racially toxic history of the south.

 

This novel is available on July 19, 2022.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

 

Thank you to Celadon Books for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About George Dawes Green

George Dawes Green, founder of The Moth, is an internationally celebrated author. His first novel, The Caveman’s Valentine, won the Edgar Award and became a motion picture starring Samuel L. Jackson. The Juror was an international bestseller in more than twenty languages and was the basis for the movie starring Demi Moore and Alec Baldwin. Ravens was chosen as one of the best books of 2009 by the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Daily Mail of London, and many other publications. George Green grew up in Georgia and now lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Photo by Syrie Moskowitz.

#BookReview When It Falls Apart by Catherine Bybee @catherinebybee @ThomasAllenLTD @AmazonPub #WhenItFallsApart #TheDAngelos #CatherineBybee #Montlake

#BookReview When It Falls Apart by Catherine Bybee @catherinebybee @ThomasAllenLTD @AmazonPub #WhenItFallsApart #TheDAngelos #CatherineBybee #Montlake Title: When It Falls Apart

Author: Catherine Bybee

Series: The D'Angelos #1

Published by: Montlake Romance on Jun. 21, 2022

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Pages: 364

Format: Paperback

Source: Thomas Allen & Son

Book Rating: 9/10

From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Catherine Bybee comes a bittersweet romance about the power of love in the face of heartbreak and loss.

Brooke Turner has always had a complicated relationship with her father. But when his health takes a turn for the worse, she drops everything to care for him. He’s her dad, after all, and he needs her. What Brooke doesn’t anticipate is the unraveling of her long-term relationship and a cross-country move to San Diego’s Little Italy.

Luca D’Angelo is the oldest of three children and a single father to a young daughter. When his mother rents the top floor of their house to Brooke, he’s angry. Who is this beautiful stranger with no ties to the neighborhood? Can she be trusted in such close proximity to his family?

As Luca learns of Brooke’s difficult journey with her ailing father, his heart softens. And Brooke, who witnesses Luca’s struggle as a single parent, develops feelings for him, too. But when it all falls apart, will love heal their wounded hearts?


Review:

Heartwarming, hopeful, and amusing!

When It Falls Apart is an uplifting, charming tale set in the colourful Little Italy neighbourhood of San Diego that takes you into the lives of two main characters. Brooke Turner, a young online marketer who needs to relocate after a recent breakup and another setback in her father’s health that requires him to live in an assisted living program she will be struggling to afford, and Luca D’Angelo, a single father who spends all his time raising his daughter and running his family’s restaurant.

The prose is sweet and light. The characters are kind, considerate, and hardworking. And the plot is a delightfully absorbing blend of family, friendship, self-discovery, awkward situations, tender moments, parenthood, support, love, community, and new beginnings.

Overall, When It Falls Apart is a heartfelt, romantic, engaging tale by Bybee that is a wonderful start to The D’Angelos series and an enticing introduction to this loud, big-hearted Italian family I can’t wait to read more about.

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

        

 

 

Thank you to Thomas Allen & Son for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Catherine Bybee

Catherine Bybee is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author of twenty-five books that have collectively sold more than three million copies and have been translated into twelve languages. Raised in Washington State, Bybee moved to Southern California in hopes of becoming a movie star. After growing bored with waiting tables, she returned to school and became a registered nurse, spending most of her career in urban emergency rooms. She now writes full-time and has penned the Not Quite series, the Weekday Brides series, and the Most Likely To series.

#BookReview I Told You This Would Happen by Elaine Murphy @ElaineMbooks @HBGCanada @GrandCentralPub #ElaineMurphy #IToldYouThisWouldHappen #HBGCanada #GCPInsider

#BookReview I Told You This Would Happen by Elaine Murphy @ElaineMbooks @HBGCanada @GrandCentralPub #ElaineMurphy #IToldYouThisWouldHappen #HBGCanada #GCPInsider Title: I Told You This Would Happen

Author: Elaine Murphy

Published by: Grand Central Publishing on Jul. 12, 2022

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 384

Format: Paperback

Source: HBG Canada

Book Rating: 8.5/10

Carrie’s sister is dead.

Four months after losing her sister, Becca—a serial killer unknown to everyone else in town—Carrie Lawrence is finally free of her manipulative clutches. From now on, she’s keeping her hands clean, no more hiding dead bodies in the middle of the night, no more lies.

She’s never been happier.

Then she attends a meeting of the Brampton Kill Seekers, a group of amateur local sleuths, and learns that a recent victim left behind a note that incriminates her in their disappearance. All of a sudden the quiet, law-abiding life she’s been planning starts to unravel.

She’s never had so much to lose.

In her frantic quest to keep her secret dead and buried, she discovers someone nefarious lurking in the shadows…someone who’ll go to any lengths to bring her dark truths to light. Now if Carrie wants her secrets to stay hidden, she’ll have to get her hands very, very dirty.


Review:

Gripping, mysterious, and sinister!

I Told You This Would Happen is a crafty, complex thriller that takes us back to Brampton, Maine and into the life of Carrie Lawrence, a young woman who is now struggling to juggle her mixed feelings of elation and unease over the death of her manipulative serial killer sister as well as her ever-increasing guilt and dread over just how many secrets and skeletons the local amateur sleuthing group, the Brampton Kill Seekers, will finally unearth and uncover.

The writing is brisk and witty. The characters are consumed, devious, and deceitful. And the plot builds quickly into a mischievous tale of deception, manipulation, secrets, malicious intentions, revelations, deviance, cunning behaviours, familial obligation, and murder.

Overall, I Told You This Would Happen is an edgy, intricate, twisty follow-up by Murphy that kept me amused from the very first page and was an exceptionally entertaining and satisfying conclusion to last years debut Look What You Made Me Do.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

 

Thank you to HBG Canada for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Elaine Murphy

Elaine Murphy is a Canadian author who has lived on both coasts and several places in between. Among other things, she has volunteered in Zambia, taught English in China, jumped off a bridge, and out of an airplane. She has a diploma in Writing for Film & Television but has never worked in either field. She took an interest in the dark side and began plotting suspense and thrillers. She enjoys putting ordinary people in extraordinarily difficult situations and seeing what they do about it. She lives in Vancouver, Canada.

Photo by Laura Shortt Photography.

#BookReview The Floating Girls by Lo Patrick @Sourcebooks @sbkslandmark #TheFloatingGirls #LoPatrick #bookmarkedbylandmark

#BookReview The Floating Girls by Lo Patrick @Sourcebooks @sbkslandmark #TheFloatingGirls #LoPatrick #bookmarkedbylandmark Title: The Floating Girls

Author: Lo Patrick

Published by: Sourcebooks Landmark on Jul. 12, 2022

Genres: General Fiction

Pages: 368

Format: Paperback

Source: Sourcebooks Landmark

Book Rating: 9/10

The backwaters of Georgia hold many buried secrets. But they won’t stay buried forever.

One hot, sticky summer in Bledsoe, Georgia, twelve-year-old Kay Whitaker stumbles across a stilt house in a neighboring marsh and upon Andy Webber, a boy about her age. He and his father have recently moved back to Georgia from California, and rumors of the suspicious drowning death of Andy’s mother years earlier have chased them there and back.

Kay is fascinated and enamored with Andy, and she doesn’t listen when her father tells her to stay away from the Webbers. But when Kay’s sister goes missing, the mystery of Mrs. Webber’s death—and Kay’s parents’ potential role in it—comes to light. Kay and her brothers must navigate the layers of secrets that emerge in the course of the investigation as their family, and the world as they knew it, unravels around them.

At once wickedly funny and heartbreaking, it is an immersive coming-of-age story narrated by a feisty, smart, yet undeniably vulnerable girl reminiscent of a modern-day Scout Finch—a character who will live in readers’ hearts for a long time to come.


Review:

Poignant, atmospheric, and immersive!

The Floating Girls is a humorous, touching tale that takes you to small-town Georgia and into the life of twelve-year-old Kay Whitaker, a young girl yearning for adventure who, after stumbling across a handsome boy in the marshes behind her house and being strongly warned by her father to stay away, inadvertently triggers a series of events, including the disappearance of her strange, older sister, that will unearth long-buried secrets and ultimately change their lives forever.

The prose is vivid and rich. The characters are naive, assertive, and strong. And the plot is a heart-tugging, raw, coming-of-age tale of life, love, loss, family, friendship, poverty, desperation, tragedy, secrets, and survival.

Overall, The Floating Girls is an insightful, gritty, compelling tale by Patrick that reminds you that life is sometimes a hard, complicated struggle, secrets always seem to have a way of coming to light, and often the choices people make have far-reaching consequences.

 

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

           

 

 

Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Lo Patrick

LO PATRICK is a former lawyer and current novelist. She grew up outside Atlanta before going to Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California. She remained in L.A. for seven years where she was a concert promoter, model booker, and musician. She eventually left L.A. and attended law school at University of Miami. She graduated magna cum laude and began writing. She moved back to Georgia, where she lives with her husband and two children. THE FLOATING GIRLS is her debut novel.

#BookReview Always Be My Duchess by Amalie Howard @HBGCanada @readforeverpub @grandcentralpub #ReadForever #ReadForeverPub #ReadForever2022 #AlwaysBeMyDuchess #AmalieHoward #TamingoftheDukes #HBGCanada

#BookReview Always Be My Duchess by Amalie Howard @HBGCanada @readforeverpub @grandcentralpub #ReadForever #ReadForeverPub #ReadForever2022 #AlwaysBeMyDuchess #AmalieHoward #TamingoftheDukes #HBGCanada Title: Always Be My Duchess

Author: Amalie Howard

Series: Taming of the Dukes #1

Published by: Forever on Jul. 12, 2022

Genres: Historical Romance

Pages: 368

Format: Paperback

Source: Forever

Book Rating: 9/10

Lord Lysander Blackstone, the stern Duke of Montcroix, has only one interest: increasing his considerable fortune. After a series of betrayals, he keeps his emotions buried deep. Money, after all, can’t break a man’s heart—or make promises it can’t keep. But when his reputation for being heartless jeopardizes a new business deal, he finds himself seeking a most unusual—and alluring—solution…

Once an up-and-coming ballerina, Miss Geneviève Valery is now hopelessly out of work. After refusing to become a wealthy patron’s mistress, Nève was promptly shown the door to the streets. When she accidentally saves the life of a handsome duke, she doubts the encounter will go any better than her last brush with nobility. But instead of propositioning her, Montcroix makes Nève an offer she would be a fool to refuse: act as his fake fiancée in exchange for fortune enough to start over.

Only neither is prepared when very real feelings begin to grow between them. They both stand to win… but only if they’re willing to risk their hearts.


Review:

Light, seductive, and fun!

Always Be My Duchess is set in London during 1865 and features the spirited ballerina Geneviève Valery who may have unexpectedly found the short-term answer to her money woes, as well as the hardworking, handsome Duke of Montcroix, Lord Lysander Blackstone, who may have conveniently found the perfect woman to help him secure an important business deal without having to give up his heart.

The prose is witty and sharp. The characters are passionate, resourceful, and loyal. And the plot is a tantalizing mix of family, friendship, heartbreak, societal expectations, secrets, tricky situations, awkward moments, attraction, and unconditional love.

Overall, Always Be My Duchess is an adventurous, enticing, delightfully steamy read by Howard that is an absolutely wonderful start to a new series, Taming of the Dukes, which now has a permanent place on my must-read list.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from the following link.

                 

 

 

Thank you to HBG Canada for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Amalie Howard

AMALIE HOWARD is a USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestselling novelist of “smart, sexy, deliciously feminist romance.” The Beast of Beswick was one of Oprah Daily’s Top 24 Best Historicals to Read. She is also the author of several critically acclaimed, award-winning young adult novels. An AAPI/Caribbean-born writer, her books, interviews, and articles have been featured in Entertainment Weekly, Oprah Daily, Seventeen, and Ravishly Magazine. When she’s not writing, she can usually be found reading, being the president of her one-woman Harley Davidson motorcycle club #WriteOrDie, or power-napping. She currently lives in Colorado with her family.

Photo by Kristoff Lutchman.

#BookReview The Gatekeeper by James Byrne @JByrnemystery @MinotaurBooks @StMartinsPress #MinotaurInfluencers #JamesByrne #TheGatekeeper #DezLimerick

#BookReview The Gatekeeper by James Byrne @JByrnemystery @MinotaurBooks @StMartinsPress #MinotaurInfluencers #JamesByrne #TheGatekeeper #DezLimerick Title: The Gatekeeper

Author: James Byrne

Series: Dez Limerick #1

Published by: Minotaur Books on Jun. 7, 2022

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 336

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Minotaur Books

Book Rating: 8.5/10

James Byrne’s The Gatekeeper introduces Dez Limerick in the most anticipated new thriller in years.

A highly trained team of mercenaries launches a well-planned, coordinated attack on a well-guarded military contractor – but they didn’t count on one thing, the right man being in the wrong place at the right time.

Desmond Aloysius Limerick (“Dez” to all) is a retired mercenary, and enthusiastic amateur musician, currently in Southern California, enjoying the sun and sitting in on the occasional gig, when the hotel he’s at falls under attack. A skilled team attempts to kidnap the Chief legal counsel of Triton Expeditors, a major military contractor – in fact, Petra Alexandris is the daughter of the CEO – but their meticulously-planned, seamlessly executed scheme runs into the figurative ‘spanner-in-the-works,’ Dez himself.

After foiling the attack, and with nothing better to do, Dez agrees to help Alexandris with another problem she’s having – someone has embezzled more than a billion dollars from her company and left very few tracks behind. But Dez is a gatekeeper – one who opens doors and keeps them open – and this is just a door of another kind. And the door he opens leads to a dangerous conspiracy involving media manipulation, militias, an armed coup, and an attempt to fracture the United States themselves. There’s only one obstacle between the conspirators and success – and that is Dez, The Gatekeeper.


Review:

Tight, sinister, and suspenseful!

The Gatekeeper is the start of a brand-new series by Byrne that sweeps you away to California, where the cocky, confident, retired mercenary Dez ‘The Gatekeeper’ Limerick finds himself inadvertently swept up in the investigation of an embezzlement and conspiracy scheme involving military contractor, Triton Expeditors when one night after playing a local musical gig he successfully thwarts the attempted kidnapping of their CLO Petra Alexandris.

The prose is direct and well-paced. The characters are resourceful, talented, and committed. And the plot is a thrilling tale full of greed, power, deception, abuse, violence, manipulation, passion, politics, murder, and corruption.

Overall, The Gatekeeper is a darkly comedic, edgy, action-packed thriller that kept me highly entertained from the very first page and is without a doubt an exceptionally promising debut by Byrne that left me more than a little eager to read what Dez Limerick manages to get mixed up in next.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press – Minotaur Press for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About James Byrne

JAMES BYRNE is the pseudonym for an author who has worked for more than twenty years as a journalist and in politics. A native of the Pacific Northwest, he lives in Portland, Oregon.

#BookTour #BookReview A Dress of Violet Taffeta by Tessa Arlen @BerkleyPub @Austenprose #VioletTaffeta #TessaArlen #AustenprosePR

#BookTour #BookReview A Dress of Violet Taffeta by Tessa Arlen @BerkleyPub @Austenprose #VioletTaffeta #TessaArlen #AustenprosePR Title: A Dress of Violet Taffeta

Author: Tessa Arlen

Published by: Berkley on July 5, 2022

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 352

Format: Paperback

Source: Austenprose PR

Book Rating: 9/10

A sumptuous novel based on the fascinating true story of La Belle Époque icon Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon, who shattered the boundaries of fashion with her magnificently sensual and enchantingly unique designs.

Lucy Duff Gordon knows she is talented. She sees color, light, and texture in ways few people can begin to imagine. But is the male dominated world of haute couture, who would use her art for their own gain, ready for her?
 
When she is deserted by her wealthy husband, Lucy is left penniless with an aging mother and her five-year-old daughter to support. Desperate to survive, Lucy turns to her one true talent to make a living. As a little girl, the dresses she made for her dolls were the envy of her group of playmates. Now, she uses her creative designs and her remarkable eye for color to take her place in the fashion world—failure is not an option. 
 
Then, on a frigid night in 1912, Lucy’s life changes once more, when she becomes one of 706 people to survive the sinking of the Titanic. She could never have imagined the effects the disaster would have on her fashion label Lucile, her marriage to her second husband, and her legacy. But no matter what life throws at her, Lucy will live on as a trailblazing and innovative fashion icon, never letting go of what she worked so hard to earn.


Review:

Fascinating, rich, and insightful!

A Dress of Violet Taffeta is an enchanting, beautifully written interpretation that sweeps you away to England between 1893 and 1912 and into the life of Lucy Christiana Sutherland from her disastrous first marriage and subsequent divorce to James Stuart Wallace, her rise and fame as an international fashion designer, her courtship and second marriage to Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, and her survival of one of the most famous, tragic accidents of the twentieth century, the sinking of the Titanic.

The prose is eloquent and expressive.  The characters are hardworking, innovative, and independent. And the plot is an absorbing tale of life, love, friendship, family, determination, passion, courage, survival, and the ins and outs of dressmaking in the early 1900s. 

Overall, A Dress of Violet Taffeta is a vivid, immersive, intriguing novel by Arlen that does an exceptional job of highlighting her impressive knowledge and considerable research into this renowned iconic figure whose ingenuity, life, and hard work had a tremendous impact on the world of fashion.

 

           

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

Thank you to Berkley Publishing and Austenprose PR for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Tessa Arlen

Tessa Arlen writes historical fiction when she is not toiling away in her garden. She is the author of the Edwardian mystery series: Lady Montfort and Mrs. Jackson; the Woman of World War II mystery series. Poppy Redfern. And two standalone historical novels: In Royal Service to the Queen, and A Dress of Violet Taffeta.

 

#BookReview Fatal Witness by Robert Bryndza @RobertBryndza #FatalWitness #RobertBryndza #ErikaFoster

#BookReview Fatal Witness by Robert Bryndza @RobertBryndza #FatalWitness #RobertBryndza #ErikaFoster Title: Fatal Witness

Author: Robert Bryndza

Series: Detective Erika Foster #7

Published by: Raven Street Publishing on Jul. 7, 2022

Genres: Mystery/Thriller, Police Procedural

Pages: 372

Format: Paperback

Source: Robert Bryndza

Book Rating: 10/10

Detective Erika Foster is back in FATAL WITNESS – with a chilling new serial killer case in Robert Bryndza’s multi-million bestselling crime thriller series!

How do you find a killer who has destroyed all the evidence?

Detective Erika Foster is on a late-night walk near her new house in Blackheath when she stumbles upon the brutal murder of Vicky Clarke, a true-crime podcaster.

Erika is assigned to the case and discovers that Vicky had been working on a new podcast episode about a sexual predator who preys on young female students around South London, staking out his victims in their halls of residence before breaking in at the dead of night. When Erika discovers that Vicky’s notes and sound recordings were stolen from her flat at the time of her murder, it leads her to believe that Vicky was close to unmasking the attacker, and she was killed to guarantee her silence.

The case takes on a disturbing twist when the body of a young Bulgarian student doctor is discovered in the same building, and this makes Erika question everything she thought she knew about Vicky. With very little evidence, the clock is ticking to find the killer before he strikes again.


Review:

Disturbing, dark, and exceptionally entertaining!

Fatal Witness is an unpredictable, sinuous thrill ride that takes us back to London, where Detective Erika Foster and her team now find themselves investigating the death of Vicky Clarke, a true-crime podcaster whose own investigation into a slew of sexual attacks on female students may have just made her the latest victim of a callous predator who is willing to do whatever it takes to keep his identity hidden forever.

The writing is bold and crisp. The characters are resilient, impulsive, and troubled. And the plot, including all the subplots, unravel and intertwine seamlessly into a sinister tale full of twists, turns, secrets, surprises, manipulation, coercion, deception, violence, and murder.

Overall, Fatal Witness is another riveting, spine-chilling, engrossing thriller by one of my favourite authors that kept me guessing from the very first page and left me unnerved, impressed, highly satisfied and eager to read whatever his devious mind manages to come up with next.

This book is available now.

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Thank you to Robert Bryndza for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Robert Bryndza

Robert Bryndza is an international bestselling author, best known for his page-turning crime and thriller novels, which have sold over four million copies in the English language.

His crime debut, The Girl in the Ice was released in February 2016, introducing Detective Chief Inspector Erika Foster. Within five months it sold one million copies, reaching number one in the Amazon UK, USA and Australian charts. To date, The Girl in the Ice has sold over 1.5 million copies in the English language and has been sold into translation in 29 countries. It was nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for Mystery & Thriller (2016), the Grand prix des lectrices de Elle in France (2018), and it won two reader voted awards, The Thrillzone Awards best debut thriller in The Netherlands (2018) and The Dead Good Papercut Award for best page turner at the Harrogate Crime Festival (2016).

Robert has released a further five novels in the Erika Foster series, The Night Stalker, Dark Water, Last Breath, Cold Blood and Deadly Secrets, all of which have been global bestsellers, and in 2017 Last Breath was a Goodreads Choice Award nominee for Mystery and Thriller.

Most recently, Robert created a new crime thriller series based around the central character Kate Marshall, a police officer turned private detective. The first book, Nine Elms, was an Amazon USA #1 bestseller and an Amazon UK top five bestseller, and the series has been sold into translation in 18 countries. The second book in the series is the global bestselling, Shadow Sands and the third book, Darkness Falls, has just been published.

Robert was born in Lowestoft, on the east coast of England. He studied at Aberystwyth University, and the Guildford School of Acting, and was an actor for several years, but didn’t find success until he took a play he’d written to the Edinburgh Festival. This led to the decision to change career and start writing. He self-published a bestselling series of romantic comedy novels, before switching to writing crime. Robert lives with his husband in Slovakia, and is lucky enough to write full-time.