Review: An Offer From A Gentleman by Julia Quinn

 

Three Bridgerton books down and five more to go. I am still just as obsessed with this series as I was when I started the first season of the show. This installment has been a highly anticipated one because it follows my favorite Bridgerton sibling which is Benedict. I love the show Benedict because he is the comedic relief, especially second season when he gets high as a fucking kite thanks to Colin.

I ended up giving this a 4 out of 5 stars which is wild because I expected to give this 5 stars but 40 pages in, I realized this was a Cinderella retelling. I am not a big fan of fairy tales and I was dreading the bullies that would be part of this story. I am like the Bridgertons where they hate bullies and I am the same. I can't stand it in books but villians are a different story... I am a hypocrite.

Right from the beginning we learn that Sophie Beckett is a bastard. But she is being taken care of by her sperm donor, he just wont acknowledge her in society even though EVERYONE knows. The maids and butlers are her actually family. One day her father brings home a new wife and two daughters. Sophie is thrilled to finally have a mom and sisters. One look at Sophie from Araminta and she instantly hates that her new husband sired a bastard.

One day, the Earl kicks the bucket and in his will, he gives his wife an ultimatum. She take care of Sophie until she turns 20 and she will get 6000 pounds a year. If she kicks Sophie out and puts her into an orphanage, Araminta will only get 2000 pounds a year. He left all three girls dowrys, and Araminta becomes an embezzler. She keeps Sophie but leaves out details and turns her into a ladies maid and doesn't pay her.. essentially making Sophie a slave.

One night there is a masquerade ball and the servants help Sophie get to the ball. This is where she meets Benedict. He is instantly smitten with the lady in silver and when it comes time to remove the masks, she has to leave because it is.....dun dun dun.... MIDNIGHT!

Thankfully, the cinderella retelling doesn't last the whole book and it is basicaly heartbreak because she tells herself constantly not to get comfortable and that she can't be with Benedict because of her social status. Benedict falls for Sophie but he is still pining for the lady in silver not knowing it was Sophie.

There was a quote that Benedict tells Sophie and it honestly made me swoon and I cannot wait for the show and that line to be said. The quote is "Let me be your anchor". 

Also we get asshole Colin where he says the dreadful " I would never court Penelope Featherington". She hears this and I was just like you little bastard.

The second epilogue that was included sadly spoiled me for the next few books. 

Review: How to Become The Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler

 

Another new release read this year. I seriously am trying to be better about reading new releases but my library makes it really difficult. I really would like to vote for more than one book during the Goodreads choice awards at the end of the year. I may make my November tbr themed and just read new releases from the beginning of the year and this summer. Anyways... on to my thoughts of this book.

The title itself drew me in without reading the synopsis when I first heard it and then I heard that it was hilarious and everyone was giving it 5 stars. I got it from my library for three glorious weeks and I ended up giving it a 4 star. It was funny and I had a good time reading it, but by the end, I was just ready for it to be OVER! 

We follow our "heroine" Davi as she keeps being killed and resurrected. A fantasy groundhog day. She is getting sick and tired of being captured by the villains and being tortured to death. So then she decides to say fuck the kingdom and she sets out to become the dark lord. It takes many attempts to get a band of orcs on her side along with fox wilders, deer wilders and others. 

She has to get her horde of minions to the convocation where the dark lord is chosen and along the way, there is conflict, but it is a well oiled machine and it is surprising that all of her minions worked together and didn't clash. 

There were a couple of ick scenes where an attempt of rape happened and then one of Davi's advisors that she slept with got the wrong idea about them and then got butthurt when she decided to go to her number 1 advisor for nighttime play action and he decided to have her killed. A typical man wanting to kill a woman because she rather go down on another woman than him. 

The ending like I said was way to drawn out and thankfully this is a duology because there is ot much more of the story that can be explored besides that main chant that happened which would be a major spoiler. 

Review: The Last Letter by Rebecca Yarros

 

Another military romance for the year and this time it is by Rebecca Yarros, the author of Fourth Wing. Once again, I read this in less than 24 hours and I sobbed like a damn baby. It is not just romance, there is death and terminal illness and kids involved and it made me hug my babies.

This is set in a small ski town in Colorado and the main female owns a ski resort. Ella inherited it from her grandmother and she has just mortgaged it to put in new cabins to draw more business. Her brother is in the military and he asks her to write to one of his buddies who doesn't get mail. His call name is Chaos and in the span of 24 letters they form a real connection. 

Ella has 6 year old twins and her daughter gets diagnosed with neuroblastoma which is only seen in infants. She gets a stage 4 diagnosis and undergoes chemo, radiation and other treatments. Ella confides in Chaos as someone to vent to. Until there is a death that unravels and makes everything more difficult and slow burn-y. 

Beckett arrives in Telluride to help Ella with whatever she needs because the bills are piling up and she feels that Colt is not getting enough attention. I swear the bond between Maisie and Colt are scary. The end where Maisie felt the pain and didn't feel it anymore made me drop the book and couldn't breathe because I was crying so hard. 

This is the first time where I am glad that her other military books follow other couples because I feel that the ending to this was tied up very nicely and that anything else would be an ivasion of privacy.... this fake fictional characters..... WHAT!

But unlike my reading experience with Pretend You're Mine where I didn't want to put it down, I did put this down multiple times because I needed to breathe and process. I didn't go crazy needing my own copy at the moment, but it will be on my shelf because Rebecca Yarros is now an auto buy author for me.

Review: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

 

Another World War 2 book read this year and this was not what I was expecting. I was expecting a quick read that would have me wanting to keep turning the pages and hook me from the very beginning. This took me a week to read and the book I just got done reading was 100 pages shorter and I read it in a day. I have had my eye on this for the last two years and with the netflix show coming out a few months ago, I was intrigued. I went into it not knowing much so when I learned that it was about radios and a blind girl, I didn't know whatto expect.

The formatting was not a favorite. The chapters were short which I don't know how to feel about because I always put down a book after a chapter to take a break and I think that is one of the reasons why it took me so long to read. 

Whenever we were on a Werner chapter and the pieces of a radio and transistors were being described and how to put a radio together, I would skim because it took me out of the story because it was so boring. The same when Marie Laure described her self counting steps and storm drains to get around, I was just not into it. This could have been so much better, but it was so repetitive and tangent filled.

Also the Sea of Flames was a plot device that was just abandoned and I could not wrap my head around why we were constantly being told the story of the prince who couldn't die and the Goddess who made the stone. 

I am going to be watching the show because I have been having a good time with adaptations and them being better than the books which is blasphemy.... I KNOW!

BLOG TOUR: Cabaret Macabre by Tom Mead

I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the CABARET MACABRE by Tom Mead Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!

 

About The Book:

Title: CABARET MACABRE: A Locked-Room Mystery (Joseph Spector Series)

Author: Tom Mead

Pub. Date: July 16, 2024

Publisher: Mysterious Press

Formats: Hardcover, eBook, Audiobook

Pages: 320

Find it: Goodreads, https://books2read.com/CABARET-MACABRE 

This latest puzzle mystery from the author of Death and the Conjuror and The Murder Wheel takes stage magician sleuth Joseph Spector to a grand estate in the English countryside.

Victor Silvius has spent nine years as an inmate at The Grange, a private sanatorium, for the crime of attacking judge Sir Giles Drury. Now, the judge’s wife, Lady Elspeth Drury, believes that Silvius is the one responsible for a series of threatening letters her husband has recently received. Eager to avoid the scandal that involving the local police would entail, Lady Elspeth seeks out retired stage magician Joseph Spector, whose discreet involvement in a case Sir Giles recently presided over greatly impressed her.

Meanwhile, Miss Caroline Silvius is disturbed after a recent visit to her brother Victor, convinced that he isn’t safe at The Grange. Someone is trying to kill him and she suspects the judge, who has already made Silvius’ life a living hell, may be behind it. Caroline hires Inspector George Flint of Scotland Yard to investigate.

The two cases collide at Marchbanks, the Drury family seat of over four hundred years, where a series of unnerving events interrupt the peace and quiet of the snowy countryside. A body is discovered in the middle of a frozen pond without any means of getting there and a rifle is fired through a closed window, killing a man but not breaking the glass. Only Spector and his mastery of the art of misdirection can uncover the logical explanations for these impossible crimes.

An atmospheric and puzzling traditional mystery that pays homage to the greatest writers of the genre’s Golden Age, Cabaret Macabre is the third book in Tom Mead’s Joseph Spector series, hailed by the Wall Street Journal as “a recipe for pure nostalgic pleasure.” The books can be enjoyed in any order.

 

Reviews:

"Ingenious . . . Mead hides all the clues in plain sight, constructing a fair-play puzzle that will delight and challenge readers who love pitting their own wits against the author’s. It’s another crackerjack entry in an exceptional series."― Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW

"Mind-bogglingly complex . . . A lovely valentine to Mead’s idol, John Dickson Carr, and even more to Clayton Rawson’s tales of The Great Merlini."― Kirkus

About Tom Mead:

Tom Mead is a Derbyshire mystery writer and aficionado of Golden Age crime fiction. His debut novel, Death and the Conjuror, was an international bestseller, nominated for several awards, and named one of the best mysteries of the year by The Guardian and Publishers Weekly. Its sequel, The Murder Wheel, was described as “pure nostalgic pleasure” by the Wall Street Journal and “a delight” by the Daily Mail. It was also named one of the Best Traditional Mysteries of 2023 by CrimeReads. His third novel, Cabaret Macabre, will be published in 2024.

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Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok | Goodreads | Amazon | BookBub

 

Giveaway Details:

3 winners will receive a finished copy of CABARET MACABRE, US Only.

Ends August 6th, midnight EST.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tour Schedule:

Week One:

7/1/2024	Two Chicks on Books	Interview/IG Post
7/2/2024	Lady Hawkeye	Excerpt/IG Post
7/3/2024	Book Review Virginia Lee Blog	Excerpt/IG Post
7/4/2024	Daily Waffle	Excerpt
7/5/2024	Writer of Wrongs	Excerpt
7/6/2024	@darkfantasyreviews	Excerpt

Week Two:

7/7/2024	@dreaminginpages	IG Review
7/8/2024	Brandi Danielle Davis	IG Review/TikTok Post
7/9/2024	Books and Zebras	IG Review
7/10/2024	@evergirl200	IG Review
7/11/2024	GryffindorBookishnerd	IG Review
7/12/2024	@katemageau	Review/IG Post
7/13/2024	Bookborne Hunter	Review/IG Post

Week Three:

7/14/2024	Lifestyle of Me	Review
7/15/2024	Fire and Ice	Review/IG Post
7/16/2024	@jaimes_mystical_library	IG Post
7/17/2024	Edith's Little Free Library	IG Review/LFL Drop Pic/TikTok Post
7/18/2024	Country Mamas With Kids	Review/IG Post
7/19/2024	Kim's Book Reviews and Writing Aha's	Review/IG Post
7/20/2024	The Momma Spot	Review/IG Post

Week Four:

7/21/2024	@lara.maynard	IG Review
7/22/2024	Dana Loves Books	Review/IG Post
7/23/2024	heyashleyyreads	IG Review/TikTok Post
7/24/2024	Deal sharing aunt	Review/IG Post
7/25/2024	One More Exclamation	Review/IG Post
7/26/2024	@amysbookshelf82	IG Review
7/27/2024	A Blue Box Full of Books	IG Review/LFL Drop Pic/TikTok Post

Week Five:

7/28/2024	@nolareads504	IG Post
7/29/2024	two points of interest	Review
7/30/2024	More Books Please blog	Review/IG Post
7/31/2024	FUONLYKNEW	Review

Review: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

 

Another classic done and checked off the list. I thought it was OK and gave it a 3 out of 5 stars. I kind of figured it would be bland for me because I do not like familial classics. I need action like Les Miserables, A Tale of Two Cities, Macbeth, The Picture of Dorian Gray.... etc. I found myself nodding off every time I picked this up and I was listening to the audio book and reading along. To be honest, this book did not need to be this long and it would have been fine being half the size. 

Little Women is set during the civil war in the North and thankfully, it is not mentioned much beside the father being away in the war. I have read two civil war fictions this year and I can confidently say that it is not one of the wars that I enjoy reading about. 

We follow four sisters who grow up and become their own people and navigate relationships and learn how to be proper women. The second eldest daughter Jo is so much like my oldest daughter who is very tomboyish and wants a short hair cut and doesn't want to be a wife or mom and I support her in those decisions. But I did think that Jo was very blind because she was best friends with Laurie and she calls him her boy and she did not think that of course he would fall for her. 

I ended up looking up the cast and who portrayed who and I could put the faces with names which then made the book more enjoyable. 

Top Ten Tuesday: Classics wishlist

 

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jana from That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week is a freebie and with one month left till the school year starts for my girls who are now high school and middle school students, I am focusing on classics and sharing my amazon wishlist.

amazon wishlist

My 10th grader and 9th grader have classic lists a mile long this year and last year was a real struggle because my local library didn't have copies, reading online made them frustrated because they couldn't annotate and bookmark passages when writing essays.

So I have put the ten on my list that both will be reading this year and the summer next year. If anyone does contribute and purchases a book for my kids, I would be eternally grateful but no pressure.