Friday 30 March 2018

#BlogTour Courage Between Love and Death by Joseph Pillitteri @hfvbt @joepillitteri1 @Fireship_Press

Courage Between Love and Death by Joseph Pillitteri

Publication Date: March 29, 2018
Fireship Press
eBook & Paperback; 302 Pages
Genre: Historical/Romance/Medical/Political
Elspeth has recently landed a nursing position at the 1901 Pan American Exposition Hospital in Buffalo, New York. This is a big boon for her, but things are not going as expected. She has to navigate mischievous patients, egotistical doctors, rival nurses and prejudices. For an Irish girl with a temper, this is no easy feat. Now President McKinley is coming to visit the Expo and everyone is in an uproar. On the home front, her life is no less hectic as she struggles to put food on the table and look out for her younger siblings. 

When the unthinkable happens, it is a turning point, not only for the medical industry and our country’s security, but also for Elspeth personally. With her career and reputation on the line, will she have the courage to overcome the challenges she faces to clear her name and continue to be there for the ones she loves?

Amazon | Barnes and Noble | IndieBound


Praise for Courage Between Love and Death


“…Pilliterri deftly weaves together the state of medicine, the social class spectrum and a light love story…the chaos of the surgery on the President and the anxious days till his death provide palpable tension...” —Dr. Jean Richardson, Associate Professor, Emeritus, SUNY Buffalo State College “…

Joseph Pillitteri’s writing is flawless and delightful. The tension builds up very fast and doesn’t slow down until the satisfying conclusion. Courage Between Love and Death is focused, deft, and balanced, and the reader will follow the protagonist through her emotional and psychological turmoil until the very last page. A gripping story with great historical references, it’s an edge of the seat read. Courage Between Love and Death by Joseph Pillitteri is a historical novel that is well-researched and written to great satisfaction.” —Christian Sia, Readers’ Favorite

“Courage Between Love and Death is a well-researched and masterfully crafted historical novel with strong characters and a mesmerizing plot. Apart from developing a very strong conflict, Joseph Pillitteri does a brilliant job in weaving powerful dialogues and intrigue into the story. The reader is transported into an atmospheric world with medical personnel, strong personalities, and a historic event that will remain engraved in the minds of many. There is so much to enjoy in this novel — the drama, the emotional and psychological intensity of the story, the excellent prose and the compelling characters. I was sucked into the narrative from the very first page.” —Romuald Dzemo, Readers’ Favorite

About the Author


While working at Roswell Park Memorial Hospital in Buffalo, NY, Joseph Pillitteri became intrigued by the role Dr. Park played in the surgery of President McKinley at the 1901 Pan American Exposition. It was a pleasure to shape facts and fiction together to tell the story.

Previous works by Pillitteri include When the Giraffe Runs Down (Dial Press), Two Hours on Sunday (Dial Press), The Abortion (Penguin Books), and Life Pulse (Penguin Books).

Blog Tour Schedule


Thursday, March 29 
Review at 100 Pages a Day 

Friday, March 30 
Feature at A Bookaholic Swede 

Saturday, March 31 

Monday, April 2 
Review at Back Porchervations 
Feature at Clarissa Reads it All 

Tuesday, April 3 
Feature at T's Stuff 

Wednesday, April 4 

Friday, April 6 
Review at Cup of Sensibility 

Sunday, April 8 
Review at Carole's Ramblings 

Tuesday, April 10 
Feature at Let Them Read Books 

Thursday, April 12 
Feature at Donna's Book Blog 

Tuesday, April 17 
Feature at A Literary Vacation 

Wednesday, April 18 
Tour Recap at Passages to the Past

Giveaway


During the Blog Tour we will be giving away a $25 Amazon Gift Card! To enter, please enter via the Gleam form below.

Giveaway Rules 

– Giveaway ends at 11:59pm EST on April 18th. You must be 18 or older to enter.
– Giveaway is open to US residents only.
– Only one entry per household.
– All giveaway entrants agree to be honest and not cheat the systems; any suspect of fraud is decided upon by blog/site owner and the sponsor, and entrants may be disqualified at our discretion.
– Winner has 48 hours to claim prize or new winner is chosen.
Courage Between Love and Death

#BookReview Hank & Jim: The Fifty-Year Friendship of Henry Fonda and James Stewart by Scott Eyman @ScottEyman1 @simonbooks

Hank & Jim: The Fifty-Year Friendship of Henry Fonda and James Stewart by Scott Eyman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

New York Times bestselling author Scott Eyman tells the story of the remarkable friendship of two Hollywood legends who, though different in many ways, maintained a close friendship that endured all of life’s twists and turns.

Henry Fonda and James Stewart were two of the biggest stars in Hollywood for forty years. They became friends and then roommates as stage actors in New York, and when they began making films in Hollywood, they roomed together again. Between them they made such memorable films as The Grapes of Wrath, Mister Roberts, Twelve Angry Men, and On Golden Pond; and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Destry Rides Again, The Philadelphia Story, It’s a Wonderful Life, Vertigo, and Rear Window.

They got along famously, with a shared interest in elaborate practical jokes and model airplanes, among other things. Fonda was a liberal Democrat, Stewart a conservative Republican, but after one memorable blow-up over politics, they agreed never to discuss that subject again. Fonda was a ladies’ man who was married five times; Stewart remained married to the same woman for forty-five years. Both men volunteered during World War II and were decorated for their service. When Stewart returned home, still unmarried, he once again moved in with Fonda, his wife, and his two children, Jane and Peter, who knew him as Uncle Jimmy.

For Hank and Jim, biographer and film historian Scott Eyman spoke with Fonda’s widow and children as well as three of Stewart’s children, plus actors and directors who had worked with the men—in addition to doing extensive archival research to get the full details of their time together. This is not another Hollywood story, but a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary friendship that lasted through war, marriages, children, careers, and everything else.


**********

As a BIG fan of Henry Fonda was I eager to read this book. I liked the idea of the book that it's a book about Hank and Jim, two very different men who became friends when they were young actors and stayed friends throughout their lives.

It was fascinating reading about how they started out in the theater, their lives before they become famous, dating women, marriages (Jim one time while Hank 5), WW2 and how they were decorated for their services, the high and low of their careers. And, of course, the twilight of their lives, when they started to lose good friends who passed away, and when they both got older and finally when Hank passed away and Jim had to go one without his best friend.

It's a fabulous book, and I loved how the friendship between the men lasted all through their lives, despite the difference for instance when it came to politics. Their shared loved for model airplanes was charming to read about. I also found the chapter about WW2 absolutely fascinating to read. So many Hollywood stars that fought during the war and it was interesting to learn that they both were more than figureheads that they actually did fight. And, that they didn't talk much about it later in life. Jim's children, for instance, had no idea what their father had done in the war, more than that he had been a soldier.

Then we have their personal life. Hanks marriages all failed until the very last one (Shirlee, who he was married to until his death) while Jim found the right woman, Gloria, who he was married to until her death. Hank's first marriage ended when his wife committed suicide and after that came a string of marriages that didn't work out at all while Jim was in his 40s when he finally found the right woman to marry. It's interesting btw how Margaret Sullavan came to play a big part in both their lives, Hank marrying her, then divorcing since they could not live together, while Jim had a crush on her that lasted several years.
It was a difficult birth, and Gloria stayed in the hospital for several weeks. Her release from the hospital provided her with one of her favorite stories about her dreamy husband. Jim went to get the car to pick her up, but sometime between leaving the hospital and getting in the car, he forgot that he was supposed to pick her up. Instead, he started driving home. Gloria knew her man. After twenty minutes of waiting, she told the nurse that he had forgotten about her. The nurse didn’t think such a thing was possible, but Gloria knew better. She told the nurse to take her and the babies upstairs. She would wait for the absentminded actor to remember what he had forgotten. On the way back home, Jim stopped at a photography studio to pick up some pictures. When the photographer asked after Gloria, Jim suddenly realized what he had done and ran for a phone. He’d be right there, he told her. 

I want to thank G.P. Putnam's Sons for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review!

#BookReview The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch @LetterSwitch ‏ @PRHGlobal @PutnamBooks

The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Inception meets True Detective in this science-fiction thriller of spellbinding tension and staggering scope. The Gone World follows a special agent into a savage murder case with grave implications for the fate of mankind.

Shannon Moss is part of a clandestine division within the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. In Western Pennsylvania, 1997, she is assigned to solve the murder of a Navy SEAL's family--and to locate his teenage daughter, who has disappeared. Though she can't share the information with conventional law enforcement, Moss discovers that the missing SEAL was an astronaut aboard the spaceship U.S.S. Libra--a ship assumed lost to the darkest currents of Deep Time. Moss knows first-hand the mental trauma of time-travel and believes the SEAL's experience with the future has triggered this violence.

Determined to find the missing girl and driven by a troubling connection from her own past, Moss travels ahead in time to explore possible versions of the future, seeking evidence or insight that will crack the present-day case. To her horror, the future reveals that it's not only the fate of a family that hinges on her work, for what she witnesses rising over time's horizon and hurtling toward the present is the Terminus: the terrifying and cataclysmic end of humanity itself.

Luminous and unsettling, The Gone World bristles with world-shattering ideas yet remains at its heart an intensely human story.


**********

If there is one book that I feel inadequate to review, it's The Gone World, because it's so mind-blowing fascinating and sometimes a bit too much for my little brain to take it, but at least I think I grasped most of what was going on in the book. Still, it's hard to review that left you with a feeling of exhausting, wonder and dread.

Within two months of her arrival in Virginia Beach, she had time-traveled to the Terminus of humanity and sailed the farthest reaches of the Andromeda Galaxy, bathed in starlight that wouldn’t touch Earth for another two and a half million years.

The book is gorgeously written, and at first, there is a tiny feeling of hope in the story, despite, the gruesome murder, as we learn more about time travel, and all the wonders with it. Then, we learn about Terminus, the end of humanity, an end that is closing in faster and faster, from being a threat generations away to a threat that seems to move faster towards each day and you start to feel that humanity may be doomed that there will be no way to stop Terminus from happening.

The Gone World is a fabulous science fiction book and I felt a craving for more books like this after finishing it. I've always loved time travel, and I loved the idea of going forward to an "if" future to see back to how for instance a case would be solved, and then go back. It's not a new thought, but adding the Terminus, gives the book a sense of doom, a sense that nothing will, in the end, stop the end of humanity. There is hope, but will Shannon Moss, be able to figure out a way to stop Terminus? Or is she just fighting windmills?

I feel that part of me is still processing this book, despite that, I finished the book a couple of days ago. It's such an extraordinary book. I also loved how the author quoted August Strindberg, from the book The Ghost Sonata, as intro quotes for new parts in the book. Love details like that. And, I need to find time to read or listen to Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Tom Sweterlitsch!

Read it, or listen to the audiobook. I have a tendency to do both when I have the chance, reading at home listening at work. Btw that's a great way to get some reading done when you don't have time. Combine listening with reading. *A tip from a Bookaholic Swede*

And some people had left their bodies entirely, had become immortal, living as waves of light - but once they could no longer die, the immortals begged for death, because life without passage of time becomes meaningless. It used to be thought that hell was a lack of God, but hell is a lack of death.

I want to thank G.P. Putnam's Sons for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review!

Thursday 29 March 2018

#CoverCrush The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

For new visitors do I want to explain that Cover Crush is something that my friend Erin over at Flashlight Commentary came up with and I adopted the idea together with some other friends. And, now we try to put up a Cover Crush every week. You can check below my pick of the week for their choices this week!


From the Booker Prize-winning author of the Regeneration trilogy comes a monumental new masterpiece, set in the midst of literature’s most famous war. Pat Barker turns her attention to the timeless legend of The Iliad, as experienced by the captured women living in the Greek camp in the final weeks of the Trojan War.

The ancient city of Troy has withstood a decade under siege of the powerful Greek army, who continue to wage bloody war over a stolen woman—Helen. In the Greek camp, another woman watches and waits for the war’s outcome: Briseis. She was queen of one of Troy’s neighboring kingdoms, until Achilles, Greece’s greatest warrior, sacked her city and murdered her husband and brothers. Briseis becomes Achilles’s concubine, a prize of battle, and must adjust quickly in order to survive a radically different life, as one of the many conquered women who serve the Greek army.
When Agamemnon, the brutal political leader of the Greek forces, demands Briseis for himself, she finds herself caught between the two most powerful of the Greeks. Achilles refuses to fight in protest, and the Greeks begin to lose ground to their Trojan opponents. Keenly observant and cooly unflinching about the daily horrors of war, Briseis finds herself in an unprecedented position to observe the two men driving the Greek forces in what will become their final confrontation, deciding the fate, not only of Briseis’s people, but also of the ancient world at large.

Briseis is just one among thousands of women living behind the scenes in this war—the slaves and prostitutes, the nurses, the women who lay out the dead—all of them erased by history. With breathtaking historical detail and luminous prose, Pat Barker brings the teeming world of the Greek camp to vivid life. She offers nuanced, complex portraits of characters and stories familiar from mythology, which, seen from Briseis’s perspective, are rife with newfound revelations. Barker’s latest builds on her decades-long study of war and its impact on individual lives—and it is nothing short of magnificent.

Thoughts:

I find this cover so stunning! The blue color feels like the right choice and I love how the woman looks like a statue. It's a cover that feels so strong in its simplicity and I love that in the background the yellow dots kind of highlights the woman.

Check out what my friends have picked for Cover Crush's this week:

Stephanie @ Layered Pages





#BlogTour A Wolf in the Woods by Nancy Allen @TheNancyAllen @partnersincr1me

A Wolf in the Woods by Nancy Allen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A Wolf in the Woods

by Nancy Allen

on Tour March 1-31, 2018

Synopsis:

A Wolf in the Woods by Nancy Allen
McCown County assistant prosecutor Elsie Arnold is prepping an assault case when a girl is found beaten and bloodied at a roadside no-tell motel. Elsie tries to convince the teen to reveal who attacked her, but Mandy is too scared—and stubborn—to cooperate… and then she disappears. Elsie’s positive a predator is targeting the Ozark hills, yet the authorities refuse to believe their small town could be plagued by sex trafficking.

Then middle school student Desiree Wickham goes missing, but only Elsie suspects it could be connected to Mandy’s assault. As she digs deeper into the events leading up to Desiree’s disappearance, she stumbles upon an alarming discovery: local girls are falling prey to a dubious online modeling agency, and never seen again. Elsie shares her concerns with Detective Ashlock and the FBI, but they shut her out.

She takes matters into her own hands and lands an interview with the head of the modeling agency. But when she meets him face-to-face, she discovers the fate of Desiree and Mandy… and becomes his newest captive. Elsie’s desperate to free the girls—and save herself—before the unspeakable happens. And she’s in for the fight of her life.

Book Details:

Genre: Mystery
Published by: Witness Impulse
Publication Date: February 20, 2018
Number of Pages: 320
ISBN: 0062438786 (ISBN13: 9780062438782)
Series: Ozarks Mysteries #4 | Each is a Stand Alone Mystery
Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads | HarperCollins

Book Review 


A Wolf in the Woods in the fourth book in the Ozarks Mysteries series and they are perfectly alright to read stand alone. I should know this is the first one I have read.

I always like reading books that right from the start are interesting and this one fits that category. There are several POV in the book, we have of course the main character, assistant prosecutor Elsie Arnold, we also got the girls that are taken advantage off in this book and the people behind the false model website. I found this way of telling the story to be just the right kind of narrative, giving the story the extra kind of tension as the story progresses. I'm actually kind of surprised how fast I read this book, despite the fact that I'm a fast reader. It felt like a rollercoaster ride, we are going up up and then when we are at the top, its free fall. That's how I felt about the book, no ups and downs, just a story that starts off and constantly moving forward without ever feeling slow.

It took a while for me to "like" Elsie Arnold, she's the kind of characters that I found myself a bit wary of at first, her attitude and way of living just rubbed me the wrong way. She feels like a woman that still thinks acts younger than her years, at least that's the expression I got. However, she did grow on me as the story progressed and when the final chapter came was I sad to leave her behind, especially after, let's say a very surprising ending.

A Wolf in the Woods is a book that definitely left an impression on me, the story is addictive and I found myself completely engrossed in it and, despite my wariness of the main character did she grow on me so much that I long for the next book in the series. And of course the previous ones...

Read an excerpt:

Prologue

A dark haired man lounged behind a battered desk in a second floor room at an EconoMo motel that sat on the highway in flyover country, Missouri. He pulled up Skype on his laptop and studied his own image on the computer screen, rubbing the tattoo that covered his neck. Behind him, the unmade bed was visible on the screen. A thin cotton sheet covered the form of a young girl.
He adjusted the angle to cut her from the shot. The bed disappeared, replaced by beige curtains at the window, hanging askew on the rod.
The place was a dump. He could afford better accommodations, without a doubt. It was business, and business was booming. His greatest challenge was procuring sufficient supply to meet the constant demand.
On the desktop, bottles were scattered near the computer. Alprazolam. Oxycodone. Rohypnol. Diazepam. Three value packs of Benadryl: cherry flavored. A plastic bottle of Aristocrat vodka sat beside a jumbo container of Hawaiian Punch.
As he pushed them aside, the bottle of roofies rolled off the desktop and onto the dirty carpet. He caught it just before it rolled under the dresser.
A ding notified him: his Skype appointment was ready. Right on time. He liked the girls to be punctual.
He hit the button on the mouse and fixed a smile on his face. “Lola! How you doing, baby!”
A giggling girl with a mane of curly blonde hair greeted him onscreen. “Tony, you’re so funny. I’m not Lola, I’ve told you a zillion times.”
“But you look like a Lola. If you want to make it in the modeling trade, you’ll have to project glamour. Drama.” He stretched his arms over his head, displaying muscled biceps covered in ink, and locked his hands behind his neck.
“Cool.” Her eyes shone.
“Leave that country girl persona behind in Podunk. Where are you from again?”
“Barton. Barton, Missouri. Where’s Podunk?”
He laughed, running his hand over his thick hair. “Podunk is where you’re sitting right now. What you’re itching to ditch. How’s life?”
Desiree shrugged, pulling a face.
“They still giving you shit at school, baby?”
She rolled her head back onto her neck. “All. The. Time.”
“And how’s living at home?”
“Lame.”
“Wish you could leave it all behind?”
“Totally.”
The girl turned her head; he heard a whisper from someone off-screen. Sharply, he asked: “Are you alone?”
A second head appeared over Lola’s shoulder. He saw a mixed race girl. She was taller than Lola, but he pegged her at the same age: an adolescent, around fourteen.
And she was a diamond in the rough—a black diamond. Unblemished skin, full lips, high cheekbones. Lola said, “You asked if I had any friends who wanted to meet you.”
He smiled, tapping his hand on the counter. “Who’s this?”
The tall girl looked at her friend, then into the computer. “I’m Taylor Johnson.”
“And you’re interested in modeling?”
She blinked. A nervous twitch. He shot a grin, to reassure her. “You’ve got the bone structure for it.”
The tall girl pinched her lips together. “Maybe. I think so.”
“We’ll need to conduct some auditions by video, maybe an interview, before you can qualify for a live shoot at the agency.”
She looked skittish. He wouldn’t get anything from her today.
“Let’s just get acquainted, okay?” He was about to launch into his patter: find out her story, gain her trust.
But a moan sounded from the bed behind him. The girl was coming around. He glanced over, fearful that she might raise a ruckus that could scare off his new prospects.
Tony picked up his phone. “Aw shit. Call’s coming in from one of our clients. I gotta take it.” He winked and shut off Skype just in time.
In a weak voice, she said, “Tony. Help me. Please, take off the cuffs.”
He sighed. Picking up a dirty plastic cup, he poured a measure of vodka and Benadryl, and topped it off with the red punch.
The girl spoke again, in a pleading tone. “Don’t make me do it, Tony. It hurts.”
He stirred the drink with his finger and walked toward the bed. “Mandy, Mandy. You look like you could use a magic drink, baby. This will fix you right up.”
The girl tried to sit up as he extended the red plastic cup. Tony stared down at her, shaking his head. “What’s that saying? ‘The customer is always right.’ You know what you got to do.”
The girl began to thrash against the mattress. But she was handcuffed to the metal bed frame.
***
Excerpt from A Wolf in the Woods by Nancy Allen. Copyright © 2018 by Nancy Allen. Reproduced with permission from Witness Impulse. All rights reserved.
Nancy Allen

Author Bio:

Nancy Allen practiced law for 15 years as Assistant Missouri Attorney General and Assistant Prosecutor in her native Ozarks.
She tried over 30 jury trials, including murder and sexual offenses, and is now a law instructor at Missouri State University.

Catch Up With Ms. Allen On: nancyallenbooks.com Goodreads - Nancy Allen Twitter - @TheNancyAllen & Facebook - NancyAllenAuthor


Tour Participants:

Visit the other great hosts on this tour for more great reviews, interviews, guest posts, and giveaways!

Get More Great Reads at Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours

 

Monday 26 March 2018

#BookReview The Stranger by Kate Riordan @KateRiordanUK @MichaelJBooks

The Stranger by Kate Riordan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Cornwall, 1940.

In the hushed hours of the night a woman is taken by the sea.

Was it a tragic accident? Or should the residents of Penhallow have been more careful about whom they invited in?

In the midst of war three women arrive seeking safety at Penhallow Hall.

Each is looking to escape her past.

But one of them is not there by choice.

As the threat of invasion mounts and the nightly blackouts feel longer and longer, tensions between the close-knit residents rise until dark secrets start to surface.

And no one can predict what their neighbour is capable of . . .

In a house full of strangers, who do you trust?


**********

The Stranger is the third book I have read by Kate Riordan and I love the chilling atmosphere of the book. The book starts off very mysterious with a suggestive chapter "The Night Diana Devlin goes Missing", and then the book jumps back in time taking us six weeks back in time and then we get to learn the main characters in the book, land girl Diane Devlin, both through her POV and her diary, her roommate and also land girl Rose and also the lady of the mansion Eleanor. All three women have secrets and Diane is the catalyst that will bring past events to the light.

The Stranger is a book that at first felt a bit difficult to place, it definitely felt more chilling than the previous two books I have read by the author, more thriller than a mystery. Also, I found the characters a bit hard to connect to, especially Diane was difficult to figure out because the version you get to know through the diary feels a lot different from the person the other characters meet. Let me just say that she provoked so many people that I was not surprised that the book started off with her going missing. It was first towards the end that I realized that her presence in Penhollow perhaps was not so bad, she did set things in motion. Things that had to be dealt with. However, what will the consequences be?

I will end this review by saying that the ending was not what I expected and I want to say bravo to the author! It was such a great ending, so perfect!

I want to thank Penguin UK for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review!

Saturday 24 March 2018

#BookReview The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck @jessicashattuck ‏@WmMorrowBooks

The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three women, haunted by the past and the secrets they hold

Set at the end of World War II, in a crumbling Bavarian castle that once played host to all of German high society, a powerful and propulsive story of three widows whose lives and fates become intertwined an affecting, shocking, and ultimately redemptive novel from the author of the New York Times Notable Book The Hazards of Good Breeding.

Amid the ashes of Nazi Germany s defeat, Marianne von Lingenfels returns to the once-grand castle of her husband s ancestors, an imposing stone fortress now fallen into ruin following years of war. The widow of a resister murdered in the failed July 20, 1944, plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Marianne plans to uphold the promise she made to her husband s brave conspirators: to find and protect their wives, her fellow resistance widows.

First Marianne rescues six-year-old Martin, the son of her dearest childhood friend, from a Nazi reeducation home. Together, they make their way across the smoldering wreckage of their homeland to Berlin, where Martin s mother, the beautiful and naive Benita, has fallen into the hands of occupying Red Army soldiers. Then she locates Ania, another resister s wife, and her two boys, now refugees languishing in one of the many camps that house the millions displaced by the war.

As Marianne assembles this makeshift family from the ruins of her husband s resistance movement, she is certain their shared pain and circumstances will hold them together. But she quickly discovers that the black-and-white, highly principled world of her privileged past has become infinitely more complicated, filled with secrets and dark passions that threaten to tear them apart. Eventually, all three women must come to terms with the choices that have defined their lives before, during, and after the war each with their own unique share of challenges.


**********

I found The Women in the Castle to be a very captivating book to read. The blurb gives away quite a lot of the storyline in the book, or so one would think. Actually, it just skimmed the surface, gives the reader some fact, which when you start to read the book, when more of the women's past are revealed not to mention decision they make for the future really shows how little you know about them.

I liked getting a story about the women left after a failed assassin attempt on Adolf Hitler. How they coped with their life after their husbands were executed. Living in a place where people (servants, villagers, etc.) were actually happy with the failed attempt and trying to build up a new life after the war ended. I liked how the author managed to surprise me as the story progressed with twists to the story that I had not anticipated.

The Women in the Castle storyline stretches all the way to modern time and I was engrossed in following the lives of these three very different women that had to cope with losing so much during the war. It's a book I recommend warmly!

I want to thank William Morrow pub. for providing me with a free copy through Edelweiss for an honest review!

#BookReview Along the Infinite Sea by Beatriz Williams @authorbeatriz ‏@PRHAudio #AudioBookReview

Along the Infinite Sea by Beatriz Williams
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Each of the three Schuyler sisters has her own world-class problems, but in the autumn of 1966, Pepper Schuyler's problems are in a class of their own. When Pepper fixes up a beautiful and rare vintage Mercedes and sells it at auction, she thinks she's finally found a way to take care of herself and the baby she carries, the result of an affair with a married, legendary politician.

But the car's new owner turns out to have secrets of her own, and as the glamorous and mysterious Annabelle Dommerich takes pregnant Pepper under her wing, the startling provenance of this car comes to light: a Nazi husband, a Jewish lover, a flight from Europe, and a love so profound it transcends decades. As the many threads of Annabelle's life from World War II stretch out to entangle Pepper in 1960s America, and the father of her unborn baby tracks her down to a remote town in coastal Georgia, the two women must come together to face down the shadows of their complicated pasts.

Indomitable heroines, a dazzling world of secrets, champagne at the Paris Ritz, and a sweeping love story for the ages, in New York Times bestselling author Beatriz William's final book about the Schuyler sisters.


**********

As usual, did I start off reading (or in this case listening) the wrong book in a Beatriz Williams series. I have a tendency to go for the last one published and then go back to the start. Luckily, the books Williams write are all stand-alone(ish).

Along the Infinite Sea is a fabulous book. I have an easy way to determine how good an audiobook is. Since I have work where I can listen to audiobooks do I want to feel that the books captivate me in such a way that after 8 hours of work does it feel like I breezed through the day. Or at least I have been entertained. This one? Well, it was like magic and I loved every single minute of the book. Kathleen McInerney is a fabulous narrator and I could listen to her talk all day long.

As for the story. I'm a big fan of dual storylines and I found myself quite caught up in both Pepper Schyuler's life and problems as well as Annabelle Dommerich story about her youth in Europe in the 40s. I was hooked and captivated by both storylines, although I found myself more taken with Pepper as a person than Annabelle, at least young Annabelle, the older one was far sassier.

I've always like that Williams manage to portray here characters, give them depth and great personalities. She's especially great when it comes to greate strong female characters, and the Schuyler sisters are definitely special. I've just finished book one and Vivian Schuyler is just as brassy as Pepper. I'm looking forward to reading about Tiny next.

Friday 23 March 2018

#BlogTour The Silent Games by Alex Gray @Alexincrimeland @partnersincr1me

The Silent Games by Alex Gray The Silent Games

by Alex Gray

on Tour March 12 - April 14, 2018


Synopsis:


Alex Gray's stunning new Lorimer novel, set against the backdrop of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, brings the vibrant city to life in a race to stop the greatest threat the city has ever known.

2014: The Commonwealth Games are coming to Glasgow and security is extra tight, particularly after a mysterious bomb explodes in nearby rural Stirlingshire. As the opening ceremony for the Games draws ever closer, the police desperately seek the culprits. But Detective Superintendent Lorimer has other concerns on his mind. One is a beautiful red-haired woman from his past whose husband dies suddenly on his watch. Then there is the body of a young woman found dumped in countryside just south of the city who is proving impossible to identify. Elsewhere in Glasgow people prepare for the events in their own way, whether for financial gain or to welcome home visitors from overseas. And, hiding behind false identities, are those who pose a terrible threat not just to the Games but to the very fabric of society.

Critical Praise:


An excellent procedural in which Gray ... does for Glasgow what Ian Rankin did for Edinburgh in the annals of crime fiction.” — Kirkus Reviews on The Silent Games

“Gray has no equal when it comes to unmasking killers and she has excelled herself here . . . Gray is the new master of Scottish crime writing.” — Scottish Daily Express

“Brings Glasgow to life in the same way Ian Rankin evokes Edinburgh.” — Daily Mail (UK)

Book Details:

Genre: Mystery
Published by: Witness Impulse
Publication Date: March 13th 2018
Number of Pages: 368
ISBN: 9780062659262
Series: A DCI Lorimer Novel, #11 (Stand Alone)

Get Your Copy of The Silent Games from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, & HarperCollins. Don't forget to add it to your Goodreads!!

Read an excerpt:

From Chapter 2
It was worse than he could ever have imagined.
Even from the roadside, where a line of police cars was parked, Lorimer could see the devastation. Plumes of smoke and flames still rose from the heaps of broken trees, and as he emerged from the Lexus, his skin was immediately touched by flakes of ash drifting in the air. The smell of burning wood was overpowering, and he could hear the occasional crackle and hiss of fire beneath the whooshing sound from the firemen’s hoses as arcs of water were trained into the heart of the inferno. His eyes took in the gap in the hedge where the fire engines had broken through to reach the narrow walkers’ path, and the tyre marks on the verge. It would be replanted, no doubt, but the burning trees would leave a scar that would take far longer to heal.
‘Detective Superintendent Lorimer? Martin Pinder.’ The uniformed chief inspector was suddenly at his side, hand outstretched. Lorimer took it, feeling the firm once up and down as the officer motioned them to turn away from the direction of the cinders. ‘Sorry to call you out, but as I said, we needed someone to front this. And your name came up.’
‘But isn’t this a local matter?’ Lorimer asked. ‘We’re in the district of Stirling, surely?’
Pinder shook his head. ‘It’s bigger than you might imagine,’ he began. Walking Lorimer a few paces away from the line of cars, he dropped his voice. ‘And there is intelligence to suggest that it may have a much wider remit.’
‘Oh?’ Lorimer was suddenly curious. The telephone call had mentioned an explosion, the immediate need for a senior officer from Police Scotland and a request to keep the lid on things, but nothing more.
‘You said intelligence.’ He frowned. ‘You mean Special Branch?’
Pinder nodded. ‘I’ve been charged with giving you this information, sir. And doubtless your counter terrorism unit will already be involved.’ He licked his lips, hesitating, and Lorimer could see the anxiety in the man’s grey eyes.
‘We are given to believe that this is just a trial run.’ Pinder motioned to the fire behind them.
‘A trial run,’ Lorimer said slowly. ‘A trial run for what?’
Pinder gave a sigh and raised his eyebrows.
‘The Glasgow Commonwealth Games.’
Lorimer looked at the man in disbelief, but Pinder’s face was all seriousness.
‘That’s almost a year away. Why do they think. . .?’
‘Haven’t been told that. Someone further up the chain of command will know.’ Pinder shrugged. Perhaps you’ll be told once you liaise with Counter Terrorism.’
Lorimer turned to take in the scene of the explosion once more, seeing for the first time the enormous area of burning countryside and trying to transfer it in his mind’s eye to the newly built village and arenas in Glasgow’s East End. He blinked suddenly at the very notion of carnage on such a vast scale.
‘We can’t let it happen,’ Pinder said quietly, watching the tall man’s face.
Lorimer gazed across the fields to the line of rounded hills that were the Campsies. Glasgow lay beyond, snug in the Clyde valley; on this Sunday morning its citizens remained oblivious to the danger posed by whatever fanatic had ruined this bit of tranquil landscape. He had asked why the local cops hadn’t taken this one on, and now he understood: the threat to next year’s Commonwealth Games was something too big for that. And since the various police forces in Scotland had merged into one national force, Detective Superintendent William Lorimer might be called to any part of the country.
‘The press will want statements,’ Pinder said, breaking into Lorimer’s thoughts. ‘It’s still an ongoing investigation. Don’t we just love that phrase!’ He gave a short, hard laugh. ‘And there is no loss of life, so we can try for a positive slant on that, at least.’
‘They’ll speculate,’ Lorimer told him. ‘You know that’s what they do.’
Pinder touched the detective superintendent’s arm, nodding towards the figures milling around on the fringes of the fire. ‘Apart from you and me, there is not a single person here who has been told about the background to this event. So unless the press leap to that conclusion by dint of their own imagination, any leak can only come from us.’
When Lorimer turned to face him, the uniformed officer was struck by the taller man’s penetrating blue gaze. Fora long moment they stared at one another, until Pinder looked away, feeling a sense of discomfort mixed with the certainty that he would follow this man wherever he might lead.
Wouldn’t like to be across the table from him in an interview room, he was to tell his wife later that day. But there on that lonely stretch of country road, Martin Pinder had an inkling why it was that the powers on high had called on Detective Superintendent William Lorimer to oversee this particular incident.
***
Excerpt from The Silent Games by Alex Gray. Copyright © 2018 by Alex Gray. Reprinted by permission of Witness Impulse, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.

Author Bio:

Alex Gray
Alex Gray was born and educated in Glasgow. After studying English and Philosophy at the University of Strathclyde, she worked as a visiting officer for the Department of Health, a time she looks upon as postgraduate education since it proved a rich source of character studies. She then trained as a secondary school teacher of English. Alex began writing professionally in 1993 and had immediate success with short stories, articles, and commissions for BBC radio programs. She has been awarded the Scottish Association of Writers' Constable and Pitlochry trophies for her crime writing. A regular on the Scottish bestseller lists, she is the author of thirteen DCI Lorimer novels. She is the co-founder of the international Scottish crime writing festival, Bloody Scotland, which had its inaugural year in 2012.

Catch Up With Alex Gray On alex-gray.com, Goodreads, & Twitter!


Tour Participants:

Visit these other great hosts on this tour for more great reviews, interviews, guest posts, and giveaways!

Giveaway:

This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours for Alex Gray and Witness Impulse. There will be 3 winners of one (1) Print copy of Alex Gray’s THE SWEDISH GIRL. The giveaway begins on March 12, 2018 and runs through April 15, 2018. Open to U.S. addresses only. Void where prohibited.
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Thursday 22 March 2018

#CoverCrush Heresy S.J. Parris

For new visitors do I want to explain that Cover Crush is something that my friend Erin over at Flashlight Commentary came up with and I adopted the idea together with some other friends. And, now we try to put up a Cover Crush every week. You can check below my pick of the week for their choices this week!


When fugitive Italian monk Giordano Bruno—philosopher, magician, and heretical scientist—arrives in London, he’s only one step ahead of the Inquisition. An undercover mission for Queen Elizabeth I and her spymaster provides added protection. Officially, Bruno is to take part in a debate on the Copernican theory of the universe at Oxford University; unofficially, he is to find out whatever he can about a Catholic plot to overthrow the queen. But when his mission is dramatically thrown off course by a series of grisly deaths and the charms of a mysterious but beautiful young woman, he realizes that somewhere within Oxford’s private chambers lurks a brutal killer. . .

Thoughts:

The cover image itself is captivating in itself, however, the added details that reflect the plot (the Copernican theory) adds to my fascination with the cover. I feel that this cover reflects what I look for in a historical mystery set in the Elizabethan age. 

Check out what my friends have picked for Cover Crush's this week:

Stephanie @ Layered Pages





#BookReview München (Munich) by Robert Harris @Robert___Harris (SWE/ENG)

Munich by Robert Harris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

SWEDISH REVIEW

September 1938

Hitler är fast besluten att starta krig i Europa. Chamberlain vill desperat bevara freden. Europas framtid beslutas i en stad som kommer att bli berömd för det möte som äger rum där.

Samtidigt som Chamberlains plan flyger över Engelska kanalen och Führerns tåg åker söderut genom Tyskland, reser två unga män med sina egna hemligheter mot München. Hugh Legat är en av Chamberlains privata sekreterare, Paul Hartmann är en tysk diplomat och medlem av anti-Hitler-rörelsen. De nära vännerna har inte setts på sex år. Nu kommer deras vägar att korsas igen. Vem är du villig att förråda? Dina vänner, din familj, ditt land eller ditt samvete?

München är en stämningsfull och fartfylld skildring av Münchenöverenskommelsen. Det är en fascinerande roman med välavvägd prosa som som sprakar av träffsäkra historiska detaljer.

**********

München är en bok som jag snabbt läste igenom, nog för att boken inte var jättetjock men jag måste erkänna att jag även var totalt fängslad över handlingen som utspelas under fyra dagar i september 1938. Robert Harris är en författare som har en förmåga att skriva böcker, vare sig det är historiska eller mer moderna, som fängslar och München är definitivt inget undantag. Någon jag tänkte på medan jag läste boken var hur lite jag egentligen visste om Münchenöverenskommelsen eller rättare sagt kommer ihåg och jag var fascinerad att läsa om hur Chamberlain verkligen strävade att bevara fredan i Europa, medan Hitler däremot verkade mer sträva mot dra i krig.

Handlingen är väldigt spännande, medan maktens män planerar ett möte i München sker det saker i kulissen. Inte alla i Tyskland är på Hitler sida och helst av allt vill de bli av med honom. För Hugh Legat, en av Chamberlains privata sekreterare blir dessa fyra dagar väldigt intensiva när en gammal vän tar kontakt med honom igen. Paul Hartmann, tysk diplomat och medlem av anti-Hitlerrörelsen. Kan de tillsamman stoppa Hitlers planer?

München är fängslande, välskriven och djupt tänkvärd. Jag är speciellt imponerad över personlighetsbeskrivningarna och då framförallt Chamberlain vars vilja var att bevara freden till vilket pris som helst. Var det fegt att skriva under Münchenöverenskommelsen, att blunda för tecknen på att detta är bara en respit? Tja,vi sitter med facit i handen och vet att inget hade stoppat Hitler och jag måste erkänna att jag känner sympati med Chamberlain och hans fredbevarande inställning.

Tack till Bookmarks förlag för recensionsexemplaret!

ENGLISH REVIEW

September 1938

Hitler is determined to start a war.

Chamberlain is desperate to preserve the peace.

The issue is to be decided in a city that will forever afterwards be notorious for what takes place there.

Munich.

As Chamberlain’s plane judders over the Channel and the Fürher’s train steams relentlessly south from Berlin, two young men travel with secrets of their own.

Hugh Legat is one of Chamberlain’s private secretaries; Paul Hartmann a German diplomat and member of the anti-Hitler resistance. Great friends at Oxford before Hitler came to power, they haven’t seen one another since they were last in Munich six years earlier. Now. as the future of Europe hangs in the balance, their paths are destined to cross again.

When the stakes are this high, who are you willing to betray? Your friends, your family, your country or your conscience?

**********

Munich is a book that I read quickly, probably because the book was not that thick, but I have to admit that I was also totally captivated by the story set during four days in September 1938. Robert Harris is a writer who has the ability to write books, whether it's historical or more modern, that captivate and Munich is definitely no exception. Something I thought while reading the book was how little I really knew about the Munich agreement or, probably more accurately, I remembered, and I was fascinated to read how Chamberlain really sought to preserve peace in Europe, while Hitler seemed to strive to go to war.

I found the story to be very compelling, while the men of power are planning a meeting in Munich, things are happening off the scene. Not everyone in Germany is on Hitler's side and some of them wouldn't mind getting rid of him. For Hugh Legat, one of Chamberlain's private secretaries, will these four days become very intense when an old friend contacts him again. Paul Hartmann, German diplomat and member of the anti-Hitler movement. Can they stop Hitler's plans?

Munich is captivating, well-written and memorable. I'm particularly impressed with the personality descriptions and especially Chamberlain whose will was to preserve peace at any price. Was it cowardly to sign the Munich Agreement to ignore the signs that this is only a respite? Well, we have the luxury of being able to look back and know that nothing had stopped Hitler and I have to admit that I feel sympathy for Chamberlain and his peacekeeping attitude.

Thanks to Bookmarks förlag for the review copy!

#BookReview Panic Room by Robert Goddard @TransworldBooks

Panic Room by Robert Goddard
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sometimes the danger is on the inside . . .

High on a Cornish cliff sits a vast uninhabited mansion. Uninhabited except for Blake, a young woman of dubious background, secretive and alone, currently acting as housesitter.

The house has a panic room. Cunningly concealed, steel lined, impregnable – and apparently closed from within. Even Blake doesn’t know it’s there. She’s too busy being on the run from life, from a story she thinks she’s escaped.

But her remote existence is going to be invaded when people come looking for the house’s owner, missing rogue pharma entrepreneur, Jack Harkness. Suddenly the whole world wants to know where his money has gone. Soon people are going to come knocking on the door, people with motives and secrets of their own, who will be asking Blake the sort of questions she can’t – or won’t – want to answer.

And will the panic room ever give up its secrets?


**********

Panic Room is the first book I have read by Robert Goddard and the cover and blurb intrigued me. A panic room that should be open, but is closed and no one knows what's inside, together with a mystery woman who is hiding out at the house. I just knew I had to read the book.

Panic Room is a book that not really lived up to my expectations, sure it's an interesting book, with a great mystery, but I found myself not really engrossed in the story and one thing that really disappointed me was that Blake turned out to be such a let-down. I had hoped for a more thrilling background, but the more I learned about the less interesting she became. I mean I still don't see what special relationship she had with the house owner and her past was, well nothing special, nothing that I felt made her interesting. I did find Don Challenor, the estate agent who more and less just happened to get mixed in the whole mess, to be more interesting. I mean, who doesn't like a character who by mistake get caught up in something? Don's presence made the book better.

As for the ending, you know what, oh it was so disappointing! Sorry, I just thought that the ending was too "Hollywood", too safe, not daring enough. Sure, it may seem wrong to wish for a different ending, but that would have truly shocked me. In this case, it just felt lackluster because one knew how it would end. There is just no thrill to reading a book that fails to shock the reader.

All and all is Panic Room an interesting book that ultimately failed to live up to my expectations. I found myself wanting to know the truth, but the pace of the book and the lack of suspense was a drawback. If the ending had been a bit more unexpected would it definitely have made the book better!


I want to thank Transworld Publishers for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review!

Wednesday 21 March 2018

#Wishlist March Exceptional Women (Nonfiction)

Marsh wishlist is all about exceptional women that scandalized society by daring to break the role model! Here's to all brave ladies of the past!


**********

The Bolter: Edwardian Heartbreak and High Society Scandal in Kenya by Frances Osborne


On Friday 25th May, 1934, a forty-one-year-old woman walked into the lobby of Claridge's Hotel to meet the nineteen-year-old son whose face she did not know. Fifteen years earlier, as the First World War ended, Idina Sackville shocked high society by leaving his multimillionaire father to run off to Africa with a near penniless man. An inspiration for Nancy Mitford's character The Bolter, painted by William Orpen, and photographed by Cecil Beaton, Sackville went on to divorce a total of five times, yet died with a picture of her first love by her bed. Her struggle to reinvent her life with each new marriage left one husband murdered and branded her the 'high priestess' of White Mischief's bed-hopping Happy Valley in Kenya. Sackville's life was so scandalous that it was kept a secret from her great-granddaughter Frances Osborne. Now, Osborne tells the moving tale of betrayal and heartbreak behind Sackville's road to scandal and return, painting a dazzling portrait of high society in the early twentieth century.

The Viceroy's Daughters: The Lives of the Curzon Sisters by Anne de Courcy

For many years Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India (1898-1905), controlled all aspects of his daughters' lives. Irene (born 1896), Cynthia (born 1898) and Alexandra (born 1905) eventually revolted against their father's control. Irene had many affairs but never married. Cynthia married the up-and-coming Oswald Mosely, and Alexandra married the Prince of Wales best friend, Fruity Metcalfe. Throughout the 1920s, the sisters were at the centre of a fast and glittering world. This biography provides insight into their lives, public and private, and gives a different view of German, Italian and British fascism. Based on unpublished letters and diaries, this book provides new revelations about Oswald Mosely, the Cliveden set, Lord Halifax and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

The Temptress: The Scandalous Life of Alice de Janze and the Mysterious Death of Lord Erroll by Paul Spicer

In the spirit of Frances Osborne's The Bolter, this fascinating life of femme fatale and gorgeous Chicago heiress, Alice de Janzé, offers a solution to the decadesold murder of Lord Erroll—the story at the center of James Fox's acclaimed book and movie White Mischief.

A glamorous American multi-millionairess, Alice de Janzé scandalized 1920's Paris when she left her aristocratic French husband for an English lover—whom she later tried to kill in a failed murder-suicide in the Gare du Nord. Abandoning Paris for the moneyed British colonial society known as Kenya's Happy Valley, she became the lover of the handsome womanizer, Joss Hay, Lord Erroll. In 1941, Erroll was shot in his car on an isolated road. A cuckolded husband was brought to trial and acquitted, and the crime remained tantalizingly unsolved.

Paul Spicer, whose mother was a confidante of Alice's, used personal letters and his own extensive research to piece together what really happened that fateful evening. He brings to life an era of unimaginable wealth and indulgence, where people changed bed partners as easily as they would order a cocktail, and where jealousy and hidden passions brewed. At the heart of The Temptress is Alice, whose seductive charms no man could resist, and whose unfulfilled quest for love ended in her own suicide at age forty-two.


Those Wild Wyndhams: Three Sisters at the Heart of Power by Claudia Renton

Three sisters – beautiful, cultured and aristocratic, born into immense wealth during the reign of Queen Victoria. Their dramatic lives are here unfolded in a rich historical biography certain to appeal to fans of Downton Abbey, ‘Georgiana’ and Stella Tillyard’s ‘Aristocrats’.

Mary, Madeline and Pamela – the three Wyndham sisters – were painted by John Singer Sargent in 1899. For The Times it was, quite simply, ‘the greatest picture of modern times’. But these beautiful, fin de siecle gentlewomen came to epitomize a vanished world. The languor of their pose reflects the leisured, gilded, existence of the late Victorian aristocracy that was to be dealt a deathblow by the First World War.

Yet the lives of these three Wyndham sisters were far more turbulent than their air of calm suggests. Brought up in artistic circles, their childhood was liberal and romantic. Their parents were intimate friends with the Pre-Raphaelites and the girls grew to become leaders of the aesthetic movement. Bowing to convention, they made excellent marriages but found emotional support from others – Mary with Arthur Balfour and the poet Wilfrid Scawen Blunt; Pamela with Liberal statesman and ornithologist Edward Grey. Their liaisons shocked society, while the First World War devastated their way of life.

‘Those Wild Wyndhams’ is their first ever biography, and is based on the many letters they have left behind – compelling, humorous and brilliantly illuminating. This sparkling debut by Claudia Renton captures them and their age in an unforgettable piece of historical and political biography.

The Rare and the Beautiful: The Art, Loves, and Lives of the Garman Sisters by Cressida Connolly


The garman sisters, who were born in England's Midlands and whose scandalous lives placed them at the center of European cultural activity in the middle of the twentieth century, were famous for their passion for the arts, defiance of convention, and the power to turn heads and break hearts. Their exquisite taste, colorful personalities, and unleashed pursuit of romance earned them a unique place in London's legendary bohemia, inspiring a generation of artists and writers.

Kathleen, an enigmatic artist's model and aspiring pianist, was the lover of the controversial American-born sculptor Jacob Epstein, who immortalized her in seven sensual portraits, fathered her three children, and became, at the end of his life, her husband. Kathleen's sister Mary married the maverick poet Roy Campbell, whose verse attack on the Bloomsbury group following Mary's affair with Vita Sackville-West caused a literary scandal. Mary and Roy, enamored by Mediterranean culture and lifestyle, lived in Spain, Portugal, and the south of France during the continent's turbulent decades, where inspiration and destruction came to them in equal measure. Lorna, the youngest and most radiant of the sisters, became the lover of the young poet Laurie Lee and the painter Lucian Freud, each of whom later married one of her nieces.

The Garman sisters became involved in the radical literary and political circles of Europe between the two world wars. Their lifestyle was outside the prevailing mores: bisexuality, unfaithfulness, and illegitimate children were a matter of course. Headstrong and flamboyant, they sidelined their own talent for writing, painting, and music, their friendships, material comforts -- even their own children -- in the cause of art and beauty.

In fourteen short chapters, The Rare and the Beautiful -- inspired by the exquisite Garman Ryan art collection, bequeathed by Kathleen Garman and including works by Bonnard, Constable, Picasso, Degas, Pissarro, Braque, Modigliani, and van Gogh -- evokes the extraordinary milieu of scandal, high drama, and high culture that defined twentieth-century bohemia. An unorthodox biography of women who broke the rules with inimitable style, it is also a thoughtful meditation on the power of the muse, the glamour of art, and the personal sacrifice it exacts.


Check out my friend's Wishlists:


Tuesday 20 March 2018

#BookReview The One That Got Away by Melissa Pimentel @panmacmillan @StMartinsPress @FreshFiction #FFreview

The One That Got Away by Melissa Pimentel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ruby and Ethan were perfect for each other. Until the day they suddenly weren't.

Now, ten years later, Ruby is single, having spent the last decade focusing on her demanding career and hectic life in Manhattan. There's barely time for a trip to England for her little sister's wedding. And there's certainly not time to think about what it will be like to see Ethan again, who just so happens to be the best man.

But as the family frantically prepare for the big day, Ruby can't help but wonder if she made the right choice all those years ago. Because there is nothing like a wedding for stirring up the past . . .


**********

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY is a book that I was interested in reading because I had read that it was a modern retelling of PERSUASION by Jane Austen. I love modern retellings. I usually don't read much contemporary romance fiction, but I have a weakness for retellings so I was thrilled to get the chance to read this book.

READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW OVER AT FRESH FICTION!

#BlogTour The Fix by Robert Downs @partnersincr1me

The Fix

by Robert Downs

on Tour March 1 - April 30, 2018

Synopsis:

The Fix by Robert Downs
Professional gambler, Johnny Chapman, plays the hand he’s dealt, but when he’s dealt a series of losers, he decides to up the ante with more money than he can afford to lose. Just when he thinks his life can’t get any worse, it does. The loan shark he owes the money to demands that he pay up and sends his goons after him. The man offers Johnny one way out—fix a race by fatally injecting the dog most likely to win. A piece of cake, Johnny thinks, until he looks into the big brown eyes of the beautiful dog, and the price suddenly seems too great to pay. Now Johnny’s on the run and the goons are closing in…

Book Details:

Genre: Noir
Published by: Black Opal Books
Publication Date: December 2nd 2017
Number of Pages: 166
ISBN: 9781626948174
Grab your copy of The Fix on: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, & Goodreads!

Read an excerpt:

CHAPTER 1

The taste of liquor still lingered on his lips. Six months without a drink, and he had the chip to prove it. His eyes were downcast, the table was green felt, and his wooden seat jammed the lower part of his back. The overhead light was dim, and he had his hat pulled down over his eyes. Johnny Chapman had lost three hands in a row, and he didn’t want to lose a fourth.
The Indian sat across from him with his hands folded across his chest, wearing dark sunglasses in a dark room, his hair shaved close to his head, and a tooth missing near his front. He cracked his knuckles between hands and even once during. The sound bounced off the walls in the closet of a room.
“Well, what’s it gonna be?” Thomas Kincaid asked. “I ain’t got all night.” His lips formed a sneer before he took a long pull on a dark drink. His eyes flicked in every direction except straight ahead.
“Don’t rush me.”
“If you move any slower, we’ll both be looking up at the daisies,” Thomas replied. He looked at his two cards for what must have been the third time.
Johnny sucked his lip between his teeth, flashed his eyes once toward the ceiling, and flipped a chip onto the deck. The roar in his ears nearly pulled him away from the hand, but the click of the ceiling fan managed to hold his attention. The darkness helped with his focus as well.
The girl sat across from him, dark hair drifting to-ward her shoulders and even a bit beyond. Teeth as white as a bowl of rice. A drop of moisture near her upper lip entered the equation. Her T-shirt bunched out at the front, and her eyes were as cold as Alaska. She played her cards close to her chest, and her bets were even. For the most part. She managed to toss in a few extra chips when she had a hand. But she was a straight shooter and hadn’t bluffed once. Johnny knew it was coming, though. He just didn’t know when. Even if he managed to run like hell, she’d probably still clip him at the ankles. Her chip stack sat more than a third higher than his own.
She had a good smile. That one. Not too much of the pearly whites, but just enough for a man to take notice. The words on her chest accentuated her assets. Tight, clean, and turquoise—the T-shirt, not her breasts.
Johnny’s eyes flicked to his watch, and his phone buzzed in his pocket. The alarm. His leg vibrated for a second more and then it stopped.
It was almost time. The medication. It took the edge off, and stopped his mind from racing off to infinity and beyond. The man with the dark rims and the white lab coat prescribed it in a room bigger than the one he was in now. If he didn’t take his meds in the next ten minutes, the headaches would start soon after.
The ceiling fan whirred again. The backroom was stale and damp, the casino out on the edge of the reservation with nothing but tumbleweed and small trees for over a mile. Diagonally opposite from the little shithole that he called home for the past several years. The run-down piece of trash with the broken Spanish shingles, cracked stucco, and clouded windows.
Seconds turned over, one after another, and still there was no movement from the Indian to his right. Lapu Sinquah flipped his sunglasses up, and dragged them back down, but not before his eyes looked around the table. The Indian made a face and flipped two chips onto the green felt.
The girl was next. She scratched her forehead. Her expression remained neutral. When Caroline Easton flipped her head, her hair remained out of her eyes. Her look resembled cold, hard steel. She followed the Indian with a two-chip flip.
Thomas tossed his cards away, and it was back to Johnny. He felt it: an all-consuming need to win this hand…and the next one…and the one after. Desire consumed him, after all. Or maybe it didn’t.
The hand that got away. The hand that consumed him, pushed him over the edge, and had him calling out in the middle of the night. One voice. One concentrated effort before the moment passed him by. He couldn’t imagine losing, ending up with nothing. Bankrupt.
This minute reasoning had him playing cards night after night, hand after hand, reading player after player. Moment after moment. Until the moments were sick and twisted and filled with jagged edges and punctured with pain. Or left him dead and buried on the side of the road in a ditch with half of his face missing.
The winning streak wouldn’t last. It’d be gone again. Like a sound carried away by the breeze in the middle of a forgotten forest. This time, he wouldn’t fold too soon. This time, he’d play it differently.
The one that got away. The pot in the middle that would have covered three month’s rent. But he tossed his cards aside, even though he’d been staring at the winning hand for damn near three minutes.
His eyes flicked to each of the three players before he once more peeled his cards back from the table and slid the two spades to the side.
The Indian glared at him through the darkness and his dark sunglasses. “Well?” Lapu asked. “What the fuck, man?”
Johnny tossed his shoulders up in the air. “I’m out.”
“Just like that?” Caroline’s long dark hair whipped around her head.
“Sure, why not?”
The Indian rubbed his shaved head. “You’re one crazy motherfucker.”
Johnny shrugged. “I never claimed to be sane.”
The ceiling fan whirred faster, clicking every five seconds. The air was heavy and suffocating, and he yanked on his collar with his index finger. Two drinks were drunk, and a glass clinked against a tooth. One chair slid back and another moved forward.
“There’s over two grand in the pot,” Lapu said.
Johnny gave a slight tilt of his head. “And I know when to walk away.”
The Indian jerked to his feet and extended a finger away from his chest. “It was your raise that started this shitstorm.”
“True,” Johnny said. “And now I’m going to end it.”
Caroline combed her hair with her fingers. “You haven’t ended anything.”
“I’d rather have that as my downfall than lose it all to you nitwits.”
Caroline smirked. Her white teeth glinted against the light overhead. “Who made you queen of the land?”
“I’d like to think it sort of came up on me,” Johnny said. “It sort of took me by surprise. Existence is futile.”
The Indian smirked. His stained teeth were nearly the color of his skin. “Futility won’t help you now.”
The hand was between the girl and the Indian. Her assets versus his. One smirk versus another. The sun-glasses were down, and both the movements and expressions were calculated. Chips were tossed, and the last card was flipped. Caroline took the pot, and her cold expression never wavered.
A ten-minute break ensued. Johnny used the bath-room, washed his hands, shoved two pills into his mouth, cupped his hands underneath the spout, sucked water from his palms, dunked his hands underneath the liquid once more, and splashed the water on his face. He grimaced at his own reflection, the dark, sunken eyes. He sucked in air and dried his hands. His shoes clicked on the broken tile on his way out the door.
His chips hadn’t moved, and neither had the table. The stack of chips was smaller than when he started this game. As the losses mounted, his amount of breathing room decreased. His longest losing streak was thirteen hands in a row.
The blinds were doubled, and his mind numbed. Compassion was a long forgotten equation, and sympathy wasn’t far behind.
The conversation picked up again, and the Indian perfected a new glare. “I never heard so much chatting over a game of cards.”
“It’s not just a game,” Thomas said. “Now, is it?” One dark drink was replaced with another, and the man’s eyes glazed over.
The girl tapped her wrist with two fingers and flipped her hair. “I think we’re already past the point of sanity.”
“If there was ever a point, it was lost—”
“I had a few points of my own that were somehow hammered home.” Johnny flipped three chips into the pot in one smooth motion. He had a hand, and he was determined to play it, even if he had to stare down the girl and the Indian at the same time.
“The game of life succeeds where you might have failed,” Lapu said.
Thomas knocked back the remainder of yet another drink. “I don’t accept failure.”
Johnny’s eyes flicked to his wrist. “You don’t accept success either.”
“Why do you keep looking at your watch?” Thomas asked. “Are you late for a date?”
The girl called and tossed three chips into the pot with only a slight hesitation. She had a hand, or she wanted to make it appear as such. Her lips moved less and less, and her eyes moved more and more. Her features were clearly defined.
Johnny kept his expression even.
“You’re not late for anything that I’ve seen,” Caro-line said.
Both the Indian and Thomas folded.
“I’d like to take you out back and shoot you.”
“Would that somehow solve the majority of your problems?” the Indian asked.
Johnny nodded. “It might solve a few.”
“Or,” she said, “then again, it might not.”
The last card was flipped, and bets were tossed into the center of the pot. Johnny raised, and Caroline countered with a raise of her own. He called, flipped his cards over, and his straight lost to her flush. Half of his stack disappeared in one hand. He ground his teeth and chewed his bottom lip.
“I don’t like you,” Johnny said.
Her expression was colder than Anchorage. “You never liked me.”
“There might have been mutual respect, but that ship sailed out into the great beyond and smacked an iceberg.”
“Passion—”
“Does not equal acceptance,” Johnny said.
“It will keep you up most nights,” the Indian said.
Determined not to lose again, Johnny kept his eyes on the prize and his dwindling stack of chips. The girl to his right had never flashed a smile, and now her stack of chips was nearly three times the size of his own. His eyes flicked to his wrist once more, and he grimaced.
For several moments, the ceiling fan took up all the sound in the room.
His breath hiccupped in his chest, and he swayed in his chair. The wood jammed against his lower back, and the angry green felt kept an even expression. His mouth moved, but no sound escaped from between his lips.
He fell out of his chair and cracked his head on the carpet. For the next few minutes, he drifted in and out of consciousness.
“Did his heart just stop?” Lapu asked.
Thomas leaned across the table. “What the hell are we talking about now?”
Lapu stood up. “I think that fucker passed out.”
“Which fucker?” Caroline’s chest pressed hard enough against her shirt to slow down her blood flow. Her eyes narrowed, but her hand was steady.
“The one that was losing.”
“That’s all you fuckers.” She tapped her tongue against her upper lip. “You’re all losing.”
Lapu shoved his chair back. “I don’t like losing.”
“But you do it so well.”
Thomas’s body shifted in his chair. “Not on purpose.”
The ceiling fan stopped, and the walls trapped all remnants of sound. One beat of silence was followed by another.
Lapu moved first. He slapped two fingers to Johnny’s wrist and checked for a pulse. The heartbeat was low and weak and arrhythmic.
“What do we do now?” Caroline asked. “Have you got a plan?”
Thomas stood up and sat back down again.
“Cayenne pepper and apple cider vinegar,” Lapu said. “Both have the potential to reduce the effects of arrhythmia.”
She pointed. “Or maybe he has pills in his pocket.”
Lapu nodded. “That is also an option. Check his pockets while I prop up his head.”
“I need another drink,” Thomas said. “I’d rather not be sober if a man is going to die.”
Caroline rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so melodramatic.”
Lapu had watched his father die with a look on his face not that far from the one Johnny wore now: the lost eyes and the still body, with his spirit on the verge of leaving this world for the next. Lapu poked through his pockets in a methodical fashion and found a prescription bottle with a half-peeled label. He popped the top, poked his finger through the slot, and removed two pills. He peeled Johnny’s lips apart, shoved the pills inside his mouth, and forced him to swallow. Minutes later, his life force had altered considerably, and color had returned to Johnny’s cheeks.
Lapu nodded his head. “There’s a purpose to every-thing.”
Thomas leaned over and slapped Johnny on the cheek. “I believe in the possibilities of a situation. Those moments that lead from one into the next, filled with passion and compassion and equality, and some other shit.”
Caroline smirked. “Which is what exactly?”
“Not losing another hand.”
Johnny inched his way to a sitting position and slapped his forehead. “Fuck me—”
“Not likely,” Caroline said. “It neither looks enjoy-able nor promising, but that’s a nice try, though.”
“Your perspective has gotten skewed,” Thomas re-plied.
“That’s certainly possible,” she said, “but I wouldn’t be so sure.”
< <
More hands were played, and more hands were lost. Johnny’s stack of chips diminished faster until he was left with two red ones and half a drink. His even expression had vanished long ago, and his feet had started tap-ping during the last three hands. The Indian had six chips to Johnny’s two, and the rest were distributed between Thomas and Caroline, with the girl staring above a tower nearly level with her chin. Her expression hadn’t changed, and neither had her methodical approach to playing cards.
The barrel of a gun dug into Johnny’s lower back-side after he expunged the last two chips he had to his name. He didn’t have time to move or breathe, and he hadn’t even noticed Thomas shift his weight and remove the pistol from somewhere on his person. But the digging did further enhance Johnny’s focus and destroy his moral support. “Cuff him.”
“What the fuck?” Johnny replied.
“It’s time you realized the full extent of your losing.”
Johnny couldn’t see Caroline’s expression, but her voice was filled with menace and hate and exhibited more force than a battering ram.
“Stand up, you piece of trash.”
The gun shifted, and Johnny rose. The room spun, and he considered passing out all over again, but he pulled himself back and inched his way toward the metal door that was a lifetime away.
The barrel against his back never moved or wavered.
< <
She hated cards. Had hated the act and aggression of gambling most of her life. The thrill of winning and the heartbreak of defeat neither moved nor motivated her. Tossing chips into a pot, calculating the odds in her head, reading players around the table, and playing the hands of the other players instead of playing her own made her head throb from the weight of the proposition. But she did it, over and over again. If she thought about it long enough and hard enough, Caroline might have called herself a professional gambler, but that was a term she hated even more than the act of taking money from unsuspecting souls who had a penchant for losing. But if her two choices were paying the rent, or living on the street, she would choose rent every time and worry about the consequences later.
She couldn’t change her fate, or her odds. All she could do was play the hand she was dealt, match it up against what the other guys and gals had around the table, and study the ticks and idiosyncrasies that made each player unique. Over-confidence and euphoria were concepts she knew well, and she could smell it coming like a New Mexican thunderstorm. Even though she understood what she needed to do, she hated her hands even more than she hated long division. With each passing second, her trepidation grew, and the calm she exuded on the surface was a thunderstorm underneath the shallow exterior. It had gotten to the point that it was totally out of control, and probably would be for the rest of her life. It wasn’t satisfying, or even mesmerizing, and yet here she was week after week, going through the motions. The same types of players sat around the table with the same types of expressions painted on their uneven faces. The voice in her mind echoed in time, and she did her best to keep the whispers at bay. But the plan backfired, just as all good plans did that were built on a foundation of lies.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Caroline asked.
“Trying to win,” Johnny said. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Losing,” she said. “And not even admirably. You really are one stupid bastard.”
She had been called to test him, to see if he would break and crumble beneath the weight of a bad hand or two or ten, and he had folded faster than a crumpled handbag smashed against a mugger’s face. She had chipped away steadily at his chips, until two red ones were all he had left, and a tower of multicolored circles stood in front of her.
< <
Johnny had a hand that was planted in his lap by the gods, or maybe it was Julius Caesar himself. He couldn’t remember the number of times he’d lost in a row. Six or maybe it was seven. The torment and punishment continued unabated, and he licked his lips more with each passing second. The hands played out one after another against him, and the gates of Hell had opened before him. The girl to his right was methodical, and the jabs kept on coming, one right after another.
Her hands were probably her best feature. The way her fingers slid across the table, shoving chips and poking at her cards, and prodding the weaknesses of those around her, only made him long for her even more.
But this was it. His moment. And he wasn’t about to let it pass him by. Two minutes later, though, the moment passed, his chips were gone, a gun was shoved against his backside, and he was escorted out of the building.
***
Excerpt from The Fix by Robert Downs. Copyright © 2017 by Robert Downs. Reproduced with permission from Robert Downs. All rights reserved.
Robert Downs

Author Bio:

Robert Downs aspired to be a writer before he realized how difficult the writing process was. Fortunately, he'd already fallen in love with the craft, otherwise his tales might never have seen print. Originally from West Virginia, he has lived in Virginia, Massachusetts, New Mexico, and now resides in California. When he’s not writing, Downs can be found reading, reviewing, blogging, or smiling.


To find out more about his latest projects, or to reach out to him on the Internet, visit: robertdowns.net, Goodreads Page, & Facebook Page!


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