Angieville

Today, I'm happy to be taking part in the blog tour for Anna Jarzab's Breath Like Water courtesy of Inkyard Press . You are likely familiar with my love for sports and sports-themed novels (may the Giants play again soon). So I was intrigued by both the lovely cover and the concept of an elite swimmer who peaks quite young but is still determined to claw her way to the Olympics.   ABOUT THE BOOK This beautifully lyrical contemporary novel features an elite teen swimmer with Olympic dreams, plagued by injury and startled by unexpected romance, who struggles to balance training with family and having a life. For fans of Sarah Dessen, Julie Murphy and Miranda Kenneally. Susannah Ramos has always loved the water. A swimmer whose early talent made her a world champion, Susannah was poised for greatness in a sport that demands so much of its young. But an inexplicable slowdown has put her Olympic dream in jeopardy, and Susannah is fighting to keep her career afloat when two importan...

It's been years since I picked up a Mhairi McFarlane novel, and I'm not really sure why that is. I liked  It's Not Me, It's You well enough (it's obvious she's quite a witty writer), but something about the execution felt off and I think I let that keep me from diving deeper into her backlist. Then came an offer to review her upcoming title If I Never Met You , and something about this one seemed to call out to me. As though it was time. As though Laurie and Jamie might be the ones. Spoiler alert: It was and they were. It was the perfect read for a couple of dreary, grey January days. While not perhaps as bubbly as I've Got Your Number , I would definitely recommend it to readers who enjoyed that novel. They share a business setting, two individuals who are more than they know themselves to be, and a wonderfully slow burn romance. Readers who love Sarra Manning and  Beth O'Leary 's  The Flatshare should also take note. Comedy was tragedy plus ...

All it took was hearing the basic bones of the premise of Beth O'Leary's debut novel The Flatshare for me to determine I would absolutely be reading it as soon as I possibly could. I was so delighted to be granted access to an advanced reading copy by Flatiron Books. Even better, it became apparent from the moment I read the first few lines that this reading experience would take place in one headlong rush. No significant breaks allowed, let alone required. The Flatshare was published first in the UK and then slightly later here in the U.S. I dithered over which cover to buy as both have much to recommend them, but I finally decided on the U.S. cover (pictured here). I just love the two of them standing on either side of the same door, the tiny heart between the title and author name. Tiffy is in a massive, massive bind. Out on her ear after breaking up with her exceptionally controlling boyfriend, she needs an inexpensive place to live and she needs it yesterday. Despite ...

I have had a string of lovely successes with contemporaries lately. I wonder, sometimes, about the phases we go through, both in reading and in life in general and whether or not (or where) they align. I'm not always able to see the patterns amid the daily vicissitudes, but I wonder about them often. Several months ago, I saw the cover for Sarah J. Carlson 's debut novel All the Walls of Belfast  and thought I might have died and gone direct to heaven. The title alone is my favorite of the year, hands down. I don't even care if those are fighting words. It is the best title of the year, so there. And, happily, it has a cover to match that beauty, all orange and green and hints of the walls that make up its title. I could only hope that the content matched. Somehow I knew it had to. Fiona grew up in America. From the time she was two years old and her mother took her and fled Northern Ireland for the unknown wilds of Wisconsin, she has believed that her father was dead. ...

I'm delighted to be a part of the blog tour for this first novel in  Julie Anne Long 's new historical series―The Palace of Rogues. I found my way to Ms. Long's writing in a bit of a piecemeal fashion. Her long-running Pennyroyal Green series is widely beloved and records the various and sundry escapades of the always-scheming, never repentant Eversea and Redmond families. Really, the series is worth the price of admission for the hilarious (and ever-evolving) "Ballad of Colin Eversea" alone (though Colin's is not actually my favorite book). But I've come to believe that this sweeping eleven-book series has something for every reader. You just have to dip your toes in enough times to find your favorites. And once you do, they will become instant and confirmed comfort reads. Spoiler alert: mine are It Happened One Midnight and What I Did for a Duke . I'm sorry, Colin, but the Duke of Falconbridge, you are not . You'll be just fine, though. Madel...

The first review of the year! Writing this one always feels fresh and hopeful to me and like it may set the tone of my reading year in a way. This was a very good one to start with. And the moral of this story appears to be: I will never tire of Beauty and the Beast retellings. A fact I was not unaware of, but that I am happy to have confirmed once more, this time after reading Brigid Kemmerer 's A Curse So Dark and Lonely . My favorites tend to run the Robin McKinley way, with the most recent favorite retelling being Meagan Spooner's wonderful Hunted . But this is the first retelling of my favorite fairy tale that I've read that includes both traditional fantasy and modern contemporary settings. I didn't think it could work. Or, at least, I was skeptical that the one would interfere with the other or that the different dialogues might clash. How happy I was to find that the whole thing played out seamlessly. How happy I am to have discovered Brigid Kemmerer's w...

This series. My feelings for it are fierce and tangled, much like the ties that bind its protagonists. Charlotte, Lord Ingram, Livia, Inspector Treadles, Bancroft,  Lady Ingram  . . . characterize them each how you will, but there is nothing equivocal about them. While there is infinite room for every sort of gray area in their circumstances, their histories, and their difficult presents, the feelings that they engender (at least in me) are nothing if not strong one way or the other. And really, I wouldn't have it any other way. Who wants to feel the least bit milk-soppy about the people who inhabit their wonderfully complicated Victorian mysteries? Not me. That is who. Which is to say that I was prepared for a tumult of emotions as I embarked on this the third volume in Sherry Thomas 's Lady Sherlock series . Just, as it turns out, nowhere near prepared enough. Be warned: unavoidable spoilers for the first two books abound. Death has finally found its way to Lord Ingr...

I looked forward to this book with barely restrained delight from the moment I heard the first faint whisperings of its existence. I read it as soon as I could get my hands on it, and then life got in the way (as it is wont to do), and I never quite got around to reviewing it. But I flatly refuse to let the year end without talking about this first book in Sarah MacLean 's new series. Just in case you haven't, you know, read it yet. That way you'll have time to fit it in before the second book comes out next July. As I have mentioned before, it was a Sarah MacLean novel that first got me into reading historical romances just a few years ago. And then earlier this year, I had the opportunity to meet her and tell her that, to tell her how much I love her books and just how much finding them meant to me. I hope you all have that chance someday. I've been fortunate enough to meet many of my very favorite authors. And while my facility with language generally flees when...

I think this is (shamefully) the first Tessa Dare book I've reviewed on the site. I believe I initially read a couple of her Spindle Cove books awhile back and didn't really land upon the "right" one for me. Then I gave Romancing the Duke a try and found it to be ridiculously charming. The rest of the books in that series weren't quite my cuppa, but that first one was so fun that I went back and found the right Spindle Cove novel for me ( Any Duchess Will D o , in case you're interested; ugh, I love that book). Which brings me to  The Governess Game , which   is a delight from start to finish. That's the wonderful thing about books by talented and prolific authors. They're not all necessarily going to work for you, but it is so lovely reading your way through as time and whims allow and finding the ones that are yours. Alexandra Mountbatten tells time. That is to say, she sets clocks. For a living. Carting her instruments from aristocratic hous...

The Kiss Quotien t crossed my radar around about the same time I got wind of  The Wedding Date . Both debut books looked like exactly the sort of charming romcoms I wanted in my life at this specific point in time (always, really), and both sported perfectly adorable covers. I was intrigued not only by the obvious mathematical aspect of this novel, but with the fact that the protagonist is on the spectrum and that the story itself was inspired by Helen Hoang 's own diagnosis with Autistic Spectrum Disorder. I found myself very eager to dive in and find out just what this gender-swapped Pretty Woman revision had to offer.  Stella Lane's mother will not leave her alone. She would like a suitable suitor for her daughter and the requisite grandchildren, and she would like them now . And Stella just can't with the pressure anymore. Relationships―interactions with people in general―have never been her strong suit. She far prefers math and her job as an econometrician to att...

I am barely keeping it together as I type this, you guys. I read my review copy of  The Prince some time ago and have literally been counting down the days until I could reasonably share my thoughts with you. Because I want to shout my love for this book from the rooftops, I love it that much. And, yes, before we go any further, we should go ahead and acknowledge that this is more man-chest than has ever been seen before in these parts. I mean, wow is that lot. But the information relevant to your interests is that this book is so good, it transcends any possible cover the Cover Gods could see fit to bestow. I do, occasionally wish that Choose Your Own Covers were an option, because I've been feeling positively agitated at the thought that there might be someone out there who doesn't pick up this book because something about its trappings throws them off. Hence, today's review. I discovered Katharine Ashe a couple of years ago via her very enjoyable Falcon Club series....