Janine and I are over at Dear Author with a joint review of Someone to Trust by Mary Balogh. Come see what we thought.
Tag: England (Page 2 of 4)
Why I read it: I received a review copy via the publisher.
What it’s about: (from Goodreads) “My name is Mary Seymour and I am the daughter of one queen and the niece of another.”
Browsing antiques shops in Wiltshire, Alison Bannister stumbles across a delicate old portrait – supposedly of Anne Boleyn. Except Alison knows better… The woman is Mary Seymour, the daughter of Katherine Parr who was taken to Wolf Hall in 1557 as an unwanted orphan and presumed dead after going missing as a child.
The painting is more than just a beautiful object from Alison’s past – it holds the key to her future, unlocking the mystery surrounding Mary’s disappearance, and the enigma of Alison’s son.
But Alison’s quest soon takes a dark and foreboding turn, as a meeting place called the Phantom Tree harbours secrets in its shadows…
What worked for me (and what didn’t): In 1560, both Mary Seymour and Alison Banistre were at Wolf Hall together. They weren’t friends but they weren’t exactly enemies either. Alison did Mary a big favour and requested a boon in return. Alison went through a portal into the future (present day Marlborough) and Mary stayed where she was. She was tasked with finding out the location of Alison’s son, Arthur, who had been taken from her at birth. The plan had been for Alison to come back through to the past in the short term, snatch up Arthur and live happily together, perhaps in the future, perhaps not. But Alison’s way was blocked and she could not return. When the book begins, Alison has been in “now” for ten years and is desperately searching for a way back and to the answer to what happened to her son.
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I’m over at AudioGals with a review of Besotted With the Viscount by Susanna Malcolm, narrated by Nicholas Boulton. A quiet romance with not a lot of action but I mostly liked it.
Monthly Mini Review
Marty and the Pilot by Harper Fox, narrated by Chris Clog – B- This book is part of the #AudibleRomance package. It’s my third Harper Fox book narrated by Chris Clog in a very short space of time (about 2 weeks and the last two were back to back). I’m definitely a fan of this narrator. This book wasn’t quite the success of Priddy’s Tale and Driftwood – but it was nevertheless still worth my time. Marty and the Pilot isn’t quite a melancholy as the other two books I’ve listened to and as such it didn’t quite have the mood I enjoyed so much in the earlier two books. I also didn’t quite trust Devlin (Marty’s pilot) and the story was a bit too fast to entirely convince me he was in a place to really commit to a relationship. This is somewhat strange because Flynn (from Driftwood) was arguably more messed up but I believed him. Maybe it’s because Tom and Flynn were both messed up. Marty here is pretty much together. He likes himself and the life he’s built. He knows what’s important. In some ways, he’s a “Marty Stu” (and is perhaps very aptly named) but he doesn’t have the same journey that Devlin has. Continue reading
I’m over at Dear Author with a review of Damaged Goods by Talia Hibbert. Sweet and sexy second chance romance.
Why I read it: My friend Caz recommended this series to me.
What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Gideon Frayne has spent his whole working life as a policeman in the village of Dark on Bodmin Moor. It’s not life in the fast lane, but he takes it very seriously, and his first missing-child case is eating him alive. When his own boss sends in a psychic to help with the case, he’s gutted – he’s a level-headed copper who doesn’t believe in such things, and he can’t help but think that the arrival of clairvoyant Lee Tyack is a comment on his failure to find the little girl.
But Lee is hard to hate, no matter how Gideon tries. At first Lee’s insights into the case make no sense, but he seems to have a window straight into Gideon’s heart. Son of a Methodist minister, raised in a tiny Cornish village, Gideon has hidden his sexuality for years. It’s cost him one lover, and he can’t believe it when this green-eyed newcomer stirs up old feelings and starts to exert a powerful force of attraction.
Gideon and Lee begin to work together on the case. But there are malignant forces at work in the sleepy little village of Dark, and not only human ones – Gideon is starting to wonder, against all common sense, if there might be some truth in the terrifying legend of the Bodmin Beast after all. As a misty Halloween night consumes the moor, Gideon must race against time to save not only the lost child but the man who’s begun to restore his faith in his own heart.
What worked for me (and what didn’t): I enjoyed the story very much. It was a short (novella-length) audio and, considering that the main characters had not met before it began, it managed to sell me on the budding relationship between Gideon and Lee. There is a bit of insta-lust (nothing wrong with that) and perhaps one or two narrative jumps which suprised me just a little in the romantic story but nothing I wasn’t able to go with fairly easily. Gideon’s last relationship broke down because he was closeted. It’s clear that he has enough regret about that and enough time had passed that when Lee bobs up in his life, Gideon wasn’t likely to let that happen again. So it made sense to me. Continue reading
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