I didn’t have to look far to find a book to read for the “opposites attract” prompt this month. I’ve been meaning to read this one for a while, and as the two protagonists in Fearne Hill’s To Take a Quiet Breath (book three in her Rossingley series) are as opposite as opposite can be – in terms of…
Twisting the tragic tale of the Habsburg dynasty (which gave the world Marie Antoinette), The Embroidered Book throws potent magic into the existing pile of family tensions, political chess playing, and romantic complications. A few clunky turns of phrase, awkward pacing and a weak magical subplot keep this one from a higher grade, but the…
Marvelous is a tender, aching novel based somewhat loosely on the real life story of a man who was adopted into the French court at the age of ten for the entertainment of the king and queen. Molly Greeling fictionalizes the life story of Petrus “Pedro” Gonsalvus, who was taken from his home in Tenerife…
The Porcelain Moon splits its focus between two different Chinese women living in France at the end of World War I. They are related and harboring secrets from each other which are threatening to slip out. Easy to read and beautifully sculpted, the book provides an experience that moves with grace from chapter to chapter….
Suzanne Fortin’s All That We Have Lost is an interesting but flawed story of how a widow, trying to rebuild her life, discovers a secret about a girl who lived during the Nazi occupation of France. I liked the premise a great deal, but have some caveats about the execution. Let’s start with the good….
Fabulous books are hard to find, books that make you wish to spend more time with the characters and who make you long to find more stories that can do that. The Librarian Spy is just such a book. It is April of 1943. War encompasses the world and Washington D.C. is a city of…
Well-known contemporary romance writer Adriana Herrera pens her first historical romance with A Caribbean Heiress in Paris, the story of an marriage of convenience between two ambitious, strong-willed people seeking to gain control of their lives. Caribbean-based Dominican/Scottish heiress Luz Alana Heith-Benzan is headed to the Exposition Universelle of 1889 in the hope of selling…
The Brightest Star in Paris is the follow up to Diana Biller’s 2019 début, The Widow of Rose House. I haven’t got around to reading that one, but I gather that the books are linked by virtue of the fact that the hero of Brightest Star – Doctor Benedict Moore – is the brother of…
Our reviewer Em gave an A- to Lucy Morris’s previous Viking book, The Viking Chief’s Marriage Alliance. I found it closer to a B, but it was still an enjoyable book. I hoped I’d find something here that was at least as good, but I emphatically didn’t. Aimée Évreux, heiress to the Évreux estate, is…
The Paris Apartment is a compelling story told in dual timelines. The first is 1938 – 1942 during the Nazi occupation of Paris, and the second is 2017 in Paris and England after an apartment, unseen since World War II, is opened and its contents create more questions than answers. It’s 2017 and Aurelia (Lia)…
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