Dangerous Magic by Monica Fairview

Dangerous Magic
A Pride and Prejudice Variation
by Monica Fairview

Fantasy, Regency, Romance, Jane Austen theme
Published: March 2021
Goodreads | Website | Excerpt
my rating: 4

A sparkling tale of Regency England, a forced marriage, and two magicians who must work together to save the Kingdom.

Elizabeth Bennet is stunned when the Royal Mages come to her peaceful country home of Longbourn to take her away. She is even more bewildered when she is commanded to marry a powerful mage by the name of Fitzwilliam Darcy. She has always dreamed of marrying for love, and an arranged marriage with an arrogant stranger was never part of her plans.

But Darcy and Elizabeth have no choice in the matter. Uniting their two forms of magic is essential if the Kingdom is to defeat Napoleon’s mages. They may dislike each other on sight, but Darcy and Elizabeth have to overcome their differences and find common ground before it is too late. Fortunately, it is not long before the sparks begin to fly between them.

Join the author of ‘Fortune and Felicity’ in this Jane Austen Fantasy Variation, an enchanting story of determination, love, and hope against all odds.

my two-bits:

With a touch of magical elements, Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth go through a push-pull romance while preparing for a battle to save country and home. The story has a primary focus on the couple and their efforts to unite. No dancing. No pesky Mr. Collins.

I liked the friendship developed between Elizabeth and Caroline Bingley.

Duran Duran, Imelda Marcos and Me by Lorina Mapa

Duran Duran, Imelda Marcos and Me
by Lorina Mapa

Published: 2017
Publisher: Conundrum Press
Paperback: 140
Rating: 4
Memoir, Graphic Novel, Filipino | Goodreads

When she learns of her beloved father's fatal car accident, Lorina Mapa flies to Manila to attend his funeral. Weaving the past with the present, Mapa entertains with stories about religion, pop culture, adolescence, and social class, including her experiences of the 1986 People Power Revolution which made headlines around the world. It is a love letter to her parents, family, friends, country of birth, and in the end, perhaps even to herself.

Peekabook:

My two-bits:

Loved finding favorites in the author's pop references. Also, liked learning about what went down in the PI during the 80s.

~*~
* part of Filipino Reading Challenge (here)

The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson

The Year of the Witching
by Alexis Henderson
narrated by Brianna Colette

Published: 2020
Publisher: Ace
Hardback: 368
Rating: 4
Fantasy, Horror, YA, Witches | Goodreads | Website

First sentence(s):
She was born breech, in the deep of night.

A young woman living in a rigid, puritanical society discovers dark powers within herself in this stunning, feminist fantasy debut.

In the lands of Bethel, where the Prophet's word is law, Immanuelle Moore's very existence is blasphemy. Her mother’s union with an outsider of a different race cast her once-proud family into disgrace, so Immanuelle does her best to worship the Father, follow Holy Protocol, and lead a life of submission, devotion, and absolute conformity, like all the other women in the settlement.

But a mishap lures her into the forbidden Darkwood surrounding Bethel, where the first prophet once chased and killed four powerful witches. Their spirits are still lurking there, and they bestow a gift on Immanuelle: the journal of her dead mother, who Immanuelle is shocked to learn once sought sanctuary in the wood.

Fascinated by the secrets in the diary, Immanuelle finds herself struggling to understand how her mother could have consorted with the witches. But when she begins to learn grim truths about the Church and its history, she realizes the true threat to Bethel is its own darkness. And she starts to understand that if Bethel is to change, it must begin with her.

My two-bits:

The past, the present, relgion and women as an instrument of change drives this story.

Oh my, the witchery moment!

~*~
* Happy Halloween
* Listened to audiobook version.
* part of Fraterfest (here)

Midnight At The Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew Sullivan

Midnight At The Bright Ideas Bookstore
by Matthew J. Sullivan
narrated by Madeleine Maby

Published: 2017
Publisher: Scribner
Hardback: 328
Rating: 4
Mystery, Thriller, Audio | Goodreads

First sentence(s):
Lydia heard the distant flap of paper wings as the first book fell from its shelf.

When a bookshop patron commits suicide, his favorite store clerk must unravel the puzzle he left behind. Lydia Smith lives her life hiding in plain sight. A clerk at the Bright Ideas bookstore, she keeps a meticulously crafted existence among her beloved books, eccentric colleagues, and the BookFrogs... the lost and lonely regulars who spend every day marauding the store’s overwhelmed shelves.

But when Joey Molina, a young, beguiling BookFrog, kills himself in the bookstore’s upper room, Lydia’s life comes unglued. Always Joey’s favorite bookseller, Lydia has been bequeathed his meager worldly possessions. Trinkets and books; the detritus of a lonely, uncared for man. But when Lydia flips through his books she finds them defaced in ways both disturbing and inexplicable. They reveal the psyche of a young man on the verge of an emotional reckoning. And they seem to contain a hidden message. What did Joey know? And what does it have to do with Lydia?

As Lydia untangles the mystery of Joey’s suicide, she unearths a long buried memory from her own violent childhood. Details from that one bloody night begin to circle back. Her distant father returns to the fold, along with an obsessive local cop, and the Hammerman, a murderer who came into Lydia’s life long ago and, as she soon discovers, never completely left.

My two-bits:

Interesting connections, twist and unexpected ending.

~*~
* Listened to audiobook version.
* part of Bookshops Challenge (here)

Matrimony, Inc. by Francesca Beauman

Matrimony, Inc.
From Personal Ads to Swiping Right,
a Story of America Looking for Love
by Francesca Beauman

Published: 2020
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Hardback: 208
Rating: 4
History, Courtship | Goodreads | Website

First sentence(s):
I met my husband through a personal ad.

Have you ever used a dating app or website? Then you have more in common than you know with lonely homesteaders in 18th century New England. At once heartwarming and heartbreaking, Matrimony, Inc. reveals the unifying thread that weaves its way through not just marriage and relationships over the centuries, but American social history itself: advertising for love.

Amazingly, America’s first personal ad appeared in the Boston Evening Post as early as 1759. A “person who flatters himself that he shall not be thought disagreeable” was in search of a “young lady, between the age of eighteen and twenty-three, of a middling stature, brown hair, of good Morals…” As family-arranged marriages fell out of fashion, "Husband Wanted" or "Seeking Wife" ads were soon to be found in every state in the nation.

From the woman in a Wisconsin newspaper who wanted “no brainless dandy or foppish fool” to the man with a glass eye who placed an ad in the New York Times hoping to meet a woman with a glass eye, the many hundreds of personal ads that author Francesca Beauman has uncovered offer an extraordinary glimpse into the history of our hearts’ desires, as well as a unique insight into American life as the frontier was settled and the cities grew. Personal ads played a surprisingly vital role in the West: couple by couple, shy smile by shy smile, letter by letter from a dusty, exhausted miner in California to a bored, frustrated seamstress in Ohio. Get ready for a new perspective on the making of modern America, a hundred words of typesetter’s blurry black ink at a time.

“So anxious are our settlers for wives that they never ask a single lady her age. All they require is teeth,” declared the Dubuque Iowa News in 1838 in a state where men outnumbered women three to one. While the dating pools of 21st century New York, Chicago or San Francisco might not be quite so dentally-fixated, Matrimony Inc. will put idly swiping right on Tinder into fascinating and vividly fresh historical context. What do women look for in a man? What do men look for in a woman? And how has this changed over the past 250 years?

My two-bits:

Looking for love. In all the places. Always.

Enjoyed reading individual accounts of why an advertisement was placed with the earliest from 1765.

Includes old newspaper personal ad clippings and photos of individuals who participated.

~*~

* review copy courtesy of publisher

His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie

His Only Wife
by Peace Adzo Medie
narrated by Soneela Nankani

Published: 2020
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Hardback: 288
Rating: 4
Contemporary, Feminism, Africa | Goodreads | Website
Travel destination: West Africa, Ghana

First sentence(s):
Elikem married me in absentia; he did not come to our wedding.

Afi Tekple is a young seamstress whose life is narrowing rapidly. She lives in a small town in Ghana with her widowed mother, spending much of her time in her uncle Pious’s house with his many wives and children. Then one day she is offered a life-changing opportunity—a proposal of marriage from the wealthy family of Elikem Ganyo, a man she doesn’t truly know. She acquiesces, but soon realizes that Elikem is not quite the catch he seemed. He sends a stand-in to his own wedding, and only weeks after Afi is married and installed in a plush apartment in the capital city of Accra does she meet her new husband. It turns out that he is in love with another woman, whom his family disapproves of; Afi is supposed to win him back on their behalf. But it is Accra that eventually wins Afi’s heart and gives her a life of independence that she never could have imagined for herself.

My two-bits:

At first it was tough reading of the classic theme of life revolving around and focused on a man. But then, the protagonist gradually comes around and this turns into a wonderful story of a woman coming into her own. Set in West Africa, you get a sense of the culture and women's perspective and pressures.

~*~
* Listened to audiobook version.
* part of Armchair Autumn Travel (here)
* part of Reese's Book Club 2020 (here)

His Hideous Heart edited by Dahlia Adler

His Hideous Heart
edited by Dahlia Adler
narrated by contributors

Published: 2020
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Hardback: 480
Rating: 4
Short Stories, Horror, YA, Edgar Allan Poe stories re-imagined | Goodreads

Contributors:
Kendare Blake (reimagining “Metzengerstein”)
Rin Chupeco (“The Murders in the Rue Morgue”)
Lamar Giles (“The Oval Portrait”)
Tessa Gratton (“Annabel Lee”)
Tiffany D. Jackson (“The Cask of Amontillado”)
Stephanie Kuehn (“The Tell-Tale Heart”)
Emily Lloyd-Jones (“The Purloined Letter”)
Hillary Monahan (“The Masque of the Red Death”)
Marieke Nijkamp (“Hop-Frog”)
Caleb Roehrig (“The Pit and the Pendulum”)
Fran Wilde (“The Fall of the House of Usher”)

Edgar Allan Poe may be a hundred and fifty years beyond this world, but the themes of his beloved works have much in common with modern young adult fiction. Whether the stories are familiar to readers or discovered for the first time, readers will revel in Edgar Allan Poe’s classic tales, and how they’ve been brought to life in 13 unique and unforgettable ways.

My two-bits:

Contemporary YA tweak to Edgar Allan Poe tales sure gave modern day chills.

Makes me want to go back to re-read Poe, especially the lesser known stories (to me).

~*~
* Listened to audiobook version.
* Filipino mention in Rin Chupeco's story
* part of Fraterfest (here)

Foe by Iain Reid

Foe
by Iain Reid
narrated by Jacques Roy

Published: 2018
Publisher: Gallery/Scout Press
Hardback: 272
Rating: 4
Horror, SciFi, Psychological Thriller | Goodreads

First sentence(s):
Two headlights. I wake to the sight of them.

In Iain Reid’s second haunting, philosophical puzzle of a novel, set in the near-future, Junior and Henrietta live a comfortable, solitary life on their farm, far from the city lights, but in close quarters with each other. One day, a stranger from the city arrives with alarming news: Junior has been randomly selected to travel far away from the farm... very far away. The most unusual part? Arrangements have already been made so that when he leaves, Henrietta won't have a chance to miss him, because she won't be left alone—not even for a moment. Henrietta will have company. Familiar company.

My two-bits:

This story makes you question couple relationships. What makes a good one?

How well do you know your partner? Does it matter?

~*~
* Listened to audiobook version.
* part of Fraterfest (here)

Mary by Brea Grant

Mary
The Adventures of Mary Shelley's Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Granddaughter
by Brea Grant
illustrated by Yishan Li

Published: 2020
Publisher: Six Foot Press
Paperback: 144
Rating: 4
Paranormal, YA, Graphic Novel, Ghosts | Goodreads

Angsty teenager Mary Shelley is not interested in carrying on her family’s celebrated legacy of being a great writer, but she soon discovers that she has the not-so-celebrated (and super-secret) Shelley power to heal monsters, just like her famous ancestor, and those monsters are not going to let her ignore her true calling anytime soon.

The Shelley family history is filled with great writers: the original Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, the acclaimed mystery writer Tawny Shelley, cookbook maven Phyllis Shelley… the list goes on and on. But this Mary Shelley, named after her great-great-great-great-great grandmother, doesn’t want anything to do with that legacy. Then a strangely pale (and really cute) boy named Adam shows up and asks her to heal a wound he got under mysterious circumstances, and Mary learns something new about her family: the first Mary Shelley had the power to heal monsters, and Mary has it, too. Now the monsters won’t stop showing up, Mary can’t get her mother Tawny to leave her alone about writing something (anything!), she can’t tell her best friend Rhonda any of this, and all Mary wants is to pass biology.

Peekabook:

My two-bits:

Cute horror with a coming-of-age nudge in an unusual way.

~*~
* review copy courtesy of publisher
* part of Fraterfest (here)

I Was Their American Dream by Malaka Gharib

I Was Their American Dream
by Malaka Gharib

Published: 2019
Publisher: Clarkson Potter Publishers
Paperback: 160
Rating: 4
Graphic Novel, Memoir, Egyptian Filipino | Goodreads

First sentence(s):
When I was growing up, my mom would always say: You have to be better than us.

One part Mari Andrew, one part Marjane Satrapi, I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir is a triumphant tale of self-discovery, a celebration of a family's rich heritage, and a love letter to American immigrant freedom. Malaka Gharib's illustrations come alive with teenage antics and earnest questions about identity and culture, while providing thoughtful insight into the lives of modern immigrants and the generation of millennial children they raised.

Malaka's upbringing will look familiar to anyone who grew up in the pre-internet era, but her particular story is a heartfelt tribute to the American immigrants who have invested their future in the promise of the American dream.

The daughter of parents with unfulfilled dreams themselves, Malaka navigates her childhood chasing her parents' ideals, learning to code-switch between her family's Filipino and Egyptian customs, adapting to white culture to fit in, crushing on skater boys, and trying to understand the tension between holding onto cultural values and trying to be an all-American kid.

Peekabook:

My two-bits:

Fun way to get perspectives of the American dream and growing up as an Asian American.

~*~
* part of October Filipino American History Month

* part of Filipino Reading Challenge (here)

Beach Read by Emily Henry

Beach Read
by Emily Henry
narrated by Julia Whelan

Published: 2020
Publisher: Berkley
Paperback: 361
Rating: 4
Romance, Michigan | Goodreads

First sentence(s):
I have a fatal flaw.

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They're polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer's block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She'll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he'll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.

My two-bits:

The combination of authors, books, bookstores and romance creates that huge smiley face emoji.

~*~
* Listened to audiobook version.

* part of Summertime time (schedule)

The Jetsetters by Amanda Eyre Ward

The Jetsetters
by Amanda Eyre Ward

Published: 2020
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Genre: Contemporary
Hardback: 352
Rating: 4
Goodreads | Website

Travel destinations:
Greece, Malta, Italy, France, Spain

First sentence(s):
The large oil portrait of Charlotte and her children began with a photo snapped on a Hilton Head Island beach at sunset.

Zombie sighting:
There were the ever-present grayish-skinned guys zombified before a row of slot machines.
Section 3, Chapter 2, page 104

When seventy-year-old Charlotte Perkins submits a sexy essay to the "Become a Jetsetter" contest, she dreams of reuniting her estranged children: Lee, an almost-famous actress; Cord, a handsome Manhattan venture capitalist who can't seem to find a bride; and Regan, a harried mother who took it all wrong when Charlotte bought her a Weight Watchers gift certificate for her birthday.

Charlotte yearns for the years when her children were young and she was a single mother who meant everything to them. When she wins the cruise, the family packs all their baggage—literal and figurative—and spends ten days traveling from sun-drenched Athens through glorious Rome to tapas-laden Barcelona on an over-the-top cruise ship, the Splendido Marveloso.

As lovers new and old join the adventure, long-buried secrets are revealed, and the Perkins family is forced to confront the defining choices in their lives. Can four lost adults find the peace they've been seeking by reconciling their childhood aches and coming back to each other?

My two-bits:
Tough reading about a dysfunctional family theme with unlikable characters. But, it moves forward well as each character is forced to confront selves and others.

~*~
* part of Reese's Book Club 2020 (here)

* part of Armchair Autumn Travel (here)

The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel

The Book of Lost Names
by Kristin Harmel
narrated by Madeleine Maby

Published: 2020
Publisher: Gallery Books
Hardback: 400
Rating: 4
Historical, WW2, Romance, France | Goodreads | Website
Travel destinations: France, Switzerland

First sentence(s):
It's a Saturday morning, and I'm midway through my shift at the Winder Park Public Library when I see it.

Inspired by an astonishing true story from World War II, a young woman with a talent for forgery helps hundreds of Jewish children flee the Nazis in this unforgettable historical novel from the international bestselling author of the “epic and heart-wrenching World War II tale” (Alyson Noel, #1 New York Times bestselling author) The Winemaker’s Wife.

Eva Traube Abrams, a semi-retired librarian in Florida, is shelving books one morning when her eyes lock on a photograph in a magazine lying open nearby. She freezes; it’s an image of a book she hasn’t seen in sixty-five years—a book she recognizes as The Book of Lost Names.

The accompanying article discusses the looting of libraries by the Nazis across Europe during World War II—an experience Eva remembers well—and the search to reunite people with the texts taken from them so long ago. The book in the photograph, an eighteenth-century religious text thought to have been taken from France in the waning days of the war, is one of the most fascinating cases. Now housed in Berlin’s Zentral- und Landesbibliothek library, it appears to contain some sort of code, but researchers don’t know where it came from—or what the code means. Only Eva holds the answer—but will she have the strength to revisit old memories and help reunite those lost during the war?

As a graduate student in 1942, Eva was forced to flee Paris after the arrest of her father, a Polish Jew. Finding refuge in a small mountain town in the Free Zone, she begins forging identity documents for Jewish children fleeing to neutral Switzerland. But erasing people comes with a price, and along with a mysterious, handsome forger named Rémy, Eva decides she must find a way to preserve the real names of the children who are too young to remember who they really are. The records they keep in The Book of Lost Names will become even more vital when the resistance cell they work for is betrayed and Rémy disappears.

My two-bits:

Perspectives from people who are part of the resistance in varying degrees.

People's efforts however small (and maybe hidden) had meaning and impact.

~*~
* Listened to audiobook version.

* review copy courtesy of Goodreads

* part of Paris in July (here)

* part of Armchair Autumn Travel (here)

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

Beartown
by Fredrik Backman
translated by Neil Smith
narrated by Marin Ireland

Published:2017
Publisher: Atria Books
Hardback: 432
Rating: 4
Contemporary, Sports, Sweden | Goodreads
Travel destination: Sweden

Beartown series:
Beartown
Up Against You
Those Who Run Towards Fire - release date: 2021

First sentence(s):
Late one evening toward the end of March, a teenager picked up a double-barreled shotgun, walked into the forest, put the gun to someone else's forehead, and pulled the trigger.

People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.

Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.

My two-bits:

Captures the world of small town culture and hockey as major characters in the story. And these characters have such influence on happenings.

~*~

* Listened to audiobook version.

* part of Armchair Autumn Travel (here)

* part of Scandinavian Reading Challenge 2020 (here)

The Last Story of Mina Lee by Nancy Jooyun Kim

The Last Story of Mina Lee
by Nancy Jooyun Kim
narrated by Greta Jung

Published: 2020
Publisher: Park Row
Hardback: 384
Rating: 4
Contemporary, Mystery, Korean American | Goodreads | Website
Travel destination: Los Angeles, CA

First sentence(s):
Margot's final conversation with her mother had seemed so uneventful, so ordinary—another choppy bilingual plod. Half-understandable.

Margot Lee's mother, Mina, isn't returning her calls. It's a mystery to twenty-six-year-old Margot, until she visits her childhood apartment in Koreatown, LA, and finds that her mother has suspiciously died. The discovery sends Margot digging through the past, unraveling the tenuous invisible strings that held together her single mother's life as a Korean War orphan and an undocumented immigrant, only to realize how little she truly knew about her mother.

Interwoven with Margot's present-day search is Mina's story of her first year in Los Angeles as she navigates the promises and perils of the American myth of reinvention. While she's barely earning a living by stocking shelves at a Korean grocery store, the last thing Mina ever expects is to fall in love. But that love story sets in motion a series of events that have consequences for years to come, leading up to the truth of what happened the night of her death.

My two-bits:

The mother-daughter relationship was a constant theme in swirl.

Got me thinking of the importance of knowing (or not) family history.

~*~

* Listened to audiobook version.

* part of Reese's Book Club 2020 (here)

* part of Armchair Autumn Travel (here)

The Bookshop of Yesterdays by Amy Meyerson

The Bookshop of Yesterdays
by Amy Meyerson
narrated by Ann Marie Gideon

Published: 2019
Publisher: Park Row
Paperback: 400
Rating: 4
Contemporary, Mystery | Goodreads | Website
Travel destination: Los Angeles, CA
First sentence(s):
The last time I saw my uncle, he bought me a dog.

Miranda Brooks grew up in the stacks of her eccentric Uncle Billy’s bookstore, solving the inventive scavenger hunts he created just for her. But on Miranda’s twelfth birthday, Billy has a mysterious falling-out with her mother and suddenly disappears from Miranda’s life. She doesn’t hear from him again until sixteen years later when she receives unexpected news: Billy has died and left her Prospero Books, which is teetering on bankruptcy—and one final scavenger hunt.

When Miranda returns home to Los Angeles and to Prospero Books—now as its owner—she finds clues that Billy has hidden for her inside novels on the store’s shelves, in locked drawers of his apartment upstairs, in the name of the store itself. Miranda becomes determined to save Prospero Books and to solve Billy’s last scavenger hunt. She soon finds herself drawn into a journey where she meets people from Billy’s past, people whose stories reveal a history that Miranda’s mother has kept hidden—and the terrible secret that tore her family apart.

My two-bits:

Loved the tie-in with novels and scavenger hunt theme. Painful secrets eventually get revealed.

Makes me wonder if things are better off not said.

~*~

* Listened to audiobook version

* part of Bookshops Challenge (here)

* part of ibc book club (here)

* part of Armchair Autumn Travel (here)

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Mexican Gothic
by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
narrated by Frankie Corzo

Published: 2020
Publisher: Del Rey
Hardback: 301
Rating: 4
Historical, Horror, Mexico | Goodreads | Website
Travel destination: Mexico

First sentence(s):
The parties at the Tuñóns' house always ended unquestionably late, and since the hosts enjoyed costume parties in particular, it was not unusual to see Chinas Poblanos with their folkloric skirts and ribbons in their hair arrive in the company of a harlequin or a cowboy.

After receiving a frantic letter from her newlywed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find - her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region.

Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.

Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.

And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.

My two-bits:

Slow burn surreal horror with that gothic vibe as the title suggests. Haunted house doings. Perfectly haunting for the season.

~*~

* Listened to audiobook version.

* part of Armchair Autumn Travel (here)

The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd

The Book of Longings
by Sue Monk Kidd
narrated by Mozhan Marnò

Published: 2020
Publisher: Viking
Hardback: 416
Rating: 4
Historical | Goodreads | Website
Travel destination: Israel, Egypt

First sentence(s):
I am Ana. I was the wife of Jesus ben Joseph of Nazareth. I called him Beloved and he, laughing, called me Little Thunder.

Raised in a wealthy family in Sepphoris with ties to the ruler of Galilee, Ana is rebellious and ambitious, a relentless seeker with a brilliant, curious mind and a daring spirit. She yearns for a pursuit worthy of her life, but finds no outlet for her considerable talents. Defying the expectations placed on women, she engages in furtive scholarly pursuits and writes secret narratives about neglected and silenced women. When she meets the eighteen-year-old Jesus, each is drawn to and enriched by the other’s spiritual and philosophical ideas. He becomes a floodgate for her intellect, but also the awakener of her heart.

Their marriage unfolds with love and conflict, humor and pathos in Nazareth, where Ana makes a home with Jesus, his brothers, James and Simon, and their mother, Mary. Here, Ana’s pent-up longings intensify amid the turbulent resistance to the Roman occupation of Israel, partially led by her charismatic adopted brother, Judas. She is sustained by her indomitable aunt Yaltha, who is searching for her long-lost daughter, as well as by other women, including her friend Tabitha, who is sold into slavery after she was raped, and Phasaelis, the shrewd wife of Herod Antipas. Ana’s impetuous streak occasionally invites danger. When one such foray forces her to flee Nazareth for her safety shortly before Jesus’s public ministry begins, she makes her way with Yaltha to Alexandria, where she eventually finds refuge and purpose in unexpected surroundings.

My two-bits:

Got a sense of the state of an independent forward thinking woman's perspective in this classic story of the past.

Because of the time period one could feel the strong theme of "waiting for men" for most of this story.

~*~

* Listened to audiobook version.

* part of ibc book club (here)

* part of Armchair Autumn Travel (here)

The Tenant by Katrine Engberg

The Tenant
by Katrine Engberg
narrated by Graeme Malcolm

Published: 2020
Publisher: Gallery/Scout Press
Hardback: 368
Rating: 4
Mystery, Thriller, Denmark | Goodreads

Travel destination: Denmark

Kørner/Werner series:
The Tenant
The Butterfly - release date: January 2021

First sentence(s):
The morning light swirled up dust from the heavy drapes.

When a young woman is discovered brutally murdered in her own apartment, with an intricate pattern of lines carved into her face, Copenhagen police detectives Jeppe Korner and Anette Werner are assigned to the case. In short order, they establish a link between the victim, Julie Stender, and her landlady, Esther de Laurenti, who’s a bit too fond of drink and the host of raucous dinner parties with her artist friends. Esther also turns out to be a budding novelist—and when Julie turns up as a murder victim in the still-unfinished mystery she’s writing, the link between fiction and real life grows both more urgent and more dangerous.

But Esther’s role in this twisted scenario is not quite as clear as it first seems. Is she the culprit—or just another victim, trapped in a twisted game of vengeance? Anette and Jeppe must dig more deeply into the two women’s pasts to discover the identity of the brutal puppet-master pulling the strings in this electrifying literary thriller.

My two-bits:

The theme of parallels pasts that intertwine struck me with this mystery.

~*~


* Listened to audiobook version.

* part of Scandinavian Reading Challenge 2020 (here)

* part of Armchair Autumn Travel (here)

The Summer We Found the Baby by Amy Hest

The Summer We Found the Baby
by Amy Hest

Just released: August 4, 2020
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Genre: Historical, WWII, Middle Grade
Hardback: 192
Rating: 4
Goodreads
Website

First sentence(s):
I'm the one who found her.

On the morning of the dedication of the new children's library in Belle Beach, Long Island, eleven-year-old Julie Sweet and her six-year-old sister, Martha, find a baby in a basket on the library steps. At the same time, twelve-year-old Bruno Ben-Eli is on his way to the train station to catch the 9:15 train into New York City. He is on an important errand for his brother, who is a soldier overseas in World War II. But when Bruno spies Julie, the same Julie who hasn't spoken to him for sixteen days, heading away from the library with a baby in her arms, he has to follow her. Holy everything, he thinks. Julie Sweet is a kidnapper.

Of course, the truth is much more complicated than the children know in this heartwarming and beautifully textured family story by award-winning author Amy Hest. Told in three distinct voices, each with a different take on events, the novel captures the moments and emotions of a life-changing summer -- a summer in which a baby gives a family hope and brings a community together.

My two-bits:

Captures a WWII experience in a summer snippet with children's perspective with love and loss presented in a gentle way.

~*~
* review copy courtesy of publisher

* part of Summertime time (schedule)