SAWBONES by Melissa Lenhardt

A writer breathes life into characters with words and their book is their canvas. A writer’s art is to gather elements of life and situations and weave them into words. To design a story that draws a reader in and leaves an impression that has the reader emotionally invested.

A book blogger’s blog is their canvas to express the feelings that they come away with in those stories. We want to be impressed with the narrative’s story-telling, themes and all other elements of the story. I want a writer to ignite my imagination. I want the characters to haunt me. Humans are multi-dimensional. I want that shown in stories. I want happy, raw, sorrowful, honest and REAL emotions.

Does SAWBONES do this for me? Find out when I post my review on April 2 HERE!

Previously published HERE

Stephanie M. Hopkins

Loving Eleanor by Susan Wittig Albert

When AP political reporter Lorena Hickok—Hick—is assigned to cover Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential campaign, the two women become deeply involved. Their relationship begins with mutual romantic passion, matures through stormy periods of enforced separation and competing interests, and warms into an enduring, encompassing friendship documented by 3300 letters.

Set during the chaotic years of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Second World War, Loving Eleanor reveals Eleanor Roosevelt as a complex, contradictory, and entirely human woman who is pulled in many directions by her obligations to her husband and family and her role as the nation’s First Lady. Hick is an accomplished journalist, who, at the pinnacle of her career, gives it all up for the woman she loves. Then, as Eleanor is transformed into Eleanor Everywhere, First Lady of the World, Hick must create her own independent, productive life.

My thoughts:

I have to say I am selective in what I read about political figures or their families. Often times I find them to be completely one-sided or bias. When I came across this story, I became intrigued with the premise and not having read historical fiction before on Eleanor Roosevelt, I decided to take the chance…

Read more of my review and other great posts at my Wordpress!

A Murder in Time by Julie McElwain

The publishers granted my wish for this book through NetGalley! I am really looking forward to reading it. Check it out!

Pegasus Books

Mystery & Thrillers

Pub Date April 11, 2016

When brilliant FBI agent Kendra Donovan stumbles back in time and finds herself in a 19th century English castle under threat from a vicious serial killer, she scrambles to solve the case before it takes her life—200 years before she was even born.

Beautiful and brilliant, Kendra Donovan is a rising star at the FBI. Yet her path to professional success hits a speed bump during a disastrous raid where half her team is murdered, a mole in the FBI is uncovered and she herself is severely wounded. As soon as she recovers, she goes rogue and travels to England to assassinate the man responsible for the deaths of her teammates. While fleeing from an unexpected assassin herself, Kendra escapes into a stairwell that promises sanctuary but when she stumbles out again, she is in the same place - Aldrich Castle - but in a different time: 1815, to be exact. Mistaken for a lady's maid hired to help with weekend guests, Kendra is forced to quickly adapt to the time period until she can figure out how she got there; and, more importantly, how to get back home. However, after the body of a young girl is found on the extensive grounds of the county estate, she starts to feel there's some purpose to her bizarre circumstances. Stripped of her twenty-first century tools, Kendra must use her wits alone in order to unmask a cunning madman.

Time of Fog and Fire by Rhys Bowen

This is one of the books I am currently reading right now and I am really enjoying the story. Its #16 in the Molly Murphy Series and I am reviewing it through NetGalley. After I read this book I think I will pick up the series from the beginning. I will say that this book is making a great stand alone.

Book Description:

Molly Murphy Sullivan's husband Daniel, a police captain in turn-of-the-century New York City, is in a precarious position. The new police commissioner wants him off the force altogether. So Daniel accepts an assignment from John Wilkie, head of the secret service. Molly believes her husband is in Washington, working for the president, until she spots him in San Francisco during a movie news segment. Then she receives a strange letter from him, leading her to conclude that he wants her to join him in San Francisco.

She takes her young son Liam on the cross-country train trip, but when they arrive in San Francisco, Molly is told that she's too late, her husband's funeral was yesterday. She's devastated, even more so when she receives a cryptic note saying Daniel's death was not an accident. In her grief she stays on to investigate, until she meets a strange man at a party, whom she soon starts to suspect may not be quite who he appears. Then Molly finds another body in the basement, but before she can report it, the Great Earthquake strikes San Francisco, and the servant runs off in a panic with Molly's son. Suddenly Molly has no idea where to turn or whom to trust, and she knows there are many lives on the line, including her own.

The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell

How will I calm down enough to read another book after this one? I am half way through and my mind is completely filled with this story. No room for other thoughts right now.

In this smart and enthralling debut in the spirit of The Weird Sisters and Special Topics in Calamity Physics, the only remaining descendant of the Brontë family embarks on a modern-day literary scavenger hunt to find the family's long-rumored secret estate, using clues her eccentric father left behind.

Samantha Whipple is used to stirring up speculation wherever she goes. As the last remaining descendant of the Brontë family, she's rumored to have inherited a vital, mysterious portion of the Brontë's literary estate; diaries, paintings, letters, and early novel drafts; a hidden fortune that's never been shown outside of the family.

But Samantha has never seen this rumored estate, and as far as she knows, it doesn't exist. She has no interest in acknowledging what the rest of the world has come to find so irresistible; namely, the sudden and untimely death of her eccentric father, or the cryptic estate he has bequeathed to her.

But everything changes when Samantha enrolls at Oxford University and bits and pieces of her past start mysteriously arriving at her doorstep, beginning with an old novel annotated in her father's handwriting. As more and more bizarre clues arrive, Samantha soon realizes that her father has left her an elaborate scavenger hunt using the world's greatest literature. With the aid of a handsome and elusive Oxford professor, Samantha must plunge into a vast literary mystery and an untold family legacy, one that can only be solved by decoding the clues hidden within the Brontë's own writing.

No Stranger To Death by Janet O'Kane

B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree 

A Scottish village. A burning corpse. Some very dark secrets.

Recently-widowed Dr Zoe Moreland moves from an English city to the Scottish countryside for a fresh start among strangers unaware of her past. However, her hopes of a quiet life are dashed when she finds the grisly remains of a body in the village’s Guy Fawkes bonfire and gets caught up in the resulting murder investigation.

Then someone else dies unexpectedly and Zoe herself narrowly escapes death. Determined not to become the killer’s next victim, she digs beneath the tranquil surface of the close knit community to find out who is committing these horrible acts. And discovers that some secrets can be deadly.

No Stranger to Death is the first of a series of mystery novels set in the Scottish Borders, where the author lives

Out Of The Ice by Ann Turner

I just spotted this one on NetGalley. Though it is not available for US Readers/Reviewers, I am hoping it is soon!

Pub date: Jun 1, 2016

When environmental scientist Laura Alvarado is sent to a remote Antarctic island to report on an abandoned whaling station, she begins to uncover more than she could ever imagine.

Despite new life thriving in the icy wilderness, the whaling station is brimming with awful reminders of its bloody, violent past, and Laura is disturbed by evidence of recent human interference. Rules have been broken, and the protected wildlife is behaving strangely.

On a diving expedition, Laura is separated from her colleague. She emerges into an ice cave where, through the blue shadows, she is shocked to see an anguished figure, crying for help.

But in this freezing, lonely landscape there are ghosts everywhere, and Laura begins to sense that her own eyes cannot be trusted. Is her mind playing tricks? Has she been in the ice too long?

Back at base, Laura’s questions about the whaling station go unanswered, blocked by unhelpful scientists, unused to questions from an outsider. And Laura just can’t shake what happened in the ice cave.

Piecing together a past and present of cruelty and vulnerability that can be traced all around the globe, from Norway, to Nantucket, Europe and Antarctica, Laura will stop at nothing to unearth the truth. As she sees the dark side of endeavour and human nature, she also discovers a legacy of love, hope and the meaning of family. If only Laura can find her way...

Out of the ice.