Pride and Protest by Nikki Payne

Oh my goodness how beautiful is the cover!  Go ahead and judge this book by its cover because it's as lovely a read as the cover. 

This book is a retelling of Pride and Prejudice which is one of my favorite stories. In this modern retelling, we have Liza the only DJ who gives a Jam--what a great tagline and Dorsey a rich developer. The book is set in DC and has a diverse cast of characters. I loved how Nikki Payne take the character of Lady Catherine De Bourgh and turns her into a him and make him a misogynist Senator. 

Nikki Payne managing to include all the best lines and scenes from the original tale by Jane Austen but puts her own twist on it in such a wonderful way. This book is really a chef's kiss of a retelling.  As I was reading the story there were many times where I had a smile on my face because this is such a fun retelling . Nikki Payne also brings the heat—unlike

the classic tale we know and love, we get sex scenes between Liza and Dorsey. 

5 stars —if you like the original you must read this and if you are not familiar then I think you will enjoy this enemies to

lovers  romance !

 

Tell Her Story - Reading While Cleaning

It was Saturday morning and I was once again looking for a quick book to listen to while I caught up on laundry, so I scrolled through what was free with my audible subscriptions and I came across this book, Tell Her Story.  The book is centered around a former journalist who starts a podcast. 

I said to myself, oh cool, I like podcasts, I'll give this book a listen.

The reader for this story is the actress Dakota Fanning and she does a nice job as the narrator keeping the story going. This book doesn't have many characters so it is easy to keep people straight while you listened and there are many subplots it's a straightforward mystery covering a cold cast that the main character has turned into a podcast.  Now our main character was fired as a journalist because she wrote a story about someone claiming he was a sexual predator and then it turned out she knew it wasn't true.  That makes her hungry for redemption and also maybe we should believe what she says in her podcast. Or should we? 

C/W part of the story involves a high school teacher sleeping with a student. It's not condoned but it is part of the story. 

Without spoiling the story, I will say my response to the end was, hmm, really? If you listen to the book I'd love to know what you think! 
 

A Wish Granted - Bones POV

I won a ecopy of The Other Half of the Grave from Anne's Read-Along! Halfway to the Grave is a very good first book in an Urban Fantasy series so I was excited to re-read the book from Bones' perspective. 

I am sure that over the years Jeaniene Frost has received thousands of requests for a Bones book as he is who is a beloved Vampire in the Urban Fantasy universe.  He is right up there with the Vampires from True Blood and Anne Rice's vamps so it is safe to say that this book was very wanted.

I enjoyed reading the book and knowing all the events of the first book. Since the original book is told from Kat's anti-vampire perspective, it's good to see what was going on in Bones' head while she was projecting upon him her worst fears. 

If you enjoy urban fantasy or vampire romance, I say go read this book if you have already read Halfway to the Grave or get both books and read either one first --or if you are new to the series, I'd love to see what you think of book two after just reading Bones point of view.

4 stars for The Other Half of the Grave it's a solid read.

 

Super Bowl Sunday Has Arrived - Got Snacks? #TheSundayPost

 

The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead. Join in weekly, bi-weekly, or for a monthly wrap-up. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme 

Are you having or going to a Super Bowl party?  Tell me all about the snacks! We are going to not go anywhere which is usually what we do. I don't really care about the game, I do like the commercials and I do like snacks.  Nothing like a tasty appetizer if you ask me. 

This week brings us Valentine's Day and that means the month will be half over already.  I wonder if we will get a big snow in my area this month, we've had a good amount of cold weather and plenty of days with windchills below zero but not much to speak of when it comes to snow. 

This week I'll be sharing a few books I read or listened to lately:

Looking for someone to listen to while you work or work around the house?

 

It was a Saturday afternoon in January, I had loads of laundry to wash and fold---a sink full of dishes and I didn't feel like listening to music or a podcast.  What to do?  I clicked on my Libby App and scrolled to find an audiobook that was available and looked decent.   

What I found was The Liar's Wife by Kiersten Modglin.  I listened at 2.0 speed and finished the book by dinnertime. It's an easy listen, there aren't a ton of characters so it's easy to keep people straight when you listen to while you work. 

A couple of things that are done in the book that I really liked. The main character Palmer has just given birth and as the book begins you aren't sure if she is dealing with normal post-pregnancy worries and attachment to her new baby or if her husband is truly up to no good. Up until a certain plot point I was not sure if she was a reliable or completely unreliable narrator.  I am not going to tell you which it is, I don't want to spoil you. 

At the very end of the book is a plot twist that you will either love or roll your eyes.  

Mother of the Bride Murder ARC from Net Galley!

 Here is the tagline from the publisher: "As part-time Tinker’s Cove, Maine reporter Lucy Stone says “oui” to her daughter’s surprise wedding invitation in France, she must also make a different kind of vow—to catch a killer!"

If you've read my blog before,  you know I enjoy the Lucy Stone cozy mystery series. I've read many of the books over the last five years and I was delighted that Kensington and Net Galley provided me with an ARC for Mother of the Bride Murder which will be published April 25th. 

I am of the opinion that sometimes you connect with a cozy sleuth and sometimes you don't and that is A-OK.  I connect with Lucy Stone even though I don't always agree with her.  We live in Lucy's head in these books and so we really get to know her thoughts and opinions. After reading many of her adventures, I find that the reason I will read this series as long as Leslie Meier writes them is that Lucy and the Tinker Cove crew feel like real people. They are written with depth and the dialogue sounds just like you might have in your own daily life. 

Reading this book I was worried about Lucy's relationship with Toby more than I was about the actual murder. I'm glad that by the end of it, they were in a good place.  However because of what happens, now I'm pretty concerned that Molly is never going to want to move back to Maine.  I miss the days when Molly lived nearby. She's a great daughter-in-law. 

I was also reminded in this book that Elizabeth is my least favorite of the daughters, she always seems to be too interested in wealth. See, the characters are normal everyday middle-class-ish people you probably know. I could write a really long post going on about everything in the book like I was telling you about my neighbor, that's how Lucy feels after you read some of this series.

My rating for this book is 4. It's a good solid book, I liked that much of the drama involving the Stone family could have been avoided if Marie and Hugo had been upfront with their guests. I do prefer when the whole book takes place in Tinker's Cove. 

If you haven't read any of this series, you can read this book, you don't have to know all about the other books. 

My Sister's Grave by Robert Dugoni

Looking for a listen for your commute, or while you are cleaning the house, or walking the dog?  My Sister's Grave by Robert Dugoni is the first book in a series. The story is one you've likely heard before, Tracy the main character becomes a detective after her sister disappears and works for years to try and find out more about the case. In this instance her sister's body was never found and even though a man (who had been recently released from prison for rape prior to her sister's disappearance) was tried and convicted; Tracy doesn't think the evidence adds up. 

When the sister's body was found, then Tracy has an excuse to try and revisit the case. The sheriff in the small town tries to stop her from doing it. 

If you like courtroom drama and police procedurals you may enjoy this book and the rest of the series. I picked it up because it was on the top of the list of free with membership thrillers. I thought it was decent but I was left at the end thinking most of what happens in this book could have been avoided if some people hadn't decided other people needed protecting. 

Overall, it was a pretty good book and if you listen or read it and you like Tracy, the good news is that there are a bunch more books and I imagine moving forward they are cases she wasn't intimately involved with and that may lead to better twists and turns! 

3.5 stars

Welcome to February! The Sunday Post

 

The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead. Join in weekly, bi-weekly, or for a monthly wrap-up. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme 

I'm looking forward to participating in a group chat today to discuss the Night Rebel series organized by Anne from Books Are My Heart! 

Books I'll be talking about this week- 

Wanna Know a Fun Fact?

 

If you are a person who likes a good fun fact or likes to play trivia games this is a book you might just want to pick up. It was included with my Audible subscription and as I mentioned, I have a goal to read at least one non-fiction book per month, so here we are this is my February Non-Fiction book!

I listened to this book and what is nice about it is that basically, it's a long list of historical facts, most of which people don't readily know.  Frankly, and I mean this in the nicest way, this is a good bathroom book. 

It covers a lot of historical facts from America and England. I definitely didn't know most of the information related to England. 

When it comes to major historical events, in almost every case, a slight change could have made a huge difference. This book is filled with all the if not for X, X would not have happened. 

Case in point, the title of the book, Napoleon was having a bad morning due to hemorrhoids and didn't get on the battlefield in a timely manner and the battle was lost. 

Or that President Kennedy was wearing a back brace that keep him upright and like contributed to his death. Or that the Eiffel Tower was supposed to be torn down after it was up for 20 years, and the only reason it was kept up was that it had a radio transmitter. 

4 Stars this book is easy to read and is packed with interesting facts about history. 

The Serpent in Heaven by Charlaine Harris

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:  

"Felicia, Lizbeth Rose’s half-sister and a student at the Grigori Rasputin school in San Diego—capital of the Holy Russian Empire—is caught between her own secrets and powerful family struggles. As a granddaughter of Rasputin, she provides an essential service to the hemophiliac Tsar Alexei, providing him the blood transfusions that keep him alive. Felicia is treated like a nonentity at the bedside of the tsar, and at the school she's seen as a charity case with no magical ability. But when Felicia is snatched outside the school, the facts of her heritage begin to surface. Felicia turns out to be far more than the Russian-Mexican Lizbeth rescued. As Felicia’s history unravels and her true abilities become known, she becomes under attack from all directions. Only her courage will keep her alive."

When I heard that the next book in the Gunnie Rose series was going to be about Felicia, I was delighted because that meant Lizbeth got to keep her HEA with Eli, and all of us readers got to read more in this world.  

This book was on the shorter side, I devoured it, I really enjoy Felicia and her inner monologue. She is clever and I felt that as written she acted her age. I think Charlaine got this unusual teenager's thoughts correct. The reveals as the mystery goes along works and the unveiling of Felicia's background and her abilities as a mage seem reasonable. The blurg says that only her courage will keep her alive, but I disagree, I say it's her cunning and her years of experience living on the edge in Mexico that keep her alive. 

The support cast is pretty big in this first book of Felicia's but if you have read other books in the series it's easy to keep them straight. It may be more difficult if you start the books with this one. The ending is satisfying, we get resolution to the immediate troubles of the day as well as a better understand of Felicia and her extended family. Threads are there for other books and I look forward to spending time with her again. 

5 Stars. Eagerly Anticipating Next Book