Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Best 20 of 2021

 



One of the best and hardest things I do is my best of picks every year. I hope you enjoy this year's picks in no order of importance. Note this is a mix of  print and audio editions.


All that know me will find it no surprise that both of the books that Sarah Morgan released in 2021 made the list.

Click HERE for my review:

blurb:

Get swept into a summer of sunshine, soul-searching and shameless matchmaking with this delightfully big-hearted road trip adventure!

Kathleen is eighty years old. After she has a run-in with an intruder, her daughter wants her to move in to a residential home. But she’s not having any of it. What she craves—what she needs—is adventure.

Liza is drowning under the daily stress of family life. The last thing she needs is her mother jetting off on a wild holiday, making Liza long for a solo summer of her own.

Martha is having a quarter-life crisis. Unemployed, unloved and uninspired, she just can’t get her life together. But she knows something has to change.

When Martha sees Kathleen’s advertisement for a driver and companion to share an epic road trip across America with, she decides this job might be the answer to her prayers. She’s not the world’s best driver, but anything has to be better than living with her parents. And traveling with a stranger? No problem. Anyway, how much trouble can one eighty-year-old woman be?

As these women embark on the journey of a lifetime, they all discover it’s never too late to start over.


Click HERE for my review

blurb:
“A journey of love and festive cheer.”—Woman's World on The Christmas Escape

“Morgan’s latest Christmas tale will delight readers and give them the perfect excuse to snuggle up for a few hours with a cup of hot cocoa.”—Booklist on The Christmas Escape

An uplifting novel of friendship, the festive season, and risking everything for the biggest gift of all...

It was supposed to be Christy Sullivan’s perfect Christmas escape – a dream trip to Lapland with her family and best friend, Alix. But facing a make-or-break marriage crisis, Christy desperately needs time alone with her husband, Seb. Her solution? Alix, along with Seb’s oldest friend, Zac, can take Christy’s daughter on the planned Lapland trip, and they will all reunite there for Christmas Day. After all, what are friends for?

There’s nothing Alix won’t do for Christy, but Christy’s plan to save Christmas is testing their friendship. Especially as Alix and Zac have a difficult history of their own.

As long-held secrets unravel, and unexpected romance shines under the Northern Lights, can Christy and Alix find the courage to fight for the relationships they really want? And could this Christmas escape save the precious gift of each other’s friendship?



There are also two books from my fave in romantic suspense Laura Griffin that made the list

Click HERE to see my review

blurb:
One tenacious local detective can only get the help he needs from a former forensic photographer with a serial killer on the loose in the new romantic thriller from New York Times bestselling author Laura Griffin.
 
When former forensic photographer Miranda Rhoads moves to the seaside town of Lost Beach, she's decided to make her living as a wildlife photographer and put crime scenes behind her. But her plans are quickly upended when one morning, she comes across a couple sleeping in a canoe, entwined in an embrace. Looking closer, she realizes the man and woman aren't asleep—they’ve been murdered.

Detective Joel Breda sets out to find answers--not only about the unidentified victims in the marshy death scene, but also about the aloof and beautiful photographer who seems to know more about his investigation than he does.

As they begin to unravel the motivation of a merciless serial killer, Miranda and Joel must race against the clock to make an arrest before the killer can find them first.


Click HERE to see my review

blurb:
When they face the most baffling missing person's case of their careers, a fiercely ambitious lawyer and a homicide detective have no one to turn to for help except each other, from New York Times bestselling author Laura Griffin.

Up-and-coming attorney Leigh Larson fights for victims of sexual extortion, harassment, and online abuse. She is not afraid to go after the sleaziest targets to get payback for her clients. Leigh is laser-focused on her career—to the exclusion of everything else—until a seemingly routine case and a determined cop turn her world upside down.

Austin homicide detective Brandon Reynolds is no stranger to midnight callouts. But when he gets summoned to an abandoned car on a desolate road, he quickly realizes he's dealing with an unusual crime scene. A pool of blood in the nearby woods suggests a brutal homicide. But where is the victim? The vehicle is registered to twenty-six-year-old Vanessa Adams. Searching the car, all Brandon finds is a smear of blood and a business card for Leigh Larson, attorney-at-law.

Vanessa had hired Leigh just before her disappearance, but Leigh has no leads on who could have wanted her dead. Faced with bewildering evidence and shocking twists, Leigh and Brandon must work against the clock to chase down a ruthless criminal who is out for vengeance.

Click HERE to see my Macmillan Audio Review

blurb:

2021 Amazon.com Best Books of the Year
2021 Hudson Booksellers Best of the Year
2021 
Washington Post Best Books of the Year
2021 "Read with Jenna"


"The Four Winds seems eerily prescient in 2021.... Its message is galvanizing and hopeful: We are a nation of scrappy survivors. We’ve been in dire straits before; we will be again. Hold your people close." (The New York Times)

"A spectacular tour de force that shines a spotlight on the indispensable but often overlooked role of Greatest Generation women." (People)

"Through one woman’s survival during the harsh and haunting Dust Bowl, master storyteller, Kristin Hannah, reminds us that the human heart and our Earth are as tough, yet as fragile, as a change in the wind." (Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing)

From the number-one best-selling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes a powerful American epic about love and heroism and hope, set during the Great Depression, a time when the country was in crisis and at war with itself, when millions were out of work and even the land seemed to have turned against them.

My land tells its story if you listen. The story of our family.

Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era. But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage is a woman’s only option, the future seems bleak. Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli and decides to change the direction of her life. With her reputation in ruin, there is only one respectable choice: marriage to a man she barely knows.

By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as crops fail and water dries up and the earth cracks open. Dust storms roll relentlessly across the plains. Everything on the Martinelli farm is dying, including Elsa’s tenuous marriage; each day is a desperate battle against nature and a fight to keep her children alive.

In this uncertain and perilous time, Elsa- like so many of her neighbors - must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family.

The Four Winds is a rich, sweeping novel that stunningly brings to life the Great Depression and the people who lived through it - the harsh realities that divided us as a nation and the enduring battle between the haves and the have-nots. A testament to hope, resilience, and the strength of the human spirit to survive adversity, The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press


Click HERE for my Harper Audio Review

blurb:

"With heart and humor, Willig explores the complexities of female friendships - feuds, forgiveness, and all. A touching portrait of triumph and found family in the midst of war. Bravo!” (Stephanie Dray, New York Times best-selling author of America's First Daughter and The Women of Chateau Lafayette)

A group of young women from Smith College risk their lives in France at the height of World War I in this sweeping novel based on a true story - a skillful blend of Call the Midwife and The Alice Network - from New York Times best-selling author Lauren Willig.

A scholarship girl from Brooklyn, Kate Moran thought she found a place among Smith’s Mayflower descendants, only to have her illusions dashed the summer after graduation. When charismatic alumna Betsy Rutherford delivers a rousing speech at the Smith College Club in April of 1917, looking for volunteers to help French civilians decimated by the German war machine, Kate is too busy earning her living to even think of taking up the call. But when her former best friend Emmeline Van Alden reaches out and begs her to take the place of a girl who had to drop out, Kate reluctantly agrees to join the new Smith College Relief Unit.

Four months later, Kate and 17 other Smithies, including two trailblazing female doctors, set sail for France. The volunteers are armed with money, supplies, and good intentions - all of which immediately go astray. The chateau that was to be their headquarters is a half-burnt ruin. The villagers they meet are in desperate straits: women and children huddling in damp cellars, their crops destroyed and their wells poisoned.

Despite constant shelling from the Germans, French bureaucracy, and the threat of being ousted by the British army, the Smith volunteers bring welcome aid - and hope - to the region. But can they survive their own differences? As they cope with the hardships and terrors of the war, Kate and her colleagues find themselves navigating old rivalries and new betrayals which threaten the very existence of the Unit.

With the Germans threatening to break through the lines, can the Smith Unit pull together and be truly a band of sisters?





Click HERE for my review + author interview

blurb:
From New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller M.J. Rose comes a provocative and moving story of a young female architect in post-World War II Manhattan, who stumbles upon a hidden treasure and begins a journey to discovering her mother’s life during the fall of the Romanovs.

Sophia Moon had always been reticent about her life in Russia and when she dies, suspiciously, on a wintry New York evening, Isobelle despairs that her mother’s secrets have died with her. But while renovating the apartment they shared, Isobelle discovers something among her mother’s effects—a stunning silver tiara, stripped of its jewels.

Isobelle’s research into the tiara’s provenance draws her closer to her mother’s past—including the story of what became of her father back in Russia, a man she has never known. The facts elude her until she meets a young jeweler, who wants to help her but is conflicted by his loyalty to the Midas Society, a covert international organization whose mission is to return lost and stolen antiques, jewels, and artwork to their original owners.

Told in alternating points of view, the stories of the two young women unfurl as each struggles to find their way during two separate wars. In 1915, young Sofiya Petrovitch, favorite of the royal household and best friend of Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna, tends to wounded soldiers in a makeshift hospital within the grounds of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg and finds the love of her life. In 1948 New York, Isobelle Moon works to break through the rampant sexism of the age as one of very few women working in a male-dominated profession and discovers far more about love and family than she ever hoped for.

In M.J. Rose’s deftly constructed narrative, the secrets of Sofiya’s early life are revealed incrementally, even as Isobelle herself works to solve the mystery of the historic Romanov tiara (which is based on an actual Romanov artifact that is, to this day, still missing)—and how it is that her mother came to possess it. The two strands play off each other in finely-tuned counterpoint, building to a series of surprising and deeply satisfying revelations.

Click HERE for my review + author interview

blurb:
Inspired by a little-known chapter of World War II history, a young Protestant girl and her Jewish neighbour are caught up in the terrible wave of hate sweeping the globe on the eve of war in this powerful love story that’s perfect for fans of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

If you’re reading this letter, that means I’m dead. I had obviously hoped to see you again, to explain in person, but fate had other plans.

1933

At eighteen years old, Molly Ryan dreams of becoming a journalist, but instead she spends her days working any job she can to help her family through the Depression crippling her city. The one bright spot in her life is watching baseball with her best friend, Hannah Dreyfus, and sneaking glances at Hannah’s handsome older brother, Max.

But as the summer unfolds, more and more of Hitler’s hateful ideas cross the sea and “Swastika Clubs” and “No Jews Allowed” signs spring up around Toronto, a city already simmering with mass unemployment, protests, and unrest. When tensions between the Irish and Jewish communities erupt in a riot one smouldering day in August, Molly and Max are caught in the middle, with devastating consequences for both their families.

1939

Six years later, the Depression has eased and Molly is a reporter at her local paper. But a new war is on the horizon, putting everyone she cares about most in peril. As letters trickle in from overseas, Molly is forced to confront what happened all those years ago, but is it too late to make things right?

From the desperate streets of Toronto to the embattled shores of Hong Kong, Letters Across the Sea is a poignant novel about the enduring power of love to cross dangerous divides even in the darkest of times—from the #1 bestselling author of The Forgotten Home Child.


Note: this was my first experience with this series and after reading it I bought the entire series in audible!
Click HERE for my Macmillan Audio Review

blurb:

"The winning combination of Gregg Hurwitz and Scott Brick returns for another action-packed listen featuring Evan Smoak...Brick is so convincing at embodying Smoak that listeners will be forgiven for thinking they too could take on four bad guys to protect a good guy in need of help." (AudioFile Magazine)

This program contains a deep dive into the character and history of Tommy Stojack, featuring Gregg Hurwitz and fans of the Orphan X series.

Forced into retirement, Evan Smoak gets an urgent request for help from someone he didn't even suspect existed - in Prodigal Son, the next New York Times best-selling Orphan X audiobook from Gregg Hurwitz.

As a boy, Evan Smoak was pulled out of a foster home and trained in an off-the-books operation known as the Orphan Program. He was a government assassin, perhaps the best, known to a few insiders as Orphan X. He eventually broke with the Program and adopted a new name - The Nowhere Man - and a new mission, helping the most desperate in their times of trouble. But the highest power in the country has made him a tempting offer - in exchange for an unofficial pardon, he must stop his clandestine activities as The Nowhere Man. Now Evan has to do the one thing he’s least equipped to do - live a normal life.

But then he gets a call for help from the one person he never expected. A woman claiming to have given him up for adoption, a woman he never knew - his mother. Her unlikely request: Help Andrew Duran - a man whose life has gone off the rails, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, bringing him to the deadly attention of very powerful figures. Now a brutal brother and sister assassination team are after him and with no one to turn to, and no safe place to hide, Evan is Duran’s only option. But when the hidden cabal catches on to what Evan is doing, everything he’s fought for is on the line - including his own life.  

A Macmillan Audio production from Minotaur Books



A Few years ago I found a treasure when I read Helaine's First Maggie O'Shea novel, since then she's become a go to author for me.
Click HERE for my review + author interview

blurb:
Overcoming loss—finding the courage to move on—trying to stay alive

Late in the Cold War, a young woman escapes from Communist Hungary, vanishing into the night with a priceless painting and a baby girl—setting events in motion from a decades-old secret that will change lives for generations to come.

Many years later, classical pianist Maggie O'Shea is drawn to Cornwall in search of a long-lost Van Gogh and the truth behind her husband's death. A journal from World War II Paris holds many of the answers, but only two people know where the Van Gogh is hidden now—a courageous nun and a man presumed dead.

Set against the backdrop of the international music and art world, Maggie finds herself on a collision course with three dangerous Russians who threaten all she holds dear—including her life and the life of the man she has come to love.

Past and present converge in this haunting tale of loss, courage, love, and revenge.

Perfect for fans of Sandra Brown and Iris Johansen

Note I was turned on to this series a few years ago by fellow blogger and friend Kim the Caffeinated Reviewer. This review is bittersweet because this novel was published posthumously after Rachel lost her battle with cancer
Click HERE for my Brilliance Audio Review

blurb:

An Amazon Charts and #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling series.

They’re hunting a killer so silent, so invisible, that his unspeakable crimes are the only proof he exists.

A car submerged in a remote pond. The bodies of two girls strapped into their seats. The mystery of their mother, vanished without a trace, leads Gwen Proctor and Kezia Claremont into dangerous territory.

On the surface, Gwen’s life is good - two children approaching adulthood, a committed partner, and a harrowing past dead and gone. But that past is attracting the attention of someone invisible...and unstoppable. Trouble’s just beginning. So is the body count in this backwoods Tennessee town.

As threats mount and Gwen’s hunted by an enemy who pulls all the strings, Kezia has her back. But working to solve these vicious and unreasonable crimes will expose them both to a killer they can’t for the life of them see coming.


Click HERE for my review

blurb:

The #1 New York Times bestselling Black Dagger Brotherhood series returns featuring a powerful MMA fighter with a buried secret that can change the world of Caldwell forever.

Sahvage has been living under the radar for centuries—and he has every intention of staying “dead and buried.” But when a civilian female sucks him into her dangerous battle with an evil as ancient as time, his protective side overrides his common sense.

Mae has lost everything, and desperation sets her on a collision course with fate. Determined to reverse a tragedy, she goes where mortals should fear to tread—and comes face-to-face with the Brotherhood’s new enemy. She also discovers a love she never expected to find with Sahvage, but there can be no future for them.

Knowing they will part, the two band together to fight against what Mae unknowingly unleashed—as the Brotherhood closes in to reclaim one of their damned, and the evil vows to destroy them all….



Click HERE for my review



blurb:
"An emotional novel that you will never forget." —Lisa Scottoline, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eternal

From the author of The Lost Girls of Paris comes a riveting tale of courage and unlikely friendship during World War II -- Now a New York Times bestsller!

1942. Sadie Gault is eighteen and living with her parents in the Kraków Ghetto during World War II. When the Nazis liquidate the ghetto, Sadie and her pregnant mother are forced to seek refuge in the perilous tunnels beneath the city. One day Sadie looks up through a grate and sees a girl about her own age buying flowers.

Ella Stepanek is an affluent Polish girl living a life of relative ease with her stepmother, who has developed close alliances with the occupying Germans. While on an errand in the market, she catches a glimpse of something moving beneath a grate in the street. Upon closer inspection, she realizes it’s a girl hiding.

Ella begins to aid Sadie and the two become close, but as the dangers of the war worsen, their lives are set on a collision course that will test them in the face of overwhelming odds. Inspired by incredible true stories, The Woman with the Blue Star is an unforgettable testament to the power of friendship and the extraordinary strength of the human will to survive.

Highly recommended by Entertainment WeeklyWashington Post, CNN, BookTrib, Goodreads, Betches, AARP, Frolic, SheReads, and more!




Click HERE for my review

blurb:
#1 New York Times bestselling author W. Bruce Cameron once again captures the bravery and determination of a very good dog in the gripping sequel to A Dog’s Way Home, the acclaimed novel that inspired the hit movie!

Bella was once a lost dog, but now she lives happily with her people, Lucas and Olivia, only occasionally recalling the hardships in her past. Then a weekend camping trip turns into a harrowing struggle for survival when the Rocky Mountains are engulfed by the biggest wildfire in American history. The raging inferno separates Bella from her people and she is lost once more.

Alone in the wilderness, Bella unexpectedly finds herself responsible for the safety of two defenseless mountain lion cubs. Now she’s torn between two equally urgent goals. More than anything, she wants to find her way home to Lucas and Olivia, but not if it means abandoning her new family to danger. And danger abounds, from predators hunting them to the flames threatening at every turn.

Can Bella ever get back to where she truly belongs?

A Dog’s Courage is more than a fast-paced adventure, more than a devoted dog’s struggle to survive, it’s a story asking that we believe in our dogs as much as they believe in us.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.



Click HERE to see my review

blurb:
Sliding Doors meets Life After Life in Sarah Adlakha's story about a wife and mother who is given the chance to start over at the risk of losing everything she loves.

A second chance is the last thing she wants.

When thirty-nine year old Maria Forssmann wakes up in her seventeen-year-old body, she doesn’t know how she got there. All she does know is she has to get back: to her home in Bienville, Mississippi, to her job as a successful psychiatrist and, most importantly, to her husband, daughters, and unborn son.

But she also knows that, in only a few weeks, a devastating tragedy will strike her husband, a tragedy that will lead to their meeting each other.

Can she change time and still keep what it’s given her?

Exploring the responsibilities love lays on us, the complicated burdens of motherhood, and the rippling impact of our choices, She Wouldn't Change a Thing is a dazzling debut from a bright new voice.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.


Click HERE to see my Macmillan Audio Review

Blurb:

2021 Hudson Booksellers Best of the Year

From the author of the beloved national best seller Migrations, a pulse-pounding new novel set in the wild Scottish Highlands.

Inti Flynn arrives in Scotland with her twin sister, Aggie, to lead a team of biologists tasked with reintroducing 14 gray wolves into the remote Highlands. She hopes to heal not only the dying landscape, but Aggie, too, unmade by the terrible secrets that drove the sisters out of Alaska.

Inti is not the woman she once was, either, changed by the harm she’s witnessed - inflicted by humans on both the wild and each other. Yet as the wolves surprise everyone by thriving, Inti begins to let her guard down, even opening herself up to the possibility of love. But when a farmer is found dead, Inti knows where the town will lay blame. Unable to accept her wolves could be responsible, Inti makes a reckless decision to protect them. But if the wolves didn’t make the kill, then who did? And what will Inti do when the man she is falling for seems to be the prime suspect?

Propulsive and spell-binding, Charlotte McConaghy's Once There Were Wolves is the unforgettable story of a woman desperate to save the creatures she loves - if she isn’t consumed by a wild that was once her refuge.

A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books


Okay if you love hard fantasy pick up this read and get ready to get scared silly!


Click HERE for my Macmillan Audio review

blurb:

From New York Times best-selling author Jay Kristoff comes Empire of the Vampire, the first volume of an astonishing new dark fantasy saga.

From holy cup comes holy light;

The faithful hand sets world aright.

And in the Seven Martyrs’ sight,

Mere man shall end this endless night.

It has been 27 long years since the last sunrise. For nearly three decades, vampires have waged war against humanity; building their eternal empire even as they tear down our own. Now, only a few tiny sparks of light endure in a sea of darkness.

Gabriel de León is a silversaint: a member of a holy brotherhood dedicated to defending realm and church from the creatures of the night. But even the Silver Order could not stem the tide once daylight failed us, and now, only Gabriel remains.

Imprisoned by the very monsters he vowed to destroy, the last silversaint is forced to tell his story. A story of legendary battles and forbidden love, of faith lost and friendships won, of the Wars of the Blood and the Forever King and the quest for humanity’s last remaining hope: the Holy Grail.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press.

“Brilliant and unputdownable, with tenderness and light bound into the bitterdark of a grim and fascinating world.” (Laini Taylor, New York Times best-selling author of Strange the Dreamer)

“Kristoff wields his writing like a fine blade - well-balanced, graceful and wickedly sharp.” (V.E. Schwab, New York Times best-selling author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)


The queen of dark thrillers introduces a brand new character

Click HERE for my review courtesy of LibraryJournal

blurb:
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner, a propulsive thriller featuring an ordinary woman who will stop at nothing to find the missing people that the rest of the world has forgotten


Frankie Elkin is an average middle-aged woman, a recovering alcoholic with more regrets than belongings. But she spends her life doing what no one else will--searching for missing people the world has stopped looking for. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never paid attention, Frankie starts looking.

A new case brings her to Mattapan, a Boston neighborhood with a rough reputation. She is searching for Angelique Badeau, a Haitian teenager who vanished from her high school months earlier. Resistance from the Boston PD and the victim's wary family tells Frankie she's on her own--and she soon learns she's asking questions someone doesn't want answered. But Frankie will stop at nothing to discover the truth, even if it means the next person to go missing could be her.





Click HERE for my review courtesy of Mystery Scene Magazine


Blurb:


From the New York Times bestselling author Darynda Jones comes the second novel in her laugh-out-loud Sunshine Vicram mystery series, A Good Day for Chardonnay.

Running a small-town police force in the mountains of New Mexico should be a smooth, carefree kind of job. Sadly, full-time Sheriff—and even fuller-time coffee guzzler—Sunshine Vicram, didn’t get that memo.

All Sunshine really wants is one easy-going day. You know, the kind that starts with coffee and a donut (or three) and ends with take-out pizza and a glass of chardonnay (or seven). Turns out, that’s about as easy as switching to decaf. (What kind of people do that? And who hurt them?)

Before she can say iced mocha latte, Sunny’s got a bar fight gone bad, a teenage daughter hunting a serial killer and, oh yes, the still unresolved mystery of her own abduction years prior. All evidence points to a local distiller, a dangerous bad boy named Levi Ravinder, but Sun knows he’s not the villain of her story. Still, perhaps beneath it all, he possesses the keys to her disappearance. At the very least, beneath it all, he possesses a serious set of abs. She’s seen it. Once. Accidentally.

Between policing a town her hunky chief deputy calls four cents short of a nickel, that pesky crush she has on Levi which seems to grow exponentially every day, and an irascible raccoon that just doesn’t know when to quit, Sunny’s life is about to rocket to a whole new level of crazy.

Yep, definitely a good day for chardonnay.



And last but not least one of my favorite thriller authors takes a step on the wild side with this fantastic fantasy series debut



Click HERE for my review



blurb:


A librarian. A spellbook. And a magical terror organization set on enslaving the world.

Librarian Jayne Thorne enjoys her quiet life of tea and books. That is, until she finds a spell book in the Vanderbilt University archives that accidentally gives her access to a magical dimension.

Now she's hunted by a magic-wielding terrorist group, and the only way for her to survive is to team up with a secret branch of the CIA. Her first mission: Go undercover at Trinity College Library in Dublin and determine if the Book of Leinster is actually a magical necromantic grimoire.

With the help of a handsome Irish kickboxer, Jayne uncovers the truth of her unexpected spell book: The Irish manuscript is one of five grimoires that can raise five dead, master magicians, and secure their totems of power. With these totems comes the power to control the world.

But the spell book isn't the only thing with secrets in Jayne's new life. Danger lurks in every corner and Jayne must rise to meet her fated role...or perish alongside the rest of the world.

A Discovery of Witches meets Mercy Thompson, with a splash of Indiana Jones and Gilmore Girls, in this lighthearted paranormal adventure. This is the fantasy you've been waiting for.



Happy New Year!!!





14 comments:

  1. Well I've enjoyed 4 of these and at least one was on my top list. You've got a nice diverse set of choices.

    Anne - Books of My Heart

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  2. Oh yes, I love Chardonnay, can't get enough, loved the second one too. I have She Wouldn't Change a Thing in my wish list at Audible. I can see now I put that there during the year because you loved it.

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    Replies
    1. Yes thank your friendly book pusher Kathryn :) Happy New Year

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  3. You have me intrigued by the binge-worthy Gregg Hurwitz series. I love seeing your favs for the year and share a few of these.

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  4. While I haven't read any of these, I have seen great things about some of them on other blogs this year. Happy New Year.

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  5. Glad you had such a good list of books. I'll have to check some of them out this year. Have a wonderful new year.

    Melanie @ Books of My Heart

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  6. I have only read one of these - A Great Day for Chardonnay (which I loved). I see several other books that are on my tbr and I might have to bump them closer to the top of the pile.

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