The Vanishing at Castle Moreau by Jaime Jo Wright April 3-28, 2023 Virtual Book Tour Synopsis: A haunting legend. An ominous curse. A search for a secret buried deep within the castle walls. In 1870, orphaned Daisy François takes a position as housemaid at a Wisconsin castle to escape the horrors of her past life.... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: USSS Special Agent Zane Thacker has landed his dream assignment protecting the president of the United States. When the president plans a fundraiser at the exclusive estate of a political supporter in Raleigh, Zane is thrilled to be working again with Special Agent Tessa Reed, his best friend--and the woman he desperately wishes could... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: In the aftermath of World War I, nurse Bess Crawford is caught in a deadly feud between two families in this thirteenth book in the beloved mystery series from New York Times bestselling author Charles Todd. Restless and uncertain of her future in the wake of World War I, former battlefield nurse Bess Crawford... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: Before Meghan and Harry, another American ‘princess’ captured the hand of an English aristocrat. Now, Karen Harper tells the tale of Consuelo Vanderbilt, her “The Wedding of the Century” to the Duke of Marlborough, and her quest to find meaning behind “the glitter and the gold.” On a cold November day in 1895, a... Continue Reading →
Q: When did you first begin writing stories?My eighth-grade English class thought it would be cool to skip over the same old lectures aboutRomeo and Juliet and instead have us tackle the task of writing our own children’s books. Theywere right, it was super cool. I partnered with a girl who loved to draw, and... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: Restless with the familiarity of her Alabama home, Ellie Fields accepts a teaching job in a tiny Louisiana town deep in bayou country. Though rightfully suspicious of outsiders, who have threatened both their language and their culture, most of the people in tiny Bernadette, Louisiana, come to appreciate the young and idealistic schoolteacher as... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: A midwife gets a second chance at having a family in this first installment of the new Amish romance series -- Hearts of Lancaster County -- from award-winning author Barbara Cameron.Rebecca Zook has always dreamed of being a midwife. It's a bittersweet occupation for an Amish widow who didn't have children before she lost her true... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: Betty Sweet never expected to be a widow at 40. With so much life still in front of her, she tries to figure out what's next. She couldn't have imagined what God had in mind. When her estranged sister is committed to a sanitarium, Betty finds herself taking on the care of a 5-year-old... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: A reclusive bookstore owner hoped she'd permanently buried her family's sensational past with a new name. But when the novels she once shared with an old crush begin appearing in the mail, it's clear her true identity is about to be revealed, threatening the new life she has painstakingly built. Rating:... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: An Old Flame Brings a Spark of New Hope En Alt Maedel—an old maid. At age twenty-nine, that's what Eva Lapp considers herself. And who could argue with her? Finding a good Amish husband at her age will be next to impossible. Plus, Eva's unwarranted bad reputation in Lancaster... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: Is fate a shield against the agony of choice or a force that suffocates free will? From diverse walks of life and different corners of the globe, ten strangers are being brought together. Prejudice, fallen dreams, loss, and trauma have plagued each of their lives . . . until they find each... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: Everything about Jessie is wrong. At least, that’s what it feels like during her first week of junior year at her new ultra-intimidating prep school in Los Angeles. Just when she’s thinking about hightailing it back to Chicago, she gets an email from a person calling themselves Somebody/Nobody (SN for short),... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: Two struggling teenagers find an unexpected connection just when they need it most. Sometimes a new perspective is all that is needed to make sense of the world. KIT: I don’t know why I decide not to sit with Annie and Violet at lunch. It feels like no one here... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: Alzheimer's. It barges into your life, breaks your heart, bewilders your mind, disrupts your plans, impacts your finances, and consumes enormous amounts of time and energy. When someone you love has Alzheimer's, you need more than just information on the disease--you need a break. You need a laugh. You need... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: I want to rewind the clock, take back the night when the world shattered. I want to erase everything that went wrong. Amber Bryant and Tyler Hicks have been best friends since they were teenagers—trusting and depending on each other through some of the darkest periods of... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: A Son for Always by Amy Clipston (Previously published in An Amish Cradle) Carolyn and Joshua are thrilled to be expecting their first child together. Carolyn was a teenager when she had her son, Benjamin, and she feels solely responsible to secure his future. As Joshua watches Carolyn struggle to accept... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: In Kristi Ann Hunter's "Legacy of Love," Sarah Gooding never suspected returning a brooch to an elderly woman would lead to a job . . . and introduce her to the woman's grandson, a man far above her station. In Karen Witemeyer's "Gift of the Heart," widow Ruth Albright... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: In 1911, Carrie Strahorn wrote a memoir entitled Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage, which shared some of the most exciting events of 25 years of traveling and shaping the American West with her husband, Robert Strahorn, a railroad promoter, investor, and writer. That is all fact. Everything She Didn't Say imagines Carrie... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: A smart, comic page-turner about a Silicon Valley family in free fall over the course of one eventful summer. When Paul Miller’s pharmaceutical company goes public, making his family IPO millionaires, his wife, Janice, is sure this is the windfall she’s been waiting years for — until she... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: In the bestselling tradition of Hidden Figures and The Wives of Los Alamos, comes a riveting novel of the everyday women who worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II “What you see here, what you hear here, what you do here, let it stay here.” In November 1944, eighteen-year-old June Walker... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: A debut novel of domestic suspense in the vein of Liane Moriarty, Shari Lapena and Claire Douglas about two sisters bound together by a murder Penny and Hattie have always only had each other—their father left long ago and their mother died in a sudden tragic accident. Penny has always... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: Mercy McClain joined the school board to protect the children of Teaville, Kansas, from the bullying she experienced as a child. When the worst offender from her school days applies for a teaching position, she is dead set against it. Yet Aaron Firebrook claims to be... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: A grieving daughter and abuse survivor must summon the courage to run a feminist conference, trust a man she meets over the Internet, and escape a catfishing stalker to find her power. Ahana, a wealthy thirty-three-year-old New Delhi woman, flees the pain of her mother's death,... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: Betsy and Ty Franklin, owners of Franklin Dairy Farm in southern Alabama, have decided to put life’s disappointments behind them. At least in theory. Ty manages their herd of dairy cows, while Betsy busies herself with the farm’s day-to-day operations and tries to forget the longing... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: First comes love, then comes marriage. Unless it’s the other way around. . . General Mark Grimaldi has sacrificed everything for his military career, working his way through the ranks without the benefit of a nobleman’s title. Now, his years of dedication are about to... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: The multi-award-winning author of The House of Shattered Wings continues her Dominion of the Fallen saga as Paris endures the aftermath of a devastating arcane war.... As the city rebuilds from the onslaught of sorcery that nearly destroyed it, the great Houses... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: Fatherhood is one of the most challenging jobs in the world, and it becomes even tougher when one must combat harmful stereotypes. In his work, Khalid Akil White actively challenges the negative stereotype of the "Black Father." White is both a father himself and... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: Four top historical romance novelists team up in this new collection to offer stories of love and romance with a twist of humor. In Karen Witemeyer's "The Love Knot," Claire Nevin gets the surprise of her life awaiting her sister's arrival by train. Mary Connealy's "The Tangled Ties That Bind"... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: Hannah and her husband, Elkanah, share a deep and abiding love, for each other, for their God, and for his tabernacle at Shiloh. Greatly disturbed by the corruption of the priests, they long for restoration and pray for a deliverer. But nothing changes as the years... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: A coming-of-age story of Erin and Erika, Texas twins in an abusive home in a town segregated by white and black color lines, who are wounded by the revealing of a shocking family secret and long to escape their circumstances and erase what they have been labeled. Follow their journey in this compelling novel... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: Joyce Bulifant has lived the “Hollywood life” for nearly seven decades, and through it, experienced what few outside the entertainment world can imagine. While following the path of her own successful career, Ms. Bulifant managed to navigate the choppy waters of husbands' alcoholism, codependency and an extended family of four marriages. James MacArthur played... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: A THRILLER NOVEL DRIVEN BY REAL SCIENCE... In the 1930s, Japanese scientists committed heinous crimes in their quest for the ultimate biological weapon. The war ended. Their mission did not. Eighty years later, Japanese-American scientist Amika Nakamura won’t let rules stand between her and scientific glory. When the ambitious young virologist defies a ban... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: This contemporary, literary romance tells the story of Tara, a 38-year-old East European woman who falls in love with Adrian, a 25-year-old English boy. A psychological tale of mind and heart in a catastrophic collision. Struggles, pain, doubts, desire, guilt, shame, torment, you name it. All human emotions described in detail. But there is... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: White Wine & Medical Marijuana is a book of poetry that explores themes such as femininity, sexuality, weakness, strength, addiction, power, and profanity. It analyzes these themes, while keeping the language casual, simple, and accessible to all readers. Enjoy the power struggle between self criticism and self love, the raw life observations, and the... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: Mothers and daughters, sisters and cousins, they lived for summers at the lake house until a tragic accident changed everything. The Summer That Made Us is an unforgettable story about a family learning to accept the past, to forgive and to love each other again. That was then… For the Hempsteads, summers were idyllic.... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: When Flossy Merrill summons her children to the beloved family beach house to celebrate their father’s eightieth birthday, both cherished memories and long-kept secrets come to light in this charming and lyrical novel from the author of The Lake Season and Mystic Summer. Flossy Merrill has managed to—somewhat begrudgingly—gather her three ungrateful grown children... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: Shay Benson adored her younger brother, Caden, and that got her into trouble. When he owed money, Shay realized she would do anything to help him avoid the men who were threatening him, and she crossed lines she never should have crossed. Now, determined to start fresh, she finds herself in search of a... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: Maxine Hunter and Reverend Claude Jacobs have been engaged for a year and unable to decide on a final wedding date. The delay for their marital bliss comes in the form of Claude’s longtime friend, Geneva Shade. Geneva is in love with Claude and has decided she’s going to do whatever it takes to... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: Bold Love: A Letter to My Young Sisters is a love letter full of personal experiences, science and deliberate encouragement to help one move through the challenges related to self-esteem, absent relationships and racial challenges. This body of work is written through the eyes of the writer as if she were her younger self.... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: With this stunning debut novel, New York Times bestselling author Lauren Oliver emerged as one of today's foremost authors of young adult fiction. Like Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why and Gayle Forman's If I Stay, Before I Fall raises thought-provoking questions about love, death, and how one person's life can affect so many others.... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: The traditional Catholic Church views true celibacy as a gift from God. But today's reality paints a much different picture. In "Sex, Celibacy, and Priesthood, " the Most Rev. Lou A. Bordisso reviews the research on sexual activity and celibacy among Catholic priests. Featuring heart-wrenching, anonymous, and candid self-disclosures about the sexual behaviors of... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: On the day she was born, Maite received a cradle gift from the faery Nahia-a gift that allows her to travel into other worlds while in a dream state. At seventeen, Maite's mortal world is torn apart with the tragic loss of her parents. Uprooted from the only home she's ever known and isolated... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: Charlotte Alexandra Long is determined to create her own life, but severe reverberations await her at the crossroads of each decision and always the possibility that the very thing she put in place on her own terms could be wiped away by an uncertain future. As Pepper's Ghost weaves in and out of... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: For sixteen-year-old Mel Hannigan, bipolar disorder makes life unpredictable. Her latest struggle is balancing her growing feelings in a new relationship with her instinct to keep everyone at arm's length. And when a former friend confronts Mel with the truth about the way their relationship ended, deeply buried secrets threaten to come out... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: Will there be happily ever after for the finest men of Bath, the Dukes? Or will they lose everything... The Duke of Cumberland, his family and friends, and the town of Bath have many secrets, some of which could destroy both members of ton and commoners alike. WILL THERE BE TRUE LOVE BETWEEN... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: Benjamin Frederickson, the future Earl of Wembley, can't forget that night... The night that changed him... More importantly, he can't forget that brave little girl who was scarred from the horrible fire. Catherine Watson . The night young Benjamin Frederickson met the victim of a house fire, he has remembered it all of... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: Violet is a shy, introverted woman who hides behind her red hair and freckles. Xander is a strong, driven businessman who has no desire for romance. Living at opposite ends of the country, there isn't any chance the two will meet. Little do they know, they have guardian angels who are determined to... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: It is the story above all, and Lazlo’s Revenge is an excellent story, inspired by true events in places devastated by war, and those who suffered greatly. Readers develop a personal relationship with the characters, Lazlo, Gertrude, Captain Koz, and others, leaving them wanting more. Max Fischer (Maxine Schoellkopf Fischer, fictional narrator of... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: A moving coming-of-age tale that follows three young boys through adolescence into adulthood, each trying to make sense of a world turned upside down. Poland (1939) The German army sweeps across Poland intent on the destruction of an entire people. In a small Polish town, ten-year-old Piotr Kowalczyk’s idyllic world will be forever... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: What if there was a place where everything wrong in your life could be fixed? Corporate trainer Jake Palmer coaches people to see deeper into themselves—yet he barely knows himself anymore. Recently divorced and weary of the business life, Jake reluctantly agrees to a lake-house vacation with friends, hoping to escape for ten... Continue Reading →
Urban Book Reviews 