NetGalley November 2023 - The Rosewood Hunt

Oh, the joy of going away on a well-needed holiday. Time to catch up on some much needed reading, especially for my NetGalley To Be Read List (see why I choose to do NetGalley November now?). Much needed time to escape the huge issues of real life (one was dropped on my head over 24 hours before I got on a plane. So that was fun!)

One of the things I wanted to do this month was tackle some of my older backlist. Did I do that? NOPE! I went for something a little newer (and I have loads of newer titles to tackle). But seeing as I was on holiday, I wanted to tackle some fun, light, fluffy. And after a few other titles that I picked up, read the first few pages and went “Not in the mood”, this came up and I devoured the first few chapters at breakneck speed. 

Title and Author: The Rosewood Hunt by Mackenzie Reed

Publisher: Harper360

Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Gifted via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review/reaction

Buy From (Affiliate): uk.bookshop.org

Lily Rosewood has been living with her grandmother for the past year and, over that time, the two have become close. Lily hopes one day to her grandmother with her fashion business. But when Grams suddenly and unexpectedly dies, Lily is in completely shock. And when, at the will reading with her uncle and cousin, she discovered a her grandmother’s quarter of a billion dollar fortune is missing and all three are banned for the estate, Lily doesn’t understand. 

But Gram loves her little games. So, when Lily receives a letter written in invisible ink, she begins to question why Grams would hid her fortune. And when three random teens come to Lily, all with a letter from Gram, the unlucky four are forced to team up and go on a real life treasure hunt. But treasure hunters are coming for the fortune also, and someone is willing to go to extreme lengths to get that cash…

Shocktember 2021 - Truly Devious

I knew when I decided to finally, finally, read/audiobook Truly Devious back in late July (I pushed to September due to me wanting August to be quite light and romantic reading...) that was I was going to do the series (this, originally, was meant to be a trilogy so on this front, I mean Truly Devious, The Vanishing Stair and The Hand on the Wall. I am intrigued over the newest, standalone instalment, The Box in the Woods, but in two minds if I should buy/read this. Let me do these three and then I’ll, then, decide...). Mainly because I own all three but, also, I knew that the main mystery of the series – the identity of Truly Devious and the unsolved kidnappings and possible triple murder that rocked Ellingham Academy in 1936 – was going to be an overarching theme for the trilogy.

Oh shoot, hang on. Let me get the basic info and and tell you about Truly Devious. Then we can dive into this!

Title And Author: Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

Publisher: Harper360/Katherine Tegen Books

Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: eProof bought & Audiobook borrowed from local library via BorrowBox app.

Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont, where the best and brightest students attend, created by a tycoon who believed learning should be a game. But that's not why the school is famous. In 1936, the tycoon's wife, three year old daughter and one of the students vanished. The only clue was a poison pen letter-style riddle from someone calling themselves Truly Devious. It's one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in North America. Now, in the modern day, true crime aficionado Stevie Bell is about to attend the school and she wants to solve the crime. And Truly Devious doesn't like that...

Audiobook Review - Serpent and Dove

I’m meant to be writing a review for Toksvig’s Almanac 2021 by Sandi Toksvig as part of NetGalley November. But I left it too long and I struggled most of Sunday morning to write it. Instead, I finished this audiobook and, while fresh in my mind, am going to write this up.

Now, before I go any further, I want to say that I’ve been aware of this book and I have been ooohing and aaahing over it, but whenever I think about reading this, I’m always been a bit meh over it. But, I saw this on my library’s audiobook app and thought, on impulse, to give it a go.

Title And Author: Serpent and Dove by Shelby Mahurin
Publisher: HarperTeen/Harper360
Physical, eBook or Audiobook: Audiobook
Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Borrowed from local library via BorrowBox
Length: 528 Pages or 14 Hours 13 Minutes

Two years ago, Lou fleed for her life. She left her coven and took shelter in the city of Cesarine, vowing never to do magic again and stealing to survive, desperate to never return. But Lou lives in a world where witches are hunted, feared and, if caught, burnt.

Reid is one of the many huntsman - a Chasseur - for the Church and they all live by one principle: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. But when he and Lou cross paths and Lou accidentally pulls a stunt that could cause scandal, the two are forced to do damage control - and by that, I mean marriage.

Lou is now married to the enemy, and feelings between them are growing. But it’s only a matter of time before Reid finds out the truth about Lou being a witch. And all the while, Lou’s past is coming closer and closer, coming for her darling Lou…

Book Review - A Thousand Beginnings and Endings

• Title And Author: A Thousand Beginnings And Endings edited by Ellen Oh and Elsie Chapman
• Publisher: Harper360
• Physical, eBook or Audiobook: Physical
• Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Gifted by Publisher in Exchange for an Honest Review
• Length: 328 Pages

When the lovely people at Harper360 emailed to promote some of their upcoming titles for the next few months, only A Thousand Beginnings and Endings made me go “I MUST READ THIS!!!”. I mean, this ticked all of my boxes: short stories, diversity, authors new and old (to me) reimaginings or retellings of myths and legends I don’t know about, myths and legends in general. Plus, THAT COVER! You can blame Mythos by Stephen Fry and Circe by Madeline Miller (which am still audiobooking at the time of writing this - keep your eyes peeled!) for my sudden attack of reading myths and legends, if you so wish.

Fifteen authors reimagine fifteen myths, legends and folklore from East and South Asia. There is no other way to write this. Fifteen myths get reimagined in a mix of genres - sci-fi, fantasy, contemporary, romance and a nice twist of revenge. 

Now, where do I start with this? 

Audiobook Review - The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue

You guys on the Internet do love this book. It's getting a lot of love from other book bloggers, vloggers and Instagram. So the fact it's taken me till now to listen to the story is a bit of a surprise. I mean, this has elements that would make me spend a lot of money to buy - huge amount of diversity, adventure, fun.

Anyway, how did I get this audiobook? Well, one day, I was randomly listening to latest episodes of podcasts I loved listening to years ago and fell out of favour with them for one reason or another. One of them was Answer Me This and they announced that they were doing a thing with Audible where if you do a free trial via their website (answermethispodcast.com/audible), you can get two audiobooks for free. And I love free things so off I went and I got this and Deborah Harkness's Book of Life (review for that is here). So, thanks Answer Me This.

Anyway, Gentleman's Guide (I'm not going to state the whole title through this blog post) follows Henry "Monty" Montague has been born and bred to be an English gentleman. But he doesn't act like an eighteenth century gentleman should. He drinks, gambles, sleeps around, makes reckless decisions and, somehow, is allowed a tour round Europe for one year. After that, he has to grow up and run his father's estate, something Monty is horrid over (for reasons that are explain through the course of the book). But this year away is going to be great, he knows it. He's going with his best friend, Percy, they are going to have fun and hopeful, this will be the year Monty can tell Percy about his all-consuming crush for him...

But that's not going to happen. His little sister, Felicity, is joining them so she can join finishing school (something she is loathing, though she's been demanding an education for years) and when Monty makes a reckless (and somewhat stupid) decision, their trip turns into a manhunt with the three being chased over Europe, things might not go as Monty hope. Or will it...?

I am HUGELY TORN over this. On the one hand, I completely get why you all love this so much. The diversity with LGBT+ characters, black characters, characters with medical conditions, characters with backstory (one main character's backstory - Monty's - is a bit of a trigger-warning, so be on your guard with that), how this book tackled racism, homophobia and the slave trade in this historical settings, gender equality. This book tackled a lot of issues and yet, was still fun.

Which makes this next paragraph a bit hard to write. While this was fun in the last half-ish of the story, the first half was a struggle. Not because the story didn't really kick off for a while (it kicks off, really, after the characters leave Paris), but because of Monty. Now, I get now that Monty goes through a huge character development and the Monty at the end of the book is the Monty I liked and enjoyed reading about. But the Monty for the first half or three quarters of the book is a problem for me. He was arrogant, self-involved, completely thoughtless and reckless that I found him quite hard to like. So much so that whenever I had a moment to listen to this, I would always find an excuse not to. I would have to push myself to listen and push through because once things got into gear storewide and with Monty's and Percy's relationship, I was there. But the first half of the book, for me, was hard. And there were times in the second half of the book that when Monty made stupid mistakes or rash decisions, I did want to shake him and go "You're having such wonderful character development! Don't go backwards on that!"

So... yeah... I am not in love with this compared to most of my book blogger and vlogger pals. But, I hear you ask, will be you reading/listening to the sequel/companion novel, The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, that follows Felicity? ... maybe. I mean, I like Felicity and her no-nonsense, badass-ness so I would be intrigued to see what Mackenzi Lee does, but I won't be rushing out to buy it.

However, if Mackenzi Lee fancies writing something linked to Skippy-o (no idea if that's correct spelling or not. AUDIOBOOK!), the pirate captain who we met 3/4 of the way through the story, then I would be on board for that. There was something about his character I really connected with...