This was an exciting book that I think any young reader would find thoroughly engaging. I loved that this book offered me a Black female main character that was courageous, intelligent, witty, loyal, and clever. She is the type of role model that any young person can learn from and her journey is one that will be remembered by readers for a long time. As you can guess, I am always drawn to a book, especially when choosing for a younger reader, that showcases the best of all people and can help to open not just the reader's imagination but their mind and eyes to their own world as well. And this book does that but inviting everyone to an international school with cast of characters that reflects their world not just in description but it name and voice! There is such wonderful depictions of the myriad of cultures, genders, religions, etc that fill our world and showcase the magical in our daily lives.
Thank you Dhonielle Clayton for giving me a wonderful options to broaden any reader's worldview through and sharing your talent to inspire others! I cannot wait to read Book 2!
Thank you Dhonielle Clayton for giving me a wonderful options to broaden any reader's worldview through and sharing your talent to inspire others! I cannot wait to read Book 2!
This was a well written and engaging YA Fantasy Mystery that drew me in from the first chapter and had me reading through the pages, even though I am far beyond my own YA Years. Well paced, visually written, and beautifully balanced, this story about four sisters living in Caball Hollow was a refreshing read. There is no better setting for a mystery laced with magic than the Appalachian mountains. With the blend of old world folklore, new world mysticism, and one of the most beautiful wild areas left in the American North East, Pearsall artfully weaves all these threads together along with adding in her own imagination with the Moth-Winged Man Myth. This was an enchanting book that anyone, at any age, will enjoy it for not just the who done it mystery but equally for the author's ability to transport me out of my home and to a different place.
One the major draws for me when I begin a novel is how the first page engages my imagination and draws me into the world the book inhabits. Suddenly a Murder by Lauren Munoz does this, and does it well.
The Prologue alone made me feel as if I was one of the friends asked to this party. With aN opening line like " The knife burns cold in my trembling hands" I am immediately asking myself "What am I involved in?" "How did I get here?" And "Now, what am I to do?". And, most importantly, enagaged and want to solve the mystery. This for me is the best draw and one that makes me part of the mystery. This is not just because there is a first person perspective I am reading, but most importantly because I am invested as an extension of the narrator. And, all this is before the masterfully crafted dialogue that fills the rest of the book. This is a book that is vivid, detailed, and thoroughly thought provoking. All major characteristics for a great thriller!
The Prologue alone made me feel as if I was one of the friends asked to this party. With aN opening line like " The knife burns cold in my trembling hands" I am immediately asking myself "What am I involved in?" "How did I get here?" And "Now, what am I to do?". And, most importantly, enagaged and want to solve the mystery. This for me is the best draw and one that makes me part of the mystery. This is not just because there is a first person perspective I am reading, but most importantly because I am invested as an extension of the narrator. And, all this is before the masterfully crafted dialogue that fills the rest of the book. This is a book that is vivid, detailed, and thoroughly thought provoking. All major characteristics for a great thriller!
This book has great dialogue and humor, two of the most important things a book must have in my opinions. With these comes a wonderful pacing and tension as well a mystery that allowed me to fall into this book on page one. Right now there are a lot of books written with mature adults as their focus, hoping to get in on on the lives of the active Baby Boomers. Some this are just tradition books written by what feels like young characters dressed up in leisure wear with grey wigs on, this is definitely not the case for Mrs. Plansky's Revenge!
Mrs. Plan sky has a dry wit and humor that clearly comes from a life well lived and one that she was.well lived in. Her comments on her Tennis Game and The Club as well as her previous husbands made me giggle as I felt I could hear my own grandmother speaking this lines. What a marvelous Detective she is and what a great time I had watching her antics as she solved the mystery!
Mrs. Plan sky has a dry wit and humor that clearly comes from a life well lived and one that she was.well lived in. Her comments on her Tennis Game and The Club as well as her previous husbands made me giggle as I felt I could hear my own grandmother speaking this lines. What a marvelous Detective she is and what a great time I had watching her antics as she solved the mystery!
The Meadows offers a welcome addition to the Young Adult Dystopian book shelf. I found the first pages to be well written and compelling. I was drawn into the world the author created immediately and it held me firm until the end of the selection. Although Young Adult books are not my preferred genre, I found the writing style not just direct but artful. Oftentimes direct, clear, and succinct writing is seen as simple and artless; however Stephanie Oakes's prose shows that this is not the case in her book. The writing here is direct yes, but also vivid, realistic, and engaging. The same is true for the dialogue that is clean, crisp, and charged. Like the Internal monologue that it's opens this book, the dialogue helps the reader not just picture.the scenes as they are.written, but remember them. A strong story, told in a compelling way, that bring light to a underrepresented group in You'd Adult Literature
I found this first look to be quite compelling and engaging. I found the strangeness of the chapters design, quite unlike what i have come to expect, to be very effective and evocative. I felt the fear.and the disquiet, I shared the same uncertain space As July because the normalicy if chapter structure was.ruptured. this was an effective way of drawing me in. And then, to increase this feeling, there were inter chapters that appeared with a timeline defence in the ring me even further. I want to know more than the sample I was.given because when I read to the chapters titled once I began to see a story of a young woman finding her way that spoke to me.
The cover art is a powerful representation of the opening chapters and the feelings of isolation that challenge July too find the missing people. Standing alone in a window,.surrounded by an encroaching darkness...I finding myself wonder what would I do if that was me?
The cover art is a powerful representation of the opening chapters and the feelings of isolation that challenge July too find the missing people. Standing alone in a window,.surrounded by an encroaching darkness...I finding myself wonder what would I do if that was me?
A sexy and flirty reverse age gap romance that will leave you fanning yourself and wondering why your boss can’t be Van. This hot romance starts when Hollyn is out on the town with her Girl Squad for an Engagement and Welcome Baby Party. Having reserved a private balcony, they are waiting for the male stripper to arrive to spice up the evening. Having just been fired that afternoon, “Van” was just trying to find a restroom when he’s mistaken for the stripper. What was he supposed to do when he sees the pile of singles waiting to be not so tastefully delivered? Pretend to be the stripper, of course, and when Hollyn catches his eye and is interested in a string free night of letting loose and getting dirty, all the more reason to follow her lead and go back to her room. After slipping out of the room the next morning when she panics and needs a morale booster from her Girl Squad down the hall, Van, who doesn't even know Hollyn’s real name, disappears. Of course Hollyn only knows him as “Van '' the stripper and when he appears as Vance Bailey after inheriting his mother’s bakery where Hollyn works, the comedy and drama of mistaken identities and morning after fears battles with the connection and sexual excitement that one night was not able to quench. It’s more than the oven heating up the kitchen as these two lovers keep being drawn into each other’s arms. As with everything Gia Stevens writes, you’ll find a wonderful story full of surprises, twists and turns as this pair have to overcome Hollyn’s fears of being “the older woman” even though Vance is not the inexperienced boy. Filled with wonderful observations about what defines love and how everyone processes success as well as failure, Flirting With The Stranger is a great addition to the Flirting With series and brings some of the hottest scenes ever written for a kitchen.
I received this as an ARC for an honest review
I received this as an ARC for an honest review
What happens when you have a “he falls first” Rom Com where the ‘he’ is such a sweetheart that he will not let on how he feels to ‘her’ while she is with someone else? Of course, if you are using total Guy Logic, you hide what you’re thinking and feeling behind the facade of being a Playboy. How can you pull this off so easily? Again, with Guy Logic it’s simple, when she works just one floor below you, put on your Flirt whenever you are around her and be sure that you extend this to all the women that you see, no matter what you’re really thinking. Make sense? Well it does if you are Bennett Pierce. But, what if you are Charlie -- his ‘her’? She feels this attraction too but cannot allow it to grow because she’s been burned by unfaithful men at every turn and she knows first hand that Bennett is no different than her cheating ex, thanks to Bennett’s carefully crafted public persona. The result of Bennett’s simple plan is a complicated game of Believing is Seeing and it does nothing more than keep these two inevitable lovers apart. For us, the readers, we get to watch the interaction that comes from this pent up sexual tension that simmers and shimmers on the edge of explosion each time the pair come into contact. That is until Bennett starts taking the back entrance to avoid Charlie. But what changed? It turns out that Bennett has met his perfect woman on a new dating app and his chats with her are everything he is looking for: intelligent, witty, opinionated, and sexy. And Charlie, she’s met her perfect man, one that is caring, intuitive, insightful, and charismatic. But there is one catch... Bennett knows he is chatting with Charlie, now will he end this relationship immediately or will he not be able to resist her and keep challenging and chatting with her, until she sees him for who he really is? A sexy, banter filled, and emotionally charged book, Flirting with the Playboy will keep you up reading past your bedtime while struggling to stifle your laughter and fighting the need to give this amazing couple the common sense advice they both need to reach their Happily Ever After.
I received this as an ARC for an Honest Review
I received this as an ARC for an Honest Review
Thank you Netgalley and Berkeley Romance for the ARC that I read