TLC Book Tours Book Review: The Wicked City

About The Wicked City

• Hardcover: 384 pages

  • Publisher: William Morrow (January 17, 2017) 

  New York Times bestselling author Beatriz Williams recreates the New York City of A Certain Age in this deliciously spicy adventure that mixes past and present and centers on a Jazz Age love triangle involving a rugged Prohibition agent, a saucy redheaded flapper, and a debonair Princetonian from a wealthy family. When she discovers her husband cheating, Ella Hawthorne impulsively moves out of their SoHo loft and into a small apartment in an old Greenwich Village building. Her surprisingly attractive new neighbor, Hector, warns her to stay out of the basement at night. Tenants have reported strange noises after midnight—laughter, clinking glasses, jazz piano—even though the space has been empty for decades. Back in the Roaring Twenties, the place hid a speakeasy. In 1924, Geneva "Gin" Kelly, a smart-mouthed flapper from the hills of western Maryland, is a regular at this Village hideaway known as the Christopher Club. Caught up in a raid, Gin becomes entangled with Prohibition enforcement agent Oliver Anson, who persuades her to help him catch her stepfather Duke Kelly, one of Appalachia’s most notorious bootleggers. Headstrong and independent, Gin is no weak-kneed fool. So how can she be falling in love with the taciturn, straight-arrow Revenue agent when she’s got Princeton boy Billy Marshall, the dashing son of society doyenne Theresa Marshall, begging to make an honest woman of her? While anything goes in the Roaring Twenties, Gin’s adventures will shake proper Manhattan society to its foundations, exposing secrets that shock even this free-spirited redhead—secrets that will echo from Park Avenue to the hollers of her Southern hometown. As Ella discovers more about the basement speakeasy, she becomes inspired by the spirit of her exuberant predecessor, and decides to live with abandon in the wicked city too. . . .

Purchase Links

HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Review: If you are a fan of Downton Abbey or the era of the 20s and 30s you need to check out a book by Beatriz Williams. Her novels are stunning, much like the covers of her books. Oh and this book is going to be part of a series, so for me that gets a big squee.

This book tells the story of two women; Ella, a soon to be divorcee living in the recent past (1998) and Gin Kelly a flapper living in the 1920s. The speakeasy Gin goes to was in the basement of the apartment that Ella now lives in. The speakeasy sort of haunts the tenants. Though not in the "this is a ghost story" kind of way that you might be thinking

I have to say that the more historical part of the story is the part that interested me the most. Speakeasys, gangsters and flappers, oh my! Ginger's story is really what this book was about, though as you get closer to the end you'll learn more about the connection between Ella and Ginger.

Ginger comes from a poor town called River Junction in Maryland where her step-father is a king pin for bootlegging. Duke Kelly is pure evil as you see more and more. He does a good job of making himself look good, but he does a lot of harm along the way.

Ginger is really quite the gal. She's been there and done that and she definitely has a good reason to hate her step father. Enter Oliver Anson a prohibition agent that wants to shut Duke down. He's full of secrets too.

I'm not sure what Ella's life is going to have to do with this series, if we will see her again at some point of time, because her story, while interesting wasn't quite finished. I needed to know more about her and her soon to be ex and Hector as well. There was a tie in to Ginger with Ella's workplace too. I'm hoping some of these little plot hole will be addressed at some point.

This was a beautifully written novel with exquisite attention to detail. You really get transported back to the twenties when you immerse yourself in this story.

Rating: 5 flowers

About Beatriz Williams

A graduate of Stanford University with an MBA from Columbia, Beatriz Williams spent several years in New York and London hiding her early attempts at fiction, first on company laptops as a communications strategy consultant, and then as an at-home producer of small persons, before her career as a writer took off. She lives with her husband and four children near the Connecticut shore. Find out more about Beatriz at her website, and connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

TLC Book Tours Book Review: Law and Disorder

About Law and Disorder (The Finnegan Connection)

Series: The Finnegan Connection

Mass Market Paperback: 256 pages

Publisher: Harlequin Intrigue (January 17, 2017)

Trust the enemy?

Desperate to escape her kidnappers, Kody Cameron can turn to only one man… and he’s holding a gun. Outnumbered and trapped in the deadly Everglades, she has little recourse, but something in this captor’s eyes makes her believe she can trust him. Does she dare to take the risk?

Undercover agent Nick Connolly has met Kody before and knows she might very well blow his cover. Though determined to maintain his facade, he can’t let Kody die. He won’t. And his decision to change his own rules of law and order are about to make all hell break loose.

Purchase Links

Amazon | Books-A-Million | Barnes & Noble

Review: I am a huge fan of Heather Graham. I have read many of her Krewe of Hunters series and loved them all. I was really hoping I would love this story that Heather wrote for the Intrigue line.

I really wish I could say that.

First, our heroine's name is Kody, but obviously that is a shortened form of Dakota,but it is never addressed. She's called Dakota in one sentence and Kody in the very next. That was MADDENING!

Kody is an actress, but her family owns a home that is now a museum that features items relating to the mob in Florida. Which is the reason Dillinger (all her captors go by aliases of former mobsters...how creative)

She was also a little too brave when it came to her kidnappers. She was brave to the point of stupidity. In the real world if a kidnapped person talked back to a captor the way she did, she probably wouldn't have made it to the end of the story in one piece, no matter how much she was needed.

The plot was one that had a lot of promise. She's kidnapped to find a mobster's treasure in the Florida Everglades. If this were one of her books for Mira, it probably would have worked, but for the short Intrigue line, things felt rushed, and the romance between Kody and Nick just didn't seem right. They met briefly before she even knew who he was, or if he were a good guy or a bad guy. Then suddenly they are madly in love.  It just didn't work at all.

There were so many characters in this book as well. It was often hard to keep up with who was an agent, a hostage a kidnapper etc.

I'm hoping this book is just a one off dud for Heather, because her other books were always so good.

Rating: 2 flowers

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Tasty Book Tours Cover Reveal: Dear Agony

Tasty Book Tours Presents....

DEAR AGONY

Georgia Cates

Releasing March 1st, 2017

Dear Agony,

You've been my shadow, following me through childhood—filling my days and nights with terror and uncertainty. You cleverly disguised yourself as some form of pain or suffering as I grew into a young woman. We were unwavering companions … until I severed our ties.

I traded homelessness on the streets of New Orleans for a luxurious bed covered by the finest linens.

I traded dumpster diving for dinner in the finest restaurants.

I traded myself to a stranger—Bastien Pascal.

I have a good life within my platonic and mutually beneficial companionship with Bash.

He’s my friend. My mentor. My roommate.

Until everything changes.

I’m not supposed to get goosebumps when his hand brushes my skin.

I’m not supposed to be eager for his soothing touch following one of my nightmares.

I’m not supposed to think about what might happen if I reached out to him in the darkness.

Falling in love with him? Preposterous . . . unavoidable.

Agony, why are you back with a vengeance to rob me of this life I’ve come to love so dearly?

I’m finally happy. Don’t ruin this for me.

Always yours,
Rose

In this epic love story, Dear Agony forges a connection between an unlikely pair—a beautiful rose entwined in barbed wire and a shipwreck sinking into the darkest depths of the ocean. This agonizing romantic novel poses some gut-wrenching questions: What does a woman do when the man she loves is planning his own demise? And how far will she go to give him something to live for?

Georgia Cates resides in rural Mississippi with her wonderful husband, Jeff, and their two beautiful daughters. She spent fourteen years as a labor and delivery nurse before she decided to pursue her dream of becoming an author and hasn’t looked back yet.

When she’s not writing, she’s thinking about writing. When she’s being domestic, she’s listening to her music and visualizing scenes for her current work in progress. Every story coming from her always has a song to inspire it.

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TLC Book Review: Sisters One, Two, Three

Nancy Star, author of SISTERS ONE, TWO, THREE, on tour January 2017

Posted By TLC Booktours on October 17, 2016

About Sisters One, Two, Three

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Lake Union Publishing (January 1, 2017)

After a tragic accident on Martha’s Vineyard, keeping secrets becomes a way of life for the Tangle family. With memories locked away, the sisters take divergent paths. Callie disappears, Mimi keeps so busy she has no time to think, and Ginger develops a lifelong aversion to risk that threatens the relationships she holds most dear.

When a whispered comment overheard by her rebellious teenage daughter forces Ginger to reveal a long-held family secret, the Tangles’ carefully constructed web of lies begins to unravel. Upon the death of Glory, the family’s colorful matriarch, and the return of long-estranged Callie, Ginger resolves to return to Martha’s Vineyard and piece together what really happened on that calamitous day when a shadow fell over four sun-kissed siblings playing at the shore. Along with Ginger’s newfound understanding come the keys to reconciliation: with her mother, with her sisters, and with her daughter.

At turns heartbreaking, humorous, and hopeful, Sisters One, Two, Three explores not only the consequences of secrets—even secrets kept out of love—but also the courage it takes to speak the truth, to forgive, and to let go.

Purchase Links

Amazon | Books-A-Million | Barnes & Noble

Review:  I'm a sucker for family dramas. Wow was this one of them. The Tangle family are probably the most dysfunctional family I've read about (or even known).

Ginger and her family are messed up and their messed upness (Yup I'm making up words) is a result of an accident that happened a long time ago.

Oye.

That's really all that you can say.

When you start going back through time in the story and see the family you really see that they were messed up even before the accident that claims one of them.

I wasn't a fan of Glory. I hate mothers that just are...well icky and unpleasant, and that pretty much sums up Glory, except in the present you feel sorry for her as dementia is taking her mind.

This story was powerful and a real page turner. I find that with all families that have "BIG" problems, I have to find out if things work out for them; if they can be fixed. The Tangle family definitely needs fixing. (Their last name is so appropriate)

Rating: 4 flowers

Blog Tour Book Review: His Ballerina Bride

HIS BALLERINA BRIDE by Teri Wilson

Debonair Artem Drake has had tongues wagging all over New York since he became surprise CEO of Drake Diamonds.

This playboy hopes to bring new life to the storied old business before those rumored bad investments sink the family ship.

He's even plucked an ambitious salesgirl out of the shadows to become the store's new star designer. But Ophelia Rose isn't the ingénue she seems.

The swanlike beauty's hiding a past that glimmers as bright as a Drake diamond—she once graced the stage as a professional ballerina, until she was forced to take her final curtsy and hide from the limelight. Now can Artem bring her back to center stage? Or will their glittering future together wither under the secrets of the past?

Review:  I am totally in love with this book. His Ballerina Bride is a book for your keeper shelf. I don't know which character that I loved more Ophelia or Artem. I adore Artem's name. It is so unusual.

Ophelia is a former ballerina working at Drake Diamonds because her career was cut short because of illness. It was really impressive to see how Teri Wilson worked Ophelia's MS into the story. The reader could understand her reasoning whether it was not to adopt the white kitten from the shelter she volunteered at to her feelings for Artem.

Artem is the CEO of Drake Diamonds. They had a chance meeting in the break room, while she's eating a petite four that they offer their engagement clients. In the course of things she shows him some designs she has done and the rest is romance history.

There's a wonderful twist that involves Ophelia's family and the Drake diamond that makes the possible sale of the jewel rather sad.

These two had awesome chemistry. I adored the way he cared for her, especially when her past came to light. He really did his best to protect her.

This was a beautiful romance and the way the ballet played a part in the story, from Ophelia's dancing to her designs just made it so visual. The dancing also played a part in Ophelia and Artem's first real romantic encounter.

The discovery at the end was a little predictable as is the fate of the Drake Diamond, but that didn't detract from a wonderful story.

Rating: 5 flowers

Tasty Book Tours Excerpt Reveal: Love Story

Over the course of one wild road trip, 

feuding childhood sweethearts get a second chance at love.

LOVE STORY

a Love Unexpectedly novel

Lauren Layne

Releasing February 14th, 2017

Loveswept

Over the course of one wild road trip, feuding childhood sweethearts get a second chance at love in this charming rom-com—a standalone novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Blurred Lines and Good Girl.

When Lucy Hawkins receives a job offer in San Francisco, she can’t wait to spread her wings and leave her small Virginia hometown behind. Her close-knit family supports her as best they can, by handing over the keys to a station wagon that’s seen better days. The catch? The cross-country trip comes with a traveling companion: her older brother’s best friend, aka the guy who took Lucy’s virginity hours before breaking her heart.

After spending the past four years and every last dime caring for his sick father, Reece Sullivan will do just about anything to break free of the painful memories—even if it means a two-week road trip with the one girl who’s ever made it past his carefully guarded exterior. But after long days of bickering in the car turn into steamy nights in secluded motel rooms, Reece learns that, when it comes to Lucy, their story is far from over. And this time, they just might have a shot at a happy ending.

Although listed as a title in the Love Unexpectedly Series, all books in the series stand alone.

“Spock, we’re giving you Horny!” my mom blurts out, apparently fed up with my denseness.

Her utterance is too much for my siblings to handle and they both burst out laughing, retreating into the kitchen to rejoin the party where there’s wine.

Oh what I wouldn’t give for wine right now.

“I, um . . . you’re giving me the car?” I ask.

“Because yours broke down,” my dad explains, walking forward to thump Horny’s dented hood.

“And this one’s . . . not broken down?” I ask skeptically.

Look, it’s not that I’m not grateful. My parents are trying to give me a car, I appreciate the sweetness of the gesture, it’s just . . .

Here’s the thing about Horny: he barely got us three kids through high school. I mean, Horny is the car that sputtered and shook making it the 3.2 miles to Jefferson High, no matter who was behind the wheel.

I’m even going to come all the way clean here and say that early on in my freshmen year, I was embarrassed showing up in Horny. Then I realized I was lucky to have a car at all, and well . . . I dunno, I guess Horny became a part of us Hawkins kids’ charm, because the station wagon was practically an institution from Craig’s high school reign all the way through Brandi’s.

But poor Horny quit working years ago. Much to Brandi’s chagrin, he gave up the ghost a mere two months before her high school graduation, and she spent the last bit of her senior year being picked up by my parents.

“He’s going to take you to California,” Dad says, giving the car another thump.

“Really?” I step forward and run a tentative finger along the familiar panel. He’s had a bath, so at least that’s something. “Because last I knew, he wouldn’t even make it out of the garage.”

“Yeah, well, we neglected him for a while, but he’s right as rain now,” Dad says, puffing out his chest as though Horny’s a fourth child.

“Like, as in he actually starts?”

“Purrs like a kitten,” my mom says with an emphatic nod, even though I know she doesn’t even like cats. “We didn’t believe it, but we took him to church on Sunday and there were no issues.”

I literally bite my tongue to keep from pointing out that this is hardly a feat. Sacred Presbyterian is 0.8 miles away from the house.

“You took Horny into a shop?” I ask, starting to warm to the idea of having a car again. I’m a little touched, actually. Money is tight for my parents. Dad’s a PE teacher, and Mom gives a mean winery tour, but the gig’s never paid much.

“Not exactly, it was more of a bartering situation,” Mom says.

“Yeah?” I say, going around to the driver’s seat, already giddy with the prospect of telling Oscar I’ll be able to come see him in Miami after all, even if I won’t exactly be riding in style.

“Reece agreed to fix him up.”

I’m lowering myself into the car as my dad says this, but I reverse so quickly I hit my head. My skull doesn’t even register the pain, because I’m too busy registering the hurt in my heart at the familiar name. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Reece,” my mom says, giving me a bemused look. “He’s always been handy with cars.”

“He fixed up the car in exchange for what?”

And then I feel—I actually feel—the air change around me as the side door to the garage opens, and a new presence sucks all the air out of the space.

I don’t turn around. I don’t move. But I feel his eyes on me. Over me.

“Reece is headed out to California too,” my oblivious mother chatters on. “It worked out perfectly actually. Now you two can ride together, and your dad and I don’t have to worry about you alone in the middle of nowhere with a twenty-something-year-old car.

They think the car is going to be the problem here? It’s not the car that’s toxic to me. It’s him.

Reece Sullivan. My brother’s best friend. My parents’ “other son.”

Slowly I force myself to turn, and even though I’m prepped, the force of that ice-blue gaze still does something dangerous to me.

He winks, quick and cocky, and I suck in a breath, and I have to wonder . . .

I wonder if my parents would feel differently about their little plan if they knew that their makeshift mechanic is the same guy that popped my cherry six years earlier under their very roof.

And then broke my heart twenty-four hours later.

Lauren Layne is the USA Today bestselling author of more than a dozen romantic comedies. She lives in New York City with her husband (who was her high school sweetheart--cute, right?!) and plus-sized Pomeranian.

In 2011, she ditched her corporate career in Seattle to pursue a full-time writing career in Manhattan, and never looked back.

In her ideal world, every stiletto-wearing, Kate Spade wielding woman would carry a Kindle stocked with Lauren Layne books.

For a list of all her works, please be sure to check out her official website!

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Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours Book Review: Beyond Derryane

Beyond Derrynane by Kevin O' Connell

Publication Date: July 7, 2016

Gortcullinane Press

eBook & Paperback; 348 Pages
Series: The Derrynane Saga, Volume 1

Genre: Historical Fiction

Wed in an arranged marriage to a man nearly fifty years her senior, sixteen-year-old Eileen O'Connell goes from being one of five unmarried sisters to become the mistress of Ballyhar, the great estate of John O'Connor, one of the wealthiest and most influential men in Ireland.

When O'Connor dies suddenly seven months into their marriage, Eileen must decide whether she will fulfill her brother's strategic goals for her family by marrying her late husband's son.

Headstrong and outspoken, Eileen frustrates her brother's wishes, as, through the auspices of her uncle, General Moritz O'Connell of the Imperial Austrian Army, she, along with her ebullient elder sister, Abigail, spend the ensuing richly-dramatic and eventful years at the court of the Empress Maria Theresa in Vienna.The sisters learn to navigate the complex and frequently contradictory ways of the court--making a place for themselves in a world far different from remote Derrynane. Together with the general, they experience a complex life at the pinnacle of the Hapsburg Empire.

Beyond Derrynane - and the three books to follow in The Derrynane Saga - will present a sweeping chronicle, set against the larger drama of Europe in the early stages of significant change, dramatising the roles, which have never before been treated in fiction, played by a small number of expatriate Irish Catholics of the fallen "Gaelic Aristocracy" (of which the O'Connells were counted as being amongst its few basically still-intact families) at the courts of Catholic Europe, as well as relating their complex, at times dangerous, lives at home in Protestant Ascendancy-ruled Ireland.

In addition to Eileen's, the books trace the largely-fictional lives of several other O'Connells of Derrynane, it is the tantalisingly few facts that are historically documented about them which provide the basic threads around which the tale itself is woven, into which strategic additions of numerous historical and fictional personalities and events intertwine seamlessly.

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound

Review: This was such a wonderful novel. Its a family saga and the first in a series. It starts with Eileen's arranged marriage and then sweeps across Europe where they find themselves in the Hapsburg court.

The story is very captivating. I loved getting to know Eileen and Abby as they the waves of their life took them. The book was wonderfully researched and descriptive.  Its full of history and family drama. That's just what I love in historical fiction.

I really can't wait to see what happens next with the family.

Rating: 5 flowers

About the Author
Kevin O'Connell is a native of New York City and a descendant of a young officer of what had—from 1690 to 1792—been the Irish Brigade of the French army, believed to have arrived in French Canada following the execution of Queen Marie Antoinette in October of 1793. At least one grandson subsequently returned to Ireland and Mr. O'Connell's own grandparents came to New York in the early twentieth century. He holds both Irish and American citizenship.

He is a graduate of Providence College and Georgetown University Law Centre.

For more than four decades, O'Connell has practiced international business transactional law, primarily involving direct-investment matters, throughout Asia (principally China), Europe, and the Middle East.

Mr. O’Connell has been a serious student of selected (especially the Eighteenth Century) periods of the history of Ireland for virtually all of his life; one significant aspect of this has been a continuing scholarly as well as personal interest in the extended O’Connell family at Derrynane, many even distant and long-ago members of which, especially the characters about whom he writes, he has “known” intimately since childhood.

The father of five children and grandfather of ten, he and his wife, Laurette, live with their golden retriever, Katie, near Annapolis, Maryland.

Blog Tour Schedule
Monday, January 16
Kick Off at Passages to the Past

Tuesday, January 17
Review at Broken Teepee

Wednesday, January 18
Review at Luxury Reading
Review at A Chick Who Reads

Thursday, January 19
Review at Books, Dreams, Life

Friday, January 20
Review at The Book Junkie Reads

Sunday, January 22
Review at Carole's Ramblings

Monday, January 23
Review at Jorie Loves a Story

Tuesday, January 24
Review at Kinx's Book Nook

Wednesday, January 25
Review at A Bookaholic Swede
Excerpt at A Literary Vacation

Friday, January 27
Review at CelticLady's Reviews
Interview at Dianne Ascroft's Blog

Monday, January 30
Review at Beth's Book Nook Blog

Tuesday, January 31
Review at Book Nerd