The Lady’s Command, by Stephanie Laurens #review #TLCBookTours

1 February 2016 by Melissa

About the book, The Lady’s Command

Series: The Adventurers Quartet (Book 1)
Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Mira (December 29, 2015)

#1 New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens brings you THE ADVENTURERS QUARTET, a riveting blend of Regency-era high seas adventure, intrigue and romance

His to cherish

Declan Frobisher chose Lady Edwina Delbraith as his wife. Scion of a bold, seafaring dynasty, he’s accustomed to getting his way—Edwina would be the woman who graced his arm, warmed his bed and remained safely at home when he returned to sea. But once the knot is tied, Declan discovers Edwina is unconventional and strong-willed, and his marriage promises to be as tempestuous as the high seas.

Hers to command

Edwina’s fairy-princess beauty hides a spine of steel. Born into the aristocracy—born to rule—and with Declan’s ring gracing her finger, she expects to forge a marriage by his side. Then bare weeks into their honeymoon, Declan is recruited to sail on a secret mission. Edwina—naturally—declares she must accompany him.

Theirs to conquer

Facing unforeseen perils and unexpected enemies while battling to expose a dastardly scheme, Declan and Edwina discover that their unusual marriage demands something they both possess—bold and adventurous hearts.

JOIN THE ADVENTURERS—four couples whose passionate voyages will transport you. Start the journey here and follow the adventures, the mysteries and the romances to the cataclysmic end!

Buy, read, and discuss The Lady’s Command.

Amazon | Books-A-Million | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About Stephanie Laurens

New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens originally began writing as an escape from the dry world of professional science. Her hobby quickly became a career; she has been writing historical romance novels for more than 20 years. Currently living outside Melbourne, Australia with her husband and two cats, she spends most of her days writing new stories in her signature ‘Errol Flynn meets Jane Austen” style.

Connect with Stephanie

Website | Facebook

My Thoughts

Buckle your swashes and loosen those corsets so you can breathe because this book, the first in a quartet, both honors the historical romance genre and turns it on its ear, and it does so with a fast-paced adventure balanced with a believable love story that may not make you swoon, but it will definitely make you long for the cool sea breeze (and salt spray) in your face as you and your beloved ride the wild waves.

Here’s what I loved about this book: Declan and Edwina could be cookie-cutter romance novel characters. He’s the son of a seafaring family – rugged, dashing, well-informed. She’s an aristocrat born and bred, with the expected beauty that goes within such characters. But author Stephanie Laurens defies the trope by making Edwina an action-seeker in her own right. She doesn’t want to sit at home or pace a widow’s walk, she wants to be on the ship, at the wheel, with her husband. Better yet, Declan goes along with it, so husband and wife form a team.

I enjoyed the interplay between the two characters, and the way they would play against either other and with others when situations required it, but I also loved the way they would always come together in the end.

The dialogue and settings felt true to the period without being at all stilted (as can often happen in historical novels) and the supporting characters had enough dimension to feel like real people, whether they were sailors, other members of society, or just average people.

I’m not usually a fan of historical romances, but I am a great fan of any kind of high seas adventure, so asking to review this was an impulsive choice, and one I’m glad I made, because I was engaged the entire time I was reading.

My only issue with this novel is that it’s book one of a quartet, which means I have to read three more books to have the whole story!

(I expect I’ll survive.)

Don’t be a scurvy dog; read this book. You’ll enjoy every word of it.

Goes well with fresh caught fish, pan seared with limes, and a crisp chablis – OR – fish’n’chips with proper vinegar and a good local lager.

Stephanie Laurens’ TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Monday, January 4th: Romancing the Book

Tuesday, January 5th: Bewitched Bookworms

Wednesday, January 6th: The Sassy Bookster

Friday, January 8th: A Chick Who Reads

Monday, January 11th: The Romance Dish

Tuesday, January 12th: BookNAround

Wednesday, January 13th: From the TBR Pile

Friday, January 15th: Sharon’s Garden of Book Reviews

Monday, January 18th: Reading Reality

Tuesday, January 19th: The Maiden’s Court

Wednesday, January 20th: Black ‘n Gold Girl’s Book Spot

Thursday, January 21st: FictionZeal

Friday, January 22nd: View from the Birdhouse

Tuesday, January 26th: A Night’s Dream of Books

Tuesday, January 26th: Books a la Mode – excerpt and giveaway

Thursday, January 28th: It’s a Mad Mad World

Friday, January 29th: Stranded in Chaos

Monday, February 1st: Bibliotica

TBD: One Curvy Blogger

TBD: Worth Getting in Bed For

Oliver & Jack at Lodgings in Lyme, by Christina E. Pilz (@ChristinaEPilz) #review @HFVBT

29 September 2015 by Melissa

About the book, Oliver & Jack At Lodgings in Lyme (Fagin’s Boy, Book 2)

Publication Date: June 14, 2015, Blue Rain Press
Format: eBook & Paperback; 450 Pages
Genre: Historical/LGBT/M/M Romance

An ex-apprentice and his street thief companion flee the dangers of Victorian London and the threat of the hangman’s noose in search of family and the promise of a better life.

After Oliver Twist commits murder to protect Jack Dawkins (The Artful Dodger), both must flee London’s familiar but dangerous environs for safety elsewhere. Together they travel to Lyme Regis in the hopes of finding Oliver’s family. Along the way, Jack becomes gravely ill and Oliver is forced to perform manual labor to pay for the doctor’s bills.

While Oliver struggles to balance his need for respectability with his growing love for Jack, Jack becomes disenchanted with the staid nature of village life and his inability to practice his trade. But in spite of their personal struggles, and in the face of dire circumstances, they discover the depth of their love for each other.

Buy, read, and discuss Oliver & Jack at Lodgings in Lyme

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | ITUNES | KOBO | GOODREADS

About the author, Christina E. Pilz

Christina was born in Waco, Texas in 1962. After living on a variety of air force bases, in 1972 her Dad retired and the family moved to Boulder, Colorado. There amidst the clear, dry air of the high plains, as the moss started to grow beneath her feet, her love for historical fiction began with a classroom reading of Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

She attended a variety of community colleges (Tacoma Community College) and state universities (UNC-Greeley, CU-Boulder, CU-Denver), and finally found her career in technical writing, which, between layoffs, she has been doing for 18 years. During that time, her love for historical fiction and old-fashioned objects, ideas, and eras has never waned.

In addition to writing, her interests include road trips around the U.S. and frequent flights to England, where she eats fish and chips, drinks hard cider, and listens to the voices in the pub around her. She also loves coffee shops, mountain sunsets, prairie storms, and the smell of lavender. She is a staunch supporter of the Oxford comma.

Connect with Christina

My Thoughts:

When I read the description of this book in the email from HFVBT, I thought, “Really? An m/m romance between Oliver Twist and the Artful Dodger?” The concept very quickly grew on me, and so I volunteered to be a reviewer.

My only disappointment is that I’ve never read the first book in the series, so I was a bit muddled about the ages of Oliver and Jack, but aside from that, the necessary information from the previous plot is all there in context and there’s just enough exposition to make you understand what happened without feeling like someone’s telling you the previous plot in its entirety.

From the start, I really loved Christina E. Pilz’s writing style. This is an historical novel, but the language is completely accessible while still retaining that ‘period’ feel. I especially appreciate that she didn’t try to emulate Dickens, because that would have taken this story, this beautiful, beautiful story, into the realm of pastiche, or worse, parody.

And it is a beautiful story, one that involves deep friendship that turns into real love, and addresses everything from the roles society expects us to play to our own great expectations about how our lives will turn out. Oliver is a bit self-entitled, Jack is a bit too attached to his ‘career’ as a pickpocket (one he excels at, but still…) and each has issues with class as well as the relationship forming between them. Oh, and there’s a healthy amount of hurt/comfort, as well, but that works in the context of the novel.

For me, the challenging moments of this story weren’t the times when the two men were at odds with each other, because even people who love each other unconditionally have arguments. Nor did I have any issues with the intimate scenes – they were, for the most part – very real, sometimes tender, sometimes less so, but perfectly in tune with the characters as Pilz wrote them, and completely HOT. No, my challenge was that the boys (yes, I know they’re not children, but still…) spent so much of the novel being tired, wet, cold, hungry, and dirty, and I have issues with too much of that sort of thing.

Not that you’d expect to be anything OTHER than tired, wet, cold, hungry, and dirty while tramping around Victorian England with almost no money.

Overall, I thought this was a really enjoyable, quite sexy read, grounded in the source material, but also very much it’s own thing.

Goes well with steak and kidney pie and a good stout.

BLOG TOUR SCHEDULE

Monday, September 28
Spotlight & Giveaway at Passages to the Past

Tuesday, September 29
Review at Bibliotica
Spotlight at I Heart Reading

Wednesday, September 30
Guest Post & Giveaway at Teddy Rose Book Reviews Plus More

Friday, October 1
Spotlight at Book Nerd

Monday, October 5
Review & Giveaway at Peeking Between the Pages

Tuesday, October 6
Review at Svetlana’s Reads and Views
Spotlight at A Literary Vacation

Friday, October 9
Spotlight at History Undressed

Tuesday, October 13
Spotlight at CelticLady’s Reviews

Wednesday, October 14
Review at Broken Teepee

The Outer Banks House, by Diann Ducharme (@diannducharme) #review @hfvbt

5 June 2015 by Melissa

About the book, The Outer Banks House

Publisher: Crown Publishing (June 8, 2010)
Formats: Ebook, Hardcover, Paperback (291 pages)

As the wounds of the Civil War are just beginning to heal, one fateful summer would forever alter the course of a young girl’s life.

In 1868, on the barren shores of post-war Outer Banks North Carolina, the once wealthy Sinclair family moves for the summer to one of the first cottages on the ocean side of the resort village of Nags Head. Seventeen-year-old Abigail is beautiful, book-smart, but sheltered by her plantation life and hemmed-in by her emotionally distant family. To make good use of time, she is encouraged by her family to teach her father’s fishing guide, the good-natured but penniless Benjamin Whimble, how to read and write. And in a twist of fate unforeseen by anyone around them, there on the porch of the cottage, the two come to love each other deeply, and to understand each other in a way that no one else does.

But when, against everything he claims to represent, Ben becomes entangled in Abby’s father’s Ku Klux Klan work, the terrible tragedy and surprising revelations that one hot Outer Banks night brings forth threaten to tear them apart forever.

With vivid historical detail and stunning emotional resonance, Diann Ducharme recounts a dramatic story of love, loss, and coming of age at a singular and rapidly changing time in one of America’s most beautiful and storied communities.

Read the “Lost” Chapter of The Outer Banks House

Click HERE to download.

Buy, read, and discuss The Outer Banks House

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Crown Publishing | IndieBound | Goodreads

About the author, Diann Ducharme

Diann was born in Indiana in 1971, but she spent the majority of her childhood in Newport News, Virginia. She majored in English literature at the University of Virginia, but she never wrote creatively until, after the birth of her second child in 2003, she sat down to write The Outer Banks House. She soon followed up with her second book, Chasing Eternity, and in 2015 the sequel to her first novel, Return to the Outer Banks House.

Diann has vacationed on the Outer Banks since the age of three. She even married her husband of 10 years, Sean Ducharme, in Duck, North Carolina, immediately after a stubborn Hurricane Bonnie churned through the Outer Banks. Conveniently, the family beach house in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina provided shelter while she conducted research for her historical fiction novels.

She has three beach-loving children and a border collie named Toby, who enjoys his sprints along the shore. The family lives in Manakin-Sabot, Virginia, counting down the months until summer.

Connect with Diann

Website | Blog | Twitter | Goodreads

My Thoughts:

While I’ve never been to either of the Carolinas (both are on my bucket list, I swear) I did have a blissful childhood full of summers at the Jersey Shore, so I know the pleasures – and the pain – of living on the Atlantic seaboard, and I even have some experience with the special geography of barrier islands, which constantly change shape and size, depending on the will and whim of the wind and sea. Diann Ducharme’s books The Outer Banks House and Return to the Outer Banks House were obvious choices for me.

As I didn’t receive the books until Thursday, May 28th, was at Dallas Fan-Expo Friday-Sunday, and came home (as I always do) with “con crud,” this review will be only of the first book. Come back next Friday, June 12th for my review of the sequel.

From the opening scene where Abigail, who has been ‘boatsick’ for days, runs down a pier and onto the beach, fighting against her hoopskirts the whole time (and, can we pause a moment to imagine running anywhere in hoops, let alone in sand?) to the last scene where Abigail and her scruffy Ben decide that love is worth the risk, I was swept away by this novel. The post-Civil War period is one I haven’t explored recently, but I had enough context to appreciate the subtle political and personal intricacies of having relatives and friends who worked for or against the KKK. We are so used to seeing Klan stories set in the 1950s and ’60s, that to experience that awful organization from the other end lent perspective in many ways.

Also fascinating was the way these inland-bred characters learned to cope with life on the shore. The pattern of people’s days is different when you live so closely tied to the sea, with different rhythms and different risks.

Add to that a burgeoning love affair, and what you have – what Ducharme has so brilliantly created – is a rich tapestry of people and places, politics and professions, and perspective.

Ducharme’s dialogue, while accurate for the period, never feels stilted, and flows as easily as any contemporary language. Her descriptions are vivid – I could taste the salt in the air, and feel the sand between my toes – and her characters feels as though they could walk out of the pages and join you for a cold glass of lemonade and a chat about the latest novel you’ve read. Abigail, especially, surprised me, because she was so smart, so fierce in her love and loyalty, and so much her own person, in a time when women were often…not.

While I wouldn’t really classify The Outer Banks House as a “beach read,” – it’s a bit meatier than that – it’s still the perfect novel for a lazy summer afternoon.

Goes well with seafood salad and cold lemonade, preferably served al fresco.

The Outer Banks Series Blog Tour Schedule

Monday, May 25
Spotlight & Giveaway at Raven Haired Girl

Tuesday, May 26
Guest Post & Giveaway at Susan Heim on Writing

Wednesday, May 27
Review (Book One) at Back Porchervations

Thursday, May 28
Review (Book One) at In a Minute

Friday, May 29
Interview & Giveaway at Historical Fiction Obsession
Spotlight at The Never-Ending Book

Saturday, May 30
Spotlight at Becky on Books

Sunday, May 31
Review (Book One) at Book Nerd

Monday, June 1
Review (Book Two) at Let them Read Books
Spotlight at I’d So Rather Be Reading

Tuesday, June 2
Review (Book One) at Book Lovers Paradise

Wednesday, June 3
Review (Book Two) at Back Porchervations

Thursday, June 4
Spotlight & Giveaway (Book One) at View from the Birdhouse

Friday, June 5
Review (Both Books) at Bibliotica

Sunday, June 7
Review (Book One) at Carole’s Ramblings

Monday, June 8
Review (Book One) at Ageless Pages Reviews
Guest Post at Curling Up With A Good Book

Tuesday, June 9
Review & Giveaway (Book One) at A Literary Vacation

Wednesday, June 10
Review (Both Books) at Unshelfish
Spotlight at CelticLady’s Reviews

Thursday, June 11
Review (Book Two) at Book Lovers Paradise
Interview at Boom Baby Reviews

Friday, June 12
Spotlight at Caroline Wilson Writes

Sunday, June 14
Review (Book Two) at Carole’s Ramblings

Monday, June 15
Review & Giveaway (Both Books) at Genre Queen

Tuesday, June 16
Interview at Books and Benches
Spotlight at The Lit Bitch

Wednesday, June 17
Review (Both Books) at Luxury Reading

Thursday, June 18
Review (Book One) at Books and Benches
Interview at Layered Pages

Friday, June 19
Review (Book One) at Build a Bookshelf
Review (Book Two) at Ageless Pages Reviews

To Ride a White Horse by Pamela Ford (@pamfordauthor) #review @TLCBookTours

11 May 2015 by Melissa

About the book, To Ride a White Horse

Paperback: 374 pages
Publisher: Aine Press (January 3, 2015)

“A sweeping historical love story that hits all the marks.” – Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Ireland 1846. The potato crop has failed for the second year in a row and Ireland is in famine. When Kathleen Deacey’s fiancé doesn’t return from a summer working in the Newfoundland fisheries, she faces a devastating choice—leave Ireland to find work or risk dying there. Despising the English for refusing to help Ireland, she crosses the Atlantic, determined to save her family and find her fiancé.

But her journey doesn’t go as planned and she ends up in America, forced to accept the help of an English whaling captain, Jack Montgomery, to survive. As Jack helps her search for her fiancé and fight to save her family and country, she must confront her own prejudices and make another devastating choice—remain loyal to her country or follow her heart.

A love story inspired by actual events, To Ride a White Horse is a historical saga of hope, loyalty, the strength of the human spirit, and the power of love.

To Ride a White Horse

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About the author, Pamela Ford

Pamela Ford is the award-winning author of contemporary and historical romance. She grew up watching old movies, blissfully sighing over the romance; and reading sci-fi and adventure novels, vicariously living the action. The combination probably explains why the books she writes are romantic, happily-ever-afters with plenty of fast-paced plot.

After graduating from college with a degree in Advertising, Pam merrily set off to earn a living, searching for that perfect career as she became a graphic designer, print buyer, waitress, pantyhose sales rep, public relations specialist, copywriter, freelance writer – and finally author. Pam has won numerous awards including the Booksellers Best and the Laurel Wreath, and is a two-time Golden Heart Finalist. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband and children.

Connect with Pamela

Website | Facebook | Twitter

My Thoughts

I read a lot of historical novels but I’m always kind of iffy on historicals (I think my brain is wired for the future rather than the past.) To Ride a White Horse originally caught my attention, not because of the romance or the historical background of Ireland’s potato famine and the huge influx of Irish immigrants into North America, but because one of the characters (Jack) was the captain of a ship – and I will read almost anything that involves sea captains and adventure on or near the ocean.

When the story opened with our introduction to Kathleen, pining for her fiance, I was hooked on her story, as well, because she wasn’t a girl to sit and simper and moan, but a strong young woman who made an action plan and carried it out. Going on a ship across the ocean is a daunting task even today, when we can do so in hours (by air) or days (by sea) rather than the weeks or months it took back then. Going on a ship to a new country where you cannot be certain of your reception or your survival? That takes a special kind of courage, one that all immigrants have, as well as a firm faith in the promise of a better life.

Jack, the whaling captain who really isn’t in love with his job (whaling was a dangerous, dangerous profession then, even before Greenpeace would come and shoot at you), and Kathleen, the young woman looking for her love and her future, have stories that meet, separate, and meet again, but watching the relationship shift and turn between them is like watching your two best friends, whom you know are meant to be together, continue to make low-percentage choices and false starts until they finally get it right.

Author Pamela Ford writes the romance, the history, and the politics of the period (English vs. Irish, Native vs. Immigrant, Whaling vs. Shipping, etc.) with nuance and an excellent ear for dialogue. Kathleen never sounds like a caricature, but her Irish lilt is ever-present. English Jack never sounds too stilted, but you can read in his words the crisper accent he would have.

Romances can often be more fluff than flavor but To Ride a White Horse balances all the elements: adventure, romance, history, politics and gives us a meaty story that keeps the reader’s attention from the first page to the last.

Goes well with A hearty Irish stew, brown bread, and a glass of stout.

Pamela’s Tour Stops

Monday, May 11th: Bibliotica – That’s ME!

Tuesday, May 12th: 2 Kids and Tired Book Reviews

Wednesday, May 13th: Gspotsylvania: Musings from a Spotsylvania Dog and Bird Mom

Thursday, May 14th: Novel Escapes

Friday, May 15th: Mom in Love With Fiction

Tuesday, May 19th: Ms. Nose in a Book

Monday, May 25th: Queen of All She Reads

Wednesday, May 27th: Broken Teepee

Thursday, May 28th: Doing Dewey

Friday, May 29th: Bell, Book and Candle

Monday, June 1st: Books and Bindings

Tuesday, June 2nd: Jorie Loves a Story

Wednesday, June 3rd: Every Free Chance Book Reviews

Wednesday, June 3rd: Rockin’ Book Reviews

Thursday, June 4th: Little Lovely Books

Monday, June 8th: Books Like Breathing

TBD: A Night’s Dream of Books

Review: The Captive, by Grace Burrowes

22 July 2014 by Melissa

About the book, The Captive

Christian Severn, Duke of Mercia, is captured out of uniform by the French, and is thus subject to torture. Christian does not break, not once, and is released when Toulouse falls. Back in England, Christian has great difficulty taking up the reins of his life until Gillian, Countess of Windmere, a relation of his late wife, pointedly reminds him that he has a daughter who still needs him very much—a daughter who no longer speaks. Gilly pushes, pulls, and drags Christian back to life, and slowly, she and he admit an attraction to each other.

Christian offers Gilly marriage, but Gilly is a widow, and has fared badly at the hands of her first husband. Gillian will not pledge her heart to a man bent on violence, for Christian cannot give up his determination to extract revenge from his torturer. What will it take for them to give up their stubborn convictions and choose each other over the bonds the past?

Buy, read, and discuss The Captive

About the author, Grace Burrowes

Grace says, “I am the sixth out of seven children and was raised in the rural surrounds of central Pennsylvania. Early in life I spent a lot of time reading romance novels and riding a chubby buckskin gelding named—unimaginatively if eponymously—Buck. I also spent a lot of time practicing the piano. My first career was as a technical writer and editor, a busy profession that nonetheless left enough time to read many, many romance novels.”

“It also left time to grab a law degree through an evening program, produce Beloved Offspring (only one, but she is a lion), and eventually move to the lovely Maryland countryside.”

“While reading yet still more romance novels (there is a trend here) I opened my own law practice, acquired a master’s degree in Conflict Management (I had a teenage daughter by then) and started thinking about writing…. romance novels. This aim was realized when Beloved Offspring struck out into the Big World a few years ago. (“Mom, why doesn’t anybody tell you being a grown-up is hard?”)”

“I eventually got up the courage to start pitching manuscripts to agents and editors. The query letter that resulted in “the call” started out: “I am the buffoon in the bar at the RWA retreat who could not keep her heroines straight, could not look you in the eye, and could not stop blushing—and if that doesn’t narrow down the possibilities, your job is even harder than I thought.” (The dear lady bought the book anyway.)”

Connect with Grace

Website | Facebook | Twitter

I’m not really a big romance reader. And I’m really not a big historical romance reader. Nevertheless, when the pitch to review The Captive arrived in my inbox, I was feeling like I should broaden my horizons a little. Besides, I’ve always maintained that what matters is the quality of the storytelling.

In this case, I was pleasantly surprised. Grace Burrowes writes historical romance that feels contemporary. She’s an amazing storyteller, and has created characters I wouldn’t mind sitting down to tea with, and a world I wouldn’t necessarily want to live in, but wouldn’t mind visiting for a few days.

I liked that she made Gilly strong and feisty while still keeping her true to the historical era of the story, and I liked that Christian was a single father, and was forced to actually address that state of affairs.

I’m always going to prefer more contemporary stories, but if all historical romances were as delightful as Grace Burrowes’s The Captive I’d consider reading period pieces of this ilk a little more often.

Goes well with a turkey taco salad and fresh limeade.