Personal Rating: 4 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.77 Content Rating: PG-13 (for violence and a creepy dude) Possible trigger warnings: Rape (nothing actually happens, but the situation is set up). England, 1381: Delia's idyllic life as daughter of an earl is shattered when her father dies and his wife accuses Delia's seven brothers of treason and murder. The youngest is only ten years old, but this doesn't stop the guards from hauling them off to the Tower of London. There they await a grim fate, as child-king Richard II is executing anyone who poses a threat to his throne. Delia is their only hope for pardon and freedom. Sir Geoffrey did not expect his first assignment as captain of the guard to be the arrest of boys so young. He dutifully imprisons the brothers, but he can't ignore the sense, rooted in personal experience, that injustice and treachery are at work. Determined to rescue her brothers, Delia secures a position as a seamstress for the queen. Her quest is all but impossible as the executions continue. Sir Geoffrey offers to be her ally, but should she trust him in a court where everyone has an agenda? (goodreads.com) I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway, so thank you to anyone who made that giveaway possible! As usual, I want to start things off by complimenting whoever was in charge of the cover design. I absolutely love the color palette and, of course, the poofy dress. I’m fairly certain that the dress is not historically accurate—or at least not for the situation that Delia found herself in—but it is a lovely dress nonetheless. I was hesitant to start this book, honestly. While I have read books by Melanie Dickerson before and enjoyed parts of them, as a whole they usually aren’t my jam. Her plots are exciting, but her characters are always kind of bland. The protagonists in each of her books are almost indistinguishable from each other and, though they are nice and pleasant people, they make for very boring book characters. I will say that, though I enjoyed this book about ten times more than I enjoyed my last Melanie Dickerson book, the characters were still pretty blah. Delia was kind and sweet and good and Sir Geoffry was noble and honorable and protective. Which could be said of most of the other lead characters in Melanie Dickerson’s other books. Maybe Sir Geoffry wasn’t as moody as the Margrave of Thornbeck (whose name I cannot remember for the life of me) from The Beautiful Pretender, but that’s about where the differences end as far as personality goes. One thing I did like about Delia, or at least relate to, was that she was struggling to trust God with the lives of her brothers. Typically, I feel, Dickerson’s characters do not have this worry. Delia wasn’t always sure that things were going to be okay, she worried that her brothers would be executed and she struggled with trusting that God had a plan for her if her brothers did die. I could relate to that worry and fear and even the distrust at times. It was nice to have something to relate to with the MC in this book, even if she was otherwise sort of boring. Because of Delia’s fear for her brothers and the discussion over if God would save them from execution or not, the book held more suspense for me. Would all of her brothers actually survive? If they didn’t, what would happen to Delia? If they do survive, how would they escape their impending doom? I liked this suspense, though I was a little disappointed with the ending. I won’t say more on that, because of spoilers, but I was sort of hoping for more excitement. The core message of the book, about trusting God, didn’t really wrap up the way I wanted it to either. I don’t think there was any event in the story to really make the points stick. But I will say that the particular message it was trying to convey is what made the book for me and made me stick around to see what happens. So it does have that going for it. To wrap up, I found this book to be more interesting than any of the other Melanie Dickerson books I’ve read, but I am still not a fan of how she writes her characters and if her characters are going to continue to be as flat as they are then I think there need to be some twists in the plot to keep the readers interest. I loved the coziness of knitting and sewing in this book, but since the characters personalities aren't adding anything interesting, I’d really like to see something unexpected happen. Of course, as always, those are just my thoughts on the book and as a whole, I did really enjoy reading this, I just wish the ending had been more satisfying. Well, I’m off to knit seven sweaters! TTFN! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52509575-court-of-swans
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Personal Rating: 3 Stars Goodreads Rating: 4.05 Stars Content Rating: PG Miss Harriet Peabody dreams of the day she can open up a shop selling refashioned gowns to independent working women like herself. Unfortunately, when an errand for her millinery shop job goes sadly awry due to a difficult customer, she finds herself without an income. Mr. Oliver Addleshaw is on the verge of his biggest business deal yet when he learns his potential partner prefers to deal with men who are settled down and wed. When Oliver witnesses his ex not-quite-fiancée causing the hapless Harriet to lose her job, he tries to make it up to her by enlisting her help in making a good impression on his business partner. Harriet quickly finds her love of fashion can't make her fashionable. She'll never truly fit into Oliver's world, with its fancy dinners and elegant balls, but just as she's ready to call off the fake relationship a threat from her past forces both Oliver and Harriet to discover that love can come in the most surprising packages. (goodreads.com) The main reason I read this book was because it sounded like a book my mom might enjoy and we often enjoy the same books, at least when they are historical fiction or the Divergent series by Veronica Roth. I also quite liked the idea of Harriet, the protagonist, opening a shop to sell dresses to independent working women. Plus fashion, particularly of the historical variety, has always been interesting to me. I’m thrilled that this book did not disappoint after the last three books I’ve reviewed. It may not have been the best book in the world or even the best thing I’ve read this year, but I enjoyed it a lot and had a grand time reading it on the hammock in our backyard now that the weather is finally turning nice again - and I didn’t even get a sunburn! The main character of our story is Miss Harriet Peabody, who works in a hat shop, making hats. She loves designing clothes from repurposed dresses and she has a troubled past. There are many historical romances that I’ve read where the female MC is pretty much just a porcelain doll who occasionally spews out a few witty things. Harriet, however, was refreshingly human and she had character traits that she kept throughout the entirety of the novel. She was funny, interesting, and had flaws like a real person. She was described to be exceptionally beautiful, which pretty much every character remarked on just like in most of these historical romances, but I guess it is too much to ask for a person to behave realistically and look normal. Mr. Oliver Addleshaw is the male protagonist and I liked him decidedly less than I liked Harriet. He’s basically this really rich dude (he frequently likes to remind everyone that he is one of the wealthiest men in America) who throws money around like candy during a parade. And he’s supposed to be a ruthless businessman, but we don’t really see a lot of that. And that’s about all we know about him. I didn’t like him because he was rather manipulative when it came to how he treated Harriet. His character development was also kind of meh. He went from not caring that poor people existed to a saintly figure in the blink of an eye. The side characters might have been my favorite part of the book. They all felt like they deserved their own book (and two of them actually get it) and they actually had lives outside of what was going on with Harriet and Oliver! I could hardly believe there were strong supporting characters in this book! It was fantastic! My favorites were Abigail Hart, a kindly old lady, and Archibald Addleshaw, Oliver’s grandfather. Oh, and obviously Buford (the dog). The plot of this story was downright ridiculous. At totally unbelievable. And absurd. And I loved it. It was so much fun to read and it didn’t go in the direction I was expecting it to even if once it started going that way it got rather predictable. I had a lot of fun with the plots and subplots and I hope to read the next two books in the series to see where all of those subplots go. I was confused about if this book was a Christian book or not. Because going into it I didn’t think it was, but then Harriet prayed a lot and sort of seemed to be a Christian maybe (though her faith seemed more based on works, so I dunno). And then minor spoiler Oliver goes to church and prays for forgiveness at the end of the book. It kind of felt like the author had read 2 Corinthians 6:14, remembered that Harriet is (possibly) a Christian but didn’t say anything about if Oliver was so she decided to quickly make him one (though no one ever mentioned Christ in this book even if they mentioned God quite a few times). End minor spoiler. So I’m just not sure if this is a plain old historical fiction or if it is a Christian historical fiction. Another problem I had with the book, though I could overlook it, was the historical inaccuracy. I didn’t feel like there was much research done for this book. There were just a few things that seemed off, but given the plot was pretty unbelievable to begin with I just shrugged and moved on. If you are really into the historical aspect of books then this may not be the book for you. Otherwise, I truly did enjoy this book and had a fun time reading it. I will be interested to see what happens in the two sequels and I hope they are as amusing as this one is. I recommend After a Fashion for a bit of light reading, a lazy reading day, or if you really like cheesy romances. Thanks for reading, but I really must be off as I have a very fancy dinner to get to with a duke. Image source: https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1403190200l/22504489.jpg Personal Rating: 2.5 Stars Goodreads Rating: 4.11 Stars Lady Sabine is harboring a skin blemish, one, that if revealed, could cause her to be branded as a witch, put her life in danger, and damage her chances of making a good marriage. After all, what nobleman would want to marry a woman so flawed? Sir Bennet is returning home to protect his family from an imminent attack by neighboring lords who seek repayment of debts. Without fortune or means to pay those debts, Sir Bennet realizes his only option is to make a marriage match with a wealthy noblewoman. As a man of honor, he loathes the idea of courting a woman for her money, but with time running out for his family’s safety, what other choice does he have? As Lady Sabine and Sir Bennet are thrust together under dangerous circumstances, will they both be able to learn to trust each other enough to share their deepest secrets? Or will those secrets ultimately lead to their demise? (goodreads.com) If you recall all the way back to July of 2016, my very first book review was for a novel by the name of An Uncertain Choice. I did that review because I had won an ARC of the sequel to that book (A Daring Sacrifice) in a Goodreads Giveaway and wanted to review both. The third book in that series finally came out last year and I have read it. And because I reviewed the first two I thought I’d better keep up the tradition and review the last one as well. As much as I love reading the cheesy love stories and pious adventures that occur in Christian young adult novels, I do understand when a book is actually good or not. Full disclosure: I enjoyed reading this book. I often have a good time rolling my eyes at less than realistic romance and just downright cardboard characters, I like reading this kind of book. However, I acknowledge the fact that this book was, frankly, not very good. If you don’t get down to the details then this book has pretty much the same plot as the first two. Or at least it felt the same. There’s a noblewoman who has a problem that she cannot trust anyone to help her with. There’s a nobleman/knight who also has a big problem. When they meet they second guess their love for each other for pages on end until they have a climactic problem that forces them to realize how much they actually do love each other. Happily ever after, the end. Meh! And the characters are always kind of blergh as well. Sir Bennet was in the first book of this series and I remember him having a bit of a personality there, but it seems to have vanished in this book. He’s just your average charming knight with a “perfectly sculpted nose” (that’s a direct quote). I felt like his personality was kind of parroting the heroine’s personality. Speaking of the female protagonist, Lady Sabine, she actually had a unique personality! That was a lovely, change from Lady Rosemarie in the first book and the stereotypical “strong woman” that we saw in Lady Juliana. Sabine actually said some witty things and could even be funny at times. It was sad to see her vibrant character squashed by Sir Bennet behaving in exactly the same way as she did, just more masculinely. Once again, we see a complete lack of interesting side characters apart from Sabine’s grandmother, who was a tricky lady who seems like she should have a book of her own - and not about when she was young either. I want a book about Sabine’s granny as a granny. I don’t know why, but I do. Sadly, the rest of the non-protagonist characters were mostly just there as plot devices and fillers. Not very interesting, not remarkable, just props. The series is called “An Uncertain Choice” after the first book, but that name kind of does fit all three novels. Every single chapter was filled with the guy and the girl being uncertain about whether or not they loved each other. They just kept thinking about it and nothing else. Every decision they made in their day-to-day lives made them think of each other for some reason and thinking of each other made them question whether the other person loved them or if they loved the other person. Over and over and over again. Nonstop uncertainty. To sum up this brief review: there isn’t much new material here. It is very much what I picture when I think of “YA Christian Fiction” in every way. Unrealistic romance (Sir Bennet was way too romantic to be real, I mean, the guy is supposed to be running a castle and it seems like all he ever has on his mind is Sabine - then again, I’ve never experienced any romance so maybe that’s what it’s like? idk), simple a predictable plot, mostly boring characters with no development, and a nicely wrapped up ending. But that didn’t stop me from enjoying it. If you read it I hope you find some enjoyment in it too, whether it be from actually liking the book or because you thought the cheesiness was entertaining. It is relatively short and not a bad way to spend your afternoon. Just be warned that toward the end there is quite a bit of smooching. Oh dear! My castle is under siege! I’d best go defend it! Fare thee well! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30649325-for-love-and-honor Personal Rating: 2.75 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.49 Grey Haward has always detested the Chemists, the magicians-come-scientists who rule her small western town. But she has always followed the rules, taking the potion the Chemists ration out that helps the town’s people survive. A potion that Grey suspects she—like her grandfather and father—may not actually need. By working at her grandfather’s repair shop, sorting the small gears and dusting the curio cabinet inside, Grey has tried to stay unnoticed—or as unnoticed as a tall, strong girl can in a town of diminutive, underdeveloped citizens. Then her best friend, Whit, is caught by the Chemists’ enforcers after trying to protect Grey one night, and after seeing the extent of his punishment, suddenly taking risks seems the only decision she can make. But with the risk comes the reality that the Chemists know her family’s secret, and the Chemists soon decide to use her for their own purposes. Panicked, Grey retreats to the only safe place she knows—her grandfather’s shop. There, however, a larger secret confronts her when her touch unlocks the old curio cabinet in the corner and reveals a world where porcelain and clockwork people are real. There, she could find the key that may save Whit’s life and also end the Chemists’ dark rule forever. (goodreads.com) I hesitate to put this in the “Christian” category. For, although it is published by Blink, which is a branch of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, it doesn’t exactly seem like a book written for Christian readers. Regardless, I will put it in the “Christian” category of my blog because there are only three other books in that section. So, I have no idea why I read this book. I think I was hoping for fun steampunk adventures because when I first saw it I’d just finished with the Etiquette and Espionage series by Gail Carriger. But I read it and it was not exactly the thrilling adventure I hoped it would be. Yeah, there was loads of adventure and loads of action. And sure, there were lots of exciting parts, but I also found myself unable to pay attention to the action scenes. I even skimmed through a few pages. It was also quite difficult for me to get into this book and it seemed like the interesting parts didn’t start until Grey actually went to Curio City and after the newness of reading about Curio City, that too got boring. As you see, this book already didn’t have a lot going for it, but then there were the characters *insert the sound a parent makes when “they aren’t mad, they’re disappointed”*. First off we have Grey Haward. She wasn’t bad as far as MCs go, actually. At least she wasn’t constantly complaining or talking about how unfortunate she was. Her life was a wreck, but she pushed through because she had a job to do. And she didn’t even act like her circumstances were super unfair or horrible, she just kept going. I have to say, I really enjoyed a female protagonist who didn’t whine or complain. Apart from being kind of boring she was a pretty good character. Then we’ve got Whit. Urgh. He. Was. So. Boring. I just didn’t care a whit for what happened to Whit (see what I did there?). And he fell in love with a girl so fast it just about gave me Whitlash (hehe, get it? Whitlash?). Unfortunately, there were whole chapters just about him and they were filled with Whitless dialogue (hurhurhur) and I was about at my Whit’s end (okay, I’ll stop) with his lack of intelligence. You could say he was (sorry in advance) a half-Whit. All puns aside, he was just kind of a boring character and, though I felt pity for him, I couldn’t really connect to him. Onto Blaise: aka the Mad Tock. If you’ve read my post about Things I’m Sick of in Teen Books then you know that I am not overly fond of mysterious men with a troubled past. Blaise starts out as enigmatic and, what do you know? He’s got a very troubled history with the people of Curio City and the people of the town Grey is from. Plus, he’s got that possessive streak in him where he thinks things like “she should be with me” and “she’s mine” *narrows eyes at Blaise*. He does a decent job of correcting his own aggravatingly possessive thoughts, so I’m not too mad at him, but still. There were a lot of big characters in this book that I would love to talk about: Fantine, Nettie (I loved Nettie, she was adorably awesome), Sir Weatherton, Seree, Callis, Olan, Steinar, Adante, that guy whose name I can’t remember but I know starts with an “H”... there were a lot of characters jammed into this book. Some of them were interesting, some of them not so much, but one that I definitely want to talk about is Lord Blueboy. My first reaction to the ruler of Curio City was “oh, here’s the power hungry, gentlemanly, creepy, makes everything feel inappropriate, guy”. Lo and behold, he was indeed that guy and my, oh, my was he disturbing. Lord Blueboy (even the name creeps me out) is one of the main reasons I question if this book was actually read by any of the people who claim it is a “clean YA novel”. Whenever he was on the scene he made my skin crawl and I just wanted to punch him in his supposedly gorgeous face and tell him to leave Grey alone. Alas, I cannot punch people who reside in books (though if you know how to do so I would be very interested). I'm rather perturbed by the moral content of this novel. The publishing company claims it has good teen books that are “clean” and they do have their definition of “clean” on their website here, but I still don't feel like this quite met the standard. I don't wish to go into much detail but there were parts (mostly whenever Lord Blueboy was around) that made Grey out to be an object and something to be explored. Nope. Nopety no. I was not a fan of those parts. On a different note, I'm not really bothered by violence, however many people are so I feel inclined to report that this book had a lot of it, described it detail. Like, we're talking body parts flailing, people, and blood. Lots of blood. The world building could have been better, in my personal opinion (and that’s saying something coming from me). In Grey’s hometown I wasn’t sure if it was in another world or an alternate version of our world and the only way I ever figured this out was because I think someone said something about Colorado and then Grey mentioned the United States Army. The book was supposed to be steampunk, but I feel like it was a steampunk dystopian but still in the late 1800’s. Does that make sense? No? Well, it didn’t really make sense to me either when I was reading it. And then Curio City, which seemed like it was full of opportunities for really great world building, didn’t give me much explanation as to how it existed. It said a little bit about why, but never how. I thought it was supposed to be in a curio cabinet, but it seemed like a whole different world - oh hey! Maybe it was supposed to be like Narnia! Except, it seemed like the only way you could get in was through the cabinet and that the cabinet and the magical world could not exist apart from each other. Sooooo… not really sure. I was kind of hoping it would be like the porcies and tocks were actually living in a curio cabinet and there would be shelves and other knick-knacks on the shelves that they came up with creative names for that were close to what we call them, but hilariously different - I wanted it to be like The Lego Movie, okay? There, I said it. But it wasn’t and I was super disappointed. I know that’s a stupid thing to be disappointed about, but I was and it may or may not have made me like the book less. Also, can I real quick say that I wish there had been more about the Valor Society? Because they sounded cool. Sir Weatherton sounded cool. His wife sounded cool. They had all the fun steampunk gear and I wanted to see more of it and more of porcies doing dangerous stunts. One more thing, what the heck did the symbolism in this book mean? I could see that it was there, and I could tell that it was trying to be Biblical, but it really didn’t align with any common gospel symbols that you generally see in literature. I mean there kind of was, but it didn’t quite work and if you thought about it too much it became really weird. And why was there a god inside the curio cabinet, but no sign of one in the “real” world? What exactly was this book trying to say about beauty? Because it started off sounding like a “beauty isn’t everything”, but then the porcies were talking about how the “Designer” didn’t want them to be ugly and how ugliness was bad, but then the heroes briefly touched on the fact that even ugly people deserve clean water (idk, man, idk). I’m sure you aren’t surprised that I was baffled. I’m sorry, book, I really wanted to like you, but you were only okay. Subpar. Fine. Ordinary. Meh. I said this last time, but hopefully next time I’ll write a review for a book I actually end up liking. I just have to read a good book first… I’m kidding, I have plenty of good books I could review, but ranting is just easier than praising. Which isn’t good. Children, don’t look to me as a rolemodel. Build each other up, don’t tear each other down. Thanks for reading! I shall now fly off with my steam powered flight suit. *whoosh* Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25309770-curio?ac=1&from_search=true Personal Rating: 1.5 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.87 Stars As the daughter of King Saul, Michal lives a life of privilege but one that is haunted by her father's unpredictable moods and by competition from her beautiful older sister. When Michal falls for young David, the harpist who plays to calm her father, she has no idea what romance, adventures, and heartache await her. (goodreads.com) Happy Monday, y'all! I hope you had a wonderful weekend filled to the very brim with awesomeness! Lately I’ve been reading through 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel for my devotions and it came to mind that my grandma had given us these books about the wives of King David and that they might be interesting to read. So I went down to the basement where there is a little library-school-room type of thing (I’m in charge of organizing the books and that isn’t going well at the moment) and dug out this book and it’s sequel. Then I started to read. Now I wish I hadn’t. For those of you who may not have been raised up on Bible stories and Sunday School songs, let me give you a little background. David, the guy who killed Goliath, was married many times (though, not as many times as his son Solomon, who was married to about 700 women) at the same time. No, Christians do not support bigamy or polygamy and I’m about as weirded out as you are. Having multiple wives is not good and yet here we have David, the man after God’s own heart, getting married again and again. It’s weird, man, and at the moment I can’t really figure out what was going on. I’ll probably look into it, but it’s weird. Out of David’s many wives, his first was Michal, daughter of King Saul (a guy who really wanted to kill David). This book described the relationship between David and Michal. It’s going to be kind of hard to review this book because it is based on actual events as described in the Bible, but I shall try my best. Fasten your seatbelts folks and here we go. The best comparison for this book is running the mile in the Presidential Fitness Test. Back when I actually participated in this testing there was nothing I dreaded more than running a mile. I’d take a hundred flu vaccination (something else I loathe) and eating a bucket full of carrots (least favorite vegetable) over running that mile. However, I always did it and even though my time wasn’t great, it wasn’t awful either. Anyway, reading this book reminded me of running the mile. The first chunk or lap is okay, you’ve got a good pace going and you can’t be sure of how things will turn out. Then comes the second lap or section and you are growing weary, wondering if you’re nearly there. On the third lap/book part you are panting, aching, and wishing this thing would just finish up and get over with because you really cannot stand it a moment longer. Finally you’re on the last lap and though you are dying and stumbling over yourself to get to the finish line, that last hundred meters isn’t so bad after all. Then you flop over on the ground and possibly throw up. The throwing up thing only happened with the running, not the reading, but I think my point still stands. As you can probably tell by that last paragraph and my rating (wonder of wonders, it’s actually lower than my rating for Me Before You!) I did not like or enjoy this book. I don’t even know why I kept reading it. Can I tell you something about Christian fiction (aka Inspirational fiction, as listed in libraries)? It’s mostly written by really great and neat Christian people who want to share the Gospel through stories or put some good old fashioned morals into storytelling. The problem is, these lovely Christian people are so excited about getting the Word of God out there that they forget a tiny detail… they can’t write. Now, this is a very stereotypical statement, and I have read some excellent Christian books before, but the fact is that these stories, moral filled though they are, aren’t as interesting as many other novels. Christian authors tend to be so focused on stuffing a story full with good morals that the plot and characters suffer. Knowing that David gets married to several women made it kind of hard for me to get into the romance of this book. At first it seemed like a regular old love story, but then they get separated and he gets married again and again and she gets married again and then they get thrown back together and the romance is trying desperately to hold on, but it just vanishes. I’d say that this book started out as a romance and ended up as a… well I don’t know exactly. This is definitely not a book for feminists. You probably guessed as much when I mentioned the polygamy. Aside from that fact, it was also very hard to read from Michal’s POV as she pretty much idolizes David and is helpless without him. We do get a turn around by the end of the book, and I almost liked the last chapter, but for the most part Michal is pathetic. Then there was David. As a child I’d hear stories about David and think he was the coolest guy in the Bible (apart from Jesus of course, because when you are in Sunday school no one is cooler than Jesus - actually, when you are anywhere, no one is cooler than Jesus). David slew Goliath, David was an awesome king, David did what God told him to, David was the best. Then I read this book and we have David start out as kind of cool, but then he turned into this guy who treats his wives as nothing more than objects to further his political campaign and who pretty much blames Michal for all the problems they have (granted, many of the problems were her fault). One thing that was good about this book was it’s historical accuracy. Of course, the author seemed so focused on the accuracy that she was afraid to add any more detail than necessary. Basically, if you want to know the plot of this book I’d suggested reading 1st and 2nd Samuel, it will save you a lot of time and provide all the same information without the romantic bits, which were hard to read anyway. An awkward topic portrayed awkwardly with awkward situations and awkward wording. The whole thing was tough to read and had me cringing through most of it. Safe to say, I won’t be reading the next two books in this series (Abigal and Bathsheba - golly, I don’t even want to think about how disastrous the one on Bathsheba would be). What are your thoughts? Should I have given this book a little more leniency? Have you ever read this book or do you plan to? Do you think I should do a Friday opinion post about Christian fiction? I’d love to hear what you think! Comment below! For more information about Michal and her role in David’s life I suggest Bible Gateway’s Article about her. Well, that’s it for me today. See y’all later! Image Source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6140017-michal?ac=1&from_search=true (Yes, I am posting two reviews in one day, it's my birthday so I'll do as I please. I might even post another one this evening.) Personal Rating: 4 Stars Goodreads Rating: 4.01 Stars For three years, the Cloaked Bandit has terrorized Wessex, robbing the nobility by knifepoint and a well-placed arrow. But little does anyone know, this bandit is in fact Juliana Wessex, the rightful ruler of the land and a girl her tyrannical uncle—the current Lord Wessex—believes was killed along with her father. Juliana has become skilled at hiding from Lord Wessex in the forest, using her stolen goods to provide food and shelter to the peasants her uncle has taxed into poverty. But when she robs Collin Goodrich, her red hair betrays her true identity. Lord Collin remembers Juliana from their childhood—and challenges her to stay on his estate for a week in hopes she will leave her thieving ways and become a proper lady once more. Juliana is intrigued by Collin and his charms, but only time will tell if he can overcome her distaste of the nobility—as well as win her heart. (goodreads.com) I won an ARC (Advance Reader Copy) of this book in a Goodreads giveaway and because of that I purchased and read the first book in the series, An Uncertain Choice. Personally, I enjoyed this book much more than the one before it. I liked the action scenes, the characters, and the settings better than I liked those features in the first book. While I liked Juliana better than I liked Rosemarie (from the first book), I still had a hard time getting attached to her. She brags quite frequently, which was tolerable for a while, but got on my nerves at certain points. I liked that she didn’t mind stealing at first, but came to realize it was not the path she should be taking in her life. I also liked that she was out in the battles with all of the guys, instead of being rescued most of the time like other female protagonists (cough, cough, Lady Rosemarie, cough, cough). She was a decent character, but she’s not a memorable one. Lord Collin was by far my favorite part of this book. While the guys in YA novels are hardly ever very interesting to me, Lord Collin pretty much made this book. Not his constant flirting, which was a bit hard to read, but his all around personality. He was funny, he was witty, and I was genuinely concerned for what would happen to him in this story. I’m glad that many of the chapters were told from his perspective, in contrast to An Uncertain Choice, where the male protagonist gets very few chapters in his voice and the ones that he does get are kind of dull. I never felt bored with Collin’s chapters. The plot for this story was good, but it felt a bit too much like the plot from the first book. Much of both stories were centered around helping the poor, which I have no objection to, but they never really helped the peasants in concrete ways. They gave out food and clothing, but eventually those things will run out or fall apart. What I would have liked to see was the MCs helping their people to help themselves. Setting aside farming land, altering laws, or creating jobs. I did like that in A Daring Sacrifice that they wound up building homes for the poor, but I still felt they could have done more. The peasants in this series actually seem kind of lazy because they aren’t farming or working at trades. Unfortunately, the peasants, apart from a few, were mostly just props in the story. Once again, A Daring Sacrifice did much better about including the poor as actual characters that An Uncertain Choice, but it still only gave about three peasants names. The fight scenes were exciting and interesting in this book, though the final battle seemed very similar to the fight scene at the end of the first one. I liked the physical fights as well as the verbal ones. Collin and Irene’s arguments were particularly interesting. Irene in herself was an amusing character and she reminded me a lot of Caroline Bingley from Pride and Prejudice. Some of this stuff I’m just being snooty about, but as a whole I enjoyed this book immensely and I’m very happy to have read it. The third book to this series, For Love and Honor, is set to come out March 7th, 2017 and I am quite excited for it. Until next time! Image: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25280316-a-daring-sacrifice (First real post! Hip-hip-hooray! I hope you like it!) Personal Rating: 3 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.82 Stars Due to her parents' promise at her birth, Lady Rosemarie has been prepared to become a nun on the day she turns eighteen. Then, a month before her birthday, a friend of her father's enters the kingdom and proclaims her parents' will left a second choice. If Rosemarie can marry before the eve of her eighteenth year, she will be exempt from the ancient vow. Before long, Rosemarie is presented with the three most handsome and brave knights in the land. But when the competition for her heart seemingly results in a knight playing foul, she begins to wonder if the cloister is the best place after all. If only one of the knights the one who appears the most guilty had not already captured her heart. (goodreads.com) Sounds a bit like medieval Bachelorette, doesn’t it? A girl, potential suitors, competitions, romantic outings, a choice to make… yep sounds a lot like a certain reality TV show. For parts of the book it does get kind of ridiculous how much the main character, Rosemarie, thinks about these three men who have come to woo her. However, it is understandable as she only has a month to fall in love and that is the main plot of the book. Of course there is more than just romance happening in this story, there is also some jousting, some fighting, some praying, some chess playing - oh! And a man almost gets boiled alive. The amount of torture methods used in this book was surprising, since it is supposed to be a romance. Personally, I kind of enjoyed the exciting and gruesome tortures, though I was always relieved when the victims got rescued. The boiling, stretching, branding, tongue ripping, and other horrible sounding things added some spice to the story. It was unexpected and interesting. Most of this book held my interest well. The plot twists were a bit predictable, and occasionally I would become bored with Rosemarie constantly questioning how she felt and how the love interest felt and what everybody was thinking and what they thought of her and what she thought of them and so forth and so on. Lady Rosemarie started out as a rather annoying character with way too many worries about what people thought of her. She ended as a not-so-annoying character with a few less worries about what people thought of her. What I’m saying is, there wasn’t a ton of character development going on with our MC, but there was enough to make her less irritating. Something else that bothered me was the writing style. It wasn’t hard to read or anything, but it was just hard for me to get into the first person narrative. As I’m finding is common for Christian novels, the protagonist has a lot of thoughts about things and, lucky us, we get to read every single one of those thoughts. It just bothered me how much she told the reader and how little was shown. Besides that I had no problems. Well, apart from the random uses of “you’re” when “you are” would have fit the style of speech much better in most instances. Besides that, no problems with the writing. Some of the aspects of this novel that I really enjoyed were the descriptions, the villain, the dog, and Rosemarie’s ability to turn to God for all of her worries. I didn’t feel like this book had some big huge message for me, just that it was a regular story with some Christian values. While I enjoyed the change from some of the more preach-y Christian fiction, I do wish that a personal relationship with Christ had been mentioned, as I couldn’t find one. All together, I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to someone who isn’t nitpicky about character development, writing style, or historical accuracy and just wants a nice story to read. I very highly recommend reading the prequel, The Vow, before reading this because it clears up a lot of the backstory. Well, thanks for reading my first post that’s actually about books and not just about me. I hope you liked it and that you’ll come back on Wednesday when I post another review-opinion-thingy. ¡Adios! Image:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22900446-an-uncertain-choice?from_new_nav=true&ac=1&from_search=true |
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