Shelf Quest

A Perilous Undertaking is a fantastic follow-up to the first Veronica Speedwell book, A Curious Beginning. I got the first during an Audible sale in the fall (my review here)- I was amazed at how good it is and surprised that it hadn’t come up in a recommendation for me somewhere online. This series features Veronica, a spinster lepidopterist in her mid-twenties, and Stoker, the black sheep in a noble family. Literally. In this book they are approached by a…

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This book follows Lara, the owner of Blossom & Grow, a small flower shop in Dublin. We start out with Lara’s story and come back to it many times throughout the book, but sprinkled throughout the rest of it we get a glimpse at the stories of other people entwined in Lara’s life. Her brother, husband, people from her past and her future, and little backgrounds of people who are regulars in her shop. This book very much feels like…

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What a cover! *dreamy eyes* Caitriona Wallace, or Cait, is a chaperone for Jamie and Alice Arrol on their “Grand Tour” of mainland Europe from Scotland. Their final stop is Paris, where they meet Émile Nougier, one of the engineers who designed the Eiffel Tower for Gustav Eiffel. Chapters alternate between Cait and Émile; the transition is smooth, not confusing, and done very well. Cait and Émile are attracted to each other but haven’t spent enough time together to pursue…

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In the second book of the Soulwood series we see Nell in her first PSYLED investigation after a group of deer and geese are found behaving oddly, then all die. Throughout the book there was a minor storyline about Nell’s land; I was glad to finally see her get somewhere with that at the end of the book and stop casually wondering what was wrong with it and saying she’d deal with it later. Overall, I really liked this book….

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I would like to start this review off by saying that this was written by one of my most favorite authors and despite the following review, I still feel that way. This book was written well. It has a good general story going on and a great description/feel of the book. 99% of the characters and interesting and complex. My mind is completely, 100% in 1800’s Texas when reading and I love it. But I strongly dislike the main character. There may…

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After reading The Red Notebook and The President’s Hat I was so, so excited to find out that Antoine Laurain had another book coming out. French Rhapsody is about a letter inviting a band to come in for a meeting with a record later… arriving 30 years after it was sent. We are given insight to the lives of the members of the band, along with some of their spouses or significant others. I think the bones of the story are good…

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I really, really enjoyed this French memoir. After the death of Lisa’s mother, who she was very close to, she has a difficult time deciding how her life will look/be now that she is gone. Lisa ends up buying an apartment in Paris and splitting her time between there and New York, where she works for a magazine. Once she decided her life really needs a major overhaul, she quits her job to focus on freelance work and making herself…

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All the Little Liars is the latest book to come out in Harris’s Aurora Teagarden Mystery series. It is book 9 and coming out after a twelve-year hiatus. I was so excited to get an advanced copy of this!! Overall, the story wasn’t bad, but I do have a few issues with the book. Firstly, even though book 8 came out in 2004 and it is now 2016, book 9 picks up right after the last one with hardly any…

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Oakwood Mystery Series #1 A series of murders in Charley’s hometown leaves the local police department – and the members of the Agatha’s Book Club – at a loss for the motive, killer, or what ties the victims together. Charley’s unusual relationship with a detective on the case makes trying to help him challenging once she discovers that the murders mirror scenes from classic mystery books being read for the Agatha’s Book Club. The Agatha’s book club includes Kitty, Ronnie, Kelly,…

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