Jane Litte's Blog, page 41

REVIEW: Sinners of Starlight City by Anika Scott

From the author of the international bestseller The German Heiress, a gripping historical drama about a woman determined to avenge the crimes against her family, set at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair.

Vengeance is in the family, and the family is a bond like no other…

It’s the worst year of the Great Depression, and America needs all the hope it can get. The Chicago World’s Fair, a glittery city-within-a-city, becomes a symbol of the good that’s yet to come. But every utopia has a seedy side—an...

REVIEW: The Summer Girl by Elle Kennedy

Dear Elle Kennedy,

I’ve enjoyed your previous Avalon Bay books (Good Girl Complex and Bad Girl Reputation) but they had not quite lived up to the experience of books like The Deal for me. It’s the kind of reading high I’m always chasing and I’m pleased to say that The Summer Girl brings it. (So much so that I am currently happily falling down an Off Campus re-reading rabbit hole with no regrets.) This time the banter and the vibe and the plot all worked for me and I spent most all of the book in ...

Review: Fourth Wing (The Empyrean #1) by Rebecca Yarros

Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from USA Today bestselling author Rebecca Yarros

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only...

REVIEW: Véronique’s Moon by Patti Flinn

How does the journey end?

Véronique Clair’s story continues as the Frenchwoman from Burgundy joins two other apprentices on a journey across France to the home of Madame Jeanne du Barry, former mistress to deceased King Louis XV. Motivated by her dream of sewing for the wealthiest women in France, Véronique soon finds that dream side-tracked as she struggles to fit into this new world. Everyone at the Chateau du Barry—from fellow servants to the abusive house manager, the head cook, the arroga...

REVIEW: The Voluble Topsy by A P Herbert

In the late 1920s Topsy is a girl about town, a society deb, a dashing flapper. She writes breathless, exuberant letters to her best friend Trix about her life, her parties, her intrigues, and the men in her life. One particular man draws her into politics, and to Topsy’s amazement, she is elected as a member of Parliament.

Topsy’s extensive social life, her adventures in and out of the House of Commons (and her audacious attempts to legislate for the Enjoyment of the People), and her wartime ...

REVIEW: An Ordinary Girl by Betty Neels

An ordinary girl. An extraordinary love?

Professor James Forsyth is intrigued when he first meets Philomena Selby. She’s so shy and kind – he’s used to much more demanding women!

There was no doubt James is very handsome but Philly knows he has a fiancée and as a plain country girl, she can’t hope to match such a glamorous woman.

But James has been struck by Philly’s inner beauty…and surely she’s much more the woman he wants as his wife…?

Originally published in 2001.

Review

I think this is o...

REVIEW: No Ordinary Assignment by Jane Ferguson

From award-winning journalist Jane Ferguson, an unflinching memoir of ambition and war—from the Troubles to the fall of Kabul.

In Northern Ireland in the 1980s and ‘90s, war was a secret, and young Jane Ferguson wanted to know the truth. For her, war was called the Troubles, bomb threats and military checkpoints on the way to school were commonplace, and an uncle’s gunshot wound in IRA crossfire was disguised as a cow kick. Jane developed a penchant for asking questions that cut through this c...

REVIEW: Where All Good Flappers Go : Essential Stories of the Jazz Age by Various Authors

“I believe in the flapper as an artist in her particular field, the art of being – being young, being lovely.” — Zelda Fitzgerald

A sparkling new collection of “flapper fiction”: stories featuring the iconic women who defined the Jazz Age

Vivacious, charming, irreverent, the flapper is a girl who knows how to have a roaring good time.

In this collection of short stories, she’s a partygoer, a socialite, a student, a shopgirl, and an acrobat. She bobs her hair, shortens her skirt, searches for ...

REVIEW: The All-American by Susie Finkbeiner

Two sisters discover how much good there is in the world–even in the hardest of circumstances

It is 1952, and nearly all the girls 16-year-old Bertha Harding knows dream of getting married, keeping house, and raising children in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan. Bertha dreams of baseball. She reads every story in the sports section, she plays ball with the neighborhood boys–she even writes letters to the pitcher for the Workington Sweet Peas, part of the All-American Girls Professional Basebal...

Review: Eruca (Arthropoda #2) and Apidae (Arthropoda #3) by Xenia Melzer

There is no crime without witnesses

When Detective George Donovan and his eccentric partner, Detective Andi Hayes, need a break from their gruesome job, a hike seems like just the thing.

Unfortunately, the job catches up with them when they find three dead men in a lake.

When the promising clues dry up, George and Andi turn once more to Andi’s “gift”—but this time things aren’t so easy. Andi’s mysterious talents are growing stronger, making it harder to block out the barrage of information and ...