Where Secrets Lie by Colleen Coble and Rick Acker (Bibliolifestyle Book Tour)

 

Title:  Where Secrets Lie

Author:  Colleen Coble and Rick Acker

Narrated by:  Karen Peakes

Publisher: Thomas Nelson

Length: Approximately 10 hours and 16 minutes

Source: Thank-you NetGalley for the Audiobook Review Copy and Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @tnzfiction for the physical book copy as part of the Bibliolifestyle Book Tour.

What is your favorite book series?

Savannah Webster and her ex-husband Hez are trying to give their love a second chance.  They had previously been married, but their marriage broke when they lost their child and Hez turned to alcohol. Things look bright until Savannah finds an empty wine bottle in Hez’s garbage.  Has he turned back to alcohol?  Savannah takes on a new role as the president of her beloved Tupelo Grove University and Hez starts a new legal clinic.  Together they discover many problems with finances at the university including someone at the university using it as a front for a smuggling ring.  Will they be able to save the university?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       This is the second book in the Tupelo Grove series.  I enjoyed the settings, characters, and suspense in the first book and was excited to read more in the series.  I would definitely recommend reading both books in order in this series. 

·       There is a theme of forgiveness throughout the novel paired together with the desire for revenge.

·       This novel also showed that the path of love is not always simple and takes work. 

·       This was a great family drama that was action packed and showed the importance of family.

·       It was a clean read.

·       I really enjoyed the audiobook narration.  The narrator did different voices for each character and even had a British accent for Savannah’s nephew, Simon.

·       There were faith elements throughout the novel relative to forgiveness and a character’s death.

·       Colleen Coble and Rick Acker are a great writing team.  Colleen is an experienced writer and Rick knows the legal ins and outs.

·       The novel had a fantastic ending with a mic drop moment.  I can’t wait to see what happens next and look forward to the third book in the series.

·       I also like the authors note at the end which included interesting information about artifact smuggling.

Overall, Where Secrets Lie by Colleen Coble and Rick Acker is a great Southern romantic suspense novel.  I highly recommend this enjoyable series.

The Pursuit of Elena Bradford by Ann H. Gabhart (Austenprose PR Tour)

 

Do you have a favorite vacation spot?  One place I think is wonderful is Mackinac Island in Michigan.  It’s a beautiful and unforgettable place full of history and natural beauty.  My great great grandparents met on the island working there one summer and married.

Elena Bradford’s father has recently died, and her mother discovered that he left them greatly in debt.  The only way she can think of to save the family from destitution is to find a wealthy husband for her “old maid” daughter, twenty-two-year-old Elena.  Her younger daughter, Ivy, is the beauty of the family, but is considered too young for this task.  They travel to a resort, Graham Springs, Kentucky for the summer.  While there, Elena works on her artwork and meets two men who will not meet her mother’s standards.  Kirby Frazier is a penniless artist, while Andrew Harper has come to the resort to repair his wounded heart after being left at the altar.  Will Elena find love, or will she marry an older wealthy suitor to save her family?  When a mysterious woman arrives alone at the resort, her fate will change the Elena’s path.

My thoughts on this novel:

·       I always love a good love triangle and the Elena, Kirby, and Andrew love triangle was a good story.  I liked the resolution.

·       The story had an interesting mystery about halfway through and also some action/suspense towards the end of the novel.

·       I loved the setting of the Graham Springs resort in Kentucky.  I didn’t realize this was a real place until the end of the novel.  The author’s note was so interesting.  I was especially fascinated to learn that the mysterious death was a true mystery that was never solved.

·       This was a slower read for me, but I still enjoyed the story.  It seemed to slow down in the middle for me, but once the mysterious beautiful Vanessa arrives alone at the resort, the action picked up. 

·       I loved the focus on healing throughout the novel.  Elena, her sister Ivy, and her mother are still healing from her father’s death.  Andrew is healing from his fiancée’s betrayal. Other characters have similar stories of coming to the resort to heal.

·       I loved the beauty of nature that was woven throughout the story.

·       Cats were a key feature.  Elena must leave her beloved cat at home and then a mysterious cat at the resort helps her to survive a misadventure.

·       I loved how there was dancing every night at the resort.  It sounded like such a wonderful place to visit.

Overall, the Pursuit of Elena Bradford by Ann H. Gabhart is a delightful historical romance and a perfect read to bring along on any vacation.

Book Source: Thank-you to @annhgabhart @revellfiction @austenprosefor the review copy of this novel as part of the Austenprose PR Tour

Kate Landry Has a Plan by Rebekah Millet (Austenprose PR Book Tour)

 

Title: Kate Landry Has a Plan

Author:  Rebekah Millet

Narrated by:  Susan Bennett

Publisher: Recorded Books

Length: Approximately 12 hours and 24 minutes

Source: Audiobook Purchased from Audible and physical book from Bethany House Books as part of the Austenprose PR Book Tour.  Thank-you!

Are you a planner?  I’m an engineer so I definitely like plans and lists.  I am a day behind on posting this review as I wasn’t feeling so well yesterday.

Kate Landry is the forty-year-old owner of a café in New Orleans. She is raising her niece Hayley after her beloved sister’s death.  Kate and her sister had a plan for growing their café business and Kate is determined to stick to the plan.  Carefully laid plans don’t always go as imagined.  Kate’s first kiss, Micah, is back in town and is working at her local library.  Hayley spends a lot of her time at the library.  Her ex-fiancé and nemesis, Ryan, is also back in town.  Will Kate be able to realize her and her sister’s plan for a second café location while also keeping the rest of her life on track?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       I love the New Orleans setting - it was so fun.

·       Kate Landry being forty made me love all her flashback references such as Sarah McLachlan’s song “Angel” on the sad animal commercials, Uncle Jesse from Full House, Paula Abdul, and more.

·       I love her clean epithets such as Sarah McLachlan!!

·       This novel had excellent well-developed three-dimensional characters with great growth through the novel.

·       The characters seemed very real, and the story was unique.  A woman who is raising her sister’s daughter, difficult relationships with parents, grief, trust issues, caring for elderly parents/grandparents, and bad ex-boyfriends were all themes.

·       Faith was important for Kate and was discussed throughout the novel.

·       I didn’t realize this was a series until I finished the book and looked to add my review to Goodreads.  It was great as a standalone, but I need to read the first book which is the story of Kate’s best friend Julia and her romance. This series is called Beignets for Two.

·       I love the great love story between two mature forty-year-old adults.  Micah is an understanding and caring male librarian.  AKA – every woman’s dream man.

·       The novel had many real world difficult and emotional conversations.

·       This book had the theme of family is what you make of it and not what you are born into.

·       The audiobook narrator was excellent and I enjoyed listening to this on audiobook.

Overall, Kate Landry Has a Plan by Rebekah Millet is a delightful rom com with wonderful three-dimensional characters and a wonderful overall story.  I want to read more of this story!

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Forty-year-old Kate Landry's carefully planned life has become as messy as the powdered sugar on her famous beignets. Juggling the responsibilities of running her café, raising her teenage niece, and the emotional baggage from her breakup, Kate finds her world once again turned upside down when her first-ever crush, Micah Guidry, returns to town as the hunky local librarian.

As Kate struggles to implement her plans to expand her café amid the New Orleans Mardi Gras madness and the meddling of her conniving ex-fiancé, Micah becomes the unwitting hero of her misadventures, stirring up feelings she thought she'd long buried. How can falling in love in the Big Easy be this hard?

Rebekah Millet spins a delightful tale, set against the vibrant backdrop of New Orleans, proving that sometimes the messiest of situations can lead to the sweetest outcomes.

AUTHOR BIO

Rebekah Millet is a Selah Award, Cascade Award, and ACFW First Impressions Award–winning author of southern inspirational romance novels. A New Orleans native, she grew up on beignets and café au lait, and loves infusing her colorful culture into her stories. Her husband is an answer to prayer, who puts up with her rearranging furniture and being a serial plant killer. Her two sons keep her laughing and share in her love of desserts. Visit her at http://www.rebekahmillet.com/.

The Fabled Earth by Kimberly Brock (Bibliolifestyle Book Tour)

 

Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @harpermusebooks for the review copy of The Fabled Earth by Kimberly Brock.

What type of setting would you like to see more of?  I love books set in the South and would love to see and read more of them.

In 1932 on Cumberland Island off the coast of Georgia, Cleo Woodbine has come to work as a companion to a visitor of the Carnagie family who still maintain an estate on the island.  She also wants to explore the island that inspired her grandfather who wrote a classic book of fables as the resident artist of the Carnegies.  What dramatic events will occur that will change the lives of so many?

In 1959, Cleo Woodbine is a famous artist and recluse who lives alone on Kingdom Come, a tiny strip of land where the servants from Cumberland Island once lived.  Frances Flood has come to visit and find out the truth of what happened to her mother in 1932.  Will she uncover secrets from the past?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       This story is told in a very interesting way.  There are three points of view in 1959 – Cleo, Frances, and Aubrey, a young widow that runs a local inn.  The viewpoint told in 1932 is that of “Fable.”  It was a great story, but I always wondered how much of it was true, and how much it was a “fable” told through Cleo’s eyes.  1932 was also the story of what happened when Cleo told a “fable” that impacted many lives.

·       I enjoyed both the 1932 and 1959 stories equally.

·       I loved the main characters and the stories of Cleo, Frances, and Aubrey.  The secondary characters were also full-bodied and interesting as well.

·       I liked how the mountain lion eludes hunters in both timelines and has lived for thirty years.

·       The mystery of 1939 and what exactly happened intrigued me, but the richness of the rest of the story and characters also made me savor the story.

·       I loved the setting.  I am ready to visit Cumberland Island now.  I looked up pictures of the island and both the natural setting and historic buildings are beautiful. 

·       A great author’s note at the end describes the author’s research into Cumberland Island and its history.

·       I enjoyed how a circus train was brought into the story.

·       It was interesting how the book goes through societal changes that are occurring and how they impact this community.

Favorite Quotes:

“She let herself recall the days when it had seemed their whole lives waiting beyond the horizon.  But their story had turned out to be a fable, a cautionary tale.”

“I thought about Korea.  Troops were integrated there.  I saw what they could be like and what it should be.  I figured it was maybe a place to start.  But there’s some that just can’t stop fighting an old battle.”

“What did she know about any of this?  Only that fear and blame ended up making monsters out of shadows, and fools out of even the most well-meaning men.”

Overall, The Fabled Earth by Kimberly Brock was a compelling well written story, with fascinating characters and a great historical mystery.

What the Mountains Remember by Joy Callaway (Austenprose PR Book Tour)

 

Title:  What the Mountains Remember

Author:  Joy Callaway

Narrated by:  Brittany Pressley

Publisher:  Harper Muse

Length: Approximately 12 hours and 16 minutes

Source: Thank-you to NetGalley for the audiobook review copy.  Thank-you Bethany House and Austenprose for the review copy of the physical book.

Do you prefer to read indoors or outdoors?  I love both!

What the Mountains Remember by Joy Callaway is the story of a young woman named Belle Newbold set in 1913.  Belle was a miner’s daughter, but after her father’s death, her mother remarried a titan of industry, Shipley Newbold.  Both Belle and her mother are afraid that their past will be found out and they will be thrown out of their life of luxury. Belle is determined to marry for convenience to make sure she has a good life where she never will have to worry about hunger.  Worth Delafield seems like the perfect match who can give her all that she asks for.  When Henry Ford invites the Newbold family on one of the Vagabond camping trips, Belle gets to know Worth better and determine what is important to her in life. 

I just discussed how I want to visit North Carolina and visit the Biltmore estate as part of a review last week.  This novel gave me another North Carolina point to visit, Grove Park Inn, which is called the eighth wonder of the world.  This Inn is in Ashville, North Carolina and it was a major construction project in the early 20^th century.

My thoughts on this novel:

·       I loved that this novel focused on how buildings are usually remembered by the person who financed them, but the architect and construction workers who made it possible are often overlooked.  I will also put engineer in this category as I have spent my life designing large projects that dignitaries get gold shovels at while I stood in the background.  I loved how Belle loved to talk and learn about all the people who worked on this construction project.

·       This book was a love story to Asheville and the Appalachian mountains and the people who lived, worked, and died there.

·       I really disliked Belle’s “friend” Marie Austen.  Marie Austen had a lot of cringe worthy behavior in this book both to Belle and to men. She might win the award for worst fictional friend ever.

·       It was interesting learning about the TB crisis in North Caroline during this time period.  It’s interesting and sad that there was a real fear that TB hospitals would overtake the community.

·       I loved the characters of Belle and Worth.  I loved learning more about them and how they learned more about each other and came to an understanding.  I also loved how Belle was able to work on an article about the Grove Park Inn and highlight the workers.  I enjoyed that she had a coming of age herself and discovered what she really wanted out of life.

·       This novel has a marriage of convenience and friends to lovers’ tropes.  The romance was beautiful in this novel.

·       The camping trip with the Vagabonds was very interesting, but the Vagabonds were very much minor background characters.  It left me wanting to know more about their adventures.

·       There was a great author’s note at the end of the novel that discusses how the author has visited and been fascinated with Grove Park Inn since she was a child.  It discussed her research and changes that she made to make her story work.

·       I read this book both physically and on audiobook and kept switching to whatever format worked best for me at the time.  I had a lot of travel during the last couple of weeks, so this worked well for me.  Brittany Pressley was a great narrator.

·       This was my first Joy Callaway novel, but it won’t be my last.

Overall, What the Mountains Remember by Joy Callaway was an excellent historical fiction novel with a great unique setting, interesting characters, and wonderful romance.

BOOK DESCRIPTION

At this wondrous resort, secrets can easily be hidden in plain sight when the eye is trained on beauty.

April 1913—Belle Newbold hasn’t seen mountains for seven years—since her father died in a mining accident and her mother married gasoline magnate, Shipley Newbold. But when her stepfather’s business acquaintance, Henry Ford, invites the family on one of his famous Vagabonds camping tours, she is forced to face the hills once again—primarily in order to reunite with her future fiancé, owner of the land the Vagabonds are using for their campsite, a man she’s only met once before. It is a veritable arranged marriage, but she prefers it that way. Belle isn’t interested in love. She only wants a simple life—a family of her own and the stability of a wealthy man’s pockets. That’s what Worth Delafield has promised to give her and it’s worth facing the mountains again, the reminder of the past, and her poverty, to secure her future.

But when the Vagabonds group is invited to tour the unfinished Grove Park Inn and Belle is unexpectedly thrust into a role researching and writing about the building of the inn—a construction the locals are calling The Eighth Wonder of the World—she quickly realizes that these mountains are no different from the ones she once called home. As Belle peels back the facade of Grove Park Inn, of Worth, of the society she’s come to claim as her own, and the truth of her heart, she begins to see that perhaps her part in Grove Park’s story isn’t a coincidence after all. Perhaps it is only by watching a wonder rise from ordinary hands and mountain stone that she can finally find the strength to piece together the long-destroyed path toward who she was meant to be.

International bestselling author Joy Callaway returns with a story of the ordinary people behind extraordinary beauty—and the question of who gets to tell their stories.

AUTHOR BIO

Joy Callaway is the author of All the Pretty Places, The Grand Design, The Fifth Avenue Artists Society, and Secret Sisters. She holds a BA in journalism and public relations from Marshall University and an MMC from the University of South Carolina. She resides in Charlotte, North Carolina, with her husband, John, and her children, Alevia and John. Visit her online at joycallaway.com.

 

These Tangled Threads by Sarah Loudin Thomas (Austenprose PR Book Tour)

 

Do you ever like to read books that are set in places that you would like to visit?  I feel I get to visit new places through books, and I get great ideas of places I would like to visit in person.  One place I would love to visit is the Biltmore estate in North Carolina. 

In the early twentieth century, Lorna is an accomplished weaver at the Biltmore estates.  She has been commissioned to create an original design for Cornelia Vanderbilt’s wedding, but she needs inspiration.  She works with her friend, Arthur, to try to find a mysterious weaver that has original designs.  Arthur is a master woodworker that has had a flame for Lorna for quite some time, but he does not understand why their relationship never seems to take off.  What secrets does Lorna keep?

My thoughts on this book:

·       The storyline was split within three different time frames, 1915/1916, 1921 and the end of 1923.  Sometimes I had a hard time keeping track of the switches, but luckily, they occurred at chapter breaks and each chapter was clearly labeled.

·       The story was told through Lorna, Arthur, and Gentry’s perspective.  Gentry is a character early in the 1915/16 timeframe of the book and she has disappeared in the later time frames. A large part of the book to me was the mystery of what had happened to Gentry.  I thought her storyline was very interesting.

·       I thought this novel was a fascinating look into how choices that you make keep coming to haunt you through time.  Lorna made a decision in 1916 which while furthering her career in some ways, hinders it in other ways.  It also hinders her relationship with Arthur as she feels she must hide the truth from him. 

·       This novel was a great look into second chances, and I enjoyed Lorna’s journey and second chance.

·       It was also a good look into dishonesty.  Once you start lying, it is hard to get yourself back out from the lies.

·       It was also a story of forgiveness and hope.

·       I loved the character of Arthur.  He was a devout Christian that had a hard life growing up, but he was always looking for the best in people.

·       I enjoyed “meeting” the working people of Appalachia.  The craftwork of the people sounded interesting.  I wanted to see it for myself.

·       In the author’s note, Sarah Loudin Thomas describes how she once worked at Biltmore for six years.  That is why her descriptions are so vivid.  She also gives a list of great references.

·       This was my first book by Sarah Loudin Thomas, but it won’t be my last.

Overall, These Tangled Threads was a fascinating historical fiction book that focused on the craftwork on the Biltmore estate in the early twentieth century as well as hope and forgiveness.  This is the type of historical fiction I love to read.

Book Source:  Review copy from Bethany House as part of the Austenprose PR Book Tour. Thank-you!  Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Seven years ago, a hidden betrayal scattered three young friends living in the shadow of Biltmore Estate. Now, when Biltmore Industries master weaver Lorna Blankenship is commissioned to create an original design for Cornelia Vanderbilt's 1924 wedding, she panics knowing she doesn't have the creativity needed. But there's an elusive artisan in the Blue Ridge Mountains who could save her--if only she can find her.

To track the mysterious weaver down, Lorna sees no other way but to seek out the relationships she abandoned in shame. As she pulls at each tangled thread from her old life, Lorna is forced to confront the wounds and regrets of long ago. She'll have to risk the job that shapes her identity as well as the hope of friendship--and love--restored.

In this seamlessly woven historical tale, award-winning Appalachian author Sarah Loudin Thomas delivers a poignant novel of friendship, artistry, restoration, and second chances.


AUTHOR BIO

Sarah Loudin Thomas (sarahloudinthomas.com) is the author of numerous acclaimed novels, including The Finder of Forgotten Things, The Right Kind of Fool, winner of the 2021 Selah Book of the Year, and Miracle in a Dry Season, winner of the 2015 INSPY Award. She worked in public relations for Biltmore Estate for six years and is now the director of Jan Karon's Mitford Museum. A native of West Virginia, she and her husband now live in western North Carolina.