Book Review: Two Wars and a Wedding by Lauren Willig

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Rating: ★★
Audience: Historical Fiction
Length: 435 pages
Author: Lauren Willig
Publisher: William Morrow
Release Date: March 21st, 2023
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

From New York Times bestselling author Lauren Willig: a dramatic coming-of-age story with a dual timeline and a single heroine—a bold and adventuring young woman who finds herself caught up in two very different wars on both sides of the Atlantic.

September 1896: As an aspiring archaeologist, Smith College graduate Betsy Hayes travels to Athens, desperate to break into a very male-dominated field and find work at some of the world’s most famous excavation sites. In the midst of the heat and dust of Greece she finds an unlikely ally in philanthropist Charles, Baron de Robecourt, one of the few men who takes her academic passion seriously. But when a simmering conflict between Greece and Turkey erupts into open warfare, Betsy’s archaeological sites become battlefields and she falls into the grim and heroic task of nursing the wounded. As the world around her is irrevocably changed, Betsy finds her heart pulled in multiple directions.

June 1898: As the Spanish-American war begins, an older and wiser Betsy Hayes is searching for her former best friend Ava, who she last saw in Greece during the Greco-Turkish War. She believes that Ava might be with the Red Cross headed to Cuba, so Betsy herself joins the Red Cross and follows Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders straight to the heart of the fighting. As she enters the war zone, dark memories of her last war resurface and her need to protect old and new friends intensifies.

With an unforgettable cast of characters set against two often overlooked but dramatic periods of history, Lauren Willig spins a compelling and heartwarming story about friendship, falling in love at the most inopportune moments, and fighting for what is right.

Thank you to BiblioLifestyle and William Morrow for the gifted copy.

A LOT OF NOPE.

I was hopeful when I started this one, and then quickly things soured and I struggled to finish it. Really should have just put it down.

With a combination of cheating + surprise pregnancy (of which I HATE cheating tropes) this was never going to be redeemed afterwards. I spent most of this book angry and upset at how things were going. Stylistic wise I think many more options could have been used for a better book.

I liked some small pieces such as the male POV we got. As one of the love interests he was fine (and wasn’t cheating) and I liked his chapters. There’s some interesting historical information that I didn’t mind as well. This is a little known topic for me and I liked broadening some of that knowledge.

But I honestly wouldn’t recommend this. First and last book by this author.

Overall audience notes:

  • Historical fiction + romance
  • Language: a little
  • Romance: vague fade to black
  • Violence: high
  • Trigger/Content Warnings: war themes, major loss of life, blood/gore depiction, pregnancy and childbirth, cheating

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Book Review: The Book That Broke the World (The Library Trilogy #2) by Mark Lawrence

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Rating: ★★★★
Audience: Fantasy
Length: 384 pages
Author: Mark Lawrence
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Release Date: April 11th, 2024
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

The second volume in the bestselling, ground-breaking Library Trilogy, following The Book That Wouldn’t Burn.

We fight for the people we love. We fight for the ideas we want to be true.

Evar and Livira stand side by side and yet far beyond each other’s reach. Evar is forced to flee the library, driven before an implacable foe. Livira, trapped in a ghost world, has to recover her book if she’s to return to her life. While Evar’s journey leads him outside into the vastness of a world he’s never seen, Livira’s destination lies deep inside her own writing, where she must wrestle with her stories in order to reclaim the volume in which they were written.

And all the while, the library quietly weaves thread to thread, bringing the scattered elements of Livira’s old life – friends and foe alike – back together beneath new skies.

Long ago, a lie was told, and with the passing years it has grown and spread, a small push leading to a chain of desperate consequences. Now, as one edifice topples into the next with ever-growing violence, it threatens to break the world. The secret war that defines the library has chosen its champions and set them on the board. The time has come when they must fight for what they believe, or lose everything.

The Library Trilogy is about many things: adventure, discovery, and romance, but it’s also a love letter to books and the places where they live. The focus is on one vast and timeless library, but the love expands to encompass smaller more personal collections, and bookshops of all shades too.

Thank you to Berkley (Berkley Partner) for the free book.

IT WAS GOOD.

I found this to be a good middle book. I liked the introduction of new characters and seeing the expansion of the story line. I miss Evar and Livira a bit but luckily they were most heavily present in the second half of the book. It’s such an interesting concept and a very intensely layered world building and magic system.

I think that’s also kind of my issue though? It’s so intricate that I still feel partially lost by the end of it each time. How the library is formed, who’s where and in what time period, all of the crossing back and forth through portals is a LOT. I do like listening to the audiobook as it’s helped me stay more focused on what’s happening.

Definitely still interested in continuing this series. I do enjoy Lawrence’s writing style and find this entire concept fascinating. This was a book I kept wanting to pick up and found myself even more attached to the characters. There’s plenty of great action, some good slower moments and even a few heart breaking ones too.

Overall audience notes:

  • Fantasy
  • Language: low-moderate
  • Romance: kisses
  • Violence: high

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Book Review: See Me As I Am by Cheryl Wanner

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Rating: ★★★
Audience: YA Contemporary Romance
Length: 352 pages
Author: Cheryl Wanner
Publisher: Immortal Works Press
Release Date: May 23rd, 2023
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Being blind doesn’t stop seventeen-year-old Jenny Ryan from going after what she wants. Journalism byline? Horse sports? Rock climbing? No problem. Meet Liam O’Shannon, frontman for hard-rocking Irish band (also named) O’Shannon? Jenny’s got a plan for that, too.

She’s already landed a backstage pass for the Portland tour stop where she hopes to interview her idol for a write up in her school paper. Instead, she finds herself in an unexpected convo with the band’s junior publicist, Jamie Conway. Not exactly her dream. But Jamie is sweet and thoughtful and later offers to arrange an interview for her with Liam.

Throughout the tour, he and Jenny keep in touch, and their long-distance friendship deepens into something that challenges Liam’s place in her heart. What Jenny can’t see is the truth Jamie’s disguising; one that will shatter the growing trust between them and force her to question everything she knew about him—and what it truly means to love someone.

Thank you to the author for the gifted audiobook.

I HAVE THOUGHTS.

I enjoyed much of this. It kind of falls a predictable story line, but I just rolled with it and got into the story. I thought the hidden identities trope played well here, and the celebrity romance aspects were fun too. It was unique to have a blind FMC and I loved learning and understanding from that perspective. The music journalism aspects were great too.

There were some good growth moments and I liked seeing Jenny grow up. With big life decisions before her she made some tough choices and learned from mistakes. I was originally okay with the third act conflict, but then I felt it was stretched out to some dramatic proportions that I found myself more frustrated with than anything. I hit a point where I was ready to wrap things up.

The audiobook was good and I liked listening in that format. The narrator did a great job with the accents and bringing the characters to life.

Overall audience notes:

  • YA Contemporary Romance
  • Language: none
  • Romance: kisses
  • Violence: low
  • Trigger/Content Warnings: divorce

ARC Book Review: A Letter to the Luminous Deep (The Sunken Archive #1) by Sylvie Cathrall

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Rating: ★★★★
Audience: Fantasy
Length: 432 pages
Author: Sylvie Cathrall
Publisher: Orbit Books
Release Date: April 25th, 2024
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

‘An underwater treasure-chest to be slowly unpacked, full of things I nosy and loving families, epistolary romance, gorgeous worldbuilding, and anxious scholars doing their best to meet the world with kindness and curiosity’ Freya Marske, author of A Marvellous Light

A charming fantasy set in an underwater world with magical academia and a heartwarming penpal romance, perfect for fans of A Marvellous Light and Emily Wilde’s Encylopaedia of Faeries.

A beautiful discovery outside the window of her underwater home prompts the reclusive E. to begin a correspondence with renowned scholar Henerey Clel. The letters they share are filled with passion, at first for their mutual interests, and then, inevitably, for each other.

Together, they uncover a mystery from the unknown depths, destined to transform the underwater world they both equally fear and love. But by no mere coincidence, a seaquake destroys E.’s home, and she and Henerey vanish.

A year later, E.’s sister Sophy, and Henerey’s brother Vyerin, are left to solve the mystery of their siblings’ disappearances with the letters, sketches and field notes left behind. As they uncover the wondrous love their siblings shared, Sophy and Vyerin learn the key to their disappearance – and what it could mean for life as they know it.

Thank you Orbit Books for the gifted ARC.

LOTS OF THOUGHTS.

I honestly don’t know what quite to do with this one. I almost DNF after the first 30 pages because good heavens this was slowww. And not in a way you can skim, this is a, read every word, kind of mystery. After being convinced to try again, I admittedly found myself liking the book more. The writing is all in letters and heavily academic. Once you’ve found your footing with it, things seem to flow a bit better.

I was intrigued by the world and how it was set-up. I thought it was interesting and the concept of living underwater was something I rarely read. The scholars and researchers and fanatics all kind of coalesce into a myriad of sub-plots that fill the larger story. I have a very hard time calling this a romance. Honestly I wouldn’t (so nobody sets themselves up right off the bat for disappointment). There’s a sweet little love story that’s woven in, it just doesn’t have everything I was expecting/hoping for when I picked this up.

The ending has me wanting to read book two. I am genuinely curious where people ended up, what the Structure is and why we care about it.

It appears that the audiobook has a full cast and I think that will make this book more enjoyable to those curious about trying it.

Overall audience notes:

  • Fantasy + some romance
  • Language: none
  • Romance: flirting
  • Violence: low

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