The Lady of Galway Manor

The time is post World War 1, the location is Galway, Ireland, the major players are Lady Annabeth De Lacy and Stephen Jennings, the situations are tense from the get-go.  Lady Annabeth's father is the new landlord for the Galway area of Ireland.  The locals, for the most part, are resistant to the British rule of the area and plan to make a point of telling the British Government they are not welcome.  Lady Annabeth, or Anna, as she likes to be called is a rather creative type person who wants to learn silversmithing and the making of the Claddagh designs in jewelry.  Her father arranges an apprenticeship with Stephen Jennings and his father.  Stephen reluctantly takes her under his wing and teaches her about the jewelry, the people, and the customs of the area.  

The De Lacy family is in dire financial straits due to Lord De Lacy's mismanagement of family funds. He has been posted to Galway as a last ditch effort to bring his standing with the nobility up to snuff, only he doesn't tell his family this.  What he tries to do is to coerce Anna into a marriage with a man many years her senior, a man whom Anna knows to be a bully, but a man who is willing to bail them out financially.  Anna does not want this marriage at all, and her younger sister, Emmaline is willing to take it on because she wants to live in the nobility/society circles.  Anna doesn't want her sister to take on this man because of his reputation and age.  She feels it is too great a sacrifice.  

Jennifer Deibel has taken real conflicts and woven them into the warp and woof of a completely readable novel.  She has also taken the best and worst traits of mankind and made believable characters who are flawed and real.  The events in the book help to move the plot at a steady pace and keep the reader engaged.  There wasn't much I didn't like about the book.  The autonomy that Jennifer has imbued into Anna gives her the ability to design special jewelry for customers and for herself.  

Five Stars, two thumbs up, and a Celtic Cross Claddagh 

Revell Publishing and NetGalley.com provided the copy I read for this review. All opinions expressed are solely my own. 

 

Love's Fortress

From the get-go, Jennifer Uhlarik has crafted a novel that proves all is not as it seems on the outside and that one must look deeper than rumors and innuendos.  She has taken actual historic events and paired them with a tale of discovery, heartache, and a wee bit of romance. Jennifer has shown a person can't always judge circumstances by appearances. 

Dani Sango has come to town to see what her late father has left her in his will.  All she's ever been told about him is that he was a deadbeat and an art forger who spent time in the penitentiary.  As she goes through the messages on his answering machine, she hears one from an art curator about something her father wanted to show him.  While in her father's house, she is accosted by her father's business partner and his employee, thinking she's an intruder. Once the misunderstanding is cleared up, she finds that she has a true friend in her father's partner who will stand beside her until she can figure out what's what.  

In a parallel plot line, Broken Bow and his brother are being moved from the Plains to St Augustine, Florida--against their will.  Sally Jo and her fiance', Luke, watch as they come into town and into the fort where they and others will be housed during their "incarceration."  Sally Jo's father is a federal judge who, in his quest to seek the best for his daughter, stands between her and what she really wants.  Luke has a stutter and to Sally Jo's father, he isn't good enough for her. The commandant of the fort desires to educate the men who have been brought in from the Plains and to teach them the skills they will need to live in a "white man's world."  

Brad is the assistant art curator for a museum in Tampa, Florida, who is dealing with a family emergency at the same time as he's trying to find out about the art piece Dani's father contacted him about.  He's not all that excited about the art piece because of the timing.  His family emergency is taking all of his time and mental efforts just to hold onto his sanity.  

For some "time slip" novels, I have a hard time keeping the stories straight in my head as I read them.  I did not have that trouble with this one.  The two stories are more of a parallel, where one gives background to the other and makes a complete picture in the reader's mind.  The fort at St Augustine is  quite near and dear to my heart, as it was where my father was stationed for his basic training in the Coast Guard during World War II. It has a rich, deep history that should be mined for its significance in the story of our country.   

The situations in the contemporary part of the novel are believable and to a degree, enjoyable.  Some of them are tragic, but that just adds life to what Jennifer has put down on paper. The characters are quite engaging and, for the most part, likable.  There are a couple the reader would like to take out and hang just for the heck of it, but I think that goes for a multitude of characters in many books.  This is a five star book, with two thumbs up, and a priceless art piece no forger could copy. 

Barbour Publishing and NetGalley.com provided the copy I read for this review.  All opinions expressed are solely my own. 

Shadows of Swanford Abbey

This novel reminded me of a Perry Mason episode. You have to understand that Perry Mason is one of my all-time favorite television shows (a lot of family history and good memories watching it).  But the premise of every Perry Mason episode is that someone gets murdered, all evidence points to an innocent party, and it's up to Perry and his private detective to find the missing keys and get the charges dropped from the innocent defendant, while proving who actually did commit the murder. Woven into this particular novel by Julie Klassen is a bit of mental illness exacerbated by addiction. 

Rebecca Lane has been asked to return to her hometown and help her brother out.  He has written a novel that he wants to have published.  The last one he wrote was stolen by another author, Ambrose Oliver, but he had no proof.  This time, he has covered his bases and set a trap for Oliver.  To fulfill her brother's request, Rebecca ends up staying at Swanford Abbey, which is said to be haunted by the abbess who started the Abbey.  This legend allows the for all the nefarious events to unfold, culminating in the murder of Oliver.  

Because Rebecca is back in her hometown, she is able to rekindle a friendship with Sir Frederick, a man who was a childhood crush, but also a scholar under the tutelage of her father, the local vicar. Frederick is the one who taught her to ride horses, engaged in her less-than-ladylike pursuits, and was her closest friend.  She finds that he is also staying at Swanford Abbey due to renovations going on at his house.  When Oliver is murdered, he is the magistrate in charge of the case.  He's the Perry Mason, with Rebecca being his Della Street. 

Some of the themes Julie has used in this book are: reconciliation, forgiveness, and healing.  Those themes make this book worth reading.  The only thing I didn't like about it was the predictability of the book.  The romance is tipped off early on in the book, the final solution to the murder is easy to suss out, even the events that bring about the murder are not surprising. Four Stars

Bethany House and NetGalley.com provided the copy I read for this review.  All opinions expressed are solely my own. 

 

Proposing Mischief

 Regina Jennings writes her historical novels with a touch of humor to keep the reader engaged. In this second book of her Joplin, Missouri, series, she relates the story of Boone Bragg and Maisie Kentworth. Maisie is quite a handful at best and an absolute calamity waiting to happen at worst.  Because of an unfortunate entanglement with an unscrupulous man, Maisie is pretty much exiled to her family ranch in order to stay out of trouble.  After fixing a fence one day, she decides to go exploring in the mine that is near her family's land holdings.  She breaks into the mine, takes a pickaxe with her, and takes her frustrations out on the mine walls. What she doesn't expect is to find a cavern full of crystals behind the mine.  She comes back out to find Boone Bragg at the mouth of the mine and takes him down to see the cavern.  That she is trespassing never crosses her mind, she's just exploring.  

Boone has problems of his own--as Maisie describes it, single women all over town are covering themselves with flypaper trying to attach themselves to him.  He wants nothing to do with them, he wants nothing to do with social climbers, and he wants nothing to do with women in general.  When Maisie shows up at his business's board meeting, he sees a way out of his "women dilemma." He offers Maisie a marriage contract. It offers her freedom, and it keeps him out of the marriage market.  

This plot is like a train wreck, you know what's going to happen, but you can't look away.  The calamities and  events that move through the plot are almost constant, like moving from the frying pan, to the fire, and hopping back and forth while trying to stay ahead of the game. (Sorry, I mixed a few metaphors there.)  Yes, the book is entertaining, yes, the characters are relatable, and by gum, the settings are unbelievably magnificent.  Many of the characters are the same ones that populated the first book in this series, Courting Misfortune, and play pivotal roles in this offering.   Four stars. 

Bethany House and NetGalley.com provided the copy I read for this review.  All opinions expressed are solely my own. 

Ring Those Bells

Ciara Knight writes sweet books that entertain for a while.  Creekside is a small town in the Smoky Mountains, where everyone knows everyone else's business. She has put into this book a few throw-away characters, where the reader sees them once and then not again for the rest of the book.  I am not sure how I feel about this, there may have been a better way to set up the situation.  But I am not an author, so I don't know.  

Keith has been furloughed from his job as a deep-sea fisherman in the South Pacific, so he has come home for the first time in three years. His mother is so happy to see him, but she's a helicopter parent of the highest degree.  His first act upon reaching town is to find a little boy whose mother is looking for him.  He is disheveled, looking like a wooly bear, and she believes that he is harming her son.  Once an understanding is reached between them, they become friends.  When the boy's mother, Noelle, loses her nanny for her son, Keith offers to stand in for a short time until she can find a new nanny for her son.  

Some kinks that are thrown in for good measure are an old girlfriend, old hurts, and Keith's intrusive mother, but the road to true love is never smooth or easy.  Throughout the whole book, Keith insists that he's going back to fishing and wasn't staying around. But, the more he gets to know Noelle and her son, the more inviting it has become for Keith to stay around.  The ending of the book leaves some loose ends untied.  And that leaves me with an unsatisfied feeling when I finished the book.  For that reason alone, I can give this four stars.  The book is an enjoyable, sweet read.  

Author Collective 20 and NetGalley.com provided the copy I read for this review.  All opinions expressed are solely my own.