My Queendom For a Horse

My Queendom For a Horse

By Bridget E. Baker

Purple Puppy Publishing, 2022. 310 pages. Romance

Kristiana Liepa was supposed to use the money to save her family farm. She was NOT supposed to spend it all to save a massive, black stallion. But when she saw how he was being treated, what's a vet to do? She had no idea that gorgeous beast was really a powerful (and morally gray) magician who had been cursed by a witch, or that she was the only one who could reverse the curse. And she couldn't possibly have known how that one rash decision would irrevocably change her life . . . and his.

What do you do when you find out the horse you bought to save from being treated cruelly instead of saving your farm is actually a magical shifter trapped in horse form?  Fall in love with him, of course!  But don't forget about your billionaire ex-boyfriend who's back on the dating market, because he's ready to solve all of your financial troubles and get back together with you, too!  With plenty of romantic tension, a love triangle, and many horse races, this book is sure to leave both romance and horse-lovers satisfied. While the romance isn't exactly squeaky clean, much of the romantic encounters are left mainly to the reader's imagination, leaving it on the mild side of things.  This book is also the first in its series, so make sure to stay tuned for the next one!

If you like My Queendom For a Horse, you might also like:

Country Strong

By Linda Lael Miller

HQN, 2020. 376 pages. Romance

Cord Hollister is a true cowboy at heart. As a man who has devoted his life to training horses under the big skies of Montana, he thrives on the stability of ranch life. But when a girl arrives in Painted Pony Creek with a shocking secret, Cord's orderly life is upended. She's the spitting image of the first woman who broke his heart--a woman he hasn't seen in years--and he'll do whatever he can to help her. He just can't do it alone... Shallie Fletcher left heartbreak where it belongs--in the past. And she's done everything she can to reinvent herself and move on. But when an opportunity arises to partner with a therapeutic riding program for kids, Shallie can't resist seeking out Cord for lessons. Back in school, he was the crush she couldn't forget, even though he only had eyes for her best friend. Seeing him now floods her with memories... and fills her with hope. Could the one who got away be the one who stays?

Bears Behaving Badly

By MaryJanice Davidson

SourcebooksCasablanca, 2020. 377 pages. Romance

Werebear shifter Annette Garsea is a caseworker for the Interspecies Placement Agency. When a selectively mute and freakishly strong teen werewolf is put in her custody, Annette has to uncover the young girl's secrets if she's to have any hopes of helping her. And not even the growling of a scruffy private investigator can distract her from her mission ... Bear shifter David Auberon appreciates Annette's work with at-risk teen shifters, but he's not sure if her latest charge is so much a vulnerable teen as a predator who should be locked up. All that changes when he, Annette, and her motley band of juveniles find themselves dodging multiple murder attempts and uncovering a trafficking cartel that doesn't just threaten the kids, but risks discovery of the shifters by the wider world of homo sapiens.

ERB

The White Lady

The White Lady
by Jacqueline Winspear
Harper, 2023. 336 pages. Fiction

Elinor White lives a white life in a rural English village in the aftermath of World War II, and to her fellow villagers she seems something of an enigma. Well she might, as Elinor occupies a "grace and favor" property, a rare privilege offered to faithful servants of the Crown for services to the nation. But the residents of Shacklehurst have no way of knowing how dangerous Elinor's work in both World Wars had been, or that their mysterious neighbor is haunted by her past. It will take Susie, the child of a young farmworker, Jim Mackie and his wife, Rose, to break through Miss White's icy demeanor. But Jim too, is desperate to escape his past. When the powerful Mackie crime family demands a return of their prodigal son for an important job, Elinor sets out on treacherous path to protect her neighbors. 

 Jacqueline Winspear is beloved for her bestselling Maisie Dobbs mystery series, and The White Lady revisits similar plot points in a new way. Elinor is a brave, no-nonsense character who falls skillfully into her role as a teenage spy in World War I Belgium, but as The White Lady shifts backward and forward in time, you see how her work wears on her and her family relationships. Winspear creates vibrant characters while skillfully navigating the shifting historical timelines. While this book works well as a standalone, I could see it acting as the start of a new favorite series for historical fiction fans and mystery lovers alike. 

 If you like The White Lady, you might also like: 

The Nightingale
by Kristin Hannah
St. Martin’s Press, 2015. 440 pages. Fiction 

Viann and Isabelle have always been close despite their differences. Younger, bolder sister Isabelle lives in Paris while Viann lives a quiet and content life in the French countryside with her husband Antoine and their daughter. When World War II strikes and Antoine is sent off to fight, Viann and Isabelle's father sends Isabelle to help her older sister cope. As the war progresses, it's not only the sisters' relationship that is tested, but also their strength and their individual senses of right and wrong. 

The Rose Code
by Kate Quinn
William Morrow, 2021. 656 pages. Fiction 

1940: As England prepares to fight the Nazis, three very different women answer the call to Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes. Osla puts her fluent German to use as a translator of decoded enemy secrets. Mab works the legendary codebreaking machines and looks for a socially advantageous husband. Beth's shyness conceals a brilliant facility with puzzles, and she becomes one of the Park's few female cryptanalysts. 1947. As the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip whips post-war Britain into a fever, the three women are reunited by a mysterious encrypted letter-- the key to which lies buried in the long-ago betrayal that destroyed their friendship and left one of them confined to an asylum.

SGR

Twin Crowns

Twin Crowns

By Catherine Doyle
Balzer + Bray, 2022. 466 pages. Young Adult Fiction

Twin princesses separated at birth--Wren, raised to avenge her parents' murder and take the throne, protecting the witches who raised her, and Rose, raised as the crown princess--strive to claim their birthright, while an enemy tries to make sure neither succeed.

Twin Crowns has fun banter with plenty of romance sprinkled in.  Told in alternating voices the reader gets to enjoy the stories of sisters Wren and Rose from their own perspectives.  While the story doesn't only contain rosy characters, overall the feel was that of a light and enjoyable fantasy romance with dashes of court intrigue and plenty of magic.  I warn that the ending plainly shows that this is meant to be a series, so no tidy bow-wrapped conclusions here, but that just means that the magic, sisterhood and romance isn't over, so I can't be mad about it!      

If you like Twin Crowns, you might also like:

Sisters of the Snake

By Sarena Nanua

HarperTeen, 2021. 497 pages. Young Adult Fiction

When a princess and a street thief discover they are twins separated at birth, they must switch places to find an all-powerful stone and prevent a deadly war from happening.

These Hollow Vows

By Lexi Ryan

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021. 442 pages. Young Adult Fiction

To save her sister from the sadistic king of the Unseelie court, Brie makes a deal to steal three magical relics from the Seelie court and finds herself caught between two dangerous faerie courts and their seductive princes.

RBL

The Renaissance of Gwen Hathaway

The Renaissance of Gwen Hathaway

by Ashley Schumacher

Wednesday Books, 2023. 310 pages. Young Adult Fiction

Raised in the ren faire circuit, seventeen-year-old Madeline is grieving the loss of her mother when she meets Arthur, the son of the faire's new owners, who encourages her to go on adventures, take chances, and enjoy life.

Such a little summary for a book with big feels. I love Ashley Schumacher. She has written three books and I have devoured them all. They all deal with great big issues by focusing in on the smallest details. The banter is bright and chatty and creates an overall good feeling when you read it. In the story, Madeline not only deals with the death of her mother, she also deals with the crippling effects of grief that would keep her from making new friends, doing new things, and living her life. She also deals with body image issues and how women and men are often defined by how they look and not by their feelings and hopes and dreams. Schumacher pulls all of these different threads together by focusing on the relationships of Maddie and her dad, Maddie and Arthur, Arthur and his dads. It is a lovely tale.

If you liked The Renaissance of Gwen Hathaway, you might also like:

How Not to Fall in Love

by Jaqueline Firkins

Clarion Books, 2021. 329 pages. Young Adult Fiction

Harper works in her mom's wedding shop, altering dresses for petulant and picky brides who are more focused on hemlines than love. After years of watching squabbles break out over wedding plans, Harper thinks romance is a marketing tool. Nothing more. Her best friend Theo is her opposite. One date and he's already dreaming of happily-ever-afters. He also plays the accordion, makes chain mail for Ren Festers, hangs out in a windmill-shaped tree house, cries over rom-coms, and takes his word-of-the-day calendar very seriously. When Theo's shocked to find himself nursing his umpteenth heartbreak, Harper offers to teach him how not to fall in love. Theo agrees to the lessons, as long as Harper proves she can date without falling in love. As the lessons progress and Theo takes them to heart, Harper has a harder time upholding her end of the bargain. She's also checking out her window to see if Theo's home from his latest date yet. She's even watching rom-coms. If she confesses her feelings, she'll undermine everything she's taught him. Or was he the one teaching her?

Fat Chance, Charlie Vega

by Crystal Maldonado

Holiday House, 2021. 343 pages. Young Adult Fiction 

 A plus-sized Latina’s struggle to forge a healthy relationship with her own body is challenged by her mother’s insensitivity, her popular best friend and personal doubts about a new boyfriend’s ability to see her as she truly is.

Dumplin'

by Julia Murphy

Blazer + Bray, 2015. 375 pages.

Sixteen-year-old Willowdean wants to prove to everyone in her small Texas town that she is more than just a fat girl, so, while grappling with her feelings for a co-worker who is clearly attracted to her, Will and some other misfits prepare to compete in the beauty pageant her mother runs.

AG

Wyoming Wild

Wyoming Wild

By Sarah M. Eden

Shadow Mountain Publishing, 2023. 249 pgs. Historical Romance

Hearts collide when a sheriff’s daughter asks a hardened US Marshal to join her fight for justice and rid a small town of her corrupt father.

This newest book by Sarah Eden takes us back to the town of Savage Wells. Liesel reaches out to the US Marshal living in Savage Wells to come help rid her small town of a corrupt sheriff who just happens to be her own father. John "Hawk" Hawking is one of the most respected lawmen in the West and will do whatever it takes to maintain law and order in his area. Liesel places all of her trust in someone she barely knows and together they face life and death situations in order to find justice. 

If you like Wyoming Wild, you might also like:

A Worthy Pursuit

By Karen Witemeyer

Bethany House, 2015. 341 pgs. Historical Romance

In 1891 Texas, teacher Charlotte Atherton is on the run to keep a little girl entrusted to her care safe, while tracker Stone Hammond is in close pursuit--until he learns the truth of the situation and discovers his heart may have a new pursuit.

Braced for Love 

By Mary Connealy

Bethany House, 2021. 293 pgs. Historical Romance

After his father's death, Kevin Hunt inherits a ranch in Wyoming-the only catch is it also belongs to a half brother he never knew existed. But danger follows Kevin, and he suspects his half brother is behind it. The only one willing to stand between them is Winona Martin-putting her in the cross hairs of a perilous plot and a risk at love.

Trouble With Patience

By Maggie Brendan

Revell, 2015. 330 pgs. Historical Romance 

After inheriting a dilapidated boarding house in 1866 Montana, young Patience Cavanaugh negotiates an arrangement with the rugged sheriff to make repairs--and gets more than she bargained for.

AL

The Other Dr. Gilmer by Benjamin Gilmer

The Other Dr. Gilmer: two men, a murder, and an unlikely fight for justice
By Benjamin Gilmer
Ballantine Books, 2022. 292 pages. True Crime Biography  

A rural physician learns that a former doctor at his clinic committed a shocking crime, leading him to uncover an undiagnosed mental health crisis in our broken prison system--a powerful true story expanding on one of the most popular This American Life episodes of all time. When family physician Dr. Benjamin Gilmer began working at the Cane Creek Clinic in rural North Carolina, he was following in the footsteps of a man with the same last name. His predecessor, Dr. Vince Gilmer, was beloved by his patients and community--right up until the shocking moment when he strangled his ailing father to death and then returned to the clinic for a regular day of work. Dr. Benjamin Gilmer, the author, tells of how a caring man was overcome by a perfect storm of rare health conditions, leading to an unimaginable crime. Rather than get treatment, Vince Gilmer was sentenced to life in prison--a life made all the worse by his untrustworthy brain and prison and government officials who dismissed his situation. A large percentage of imprisoned Americans are suffering from mental illness when they commit their crimes and continue to suffer, untreated, in prison. In a country with the highest incarceration rates in the world, Dr. Benjamin Gilmer argues that some crimes need to be healed rather than punished.

This is one of the best non-fiction books I have read in a long time! I highly recommend listening to the audiobook, because it is read by the author which gives it an authentic feel. I enjoyed how Dr. Gilmer was able to take the reader on the same journey he went on, without spoiling the ending for those of us that weren't familiar with the news stories. The compassion and love that these two doctors have for their patients is beyond compare; that's why Dr. Vince Gilmer's crime is so shocking. If you like true crime podcasts, this book is definitely for you!

If you like The Other Dr. Gilmer, you might also like:

The Sun Does Shine: how I found life & freedom on death row
By Anthony Ray Hinton
St. Martin's Press, 2018. 255 pages. Biography

In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder in Alabama. Stunned, confused, and only twenty-nine years old, Hinton knew that it was a case of mistaken identity and believed that the truth would prove his innocence and ultimately set him free. But with no money and a different system of justice for a poor black man in the South, Hinton was sentenced to death by electrocution. He spent his first three years on Death Row at Holman State Prison in agonizing silence--full of despair and anger towards all those who had sent an innocent man to his death. But as Hinton realized and accepted his fate, he resolved not only to survive, but find a way to live on Death Row. For the next twenty-seven years he was a beacon--transforming not only his own spirit, but those of his fellow inmates, fifty-four of whom were executed mere feet from his cell. With the help of civil rights attorney and bestselling author of Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson, Hinton won his release in 2015. Destined to be a classic memoir of wrongful imprisonment and freedom won, Hinton's memoir tells his dramatic thirty-year journey and shows how you can take away a man's freedom, but you can't take away his imagination, humor, or joy.

Corrections in Ink: a memoir
By Keri Blakinger
St. Martin's Press, 2022. 322 pages. Biography

An elite, competitive figure skater growing up, Keri Blakinger poured herself into the sport, even competing at nationals. But when her skating partnership ended abruptly, her world shattered. With all the intensity she saved for the ice, she dove into self-destruction. From her first taste of heroin, the next nine years would be a blur--living on the streets, digging for a vein, selling drugs and sex, eventually plunging off a bridge when it all became too much, all while trying to hold herself together enough to finish her degree at Cornell. Then, on a cold day during Keri's senior year, the police stopped her. Caught with a Tupperware container full of heroin, she was arrested and ushered into a holding cell, a county jail, and finally into a state prison. There, in the cruel "upside down," Keri witnessed callous conditions and encountered women from all walks of life--women who would change Keri forever. Two years later, Keri walked out of prison sober and determined to make the most of the second chance she was given--an opportunity impacted by her privilege as a white woman. She scored a local reporting job and eventually moved to Texas, where she started covering prisons. Now, over her career as an award-winning journalist, she has dedicated herself to exposing the broken system as only an insider could.

LKA

The Only Survivors

The Only Survivors 

By Megan Miranda

Scribner, 2023. 352 pages. Fiction 

A decade ago, two vans filled with high school seniors on a school trip crashed into a Tennessee ravine claiming the lives of multiple classmates and teachers. The nine surviving classmates are bound together by tragedy and, when one of their own takes their life on the one-year anniversary, a deal is struck: they must all come together each year to prevent another loss. When the survivors reunite to mark the tenth anniversary of the accident, one of the survivors disappears, casting fear and suspicion on the remaining individuals and on the original tragedy itself. 

The Only Survivors is a meticulously plotted, slow burn of a mystery. The Outer Banks beach house that acts as the survivors annual meeting place provided the perfect dichotomy to the dark and suspicious past of our main characters. I particularly enjoyed the multiple survivor perspectives of the accident combined with the present storyline of the ten-year anniversary told solely through protagonist, Cassidy Bent. This was an important element to the plotting of the story and kept me guessing until the end. I always appreciate a mystery that doesn’t give it away immediately, but rather lets the story unfold gradually with each new perspective adding another layer. I recommend The Only Survivors to all mystery lovers who appreciate a good slow burn with unreliable narrators. 

If you like The Only Survivors, you might also like:

What Have We Done 

By Alex Finlay 

Minotaur Books, 2023. 358 pages. Fiction 

Three disparate lives. One deadly secret. Twenty-five years ago, Jenna, Donnie, and Nico were the best of friends, a bond forged as residents of Savior House, an abusive group home for parentless teens. When the home was shut down, after the disappearance of several kids, the three were split up. Though the trauma of their childhood has never left them, each went on to live successful, if troubled, lives. They haven't seen one another since they were teens, but now are reunited for a single haunting reason: someone is trying to kill them. To save their lives, the group will have to revisit the nightmares of their childhoods and confront their past. It's a reunion none of them asked for or wanted, but it may be the only way to save all their lives. 

The Soulmate

By Sally Hepworth 

St. Martin’s Press, 2023. 327 pages. Fiction 

There's a cottage on a cliff. Gabe and Pippa's dream home in a sleepy coastal town, but their perfect house hides something sinister. The tall cliffs have become a popular spot for people to end their lives. Night after night, Gabe comes to their rescue, literally talking them off the ledge. Until he doesn't. When Pippa discovers Gabe knew the victim, the questions spiral. Did the victim jump? Was she pushed? And would Gabe, the love of Pippa's life, her soulmate, lie? As the perfect façade of their marriage begins to crack, the deepest and darkest secrets begin to unravel.

BW

The Bronte Cabinet: three lives in nine objects

The Bronte Cabinet: three lives in nine objects

By Deborah Lutz

W.W. Norton & Company, 2015. 310 pages. Nonfiction 

The story of the Bront's is told through the things they wore, stitched, wrote on and inscribed at the parsonage in Haworth. From Charlotte's writing desk and the manuscripts it contained to the brass collar worn by Emily's dog, Keeper, each object opens a window onto the sisters' world, their fiction and the Victorian era. By unfolding the histories of the things they used, the chapters form a chronological biography of the family. A walking stick evokes Emily's solitary hikes on the moors and the stormy heath--itself a character in Wuthering Heights. Charlotte's bracelet containing Anne and Emily's intertwined hair gives voice to her grief over their deaths. These possessions pull us into their daily lives: the imaginary kingdoms of their childhood writing, their time as governesses and their stubborn efforts to make a mark on the world.

It's been awhile since I've read any of the novels of the Bronte sisters, but this fascinating biography of them, expressed through the personal items they created and owned, threw a wonderful light on them, pulling in quotes from their novels and setting them in the context of the late Romantic/ early Victorian England. I was inspired by what I learned of their lives, as well as the interesting information about Victorian men and women in general. It was a case where the footnotes were just about as interesting as the text (for example, I learned that Charles Dickens, when his cat died, turned it's paw into a letter opener!). Having studied archaeology, the study of people's lives through objects is something that I find really fascinating, and Deborah Lutz does a thorough and page-turningly good job. 

If you like The Bronte Cabinet, you might also like: 

The Age of Homespun: objects and stories in the creation of an American myth

By Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Alfred A. Knopf, 2001. 501 pages. Nonfiction

They began their existence as everyday objects, but in the hands of award-winning historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, fourteen domestic items from preindustrial America-ranging from a linen tablecloth to an unfinished sock-relinquish their stories and offer profound insights into our history. In an age when even meals are rarely made from scratch, homespun easily acquires the glow of nostalgia. The objects Ulrich investigates unravel those simplified illusions, revealing important clues to the culture and people who made them. Ulrich uses an Indian basket to explore the uneasy coexistence of native and colonial Americans. A piece of silk embroidery reveals racial and class distinctions, and two old spinning wheels illuminate the connections between colonial cloth-making and war. Pulling these divergent threads together, Ulrich demonstrates how early Americans made, used, sold, and saved textiles in order to assert their identities, shape relationships, and create history.

My Life in Middlemarch

By Rebecca Mead

Crown Publishers, 2014. 293 pages. Nonfiction

Rebecca Mead was a young woman in an English coastal town when she first read George Eliot's Middlemarch , regarded by many as the greatest English novel. After gaining admission to Oxford, and moving to the United States to become a journalist, through several love affairs, then marriage and family, Mead read and reread Middlemarch . The novel, which Virginia Woolf famously described as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people," offered Mead something that modern life and literature did not. In this wise and revealing work of biography, reporting, and memoir, Rebecca Mead leads us into the life that the book made for her, as well as the many lives the novel has led since it was written. Employing a structure that deftly mirrors that of the novel, My Life in Middlemarch takes the themes of Eliot's masterpiece--the complexity of love, the meaning of marriage, the foundations of morality, and the drama of aspiration and failure--and brings them into our world. Offering both a fascinating reading of Eliot's biography and an exploration of the way aspects of Mead's life uncannily echo that of Eliot herself, My Life in Middlemarch is for every ardent lover of literature who cares about why we read books, and how they read us.

Jane and Dorothy: a true tale of sense and sensibility: the lives of Jane Austen and Dorothy Wordsworth

By Marian Veevers

Pegasus Books, 2018. 380 pages. Nonfiction 

An intimate portrait of Jane Austen, Dorothy Wordsworth, and their world--two women torn between revolutionary ideas and fierce conservatism, artistic creativity and emotional upheavals. The lives of Dorothy Wordsworth and Jane Austen have never been examined together before. Born just four years apart, they came from the same class of landed gentry with clergymen for fathers (who both died young); with friends, family and many interests in common. Living in Georgian England, they navigated strict social conventions and new ideals, and were influenced by Dorothy's brother, the Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and his coterie. They were supremely talented writers yet often lacked the necessary peace of mind in their search for self-expression. Neither ever married. Jane and Dorothy uses each life to illuminate the other. For both women, financial security was paramount and whereas Jane Austen hoped to achieve this through her writing, rather than being dependent on her family, Dorothy made the opposite choice and put her creative powers to the use of her brilliant brother with whom she lived all her adult life. Though neither path would bring lasting fulfillment and independence, both women's mark on literary culture is undeniable. This probing book reveals a crucial missing piece to the puzzle of Dorothy and William's relationship and addresses enduring myths surrounding the one man who seems to have stolen Jane's heart, only to break it . . .

MGB