A Potpourri of Opinions

  The Poetics of Passion A Muses of Scandal Novel Delphine Ross Publication date: July 25, 2023 by Muse Publications LLC Genre: Historical Romance Rating: 4 🍷🍷🍷🍷 Summary: In 1872 London, a scandalous love poetess and a passionate children's book illustrator are set at odds in this sparkling enemies-to-lovers debut historical romance. Musa Bartham has a secret. To support her destitute family after her father’s disappearance, she’s been publishing steamy poetry under the pen name of Felicity Vita. As Felicity Vita, Musa’s scandalous books have won legions of devoted fans—including an anonymous gentleman pen pal whose letters spark unruly desires she would never ever succumb to in her orderly daily life. But when Musa’s cherished younger sister, Angela, is offered sponsorship by their aristocratic great-aunt for an advantageous marriage, Musa realizes her dangerous double life as Felicity must come to an end. Instead, she’ll write books for children. Sebastian Atkinson is a passi...

  Only the Beautiful  Susan Meissner Publication date: April 18, 2023 by Berkley  Genre: Historical Fiction Rating: 5 🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷 Summary: A heartrending story about a young mother’s fight to keep her daughter, and the winds of fortune that tear them apart by the New York Times bestselling author of The Nature of Fragile Things and The Last Year of the War. California, 1938—When she loses her parents in an accident, sixteen-year-old Rosanne is taken in by the owners of the vineyard where she has lived her whole life as the vinedresser’s daughter. She moves into Celine and Truman Calvert’s spacious house with a secret however—Rosie sees colors when she hears sound. She promised her mother she’d never reveal her little-understood ability to anyone, but the weight of her isolation and grief prove too much for her. Driven by her loneliness she not only breaks the vow to her mother, but in a desperate moment lets down her guard and ends up pregnant. Banished by the Calverts, Ro...

  An American Wife in Paris The Diplomat's Wife #2 Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger Publication date: July 20, 2023 by Bookouture Genre: Historical Fiction Rating: 4 👢👢👢👢 Summary: “If I go back to Paris, it would be my third time there as an undercover agent...” Kitty murmured. “I ask myself, how many chances does one person get?” Paris, 1941 . When Kitty is asked to return to Paris as an undercover agent, she knows the mission is her most dangerous yet. But she has been fighting the Nazis for too long to stop now. And her role within the Resistance has already cost her friends, family and now—almost—her own marriage. Because while she and Edgar are more in love than ever, his role as a Nazi spy means it is safer if they are no longer married. And while signing the divorce papers is a formality that breaks her heart, Kitty knows that she and Edgar will find a way to be together when the war is finally over… More determined than ever to undermine the Nazi regime, Kitty has nothing left to...

  Darling Girl Liz Michalski Publication date: May 3, 2022 by Dutton Genre: Fantasy Rating: 3 👢👢👢 Summary: In this beautiful dive into the world of J. M. Barrie’s classic, one woman must take on the infamous Peter Pan—who is not the innocent adventurer the fairy tales make him out to be—to save her daughter’s life. . . . Life is looking up for Holly Darling, granddaughter of Wendy—yes, that Wendy. That is, until she gets a call that her daughter, Eden, who has been in a coma for nearly a decade, has gone missing from the estate where she’s been long tucked away. And, worst of all, Holly knows who must be Peter Pan, who is not only very real, but very dangerous. Holly is desperate to find Eden and protect her son, Jack, from a terrible web of family secrets before she loses both her children. And yet she has no one to turn to—her mother, Jane, is the only other person in the world who knows that Peter is more than a story, but she refuses to accept that he is not the hero she’s a...

  Fourth Wing The Empyrean #1 Rebecca Yarros Publication date: May 2, 2023 by Entangled Publishing Genre: Fantasy Rating: 5 🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲 Summary: 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 a heartbeat away... because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them. With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant. She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise. Yet, with every day that passes, the war outs...