Review: The Holiday Cottage by Sarah Morgan

 

The Holiday Cottage by Sarah Morgan

Publication Date: September 24th 2024 by Canary Street Press

Pages: 352

Source: Publisher 

Rating: ★★★★½

Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Libro.fm | Audible | Goodreads

My Thoughts:

Imogen’s whole life revolves around her work. Growing up with an unstable mother and home environment makes the success and security she finds in her career calming. However, she’s felt pressured to make up an ideal life outside of work and backed herself into a corner with the stories she’s told. Add to that, her mother’s current crisis causes a problem with an important account, leading Imogen’s boss to enforce some time off.

 

Dorothy, a widower, business owner and longtime client of Imogen, hears of her predicament and insists Imogen come stay at her vacant cottage in the Cotswolds. Dorothy’s daughter Sara wasn’t pleased with her mother’s offer, and I was inclined to dislike Sara, but there’s more to that whole story.

 

I was stressed and hurt for Imogen. She put on a brave face, manufactured an idyllic life when she actually led a self-contained, lonely existence. I was outraged on her behalf as details were revealed about her mother and her upbringing! I was elated as things started going her way, and she found that she had people in her corner! The romance with Miles, the local veterinarian, was the icing on the cake.  I loved the way he immediately took up for Imogen and was there for support. Of course, with a veterinarian there were several sweet animals. All filled my heart with joy!

 

I love Sarah Morgan’s stories! She combines gorgeous settings with emotional stories that warm your heart! The Holiday Cottage was a feel-good story brimming with all the cozy winter vibes!

4.5 Stars

Book Description:

USA TODAY bestselling author Sarah Morgan returns with a heartfelt story of friendship, finding yourself, and the surprising ties that bring us together.

To the outside world, Imogen is a marketing dynamo. Her colleagues don’t know that while her high-achieving professional image is real, the happy childhood stories she spins are as fake as her pretend enthusiasm for Christmas. Working 24/7 has always been her solution to surviving the festive season—until burnout leads to a catastrophic blunder.

Suddenly, Imogen is handed a holiday gift she definitely doesn’t want: enforced time off work to recuperate. Then an invitation arrives from her favorite client, Dorothy, to stay at her guest cottage in the Cotswolds. From the thatched roof to the cozy open fireplace, Holly Cottage is a picture-perfect haven… Can it provide the fresh start Imogen so desperately needs?

For Dorothy, helping Imogen offers a longed-for chance to make reparations for her own past. But as her daughter Sara keeps reminding her, it brings risks, too. Yet Dorothy knows that only a leap of courage will allow her family to grow and heal. And perhaps this Christmas, with Dorothy’s help, the new life that Imogen is slowly piecing together could be better than anything either of them could imagine…

Sunday Post #270

 

The Sunday Post is hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated reviewer book blog, and is a post to recap my bookish and non-bookish things from the last week. I'm also linking up to The Sunday Salon hosted by Deb Nance @Readerbuzz.

Happy Sunday! I skipped last week because we were in Montana again. We got home on Monday late and I feel like I've been recuperating since then. We helped our daughter and SIL move into their house there and it was a lot of work. Still, we had a good time together, watched one of the Wonder Woman movies, played cards, went on a couple of hikes, so it wasn't all work. 

Longhorn cattle in Montana

It's been cold and rainy the last few days here at home and it seems like the trees fully changed overnight:

We slept in today, went to lunch and I worked on a puzzle while finishing my audiobook: 

Treehopper's General Store

Read:

This is my reading for the last two weeks:

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett-4.5 Stars

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill-3.5 Stars

Fated by Benedict Jacka-5 Stars

The Wedding Engagement by Zoe Allison-3 Stars

Lightning in Her Hands by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland-4 Stars

The Night We Lost Him by Laura Dave-4 Stars

The Tainted Cup and Fated by Benedict Jacka were books that I've been wanting to read for a while. I'm so glad I've been requesting less so I was able to fit them in, because I loved both! I saw Lark's Top Ten Tuesday and The Woman in Black was featured. It was a movie I had always wanted to watch, but I thought I'd listen to the audio first. It was a classic ghost story! Nice and spooky. The audio was a dramatized version and part of my Audible membership. Now I need to watch the movie and see how they compare.

Received:

Thank you to Berkley, G.P. Putnam's Sons, and Random House Audio!

Instagram:

It's been cold and rainy the last few days, so of course Peanut is napping and enjoying the fire. A purrfect background for my Instagram post!

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How was your week?

Review: Fated by Benedict Jacka

 

Fated (Alex Verus #1) by Benedict Jacka

Publication Date: February 28th 2012 by Tantor Audio & Ace

Pages: 302

Audio Book Length: 10hrs 33min

Narrator: Gildart Jackson

Source: Library Lend

Rating: ★★★★★

Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Audible | Goodreads

My Thoughts:

I’ve been wanting to start the Alex Verus series for a long time, and it did not disappoint!

 

Alex Verus is a magic mage who can see into the future, see how different choices will play out, but being burnt by other dark, and mercenary mages has made him cautious.

 

Alex keeps to himself, under the radar of the magic Council and other mages, but he becomes much sought after when different factions need his help to open a powerful relic. Not a safe situation at all!

 

Loved Fated! It was a rich, interesting world created, yet the worldbuilding is worked in so that it didn’t drag the pace down. I’m a sucker for the underdog kind of character, and Alex fits that to a T. He has powers, yes, but it’s through his cleverness and learned experience that he prevails. I love his moral compass and the friends that he’s come to care for: Luna, Arachne, and Starbreeze. I already have my hold in for the next book!

 

This was the first time listening to Gildart Jackson and I enjoyed his performance of all voices! 

5 Stars

Book Description:

Enter a “gorgeously realized world”* and meet a mage destined for greatness in the first novel in the national bestselling Alex Verus series.

Alex is part of a world hidden in plain sight, running a magic shop in London that caters to clientele who can do much more than pull rabbits out of hats. And while Alex’s own powers aren’t as showy as some mages, he does have the advantage of foreseeing the possible future—allowing him to pull off operations that have a million to one chance of success.
 
But when Alex is approached by multiple factions seeking his skills to crack open a relic from a long-ago mage war, he knows that whatever’s inside must be beyond powerful. And thanks to his abilities, Alex can predict that by taking the job, his odds of survival are about to go from slim to none....

Review: Lightening in Her Hands by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

 

Lightning in Her Hands (Wild Magic #2) by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

Publication Date: October 15th 2024 by Berkley 

Pages: 352

Source: Publisher 

Rating: ★★★★

Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Goodreads

My Thoughts:

In the last book Teal was kind of a jerk, so I was wondering if I’d grow to like her, however it quickly becomes apparent that her actions came from a place of hurt. Now, Teal is on a mission of self-improvement, trying to be a better person, think of others, and right the wrongs of her past. I really started to like Teal as she made positive strides.

 

One of the wrongs was hurting her best friend, Carter. It’s clear from the beginning that there were deeper feelings between Carter and Teal, more than just friends. Unrequited love on Carter’s part, and Teal reluctantly acknowledging her attraction.

 

There was a lot going on with Teal dealing with feelings of abandonment from her mother (a real piece of work!) a woman who took a piece of Teal’s power over weather when she left, making it hard for Teal to control her gift. She also felt abandoned by her older sister, Sage and still feels guilty about her sister, Sky.  Add to that Teal’s dealing with the aftereffects of being in an abusive relationship that put a dent in her self-esteem.

 

Lightning in Her Hands was a chemistry filled romance, but it was also a story of healing, and wonderful sisterly bonds. I also enjoyed Teal’s rude and feisty grandmother and her Aunt Nadia. They all supported Teal in her journey in their own way.  While this is a separate romance, I still think it’s best to read the previous book as you get Teal and the sister’s history.

4 Stars

Book Description:

Gifted—or cursed—with the power to influence the weather, one woman must embrace her wild heart in the next electric romance from the author of Witch of Wild Things.

Teal Flores is desperate for two things—control over her gift of weather, and a date to her ex’s wedding. The first isn’t possible until she finds her long-lost mother, but the second has a very handsome last-ditch solution: Carter Velasquez.

Carter needs Teal too. His chance at receiving an inheritance is dependent on him being married by age thirty (blame his traditional Cuban grandmother), so who better to pose as his wife than Teal? But fake marriage and cohabitation prove tricky when mutual attraction charges the atmosphere—quite literally for Teal, whose volatile emotions cause lightning strikes.

Together, Teal and Carter embark on a quest to find her mother and the answers she’s searching for. But along the way, they’ll discover something even better: a love that can weather any storm.

Audiobook Review: The Night We Lost Him by Laura Dave

 

The Night We Lost Him by Julia Whelan

Publication Date: September 17th 2024 by Simon & Schuster Audio

Pages: 298

Audio Book Length: 7hrs 48min

Narrator: Julia Whelan

Source: Publisher

Rating: ★★★★

Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Libro.fm |  Audible | Goodreads

My Thoughts:

The Night We Lost Him was more fiction with a bit of mystery, but engrossing even so.

 

I don’t get why Liam and Corey just didn’t get together years earlier. What was stopping them? Not anything that was explained properly, in my opinion. The chapters set in the past were my least favorite part of the story. I was more invested in Nora and her brother Sam’s present-day mission to discover what actually happened to their father the night of his death. Both are at a crossroads personally and I enjoyed them connecting over their shared grief and sorting out their futures together.

 

There is one twist that caught me off guard, and I had to re-listen to the spot just to make sure I was hearing right before it all came together.

 

I did enjoy the sound of all the places, décor and aesthetics mentioned. From Santa Ynez/Central Coast California to the neighborhoods in New York. What Sam’s girlfriend wanted to do to that gorgeous Brownstone was a crime!

 

Julia Whelan’s excellent audio performance enhanced my enjoyment for sure!  

4 Stars

Book Description:

Estranged siblings discover their father has been keeping a secret for over fifty years, one that may have been fatal...

Liam Noone was many things to many people. To the public, he was an exacting, self-
made hotel magnate fleeing his past. To his three ex-wives, he was a loving albeit distant family man who kept his finances flush and his families carefully separated. To Nora, he was a father who often loved her from afar – notably a cliffside cottage perched on the California coast from which he fell to his death.   

The authorities rule the death accidental, but Nora and her estranged brother Sam have other ideas. As Nora and Sam form an uneasy alliance to unravel the mystery, they start putting together the pieces of their father’s past—and uncover a family secret that changes everything.

With Laura Dave’s trademark combination of soulful suspense and evocative family drama, The Night We Lost Him is a riveting page-turner with a heartbreaking final twist you’ll never see coming.

Sunday Post #269

 

The Sunday Post is hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated reviewer book blog, and is a post to recap my bookish and non-bookish things from the last week. I'm also linking up to The Sunday Salon hosted by Deb Nance @Readerbuzz.

Got home from Montana last Sunday and didn't rest until I unpacked and got the laundry going, which is my usual routine when I come home from a trip unless it's super late. I got my flu shot yesterday. My arm was sore all night and I went to bed at 9pm because I was so tired.

I don't think I've mentioned, but we we've been feeding three stray/feral cats that've been hanging around our house since the spring. There was a small gray tabby. She ended up having two kittens we didn't know about until they were maybe 2 months old. We just knew momma cat was super hungry all the time. Well, the three (mom and her two babies) have pretty much become our cats. The mom is still super skittish, but the babies, which I figure are about six months now, are a lot more friendly, playful and super cute!  It's a boy and girl, which I've named Smokey and Starla:

Starla with brother on the side

Smokey & Starla playing, as usual

I was able to finally pet Smokey this morning, which is progress! I need to be able to catch them, take them to the vet to get their shots, and get them spayed and neutered. Peanut's not too pleased with them. He used to chase them off and got into a scuffle with the mom cat a couple of months ago, but he's getting used to them. We'll see what happens. 

It was cold and rained the first part of the week and it even dropped to 32 degrees Thursday night! And the frost got several of my zinnias.

 

Picked a bunch of zinnias before the frost

It warmed up to high 70s today and it's supposed to stay that way for a while. 

Read:

(Click on cover for Goodreads link)

One Little Mistake by Lucinda Berry-2 Stars

An Instruction in Shadow by Benedict Jacka-4.5 Stars

The Specimen by Jaima Fixsen-5 Stars

One Little Mistake was a short story/novella included with the Audible membership that I downloaded a while back and never got to. An okay story with a disappointing ending. An Instruction in Shadow was excellent and left me wanting the next story asap! The Specimen was really good! Historical mystery/thriller with a bit of paranormal to it.

Received:

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and Blackstone Publishing!

Instagram:

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3 Book Giveaway! Romance, Fantasy, YA Thriller

 Happy Saturday! I'm getting ready to plant a bunch of bulbs, but before I did that I wanted to post this 3 Book Giveaway:

Cold Curses (Heirs of Chicagoland #5) by Chloe Neill-Paperback

Under the Surface by Diana Urban-Hardcover

Love and Other Conspiracies by Mallory Marlowe

The Giveaway is open to US Residents only. Fill out the rafflecopter for a chance to win! Good luck!

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