Tag: overdrive

Friday YA: Save the Date by Morgan Matson

Taking place over one weekend, Save the Date explores the relationships of the Grant family as seen through the eyes of the youngest daughter, Charlie. As one of five children, Charlie has really looked forward to her oldest sister Linnea’s wedding at their family home this weekend. It will be the first time her whole family has been together in the last year and a half and she misses them horribly.  Of course, nothing goes as planned and Charlie’s envisioned family reunion does not go as planned.

Charlie’s mother is being honored for the retirement of the comic strip she has created and written through Charlie’s entire life. The antics of the kids in the comic strip mirrored the antics of her own children. This weekend wedding opens up Charlie’s eyes to the fact that some of her own memories are actually memories of things that happened in the comic strip and not exactly as it happened in real life. This awareness of what actually had been changes Charlie’s visions of what her future could be helping her make some decisions that she had been postponing.

I found this novel so refreshing because it was about a whole family. There was such a huge cast of characters to keep track of, but in the center of it all was Charlie, who seemed to be the one that grounded everyone. I don’t mean to give her more importance than her older siblings, but they all had flaws and Charlie’s only flaw seemed to be that she had glorified their family but in my own experience I think seeing everyone for who they are is actually a part of growing up. Even though this novel took place over a weekend, Charlie grew up a lot.

I enjoyed this novel a lot. It was an easy read with a lot of humor. This families antics actually reminded me a bit of my own family and I wonder if everyone who reads it won’t see a bit of themselves in one of these characters. There are a lot to choose from, after all! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Click this link to purchase*! Save the Date

Copyright 2018 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

*Amazon Associate

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This Chick Read: Scandal Above Stairs (A Below Stairs Mystery #2) by Jennifer Ashley

When Kat’s employer asks for her help in solving the disappearance of some artwork from her friends home, Kat discovers there are a series of thefts occuring in the upper echelons of society. While investigating she is surprised to find her friend (and love interest) Daniel McAdams ensconced in a pawn shop fencing stolen goods. When a man turns up dead in his shop Kat ends up investigating more than stolen goods and once again finds herself in the drawing rooms of the elite, when all she wants is to be quietly cooking in her kitchen.

This series takes place at the turn of the century in London, in a time where upstairs downstairs lines are drawn severely. As the head cook responsible for feeding not only the family that lives there, but the 20 or so servants who work in that house, I am amazed that Kat can find the time to investigate the crimes she finds herself embroiled in. A couple of months have passed since the previous novel and she has not heard a word from Daniel. When she finds him at the center of her investigation, she’s pretty relieved and we see how much she is starting to care for him. The mystery that is Daniel McAdams is slowly being unveiled, but we still don’t know exactly who he is working for, but I’ll admit to loving his roguish charm and the twinkle in his eye as he makes Kat forget she’s mad at him.

This mystery was very well plotted out, but it’s the characters that keep me coming back to these novels. As I learn more about them, I care more about how their lives are enmeshed and I’ll admit that I find it fascinating to read about the lives of the servants in a big London house. It’s very Mansfield Park, although not as boring. LOL.

If you love historical mysteries and haven’t read the first novel Death Below Stairs, please read it! These are not lively books, but the mysteries are very good and Jennifer Ashley really knows how to write great characters. I know you’ll get caught up in their daily lives and will want to see how all of the relationships will pan out- oh, and you’ll also help catch a killer or two. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Death Below Stairs

Click this link to purchase!* Scandal Above Stairs (A Below Stairs Mystery)

Copyright 2018 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

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Friday YA: The Changeling (Sorcery & Society #1) by Molly Harper

Sarah Smith thought herself unmagical. After all, she was a Snipe (kind of like a muggle), growing up serving as a maid in the Winters household. Until one day she stops a vase from falling by levitating it.  Suddenly Sarah Smith becomes Cassandra Reed, cousin of the Winter family. Elevated into magical society and sent off to boarding school. Talk about culture shock! Cassandra must hide who she really is, and somehow look as if she’s lived in this world her whole life. If anyone finds out she was once a Snipe, their whole society might crumble. But would that really be a bad thing???

I thought The Changeling was a lot of fun. It didn’t take itself too seriously and I was allowed to enjoy each moment in the story without overthinking the plot. Cassandra was ok as a heroine. She spent the first half of the book in shock and when she finally accepts her role her character started to grow and become interesting. Her experience as a Snipe, living unnoticed among the magical society made her see their world through cynical eyes, although those eyes did not always see things very clearly. I enjoyed the good vs evil sub plot and I was kept guessing on the bad guy.

If you’re jonesing for a quick Harry Potter-esque novel I think you’ll enjoy The Changeling. At times I expected Hermione would walk around the corner of this girls school and join in the fun! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

I was given an ARC of this book through NetGalley for my honest review and it was honest!

The Changeling.jpg

Click this link to purchase!*Changeling: (Sorcery and Society Book 1) (Volume 1)

Copyright 2018 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved.

*Amazon Associate

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This Chick Read: Rocky Mountain Cowboy Christmas (Rocky Mountain Cowboys) by Katie Ruggle

Katie Ruggle excels at building fun characters who live on the edge of society. Those oddball characters that are slightly dorky and immediately endear you to them. Camille Brandt has always had trouble talking to people. She second guesses what she should say and do in social situations so tries to avoid them as much as possible. When Steve Springfield moves back to town with his four kids, Camille’s crush from high school immediately blooms again. Watching her face her struggles trying to speak normally made Camille so identifiable. Who hasn’t felt like that at one point in their life? I rooted for her so hard!

You may recognize Steve Springfield from the Search and Rescue series. He’s a firefighter and was always in the story but on the peripheral. It was so nice to get to know him and all of his kids! I know the Rocky Mountain Cowboy series will probably be about all of Steve’s brothers, but I want some YA books about Steve’s kids. They were so fun and unusual. Zoe is an inventor- blowing things up occasionally, Micah is the hermit artist, Will the adopted joyful oldest son, and Maya the youngest and sweetest little thing. Seriously these kids rocked and need their own stories!

Rocky Mountain Cowboy Christmas was a great start to this series. Katie Ruggle has proven herself again with some great characters, a solid love story, and of course she throws in just a hint of danger adding that tension that works so well in her novels. This was my first Christmas novel of the year and even though we are only approaching October, I was in the Christmas spirit right away.

❤️❤️❤️❤️❣️

I was given an ARC of this novel for my honest review and it was honest!

Rocky Mountain

Click this link to purchase!* Rocky Mountain Cowboy Christmas (Rocky Mountain Cowboys)

Copyright 2018 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

*Amazon Associate

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This Chick Read: The Hot Shot (Game On #4) by Kristen Callihan

Chess Copper is photographing players from her local pro football team naked for their annual charity calendar. Tough job but someone’s got to do it! When she meets Finn, the QB for the team there is instant chemistry, but a miscommunication gets their relationship off on the wrong foot. As she tries to make him more comfortable with the shoot, she see’s that he’s actually just a bit nervous and through their conversation realizes that behind that pretty face is a really nice guy that she might want to get to know better. There’s one problem. Chess is looking for a relationship and Finn is a no strings attached kind of guy…at first.

I loved the slow build up of Chess and Finn’s friendship. I am a firm believer in being friends before becoming lovers and Kristen Callihan hit that trigger for me. Finn is a self described one night stand man and even though Chess finds him attractive she determinedly put him in the hands off category and Finn has his work cut out for him to make her see him in another light. When tragedy hits and Chess needs a place to stay their close quarters help speed things along from friendship into love.

It’s been a couple of years since I’ve read one of the Game On books, but when a couple of characters showed up in this novel I could easily remember their story. It helped a bit that this novel’s timeline paralleled Dex and Fiona’s from the Game Plan. It was kind of fun to listen to Dex talk about his budding relationship when we already knew how that relationship turned out.

If you are a fan of this series you will like The Hot Shot. Was it my favorite? No, I still like The Game Plan the best. However, I liked Finn and Chess together and really rooted for them to find their happily ever after and was happy when they did.

❤️❤️❤️❤️

The Hot Shot

Click this link to purchase! The Hot Shot

Copyright 2018 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

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This Chicks Sunday Commentary: Uppercase Box September ‘18 Reveal!

Last week was the week that I received my surprise YA novel in the mail from Uppercase Box. I love coming home to that package sitting on my doorstep!

This month it looked kind of bulky which means it was filled with fun bookish items!

I found out that what made the extra padding in the Uppercase bag was this gorgeous cotton scarf. I love all of the stacks of books although they aren’t as large as my own TBR!

The other items in the bag are all related to the book, so Unfortunately that shortens my big reveal. Oh well, here is the book of the month!

Ignite the Stars by Maura Milan- signed!

Synopsis:

Everyone in the universe knows his name. Everyone in the universe fears him. But no one realizes that notorious outlaw Ia Cocha is a seventeen-year-old girl.

A criminal mastermind and unrivaled pilot, Ia has spent her life terrorizing the Olympus Commonwealth, the imperialist nation that destroyed her home. When the Commonwealth captures her and her true identity is exposed, they see Ia’s age and talent as an opportunity: by forcing her to serve them, they will prove that no one is beyond their control.

Soon, Ia is trapped at the Commonwealth’s military academy, desperately plotting her escape. But new acquaintances—including Brinn, a seemingly average student with a closely-held secret, and their charming Flight Master, Knives—cause Ia to question her own alliances. Can she find a way to escape the Commonwealth’s clutches before these bonds deepen?

In this exhilarating edge-of-your-seat sci-fi adventure—perfect for fans of The Lunar Chronicles—debut author Maura Milan introduces our world to a thrilling new heroine.

What a colorful box! I’ll admit this book hadn’t been on my radar at all but I like science fiction and it looks interesting!

Have any of you read this book? What did you think?

Thanks for reading my reveal!

Deb

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Friday YA: Listen to Your Heart by Kasie West

Kate Bailey doesn’t really like people. OK, let me clarify. She doesn’t dislike them, she’s just kind of a loner. She’d rather be out on the lake then with a group of people, unless they are lake people. When her best friend Alana talks her into taking a podcast class at school, she agree’s half-heartedly. Their first assignment is to offer one suggestion each for the topic of their class podcast that year. Surprise! Kate’s topic, an advice podcast is the winner and Kate finds herself co-hosting, which is completely at odds with her loner personality. Suprisingly, she finds her caustic sense of humor plays well on air and their podcast becomes a hit and one day a young man calls in asking for advice on a crush….

Our young heroine has a lesson to learn, and in Kate’s it was that there is more out in the world to discover beyond lake life. Even though Kate is kind of loner, she isn’t really because her family is huge. Her parents, aunts and uncles all live on a block together so she’s surrounded by family, cousins et. al at almost all times. So for a loner, she surprisingly is pretty social. When she drives her cousin to her weekly tutoring sessions she gets to know Diego, the boy her best friend is crushing on. As she gets to know him, she develops her own crush. Due to the girl code and first dibs, she doesn’t do anything about it.

I didn’t think this was the best Kasie West novel I’d ever read, but it wasn’t the worst either. I did really enjoy the podcasts, and the supporting characters were energetic and fun. Which was good because Kate was not a ball of energy. She did have a good heart though and in the end, she did learn her life lesson, having fun with the podcast and expanding her horizons. Listen to you Heart was a quick read, so if you have a few hours on a rainy Saturday it will be the perfect book to spend your time.

❤️❤️❤️❤️

LIsten to Your Heart

Click this link to purchase!* Listen to Your Heart

Copyright 2018 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

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This Chick Read: The Seven 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

You are dropped into the body of a series of seven strangers and told that unless you solve the mystery of who killed Evelyn Hardcastle, you are doomed to relive this day, in these bodies, over and over until you or someone else answers that question. Interesting premise, right? As our hero inhabits each person we learn a little bit more about him, as well as the person he’s inhabiting and how all of the people in this book are connected. It’s a mystery within a mystery and whether our main character solves this mystery or loses his memories to start anew again keeps me reading until the end!

The first couple of characters our hero inhabits and the people he comes in contact with are really interesting. It took me a little while to catch on to what kind of mystery I was reading, but once I realized that every person was a clue, I started to pay more attention to the details of what was not only going on with our hero, but also the other characters in the book. As each person goes to sleep, he pops into another person starting another day seeing through their eyes. I thought one of the most interesting bits about how this mystery played out was that our hero had to dominate the personality of each person he inhabited. Over time, it became easier for the other personality to overcome him making his job of using that character to move forward to solve the mystery more challenging. As the day wore on and the approach of Evelyn’s death was closer, the characters became more demonic and terrifying in personality.

This was a very well thought out mystery! How did the author keep track of all of these characters timelines, intertwine them and still make it all cohesive? Truly, the skill involved was pretty amazing. I will admit a couple of the characters were duds for me, and I sped through their scenes a little quicker than I’d normally like in a mystery novel, I usually savor the details. However, the resolution of this mystery was satisfying, fascinating, and felt true to the characters I’d just spent days reading and getting to know. I’m willing to forgive a little slowness in the middle for that feeling of satisfaction and resolution at the end. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

I was given an ARC of this novel through NetGalley by the publisher for their honest review, and it was honest!

Seven Deaths

Click this link to purchase!* The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

Copyright 2018 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

*Amazon Associate

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This Chick Read: A Murder in Time (Kendra Donovan #1) by Julie McElwain

Our heroine Kendra Donovan is an FBI profiler. She is on the task force that is taking down two drug kingpins when she finds out her team was undermined from the inside, men on her team killed, and one of the criminals goes free.  Kendra goes rogue and decides to take care of this criminal herself. She tracks him down to a castle in England but before she can kill him she gets thrown back in time to the 1800’s where another murder quickly takes place. Is this the reason why she has traveled through time?

Another book blogger wrote about being excited that the third novel is coming out soon and made me curious enough to look this one up. THANK YOU! I’m sorry I can’t remember who you are, but this was a fabulous recommendation! A time traveler mystery is a bit of a stretch but this author set it up so well. Kendra was a child prodigy and is quite young, only in her early 20’s when she gets thrown back in time. Thank goodness because she’s not seen as an old maid. She is briefly thrown by the time traveling, but kind of rolls with it hoping she can find her way home again. It does help that the Duke whose castle she finds herself in was progressive and a scientist of sorts and is fascinated by this brilliant young woman. When the first young woman shows up dead Kendra puts her profiler skills to work and the Duke puts his societal standing behind her giving her gravitas, and allows her to investigate. I love it when a woman enthralls men with her intelligence instead of her beauty!

A Murder in Time is part mystery with a hint of romance. The Duke is not Kendra’s romantic partner, but instead it’s his nephew that she ensnares. The tension between the two of them is intense but really the story revolves around solving the mystery of who among their peers is the killer. This novel held my interest and truly I didn’t want to put it down.

If you love a good mystery and don’t mind a little time traveling, then please pick up this book! I do not think you’ll be disappointed. The great news is that the second is available in book stores and the third is being released soon. Yeah! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

A Murder

Click this link to purchase*! A Murder in Time: A Novel (Kendra Donovan Mysteries)

Copyright 2018 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

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This Chick Read: The Hurricane by R.J. Prescott

Emily is working double shifts to make money to finish her education. Waiting tables does not come easy as Emily is so shy she can barely speak to her customers, but one cantankerous old man breaches her silence and they become unlikely friends. Through this friendship he offers her a job as the bookkeeper at his gym. A job that requires her to hold her own among a group of rowdy young men. One of those men is up and coming fighter Cormac “The Hurricane” O’Connell. He has had his eye on this sweet quiet waitress and when she lands in his path he makes every effort to be her friend.

This novel really surprised me. The cover fooled me, making me think this novel would be all “romance”. It was more of a slow burn novel. These characters were from the wrong side of the tracks, so there was some coarse language, but the pace of the novel was slow and easy, just as you’d imagine a guy like O’Connell would have to be to approach a girl like Emily. He eased his way into her heart which made this novel different and kept me engaged.

There was also some seriousness to the reasons why Emily was so gun shy. She came from an abusive background, which made her falling for O’Connell kind of unrealistic, but again, the pace of the story made me overlook that fact. As she began to trust him, I did too. He wasn’t really the hard ass he portrayed himself to be.

Another aspect of this story that I really liked was her relationship to the gym owner Danny. Although a grumpy character he was really the father she always wanted and their little one on one scenes were sweet, really adding to the depth of Emily’s character.

If you are looking for a sports romance with character depth and heart, this is a great fit. I have not read a novel by R.J. Prescott previously and didn’t have any expectations, so I was pleasantly surprised that The Hurricane had the depth and emotional impact of a Kristen Callihan or J.T. Geissinger novel. I really enjoyed this discovery and look forward to reading more. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

The Hurricane

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Copyright 2018 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

I am an Amazon associate and will receive a small stipend if you purchase this novel through the above link.

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