Author: Liz Fenton

Review Round Up | Before the Devil Breaks You, The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, and The Good Widow

Posted October 30, 2019 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! Because of a REALLY FUN SPOILER IN THE *FIRST SENTENCE* OF THE KING OF CROWS SUMMARY, I knew something major was going to happen in this book… and I wasn’t going to like it. I was on high alert the entire time, so nervous for my sweet baby Diviners. My ships were sailing and thriving, so it was only a matter of time before something went terribly wrong. There’s a whole other book for Libba Bray to fuck us up with after this one!!! I digress – this is obviously the third installment in this series, and is quite easily my favorite. I loved the first two but this book just hit even harder. There were a lot of things going on and plates spinning that left me wondering how things would turn out or connect. We’re slowly learning more about more about Project Buffalo and everything related to it – the King of Crows, the visions that people see/dream about, and some more history for our characters and their families. Straight up though, Libba Bray is masterful. A paranormal story set in the 1920s is somehow a perfect parallel to what’s currently happening in our country in 2019. It’s insane how she pulls this off. I’d […]

Review Round Up | Girls’ Night Out, Maybe This Time, and Past Perfect Life

Posted October 9, 2019 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! Backlist Review I’m glad that my adult fiction book club is making me read backlist Kindle books I’ve purchased! I’ve been really trying to get more into actually *reading* the adult mystery/thrillers I put on my TBR. The premises always excite me and then they sit and stew, never getting read. Anyways, GIRLS NIGHT OUT features Natalie, Ashley, and Lauren, as they “enjoy” a friendship-saving (hopefully) trip to Mexico. The book alternates between their points of view in the present and Ashley’s in the past, because she goes missing at the start of the book. Overall, this book was broadly fine? I was usually in the mood to read it, once I got going, but it it wasn’t necessarily unputdownable. I couldn’t keep ANY of the characters straight for the life of me. I also feel like the book specifically leads you to believe something happened so obviously that’s not what ACTUALLY happened. I also thought the “secrets” they were hiding from each other were pretty transparent. I couldn’t suspend my disbelief at times either – these ladies are 40 years old and one of them blindly trusts a stranger she meets in Mexico after two minutes? This trip was organized for them to reconnect but instead […]

Late ARC Review: The Year We Turned Forty

Posted September 14, 2016 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments

Initial Excitement Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke have been on my list for so long. The plot summaries of their books ALWAYS intrigue me but I haven’t been able to prioritize reading them yet. When I got approved for this one, I knew I had to read it as soon as I could. In this case, ARC August was the perfect time to get it done! I love books about parallel lives and time travel, and this one was a fun combination of both, kind of. Summary in a Second Three friends (Gabriela, Claire, and Jessie) are approached by a magician who offers to send them back in time to when they were 40. They can live the entire year all over again and change how they once handled things. Then, when the year is up, they have to decide to either stay in 2005 and live their “new” lives, or come back to 2015 and continue with their “old” lives. All three have to agree on staying there in order to stay, otherwise they all come back to 2015. Sooooo cool. Like I said, sort of a mix of parallel lives and time travel… but still very much a contemporary fiction/romance book! Storytelling & Setting Because I loved the concept behind this one, I was super eager to see how the story unfolded. I’ll admit that it was all pretty predictable for me. The girls were very obvious about what they’d change in their new 40th year. The pacing was a […]