Book Review: The Beholder by Anna Bright

Selah, Seneschal-elect of Potomac is publically rejected by Peter, her childhood friend. Since she hasn’t gotten engaged. Her stepmother sends her on a ship across the Atlantic to meet a few potential suitors and if she does not return home engaged, then she shouldn’t return at all.

The characters in this novel are definitely a different bunch. There are quite a few so I’m just going to talk about my favorite ones.

Selah is heartbroken that Peter has rejected her. She had feelings for him and thought that they would have their happily ever after. Now she has to leave the only home she has ever known and she has to leave her father, who looks as if he is getting sick.

Lang is the captain of the ship. He is Selah’s age and has the job because he was the only one who was willing to travel to a dangerous part of the country. He seems to really care about what happens to Selah as well. I really like him and I’m kind of hoping that she falls in love with him!

Perrault tries to dictate what Selah will do and wear. He tries to make her take finishing lessons and is disgusted when she starts to wash dishes after dinner. There is something about this guy that I don’t really like. Why does he care so much if she takes a husband? It doesn’t have anything to do with his life so I’m thinking he might not be a good guy in the end.

I love the settings of the book. We get to travel right along with The Beholder crew. In this book we just get to see England and Norge but I’m sure there will be even more places we visit in the next two books. I always love when books take me to places that I’ve never been.

England is the first stop. Here Selah’s suitor is Prince Bertilak. This one was a bit of a surprise for me. I didn’t really think she would have feelings for someone so quickly after Peter broke her heart but she did. Although I do think that her feelings were real, she also only has two weeks with him and she really wants to get home to her sick father. She also wants to find love with one of the first two stops, because the third place she is scheduled to visit is suppose to be a highly dangerous area.

Norge is the second stop and Selah’s suitor is Torden, he’s a Prince who is fifth in line for the throne. I really like Torden. He was athletic and seemed strong willed. He cared about his fee family and I think that he really took an interest in Selah. I love how they spent time together and their time together ended too soon. I would definitely be okay if she ended up with Torden instead of Lang, although there is definitely something undiscovered there!

The romances are sweet but very hurried because Selah only has two weeks with each suitor. I loved her romance in England. There were a couple of surprises, one I suspected but one that I did not. Her romance in Norge was even better. I loved Torden and how their relationship progressed. There were a few surprises that happened here and most of them I was surprised by. Now I also have to mention Lang. Although there was no romance between Lang and Selah, I feel like they definitely have a connection. I think Lang has feelings for her and one day Selah will realize she has feelings for him too and then BAM, at least I hope so!

As for Selah’s father and step mother. Things are not quite right here. Her father isn’t doing well and I’m pretty sure it has something to do with his wife. Alessandra doesn’t like Selah, that much is clear. It’s her idea to send her off, and she basically tells her not to return if she doesn’t get engaged. She already had a ship and crew ready to go the very next morning. I think she’s hoping Selah will be lost at sea or maybe killed. One of the places she is meant to visit is suppose to be dangerous and she doesn’t want to go there. I know that there is so much more to the story and I can’t wait to find out more secrets in the next book.

Quickly, I just want to mention Peter. I think the reason for his rejection is because of Alessandra. She threatened him or his family to get him to reject the proposal, I just know it.

The ending was so good. Some secrets did come out but I know that there are so many more to come and I can’t wait. I gave The Beholder 5 stars and definitely recommend it.

Keep reading…Lola

Book Review: Sea Witch Rising by Sarah Henning

This review will have spoilers if you haven’t read Sea Witch.

Sea Witch Rising is the sequel to Sea Witch and takes place about fifty years after Sea Witch ends.

Evie is still living in her cave under the sea, and mermaid Alia has just traded her voice to the Sea Witch for the chance to win the love of the prince she saved and to become human. Runa, Alia’s twin sister won’t let her sister die so she makes a deal of her own. With a war between land and sea brewing, what will Evie and Runa do for freedom and to protect the ones that they love?

The first book was more of an Ursula orgin story and this book is more of a Little Mermaid retelling. I loved every bit of it.

I loved seeing Evie again. She was one of my favorite characters from the first book. I loved that we got to see her before she became the Sea Witch and I love even more that we get to see her as the Sea Witch in this book. I still don’t feel like we are seeing the Ursula that we know and love so I think there is going to be one more book eventually.

I loved Runa. She was so fierce and strong. She was willing to do whatever she had to in order to save her twin sister. I loved seeing her come into her own on land and take charge of her life. She had some things that she had to deal with throughout the novel but those things made her all that much stonger.

I loved that Prince Niklas was the grandson of Nik from the first book. It was nice that we had that tie to the first book.

Will was the Nik of this book in my opinion. I loved him so much and I love how great he was with Runa. I was really rooting for a romance between Will and Runa from the very beginning.

Sofie was a character that I love to hate. At one point she was kind of smart to Alia and I hated her for it, but then later in the book she does things that help everyone out and it makes me change my mind about her. She really became a character that I enjoyed, at times she was even funny.

Agatta and Alia are both characters that I can’t say much about because there would be too many spoilers but I will say that I disliked one character and the other I wish had turned out different.

The romance in this book isn’t as prominate as it was in Sea Witch. There was definitely alot more kissing in the first book! There was some romance towards the end and I absolutely loved it.

I enjoyed the two perspectives of the book. We get Evie’s view and what’s going on under the sea and then we also get Runa’s view of what’s happening on land.

I loved everything about being under the sea. The descriptions were beautiful and I felt like I was right there with them. The war brewing between land and sea was described beautifully, I could fully imagine a major rain storm and flood on the land.

The ending was so perfect. The conclusion to what was happening under the sea was exactly what I had hoped. Where bad things happened so many other good things happened as well. The way things ended on land was so perfect. Everything was as it should be and I loved the ending so much.

I highly recommend this book but definitely read Sea Witch first. I gave Sea Witch Rising 5 stars.

Keep reading…Lola

July SpearCraft Book Box: Fly Free

This is my unboxing for the July SpearCraft Book Box. Enjoy!

This is the spoiler card and the theme was Fly Free.

Two inspirational quote notebooks by @weareooly. These are some of my favorite things to get in this box. I use these little notebooks to keep all of my blog ideas and to write down photo challenges. I love these so much.

Enamel pin inspired by Six Of Crows from @spearcraftbookbox.

Close up of the pin.

2 wooden engraved coasters inspired by Three Dark Crowns & An Ember In The Ashes from @spearcraftbookbox. I love these.

Close up of the wooden coaster with a quote from Three Dark Crowns. “It would be sweet to be cared for despite her faults, and to be wanted for her person rather than the power she comes with.”

Close up of the wooden coasters with the quote from An Ember In The Ashes. “You are an ember in the ashes. Elias Veturius. You will spark and burn. savage and destroy. You cannot change it. You cannot stop it.”

Wooden engraved book quote bookmark by @spearcraftbookbox.

Vinyl and weatherproof Game Of Thrones inspired stickers.

SpearCraft Book Box sticker.

The Princess Bride inspired soy candle with real wooden wick that crackles. This As You Wish candle is scented in sparkling citrus, pineapple, papaya, mango, and coconut from @spearcraftbookbox. This smells absolutely amazing!

The book this month was The Merciful Crow by Margaret Owen. I was hoping this was the book because this was the one that I was the most interested in for July.

We also got a signed bookplate and letter from the author.

The letter from @what_eats_owl.

That’s what came in the July SpearCraft Book Box. I have not read any of these books, I have watched Game Of Thrones though and I loved everything that came in this box. Definitely give this box a try if you haven’t already.

Keep reading…Lola

Book Review: The Turn Of The Key by Ruth Ware

Rowan takes a job as a live-in nanny and at the start of the book, she is in prison for the murder of one of the children she was watching.

I loved Rowan. She was one of those characters that you could see yourself in. She got frustrated and angry. She got scared and she also had fun. One of my favorite scenes is when she jumps in the muddy puddles to make baby Petra laugh.

There was a little bit of romance but it definitely wasn’t the focus of the story and it happened towards the end of the book which I liked. I love when there is some romance in thrillers, but I get so annoyed when there is more romance than mystery. I liked Jack. He was actually my prime suspect as soon as he was introduced!

I loved the creepiness of this novel. There were noises, missing things, things coming on and knocks with nobody there. There was also the setting of the novel which took place at the house which is in the middle of nowhere surrounded by woods and a locked garden. Nevermind the creepy backstory of the previous owners. So creepy and I enjoyed every minute of it. I stayed up until 1am so that I could finish this book because I had to know what happened.

I enjoyed the children. Maddie is eight and she’s a bit of a brat. Ellie is five and follows Maddie around even though she wants to like Rowan and be good for her. Petra is a year and a half and she’s such a cute and funny little toddler, she really was such a great addition to the story. Rhiannon is fourteen and when she comes into the picture she is a mouthy firecracker and you begin to see where Maddie gets it from. I also suspected two of these children of being the culprit as well. That was so fun.

The kids parents Bill and Sandra were weird in my opinion. Sandra came off as this uptight woman but also very protective of the children and Bill was this creepy old man who didn’t seem to care about his family at all. They gave me weird vibes and at different points in the novel, they were on my list of suspects.

Also on my list of suspects was the housekeeper, Jean. She seemed to not like Rowan the minute she met her and she was always rude whenever she was around. I thought maybe she was one of those jealous crazy ladies who wanted the family for herself.

The ending was incredible. The child that was murdered turned out to not be the one that I thought it was going to be. You don’t find out who the child is until almost the end. The events surrounding her death surprising and who committed the murder was also a surprise to me too. The biggest surprise was definitely the very end. What happened?! It was kind of an open ended ending which surprised me because Ruth Ware’s endings usually have a clear conclusion but this one didn’t. I both loved it and wished that it would have had a prologue or something so we could know what happened maybe even a few days later. I was thinking about that ending for days after I finished reading it.

This was another great thriller by Ruth Ware and I can’t say enough good things about it. I highly recommend that you check it out if you haven’t already, especially if you are a fan of thrillers. I gave this 5 stars, obviously.

Keep reading…Lola

Book Review: The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

The time has finally come for me to post a review of this book. This is my all time favorite book and I have reread it multiple times. It has been a few years since I have read it, but for The Reading Rush this year, I decided to finally give the audiobook a try and of course, I LOVED IT!

The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks tells the story of Noah and Allie who meet and fall in love as teenagers in the 1940s. They are separated when Allie’s family returns home and after writing letters for two years that go unanswered, Noah decides he needs to move on. Fourteen years later, after seeing Noah in the newspaper for building his house, Allie decides to leave her fiance at home while she goes to visit Noah in secret. When Noah and Allie meet again, sparks fly and the romance and passion they shared is still there but how can Allie choose one man over the other without someone getting hurt?

The story is told by an old man living in a nursing home with his wife. She has dementia and he reads her the story of Noah and Allie. How they met and fell in love, what happens after Allie leaves and the lives they go on to have in the future.

I adore this love story. It is my favorite book of all time. I enjoyed the movie, but it doesn’t compare to the novel.

Allie and Noah are great characters. They both come from completely different backgrounds but somehow find themselves drawn to each other and they fall in love.

I love the setting of The Notebook. All of the author’s books are set in North Carolina and I want to go there and visit so bad. It’s definitely on my bucket list.

The romance is so beautiful. First love is so intense and powerful. I feel like you never love another like you do your first love. I know you can fall in love over and over again, but I also don’t think that it ever compares to the first time. You can fall in love many times but you can never fall in love for the first time twice. That’s what it was like for me and I think most people feel that way.

I was in love with Allie and Noah, I was heartbroken when they had to go their separate ways, I felt the pain of losing Allie right along with Noah, but I also felt the emotion and passion when Allie and Noah reconnected fourteen years later. To still feel those intense feelings all those years later is incredible. It wasn’t just the physical part of their relationship, it was the emotional part as well.

I also loved the older couple. You could feel the love that they shared during their life together. The way the man talks about his wife and their history, it hurts your heart but makes it happy all at the same time. It’s so sad to think that his wife can’t remember him and their life together. After so much love and happiness, it was all just taken away by a horrible disease.

The ending was perfect. Some people were surprised by it and others saw it coming. I had suspicions the first time I read it but wasn’t positive. I think the novel ended the way it was suppose to and it was absolutely beautiful.

Obviously I think everyone should read this book and I recommend it to everyone who asks me for a book suggestion. I gave this 5 stars and I know it is a novel that I will be rereading again and again.

Keep reading…Lola

Book Review: Lock Every Door by Riley Sager

Lock Every Door by Riley Sager follows Jules, who has just been cheated on by her boyfriend and layed off from her job. Down on her luck, she accepts a job as an apartment sitter at The Bartholomew, a creepy old apartment building in New York City. The job comes with a strange set of rules and as the days go by, Jules is starting to wonder if the place isn’t really what it seems. After a fellow apartment sitter goes missing. Jules starts to do some digging around and what she finds is even more sinister than she thought.

I am a big fan of Riley Sager’s thrillers. Final Girls is still by far my favorite and I really hope the movie is made soon and I hope that it is a decent adaptation or I am going to be so disappointed.

I loved this group of characters. Jules the protagonist, Ingrid the fellow apartment sitter, Leslie the building manager, Nick the sexy doctor, Dylan the other apartment sitter who helps Jules when things take a turn for the weird, Greta the author who wrote Jules favorite book, Marianne an old woman with a dog, Mr. Leonard who has heart problems and takes the stairs everyday, and Charlie the doorman. Everyone is different but they each bring something to the story.

I absolutely loved the atmosphere of this book. A highly sophisticated and upscale apartment building that turns out to be more sinister than anyone could imagine. I love the settings of Sager’s books.

There was a touch of romance, but like his other books, it was not a dominant part of the book and in fact played such a small part of the story. I love a thriller that has romance but I want that kept as a side story and not the focus of the book.

I loved Jules back story. What happened to her sister and her parents was such a part of Jules that she still kind of relived part of it while staying at The Bartholomew. It was the driving force that made Jules not want to give up on finding the missing apartment sitter.

The mystery surrounding the building wasn’t revealed until the very end, which is usually what happens and it was so worth the wait. At one point, Jules has it figured out. She knows what is going on and who is behind it, but it turns out that it’s not what she thought at all, in fact it’s so much worse. I really didn’t see that ending coming at all and I loved it.

I always find that thrillers are the books that I have the hardest time reviewing because there is always so much that I want to talk about but I don’t want to spoil anything and I feel like what I want to say will give too much away.

I’ll end this review by saying that I definitely recommend that you pick it up especially if you enjoy thrillers. I gave this book 5 stars.

Keep reading…Lola

Book Review: Rise by Ellen Goodlett

This review will contain some spoilers if you haven’t read the first book, Rule.

Rise is the conclusion to Rule, a fantasy Duology by Ellen Goodlett.

Rise picks up where Rule left off. The danger is not over. Secrets are revealed. Lives are changed forever. Decisions are made. Not everyone has a happy ending.

I loved this conclusion and was so satisfied by it for the most part. There were a couple of things that I would have liked to end a different way but it was nothing that made me like the book any less if that makes any sense. I can’t say anything more without spoilers.

Ren. The last we saw her she was drowning in the tub. She makes it out alive, this isn’t a spoiler considering the synopsis talks about the three sisters being closer to the throne! Her love has become engaged to someone else so she is heartbroken. Her secret is out and she is still being threatened and has no idea by who. Ren went through alot in this book. I think she came out stronger as a character and she is definitely my favorite one.

Akeylah is still dealing with the fact that she is the one who cursed her father to die. She continues to look for a cure to save him while at the same time hiding the truth from everyone. She is also still struggling with her growing feelings for her father’s wife. When Akeylah feels as if she has been betrayed, she begins to wonder who she can trust and what she has to do in order to make sure that her secret is never revealed.

Zofi. I liked Zofi’s storyline in this book. I feel like she is the strongest out of the three sisters. I also feel like she is smarter in a lot of ways, especially when it comes to life outside of the kingdom. I think she is really the only one who knows how bad it is and how things need to be changed. I think she is more levelheaded than her sisters.

The magic was still amazing in this book and the world building was incredible. I loved that we got to see some of the other reaches and what it was like there.

The romance in this book was great. I actually loved the romances going on in this one. There was one that I was a little disappointed with just because it was sort of an open ended thing and I would have liked more of a conclusion.

I liked seeing more of Ren and Zofi’s mothers. They were so different, it was kind of shocking knowing that the king was romantic with each of them. I liked that we got a little more back story on the king and his past lovers.

I loved the choice for the next heir, again I’m not going to spoil whether the king lives or dies but even if he does live he would have to pick a successor because he’s not going to live forever. I thought the choice was a good one but it wasn’t the one that I thought it was going to be.

The identity of the blackmailer was a shock to me. I actually had no idea who it could be. I had a couple ideas but they were a little too obvious to me so I was almost positive that I was wrong, and I was. This person was not who I expected and as soon as the girls figured it out, I was just as shocked as them. I was also surprised by how they came to be and what lead to their reasons behind the blackmail.

There were a couple other storylines that had me surprised, but again I can’t go into those because they would definitely spoil the book.

I loved this book, except for a couple of endings that I wish had been different, it was the perfect ending to this duology. I would love to get maybe even a short story in the future just to see where these characters are.

I gave Rise 5 stars and highly recommend it if you enjoy fantasy.

Keep reading…Lola

August TBR

These are the books that I am looking forward to reading in August.

The Beholder by Anna Bright. This is about a girl who sets sail across the Atlantic in order to find a fiance after a childhood friend rejects her families proposal of marriage.

Listen To Your Heart by Kasie West. I’m not really sure what this is about. I think it involves a radio show but it is Kasie West and her books are so cute.

To Kill A Kindgom by Alexandra Christo. This is a retelling of The Little Mermaid I believe.

Also these books come out at the beginning of the month and I have preordered them so I want to read these as well.

Sea Witch Rising by Sarah Henning. This is the sequel to Sea Witch and I can’t wait to continue this story.

The Turn Of The Key by Ruth Ware. I love Ruth Ware and I am so excited about this book. I think this is about a nanny who is in jail for the murder of a child she was watching.

Those are the books that I want to read. There are quite a few coming out this month that I want to read so my TBR might change alot this month but we will see.

Keep reading…Lola

July Wrap Up + The Reading Rush

These are the books that I read in July. I had a pretty good reading month especially with the help of The Reading Rush.

Lock Every Door by Riley Sager. This is a thriller about a woman who takes a job as an apartment sitter in New York City only to find that things are not what they seem. I will have a review up probably next week. 5 stars

Rapunzel And The Vanishing Village by Leila Howland. This is a novel that follows Rapunzel, Eugene, and Cassandra as they go on another adventure and also solve a mystery. This was such a cute story and of course I loved Eugene and his hilarious self. 5 stars

Sadie by Courtney Summers. This is told from two points of view. One follows Sadie in the past looking for her sisters killer and one follows a radio personality a few months later doing a podcast about the now missing sadie. This was a good young adult thriller. I loved how Sadie had a stutter, I really enjoy when characters have something different about them that set them apart from the regular book characters. I didn’t like the ending of this book. We basically know what happens but it is so open ended and you don’t really get full closure. 4 stars

The Odd Sisters by Serena Valentino. This is the sixth book in the villain series. This follows the odd sisters who were introduced in the first book. We learn more about them and their past. We also kind of get a conclusion to the series but I am hoping that we will see more villains in the future. 5 stars

I also participated in The Reading Rush this month and this is what I read for that.

The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. This was for the prompt an author’s first book. I have reread this book so many times but this time I listened to the audiobook and I loved it. I am so in love with these characters and their love story. I am also going to finally put a review of this book up. 5 stars

There’s Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins. This is for the prompt a book title with 5 or more words. This is a young adult thriller that follows a girl with a secret history that she is trying to keep hidden, when the butchered bodies of her classmates start to surface, she wonders if her past is coming back haunt her. I thought this was a really good YA thriller. I enjoyed the romance and I loved that the murder scenes were so much more graphic than I thought they would be. 5 stars

The Witches by Roald Dahl. This was for the prompt a book to movie adaptation. I had this book read to me when I was a kid and I was terrified. It was funny reading it now as an adult. It was definitely a darker book because of the ending but it was still great. The movie was good as well. I had never seen it before and the ending was different from the book and I think I liked it better than the original ending. 5 stars

Tales Of Rapunzel 1: Secrets Unlocked by Kathy McCullough. This was for the prompt book with a purple cover. This is two short stories that are actually episodes of the TV series. 5 stars

Tales Of Rapunzel 2: Opposites Attract by Kathy McCullough. This is for the prompt read a book in the same place the while time. I read in my bed and it followed the same format as the first book. 5 stars

Tales Of Rapunzel 3: Friends And Enemies by Kathy McCullough. This was for the prompt a book with a non-human main character. These two episode stories were about Max and Pascal. 5 stars

Tales Of Rapunzel 4: The Search For The Sundrop by Kathy McCullough & Arianna Rea. This was just a bonus book that I read on the last day because I had finished all the other ones. This was also two episodes of the series and they were just as cute and good as the other ones. 5 stars

The Isle Of The Lost: The Graphic Novel by Melissa De La Cruz, adapted by Robert Venditti, and illustrated by Kat Fajardo. This was for the prompt a book you wanted to read last year but didn’t. This is the graphic novel version of the first novel, which I have not read yet but want to soon. The illustrations were so pretty and I can’ wait to read the novel version. 5 stars

Falling For The Forbidden by Tracy Lorraine. I read this on my Kindle. This is a spin off trilogy of The Falling series that I read a couple months back and this is Ben’s story. We met BJ in Falling For Lucas, I think. He is Declan’s roommate and friend. We learn more about him in the final book Falling For Liam though and I was hoping for his story. This is the first of three books. 5 stars

Rise by Ellen Goodlett. Also I read Rise at the end of June and finished it on July second. I forgot to put it in my June wrap up so I’m just throwing it into my July one. I really enjoyed this conclusion to Rule and a full review will be up next week. 5 stars

That’s what I read in July. I can’t believe it is August already. How did that happen?

Keep reading…Lola