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Book Review: A Delicate Deception by Cat Sebastian

Dec 4, 2019

A Delicate Deception (Regency Imposters #3) by Cat Sebastian

Pages: 384
Publish date: 10 December 2019
Publisher: Avon Impulse
ISBN: 9780062820679
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon UK – Amazon US – Amazon AU

When Amelia Allenby escaped a stifling London ballroom for the quiet solitude of the Derbyshire countryside, the very last thing she wanted was an extremely large, if—she grudgingly admits—passably attractive man disturbing her daily walks. Lecturing the surveyor about property rights doesn’t work and, somehow, he has soon charmed his way into lemon cakes, long walks, and dangerously heady kisses.

The very last place Sydney wished to be was in the shadow of the ruins of Pelham Hall, the inherited property that stole everything from him. But as he awaits his old friend, the Duke of Hereford, he finds himself increasingly captivated by the maddeningly lovely and exceptionally odd Amelia. He quickly finds that keeping his ownership of Pelham Hall a secret is as impossible as keeping himself from falling in love with her.

But when the Duke of Hereford arrives, Sydney’s ruse is revealed and what started out as a delicate deception has become a love too powerful to ignore. Will they let a lifetime of hurt come between them or can these two lost souls find love and peace in each other?

A Delicate Deception:

I received an earc of A Delicate Deception by Cat Sebastian from Avon Impulse via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. This has in no way influenced my thoughts and feelings about the book.

A Delicate Deception was a lot of fun. I’ve been reading a lot of historical romance this year and it’s been fantastic. When I requested it, I didn’t know it was the third book in a series, but that didn’t really matter at all. While I did read the first two books after and certain things made more sense. You don’t need to read the previous book to read this one.

A Delicate Deception follows Amelia Allenby as she escapes everything that London brings to the countryside of Derbyshire. What she didn’t expect was to run into an extremely large man on her morning walks. All she wants to do is be left alone. But even she can admit that Sydney is attractive. He has charmed his way into her life, but Sydney is hiding something that could rune everything between them.

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Amelia was a great female protagonist. A lot of historical fiction seems to have a similar female protagonist, but I don’t hate it. I think that it just fits the time so well, that it works and readers are able to see that. Amelia likes to be by herself. Shunned from society in a way, Amelia likes to be out in the country. Amelia was really easy to get along with in A Delicate Deception. She is smart and just flows off the page. And that made it so much easier to connect with her.

Sydney was also a joy to read. While I didn’t love him as much as Amelia, I had a great time getting to know him. While I wasn’t so crash hot about some of the decisions that he made throughout the novel, I understood why. Sydney had a lot of his plate through the book and he just wanted that little bit of freedom and I think that Amelia gave him that. Sydney was the very typical male in historical fiction. And like I said before, I don’t mind that too much. It fits the time.

The romance aspect of A Delicate Deception was great. I loved the secret kissing and the meetings in the early morning. I have come to love historical romances over the last year, and this is the perfect example of why. There is angst and tension but not too much that got me frustrated waiting for things to happen. Amelia and Sydney are great together and from their first scene, the reader is able to see the connection. The banter between these two was perfect and I loved seeing them slowly fall in love. Image by George James from Pixabay

A Delicate Deception has all the classic historical romance marks. But it also has it’s own twists and that’s what made it really stand out to be. This whole series is about deception and in here, Sydney doesn’t admit who he really is. For the most part, the audience knows nearly everything, and we are just waiting for the pin to drop. And when it did, everything that Amelia and Sydney had is up in the air. The side characters really added another dimension to the novel and tied everything up nicely. They made our protagonists look and feel more human.

I really enjoyed the writing of Cat Sebastian. It flowed nicely and was easy to read. Sometimes I find when reading historical fiction novels, I stumble on words and phrases, but Sebastian was able to have a smooth run. I did go back and read the first two books in the series and I overall really enjoyed them as well. They are fun and I loved the use of deception in those novels as well. Each one was unique and really stood out.

On this note, voice was really well presented in the whole series. I was able to tell who I was with most of the time and each voice didn’t blend with another. In regards to A Delicate Deception, Amelia was a pleasure to be with. She has her own tone that really stood out to me and I really enjoyed that.

Joe Yates

Overall, I really enjoyed A Delicate Deception by Cat Sebastian. It was a fun, heartwarming and such a great historical fiction novel. Amelia and Sydney were pretty adorable together and while I wish there was a little bit more of their relationship at the start, I still really enjoyed them. A Delicate Deception is witty, smart and the perfect read for when you just to melt into a book.

And that is it for this review! Have you read A Delicate Deception by Cat Sebastian? What did you think? Have you read any of the other books in this series? Let’s Chat!

Book Review: The Play by Elle Kennedy

Nov 28, 2019

The Play (Briar U #3)

Pages: 422
Publish date: October 7th, 2019
Publisher: –
ASIN: B07NF2BDFZ
Purchase: Amazon UK – Amazon US – Amazon AU

What I learned after last year’s distractions cost my hockey team our entire season? No more screwing up. No more screwing, period. As the new team captain, I need a new philosophy: hockey and school now, women later. Which means that I, Hunter Davenport, am officially going celibate…no matter how hard that makes things.

But there’s nothing in the rulebook that says I can’t be friends with a woman. And I won’t lie—my new classmate Demi Davis is one cool chick. Her smart mouth is hot as hell, and so is the rest of her, but the fact that she’s got a boyfriend eliminates the temptation to touch her.

Except three months into our friendship, Demi is single and looking for a rebound.

And she’s making a play for me.

Avoiding her is impossible. We’re paired up on a yearlong school project, but I’m confident I can resist her. We’d never work, anyway. Our backgrounds are too different, our goals aren’t aligned, and her parents hate my guts.

Hooking up is a very bad idea. Now I just have to convince my body—and my heart.

The Play:

I received an e-arc of The Play in exchange for an honest review. This has in no way influenced my thoughts and feelings about the book.

I’m not going to lie here, but this is probably my least favourite Elle Kennedy book – and that is really hard to say. In the past, I’ve really enjoyed most of her books, but there was something about The Play that I just couldn’t love.

The Play by Elle Kennedy follows protagonists Hunter Davenport and Demi Davis as they try and navigate a new year at college. Last year distractions cost the ice hockey team their whole season. Now as captain he knows that he has to redeem everything that happened the year before. So he has a plan and that is to focus on hockey and not on women. But all his plans are out the window when he meets Demi. But she has a boyfriend, so everything is going well until they break up and she is looking for a rebound.

Samantha Gades

I really wanted to like The Play, but I just couldn’t get it into like Elle Kennedy’s other novels. It was a combination of reasons that made me like this book less than all her others.

I didn’t have much of a problem with the protagonists, other than the fact that I felt a distance from them. I couldn’t really connect with them at all. Hunter was really interesting to me. Throughout the Briar U series, especially at the start I really enjoyed getting to know him, but as the novels went on and his attitude changed – understandably. I couldn’t like him as much as I wanted too. He acted like a 2-year-old and that just put me off. So being in his head, while he gets over most of the issues, wasn’t the best. It was hard for me to like Hunter like other male protagonists and that really put a sour note on the book for me.

I didn’t have any problems with Demi, but I just could not connect with her. I really wanted to like her, but there was something that was holding me back. Saying this I really enjoyed Demi as a character, she was interesting and engaging. But I couldn’t love her as a protagonist. She just didn’t feel real for me. I felt that she was just someone on a page and really nothing more. I felt very similar about Hunter as well.

Green Chameleon

Because of not being able to connect with characters, it made it really hard to love the romance. While everything was believable, I wasn’t begging them to get together. And while I enjoyed Hunter and Demi together, again I just felt very separated from it all and wasn’t able to connect with it. In saying this, I did find it adorable and I did like them together. I felt like they fit one another and they really worked well together.

One of the things that I did like about the romance was that they started out as friends. That is always something that I love having in my romance books. It just makes everything more relatable and real.

Another problem that I had with The Play, was that it was too long. It was over 400 pages, and for a romance book, that took some out of me. I love long books, but I feel that romance books that exceed that 350 mark, takes a lot out of the reader. I kept on wondering when the book was going to end. Because of all this, it made reading the book less enjoyable.

Alejandra Quiroz

The Play by Elle Kennedy was okay. I didn’t hate it by any means. But compared to her other books, this is very low on my list. I really wanted to like it, but I was just left disappointed. I think if I hadn’t read many of Elle Kennedy’s books before, I wouldn’t feel the way I do. But I really do enjoy Elle Kennedy’s books.

Overall, The Play was okay. I really wish that I could have liked it more, but it was a miss for me. I wasn’t able to connect with both protagonists as I would have normally liked. And this made it hard for me to like the romance. I just felt like there was something missing. It was an okay addition to the series and Elle Kennedy’s world and I did like reading it. Hopefully, I will love Elle Kennedy’s book a lot more.

Book Review: House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig

Nov 18, 2019

House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig

Pages: 416
Publish date: August 6th, 2019
Publisher: Penguin Australia – Bantam Juvenile US
ISBN: 9780593120934
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon UK – Amazon US – Amazon AU – QBD

In a manor by the sea, twelve sisters are cursed.

Annaleigh lives a sheltered life at Highmoor, a manor by the sea, with her sisters, their father, and stepmother. Once they were twelve, but loneliness fills the grand halls now that four of the girls’ lives have been cut short. Each death was more tragic than the last—the plague, a plummeting fall, a drowning, a slippery plunge—and there are whispers throughout the surrounding villages that the family is cursed by the gods.

Disturbed by a series of ghostly visions, Annaleigh becomes increasingly suspicious that the deaths were no accidents. Her sisters have been sneaking out every night to attend glittering balls, dancing until dawn in silk gowns and shimmering slippers, and Annaleigh isn’t sure whether to try to stop them or to join their forbidden trysts. Because who—or what—are they really dancing with?

When Annaleigh’s involvement with a mysterious stranger who has secrets of his own intensifies, it’s a race to unravel the darkness that has fallen over her family—before it claims her next.

House of Salt and Sorrows:

When I read the synopsis for this one, I knew that I had to read it. Retelling and reimaginations are always books that I look out for each year. And this 12 dancing princess’ sounded just my thing. It did take me a little while to pick House of Salt and Sorrows up after I brought it and I have no idea why. Because as soon as I picked it up, I feel in love with the writing, the characters, and the story.

House of Salt and Sorrows follows Annaleigh as she tries to navigate the world, where people she loves just keep on dying. From her sisters to her mother, people say that the family is cursed. And slowly Annaleigh starts to believe in too. With her sisters dancing all through the night, Annaleigh doesn’t know if she wants to join them or not. Then she meets a mysterious stranger and things start to change even more. But will Ananleigh find out why she keeps on losing her sisters before it’s too late?

Ravi Pinisetti

Annaleigh was such an interesting character in House of Salt and Sorrows and I really enjoyed getting to know her throughout the novel. Annaleigh while quite innocent has gone through hell. She has lost her mother as well as sisters and everything in life is falling apart. She is trying to keep everything together because she wants to help the rest of her family. The best she can.

Throughout the novel, Annaleigh character arc is fantastic. I love the reader gets to see her grow throughout the story. Not only get to know the world around her but also get to know herself. Annaleigh doesn’t show a lot of emotions to those around her including her family throughout House of Salt and Sorrows. But as the novel goes on, she starts to let go and lets people in, including Cassius.

House of Salt and Sorrows is one eerie novel. It’s creepy and makes your stomach turn most of the novel. But that is also what makes it so captivating and breathtaking. It took me a while to figure it out, but it reminds me a lot of Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan. It’s got that same uncanny nature that leaves the reader feeling a little sick to the stomach. You have no idea what’s going to happen next, what’s going to pop out to you, but you keep on reading. This is a dark novel, but it’s what makes it unique and totally something that I would want to pick up. The writing is also quite lyrical, which adds to the ambiance of the whole book.

Nihal Demirci

I love the idea that this is a twelve dancing princess retelling. Like I said before I love retellings’ and when there is something new and different out there, I want to read it. I think that Erin A. Craig did a fantastic job of both exploring the original story as well as making it her own. I really loved the spins that Erin A. Craig did put on the original story, it became even more eerie and captivating.

Sometimes when reading retelling there are a few things that can happen. First, it could be too similar to the original that it doesn’t have anything unique about it or secondly it could be nothing like the original and the reader isn’t able to pick up what it’s supposed to be. But House of Salt and Sorrows fits perfectly in the middle where it has enough that the reader knows it’s a twelve dancing princess retelling, but it’s also unique.

While I did love the romance throughout House of Salt and Sorrows, I really wish there was a little more focus on it. I felt that the reader doesn’t really get to see the development between Annaleigh and Cassius. They were totally adorable together, but I wanted more. What also made the novel more interesting was the mysteriousness of Cassius.

Obviously family is a massive theme throughout House of Salt and Sorrows and what I really liked about that was it showed, the good, the bad and the ugly side of family. It really enhanced the novel and added another dimension to everything going on. The reader really never knows what’s going on. And adding untrustworthy characters, including family members makes everything way more interesting and intense.

Milo McDowell

House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig is haunting, captivating and intriguing. This eerie novel takes the reader on an adventure. Annaleigh and the rest of her family go through a hell of a lot throughout House of Salt and Sorrows and they suffer, immensely. Hope is also threaded throughout the novel and hits the reader all in the right spots. If you are looking for a new and exciting retelling, that is dark and takes the reader on a journey then this one is for you.