Thorn Queen, Richelle Mead

I stumbled into the middle of a series unknowlingly. Having said that, I ordered the first book already after reading this one. It's very good. Very sexy too.

Eugenie has apparently become Queen of Thorn Land. Not that she wanted to. But she did when she killed the former king. I think that happened in the last book. She is a shaman who protects the human world from demons, spirits, and faeries and the like. In this book, she starts to refine her power and realize her destiny as the mother of the savior of the Otherworld. As a little backstory, she is the daughter of a tyrannical leader who has the power to summon storms and other elements along with a human. She can travel in both worlds easily.

There's a lot that happens along with some good nookie. :o) Always a good thing in a book. I'm not giving away too much but I definitely think this one is worth the read.

The Secret Life of Josephine, Carolly Erickson

I really didn't know much about Josephine Bonaparte prior to picking this book up at B&N. I did watch the miniseries when I was a teenager and entertained my best friend by shrieking, "I AM THIS REVOLUTION!" over and over again, bad French accent and all. (OK. It was a really bad accent but she had tears rolling down her face from laughing. Hard. Poor Armande Assante. He meant well.)

Since that's really all I remember, I thought there would be more of a love affair aspect to their story. I was really surprised to learn that there wasn't.

Let me start at the beginning. Rose-Joseph (Josephine) moves from her beloved island of Martinique to Paris to marry her distant cousin. On her wedding day, she discovers that he has another family and is in love with another woman. He only married her to claim his inheritance. Not an auspicious beginning. Josephine has left not only her family but two infatuations. At age 15, you'd expect that.

She gives her husband an heir after he brutalizes her one night. His name is Eugene. She is a vicountess and lives as royalty does, spending money lavishly, thinking only of herself and her little family. She also has several affairs, for this is the French way. Apparently the entire aristocracy was sleeping together. She gets glimpses of Marie Antoinette and much admires her. Josephine tries to emulate her grace and elegance.

After the birth of her son, she heals and consents to sharing her husband's bed again. This time, she presents him with a daughter. But all too soon, the winds of change sweep through Paris and the King & Queen are dethroned and beheaded. There is no more monarchy! All those who claimed titles renounce them in the hopes that they will escape the Red Lady, a.k.a. the Guillotine. Being separated from her husband now, she tries to send her children to safety but he denies her. He is one of the agents of change, you see. For him to send his children out of the country would be disaster. They stay. She stays and ends up in jail along with Alexandre for having a brother-in-law who emigrated. Thankfully, she escaped the Terror although her husband did not.

Widowed, with no money or place to go, she is left to make her way as best she knows how. She invests in property, reads tarot cards for money, and works with a financier to get others to borrow money from him. For this she is paid well.

Always, there are lovers. During one of her newest lover's parties, she meets the man who will attempt to change Europe forever. Napoleon Bonaparte. He has big plans for France. And himself. He will rule and he wants Josephine at his side. As she's alone for the most part, she eventually says yes. Even though she does not love him.

Well, I won't go into a lot of details except to say that it wasn't a happy marriage for anyone. Neither of them respected their vows. What I didn't realize was how cruel he became towards her. Belittling her, flaunting his affairs in front her, attempting to hurt her children emotionally. He married her daughter to his brother in order to have the heir to his title. His brother was eventually going to suffer from syphillis. They call it the English disease. (When you read something set in England from that time, it's called the French disease or the French pox.) Yet he wouldn't relinquish his hold on her yet. He felt that Josephine was his good luck charm. He hadn't lost a battle since he'd been with her and was reluctant to let that go for all that came between them.

Needless to say, it was a very odd relationship. Eventually, they divorced and she worked to bring him defeat. It completely shattered what I thought I knew about them. There was a certain ruthlessness about her that I didn't expect. All in all, a well written book through which I learned something new.

Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford - Julia Fox

Whoa. I came into this book expecting to find a greedy, grasping, untrustworthy, slightly mad woman in Jane Boleyn. That's what I'd been led to believe she was. She only cared about what happened to herself. She didn't love her husband or his family. She was constantly eavesdropping. And a lot more.

Instead what I found was a woman who did love her husband. She also admired her sister-in-law and truly tried to make herself a part of the Boleyn family. And did. She had servants and a place in which to serve the queen. We don't need to go into what happened next. We know.

After that, she built herself up again and served three more queens before being put to death for aiding and abetting the queen's affair with Thomas Culpepper. Sad, really. She was able to fend for herself in a world where women were forced to rely on men for just about everything including the food on the table and the clothes on their back.

In this day and age, she would have run her own company and been very successful.

Vision in White - Nora Roberts

I really liked this one. It's the first in a series of four books about a wedding planning company in CT. It was inspired by her son's wedding and contains no paranormal elements. While I love her paranormal stuff, it was fun to read a pure romance.

What was nicer to discover was that there was a fun, light-hearted read. Mac is the photographer for Vows, the wedding company in CT. She works with her partners and best friends and has helped build Vows into the premiere place to BE married in CT. As usual, she is anti-wedding despite her job because of a selfish and self-absorbed mother. Enter the protagonist ... Carter is slightly bumbling but very intelligent. And had had a crush on Mac in high school.

Together, they help Mac get over her fears and insecurities. I just love Nora Roberts.

I'm still here!

Hi everyone! I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. I went through a bit of a depression but I'm working my way out of it and picking up books again. I have a few I've finished which I'll post. I just need to organize my thoughts on them first.

Look for more soon ...

Into the Wilderness - Sara Donati

Elizabeth Middleton is a spinster. She is 29, unmarried, with no prospects or interest in changing her fate in England. She lives with her father's sister and is rather well off. She is also strong minded and rather opinionated. She decides to move to America and live with her father in a little town in upstate NY called Paradise.

It is a move that will change her life.

When she first arrives along with her brother, Julian, she is surprised by the lack of comfort but soon learns that the people who live in Paradise prefer their way of living. They are helping to forge the new country as England's rule is no longer. The older folk don't forget it and the youngsters never have to deal with it.

She meets several eligible bachelors for, as fathers of the time tend to do, Judge Middleton wants to see her married to someone of his choosing. Elizabeth has other ideas and eventually runs off with a backwoodsman named Nathaniel Bonner who has grown up among the remaining Mohawk in the area. And that's just the first portion of the book.

It's a well written story. I like all the detail that Ms. Donati has included. I also am somewhat familiar with the area in which the story takes place so it's fun to see places I've been described as they used to be. It's the first in a series as well. I think I'm going to look for the rest of them.

Homeport - Nora Roberts

This may be one of my favorites of her standalones.

Dr. Miranda Jones is an archeometrist. She is a scientist that studies, authenticates, and restores various art pieces for public and private display. Art restoration and display is a family affair. Miranda and her brother, Andrew, run the Institute in Maine where they teach various classes and restore paintings in the labs as well as work as curators of the museum. Their father, Charles, prefers dig sites to family and is usually off. Elizabeth, the mother, moves to Italy and opens her own lab, Standjo, where she is engaged in authentication of new pieces.

It is on such a mission that Elizabeth contacts Miranda and orders her to Italy. In their family, there is no tenderness ... no care. Miranda is delayed as she is mugged in front of her house, an unusual occurence as she lives in a very small town. For those of you who don't live in a small town, something like that would never happen as there typically aren't enough people to rob or care about.

It is the start of a downslide for the entire family. Miranda gets to Italy and authenticates an original, undiscovered work of Michelangelo's which is later proven to be a fake. Andrew's drinking gets worse and worse. The Institute is robbed after Miranda's return from Florence by a retiring thief who also happens to be a gallery owner in NYC named Ryan Boldari.

He discovers that the statute he stole is also a fake and is bound & determined to prove that Miranda did it on purpose. Along the line, they figure out that someone is trying to ruin her and fall in love. It's a fun ride that takes us from New England's serenity to the bustle of Brooklyn and the beauty that is Florence.

Enjoy!