❝ Life is more interesting if you allow yourself to get lost every now and then. How else do you discover things? ❞
this was a wonderful conclusion! it❝ Life is more interesting if you allow yourself to get lost every now and then. How else do you discover things? ❞
this was a wonderful conclusion! it has just as much swoony romance as the other two in the series, and lots more danger and action regarding the Fire Eyes. They were more of a subplot in the first two, but in this book they were the main focus of the characters.
my favorite thing about this entire series is just how realistic the characters are. They aren't just young, perfect, untested young people falling in love with no strings attached. They're broken. They have messy pasts. Their sins are glaringly obvious. But they learn to love each other and the Lord despite it all, and it's beautiful.
I especially loved the romance in this one. Ella was one of my favorite characters in the first two books and I loved how her sunny personality compared with Cayton's grumpy one. They made for an adorable couple and definitely one of my favorites of Roseanna's so far!
╰› if you love Christian fiction, historical fiction, regency, romance, or all four, I highly recommend this series! it's well worth your time <3
❝ The rest of the world is filled to bursting with ill-tempered people. It is my solemn duty not to be one of them. ❞
—content and trigger warnings (minor spoilers!): this series dealt with a lot of heavy topics. In the second installment, the main character was a victim of sexual assault. there's nothing quite as drastic in this one, though it does mention sexual assault a few times, but everything else is kept to a minimum. one of the characters with a mini pov was a mistress, but it never shows or directly mentions anything remotely explicit. a woman suffers from losing an infant to a crib death. a woman dies in childbirth. One of the men is revealed to be a bloodthirsty psychopath who has an obsession with injuring people. The main character is kidnapped by a man who believes himself to be in love with her (he never inappropriately touches her). Basically, if you've had any past experiences with sexual assault or losing a child or mother in childbirth, I'd say tread carefully with this series. stay safe and ily all!! ...more
❝ We're all good. We're all bad. The hero in our own story. The villain in someone else's. ❞
The one time I bought a book without reading it firs2.75 ⭐
❝ We're all good. We're all bad. The hero in our own story. The villain in someone else's. ❞
The one time I bought a book without reading it first. *loud tsk-ing*
This was not a bad book by any means; Mrs. White is a very talented author. But the plot was very sparse and slow-paced. Aside from mini villain pov, there wasn't even really a plot for the main characters until the climax. It's mainly a romance. Which would have been fine, since I adore character-driven stories, if the romance hadn't been blander than unsalted mashed potatoes and if the main character wasn't the most infuriating character since Alina Starkov.
Let me introduce Margot De Wilde's character to you. Margot is almost eighteen, but she has the mind of an extremely intelligent elderly gentleman. She sees the world as an equation to be solved. She's so dang smart that she literally thinks and prays in numbers. She works as a codebreaker in a secretive Room 40 with a bunch of ✨men✨, creatures likeminded to her just not as smart, obviously. Margot eats lunch alone, because everyone expects her to eat with the fellow young woman who work as secretaries, but she despises them because they're all brainless gossips with only room in their head for fluff and fashion and she's the first female to ever exist who every had any common sense.
Then Drake Elton comes along. Drake is very hot, and he asks very good questions, and he can't resist any challenge. He immediately is smitten with the very quick-witted and sarcastic and hilarious Margot De Wilde. Everything she does becomes even more annoying from his pov because he is obsessed with her and thinks she's ✨really great✨.
As you might have guessed, after lots of flirtation and Margot being too good for Drake, they fall in love.
Now people, I really wanted to like Margot. She had her moments, such as this one:
"wait just a blighted moment. Do you mean to tell me-" "Shut up, Camden. My feeble feminine intelligence requires a bit of quiet for such tasks."
But overall, she made me want to punch her in her super-smart face. Which made her romance, while still cute, overall very meh for me, and I thought Drake deserved a lot better than he was getting with her.
I expected a bit more from Roseanna, especially after just previously reading The Reluctant Duchess (which was beautiful and gripping), but the next book in the series (about different characters thank goodness) looks good so I'll probably still pick that one up.
❝ I love to watch you and try to imagine the thoughts pouring through your mind... I picture them like a whirlwind, each thought a bejeweled raindrop. Beautiful storms of brilliance. ❞
happy reading my loves <33 remember to stay safe and drink enough water!! ...more
❝Perhaps they were none of them more than what their darkest moments made them...and how they emerged from it when day came again.❞
This is not a 4.5 ⭐
❝Perhaps they were none of them more than what their darkest moments made them...and how they emerged from it when day came again.❞
This is not a fun, swoony romance. This book is heavy. It's rough at times. It deals with some uncomfortable things that most people don't like to read about, but nonetheless something that needs to be addressed. It isn't the deepest and most excruciating book with this topic I've ever read, but I didn't expect much depth in this form at all from this author, so it deeply impacted me.
This book talks about love in a way you don't hear it discussed too often, but it's the reality. Love isn't just an emotion you feel. Love is a choice. Love is a sacrifice. Brice chooses to love Rowena and obey the Lord, and slowly he helps her heal from her brokenness and trauma and learn to love him back and, more importantly, love the Lord.
In the first book, Brice was a bit of a more lighthearted character. Kind of a shameless flirt. But he is given loads more character and depth. He was a flawed man, like everyone, but he had a deep longing to do what the Lord was calling him to do. I loved his character arc and I think he's my favorite Roseanna love interest so far ...more
I just looked up at the sky, saw the stars, and thought that if God could hold them, maybe I wasn’t too far and maybe His arm was long enough to hold I just looked up at the sky, saw the stars, and thought that if God could hold them, maybe I wasn’t too far and maybe His arm was long enough to hold me too.
this was the most adorable novelette! With its snazzy mint-green cover, loveable characters, light and cute writing, and amazing themes, this story had me under its bookish spell from the first page to the last. It's the perfect length and is so comfortable in its own skin.
I've read a lot of books with broken or messed up characters, but the books almost never point towards the only one who can take away that pain and hurt. Jesus Christ. And this book, with its 84 pages, has a more effective redemption story than the 400+ pages of some typical YA novel that I've read in the past. I don't know if the author writes from personal experience, someone else's, or if this story and premise are 100% fictional, but whatever it is, she handles it beautifully!
Overall this was such a cute and hopeful little story and I highly recommend picking it up when you have an hour or two to kill or want to cuddle up with a light book and a cup of tea on a rainy day. I am impossibly excited to see what comes next from this budding author ...more
❝Love is just a word. Three deceptive sounds linked together in a lie.❞
No more sweet, stuttering gentlemen and atmospheric England settings for the se❝Love is just a word. Three deceptive sounds linked together in a lie.❞
No more sweet, stuttering gentlemen and atmospheric England settings for the second installment in Roseanna's series, Shadows over England. We are whisked away to first-class world of riches and music, featuring a handsome, devil-may-care gentleman with a questionable past and a looming secret. Willa, our protagonist, is caught up in a whirlwind of deception and love and million-dollar violins.
I loved Lukas and his adorable, albeit a bit rushed, redemption arc from ladies' man to a singular lady's man. (Willa, to be exact.) Willa was also an amazing and complex character and their romance had me squealing and giggling insanely. Roseanna isn't afraid to write slightly morally-gray characters, something most Christian authors tend to shy away from, and she does so with incredible tact. God welcomes the thieves and liars and sinners and the ones with messy, messy, pasts, and this book showcases that beautifully.
I also enjoyed Margot's pov, although sometimes the way she was.... *cough* like, omg, so smart, like, a million times smarter than a grown man, the smartest person ever, she literally thinks and prays in numbers omg haha she's a prodigy hehe and sooo quirky ...more
”Servants hear everything…. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
This was fun! It was so interesting to see who was really pulling the strings in the ric”Servants hear everything…. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
This was fun! It was so interesting to see who was really pulling the strings in the rich side of society and all that went on in the servants’ world. Julie Klassen filled the book with her trademark character development, intriguing plot, and sweet romance.
The one problem I had with it was the ending was super rushed and poorly done. Half the plot lines were never wrapped up, and the few that were actually finished weren’t satisfying in their finishing at all. It was like Klassen had a 410 page limit, and she spent so long with the plot and climax and angst that she only had a short chapter left to end it with. She at least could’ve had an epilogue.
Aside from that, I do recommend this unique, atmospheric Christian historical fiction that takes a peek into the below stairs of the 19th-century society and all that the rich took for granted.
This book started out mind-numbingly slow. The first nearly half was Klassen developing the characters and atmosphere ”I forgive you, and I love you.”
This book started out mind-numbingly slow. The first nearly half was Klassen developing the characters and atmosphere and setting everything up for the plot, but it was really boring and could’ve been done in half the time it took, or she could’ve continued developing while the plot was already going on.
Alas, she thought it necessary to neglect everything other than the atmosphere and character dynamics and foreshadowing for nearly 200 pages. The blurb wasn’t fulfilled and the plot wasn’t started until halfway through.
It took every ounce of my self-control to stick to my no-DNF rule. Unfortunately, nothing amazing happened to make it better like I hoped for.
Things did get a bit better once the plot got off its feet though. The historical jury system was quite intriguing and fun to read about. The murder mystery in and of itself was well done, not terribly surprising, but the twists were nicely foreshadowed (thank goodness, at least the first half of the book wasn’t completely boring fluff but actually had a purpose) and executed.
It just felt… very anticlimactic. The way the mysteries, investigations, and discoveries were told was very straight-to-the face and, well, dull.
The characters were fine; they had a kind of cardboard feel to them most of the time, but there was nothing terrible about them. The romance was mediocre and there wasn’t much chemistry, unfortunately.
I feel really bad about such a negative review. Trust me, I much prefer writing positive reviews (I’m terrible at writing negative ones). But this book, despite its amazing premise and gold pile of potential, was mediocre at best. Julie Klassen just missed the mark with this one.
I've been thinking about this book a lot and I'm changing my rating from 3 to 3.5, but still rounding down to 3. This was defi3.5 stars
~edit~ 04/14/23
I've been thinking about this book a lot and I'm changing my rating from 3 to 3.5, but still rounding down to 3. This was definitely a super interesting book, but a lot of things in it weren't my proverbial cup of tea (i.e. the writing, overall plot, tropes, and some of the characters). Again, there were great themes and messages and if the premise interests you I definitely recommend checking it out! And I recommend reading Nadine's fantasy novels over this one because I enjoyed them sm more!
~Lydia has officially decided that she is not a dystopian kind of gal.~
happy reading m'dears (and don't mind how dramatic and emotional my original review is, I was in a mood).
~original review~ 04/10/23
Pain. Death. Sadness.
This book is made up of these things. It’s a horrifying, knife-wielding story. It’s a broken Clock ticking furiously even though every number is a bloody red zero.
Broken shalom.
The world is full of it. Since the Garden, when Adam and Eve defied their God, the perfect shalom He created broke.
This book paints that in a terrifyingly bright color.
This books testifies to how, in this sinful world of broken shalom, Christians are Radicals, transformed by God, fighting to the end of their invisible Numbers to bring the perfect shalom back, to bring everything to the way God meant it to be.
Invisible Numbers.
We don’t know the days we die. We don’t know how long we have. But in this book, we do. Before Jesus returns, we might.
If we lived in the USE, in the world this book brings to life, and we knew exactly when we’d die, would our lives be different then they are now? Would we be more motivated, more God-fearing, and more prepared?
The answer is probably yes.
It should be no.
We should be living like there’s no tomorrow and be spending every waking minute of our lives radically transforming others through the Giver of shalom.
This book shows that, and so much more.
It was not a perfect book (see my 3-star rating) but underneath its flaws it's a powerful story of fear, pain, absence of hope, and broken shalom.
It really touched me in a far corner of my heart! I hope it would do the same for you.<3
"God is speaking to you every day. You might return the favor."
This was really good! I love books about bookworms, although I feel there are hard3.5 ⭐
"God is speaking to you every day. You might return the favor."
This was really good! I love books about bookworms, although I feel there are hardly enough. And when it's about bookworms in this certain time period, it reminds me that I should be glad I was born into a generation where book loving females are not considered 'bluestockings' and die old maids.
Because heheehehe um I would be one of them.
I really liked the protagonist, Emma, who was labeled a 'bluestocking' yet said "pffft" and still pursued reading and smarts. Goals! Something I've noticed repeatedly in Julie Klassen's novels is that her characters always have amazing development. It's very well done. Although I feel like Emma's trope, girl wants to be in control of everything in her life yet learns she can trust God and doesn't have to do everything on her own is overused in Christian fiction, it was at least well executed.
Also, the romance dynamic. They were cute but why does eVeRy Christian fiction have the guy be strong in his faith and the girl be resistant to surrendering her life to God? I don't think I've read a single book that switches it around. I really want to read a book where the girl helps the guy.
The romance was still good though. He was totally obsessed with her hahahahaheheheheh
Adam was a really sweet character but it kind of mad me sad what happened to children like him. Julie Klassen portrayed it well but I'm glad our world has improved in that regard.
I liked the plot and mystery and the overall vibe of the book. I love creepy mysteries, except they scare the crap out of me. This was pretty tame, though, nothing like a real mystery thriller.
It's also just the kind of book where you wanna give all the characters a big soft hug! I'd recommend it if you'd like a good Christian romance ...more
Though art gone from my gaze like a beautiful dream, And I seek thee in vain by the meadow and stream.
The Apothecary's Daughter was one of the best ChrThough art gone from my gaze like a beautiful dream, And I seek thee in vain by the meadow and stream.
The Apothecary's Daughter was one of the best Christian, historical fiction I've read in a while. It perfectly blended faith, romance, suspense, and the beauty and tragedy of Lilly's story into this lovely book. If this kind of book is your type of thing, I strongly recommend!
One of the things I appreciated was how in the love square (yes, a love square, and yes, I know, we all usually hate this sort of thing, but bear with me ...more
best Christian fiction I've read in a long time. The amount of adorable-ness and chemistry in the romance was off the charts for this type of book. I best Christian fiction I've read in a long time. The amount of adorable-ness and chemistry in the romance was off the charts for this type of book. I loved both of the main characters and the plot and messages were so sweet! Highly recommended! <3...more
the "best friends but we each secretly harbor feelings for each other, but we deny it because we're scared it'll ruin our friendship" trope>>>the "best friends but we each secretly harbor feelings for each other, but we deny it because we're scared it'll ruin our friendship" trope>>>...more
”Village life is like an ivy vine climbing a great oak. You cut off the vine at the root, and all the way up the tree, the leaves wither. We’re a2.5 ⭐
”Village life is like an ivy vine climbing a great oak. You cut off the vine at the root, and all the way up the tree, the leaves wither. We’re all connected.”
This book was very nice.
I’ve been trying to find a better way to describe it, but really, it was just very nice. The setting was nice, the characters were nice, the plot was nice, the romance was nice, the writing was nice.
The strength of the storm does not change whose waves these are. There is One mightier still.
I'm speechless.
T'was beautiful and pure and enchanting. IThe strength of the storm does not change whose waves these are. There is One mightier still.
I'm speechless.
T'was beautiful and pure and enchanting. I fell in love with Ansel-by-the-Sea, with Annie and Jeremiah and Bob and the entire cast of characters. The writing was gorgeous and the captivating story made me cry and laugh and break down more times than I can count. I don't have words that can do this novel justice. God worked through Amanda Dykes to create a beautiful and powerful story. Recommended a thousand times over....more
. ★⋆. ࿐࿔ ❝I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.❞ . ★⋆. ࿐࿔
Amanda Dykes should be so much more popular. She writes heart-4.5 ⭐
. ★⋆. ࿐࿔ ❝I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.❞ . ★⋆. ࿐࿔
Amanda Dykes should be so much more popular. She writes heart-wrenching, soul-filled stories of hope and faith and love and light in the darkest of places. Set the Stars Alight is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. Not one but two timelines, each full to the brim with magic and wonder and sensation, woven together flawlessly with sparkling threads.
But the true gems of her books is the characters. The flawed, lovable, adorable characters with hearts as deep as the ocean and, more often than not, fractured into a million pieces. And then, painstakingly, bit by bit, over the course of the story, they begin to put them together again.
This is the second book I have read from Amanda, and it seems like a crime that she isn't more widely known. Literally the best Christian fiction books in the whole genre. I saw a reviewer saying that she "writes like an angel," and that describes her perfectly. She could write a character drinking a glass of water and find a way to describe it in a fresh and whimsical and sparkling way. She has such unique angles and perspectives on things that I would never think of as anything other than ordinary.
Lucy, Dash, Frederick, and Juliette stole my heart and wrenched at my soul, but they can keep it as long as Amanda Dykes continues to create more stories that I can immerse myself into such as this one.
. ★⋆. ࿐࿔ ❝This was a place of impossible. And what a beautiful impossible it was.❞ . ★⋆. ࿐࿔
⋅˚₊‧ ୨ pre-review ୧ ‧₊˚ ⋅ no words can do this beautiful story justice, but I will try my best. Rtc ...more
❝ Sometimes family isn’t the one you’re born with. It’s the one you find. Or the ones who find you. ❞
this was kind of mid at parts but fun! I lo3 ♠⋆｡°
❝ Sometimes family isn’t the one you’re born with. It’s the one you find. Or the ones who find you. ❞
this was kind of mid at parts but fun! I loved how the author incorporated little elements from the og fairy tale while still adding a bunch of fresh stuff to keep you invested. By the last 50 or so pages I was losing interest, but the ending gave me whiplash. I’m excited to see where the plot goes in the second book ...more
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