It's hard to believe that this is the 57th (wow!) In Death book, and I still absolutely love this amazing series. I 4 stars - Futuristic Crime/Mystery
It's hard to believe that this is the 57th (wow!) In Death book, and I still absolutely love this amazing series. I can't imagine ever getting tired of these characters, so I hope Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb never gets tired of writing them! And I'm still holding out hope for a TV series or movie someday....more
I love this series. Karin Slaughter has created fantastic characters in Will, Sara, Faith, and Amanda, and she never h5 stars - Crime/Mystery/Thriller
I love this series. Karin Slaughter has created fantastic characters in Will, Sara, Faith, and Amanda, and she never holds back from detailing the evil, ugly aspects of our society. This is another dark, complex thriller, but it's also fucking brutal and deeply disturbing. This book needs a serious trigger warning for rape because it's front and center throughout the entire story, and Ms. Slaughter does not hold back from graphic details.
After That Night made me feel the gamut of emotions...sad, disgusted, heartsick, fearful, and fucking infuriated. It especially made me feel intense anger, deep revulsion, and utter despair for the way women have to constantly deal with the savage and terrifying reality of rape. I had so much rage after reading this book that I asked a friend to go with me to a Krav Maga self-defense class so I could beat the shit out of some strike pads.
The ending felt somewhat rushed to me, and I thought all of the villainous, evil pieces of shit got off way too easy. But the depressing, bitter truth of the world we live in is that people get away with abusing others every second of every minute, every single day, especially rich white men. (view spoiler)[Even though one of the biggest villains in this book is a woman, let's be clear about the fact that the majority of abusers and rapists are men. (hide spoiler)]...more
This latest St. Cyr installment is another compelling, complex mystery, and having Sebastian struggle physically with a 4.5 stars - Historical Mystery
This latest St. Cyr installment is another compelling, complex mystery, and having Sebastian struggle physically with a healing injury while tracking down the murderer added an interesting component to the story. I was hoping for more page time for Paul Gibson and Alexi, and I also felt that the ending was somewhat abrupt.
After 18 books, I'm really anxious for revelations to some of the lingering questions that have gone unanswered for too long. (view spoiler)[Who is Sebastian's father? Was Jamie Knox his half-brother? Did Jarvis and Victoria kill Hero's mother? (hide spoiler)]
I listened to the audiobook, and the narrator, Jenny Sterlin, does a pretty good job. But I really miss Davina Porter's phenomenal narration of the series....more
This is such a heartwarming and utterly delightful feel-good romance, and I savored and loved every word of it! It’s basic5 Swoonworthy Romance stars!
This is such a heartwarming and utterly delightful feel-good romance, and I savored and loved every word of it! It’s basically a historical romance remake of the movie Pretty Woman except the heroine is a feisty French ballerina in need of money instead of a prostitute.
I couldn’t get enough of the witty banter and explosive chemistry between outwardly cold-hearted, aloof Lysander and spirited, outspoken Neve. Their romance was absolutely swoon-worthy! I also loved the secondary characters, Lysander’s spinster aunt and the group of friends that take Neve under their wing. I hope we get romances for the other women in the Taming of the Dukes club.
I listened to the audiobook, and Mary Jane Wells’s narration is fabulous and truly brought the book to life. She does such a wonderful French accent for Neve and gives all the characters distinct voices. I truly loved listening to this one.
This was me every single word and every single minute of this book! *dreamy sigh* Big 5 stars!
Wow. I honestly don’t have sufficient words to convey my love for this astounding b5++ stars – Contemporary Fiction/Women’s Fiction/Historical Fiction
Wow. I honestly don’t have sufficient words to convey my love for this astounding book, and I wish there was a way to rate it higher than 5 stars. It’s not only one of my favorite reads of this year, but it’s also one of my favorite books, ever. I ugly cried so hard reading the last chapter that I couldn’t even see the screen and had to stop several times to collect myself. So many feels. And the epilogue is truly soul-stirring.
Winter Garden is more than just a book. It’s an evocative, powerful intergenerational story that takes you on an unforgettable emotional journey. Although this is women’s fiction, for romance readers like me, there are actually multiple love stories in this book, and the one at the heart of the story is epically beautiful and heartrending.
I was intrigued from the very start of the book, but I think some readers might find it slow in the beginning and also feel unsure of the likeability of the characters. But the story reveals itself layer by layer brilliantly, and the evolution of Meredith, Nina, and Anya is part of what makes it such a wonderful read. Hannah captures the complicated dynamics of relationships (mothers and daughters, sisters, husband and wife, and lovers) with authenticity and poignancy. I especially found the depiction of Meredith’s marital struggles after 20 years together relatable and realistic. Women so often put their children, partners, family, home, and work above themselves, and marital relationships can be easily neglected from just the monotony of everyday life.
Winter Garden is an insightful and intimate portrayal of the enduring strength of women, a spellbinding family saga, and an epic love story that is compelling from start to finish. It’s a story of family, country, tragedy, sacrifice, love and loss, human suffering, survival, grief, forgiveness, and hope. It’s moving, lyrically written, expertly paced, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting.
I’ve always been fascinated by Russian language, culture, folklore, food, and history, and I want to learn more after reading this book. I hope I get to see its beauty someday, including the Belye Nochi, White Nights, of St. Petersburg, formerly Leningrad, that means so much to Anya in the story. I love that Hannah included some Russian recipes at the end of the book because food, both the overabundance and lack of it, is an integral part of the story as well.
I’ve read about the Soviet Union during WWII, and I knew about the Siege of Leningrad in a generic, factual way. But Hannah provides candid insight into the lives of those, mostly women, children, and elderly, in Leningrad during the siege who were left to struggle to survive the unforgiving, brutally cold winters without heat or food while being constantly bombed by the Germans. The 900-Day Siege resulted in the deaths of roughly one million of the city’s civilians, including more than 700,000 that froze or starved to death. Hannah researched firsthand accounts of survivors as inspiration to create a personalized story to strongly affect the reader by allowing them to experience it.
Winter Garden is a truly remarkable, deeply affecting, and haunting read that will stay with me forever. It gave me all the feels and all the tears but also left me inspired. Winter Garden joins Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale as one of my top favorite reads of the year and most favorite books of all-time. 5++ and all the stars!
“And maybe that was how it was supposed to be, how life unfolded when you lived it long enough. Joy and sadness were part of the package; the trick, perhaps, was to let yourself feel all of it, but to hold on to the joy just a little more tightly because you never knew when a strong heart could just give out.”
“I’d be proud to have your strength. What you’ve been through—and we don’t know the worst of it, I think—it would have killed any ordinary woman. Only someone extraordinary could have survived. So, yeah, I do want to end up like you.”
“If there was one thing she’d learned in all of this, it was that life—and love—can be gone any second. When you had it, you needed to hang on with all your strength and savor every second.”
“We women make choices for others, not for ourselves, and when we are mothers, we...bear what we must for our children.”
(view spoiler)[The engraving from Sasha to Vera on the tombstone made me bawl my eyes out. “Remember our lime tree in the Summer Garden. I will meet you there, my love.”(hide spoiler)]
From the author’s In Her Own Words section at the back of the book: “It is Anya who haunts me. She is a fictional character, obviously, but she is drawn from research. The women who survived the Siege of Leningrad were lionesses, warriors. It’s deeply inspiring to me. And even though it happened a long time ago, I find the story of their courage relevant in today’s world.”
From the Behind the Novel section at the back of the book: “I wanted to give you all this story of survival and loss, horror and heartache in a way that would allow you to experience it with some measure of emotion. I am not a historian, nor a nonfiction writer. My hope is that you leave this novel informed, but not merely with the facts and figures; rather; I want you to be able to actually imagine it, to ask yourself how you would have fared in such terrible times.”...more
Wow! What a terrific surprise this was! I often find books that I love the hardest to review. I hav5++ stars – WWII Historical Fiction/Mystery/Romance
Wow! What a terrific surprise this was! I often find books that I love the hardest to review. I have so much that I want to say about it, but I think The Diamond Eye is one of those books that’s even better because of how unexpected it is.
The Diamond Eye is based on the remarkable true life story of Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko. She was a bookish history student and librarian, a single mother turned soldier in order to defend her homeland who longed to be a historian, and a fierce, deadly sniper with over 300 kills who became a close friend to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The author used Mila’s actual memoir as her inspiration and “concrete original source” with some artistic license to fill in the “gaps and silences.”
The Diamond Eye is historical fiction at its best and a biography of sorts, but it’s so much more than that. It’s a wartime story with political intrigue, mystery/suspense, and romance. Mila is a fascinating, complex heroine with a fierce, persistent, fighting spirit who never backs down. Her transformation from a quiet, bookish, abused single mother to a courageous, determined, strong-willed soldier who endures doubts and sexism from her fellow soldiers and superiors to be become a fierce, revered sniper feared by Germans known as Lady Death is truly amazing. I loved her.
The alternating timeline of Mila’s past and present was handled really well. The mystery woven into Mila’s goodwill tour visit to America was intriguing and suspenseful, and I enjoyed the present scenes with Eleanor Roosevelt and Mila. But I preferred the past sections because I liked reading about Mila’s wartime experiences, interactions, and relationships. There are so many interesting (real) characters that I loved: her medical orderly friend, Lena, her platoon mates, Fyodor and Vartanov, her superior officer, Lyonya, and of course, her sniper partner and shadow, Kostia.
I’m a romance lover/reader at heart, so my favorite part of The Diamond Eye is the romantic elements. There are actually two love stories in this book, and they’re both beautiful and moving. And trust me that it’s not a love triangle. Lyonya and Kostia are both amazing, swoonworthy heroes, and I loved them as much as Mila.
I highly recommend this book to fans of extraordinary women, WWII history, historical fiction, historical mystery/suspense, and historical romance. Big unforgettable 5 stars!
“I had a belly full of vodka, a heart full of hatred, and a soul full of grief—but my hand was steady as a rock.”
“We are glad to visit your beautiful country. It is prosperous—you all live far from the struggle. Nobody destroys your towns, cities, fields. Nobody kills your citizens, your sisters and mothers, your fathers and brothers. I come from a place where bombs pound villages into ash, where Russian blood oils the treads of German tanks, where innocent civilians die every day. An accurate bullet fired by a sniper like me, Mrs. Roosevelt, is no more than a response to an enemy.”
I’ve seen some comments from readers on GR and Amazon saying they were concerned about the timing or that they had a hard time with the book given Russia’s current invasion of Ukraine. But the USSR, Soviet Union, during WWII is not the same as Russia today. They fought against Hitler and fascism and fended off the German invasion long before Americans joined the fight, and the Red Army provided the largest land force in the Allied victory of WWII. The Soviet Union also suffered the highest casualties of the war with around 20-27 million deaths.
From the Author’s Note of The Diamond Eye:
“It’s sometimes said that World War II was won with British Intelligence, American steel, and Soviet blood. This sweeping generalization bears a kernel of truth. Since the USSR became America’s enemy in the Cold War so soon after WWII’s end, it’s easy to forget that without them, the war against the Axis powers might have been lost. Of all Hitler’s mistakes, his colossal Napoleonic error in taking on the USSR was perhaps the most pivotal: without the eastern front soaking up so much of Germany’s manpower, the Allies might never have prevailed. The cost of that victory was millions of Red Army dead as Soviet blood gave American steel and British Intelligence time to turn the tide. The Diamond Eye is seen through the lens of Soviet blood—one woman’s fight to stanch its flow, first with her rifle and then with her voice as she crossed an ocean to bring American steel home to help her countrymen.”
My personal opinion/note:
It’s tragic to me that governments (including the U.S.) haven’t learned from history and keep repeating the same mistakes of war resulting in the suffering of innocent people. So much money is spent on the military-industrial complex that could be used for education, healthcare, protecting and improving the environment, and helping the poor, homeless, children, elderly, and veterans. Sadly, companies who produce oil, gas, weapons, bombs, tanks, attack drones, and fighter planes and their politicians want wars because they get richer....more
I only need to say one word for this review: BONES! I love the Night Huntress series, and Bones is one of my all-5+ stars - Paranormal/Vampire Romance
I only need to say one word for this review: BONES! I love the Night Huntress series, and Bones is one of my all-time favorite romance heroes, ever! I've always wished for his point of view when reading the Night Huntress books. Now, finally, we get Halfway to the Grave from Bones' POV, and it's so bloody good and sexy! I loved it! Big 5 stars!
This was an entertaining, action-packed novella! Most of the story centers on Cat and Denise, but thankful5 stars - Paranormal/Vampire Romance Novella
This was an entertaining, action-packed novella! Most of the story centers on Cat and Denise, but thankfully Bones has some scenes as well. And I'll take any bit of Bones I can get! Ashael plays a fun role in the story as well, and he's very intriguing and sexy. I really hope Jeaniene Frost has plans to write a book for him!...more
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