Favorites

Earlier today, a friend was looking for recommendations for book series. So I was scanning through what I've read in the past few years.

Not a lot of series that jumped out at me, other than romance series and I don't think that's what she wanted. But quite a few books jumped out at me as favorites that I feel compelled to recommend to others.

So I put together a list of books I've loved and think everyone should read:

2018:

Italian Party by Christina Lynch - this just came out, and I need to write an actual review of it. Will do that soon. It's good, set in Italy, lots of secrets and twists and a really, nice unexpected and very different sort of love story.

An American With in Paris by Michele Hauf - Loved this book so much! Super sexy vampire and witch romance set in Paris. 

Daughters of the Night Sky by Aimie K. Runyan - I love this book. Became a bit obsessed with this book. 

2017 -

Covet Garden in the Snow by Jules Wake - really nice story about getting your life together, also a bit of a romance 

Bewitching by Jill Barnett

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay

2016 -

The Light of Paris by Eleanor Brown

Last Letter from Your Lover by Jojo Moyes

Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris by Jenny Colgan

2015 -

Enchanted by the Wolf by Michele Hauf

Stealing Venice by Heather Redding

Leonardo and the Last Supper by Ross King 

Touch of Stardust by Kate Alcott

Moonlight and Diamonds by Michele Hauf

Shadows Over Paradise by Isabel Wolf

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Flirting with Disaster by Victoria Dahl

2014 - 

One Plus One by Jojo Moyes

The Cranes Dance by Meg Howry

Review: The Italian Party by Christina Lynch

This is what I wrote immediately after finishing the book:

This is a really good book. I spent most of today in bed reading it because I'm sick, and I liked it enough that it took my mind off of how awful I was feeling.

Very well written, I never wanted to put the book down. And such great characters, these could have been characters that a person hated - with all their lies and secrets - but they are written in such a way that their behavior makes sense, at least in the moment. I really liked them and was a little sad when the book ended because I wanted more of them.

The Italian setting is wonderful, with quite a bit of information about the political situation during the 50s. I kept grabbing my ipad to look up names, only to realize that if I'd read another line or so, it would have been explained.

Overall, a great book, I highly recommend it.

Will try to write a more thorough review later, when I get over this sinus infection and can think more clearly. (Now that I'm done reading the book, I'm very aware of how bad I feel.)

I received a copy of this via Netgalley.

That was months ago and I never returned to write a more thorough review. I am so very behind on writing book reviews. I've been reading the books and rating them on goodreads, but not writing the reviews in a timely manner.

Anyway, I liked this book a lot. I think what I liked most about it was that it's very much a love story, but not a romantic love story. The people involved, they aren't in love with each other, but do, in fact, despite their strange circumstances, love each other. I think the author did a really wonderful job of showing how their relationship developed and how they grew to care so much about each other.

That's really all I have to add to my initial review. I think I had planned to expand more on the idea of a platonic love story or something like that. But really, just read the book. It's a good one.

Review: Hotel on Shadow Lake by Daniela Tully

I thought the ideas for this book were interesting, but I struggled with the format of the story. The back and forth felt jarring, making it too easy to put the book down, and the cliff hanger-like endings to chapters were frustrating - especially because they were so intentionally misleading. I was a little angry when I realized the truth because the setup it was leading to was so opposite what I thought it would be.

There were also big segments involving a fairy tale that I thought was boring. Usually, I love fairy tales, but in this case, it was kind of  pointless. I was drawn to this story because of the WWII connection, and I did find that interesting, but the modern day part of the story got a little confusing and far-fetched. The research and the travel and the weirdness at the hotel was a bit much for me to accept.

I'm very late writing this review, read the book months ago, and I gave this book three stars, so I must have liked it somewhat, but now I can only seem to remember the things I didn't like about the book. Took me a long time to read this book, which is unusual for me. In general, good story, I definitely appreciate the originality of the story, but I didn't feel as if it was told especially well.

I received a copy of this book via NetGalley.