Romance

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THE MIDNIGHT WITCH by Paula Brackston

Publisher’s Synopsis:

Midnight is the most bewitching hour of them all…

From Paula Brackston, the New York Times bestselling author of The Witch’s Daughter and The Winter Witch, comes a magical tale that is as dark as it is enchanting. Set in high society Edwardian England, The Midnight Witch is the story of a young witch who faces the choice between love and loyalty to her coven…

“The dead are seldom silent. All that is required for them to be heard is that someone be willing to listen. I have been listening to the dead all my life.”

Lady Lilith Montgomery is the daughter of the sixth Duke of Radnor. She is one of the most beautiful young women in London and engaged to the city’s most eligible bachelor. She is also a witch.

When her father dies, her hapless brother Freddie takes on his title. But it is Lilith, instructed in the art of necromancy, who inherits their father’s role as Head Witch of the Lazarus Coven. And it is Lilith who must face the threat of the Sentinels, a powerful group of sorcerers intent on reclaiming the Elixir from the coven’s guardianship for their own dark purposes. Lilith knows the Lazarus creed: secrecy and silence. To abandon either would put both the coven and all she holds dear in grave danger. She has spent her life honoring it, right down to her engagement to her childhood friend and fellow witch, Viscount Louis Harcourt.

Until the day she meets Bram, a talented artist who is neither a witch nor a member of her class. With him, she must not be secret and silent. Despite her loyalty to the coven and duty to her family, Lilith cannot keep her life as a witch hidden from the man she loves.

To tell him will risk everything.

Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Publication Date: March 25, 2014
Source: Library Loan (Libby)
Rating: 3 Stars

My Thoughts:

THE MIDNIGHT WITCH is a tale of magic and good versus evil. Though the story combines elements of fantasy, historical fiction, and romance, overall it fell a bit flat. As the new High Witch of her coven, Lady Lilith has A LOT to learn. Some of her choices and actions were questionable at best. The supposed grand romance between her and Bram felt forced. The world building was interesting, including the mystery surrounding the coven’s precious Elixir. In the end, I did wonder what the point of their magic truly was. The pacing was slow, though I think listening on audio made the story more entertaining.

I originally got an ARC of this book through Amazon Vine nine (!!) years ago, but it slipped through the cracks and never got read. The physical copy is long gone, so I decided to grab the audiobook from the library. My goal this year is to finally get to some books I got for review years ago, but for whatever reason I never read. Do you let review copies linger too long like me?

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THE BOOK OF SILVER LININGS by Nan Fischer #20booksofsummer23

Synopsis from the Publisher:

Within the margins of an antique book, a timeless love waits for a young woman on the precipice of a terrible mistake in this enthralling exploration of fate and independence from the acclaimed author of Some of It Was Real.

Constance Sparks always says yes…when her capricious best friend needs money; when her boss gives her more responsibility without a raise; and when her boyfriend, Hayden, who is very kind but also secretive, asks her to marry him.

While planning their wedding — and struggling with anxiety about the right course for her future — Constance researches the history of her antique engagement ring and unearths the name of a man who might be connected to it, plus his tragic love story. When she finds a book of letters in her library’s old manuscript section written by the long-dead man, Constance is deeply touched by his words and leaves a note for him confessing her uncertainty and doubts. She’s shocked days later to find a response tucked among the pages.

As the notes continue to arrive, Constance finds herself quickly falling in love with a ghost and putting her real-life relationship in jeopardy. Will a bond based on letters impossibly sent from the past derail her future? Or will Constance discover her voice and risk everything for the chance to somehow connect with her true soul mate?

Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: Aug 15, 2023
Source: Review copy from NetGalley
Rating: 4.5 Stars

My Thoughts:

Though contemporary romance isn’t a genre I pick up often, something about the premise of this book compelled me to give it a read, and I’m so glad I did.

The main character Constance is a people pleaser, always willing to give up pieces of herself for others, and never feeling like she’s enough. When her fiancé gives her a stunning antique engagement ring, she sets out to discover its provenance through a very old book of letters from WWI. The answers she finds help to guide her down her own path of self-discovery.

I wasn’t expecting this to be such an emotional read, but I got teary eyed several times. My heart went out to Constance and her struggle with low self-esteem and her difficult relationships with others. She was such a sweet person.

There’s a bit of mystery that Constance finds within the book of letters, and a lovely slow-build romance that came with a couple of surprising twists. I highly recommend this uplifting story of finding self-worth, true love, and having the courage to accept the past and set a new course in life.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me a copy of this book. Opinions are my own.

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A SUMMER TO REMEMBER by Erika Montgomery

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication Date: May 11, 2021
Source: Review copy from NetGalley
Rating: ★★★½

A SUMMER TO REMEMBER blends elements of family drama, mystery, and romance into a bittersweet story. Frankie is grieving the loss of her mother while trying to keep their Hollywood memorabilia store afloat. She comes across a couple of sealed letters, and a photograph of her mother with a pair of married movie stars taken a year before Frankie’s birth. Always curious about who her father was, Frankie heads across the country to Cape Cod where the photo was taken in hopes of finding clues to his identity.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I enjoyed the sense of place and the Hollywood nostalgia, and I was very curious about the family secrets surrounding Frankie’s father. The romance was lovely — two lost souls coming together. However, the pacing was slow, and I found the big reveal rather frustrating. It was unnecessary to keep this particular thing a secret for 30 years. If you can get past that hurdle, A SUMMER TO REMEMBER makes a great beach read that will leave you craving margaritas and fried clams, and wanting to dust off those old VHS movies.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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THE DEAD ROMANTICS by Ashley Poston

A disillusioned millennial ghostwriter who, quite literally, has some ghosts of her own, has to find her way back home in this sparkling adult debut from national bestselling author Ashley Poston.

Florence Day is the ghostwriter for one of the most prolific romance authors in the industry, and she has a problem — after a terrible breakup, she no longer believes in love. It’s as good as dead.

When her new editor, a too-handsome mountain of a man, won’t give her an extension on her book deadline, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye. But then she gets a phone call she never wanted to receive, and she must return home for the first time in a decade to help her family bury her beloved father.

For ten years, she’s run from the town that never understood her, and even though she misses the sound of a warm Southern night and her eccentric, loving family and their funeral parlor, she can’t bring herself to stay. Even with her father gone, it feels like nothing in this town has changed. And she hates it.

Until she finds a ghost standing at the funeral parlor’s front door, just as broad and infuriatingly handsome as ever, and he’s just as confused about why he’s there as she is.

Romance is most certainly dead…but so is her new editor, and his unfinished business will have her second-guessing everything she’s ever known about love stories.

Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: June 28, 2022
Source: Review copy from NetGalley

★★★★

What a sweet (and bittersweet) story! I’m usually a hard sell when it comes to rom-coms, but this one I could not resist, with a ghostwriter haunted by her handsome editor’s ghost, and a quirky small town funeral parlor setting. I wasn’t sure how a phantom love interest would work, but it did.

THE DEAD ROMANTICS is a funny, unique, sad at times, and emotional romance/family drama. I loved how the book handled grief and forgiveness as the main character dealt with the death of her father. The pacing was a bit slow in the middle, but the ending was twisty and wonderful. Recommended to fans of rom-coms that will pull at your heartstrings.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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EVERY SUMMER AFTER by Carley Fortune

Six summers to fall in love. One moment to fall apart. A weekend to get it right.

They say you can never go home again, and for Persephone Fraser, ever since she made the biggest mistake of her life a decade ago, that has felt too true. Instead of glittering summers on the lakeshore of her childhood, she spends them in a stylish apartment in the city, going out with friends, and keeping everyone a safe distance from her heart.

Until she receives the call that sends her racing back to Barry’s Bay and into the orbit of Sam Florek — the man she never thought she’d have to live without.

For six summers, through hazy afternoons on the water and warm summer nights working in his family’s restaurant and curling up together with books — medical textbooks for him and work-in-progress horror short stories for her — Percy and Sam had been inseparable. Eventually that friendship turned into something breathtakingly more, before it fell spectacularly apart.

When Percy returns to the lake for Sam’s mother’s funeral, their connection is as undeniable as it had always been. But until Percy can confront the decisions she made and the years she’s spent punishing herself for them, they’ll never know whether their love might be bigger than the biggest mistakes of their past.

Told over the course of six years and one weekend, Every Summer After is a big, sweeping nostalgic story of love and the people and choices that mark us forever.

Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: May 10, 2022
Source: Review copy from NetGalley

★★★¾

This is a sweet & summery story about friendship, love, mistakes, and forgiveness. It’s told in alternating time periods — during Percy and Sam’s teenage years when they met and fell in love, and then 12 years after the end of high school, when a huge mistake drove them apart.

I enjoyed seeing their relationship develop over the course of six summers, with endearing childhood moments and angsty teen drama. I do feel like the resolution was rushed in the end, and I wish there had been more focus on them as adults working through their conflict.

The setting was amazing. A cottage by the water and lazy summer days made me nostalgic for my childhood family holidays. Lovely! Would recommend to fans of second chance romances.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.