Review | Suitors and Sabotage by Cindy Anstey

Suitors and Sabotage

by Cindy Anstey 

Published by Swoon Reads on April 17th, 2018

Genres: Young Adult, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Romance

Pages: 336

Format: ARC 

Source: Provided by Raincoast Books in exchange for honest review

Summary from Goodreads: 

Shy aspiring artist Imogene Chively has just had a successful Season in London, complete with a suitor of her father's approval. Imogene is ambivalent about the young gentleman until he comes to visit her at the Chively estate with his younger brother in tow. When her interest is piqued, however, it is for the wrong brother.

Charming Ben Steeple has a secret: despite being an architectural apprentice, he has no drawing aptitude. When Imogene offers to teach him, Ben is soon smitten by the young lady he considers his brother's intended.

But hiding their true feelings becomes the least of their problems when, after a series of "accidents," it becomes apparent that someone means Ben harm. And as their affection for each other grows—despite their efforts to remain just friends—so does the danger. . . 

Buy Links:

Amazon│Barnes & Noble│Indigo

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Review:



Suitors and Sabotage is Cindy Anstey's third novel. It centres around Imogene, who is getting prepared for her possible engagement to one Ernest Steeple, and Benjamin, who happens to be Ernest's brother. However, both Imogene and Benjamin hit it off while Imogene's best friend, Emily, believes herself to be in love with Benjamin. It's a bit like Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. 



I liked Suitors and Sabotage but just not as much as I thought I would. I enjoyed reading Imogene's interactions with Ben, and vice versa, as well as witnessing the attraction between the two begin to flourish. They were able to talk to one another easily and though they knew that they shouldn't be thinking or feeling the way they o about each other, they found themselves unable to really fight off their growing attraction and sparking chemistry. I also enjoyed reading about Ernest and Benjamin's strong and stable sibling relationship, especially considering how close they are, as well as Emily and Imogene's friendship, who are more like sisters than best friends, who tell each other everything and always offer their support. 



In the end, it was an okay book to read. Not what I typically imagined this book would be like but nonetheless enjoyable to read. 

Rating:

★★★

About The Author:

Cindy Anstey spends her time writing and adventuring around the world. She has lived on three continents, had a monkey in her backyard and a scorpion under her sink, dwelt among castles and canals, enjoyed the jazz of Beale St and attempted to speak French. Cindy loves history, mystery and... a chocolate Labrador called Chester. Love, Lies and Spies is her debut novel. She currently resides in Nova Scotia, Canada. 

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Review | Seeing Red by Sandra Brown

Seeing Red

by Sandra Brown

Published by Grand Central Publishing on February 6th, 2018

Genres: Romance, Suspense, Mystery, Thriller, Fiction

Pages: 432

Format: Paperback

Source: Bought at Indigo

Summary from Goodreads: 

Kerra Bailey is a TV journalist hot on the trail of a story guaranteed to skyrocket her career to new heights. Twenty-five years ago, Major Franklin Trapper became a national icon when he was photographed leading a handful of survivors to safety after the bombing of a Dallas hotel. For years, he gave frequent speeches and interviews but then suddenly dropped out of the public eye, shunning all media. Now Kerra is willing to use any means necessary to get an exclusive with the Major--even if she has to secure an introduction from his estranged son, former ATF agent John Trapper. 



Still seething over his break with both the ATF and his father, Trapper wants no association with the bombing or the Major. Yet Kerra's hints that there's more to the story rouse Trapper's interest despite himself. And when the interview goes catastrophically awry--with unknown assailants targeting not only the Major, but also Kerra--Trapper realizes he needs her under wraps if he's going to track down the gunmen . . . and finally discover who was responsible for the Dallas bombing.



Kerra is wary of a man so charming one moment and dangerous the next, and she knows Trapper is withholding evidence from his ATF investigation into the bombing. But having no one else to trust and enemies lurking closer than they know, Kerra and Trapper join forces to expose a sinuous network of lies and conspiracy--and uncover who would want a national hero dead.

Buy Links:

Amazon│Barnes & Noble│Indigo

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Review:


Having never read any of Sandra Brown's books prior to this one, I didn't really know what to expect when diving into this book. Admittedly, I eyed this book for a while before I decided to take the plunge and read it. Having read from the romantic suspense genre. I am glad I ended up giving this book, and Sandra Brown, a chance because I can 100% say that this has become one of my favourite books. 



Seeing Red begins right off the bat, leaving me sitting on the edge of my seat wanting to know what happens next. It is filled with numerous conspiracies, suspense, danger, mystery, sizzling chemistry, and a seemingly endless suspect list. 



Kerra Bailey contacts John Trapper in hopes of getting in touch with his father, The Major became the hero who led survivors out of The Pegasus Hotel bombing in 1992. For John Trapper, this signalled the end of his happy life, and view of family, when his father latched onto the celebrity status he received from his heroic actions.  His obsession with the bombing investigation and whether it was ever truly solved has costed Trapper his job at the ATF as well as his relationship with his father. So when Kerra shows up asking him to help her get in contact with his father, he has no desire to participate in her quest for an interview.



Kerra Bailey has been wanting to get in contact with The Major not only because of professional career as a journalist but also due to a more personal reason. She will see to it that she gets that interview with or without Trapper's help. But denying her attraction to Trapper might prove to be harder than getting that interview. 



However, when Kerra's interview with The Major doesn't go as planned, Kerra and Trapper are through into a storm of epic proportion. They try to get to the bottom of things all the while trying to stay alive in the process. 



The romance between Kerra and John was spectacular to read! Brown definitely knows how to write some hot and steamy scenes. Though I sort of predicted what would happen, I still immensely enjoyed this book. Sandra Brown did an amazing job keeping me on my toes and entertained with those twists and turns. There were some I was floored by, seriously. Brown's characters and writing hook you into the story and make you want to keep reading until you know how it all ends. I was hooked on this book from the very beginning to the very end. 



I can not wait to read Sandra Brown's other books. I highly, highly, recommend Seeing Red to any and all romantic suspense readers. This is not one to be missed. 

Rating:

★★★★ ★

About The Author:

Sandra Brown is the author of more than sixty New York Times bestsellers, including STING (2016), FRICTION (2015), MEAN STREAK (2014), DEADLINE (2013), & LOW PRESSURE (2012), LETHAL (2011).



Brown began her writing career in 1981 and since then has published over seventy novels, bringing the number of copies of her books in print worldwide to upwards of eighty million. Her work has been translated into over thirty languages.



In 2009 Brown detoured from romantic suspense to write, Rainwater, a much acclaimed, powerfully moving historical fiction story about honor and sacrifice during the Great Depression.



Brown was given an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Texas Christian University. She was named Thriller Master for 2008, the top award given by the International Thriller Writer’s Association. Other awards and commendations include the 2007 Texas Medal of Arts Award for Literature and the Romance Writers of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award. 

Website | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter | Wattpad 

Waiting on Wednesday {27}

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, Hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that I'm eagerly anticipating. 

Title:

The Summer Wives

Author:

Beatriz Williams

Publication Date:

July 10th, 2018

Publisher:

                                 William Morrow

Summary from Goodreads:

New York Times bestselling author Beatriz Williams brings us the blockbuster novel of the season—a spellbinding novel of romance, murder, class, power, and dark secrets set in the 1950s and ’60s among the rarified world of a resort island in the Long Island Sound . . .

In the summer of 1951, Miranda Schuyler arrives on elite, secretive Winthrop Island in Long Island Sound as a naive eighteen year old, still reeling from the loss of her father in the Second World War. Although a graduate of the exclusive Foxcroft Academy in Virginia, Miranda has always lived on the margins of high society. When her beautiful mother marries Hugh Fisher, whose summer house on Winthrop overlooks the famous lighthouse, Miranda is catapulted into a heady new world of pedigrees and cocktails, status and swimming pools. Isobel Fisher, Miranda’s new stepsister—all long legs and world-weary bravado, engaged to a wealthy Island scion—is eager to draw Miranda into the arcane customs of Winthrop society.

But beneath the Island’s patrician surface, there are really two clans--the summer families with their steadfast ways and quiet obsessions, and the working class of Portuguese fishermen and domestic workers who earn their living on the water and in the laundries of the summer houses. Uneasy among Isobel’s privileged friends, Miranda finds herself drawn to Joseph helps his father in the lobster boat, but in the autumn he returns to Brown University, where he’s determined to make something of himself. Since childhood, Joseph has enjoyed an intense, complex friendship with Isobel Fisher, and has a catastrophe that will shatter Winthrop’s hard-won tranquility and banish Miranda from the Island for nearly two decades.

Now, in the summer of 1969, Miranda returns at last, as a renowned Shakespearean actress hiding a terrible heartbreak. On its surface, the Island remains the same--determined to keep the outside world from its shores, fiercely loyal to those who belong. But the formerly powerful Fisher family is a shadow of itself, and Joseph Vargas has recently escaped the prison where he was incarcerated for the murder of Miranda’s stepfather eighteen years earlier. What’s more, Miranda herself is no longer a naive teenager, and she begins a fierce, inexorable quest for justice to the man she once loved . . . even if it means uncovering every last one of the secrets that bind together the families of Winthrop Island.