Review: The Bridgertons: Happily Ever After by Julia Quinn

Title: The Bridgertons: Happily Ever After

Author: Julia Quinn
Publication Date: April 2, 2013
Publisher: HarperCollins
Genre: Adult Historical Romance
Find It: Goodreads, Amazon, B&N; Book Depository
Source: Publisher via Edelweiss

For the first time in print, New York Times bestselling author Julia Quinn presents a collection of "second epilogues" to her Bridgerton series, previously published as e-originals, plus a new bonus Bridgerton novella: "Violet in Bloom," a short story in which we finally meet Edmund Bridgerton.

The Bridgertons are back! As a huge fan of the Bridgerton series, I was very excited to hear that Julia Quinn was coming out with a book of second epilogues for the Bridgerton family. I relished the idea of revisiting these characters and was excited to also see that the Bridgerton matriarch was getting a story as well. The stories range in time from immediately after the original books end to many years after. Each story comes with a brief intro by Quinn which gives the reader some fun insight into the story. These were all (except for Violet’s story) previously published as short e-originals and are collected here for the first time.

Please note that I have read all off the Bridgerton books except for two (which I’ll note below). That did not take away from my enjoyment of these stories at all, though, as you will see.

The Duke and I: The Second Epilogue (Daphne & Simon)
Simon and Daphne’s story takes place many years after The Duke and I. Daphne finds herself unexpectedly pregnant again and is waiting for just to right time to tell Simon. We also finally learn what is in the packet of letters that Simon’s father left him. Such a fun, sweet story! Daphne and Simon were always one of my favorite couples and I loved seeing them living happily years later. You really get the feel of the Bridgteron family dynamic in this one and the affection between Simon and Daphne is clear. Funny, sweet, and touching, the second epilogue for Simon and Daphne was one of my favorites.

The Viscount Who Loved Me: The Second Epilogue (Kate & Anthony)
This story re-visits the infamous Pall Mall game from The Viscount Who Loved Me. Each year the players of the original game get together to play it again, with Anthony and Kate vying for the mallet of death. This story is hilarious and I love how each player continues to try and one up the other. This one made me laugh.

An Offer From A Gentleman: The Second Epilogue (Sophie & Benedict)
The second epilogue from Sophie and Benedict focuses on Sophie’s half sister Posy. Posy was the only non-awful family member that Sophie had and this story is about her finally finding her happily ever after. This is a really cute story. I always liked Posy and it was nice to see her find love. We also get a bit of an update on Sophie and Benedict, who are living happily in the country with their children. A very sweet story.

Romancing Mr. Bridgerton: The Second Epilogue (Penelope & Colin)
Colin and Penelope were always my favorite couple and this was the story I was looking forward to the most. To keep things spoiler free I will just say that this story is about how Eloise finds out about the big secret that was revealed in the book. I was a little bit disappointed that the story didn’t really focus on them and their relationship, but I still liked it.

To Sir Phillip With Love: The Second Epilogue (Eloise & Phillip)
This story is a bit different than the others. It’s told in first person and is from the point of view of Amanda Crane, one of the troublesome Crane twins from Eloise and Phillip’s story. This story wasn’t my favorite only because I didn’t have a lot invested in Amanda’s character. It was nice to see what happened to her as she got older but I think I would have preferred something focusing on Eloise and Phillip. I enjoyed the first person point of view though and it was a cute story.

When He Was Wicked: The Second Epilogue (Francesca & Michael)
This is one of the epilogues whose accompanying book I have not read. This epilogue takes place three years after Francesca and Michael’s story ends. The two have not been able to conceive any children thus far and the story focuses on Francesca and how she is dealing with the fact that she may never have her own children. Despite having never read their story, I found this epilogue to be one of the most emotional and moving in the whole collection. You can really see the family dynamic at play here with appearances by Violet, Eloise and many nieces and nephews. I don’t know Francesca and Michael’s story but this makes me really want to read it. They have a really playful and sweet relationship and the ending of this story left me with a smile on my face.

It’s In His Kiss: The Second Epilogue (Hyacinth & Gareth)
This epilogue answers the question about whether or not Hyacinth ever finds the diamond necklace that she is searching for in It’s In His Kiss. It’s 22 years later and Hyacinth and Gareth are still happily married. Hyacinth is determined to see her daughter Isabella married during the season and finds that she has a difficult job ahead of her. This is a really fun story that shows of Hyacinth’s personality well. The tables have turned and she now knows what it’s like to have a daughter just like herself. Gareth and Hyacinth are a great couple and I liked seeing them again. Isabella is a fun new character and was fun to read about. I thought the ending was fitting and am happy to know what finally became of the necklace.

On The Way To The Wedding: The Second Epilogue (Gregory & Lucy)
This is the other book that I have not read yet. It takes place right after the events of the book when Lucy gives birth for the last time - only the birth doesn’t go quite as planned. Even though I did not know much about Lucy and Gregory’s story, I found myself emotionally invested in this one right away. It’s a bit harrowing but, don’t worry, it still has a happy ending.

Violet In Bloom: A Novella
Violet’s story is both wonderful and bittersweet. If you’ve read any of the books in the series (spoiler alert!) you know that Edmund Bridgerton dies at a young age from a reaction from a bee sting. Though he has been gone for quite a while before the first book begins, his character’s presence can be felt in every book. I loved this brief glimpse into the past to see how Violet and Edmund meet and come to be married. We mourn with Violet as she deals with the sudden and devastating loss of her husband and go with her as she learns to move on to embrace life with her children. This is a really wonderful and touching story that gives great insight into the Bridgerton matriarch.

I would not recommend this for anyone who has not read most, if not all, of the Bridgerton books. If you haven’t read this series yet, do yourself a favor and try it. If you are already a fan of the Bridgertons, Happily Ever After is a must read. It has all of the humor and heart that I’ve come to expect of Quinn’s writing. The Bridgertons are like old, familiar friends and I had a lot of fun visiting them again. Most of these stories were previously released as short story ebooks. I had not read any of them, so it was nice to have them all in one place. Even if you already own a few of the stories, it may be worth it to buy the collection and have them all in one volume, depending on whether or not you plan to re-read them (which I totally do). The story about Violet is also a nice bonus.

I really enjoyed this one. The Bridgertons never fail to put a smile on my face and I was glad to see them one more time.

*I received this book free of charge from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This, in no way, affected my opinion or review of this book.

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Visit the author online at www.juliaquinn.com and Facebook.


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Review: Under The Never Sky by Veronica Rossi

Title: Under The Never Sky (Under The Never Sky #1)

Author: Veronica Rossi
Publication Date: January 3, 2012
Publisher: Harper Collins
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
Find It: Goodreads, Amazon, B&N, Book Depository
Source: ARC

Since she'd been on the outside, she'd survived an Aether storm, she'd had a knife held to her throat, and she'd seen men murdered.

This was worse.

Exiled from her home, the enclosed city of Reverie, Aria knows her chances of surviving in the outer wasteland--known as The Death Shop--are slim. If the cannibals don't get her, the violent, electrified energy storms will. She's been taught that the very air she breathes can kill her. Then Aria meets an Outsider named Perry. He's wild--a savage--and her only hope of staying alive.

A hunter for his tribe in a merciless landscape, Perry views Aria as sheltered and fragile--everything he would expect from a Dweller. But he needs Aria's help too; she alone holds the key to his redemption. Opposites in nearly every way, Aria and Perry must accept each other to survive. Their unlikely alliance forges a bond that will determine the fate of all who live under the never sky.

Aria lives in Reverie, a world that is protected and sheltered from the outside world. Those who live inside are safe from the Aether, powerful electrical storms that leave destruction in their wake. But their bodies and lives are regulated to the extreme and most of their life is experienced through virtual reality. The conditions outside of the pods are extremely harsh and people live in nomadic tribes to survive. They are considered savages by those who live inside the pods.  These two worlds could not be more different and they clash when Aria is exiled and encounters Perry, who is searching for his little brother.

Though I have had my copy of Under The Never Sky for quite a while, I held off on reading it until recently. I had read a slew of dystopian/post-apocalyptic YA novels and found myself burnt out on them. After a lengthy break though I finally felt it was time to dive into this world. And wow, what a world! I found the story and characters to be original and inventive. The fast paced storyline kept me on the edge of my seat and the romance was refreshingly believable.

Under The Never Sky is told from the alternating POV of Aria and Perry. I don’t usually like multiple points of view but it really gives the reader a lot of insight into Aria and Perry. They each approach life so differently and seeing through their eyes helped me understand them better.  Both have prejudices against the other and I liked seeing how their feelings developed as they got to know each other.

I wasn't sure I was going to like Aria at first but I came to really admire her. She’s very strong-willed and stubborn and is willing to risk her life for what she believes in. Though generally reserved, Perry has a deep capacity to love and the relationship he has with his nephew Talon is really sweet. He is also very loyal and will put the needs of others often before his own.  I liked that both of these characters evolved and grew over the course of the story, each coming into their own. I also liked that their relationship started off as adversarial but developed into deeper feelings once they got to know each other. No insta-love here.

I was a little surprised by how much I liked this book. I was afraid that it would not live up to my expectations. However, Under the Never Sky lived up to the hype and reignited my excitement for the genre.  The solid world building and well developed, nuanced characters make Under the Never Sky stand out in the YA landscape and I can’t wait to read more.

*I received this book free of charge from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This, in no way, affected my opinion or review of this book.

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Visit the author online at www.veronicarossi.com, Facebook and follow her on Twitter @rossibooks

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Review: Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon

Title: Telegraph Avenue

Author: Michael Chabon
Publication Date: September 11, 2012
Publisher: Harper Collins
Genre: Adult Contemporary Fiction
Find It: Goodreads, Amazon, B&N, Book Depository
Source: ARC from publisher received at ALA

As the summer of 2004 draws to a close, Archy Stallings and Nat Jaffe are still hanging in there—longtime friends, bandmates, and co-regents of Brokeland Records, a kingdom of used vinyl located in the borderlands of Berkeley and Oakland. Their wives, Gwen Shanks and Aviva Roth-Jaffe, are the Berkeley Birth Partners, two semi-legendary midwives who have welcomed more than a thousand newly minted citizens into the dented utopia at whose heart—half tavern, half temple—stands Brokeland.

When ex-NFL quarterback Gibson Goode, the fifth-richest black man in America, announces plans to build his latest Dogpile megastore on a nearby stretch of Telegraph Avenue, Nat and Archy fear it means certain doom for their vulnerable little enterprise. Meanwhile, Aviva and Gwen also find themselves caught up in a battle for their professional existence, one that tests the limits of their friendship. Adding another layer of complication to the couples' already tangled lives is the surprise appearance of Titus Joyner, the teenage son Archy has never acknowledged and the love of fifteen-year-old Julius Jaffe's life.

An intimate epic, a NorCal Middlemarch set to the funky beat of classic vinyl soul-jazz and pulsing with a virtuosic, pyrotechnical style all its own, Telegraph Avenue is the great American novel we've been waiting for. Generous, imaginative, funny, moving, thrilling, humane, and triumphant.

The year is 2004 and it’s a time of change for the inhabitants and merchants of Telegraph Avenue in Oakland, CA. Archie Stallings and Nat Jaffe are a dying breed, barely keeping the doors of Brokeland Records open. Brokeland is one of the last holdouts to the digital age - an oasis of vinyl - and is a popular neighborhood haunt. But a proposal for a megastore puts Brokeland in jeopardy and unearths some dirty secrets long kept hidden.

I picked up Telegraph Avenue with hope and a little bit of trepidation. Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is one of my all time favorite books. It was the book that first brought Chabon to my attention and I have read most of his books since then hoping to find that magic that I found with Kavalier & Clay. Telegraph Avenue piqued my interest not only because it was written by Chabon but also because music plays a large role in it (I love music and work in the music industry) and is also set a mere 35 miles from my hometown. Perhaps my expectations were too high but, while Telegraph Avenue was a unique book, I can't really say that I enjoyed it.

One of my biggest problems with the book were the characters in it. For one, there were a lot of them. The book jumps frequently from one character to the next and I found that it took me quite a while to get everyone straight. I also had a really hard time connecting with any of them. I especially had issues with Archy, who acted like an ass through most of the book. I didn’t understand any of his motivations and felt that he got off pretty easy, given the circumstances. Luther Stallings, a former blaxploitation star who has fallen on hard times, was probably the most compelling character though he, too, is very one-dimensional. The other characters, while interesting (yes, I am using that word a lot in this review), didn’t elicit any strong feelings from me.

Chabon’s writing, while showing great skill, was cumbersome. I felt my eyes glazing over during some of the really long, detailed passages. I also had to look up a lot of words, some of which my Kindle did not even recognize. I know I am no scholar but it really takes me out of a book if I have to look up a word every few pages or have to re-read a passage to understand what is going on. Surprisingly, one of the easiest passages for me to read was Chapter 3, which consists of a single 12-page sentence. But I see no point in such a passage except as a literary exercise. While all of this shows how skilled a writer Chabon is, it only served to bog down the already slow plot.

Amidst all of the metaphor and florid description, there is a story in here about the changing world and the loss of community and identity due to corporate takeover. I found the colorful cast of characters intriguing, but I felt like we only scratched the surface with them. Chabon does a good job of creating a believable setting and I really felt like I was strolling the streets of Oakland with these characters.

None of Chabon's subsequent books has managed to capture me the way that Kavalier & Clay did and perhaps it's not fair to expect them to. Though this book was a little hard to get through, I am glad that I read it. It feels like an accomplishment and I am pretty proud of myself for reading the 12-page sentence and understanding it. I am still a fan of Chabon’s work and will read his next book, but I don’t think I would recommend Telegraph Avenue except to die hard fans.

*I received this book free of charge from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This, in no way, affected my opinion or review of this book.

This review is part of the paperback release book tour for Telegraph Avenue. Many thanks to TLC Book Tours for having me on the tour. For the full tour schedule please visit the website here.

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Visit the author online at michaelchabon.com and on his Facebook page.

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Before I Go To Sleep - Review

Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson

Publication date: 14 June 2011 by Harper

ISBN 10/13: 0062060554 | 9780062060556
Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | Book Depository | Indiebound

Category: Adult Mystery/Thriller
Keywords: Mystery, thriller, suspense, amnesia, memory
Format: Hardcover, paperback, eBook
Source: Library

From Goodreads:

'As I sleep, my mind will erase everything I did today. I will wake up tomorrow as I did this morning. Thinking I'm still a child. Thinking I have a whole lifetime of choice ahead of me ...' Memories define us. So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep? Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love - all forgotten overnight. And the one person you trust may only be telling you half the story. Welcome to Christine's life.

Thuy's Review:

You know that disorienting feeling you get sometimes when you take a nap for too long? You wake up a little bleary eyed and confused, wondering where you are or what time it is. But then you recognize your house and remember that you decided to take a nap. Well what if, when you woke up, couldn’t remember where you were or how you got there? And the face when you looked in the mirror wasn’t what you thought you looked like? Scary, right? Well this is what life is like for Christine Lucas, the main character of Before I Go To Sleep. Each night she goes to bed knowing that, when she wakes, she will not remember her life.

The book begins when Christine wakes up in an unfamiliar room next to a man she doesn’t recognize. She goes into the bathroom only to see a face in the mirror that looks twenty years older than how old she believes she is. She has no memories of her husband or her life before that morning and she learns that when she goes to bed, she will lose whatever little progress she has made for the day. Suspicions arise when Christine finds out that her husband hadn’t been telling her the truth. But has he been doing it for spare her the grief or for some other sinister purpose? And can she trust the doctor she’s seeing or does he have his own plans for?

This was a totally gripping story that had me holding my breath from one page to the next. Taut and suspenseful, Watson does a great job of putting us inside Christine’s head. I felt Christine’s frustration, grief, anger and fear as she tries to piece together her life each day. The journal entries really drew me into Christine’s world and I wanted to know about her past just as much as she did.

The journal entries were a little repetitive at times but I could see why it set up that way, since we were seeing things through Christine’s unique perspective. Things take a decidedly creepy turn once Christine realizes that what she’s writing down and what she is being told aren’t adding up. I was trying to read as fast as possible near the end of the book. If I was a nail biter, my nails would have been bitten down to the quick.  The ending has the inevitable twist, though it was one that I hadn’t predicted. Things wrapped up a little too nicely and conveniently at the end, which lessened the believability of it all, but it was still a very exciting and nerve wracking ending.

Before I Go To Sleep makes us ask the question - who are we without our memories? It’s not something I’ve ever wanted to think about before and the answer is frightening. Creepy, intense, and original, Before I Go To Sleep an emotional thriller that you won’t be able to put down. Recommended for fans of the film Memento and dark, psychological thrillers.

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Visit the author online at www.sjwatson-books.com, follow him on Twitter @SJ_Watson, and Facebook

Short Story Review: Happily Never After by Jeaniene Frost

Happily Never After (Night Huntress #1.5) by Jeaniene Frost
Publication date: 19 July 2011 (first published 28 May 2008) by Harper Collins

Category: Adult Paranormal Romance
Keywords: Paranormal romance, vampires, mafia, wedding
Format: eBook (Originally appeared in Weddings From Hell anthology)

Thuy's synopsis:

Happily Never After is a fun short story set in the Night Huntress series by Jeaniene Frost. The novella originally appeared in Weddings From Hell anthology but is now available separately as an eBook (price at this time of this review is $1.99). The book takes place between books 1 and 2 of the Cat & Bones series. Bones makes a brief appearance, but this story isn’t about him. The main story is about Isabella (Isa) Spaga and her reluctance engagement to a wannabe mobster in order to save her brother’s life. Isa’s grandmother, an old friend of Bones’s, calls on him to help Isa out. Busy himself tracking someone down, Bones calls on his friend Chance to sort out the situation. Chance and Isa are attracted to each other from the start and sparks fly.

Thuy's review:

I really enjoyed this novella from Jeaniene Frost. I pretty much love anything Cat and Bones and this story was a fun look into the world from the eyes of new characters. If anything I wish it had been a little bit longer. It would have been nice to get a little more back story on Chance’s history with Bones. I don’t recall Chance from any of the other books but it could be that he only had a brief appearance that I just can’t remember.

Isa, our heroine, is quite a spitfire. She runs her own restaurant and is independent and strong. Even though she’s pretending to marry a domineering mobster, she manages to hold her own against his blackmail tactics in order to buy time for her brother. The attraction between Isa and Chance is almost immediate. Chance hasn’t felt this way about anyone in a long time and he determinedly goes after Isa. He’s also is super sexy and protective and it’s cute to watch him fret over whether or not Isa will freak out about him being a vampire.

The mobster cliches are hilarious. I chuckled reading the cheesy dialogue. And Granny – I love her! She’s so funny and has had such a fascinating life. I loved hearing about her times with Bones and her dry wit. I wish I had a grandma like her. It would certainly make my life more interesting. The book also had a surprise ending that I didn’t expect.

This novella is a fast, entertaining peek into the Night Huntress universe. You don’t need to be fan of the series to enjoy it but the series is awesome, so you should totally read it. :)

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Visit the author online at www.jeanienefrost.com or follow @Jeaniene_Frost on Twitter