Make Up Reading

5 out of 5 stars Thank you to Netgalley and Atria Books for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This is a wonderful Gothic historical fiction that will reel you into this beautiful, chilling world. Set in London 1850, The Great Exhibition is being erected in Hyde Park and all of London is excited! Twin sisters Iris and Rose spend much of their time working, They paint and dress expensive China dolls for Mrs. Salter, their laudanum addicted mistress.  Life is rather bleak for the sisters but then Iris meets Louis Frost a fantastic painter and she agrees to pose for him in exchange for painting lessons. Iris desperately wants to be a painter but as a woman she is nit taken seriously. She is a pretty girl, an object for men to gaze at.  Iris then meets Silas, a taxidermist who becomes obsessed with Iris and will do anything to make her his. As the story goes on and Silas' obsession grows the book becomes darker and darker. Thi...

4.5 out of 5 stars Thanks to Netgalley and Red Rogue Press for a digital galley in exchange for an honest review. Alice and Wonderland is one of my very favorite classics. I remember reading Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass over an over as a kid. Now that I am an adult I often seek out re-tellings because I find it fascinating to see what people kind of interesting takes authors will do with the story.  I found this to be a fun, quirky tale of what happened to Alice after she returned from her adventures in Wonderland. Alice is fifteen and never stopped believing in Wonderland even though everyone thinks she has lost her mind. Her family is so worried that they continue to try and find treatments for Alice. Hoping against hope that she will forget her obsession with Wonderland. When Alice gets a chance to go back to Wonderland to help stop the Red Queen she agrees. Though she doesn't want to kill anyone she really wants to help and is willing to do whatever she can. ...

5 out of 5 stars! Another fantastic book by Taylor Jenkins Reid! I love "The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo" and I loved this book just as much. I really feel that Taylor Jenkins Reid's books read best as audio books and this was the best audio book I have listened to. The cast was phenomenal. Jennifer Beals as Daisy,Pablo Schreiber as Billy and Benjamin Bratt as Graham and  January LaVoy  as Camilla were brilliant but for me Judy Greer really knocked the role of Karen Karen totally out of the park. Karen also happened to be my favorite character. A wonderfully written,addictive and intoxicating novel that tells the story of Daisy Jones & The Six, the rock and roll scene from the 60's. Sex, drugs, rock n roll and of course love and heartbreak. The Six were doing well as a band, a hit here or there, your name on everyone's lips and yet there is something missing. That something is Daisy Jones, a groupie girl with a beautiful rough voice who also happens to...

An overwhelming five stars! I have wanted to read this book since it came out and all of my favorite booktubers raved about it! Let me just say that they were completely right! This is my favorite book that I have read this year. I am obsessed with old Hollywood but this was the perfect book for me. I listened to the audio and the narrator was fantastic. Monique Grant who is definitely the low man on the totem pole for the magazine she she works for so both her and her boss are shocked when Hollywood legend Evelyn Hugo wants Monique to write a story about her. Monique thinks she is writing a story covering the auction of all of Evelyn's gowns for breast cancer research in memory of her daughter. Little does Monique know Evelyn really wants Monique to write her biography, including all the details about her seven marriages.  The big question? Who is the love of Evelyn's life? The answer may surprise you.   With each story that Evelyn shares we get closer and closer t...

I would like to thank Netgalley and  Atria/Emily Bestler Books for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this lovely historical fantasy to read and review! 4.5 stars The Swan is a quaint, family run pub near the river Thames where everyone goes to weave their tales to eager listeners. There is nothing better than  sitting down, having a drink,smoking a pipe and getting lost in a lovely or perhaps even a spooky story.. Lets be honest everyone enjoys a story but often once a story is told it is almost immediately. That is not the case when a tale is told at the Swan, it begins to take on a life of it's own.  One dark night during the Winter Solstice a broken and beaten man walks into the Swan holding the body of a young girl. Everyone is certain she is dead and they most certainly are right until all of the sudden she begins to breathe once again. From there the stories gets even more interesting. This is a lovely, well written story that will hold your interest. ...

First I would like to thank Netgalley and Graydon House  for allowing me to read an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review! Let me just say that I am not sure  exactly what genre this books is but I guess I would call it a historical paranormal romance and let me tell you that I am here for it! I just loved this book. I was intrigued by the cover of the book that the blurb but I did not expect to enjoy this as much as I thought I would. This is the perfect book to read on a chilly Autumn evening by the fire. It is warm yet gothic, romantic, lovely and yet heartbreaking. Lydia Montrose has known for a long time that she was different  and she can even tell you the exact day it hit her that something was off, she was around five and she hurt a crue little boy without touching him. After that her Mother warned her to never do that again. Though she didn't understand how she did what she did she tried her best to hide who truly is. In fact she did such a good job ...

2.5 stars Here is the thing, I wanted to read this book so bad and I was super excited when I was able to get it on Kindle for 1.99, the problem is that this book was really hard to get into. It just felt flat. It is not because in a lot ways the writing feels like a classic, in fact that was one of the things I enjoyed most about it. The problem was that the storyline fell flat for me. This book had everything I love, good representation, an interesting and funny lead character that you actually could like even though he was rather dickish and relationships that I was rooting for. Yet, with all of that going for it there were times when I could not even bother to care. I actually fell asleep a few times while reading this. I know rom the ratings that I am in the minority here and I may read the next book but I am disappointed. The reason I rounded this up to three stars is because the wide representation in this novel. If not for that it would have only been a two star book.