Review: Prince of Secrets and Shadows by CS Johnson

 

This YA historical thriller is set in the midst of an international underworld of spies and diplomats that our young heroine had no inkling of before volume 1. However, readers will have no problem stringing it all together even without familiarity because previous incidents are well explained.

There are two princes for Ella to handle, one who has chosen to listen to the people and one who has not; both are eager for her hand but for completely different reasons. She chose to follow her mother and grandmother into this world of intrigue following high ideals, but doubts that she's temperamentally suited to function in the constraints of the Order. Ella's personal choices have repercussions upon the the city of Prague and the entire known world, but in the end the highest of ideals require her to follow her own heart.

Nevertheless there is plenty of action and rescuing for her and her allies before her ultimate choice.
What is most wonderful is that however eccentric the characters, they are completely plausible and comprehensible, even the villains! And despite the happily ever after at the end, you know those villains will be brewing more mayhem in future installments. But I didn't have to suffer any 'cliff-hanger' unlike volume 1. Well done CS Johnson!

 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41558316-prince-of-secrets-and-shadows

Review: A Light of Her Own by C Callaghan

This is a very evocative telling of life in 17th century Netherlands, for the female members of families in the Artists Guilds. Talent is not enough to merit training for Maria, though she shares a room with her father's female apprentice Judith Leyster. Both are already grown women in their twenties, but around them young painters have become masters at a younger age.
At last both of them take decisive steps into the world on their own, Judith taking illicit commissions to afford her master's fee, Maria traveling to Leiden is search of a missing Guild artifact. But the road forward is fraught with daily perils not encountered by the male artists. And despite managing to set up her own workshop and apprenticeships, Judith walks a fine line, one group demanding three times the talent, and the other chastising her for putting her art before ties of friends and family.
Even when she helps to save her dear friend Maria's life, Maria interprets it in a spirit of betrayal.

In the end, the first and only female master of the Haarlem School would give up painting for marriage to a fellow painter, using her energies to keep his books and only seldom turn out a canvas. Yet this was the age of expansion and the marriage was a happy one. Making history demanded stepping away from invisibility in order to pursue her ideal.
It was a good idea to contrast her achievement with the life of her good friend, since talent does not happen only to brothers and not to sisters. How a person handles being gifted when society is not encouraging is interesting too.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J3GBLQ8

Helgaleena Healingline's Reviews > Naked Launch, Book Two

The action in this mid-twentieth century erotic romp is non-stop, and yet it does not preclude the deployment of an actual plot with historical plausibility. 

Having weathered the perils of Book One, wherein our hero Alan Steele has lost every hair upon his body in a racking fever but also snared a fortune,  his bosom comrades join him in designing and outfitting a pirate ship and crew like no other.  By book's end they shall be known far and wide as the 'Golden Devils', living a utopian experiment in male/male bonding and wreaking revenge upon their oppressors, both among the British and the Spaniards.  

It's not their problem that the famous Henry Morgan's biographer finds their exploits implausible, even as he's scribbling them down. 

 As Andrew P Media remarks,
'Moreover, the story provides a lovely vision of how things could and should be for gay men in the world. Written in the late sixties, one can imagine a bit of the free love movement and gay liberation sloganeering swarming inside the author’s brain. Consider this excerpt from one of Alan’s rousing speeches:

"Strip a man of his clothing and let him be proud of his pego and ballocks and he becomes a beautiful creature. Given cause he can fight ferociously, and yet with pego aroused for pleasure he can love tenderly, much preferring loving to fighting."'

Like the other titles in the series, it's well worth preserving. Kudos to Riverdale Avenue Books.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2555205830

Helgaleena's review of Crimson Byte, by Ivana Skye (paranormal YA) OUT NOW

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2553787088

 Ivana Skye has invented a whole new sort of vampire in an entirely new world of the contemporary future, and it sucks a person in immediately so that you, too, are an immensely talented and conflicted young art student in the alternate future United States, trying to get over the wounds of growing up bullied.

It's a good thing that life keeps happening to us no matter what. In a dark movie theatre a perfectly gorgeous young vampire sits next to her and politely asks her for help because he's been spotted by a rival faction dating one of theirs, which he isn't supposed to do. And this eventually leads further into our heroine discovering that it is she herself who is the greatest obstacle to her own happiness and productivity.

And yes, there is a bite. But the entire book is suitable for all ages and enthralling as well.

Available for pre-order   https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42195421-crimson-bite

OUT NOW   https://www.amazon.com/Crimson-Bite-Reverse-Romance-Vampires-ebook/dp/B07J3GBLQ8/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

Pulse-pounding Romances free book Giveaway includes Heidi Wasabi!

https://claims.prolificworks.com/gg/BVshc1L6XP2wdiMUo8Ih