Book Review: Miss Darcy's Beaux by Eliza Shearer

Author: Eliza Shearer

Title: Miss Darcy's Beaux

Genre: Historical Romance, What If

Format: ebook

Pages: 207

Published: June 5, 2017

Where I Got It: My shelf (Amazon

Summary: 

Fitzwilliam Darcy’s beloved sister Georgiana is now a woman of twenty. After living in the enclosed safety of Pemberley for years, she is sent to London for the season with Lady Catherine de Bourgh as her chaperone. Lady Catherine is determined that her niece shall make a splendid match. But will Georgiana allow her aunt to decide for her? Or will she do as her brother did, and marry for love?

Review:

This year has really been a year I've been tackling my TBR pile. This one isn't as old as some as the others so I didn't include it in my TBR challenge list (but tbh I have had this as a "want-to-read" since 2017 so it def could have counted). Oh well. 

Here we follow Georgiana Darcy. She is now twenty and has become settled into her life in the enclosed safety of Pemberley for years. However, the family wants her to experience life...especially her Aunt Lady Catherine de Bourgh who has agreed to be her chaperone. Aka told everyone she was just going to do it. She is determined to find Georgiana a suitable match, unlike Fitzwilliam. However, will Georgiana be allowed to follow her heart and make the decision herself? Will she find the strength to do it? Or will she just settle for whatever Lady Catherine finds for her?

I did enjoy this. I adore Georgiana and I want her to find love! Wickham was terrible and she didn't deserve to have that happen to her. She is an angel and too sweet. 

On that note....Georgiana barely said a word this entire novel. She was sooooo meek it literally enraged me. Yes, I get she doesn't want to rock the boat but say something. Defend Elizabeth! Defend your beloved brother! Defend yourself! Ugh! I wanted to shake her. I'm glad she finally got a backbone near the end, but her brother really had to help. 

Catherine was terrible and mean. 

Lydia was nasty. 

Mary was rude. 

Kitty was annoying. 

Captain Price....sighs....I liked him but he was so sensitive all the time. I'm glad he was understanding after a bit. 

I wish we had more time with Darcy and Elizabeth! 

LOVED that Captain Wentworth and Anne made an appearance!!! I love them!!!! Now I wanna read 'Persuasion' again!

But yes, this was fun if you like the JA characters and stories. It was nice seeing some characters from other books make an appearance. And Captain Price is a nice match for Georgiana. That was unique and different! I approve. 

Just be prepared to want to kick a lot of people who are just plain mean. And Georgiana was too meek for too long. 

In the end, 3 stars from me. 

Audiobook Review: The A.I. Who Loved Me by Alyssa Cole

Author: Alyssa Cole

Narrator: Regina Hall, Mindy Kaling, Feodor Chin, Therese Plummer, Dina Pearlman, Neil Hellegers, Adenrele Ojo, & Kyla Garcia

Title: The A.I. Who Loved Me

Genre: SciFi, Romance, Novella, Fantasy

Format: Audiobook

Published: December 3, 2019

Where I got It: Audible 

Summary: 

Trinity Jordan leads a quiet, normal life: working from home for the Hive, a multifunctional government research center, and recovering from the incident that sent her into a tailspin. But the life she’s trying to rebuild is plagued by mishaps when Li Wei, her neighbor’s super sexy and super strange nephew, moves in and turns things upside down. Li Wei’s behavior is downright odd—and the attraction building between them is even more so. When an emergency pulls his aunt away from the apartment complex, Trinity decides to keep an eye on him…and slowly discovers that nothing is what it seems. For one thing, Li Wei isn’t just the hot guy next door—he’s the hot A.I. next door. In fact, he’s so advanced that he blurs the line between man and machine. It’s up to Trinity to help him achieve his objective of learning to be human, but danger is mounting as they figure out whether he’s capable of the most illogical human behavior of all…falling in love.

Review:

I have been seeing this book everywhere on every system and site that has audios. I also have adored other books by this author so I finally caved and decided to read this. It is/was a freebie on Audible for those with a Plus membership. 

Trinity Jordan has been living a quiet and "normal" life since an incident sent her into a tailspin. She is trying to get back on track, mentally, working remotely before she goes back to work at the Hive. The Hive is a multifunctional government research center. However, life is getting complicated and plagued by mishaps when Li Wei moves in with his aunt to recover from an accident he suffered recently too. His behavior is weird and the attraction between them is growing quickly. When an emergency pulls his aunt away, Trinity decides to keep an eye on him for the aunt. Turns out he is more than just human....he is an AI. He is SO advanced that he blurs the line between man and machine. It's up to Trinity to help him achieve his objective of learning to be human. However, danger and love are heading their way.

This started off fine enough. I was liking this for the most part...until I didn't. 

I'm not sure where the disconnect happened for me. There is a great cast of narrators....and the story is fresh. I know I struggle with SciFi in general but this sounded like it would be a win. I also am super meh about robots, but this AI was super human and super hawt. However, I struggled to finish. 

The first 10% was good...and the last 10% was good. The middle 80%? Ugh. I had to speed up the narration to make it go by quicker. I didn't want to DNF because I adore the author and have liked her stuff in the past. I was just hoping I would connect again with the story. I did for the last chunk. Or was I just happy it was coming to an end? I couldn't honestly tell you. 

Sighs. 

In the end, there are a lot of parts and components I liked, but as a whole, I was meh about this. It just didn't pull together for me. There are loads of people that adore this, but it was for me sadly. I'll give this 2 stars and only because there are pieces I did like. 

Challenge(s):
- #15 for Audiobook challenge

- #11 for Romance Reading Challenge - SciFI

Book Review: Serendipity by Louise Shaffer

Author: Louise Shaffer

Title: Serendipity

Genre: Historical Fiction, Chick Lit, Romance

Format: Paperback

Pages: 341

Published: January 1, 2009

Where I Got It: My shelf (Used Book store)

Summary: 

A child of theatrical royalty, Carrie Manning is having a hard time getting her own act together. Thirty-seven, aimless, and having just buried a famous mother she never understood, she is desperate to uncover her family’s mysterious past in the hopes that it will help her understand herself.

Carrie’s search reveals the fascinating life stories of her estranged grandmother Lu, a glamorous Broadway star whose dreams came with a price; her great grandmother Mifalda, who gave up everything to come to America as a sixteen-year-old Italian bride; and her father, Bobby, the charismatic Broadway genius who wrote some of Lu’s greatest musicals and died tragically young. At the heart of Carrie’s discoveries lies the reason for her mother’s complicated life, and a dark secret that has been buried for thirty years.

Review:

Picking this one had a couple of reasons. 1) Needed something for book club and this seemed like we could have some good convos and 2) it's been collecting dust on my shelf for yearsssss so it is part of a TBR Pile reading challenge. 

Carrie Manning has had a hard time getting her act together. She is 37 and aimless. And now even more so after having to bury her famous mother. Now, Carrie is desperate to understand her mother and uncover her family's mysterious past and secrets. Maybe she will finally understand herself! Her search reveals a fascinating past of her mother, grandmother, and even her great-grandmother. She will also uncover some dark secrets that have been buried for a long, long time. 

So this started out slow for me. It took me a couple of chapters to really get into it. I did step away for a couple of days to finish up a different book. When I picked this backup.......I could NOT stop reading. I literally finished this in a day. 

Where do I even begin? 

Each woman is complex and different but similar to their daughter. Honestly, I would love to learn more about the great-great grandma now too! It seems that these women have complicated relationships with their daughters. Hopefully, if Carrie has a daughter one day, she can break the cycle. There are so many hurt feelings and trauma with these women. If they all just sat down and tried to be understanding of each other MAYBE, JUST MAYBE there wouldn't be such bad blood and the whole "I'll never be like my mother!!!!!". But we wouldn't have this story and Carrie trying to find her way ;)

I really adored this book. TBH it could be a good contender for best of the year. I don't want to give any spoilers, but I kept finding myself surprised at each turn of the page. I literally ate this book up. 

So many lessons could be learned from this story. 

I can't wait to talk about this at book club! It is unaliving me not to be able to spoil this for ya'lls ;) 

But yes. Great stories. Great characters. There are times you just want to scream, "TALK TO EACH OTHER!!!!!!" But you know the generational trauma continues until Carrie. 5 stars 100% 

Challenge(s):

- #4 TBR Pile Reading

Blodeuedd's Monday: Wolf in the Shadows by Maria Vale

By: Maria Vale

Narrated by: Senn Annis, Julio Maxwell

Series: Legend of All Wolves, Book 5

Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins

Release date: 03-21-23

PNR/UF/to review

The last book. I definitely recommend reading the previous ones. Like why Julia is a shifter, but Arthur who can shift to a wolf is something else. He is more wolf than human and Julia is more human than wolf.

Oh and a lot of stuff went down in the last one. Her uncle being killed, shifters trying to kill wolves, her being locked up among the shifters. Her the spoiled little princess finding out that maybe these wolves know how to run wild and be free.

Julia went from spoiled to learning about her true self. Along the way she meets Arthur, who is at the bottom of his pack. They fall for each other, and there is also the big drama that finally comes to a conclusion. Can shifters and these "wolves" live in peace again?

There was this one disturbing thing at one point, it was not handled very well and had to do with Julia and Arthur. Was it meant to show us something? Now it just made her out to be evil

But I enjoyed this last one. The first book is still my favorite. It had the realness to it. I did like that we finally came to an ending. They just wanted to live in peace, from humans and shifters. And now they possibly can. Hopefully.

Good narration between two narrators. They worked well with each others characters too. The story flowed well.

A wolf shifter hero with a haunted past

A shifter heroine with a lot to learn about being part of the Pack

Dark secrets that could destroy everything they love

Fantasy-level world building and epic romance-the new werewolf standard

Shifter Julia Martel has been spoiled and pampered by all the alpha males around her whose urge to protect her have left her uninformed and vulnerable. Now the Great North Pack has relegated Julia to the care of the wolf at the very bottom of the Pack hierarchy, Arthur Graysson. Julia wants nothing to do with the Pack, except to escape back to her life of luxury and idleness, but the more time she spends with Arthur, the more she learns about the Pack, the dark secrets Arthur carries with him, and the fierceness within herself that could save them all...