#BookReview: A Hobbit Devotional (DiCarta) by Ed Strauss

Synopsis: If you enjoy J. R. R. Tolkien--even if you're new to his classic stories--you'll love A Hobbit Devotional featuring 60 humorous, challenging, and encouraging devotionals. Now a major motion picture series, The Hobbit has fascinated readers for more than 70 years. This tale of humble folk who overcome fear, discouragement, and despair through steadfastness, courage, and hope forms the basis of this beautifully packaged devotional book. Each reading sketches a scene from The Hobbit, relates it to a contemporary life situation you might experience yourself, and brings in the teaching of a relevant Bible story or verse.

#BookReview: The Initial Insult (The Initial Insult #1) by Mindy McGinnis

Synopsis: Welcome to Amontillado, Ohio, where your last name is worth more than money, and secrets can be kept… for a price.

Tress Montor knows that her family used to mean something—until she didn’t have a family anymore. When her parents disappeared seven years ago while driving her best friend home, Tress lost everything. She might still be a Montor, but the entire town shuns her now that she lives with her drunken, one-eyed grandfather at what locals refer to as the “White Trash Zoo,” – a wild animal attraction featuring a zebra, a chimpanzee, and a panther, among other things. 

Felicity Turnado has it all – looks, money, and a secret that she’s kept hidden. She knows that one misstep could send her tumbling from the top of the social ladder, and she’s worked hard to make everyone forget that she was with the Montors the night they disappeared. Felicity has buried what she knows so deeply that she can’t even remember what it is… only that she can’t look at Tress without having a panic attack.

But she’ll have to.

Tress has a plan. A Halloween costume party at an abandoned house provides the ideal situation for Tress to pry the truth from Felicity – brick by brick – as she slowly seals her former best friend into a coal chute. With a drunken party above them, and a loose panther on the prowl, Tress will have her answers – or settle for revenge.

In the first book of this duology, award-winning author Mindy McGinnis draws inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe and masterfully delivers a dark, propulsive mystery in alternating points of view that unravels a friendship... forevermore. 

#BookBlitz: The Day We Die by Autumn Bluestone @XpressoTours #Giveaway $30 Amazon gift card

The Day We Die
Autumn Bluestone
(Branded, #1)
Publication date: August 26th 2021
Genres: Dystopian, Young Adult

It’s the year 2070, and everything in Tessa’s life has gone wrong. She didn’t expect to be Branded—a process created to preserve her country’s precious resources—with the terrifyingly young age of sixteen, or for tragedy to befall all her childhood friends. She didn’t expect to be left this alone. Four years after everything crumbled apart, Tessa is sixteen, preparing to board the Bus that gathers the expired before mysteriously disposing of them; and searching desperately for anything that could make her life worth living. Then she meets someone she never expected to see, and Tessa knows within seconds that they will forever be linked by their pasts. Struggling to cope with her low brand, survive the endless flow of mental and physical attacks pounding her and the other expirees, and find purpose amid the storm of pain that is her life, Tessa would be falling apart if it weren’t for the boy that just keeps piecing her back together. She’s closer to death than ever before. Will Tessa survive, or will the attacks by the government—and her own mind—ultimately destroy her?

#BookBlitz: The Devil I Don’t Know by L.K. Shaw @XpressoTours #Giveaway $30 Amazon gift card

The Devil I Don’t Know
L.K. Shaw
(Brooklyn Kings #1)
Publication date: May 25th 2021
Genres: Adult, Mafia, Romance

Jacob
Loyalty

My father is dying, and I’ve been called back to Brooklyn to take my place as the head of the Italian syndicate. After a seven year absence, my first test of loyalty is to marry the granddaughter of the Irish mob’s leader. I may not want a wife, but I’ll kill anyone who tries to harm her.

I only hope she doesn’t expect love in our marriage. I can’t–won’t–love her. Not ever. I don’t have it in me.

Brenna
Duty

That’s all my life has been. Then, my grandfather signs a marriage contract, and I become a pawn in an alliance between the Irish and the Italians. Once again I’m bound by duty.

I’ve always been invisible–the person who fades into the background–except soon my new husband begins to see me.

He’s a Brooklyn king, but will our enemies destroy my chance to become his queen?

#BookReview: Calculated (Calculated #1) by Nova McBee

Synopsis: Set in Shanghai and Seattle, Calculated is a gritty, modern day blend of The Count of Monte Cristo and Mission Impossible.

She has many names – Octavia, Double 8, Phoenix, Josephine. She’s a math prodigy, a calculating genius and everyone wants her. 

In seventeen-year-old Jo River’s complicated world of numbers, there’s no such thing as coincidence. When she is betrayed by someone she loves, kidnapped by the world’s most wanted smuggler, and forced to use her talent to shore up a criminal empire, Jo deems her gift a curse—until she meets Red. 

Fellow captive and unlikely sage, Red teaches Jo to harness her true potential, so she can do more than just escape. Before he dies, Red reveals a secret about her enemies and makes her vow to right his wrongs. But Jo has a vow of her own. With help from Chan, a bitter billionaire, and Kai, his off-limits son, Jo rises into a new role, ready to take down those who ruined her life. Until a mathematical error comes back to haunt her with a threat much more dangerous than the criminals on the loose.

To beat the odds, Jo must decide who she really is and if risking everything is worth it.

After all, history is not made—it’s calculated. 

With themes of revenge and forgiveness, loss and identity, brainpower versus brutality, and the triumph of right over might, it will resonate with readers everywhere.

#BookReview: One Jar of Magic by Corey Ann Haydu

Synopsis: From the critically acclaimed author of Eventown comes a hopeful and empowering tale set in an enchanting world of magic and mysterious family secrets—perfect for fans of Anne Ursu, Rebecca Stead, and Wendy Mass.

Magic is like a dream. Delightful. Terrifying. Unreal.

Rose Alice Anders is Little Luck. Lucky to be born into the Anders family. Lucky to be just as special and magical as the most revered man in town—her father. The whole town has been waiting for Rose to turn twelve, when she can join them in their annual capturing of magic on New Year’s Day and become the person she was born to be.

But when that special day finally comes, Rose barely captures one tiny jar of magic. Now Rose’s dad won’t talk to her anymore and her friendships have gotten all twisted and wrong. So when Rose hears whispers that there are people who aren’t meant for magic at all, she begins to wonder if that’s who she belongs with.

Maybe if she’s away from all the magic, away from her dad telling her who she’s meant to be, who she has to be, Rose can begin to piece together what’s truly real in a world full of magic.