#BookReview: Where Darkness Blooms by Andrea Hannah

Synopsis: Andrea Hannah's Where Darkness Blooms is a supernatural thriller about an eerie town where the sunflowers whisper secrets and the land hungers for blood.

The town of Bishop is known for exactly two recurring windstorms and an endless field of sunflowers that stretches farther than the eye can see. And women―missing women. So when three more women disappear one stormy night, no one in Bishop is surprised. The case is closed and their daughters are left in their dusty shared house with the shattered pieces of their lives. Until the wind kicks up a terrible secret at their mothers’ much-delayed memorial.

With secrets come the lies each of the girls is forced to confront. After caring for the other girls, Delilah would like to move on with her boyfriend, Bennett, but she can’t bear his touch. Whitney has already lost both her mother and her girlfriend, Eleanor, and now her only solace is an old weathervane that seems to whisper to her. Jude, Whitney's twin sister, would rather ignore it all, but the wind kicks up her secret the summer fling she had with Delilah's boyfriend. And more than anything, Bo wants answers and she wants them now. Something happened to their mothers and the townsfolk know what it was. She’s sure of it.

Bishop has always been a strange town. But what the girls don’t know is that Bishop was founded on blood―and now it craves theirs.

Join @BistroBookBabes

Bistro Book Babes Book Club 

is an all ages Woman Only bookclub that meets in person in Lakeland.  

We meet Tuesdays 6pm-8pm

Inklings Book Shoppe

243 N. Florida Ave. in Lakeland, FL

#BookReview: Immortality (The Anatomy Duology #2) by Dana Schwartz @DanaSchwartzzz

Synopsis: Hazel Sinnett is alone and half convinced the events of the year before—the immortality, Beecham’s vial—were a figment of her imagination. She doesn’t even know if Jack is alive or dead. All she can really do now is treat patients and maintain Hawthornden Castle as it starts to decay around her.

When saving a life leads to her arrest, Hazel seems doomed to rot in prison until a message intervenes: Hazel has been specifically requested to be the personal physician of Princess Charlotte, the sickly granddaughter of King George III. Soon Hazel is dragged into the glamour and romance of a court where everyone has something to hide, especially the enigmatic, brilliant members of a social club known as the Companions to the Death. 

As Hazel’s work entangles her more and more with the British court, she realizes that her own future as a surgeon isn't the only thing at stake for her. Malicious forces are at work in the monarchy, and Hazel may be the only one capable of setting things right.

#BookReview: The Family Fortuna by Lindsay Eagar

Synopsis: Lindsay Eagar’s dazzling YA debut welcomes us backstage at the Family Fortuna circus, where wonders lurk in wait to steal your breath away. You won’t believe your eyes!

Beaked. Feathered. Monstrous. Avita was born to be a star. Her tent sells out nightly, and every performance incites bloodcurdling screams. She’s the most lucrative circus act from Texas to Tacoma, the crown jewel of the Family Fortuna, and Avita feeds on the shrieks, the gasps, the fear. But when a handsome young artist arrives to create posters of the performers, she’s appalled by his rendering of Bird Girl. Is that all he sees? A hideous monster—all sharp beak and razor teeth, obsidian eyes and ruffled feathers? Determined to be more, Avita devises a plan to snatch freedom out from under the greased mustache of her charismatic father, the domineering proprietor and ringmaster. But will their fragile circus family survive the showdown she has in mind? By turns delightful and disturbing, bawdy and breathtaking, horrific and heartfelt, this electric and exquisitely crafted story about a family like no other challenges our every notion of what it means to be different—subject to an earful of screams—and to step out of the shadows and shine anyway.

#ReleaseBlitz for The Space Between Us by Melanie Summers @GiveMeBooksPR

Title: The Space Between Us

A Romantic Comedy

Series: Braniacs in Love

Author: Melanie Summers

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Tropes: STEM Romance/Billionaire

Enemies to Lovers/Forced Proximity

Release Date: February 29, 2024

BLURB

Love just might be the final frontier…

S.E.T.I. researcher, Gwen Fox, is a woman on a mission—to answer the cosmic question of the ages: Are we alone?

Along with her work family, Gwen is perfectly happy spending her days listening for extraterrestrial signals— until the worst happens. They get word that they’re about to be shut down by Ty Sterling, their billionaire backer whose heart is as cold as interstellar space.

About to lose everything, Gwen has no choice but to travel to Peru to change his mind. Armed only with scientific zeal and optimism, Gwen faces off against Ty, who just might be the most stubborn, cynical man in the galaxy.

As the tension between the pair builds, so does the undeniable chemistry that neither of them saw coming. Against the breathtaking backdrop of the Peruvian jungle, the space between enemies and lovers begins to collapse.

Will Gwen and Ty discover that together they form a supernova of passion? Or will their budding relationship crash and burn on impact?

*** The Space Between Us is a swoony, adventure-filled, delightfully funny tale of a woman who will do anything to save her job and the stubborn billionaire who dared to get in her way. It’s a standalone rom-com with a little more spice than a regular Melanie Summers book. ***

#BookReview: Lies We Sing to the Sea by Sarah Underwood @s_e_c_underwood

Synopsis: Each spring, Ithaca condemns twelve maidens to the noose. This is the price vengeful Poseidon demands for the lives of Queen Penelope’s twelve maids, hanged and cast into the depths centuries ago.

But when that fate comes for Leto, death is not what she thought it would be. Instead, she wakes on a mysterious island and meets a girl with green eyes and the power to command the sea. A girl named Melantho, who says one more death can stop a thousand.

The prince of Ithaca must die—or the tides of fate will drown them all.

Sarah Underwood weaves an epic tapestry of lies, love, and tragedy, perfect for fans of Madeline Miller, Alexandra Bracken, and Renée Ahdieh.