Deluged With Books Cafe

  “Full of all the swoons, a dash of mystery, and punches of humor, you are going to fall head over heels with Neanderthal Seeks Duchess." - Catherine Cowles, author of Tattered Stars Neanderthal Seeks Duchess, an all-new charming historical romance from debut author Laney Hatcher, is LIVE in Kindle Unlimited! Laney introduces readers to Smartypants Romance’s new and exciting Out of This World imprint with her Penny Reid universe re-imagining.

     Today we have the blog tour for   T o Find You   by Cerece Rennie Murphy ! Check it out and grab your copy November 29 th ! About   To Find You:  Two Souls One Desire To Find Each Other... Again The journey begins with Ama and Ekow ~ Two lovers betrothed, then torn apart by an enemy disguised as a friend. And in the midst of an unthinkable bargain, their freedom is sold for a bag of gold. But what their enemies thought would break them only unleashed a power greater than life itself. From the ancient shores of Ghana to the streets of pre-colonial India, From the burning embers of Oahu to the heart of a nation’s capitol, Their souls risked war, death, and betrayal to bend destiny to their will. Will they survive? Will they succeed? Join them on this timeless journey and see…  Rating/Review: ☕☕☕☕ (4 cups) of thought provoking and sweeping romance! To Find You , draws you in the story, makes the readers wa...

   ✿   THE LOST CODEX by Heather Lyons (The Collectors’ Society, #4) PURCHASE NOW Amazon US  |  Amazon UK  |  iBooks BLURB: Allies, once inseparable, splinter until they break apart. An insidiousness carves its way through Wonderland, challenging the land’s very existence. Battle lines will be drawn as pages, long languishing in darkness, are finally illuminated. Swords will clash, blood will be spilled, and lives will be lost. For what is written can still be erased. Review/Rating: ☕☕☕☕☕  5 steaming cups of jolting java! Fantastic world building a perfect re-adaptation of beloved characters of fiction and a kick ass heroine who will do anything for her North Star! In the fourth and final book in The Collectors' Society Series, Alice and Finn once again find themselves in a veritable maze of finding the villains before original Timelines are completely erased and replaced by something so unfathomable.  A ra...

“What a pleasure to meet you, Julien.” As soon as these words were uttered, my body shivered a little telling me that the paradigm of the story has turned quite so interesting. It is like looking at an almost grayish picture sharpening into vivid colors. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The Witch of Painted Sorrows  is set in the 1890s Paris during the popular period of Belle Époque . At that time, there was much fascination to the mystic arts and occult which sets the mood of the book.  It begins when Sandrine, fleeing New York, arrives in Paris on her Grandmere's lavish mansion's doorstep, the Maison La Lune, seeking refuge. Her lovely Grandmere, however, does not like her to remain in the city. She then meets the attractive young architect, Julien, and together they found unexplored places and forayed into the forbidden. To add to the mystery, something sinister is rising within Sandrine and as she succumbed to her deepest desires and frees herself, ...

Secret of a Thousand Beauties begins with quite an engaging biting humor on its narrative. It was just too funny! However, this promising tone gradually fell into a kind of pervasive somberness at which point, one may understandably drop the book or continue on for curiosity. I pushed on and was rewarded with such a dramatic and piercing story. It is a coming of age and at the same time almost a saga as it details the span of many years. Set in 1930s China, our heroine, Spring Swallow, embarks on a hastened journey to independence to escape the unfair circumstance brought to her by tradition. Out of chance, her luck turns and yet perhaps only marginally better. We are then introduced to other secondary characters and one of them is the indomitable Aunty Peony whose past held secrets of her own. The heartbreaking journey of Spring Swallow etched in my mind and lingered throughout that I imagined myself reading the book with a bowed head that I could no longer lift from the bu...

A captivating Gothic love story set against a backdrop of intrigue and danger, Mist of Midnight will leave you breathless. Indeed, I was captivated and could not put it down. In the wake of book readings on romantic suspense titled with "midnight", it shed light, apparently, to my fondness for historical Gothic more than anything. The story was riveting, a dash inspirational and a mixture of fluttery and greyness. With the death of her missionary parents and brother in India, Rebecca Ravenshaw returns to England after many years only to discover Headbourne House, their old Hampshire home, is not to be hers. Not only that, someone else took up her identity and tried to claim the inheritance. It is often interesting how to take on an imposter and in this historical suspense, our true Rebecca lives on the shadow of the first 'Rebecca' who mysteriously died and was loved by many before she arrived. Oh, no, it is not exactly a chip off the du Maurier piece. Sandr...

Without much deliberation, I picked this book out of the blue and was surprisingly rewarded with everything that appealed to me, temperamental ghost notwithstanding; 1920s, the English coast, an admirable heroine, an old haunted cottage, a dash of history and romance. Simone St. James's  An Inquiry into Love and Death  hits right with its gripping mystery and has become one of my favorites. Set in 1920s England, Jillian Leigh drives to the seaside town of Rothewell to pack the belongings of her uncle, a ghost hunter, who died by the cliffs. Upon her arrival, unsettling incidents started happening which she was convinced must be related to the ghost her uncle is after, an angry spirit who haunts Blood Moon Bay where no locals go at night. More puzzling still is the appearance of a Scotland Yard inspector whose interest in her uncle's death raised questions of whether the incident was really accidental or was it really not. It's my first time reading St. James and I...

It’s my third novel of Susan Vreeland and I believe I’m not stopping anytime soon. Known for her portrayal of women artists like Gentileschi and Carr, in Lisette’s List, Vreeland veered away from that premise. Instead of depicting an artist’s life, she draws the few infamous artists’ personalities through the memories of an old man who is adamant to share his past to his young grand daughter-in-law. Not quite as riveting as her other books. Still, there are things to be engaged on. Lisette’s List displays a dynamic portrait of a small town in Vichy France before the tumult of the Second World War and its residents. Pascal’s little dribbles on the personas of infamous artists he met when he was young allows for a fascinating glimpse of their art life and philosophies. Lisette and I didn't warm up instantaneously to each other but through her list, there was a gradual connection as she comes into her own and grows fond of her quirky neighbors. There's a scatter of sor...

Title:   Pirate Vishnu   Author :  Gigi Pandian Genre : Murder Mystery, Adventure Suspense Published : February 11, 2014 Publisher : Henery Press Rating : ♨♨♨♨  4 out of 5 c ups (Jaya is one character that mystery readers would love.  She has a certain charm that makes trouble follow her around despite the fact she just wants to finish her paper and maybe eat) Review:  Jaya Jones has just barely finished her last adventure when she is suddenly faced with another one. This time around it hits closer to home with a treasure map from a stranger who claims that her great-great uncle Anand was the maker of said map and only her can solve it. The next thing she knows, the stranger is dead and she has been pulled into the treasure hunting business once again. With the help of her friends, Jaya sets out to find out what really happened to Great Uncle Anand and the treasure lost and found? From San Francisco, to India and back, Pirate Vishnu is guarantee...

AT the moment, Alix only desires to penetrate the British racing world with her carefully laid plans. But with the entrance of her estranged spoiled twin sister, her innocuous life takes a troubled turn as she was forced to play a role that may change the course of her future. At the same time, with the sudden recurring of memories about her forgotten past in France, things unfold out of her control with danger possibly looming in the horizon. Diane Shute's debut novel,  After Midnight,  is that particular book one couldn't really classify outright just on its premise alone. Its blend of historical suspense, horse racing, family intrigue and romantic impressions, elements individually focused at one or two points which if not done right could go awry, left me so much engaged and wanting more. It is admirable how Shute dealt with the unfolding of mystery. The suspenseful plot, which I could feel almost bursting on its seams with its pulsating quality, isn't control...

Family sagas sometimes leave me feeling bitter sweet but it is combined with such pleasant weariness that I keep devouring more. The Poet’s Wife brings us to the world of Granada, Spain in the 1920s and onwards to the heart of Fidel Castro’s regime where a family villa, Carmen de las Estrellas, and its residents bore the earlier happy days of freedom and later on the ravages of civil war. It seemed quite a minuscule spot, spanning almost fifty years, in that period of Spanish history but a minuscule window worth peeping into. I am not certain I have read much books related to this turbulent time in Spain for most books easily found around bear stories of the Nazi regime so this is a novel read for me. From mother to daughter to granddaughter; three generations of women giving voice to their own views and experiences amidst the turmoil. Every chapter is emotional; in the beginning palpable and tentative till you reach the middle and from thereon it becomes a tumble, waves ...

Old letters and a lost comb, a crumbling old home and family secrets; it seems The Emerald Comb is a typical recipe for a modern day English mystery. Just as anyone fond of English mysteries, I was drawn like a moth to a flame. Katie, obsessed with her lineage, spends a lot of time tracing her ancestors, the St. Clairs much to her husband's disdain. When she steps into Kingsley House, the old residence of the St. Clairs, buried secrets of the family starts to unfold and it all becomes even more muddled for Katie. Who was the owner of the emerald comb? Which part of the family history does it come in?

Gwen Bristow’s classic Southern novel tells of the first forays of a family of settlers in deep Louisiana. The Sheramys travelled from Connecticut to what they call then as West Florida in the 1880s to claim a land property. As they cruised along the Mississippi River, they happened to meet a dashing young man who fancied the Sheramy daughter, Judith.   Originally published in 1937 and the first book in Plantation Trilogy, Deep Summer is mostly the story of Judith Sheramy and Phillip Larne when they first started building their plantation, Ardeith.  Filled with languid prose and gripping details of slavery in the Deep South, Bristow writes with gentle genuineness but without reluctance. It evokes a bittersweet feeling of nostalgia and painful truths as the author chose to delve down and explore each character’s potentials and presented a spitting image of the struggles of planters and slaves. What remained to me after reading it is that the characters are qui...

Doll-baby portrays New Orleans at a time of the Civil Rights Movement in the summer of 1964 through the eyes of a twelve-year-old, Liberty Bell.  After the death of her father, Liberty was unceremoniously left in the care of her grandmother she had not met who lives in an old Queen Anne Victorian house with black servants. Coming from the Northwest Coast, Liberty has not seen such eccentricities like the ways of the South or her grandmother, Fannie, who sometimes gets admitted to an asylum. Quennie, Fannie’s black cook, and her smart-mouthed daughter, Doll-baby, take to Liberty like family and introduce her to the traditions of the South along with old secrets that abound the old house in Prytania Street. In this debut novel, Liberty is confronted with her painful past, her difficult relationship with her mother, the strangeness of Fannie’s house where his father grew up and a new city on the brink of a revolution.

Isabel Monfort, married to Quintin Mendizabal, intended to write the story of the Mendizabals and the Monforts, to account the history behind each generation. But somewhere along the way, it turned into something else, a novel about freedom from the clutching hands of power whether it be political and familial. In this saga of a wealthy Puerto Rican family, secrets go abound with riches and status. Beginning with Buenaventura Mendizabal’s arrival to the island in the early twentieth century as a descendant of old Spanish Conquistadors, it encompassed several decades up until the mid-nineties. One day, Quintin discovers the manuscripts and was in complete disagreement with the accuracy of the facts he read, claiming it a tale of fiction bending to the writer’s whims. With each passing chapter however, Isabel’s writing becomes more poignant, displaying the innermost thoughts and desires of each character. As the drama escalates in the story, so does the conflict in the Men...

The Forest Lover  tells the life of Emily Carr, a Canadian painter who endeavours to capture the untamed beauty of the Northwest landscape in her paintings and preserve the memory of Aboriginal totem poles that is slowly dying. After reading   The Passion of Artemisia , I started collecting Susan Vreeland books for its intimate portrayals of women and their passion in art. Emily displays the common qualities of Vreeland’s selection of figures; an ardent spirit and inimitable courage. The fictional account, based on some historical facts, depicts the journeys of Emily along the windy coast of British Columbia visiting old villages of the indigenous people, traipsing amidst the dense foliage of the old forests, and her struggle of identity in her art. Vreeland’s writing, blustery and mournfully introspective, almost echoes the atmosphere of the scenery. It is not perhaps a coincidence that it mirrors the way Emily delivers her brushstrokes on canvas, catching the ...

Sentimentality, choices not taken and hope merged in this little classic. After the death of her husband, Lady Slane, in her late eighties, moved out of the London family home, to the surprise of her children, and decided to spend her remaining days away from the bustle and clamor of her old life. As she settled in an old house in Hampstead, she reveled in her freedom, met acquaintances who understood her plight and spent her days looking back on the past; marrying at seventeen and becoming a wife to a viceroy. Under the shadows of her garden, she contemplated wistfully about her old dreams of becoming a serious painter, the promise of youth and the freedom to take what one wants. Vita Sackville-West, like her friend V. Woolf, echoed the inevitable ends of women in this thoughtful novel. By way of nostalgia, she expressed the ruminations of a life found wanting. She spoke further of how easily women's lives (or selves) could be swallowed up in the wake of marriage, childr...

If one digs down further, one may discover little treasures. Just like this barely known classic by Sylvia Townsend Warner (Vita Sackville-West, you're next!). There was much women authors trying to break out in the literary world around early twentieth century, telling not just mere idyllic stories of pastoral landscapes but of reflective opinion and claiming of right. Lolly Willowes  is one good representation of the feminine voice. As a forty-something spinster, Laura is trying to break away from the constraints of her family, away from just being the indispensable 'Aunt Lolly'. Seeking her independence amidst objections, she moved alone to the country air of Buckinghamshire in a little village of Great Mop. In the wild beauty of primeval woods, she connected to nature and its people in ordinary and strange ways. Published three years before Woolf's A Room with a View, Warner had spoken first of women's need to ...

One thing that remained to me about Anne Rice's writing is its atmospheric eeriness. In my readings, I could almost hear the cicadas on the trees and feel the drowsy heat of the summer afternoon. It's the cicadas that never left me, really. I was late in the Mayfair witches bandwagon and only read it when this particular edition came out (because I like the cover). Only then was I able to understand what they have all parroted about the book and its corrupting seduction. The Witching Hour  feels like a one way trip to a dusty ominous crypt with barely a chance of surfacing unscathed, taking us to deep mystery and old secrets borne from an old family whose history reaches back in the dark medieval ages of witch hunting in Scotland to the sweeping plantations of Port-au-Prince and the historic houses in Garden District, New Orleans.

Rebel Angels , the second book to the Gemma Doyle Trilogy, somehow broke the sequel curse to me and is almost at par with, or better in some ways than, the first book, A Great and Terrible Beauty . Gemma, along with the other girls, traveled further into the realms and the unfamiliar paths brought them to forbidding places, disturbing magical creatures and dark spirits abroad. The world of the realms, at first idyllic, has now become straight out of a Gothic fairy tale. Bray's writing retained its tones though now a shade darker than before and I found myself reading in a disquieting manner. She tipped the balance scales of the book bringing into suspicion some characters whom I didn't really think much before. Who to trust? Even I do not know who to trust anymore.