{Book Review} The Paris Library

Book Review: The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles

Book Review: The Paris Library

By Janet Skeslien Charles

It’s 1939 and Odile Souchet just accepted her dream job at the American Library in Paris, despite her family’s desire for her to stay home and get married. Shortly after, the Nazis invade France and Paris becomes an occupied city. Odile and her fellow librarians struggle to stay open, to serve the community, and to fight the best way know how – by providing books to anyone who wishes. The librarians ship boxes of books to soldiers overseas; they risk their lives to deliver books to Jewish subscribers who are prohibited from entering the library. Odile does all of this, while also falling in love with a young police officer. 

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{Book Review} Girls of Brackenhill

cover of the thriller, Girls of Brackenhill by Kate Moretti

{Book Review} Girls of Brackenhill by Kate Moretti

When Hannah’s aunt dies in a car accident, she returns to the castle where she spent several summers, Brackenhill. Her uncle is on his deathbed and the police cannot decide – was her aunt’s wreck actually an accident or was it intentional? 

The castle and history pull at Hannah’s heart strings, bring up unresolved questions about her family’s past. After 17 years apart, Hannah quickly discovers that she didn’t know much about her aunt and uncle (and their relationship with her own mother). Additionally, being back at Brackenhill stirs memories of the last summer she spent at the castle, the summer her sister disappeared. Continue reading “{Book Review} Girls of Brackenhill”

{Book Review} Lorien Legacies Reborn

overhead view of the books in the Lorien Legacies: Reborn and The Legacy Chronicles series{Book Review}

Lorien Legacies: Reborn and
The Legacy Chronicles

By Pittacus Lore

Disclaimer: This posts contains affiliate links. (That means that I earn a tiny percentage from your purchase – at no extra cost to you! – for the maintenance of this blog.)

These two series takes place after The Lorien Legacies and The Lorien Legacies: The Legacies. I review those two series here. Although the series I review today can be read standalone, I’d strongly encourage you to read my review of its predecessors and consider reading them first. There’s so much story and history there that I think it would make for a very different reading experience if you were to read these without that background. This review will contain spoilers for those that haven’t read The Lorien Legacies and The Lorien Legacies: The Legacies.

The Mogadore are defeated and Earth is safe from invasion. However, life on Earth has changed forever. The Loric Garde – children with special powers who fled the planet Lorien – awoke the energy source on Earth, creating a new race of Human Garde. But post-war Earth is faced with challenges they never imagined. How will the Garde learn to use their new powers? Is there anything to fear of the new Garde? Are the people of Earth safe? And some will ask, are the Garde safe from others on Earth? 

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Best Books of 2020

Earlier this week, I shared reader’s favorite recipes from 2020. Today, it’s time to recap last year’s reading, highlighting some of my favorite and reader favorite books. 

My goal for 2020 was to read 24 books. If you follow me on Goodreads, you’ll see that I blew past that with 50, but it’s a bit misleading – over a dozen of those books were novellas that accompanied a couple of young adult series I got into. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether that should count, but needless to say, I met my goal! I did read a bit more that usual because of COVID. My family was under a stay-at-home order for about 6 weeks and there were multiple weeks when I was not working. While we had some normalcy for a few months, life was never really normal, as we continued to avoid shopping in stores and didn’t see quite as many friends and family as usual… 

3 shelves of a bookshelf filled with books

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{Book Review} The Lorien Legacies

{Book Review}

The Lorien Legacies &
The Lorien Legacies: The Legacies

By Pittacus Lore

Disclaimer: This posts contains affiliate links. (That means that I earn a tiny percentage from your purchase – at no extra cost to you! – to go towards the maintenance of this blog.)

 

Today’s book review is a lengthy one. Today, I’m reviewing a series of 7 books (The Lorien Legacies) and the 15 accompanying novellas (The Lorien Legacies: The Legacies). These two series are young adult books in the science fiction genre.

picture of the spines of the 7 books in the Lorien Legacies series by Pittacus Lore

The two series are centered around a group of teenagers  who, as children, escaped from the planet Lorien while the planet was under attack by the Mogadorian people, those of the planet Mogadore. Ultimately, Lorien was lost to the Mogadorians and every living thing on the planet was annihilated. The survival of the Loric race became dependent on those escapees, their guardians, and a charm placed upon them for protection. That charm assigned each child a number – the nine children would be protected from those trying to harm them until their number is up. Literally. 

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