The Mistletoe Countess by Pepper Basham

The audio version of this review can be found on Episode 58: A Bookchat about Daughter of Eden with Jill Eileen Smith & a Review of The Mistletoe Countess by Pepper Basham.

THE BOOK

Will the magic of Christmas bring these two newlyweds closer together, or will the ghosts of the past lead them into a destructive discovery from which not even a Dickens’s Christmas can save them?

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A Bookchat about The Weight of Air with Kimberly Duffy & a Review of The Secrets of Emberwild by Stephenia H McGee

Kimberly Duffy joins us for a chat about travel, writing, and her latest release The Weight of Air. Don’t forget to enter to win a copy of this great book!

On today’s Pinch of the Past we will be looking at an extraordinary woman before her time. Ada Lovelace is considered the first computer programmer, was the daughter of Lord Byron, and the most wealthy women of the 1800s. (Full post here.)

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The Secrets of Emberwild by Stephenia H. McGee

The audio version of this book review can be found on Episode 55: A Bookchat about The Weight of Air with Kimberly Duffy & a Review of The Secrets of Emberwild by Stephenia H McGee

A gifted trainer in a time women are not allowed to race, Nora Fenton prefers horses to men. They’re easier to handle, they’re more reliable, and they never tell her what to do. After her father’s passing, Nora is determined to save her struggling horse farm, starting with entering her prize colt into the harness races at the 1905 Mississippi Fair. If she wins, she may have a chance at independence. But when a stranger arrives and starts asking disconcerting questions, she suspects he may have other motives than unseating her in the training job that is rightfully hers.

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His Delightful Lady Delia by Grace Hitchcock

You can listen to the audio version of this review on Episode 54: A Bookchat about Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams with Jennifer Lamont Leo & a Review of His Delightful Lady Delia by Grace Hitchcock

The Book

Behind the curtain, she must put on the performance of a lifetime . . . while love and risk take center stage.

Delia Vittoria’s mother has lost her voice at last. After five years of being her diva mother’s understudy, it is time for Delia to assume her place as the lead soprano onstage behind the Academy of Music’s faded velvet curtain. And she is all that stands between the Academy and its greatest threat–the nouveaux riches’ lavish new Metropolitan Opera House.

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The Lost Melody by Joanna Davidson Politano

The audio version of this review was first shared in A Bookchat about The Hidden Prince with Tessa Afshar & a Review of The Lost Melody by Joanna Davidson Politano

The Book

When concert pianist Vivienne Mourdant’s father dies, he leaves to her the care of an adult ward she knew nothing about. The woman is supposedly a patient at Hurstwell Asylum. The woman’s portrait is shockingly familiar to Vivienne, so when the asylum claims she was never a patient there, Vivienne is compelled to discover what happened to the figure she remembers from childhood dreams.

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The Number of Love by Rosanna M. White 

The audio version of this review was first shared in Episode 43: A Bookchat about A Gem of Truth with Kimberley Woodhouse & a Review of The Number of Loveby Rosanna M. White

The Book

Three years into the Great War, England’s greatest asset is their intelligence network—field agents risking their lives to gather information, and codebreakers able to crack every German telegram. Margot De Wilde thrives in the environment of the secretive Room 40, where she spends her days deciphering intercepted messages. But when her world is turned upside down by an unexpected loss, for the first time in her life numbers aren’t enough.

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Diamond in the Rough by Jen Turano

The audio version of this review was first shared in Episode 37: Guest Naomi Craig and a Review of Diamond in the Rough by Jen Turano

THE BOOK

To save her family from financial ruin, Miss Poppy Garrison accepts an unusual proposition to participate in the New York social season in exchange for her grandmother settling a family loan that has unexpectedly come due. Ill-equipped to handle the intricacies of mingling within the New York Four Hundred, Poppy becomes embroiled in one hilarious fiasco after another, doomed to suffer a grand societal failure instead of being deemed the diamond of the first water her grandmother longs for her to become. 

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A Review of: On the Cliffs of Foxglove Manor  by Jaime Jo Wright

The audio version of this review was first shared in Episode 34: Lynn Austin and a Review of On the Cliffs of Foxglove Manor by Jaime Jo Wright

THE BOOK

1885.

Adria Fontaine has been sent to recover goods her father pirated on the Great Lakes during the war. But when she arrives at Foxglove Manor–a stone house on a cliff overlooking Lake Superior–Adria senses wickedness hovering over the property. The mistress of Foxglove is an eccentric and seemingly cruel old woman who has filled her house with dangerous secrets, ones that may cost Adria her life. 

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