Wednesday, February 5, 2020

B & V Friends Double Digest #211, 228 pages


The Clergyman's Wife by Molly Greeley, 306 pages

Charlotte Collins, nee Lucas, is the respectable wife of Hunsford’s vicar, and sees to her duties by rote: keeping house, caring for their adorable daughter, visiting parishioners, and patiently tolerating the lectures of her awkward husband and his condescending patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Intelligent, pragmatic, and anxious to escape the shame of spinsterhood, Charlotte chose this life, an inevitable one so socially acceptable that its quietness threatens to overwhelm her. Then she makes the acquaintance of Mr. Travis, a local farmer and tenant of Lady Catherine..

In Mr. Travis’ company, Charlotte feels appreciated, heard, and seen. For the first time in her life, Charlotte begins to understand emotional intimacy and its effect on the heart—and how breakable that heart can be. With her sensible nature confronted, and her own future about to take a turn, Charlotte must now question the role of love and passion in a woman’s life, and whether they truly matter for a clergyman’s wife.


The Hand on the Wall by Maureen Johnson, 369 pages

Ellingham Academy must be cursed. Three people are now dead. One, a victim of either a prank gone wrong or a murder. Another, dead by misadventure. And now, an accident in Burlington has claimed another life. All three in the wrong place at the wrong time. All at the exact moment of Stevie’s greatest triumph . . .

She knows who Truly Devious is. She’s solved it. The greatest case of the century.

At least, she thinks she has. With this latest tragedy, it’s hard to concentrate on the past. Not only has someone died in town, but David disappeared of his own free will and is up to something. Stevie is sure that somehow—somehow—all these things connect. The three deaths in the present. The deaths in the past. The missing Alice Ellingham and the missing David Eastman. Somewhere in this place of riddles and puzzles there must be answers.

Then another accident occurs as a massive storm heads toward Vermont. This is too much for the parents and administrators. Ellingham Academy is evacuated. Obviously, it’s time for Stevie to do something stupid. It’s time to stay on the mountain and face the storm—and a murderer.

In the tantalizing finale to the Truly Devious trilogy, New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson expertly tangles her dual narrative threads and ignites an explosive end for all who’ve walked through Ellingham Academy.


Wife After Wife by Olivia Hayfield, 440 pages

A wickedly entertaining and utterly absorbing modern take on the life and marriages of Henry VIII...if he were a twenty-first-century womanizing media mogul rather than the king of England.

Master of the universe Harry Rose is head of the Rose Corporation, number eighteen on the Forbes rich list, and recently married to wife number six. But in 2018, his perfect world is about to come crashing to the ground. His business is in the spotlight--and not in a good way--and his love life is under scrutiny. Because behind a glittering curtain of lavish parties, gorgeous homes, and a media empire is a tale worthy of any tabloid.

And Harry has a lot to account for.


Sunday, February 2, 2020

Lumberjanes: The Shape of Friendship, 144 pages

While adventuring in the woods, Jo, Mal, Molly, April, and Ripley discover the hiding place of a group of magical creatures called Pookas and they think they've found new friends. But what they don't know is that the Pookas are tired of hiding, and they've found the perfect way to join the outside world...by impersonating the Lumberjanes themselves and taking over Camp! To reclaim their identities, the 'Janes will have to work together to remember who they really are...and to help another group of friends accept themselves, too, in a story about looking inside yourself and learning to love who you meet there.


Monk's Hood by Ellis Peters, 224 pages

When a visitor to the abbey dies, Brother Cadfael faces a personal drama. For not only was the man poisoned by monk's hood oil, made in Cadfael's own laboratory, the dead man's widow is also the woman to whom Cadfael was betrothed before he took his vows.


B & V Friends Double Digest #210, 228 pages