Cover Reveal: Lady Be Good by Heather Hiestand

LADY BE GOOD 

by Heather Hiestand

Genre: Historical Romance

Pub Date: 9/5/2017

When exiled royalty and espionage combine, expect a romance as bold as the 1920s . . .

Olga Novikov is a princess without a throne. Her fiancé and her family slain in the revolution, she flees Russia and finds herself working as the head of housekeeping at London’s luxurious Grand Russe Hotel. It’s a far cry from the glamour of her former life, but she’s grateful for the job—until a guest forces her to question where her loyalty lies. The charming nobleman challenges her at every turn—and arouses dreams of romance she thought she’d abandoned forever . . .

Douglas “Glass” Childers is living a double life. On the surface, he’s the indolent Viscount Walling, but in truth he’s an intelligence agent searching for a Bolshevik weapons master. The coolly beautiful and headstrong housekeeper is a distraction he doesn’t need—unless she’s the key piece in the puzzle he must solve. Trusting her could be dangerous—but loving her is an undeniable temptation . . .

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Heather Hiestand was born in Illinois but her family migrated west before she started school. Since then she has claimed Washington State as home, except for a few years in California. She wrote her first story at age seven and went on to major in creative writing at the University of Washington. Her first published fiction was a mystery short story, but since then it has been all about the many flavors of romance. Heather’s first published romance short story was set in the Victorian period and she continues to return, fascinated by the rapid changes of the nineteenth century. The author of many novels, novellas and short stories, she makes her home in a small town with her husband and son and supposedly works out of her tiny office, though she mostly writes in her easy chair in the living room.

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Website: http://www.heatherhiestand.com/

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Review: Until We Meet Again by Renee Collins

First thanks to Sourcebooks for sending me an advanced reader's copy of this book.  I hadn't heard much about it before that time, but the synopsis definitely had me intrigued.  As those of you who have followed me know, I've been kind of swamped with all the egalleys that I had been requesting,  and so unfortunately I didn't get to this one until this week.  But hey, at least my praise for it and review can get people reminded that they need to go out and give it a read!

The main character, well we kind of have two actually, and different chapters are told from each of their viewpoints.  But really it is Cassandra who we get most of the story from. Cassandra is having to spend the summer with her mom and stepdad in a fancy house, with its own private beach, in a small town.  The small town thing is probably the biggest issue for Cassandra. She's away from her friends and stuck with what she thinks are snooty people.  People that her stepdad invites over for parties that she gets stuck going to.  At one of these when she's able to escape the party for a bit, she heads down to the beach.  When she gets there, she finds there is a cute boy, Lawrence, already there. That's odd because as I mentioned, it is a private beach, so no one else should be there.  Also, she's not seen him before, around town, and is is a small town.  He is dressed up, and does say he's from a party up where her house is, so she isn't sure. But he is cute, and nice to talk to.

It turns out that Lawrence believes it is 1925.  When the two of them both try to walk up to the house together, the other one disappears from their view. This is what kind of convinces them that they must really be from different times, and somehow the beach connects them.  In Lawrence's time, he is staying at the house with his uncle, and his uncle, and father, want him to go into law.  But Lawrence doesn't want to, he enjoys writing, poetry especially.  The two of them spend time together on the beach, and of course, really develop feelings for each other.

But one day when Cassandra goes back to her time and one of the guys she was friends with is all of a sudden nowhere to be found, and no one even knows who he is, she realizes that they've maybe caused a big time disruption.  So she goes to the library to do some research into the town's past.  And what she finds is that Lawrence's life is in danger.  But she isn't sure what she should tell him, and what  might mess up things even more.

This was a good story.  It wasn't necessarily time travel, because I feel like the beach was kind of an out of time, in between place.  And while I had kind of figured out what might be going on back in Lawrence's time, I still had no idea how they would be able to solve the problem without completely messing up the time continuum.  I also wondered if any of their theories about what was going on would end up working, so that maybe they could be together.  The story was solved in a good way, with an ending that I think was just right. 

The Flappers: Vixen by Jillian Larkin

I found this sitting in the stack of ARC's at the bookstore a couple weeks ago. I took it home, but wasn't quite in the mood for it until I finished the Mortal Instruments series. It wasn't too bad of a book. I enjoyed reading about the time period.

Basically we follow 3 girls that are "flappers". The first is Gloria. Gloria is a society girl getting ready to marry a high society man. Turns out though that her family is having problems, and she needs this marriage to help them. But Gloria wants to live free, be a flapper, go to speakeasies, and is actually attracted to the wrong kind of man for this time period.

Her best friend Lorraine is actually more of a trendsetter, drinking, gets the bob first, and dressing quite stylishly, or scandalously in this case. But Lorraine is jealous of Clara, and her jealousy will do their friendship in.

And finally there is Clara, Gloria's "country cousin" sent by her parents to help make sure the wedding goes off without a hitch. Clara however was sent here due to her own bad judgement and dipping into the whole flapper scene in New York. We learn that her past is not one she is proud of, but in Chicago, Clara finally finds that she might fit in if she reinvents herself. At least until all the dirty secrets from her past come out.

I'm assuming the series will go on to follow where each of them go after this book. But maybe not. Maybe each book will follow three new flappers? Guess we'll have to wait and see. I may or may not continue with the series. It won't be something I'll buy, only check out for free. But I will recommend it to more mature readers at my school who enjoy the historical information and the romance.