Tag: fiction

Book Feature: Masters of the Broken Watches

by Leann Pettit, posted in Book Feature

Today I’m featuring Masters of the Broken Watches. Thank you @booktrib for the book mail!

Synopsis from @goodreads:

An action adventure like Indiana Jones, a science adventure like Jurassic Park and a human feel-good story like Slumdog Millionaire.

Masters of the Broken Watches is a must-read.

Sebastian Miles and his team of marine biologists stare at their watches. Time outside their lab has jumped forward by twenty-two hours. Minutes before this illogical space-time event, they were analyzing a mysterious glowing nodule extracted from an unknown marine specimen.

News of this marine life reaches powerful governments, inadvertently triggering a race to hunt, capture and control it. But these governments and their nationalist leaders have never faced a team of scientists known as the Paramarines. They have no idea to what lengths Sebastian and his Paramarines will go in order to protect the species from capture and exploitation.

The first of a multi-book series, this genre-bending novel leaves readers on the edge of their seats. Thrilling like Blake Crouch and science-driven like Ted Chang, all approached in ways you’ve never seen before. A captivating adventure, a heartbreaking story of love, and a true display of human ingenuity and bravery in the face of overwhelming odds.

Review: Truth, Lies and Second Dates

by Leann Pettit, posted in Book Reviews

I love a sassy main female character in romance novels. Seriously, strong and sassy characters can save an otherwise meh book for me.

And that’s exactly what happened in Truth, Lies and Second Dates. Captain Ava Capp is a strong and confident woman and a captain for Northeastern Southwest Airline. 

When she was a teenager, her best friend was murdered, and everyone thinks she ran away from her troubles by becoming a pilot.

When her travel takes her back through her hometown in Minnesota on the tenth anniversary of her friend’s death, her history is drudged back up.

The local Medical Examiner, Tom Baker, and Ava team up to try to solve this cold case and the spark fly between them.

As a who-done-it, this was very frustrating, as the breadcrumbs weren’t there for the pay off. There were a lot of convenient answers at the end for all the questions that were laid out throughout the book.

For a meet cute romance, this was very cute between Ava and Tom. Lots of fun itty banter, lots of making out and a surprise twist at the end.

This was a very fast read for me, but it definitely won’t be a memorable one. The best part was Ava’s  pre-flight speeches when she’s captaining the plane (because they’re so realistically true!).

Review: Grown Ups

by Leann Pettit, posted in Book Reviews

You know that feeling of a train wreck that you can’t stop watching. “You don’t want to stare, but you just can’t look away” That’s kind of how I felt about the Casey family in Grown Ups by Marian Keyes.

There were a lot of characters – three main brothers, their wives, all of their children, some cousins, children from previous marriages, the parents of the three brothers…the list goes on.

And, this family spends a lot of time all together.  It was a lot to keep straight, and the beginning I was so confused that I seriously considered just giving up on this book.

But, back to that train wreck, because, this family is also a disaster and I every time I wanted to walk away from this book, one of the Caseys would do something that would pull me back in. Seriously, break out the popcorn, this family is a wild ride!

Of course, it’s not all laughs. Keyes deftly weaves a discussion on eating disorders into the narrative in a way I’ve never seen or felt be so seamless and feel so genuine. As well as marital infidelity and the death of a loved one.

I’m definitely glad I pushed through the first couple of chapters because by the end, I loved the Casey family and all of their quirks.

I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This blog contains affiliate links.

REVIEW: The Jane Austen Society

by Leann Pettit, posted in Book Reviews

I honestly started this mistaking Jane Austen for Jane Eyre. Don’t judge me! 🙈

That said, The Jane Austen Society stated out really slow for me. Readers learn a lot of background about the characters and the town, spending time with them in their day-to-day lives rather than info-dumping, which is nice. But it takes a while to get to the crux and peak of the story.

While this gave some perspective to the characters, I didn’t find that it really influenced my enjoyment of the second half of the book at all.

That said, I really loved Evie – even though she was mostly a minor side character. I appreciated her fortitude and determination and making the most of her situation.

On the otherhand, Adelaide is absolutely didn’t care for, and I don’t know why, either. I really liked her in the beginning of book, when she was the schoolteacher and standing up to the school board, putting her foot down to teach her curriculum her way. But after she gets married, to me she becomes much more of the docile and submissive housewife.

However, once the business of the Jane Austen Society begins, the books starts to pick up. It’s still slow-ish, but there’s much more action and events to move the story forward.

After reading The Jane Austen Society, I definitely want to visit Chawton and explore this quaint little town, and maybe actually read some Jane Austen. 

I was provided a free advanced readers copy for my honest review. This blog contains affiliate links.