Welcome to the book tour for The Last Rays of Ra by Karina McRoberts! Read on for more details!
The Last Rays of Ra: A Journey Into Thrilling Adventure, Horror, And Suspense
Publication Date: March 20, 2024
Genre: Mystery/Thriller/Adventure
SISTERHOOD’S ANSWER TO AGENT PENDERGAST
Empathic Scotland Yard Detective Jackson Randolph is over-burdened by a series of bizarre murders. He enlists the aid of rogue Egyptologist Vahlona Selket Faralay, pleading with her to retrieve an ancient item linked to the crimes.
Vahlona leaves her mysterious home in the Yorkshire Moors and travels to Egypt, where she braves misogynistic policemen, vicious wildlife, and manic terrorists in her quest to procure the artefact. The shadowy but alluring antiquities dealer Usire Ra Arakti provides the answer, but can Vahlona smuggle the prize out of Egypt and back to London before the madman resumes his killing spree?
Thrilling suspense, horror, romance, and adventure await you in The Last Rays of Ra.
Karina is an American-Australian author, illustrator, musician, scientist and theatre producer. She considers herself to be a true Renaissance woman and strives to help other achieve the same. ( “After all, ladies, we didn’t get a chance last time!!!!”).
Previously working as a conservation scientist, she was struck down by a mosquito-borne virus. No longer able to work, Karina now spends her time writing fiction to inspire, encourage, enlighten and entertain; especially those readers active in social justice, humanitarian work, and protection of the Earth.
She also writes self-instruction books and gives workshops in illustration and creative writing.
In these dark days of crazy violence, betrayal, and plague, Karina hopes readers find solace and joy in her creations.
Hope is light to the heart! As her character JT Gordon says in her time-travel adventure/romance novel, The Palace of the Stars, ‘Don’t measure your time in minutes, treasure your time in moments.’ Indeed.
Nina always wanted a child of her own. Now she has one.
Nina feels trapped. Her partner Gary is controlling, his daughter hates her, and she’s recently suffered a miscarriage. Just as her life seems hopeless, Alex, the son she gave up for adoption nearly 20 years ago, shows up at her door. Somehow, he has tracked her down.
Their reunion is everything Nina has hoped for. Now she has a child of her own, someone in the family who really cares about her.
But honeymoons are brief and this one is no exception.
Far from welcoming him, Gary is hostile to Alex and as their arguments become increasingly vicious, it soon becomes clear that Nina must choose between them.
But how will the abusive Gary react if she rejects him? And can she trust Alex? Is he really the loving son he seems to be – or does he have a sinister agenda of his own?
Iain Maitland is the author of three previous psych thrillers for Inkubator Books: The Soulmate, The Perfect Husband and The Girl Downstairs.
Iain is also the author of two memoirs, Dear Michael, Love Dad, a book of letters written to his eldest son who experienced depression and anorexia, and (co-authored with Michael) Out Of The Madhouse.
He has also written a semi-autobiographical novel, The Old Man, His Dog & Their Longest Journey.
He is an Ambassador for Stem4, the teenage mental health charity. He talks regularly about mental health issues in schools and colleges and workplaces.
My thoughts: Nina hasn’t had a very happy life, her parents were very strict and used their religious beliefs as a stick – and when she got pregnant as a teenager sent her to an even stricter aunt and forced her to give up her son. She even lost her boyfriend when his family moved away.
Now she’s in a relationship with the rather repugnant Gary and his awful daughter Chloe is also living in her house. She’s recently lost a baby, one she wanted.
When a young man knocks on the door and claims he’s her long lost son Alex, she’s overcome. And immediately feels a connection – instantly feeling as though everything’s coming together.
But Gary is suspicious of this sudden “cousin” who is now staying with them. And despite his own nastiness, might be right. Monsters often recognise each other. As the situation in the house deteriorates, and Gary’s past starts to catch up with him too, Nina feels like she’s losing something. A chance encounter with her lost love, Ryan, her teenage boyfriend (and Alex’s father) gives her a spark of hope, but it might be too late…
Loads of shocking twists and turns, that I did not see coming, this is gripping, OMG stuff, clever and well written, and with an ending that throws in more surprises, I felt so bad for Nina, nothing in her life has gone well and she’s so desperate for happiness.
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*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
We’re celebrating the release of Empire of Shadows this week and if you love swashbuckling adventure stories packed with slow burn witty banter, flesh-eating beetles, and real history, this is a MUST READ!
Empire of Shadows (Raiders of the Arcana Book 1)
Publication Date: April 2, 2024
Genre: Historical Fantasy/ Gaslamp Fantasy
Nice Victorian ladies don’t run off to find legendary lost cities.
One trifling little arrest shouldn’t have cost Ellie Mallory her job, but it’s only the latest in a line of injustices facing any educated woman with archaeological ambitions.
When Ellie stumbles across the map to a mysterious ancient city, she knows she’s holding her chance to revolutionize Pre-Colombian history. There’s just one teensy complication. A ruthless villain wants it, and Ellie is all that stands in his way.
To race him to the ruins—and avoid being violently disposed of—she needs the help of maverick surveyor Adam Bates, a snake-wrangling rogue who can’t seem to keep his dratted shirt on.
But there’s more than Ellie’s scholarly reputation (and life) on the line. Her enemies aren’t just looters. They’re after an arcane secret rumored to lie in the heart of the ruins, a mythical artifact with a power that could shake the world.
Between stealing trousers, plummeting over waterfalls, and trying not to fall in love with her machete-wielding partner, will Ellie be able to stop the oracle of a lost empire from falling into the wrong hands?
Empire of Shadows is the first book in Jacquelyn Benson’s smart, swashbuckling Raiders of the Arcana series. Read it now and dive into a rip-roaring historical fantasy adventure perfect for fans of Romancing the Stone and The Mummy.
Jacquelyn Benson writes smart historical fantasy where strong women confront the stranger things that occupy the borders of our world.
She once lived in a museum, wrote a master’s thesis on the cultural anthropology of paranormal investigation, and received a gold medal for being clever. She owes a great deal to her elementary school librarian for sagely choosing to acquire the entire Time-Life Mysteries of the Unknown series.
When not writing, she enjoys the company of a tall, dark, and handsome English teacher and practices unintentional magic.
My thoughts: this was so much fun, a bit The Mummy (the Brendan Fraser one), a bit Indiana Jones but with a brilliant female protagonist set in an era when women were expected to get married and have children and be satisfied with their lot.
Ellie is a historian, archivist and budding archaeologist, if society would just let her. When she finds a mysterious map showing what she thinks is a Mayan secret city in British Honduras (modern day Belize), and is followed by a scary figure who seems to be after the map, she immediately books passage on the first ship across the Atlantic.
Once there she meets Adam Bates, the deputy surveyor and recruits him to help her find the city. Only she’s using a fake name, he went to Cambridge with her brother, and they’re being followed by the same sinister man she saw in London.
He’s got a whole crew of miscreants with him, and is searching for a magical item hidden in the city. Luckily some of his crew know Bates and with their help, and that of a local native priest, they just might escape in one piece.
I loved Ellie and Adam, they spend all their time bickering and falling in love, while on the adventure of a lifetime, full of terrifying moments and heart stopping risk. It’s absolutely marvellous. I cannot wait for the next one!
Tour Organized By: @rrbooktours
X: @rrbooktours1 #rrbooktours
IG: @jbensonink @rrbooktours
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own
BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.
If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.
Tinker Bell, banished from her homeland for doing the unthinkable, selling the hottest drug in Neverland—pixie dust—wants absolution.
Determined to find a way home, Tink doesn’t hesitate to follow the one lead she has, even if that means seducing a filthy pirate to steal precious gems out from under his…hook.
Captain Hook believes he’s found a real treasure in Tink. That is, until he recovers from her pixie dust laced kiss with a curse that turns the seas against him. With his ship and reputation at the mercy of raging storms, he tracks down the little minx and demands she remove the curse. Too bad she can’t.
However, the mermaid queen has a solution to both of their problems, if Tink and Hook will work together to retrieve a magical item for her.
As they venture to the mysterious Shrouded Isles to find the priceless treasure, their shared nemesis closes in. However, his wrath is nothing compared to the realization that achieving their goal may mean losing something they never expected to find—each other.
Megan Van Dyke is a fantasy romance author with a love for all things magical and romantic, especially fairytales and anything with a happily ever after. Many of her stories include themes of family (whether born into or found) and a sense of home and belonging, which are important aspects of her life as well. When not writing, Megan loves to spend time with her family, cook, play video games, and explore the great outdoors. Megan currently lives with her family in Florida.
My thoughts: first of all, despite being inspired by Peter Pan, this is not suitable for children, there are sex scenes and adult themes (I have my doubts about J.M. Barrie’s book being for children, but that’s a post for another time).
Set before Pan, this finds Tinker Bell trapped in Neverland, desperate for a way back home, she sold her pixie dust to rescue her cousin Lily from Blackbeard the pirate and his crew, but was banned from the Sylvann Vale without a chance to explain herself.
Now she’s after a magical necklace that Captain Hook has, because the mermaids have agreed a trade that might get her home. But stealing from Hook has consequences too. Kidnapped and forced to accompany him to the mermaid lagoon in the hope of getting a curse lifted, the two find themselves drawn to one another.
Sent on another quest by those same mermaids, they try to resist the attraction but ultimately fail, falling head over wings, and hook, for one another. Blackbeard is on their heels however, and they will have to risk everything to stay alive and together.
This was a fun romp of a read, quite a spicy one too, with pirates and betrayal, lifelong friends and very demanding mermaids. Hook comes across as nowhere near the villain we all think of him as, and Tinker Bell is a kind hearted, brave and loyal pixie. Rather sweet, the love story too.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blogtour, but all opinions remain my own.
To celebrate the upcoming release of the final book in the series on April 8th, we’re taking you back to The Curse of the Crow!
The Curse of The Crow: A Soulmate Romance (The Wicked Kingdom Book 1)
Publication Date: August 2021
Genre: Fantasy Romance
Hidden Identities
Slow Burn
Delicious Angst
Morally Gray Fae MMC
Burn the World for Each Other
One Bed
Powerful but Awkward FMC
Denied Soul Mates
Destined to love each other. Determined to fight their fate.
Nava Forrest stumbled upon her soulmate when she was young. A brief meeting with a hooded stranger forever bound her to a wicked man she wanted nothing to do with. Running from his dark power, her parents escaped to the non-magical town of Willowbrook to keep her safe.
Now that they are gone, her life raising her younger brother and selling potions to wary townsfolk has been quiet… and magic-free. When the Society of Crows finds Nava, intent on imprisoning her, it forces her to flee to the forest, searching for the only person she was told can protect her.
Arkimedes is not what she expects, and her attraction to him is unnerving. As the chemistry between them grows, so does her power. But the secrets he keeps threatens to tear her world apart. With the Society closing in, it forces them to put aside their differences and fight to escape their oppressors. But will they escape destiny?
Escape to a new magical world in The Curse of the Crow! Action packed, sexy, and perfect for fans of Jennifer L. Armentrout and C.N. Crawford.
Reader advisory: This book contains mature themes, adult language and intimate scenes.
The Curse of the Crow is the first book in a trilogy, based on the Wicked Kingdom verse.
From Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author Adrian Tchaikovsky comes a far-future epic that confirms his place as a modern master of science fiction, in which a political prisoner must unlock the secrets of a strange and dangerous planet.
The planet of Kiln is where the tyrannical Mandate keeps its prison colony, and for inmates, the journey there is always a one-way trip. One such prisoner is Professor Arton Daghdev, xeno-ecologist and political dissident. Soon after arrival, he discovers that Kiln has a secret. Humanity is not the first intelligent life to set foot there.
In the midst of a ravenous, chaotic ecosystem are the ruins of a civilization, but who were the vanished builders and where did they go? If he can survive both the harsh rule of the camp commandant and the alien horrors of the world around him, then Arton has a chance at making a discovery that might just transform not only Kiln, but distant Earth as well.
Adrian Tchaikovsky was born in Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire, and headed off to university in Reading to study psychology and zoology. For reasons unclear even to himself, he subsequently ended up in law. Adrian has since worked as a legal executive in both Reading and Leeds and now writes full time. He also lives in Leeds, with his wife and son. Adrian is a keen live role-player and occasional amateur actor. He has also trained in stage-fighting and keeps no exotic or dangerous pets of any kind—possibly excepting his son.
My thoughts: sent to an off world prison camp on a planet 30 years from Earth, Professor Arton Daghdev and his fellow prisoners work in the dangerous wildness of Kiln – a planet with similar atmospheric conditions to Earth but with very different lifeforms.
The prisoners are assisting in an attempt to understand the science, but as Kiln doesn’t fit into the Mandate’s orthodoxy, and the “builders” of Kiln don’t resemble humans in any way, shape or form.
After their flyer is destroyed and they are attacked by one of the creatures of Kiln, Arton and his team must make the dangerous trek back to the camp. But during the long walk they begin to understand the truth of Kiln and its life.
At first I struggled to get into this book, but once I began to understand what was going on in the camp and what Arton and the others were up against in the form of the commandant and his war on Kiln’s wildlife, and how its many organisms worked together, I really began to get into the story. Especially after the Excursions team find themselves fighting for survival on the planet’s surface.
I found it an interesting warning against orthodoxy, political oppression and believing that everything must be as it is here on Earth, rather than accepting that some things are beyond our understanding if we don’t open our minds.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own
A single biology teacher who’s sworn off men can keep it friendly with a hot doctor…or can she?
It’s been six months since Tanith Kerrigan decided to embrace singlehood for one reason—to be nothing like the woman she calls Deandra. Also known as her mother. When Tanith badly sprains her ankle while trying to photograph birds in a…naughty…moment, magnetic Dr. Luke Caldwell offers his expertise and more. But having Dr. Temptation around isn’t the type of medicine she wants or needs in her life.
A single sports medicine doctor can control his crush on a captivating teacher…or can he?
For six months, Luke Caldwell has been fighting serious interest in a woman who doesn’t like him…as well as desiring more than big city life. But after Tanith injures her ankle, he seizes an opportunity to help her outside the examination room. Surely the fine high school teacher will warm up to him after spending time together? Before Luke can process what little armor Tanith lowers, his practice is hit with a colossal problem that could ruin everything he’s built.
As Tanith and Luke ease into the realm of possibilities, they find themselves up against individuals who force them to face what they want and need most. Brains, quips, and brawn continue to merge beyond the classroom in Passion Under the Microscope, Book Two in the Smart is Seriously Sexy Series.
Christine Miles is a full-time writer living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. An avid reader and writer since elementary school, Her passion for literature inspired her to pursue a BA in English and an MA in Creative Writing. Christine writes YA and Adult Contemporary Romances with sassy, independent heroines and swoony heroes who love them for their strength. When not writing romances, she loves traveling, binge-watching shows on streaming apps, reading mysteries and thrillers, listening to music, and spending quality time with her family, friends, and dog.
My thoughts: this is a really fun rom com about a biology teacher who sprains her ankle badly and the doctor who helps her out, and how they fall in like and then in love.
Tanith Kerrigan is a tough lady, she’s not planning on falling in love anytime soon and doesn’t want to end up like her much married mother, who is not a particularly nice woman. She’s put up walls to protect herself and doesn’t want to take them down.
But the dashing Dr Luke Caldwell is determined to take them down. Between painting walls and singing (badly), he has some pretty troubled problems at work to sort out but it won’t stop him from winning over Tanith. Especially since she lives in the same small town as his brother and his girlfriend – who is Tanith’s best friend and colleague. Could it be any more perfect?
This was sweet, fun and romantic, Tanith is a great character as is Luke, both of them seem like good people dealing with some difficult stuff, and in need of finding love and happiness.
They’re called the Lost Ships … but sometimes they come back.
And when they do the crews are missing, while the ships have been strangely altered, rumoured to be full of horrors. Opal Imbiana has been seeking something her whole life. It’s a secret so precious she’s willing to risk her life recovering it from a recently discovered Lost Ship, in a lonely nebula far from colonised space. She’s just one woman, entering an alien and lethal environment. But with the aid of an amazing AI companion and experimental armoured suit, Opal might just stand a chance.
This blast of a book kickstarted the much-loved Lost Solace series, about an unlikely friendship between two women who keep hope alive in the darkest of times.
Karl Drinkwater is an author with a silly name and a thousand-mile stare. He writes dystopian space opera, dark suspense and diverse social fiction. If you want compelling stories and characters worth caring about, then you’re in the right place. Welcome!
Karl lives in Scotland and owns two kilts. He has degrees in librarianship, literature and classics, but also studied astronomy and philosophy. Dolly the cat helps him finish books by sleeping on his lap so he can’t leave the desk. When he isn’t writing he loves music, nature, games and vegan cake. Go to karldrinkwater.uk to view all his books grouped by genre. As well as crafting his own fictional worlds, Karl has supported other writers for years with his creative writing workshops, editorial services, articles on writing and publishing, and mentoring of new authors. He’s also judged writing competitions such as the international Bram Stoker Awards, which act as a snapshot of quality contemporary fiction.
DON’T MISS OUT! Enter your email at karldrinkwater.substack.com to be notified about his new books. Fans mean a lot to him, and replies to the newsletter go straight to his inbox, where every email is read. There is also an option for paid subscribers to support his work: in exchange you receive additional posts and complimentary books.
My thoughts: I am a big fan of this series and if you’ve been following me for a while now, you’ll know I’ve written about the whole series as well as reviewed several of the books. Karl is also very approachable and friendly, so do follow him online and subscribe to his Substack if you’re interested.
Lost Solace is the first book and introduces us to our protagonist Opal and her mission. She’s hunting for the mysterious Lost Ships, following rumours and every lead she can. She’s stolen the ship she’s in for that reason and the AI she names Clarissa is helping her to hunt down the ships. It’s a dangerous quest but she’s determined, somewhere out there is her little sister.
This book got me hooked and every sequel builds on Opal’s story and her quest, as well as the back story of the Lost Ships and the organisation hunting Opal.
It’s an absolutely cracking Sci-fi adventure, quest, detective series and you should definitely dive in. There’s also some lovely art work to enjoy too (see below).
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
A GLORIOUS SHERLOCK HOLMES-INSPIRED MYSTERY FOR FANS OF NITA PROSE AND JANICE HALLETT
London, 1932.
When Harriet White rebuffs the advances of her boss at the Baker Street building society where she works, she finds herself demoted to a new position… a very unusual position. Deep in the postal department beneath the bank, she is tasked with working her way through a mountain of correspondence addressed to Baker Street’s most famous resident: Mr Sherlock Holmes. Seemingly undeterred by the fact that Sherlock Holmes doesn’t exist, letter after letter arrives, beseeching him to help solve mysteries, and Harry diligently replies to each writer with the same response: Mr Holmes has retired from detective work and now lives in Sussex, keeping bees. Until one entreaty catches her eye. It’s from a village around five miles from Harry’s family estate, about a young woman who went to London to work as a domestic, then disappeared soon afterwards in strange circumstances. Intrigued, Harry decides, just this once, to take matters into her own hands. And so, the case of the missing maid is opened…
Holly Hepburn has wanted to write books for as long she can remember but she was too scared to try. One day she decided to be brave and dipped a toe into the bubble bath of romantic fiction with her first novella, Cupidity, and she’s never looked back. She often tries to be funny to be funny, except for when faced with traffic wardens and border control staff. Her favourite things are making people smile and Aidan Turner. She’s tried many jobs over the years, from barmaid to market researcher and she even had a brief flirtation with modelling. These days she is mostly found writing. She lives near London with her grey tabby cat, Portia. They both have an unhealthy obsession with Marmite.
My thoughts: assigned to the basement of the Abbey Road Building Society, which for many years occupied Baker Street, including 221B – home of the road’s most famous resident – Sherlock Holmes, Harriet ‘Harry’ White, is assigned the role of answering the stacks of post sent to the detective.
For the most part she replies as his secretary, thanking people for writing and apologising that the great detective is retired, as per The Last Bow, and no longer taking on cases. However one catches her eye, involving a family from the village on her family estate, and she endeavors to investigate it.
In doing so she recruits family friend Oliver, a solicitor, to help out, dresses up in disguises and attempts to act like the famous Holmes, even if he’s fictional.
This is great fun, funny and witty. Harry is a delightful protagonist and a determined investigator. She also manages to continue to answer the stacks of letters.
Having been to the Sherlock Holmes museum in Baker Street, where these letters now go, although I don’t think they get answered these days, it was lovely to think that someone was writing back and allowing people to continue to believe that someone out there was Holmes, even though as he lived in the Victorian era, he’d be very dead by now.
This is the start of a series and based on this first book and the author’s previous work, this should be a great series. The characters are fun, the story entertaining and clever, I can’t wait!
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
From the author of A Most English Princess comes a rich novel about young Princess Alix of Hesse — the future Alexandra, last Empress of Imperial Russia— and her sister, Princess Ella.
Their decision to marry into the Romanov royal family changed history. They were granddaughters of Queen Victoria and two of the most beautiful princesses in Europe. Princesses Alix and Ella were destined to wed well and wisely. But while their grandmother wants to join them to the English and German royal families, the sisters fall in love with Russia—and the Romanovs. Defying the Queen’s dire warnings, Ella weds the tsar’s brother, Grand Duke Serge. Cultivated, aloof, and proud, Serge places his young wife on a pedestal for all to admire. Behind palace gates, Ella struggles to secure private happiness. Alix, whisked away to Russia for Ella’s wedding, meets and captivates Nicky—heir apparent to the Russian throne. While loving him deeply, Alix hears a call of conscience, urging her to walk away. Their fateful decisions to marry will lead to tragic consequences for not only themselves and their families, but for millions in Russia and around the globe.
The Romanov Brides is a moving and fascinating portrait of two bold and spirited royal sisters, and brings to vivid life imperial Russia—a dazzling, decadent world on the brink of disappearing forever.
Clare McHugh is the author of A Most English Princess, a historical novel about the family of Queen Victoria, and The Romanov Brides. A former newspaper reporter and magazine editor, McHugh graduated from Harvard College with a degree in European history. She currently lives in London and in Amagansett, NY.
My thoughts: I am endlessly fascinated by the history of Russia, ruled for almost a thousand years by the same family, the Romanovs, until their terrible end in 1918 at the hands of a firing squad, although other members of the family met even more horrific endings – like Ella, one of the main characters in this book.
But before the Revolution of 1917 and the downfall of the autocratic, and tyrannical Romanovs (Britain ended feudalism in the 1600s for comparison), and I am fully aware of how much damage the family did over the centuries, there is a beautiful love story between the daughters of the royal house of Hesse, grand-daughters of Queen Victoria, and two of the princes of Russia – Grand Duke Serge and Nicky, the future Tsar.
Hesse in Germany is where the story begins, Ludwig the Grand Duke is married to Princess Alice of Britain, daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, their nine children married into the Royal families of Europe, forming ties across the continent.
The daughters of Hesse are beautiful, intelligent and well connected. They have suffered tragedy with the early deaths of some of their siblings and their mother.
When some of their Russian relatives visit, Ella finds herself falling for Grand Duke Serge, brother of the Tsar Alexander (known as Sasha). The family are against this match, especially her grandmother who had anti-Russian beliefs. In part due to religious differences – between the German Protestant Lutheran church and the Russian Orthodox, the two churches have very different beliefs and practices.
However Ella refuses to give up on love and eventually overcomes her family’s concerns to marry Serge. Sadly it isn’t the most wonderful marriage that she imagined, but they find a way to live together.
On a family visit to Russia, to see her sister, Alix (Alexandra, known as Alicky or Sunny to her family) meets the tsarevich (prince) Nicky, the future Nicholas II. He’s exciting and charming, handsome and devoted to her. But once again the royal family is against the match, for political and religious reasons. Queen Victoria tries to pair Alix with her grandson Eddy, even though first cousins marrying is a bad idea, something that is only just being recognised.
Alix doesn’t care for Eddy, she cannot get Nicky out of her head or heart. But refuses him as she feels her father needs her.
These star crossed lovers do eventually marry and despite the timing of their wedding, it is a grand spectacle that is attended by Bertie, future King of England as well as members of the royal families of Europe.
The book is beautifully written and captivating, knowing how it all ends in tragedy doesn’t detract from reading about the joy of being young and falling in love. My favourite character was the tiny and cranky Queen Victoria, trying to get her large family to fall in line and struggling with her strong willed grandchildren (can’t work out where they got that from!) I also loved Ernie, the sole boy in the Hesse family, who always has his sisters’ backs and loves them.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 