Book Review - Here Burns My Candle by Liz Curtis Higgs

I was very excited when this book was in my list of review options since it's historical fiction. If you've read some of my previous book reviews you know this is one of my favorite genres.

As I started reading, I was slightly disappointed. I could NOT get into this book! The chapters are each only a few pages long and after just one chapter I'd put the book down and walk away. I never do that! Honestly, I can't quite figure out what my problem was with the book. It was a decent story, just not captivating. When I finally got interested in the book (at the very end) and kept reading and reading to find out what happened to a specific character, he went away and the author never says what happened to him! There is a sequel to this book called "Mine is the Night", however, I don't think I want to read through it with the sheer hope that she brings the character back.

Here is the summary from the back of the book:

"Lady Elisabeth Kerr is a keeper of secrets. A Highlander by birth and a Lowlander by marriage, she honors the auld ways, even as doubts and fears stir deep within her.
Her husband, Lord Donald, has secrets of his own, well hidden from the household, yet whispered among the town gossips.
His mother, the dowager Lady Marjory, hides gold beneath her floor and guilt inside her heart. Though her two abiding passions are maintaining her place in society and coddling her grown sons, Marjory's many regrets, buried in Greyfriars Churchyard, continue to plague her.
One by one the Kerr family secrets begin to surface, even as bonny Prince Charlie and his rebel army ride into Edinburgh in September 1745, intent on capturing the crown.
A timeless story of love and betrayal, loss and redemption, flickering against the vivid backdrop of eighteenth-century Scotland, Here Burns My Candle illuminates the dark side of human nature, even as hope, the brightest of tapers, lights the way home."

An excerpt from the book can be found HERE.

If you decide to read this, let me know what you thought!

As a reminder, I was given this book for free from the WaterBrook Multnomah "Blogging for Books" program. All opinions are my own.

Flight of Shadows by Sigmund Brouwer

Time for another book review! This one is for "Flight of Shadows" by Sigmund Brouwer.

I have mixed feelings about this book. The story itself was good. Caitlyn, the result of a scientific experiment, is on the run from bounty hunters and the government. She meets a street-smart illusionist named Razor who helps her escape but she's not sure she can trust him. Razor helps her learn about herself and the unique power of her DNA. It leads her to make a choice between the two men who love her, and whether to keep her freedom or sacrifice herself to change human destiny.

The first few chapters of the book were rather hard to follow. Every chapter jumped to a new scene and introduced new characters. It took a paragraph or two to figure out what was going on. The entire book reads this way but after learning all the characters it becomes easier to follow. I discovered after I started that this book is the sequel to Sigmund Brouwer's other book, "Broken Angel". Perhaps I should have read that first.

There are a few disgusting scenes involving a man eating a rat and the author has an abnormal obsession with coffee. This probably bothered me more than it should have but everytime coffee was mentioned I thought "here we go again...".

All in all it was a pretty good book. I'd give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Read the prologue HERE.

As a reminder, I was given this book for free from the WaterBrook Multnomah "Blogging for Books" program. All opinions are my own.

Did you find the review helpful? Rank it here:

Lady in Waiting by Susan Meissner

I'm a huge fan of historical fiction so I was immediately drawn to this book. My obsession with this genre began with a trip to the thrift store. I was browsing the books and came across "The Other Boleyn Girl" by Philippa Gregory. I recognized the title since it had recently been made into a movie so I bought it...and LOVED it! Within the next few months I acquired the rest of the Tudor series by Philippa Gregory and all of the ones I read so far are amazing. When I received "Lady in Waiting" I had no idea it would tie in with those books.

"Lady in Waiting" is two stories in one. The first story is about Jane Lindsay, modern day New Yorker whose husband of 22 years recently walked out on her. She runs an antique store and one day finds an old ring stuffed into the binding of a book. The ring is inscribed in Latin with the only recognizable word being "Jane". She instantly feels a bond with this ring and its owner and tried to find out more about it. Along the way she discovers more about herself and how to deal with her marrital problems.

Story two takes place in sixteenth century England right after the death of Queen Katherine, Henry VIII's sixth wife (this is where it ties in with the Tudor series). It's about Lady Jane Grey who would eventually reign as Queen of England for a total of nine days.

The story revolves around the decisions that both women have made (or that others have made for them) and how they affected their lives.

I give this story two thumbs up! You can download and read the first 4 chapters of this book on the WaterBrook Multnomah website.

As a reminder, I was given this book for free from the WaterBrook Multnomah "Blogging for Books" program. All opinions are my own.