KaraSkinner

Genre: Historical

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Miss Willa Ffynche is a master at navigating English high society in the Regency era. Keeping her vivacious personality and love of bawdy jokes to herself, she makes herself one of the most refined, desirable ladies of the Season, along with her best friend Lavinia.

What she most definitely does not want is to be a public spectacle. And that’s exactly what Lord Alaric Wilde will make her if she gets tangled up with the likes of him.

Alaric never thought he would be famous when he started writing about his daring adventures abroad. But when he returns home, his ship is met by a mob of screaming ladies who adore him and have his likeness posted on their walls. To make matters worse, he finds out a godawful play is starring him in a fictionalized adventure.

When he meets Willa, he is drawn to her. She was beautiful and witty and everything he wanted. But she would have nothing to do with a man so infamous. Unless he could convince her otherwise.

I really enjoyed this book. I tend to read regencies where the heroine is either socially awkward or is in some way an outcast from high society so it is refreshing to read a book about someone who navigates the world successfully.

Lord Alaric is, well, about the same as any other rakish Regency hero. But I enjoyed him anyway. Sometimes if the plot device ain’t broke…

What I didn’t care for, though, was Willa, or at least how her personality was drawn out by Alaric. In public, she is very prim and proper, if a little bookish. But when she’s in private with Alaric, she’s confident and care-free. However, it felt more like an abrupt change in character than an actual character arc. She never felt like she was holding back in public, so her “real” personality felt inauthentic.

I didn’t care for the villain, the love-crazed woman who wrote the play. She was a weird mix of religious fanatic and teeny-bopper and it didn’t work for me. Maybe if I saw more of her background I would like her as a villain more. Her mental instability wasn’t well fleshed out at all. She was instead a half-baked plot device. The bloodthirsty Lady Helena Biddle who hunted Alaric before disappearing less than halfway through the story would have been a better villain. Yes, she was two-dimensional, but at least she made sense.

However, people looking for a run-of-the-mill Regency will probably enjoy Wilde in Love. It didn’t give me any thrills, but I bet these characters will resonate well with other readers.

Have you read Wilde in Love? What did you think?

Get Wilde in Love at your local bookstore.

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Genre: Memoir

Page Count: 214 pages

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

From champagne bottles to baby bottles, this memoir offers a humorous glimpse of an American expat’s years abroad…

Party girl Vicki moved to Paris hoping to drink wine and fall in love. She accomplished both goals, but not without bumps along the way: romantic encounters gone awry, uniquely French situations threatening her sanity, and two adorable yet tireless kids keeping her on her toes…

Discover the real Paris through Vicki’s eyes as she shows you the funny side of life, love, and raising a family in the City of Light. Each chapter is paired with a delicious cocktail recipe! Enjoy drinks like the Sangria Spritzer, Pretty Good Bloody Mary, and Teeny Bellini.

Amazon

I’ve been a fan of Vicki Lesage for years. I’ve read both Confessions of a Paris Party Girl and Confessions of a Paris Potty Trainer. So I was thrilled when she contacted me for an honest review (click here to learn how to get me to review your book).

Paris Potty Girl details her first few years in Paris, from bar-hopping to getting her first apartment to meeting her husband and Paris Potty Trainer, of course, details pregnancies and getting used to parenthood.

Confessions of an Expat in Paris is an anthology of anecdotes spanning across both these eras in Vicki Lesage’s life. You’ll learn about the cheesy and downright weird pick-up lines she received from French guys as well as the time she might have eaten part of her friend’s thumb.

Each anecdote is paired with a drink recipe, many of which sound really good. I can’t wait to try the mulled gin recipe.

Mulled Gin

For when you need to recover from face mask fails

• 1 bottle of red wine
• 12 oz. gin
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 1 oz. orange juice
• 1 oz. lemon juice
• 1 cinnamon stick

1. Add all the ingredients to a pot
2. Stir and Simmer until honey is dissolved
3. Serve warm

I really enjoyed Expat in Paris. The stories are usually hilarious and sometimes just a little bit cringy in a good way. Others are sweet and make me smile, like when she was on her honeymoon with her husband.

With her first two books, I felt like there was more of an overall story instead of disjointed anecdotes. As much as I liked being able to enjoy a quick and witty snapshot of her life before I had to get back to my own, I think I preferred the more continuous storyline in Party Girl and Potty Trainer.

While some of the stories were without a doubt hilariously absurd, like her boss’s father asking about how her vaginal rejuvenation was coming along in front of her coworkers (what the everloving fuck), others were less climactic. Lesage included an entire chapter about how she’s an awkward dancer, except when she did the Dirty Dancing move with her brother on her wedding.

The dancing chapter felt more like a summary than a specific moment in her life, which made my eyes glaze over. And she only casually mentioned what could have been some good stories, like her drunkenly dancing on tabletops in public. I would have loved a complete chapter about one of those times, but they are only mentioned now and then.

Vicki Lesage often makes me laugh out loud when reading her books. Her chapter “10 Ways Living in Paris is Like Dental Work” will always make me smile. She talks about how both involve interesting flavors, a lot of paperwork, and a lot of money, and I’ll go “Oh shit, she’s right.”

Now and then, however, her jokes miss the mark. At one point she veered off-topic to stage an imaginary trial to defend herself against herself for eating so much Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and then, within the trial, she goes even more off-topic by talking about how France doesn’t have Phish Food flavor until I just wanted to skip the chapter.

As of this review, I still haven’t tried any of the drink recipes, but I trust a former hardcore drinker like Vicki Lesage to come up with some good drinks, although I don’t think I’ll ever try The Fluoride Treatment because, well, ew. Not the drink itself, but the name. Even though it’s relevant to the chapter, I’m weirdly squeamish.

However, most of these drinks are probably not for amateurs like me, who drink wine out of a box and can’t tell the difference between Stella Artois and Schlitz (I’m guessing. I’ve never actually had Schlitz. But Stella Artois tastes like every other beer to me).

With the exception of the mulled gin, most of the drink recipes require either a martini shaker or a blender. You can probably mostly pull off these recipes without either, though. Just don’t take a page out of Lesage’s book and use lite pancake syrup instead of honey.

I rate Confessions of an Expat in Paris 4 out of 5 stars. It’s a hilarious book that I recommend to anyone who wants a light-hearted memoir. You can get it for free on Kindle Unlimited.

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Average Goodreads Rating: 3.45 out of 5 stars

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Catherine Baker hasn’t been very attached to the magic world for years, aside from her witch friend Morgan, her fairy cousins, and her boss who’s a librarian AKA magic historian.

But who needs the magic world after what it did to her? Her boyfriend, Alexander, outted her to the witch community for using forbidden magic to defend herself. And the martyr-loving jerks outcasted her for it. And needless to say, her relationship ended.

But she’s fine with that. She’s scraping by with her waitressing job and has two cats that she loves. If only she can quit smoking so her bank account would be a bit fuller.

But when Morgan dies, Alexander shows up in her life yet again to urge her to run for Morgan’s job as Titania– the ambassador between the fairy world and the magician community on Earth.

Catherine would have just told him to go to hell if her boss and cousins also didn’t want to her to become the next Titania. She eventually agrees.

But complications ensue when her estranged father runs against her, sponsored by necromancers who put a price on her head.

As she fights to become Titania, Alexander is appointed as her bodyguard to keep her safe. Catherine has convinced herself that things with Alexander are completely over, but slowly it becomes very clear that things are just getting started.

Spies, action, crazy stunts, and more. If you like the Mission: Impossible movies, you’ll love these romance novels.

There’s nothing wrong with getting new books at your local bookstore but if you’re an avid bookworm, then your budget probably can’t handle it if you get all your books there.

Luckily there are plenty of legal ways to get books for free or cheaply and here are some of the best ways to do that.

Like many other fans, I was really sad to hear that Lucifer had been canceled. Lucifer’s humor and dashing good looks made me fall in love with the show, not to mention the badass demon Maze who would probably stab someone for Chloe’s daughter Trixie. The show definitely deserved more than three seasons and I was ecstatic when Netflix picked it up.

Lucifer season four is expected to be released sometime in 2019, even though Netflix is being annoyingly cryptic about it. But, if you’re tired of waiting like I am, then many some of these romance novels will keep you occupied.

Genre: Fantasy

Average Goodreads Rating: 4.17 out of 5 stars

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

All Clarissa wants to do is become a powerful witch, learn about her mother, and find her high school sweetheart, Derrick.

But it’s not that simple when she’s all but banned from using her volatile magic, her mother was apparently an evil dictator, and her high school sweetheart was swept away in a tornado. Oh, and she caused the tornado.

But, now that she’s a teacher at Womby’s School for Wayward Witches, she might have a chance to actually become part of the Witchkin community and achieve her goals.

Despite everyone despising her because of her mother, she’s making new friends like Josie, a video-gaming witch who loves all life, and Khaba, a Djinn with a kilt fetish. She’s also getting attention from the very sexy Julien Thistledown.

If only that jerk Felix Thatch would stop patronizing her and let her learn about her mother.