Opposites attract in this epic and spellbinding novel, which transports us from the untamed beauty of St Kilda to the glamour and intrigues of high society in the 1930s. The Last Summer is the first book in The Wild Isle series by Sunday Times bestseller Karen Swan, inspired by the true history of St Kilda and its small island community. Summer on St Kilda – a wild, remote Scottish island. Two … Continue reading The Last Summer by Karen Swan #BookReview #TheWildIsle1 #Macmillan #KindleFirstReads #5*

In an early twentieth-century America roiling with racial injustice, class divides, and WWI, two women fight for their dreams in a galvanizing novel by the bestselling author of Golden Poppies. 1915. May and Naomi are extended family, their grandmothers’ lives inseparably entwined on a Virginia plantation in the volatile time leading up to the Civil War. For both women, the twentieth century promises social transformation and … Continue reading Scarlet Carnation by Laila Ibrahim #BookReview #LakeUnionPublishing #WunderkindPR #5*

“A Voodoo ritual?” Emmett stared dumbly at her. A young man from Maine fights for social equality in New Orleans after the Civil War while pursuing a murderer of prostitutes, becoming enmeshed in voodoo, and falling in love. “Education is the tool that makes us all equal, whether we are Black, white, Indian, woman, or man,” Manon said. Much like Louisiana’s famous gumbo, Love in … Continue reading Love in a Time of Hate by Matthew Langdon Cost #BookReview #EncirclePublications #5*

Upturned Earth is set in Namaqualand, the copper mining district of the Cape Colony, during the winter of 1886. William Hull arrives at the town to take up the position of magistrate, a position that no one else wanted to accept because of the bleak and depressing locale. He finds that the town is run by the Cape Copper Mining Company and the despotic mine … Continue reading Upturned Earth by Karen Jennings #BookReview #HollandParkPress #4.5*

Seamlessly threaded into the emerging hot jazz music scene that captured the hearts of music lovers in 1913 New Orleans, are the themes of the tightening Jim Crow era, World War I and its aftermath of economic ills, political upheavals and epidemics, and the choices, heartbreaks and ultimate decisions of women of all races. At its heart, however, “Muskrat Ramble” is the saga of a … Continue reading Muskat Ramble by Mim Eichmann #BookReview #LivingSpringsPublishers #4*