Svetlana's Reads and Views

Name of Book: A Gentleman in Moscow Author: Amor Towles ISBN: 978-0-670-02619-7 Publisher: Viking Type of book: Moscow, Russia, 1922-1954, wealth, breeding, culture, class, Metropol, trapped, claustrophobia, reading, literature, friendship Year it was published: 2016 Summary: The mega-bestseller with more than 1.5 million readers that is soon to be a major television series He can't leave his hotel. You won't want to. From the New York Times bestselling author of Rules of Civility--a transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel. In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are ...

Name of Book: Killer in the band Author: Lauren Carr ISBN:  B01M193ICR Publisher: Acorn Book services Part of a Series: Lovers in Crime #3 Type of book: mystery, farm, music, band, talent, animals, horses, loyalty, horse sense, marriage, crime, animal whisperer, older woman/ younger male relationship, making peace, lawyers, study, determination Year it was published: 2016 Summary:  It's a Summer of Love & Murder! Joshua’s eldest son, Joshua Thornton Jr. (J.J.) has graduated at the top of his class from law school and returns home to spend the summer studying for the bar exam. However, to Joshua's and Cameron's shock and dismay, J.J. moves into the main house at Russell Ridge Farm and Orchards, the largest dairy farm in the Ohio Valley, in order to rekindle a romance with Suellen Russell, the one-time leader of a rock who is twice his age. Quickly, they learn that she has a deep dark secret. The move brings long buried tensions between the fat...

Name of Book: The Girls Author: Emma Cline ISBN: 978-0-8129-9860-3 Publisher: Random House Book Type of book: California, 1960s, teenage angst, looking for love in the wrong places, cult, crime, murder, life, control Year it was published: 2016 Summary: Northern California, during the violent end of the 1960s. At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park, and is immediately caught by their freedom, their careless dress, their dangerous aura of abandon. Soon, Evie is in thrall to Suzanne, a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who is its charismatic leader. Hidden in the hills, their sprawling ranch is eerie and run down, but to Evie, it is exotic, thrilling, charged—a place where she feels desperate to be accepted. As she spends more time away from her mother and the rhythms of her daily life, and as her obsession with Suzanne intensifies, Evie does no...

Name of Book: Alvar the Kingmaker Author: Annie Whitehead ISBN: 978-1-78610-688-9 Publisher: FeedARead.com Publishing Type of book: 956-983 ME, England, Mercia, Alvar, King Edwy the Fairchild, King Edgar, other kings, church, rivalry, politics, unrequited love, survival, relationships, ruling, life in mid 10th century England/Merica, descendants Year it was published: 2016 Summary: The story, based on true events, begins when the king is caught in bed with his wife and her mother, and ends with the murder of another king, a crime attributed to his stepmother, the queen. Central to the story is Alvar, earl of Mercia. Having helped King Edgar to secure the throne, amid great unrest he must fight to clear the queen’s name, bring the country back from the brink of civil war, and stabilise the monarchy for Edgar’s son, Æthelred the Unready. He does this at great personal cost, and his enemies will stop at little: Abbot Dunstan, banished, recalled, and in no mood to forgiv...

Name of Book: The Last Woman Standing Author: Thelma Adams ISBN: 978-1503935181 Publisher: Lake Union Type of book: 1880-1882, Arizona Tombstone, Josephine Marcus, Wyatt Earp, the lawless West, relationships, family, loyalty, gun fights Year it was published: 2016 Summary: Two decades after the Civil War, Josephine Marcus, the teenage daughter of Jewish immigrants, is lured west with the promise of marriage to Johnny Behan, one of Arizona’s famous lawmen. She leaves her San Francisco home to join Behan in Tombstone, Arizona, a magnet for miners (and outlaws) attracted by the silver boom. Though united by the glint of metal, Tombstone is plagued by divided loyalties: between Confederates and Unionists, Lincoln Republicans and Democrats. But when the silver-tongued Behan proves unreliable, it is legendary frontiersman Wyatt Earp who emerges as Josephine’s match. As the couple’s romance sparks, Behan’s jealousy ignites a rivalry destined for the history books… At o...

Name of Book: Guy Author: Jowita Bydlowska ISBN: 978-1-928088-23-3 Publisher: Wolsak and Wynn Publishers Type of book: relationships, chauvinist, attention to detail, judgment, attraction, modern times, lack of commitment, ruin, wealth Year it was published: 2016 Summary: Guy is a successful talent agent who dates models, pop stars and women he meets on the beach. He's a narcissistic, judgmental snob who rates women's looks from one to ten; a racist, homophobic megalomaniac who makes fun of people's weight; a cheating, lying, manipulative jerk who sees his older girlfriend as nothing more than an adornment. His only real friend, besides his dog, is a loser who belongs to a pick-up artist group. Guy is completely oblivious to his own lack of empathy, and his greatest talent is hiding it all...until he meets someone who challenges him in a way he's never been challenged before. Darkly funny and utterly offensive, "Guy" is a brilliant and insi...

Name of Book: The Marriage of Miss Jane Austen Volume II Author: Collins Hemingway ISBN: 9781535444958 Publisher: Self published Part of a Series: The Marriage of Miss Jane Austen Trilogy Type of book: Jane Austen, marriage, relationship, Napoleonic wars, slavery, pregnancy, motherhood, 1805-1807, scientific discoveries, steam engines, travel Year it was published : 2016 Summary: Jane Austen Lived a Quiet, Single Life-Or Did She? Tradition holds that Jane Austen lived a proper, contemplative, unmarried life. But what if she wed a man as passionate and intelligent as she-and the marriage remained secret for 200 years? The Marriage of Miss Jane Austen resolves the biggest mystery of Austen's life-the "lost years" of her twenties-of which historians know virtually nothing. - Why the enduring rumors of a lost love or tragic affair? - Why, afterward, did the vivacious Austen prematurely put on "the cap of middle age" and close off any th...

Name of Book: Camelot's Queen Author: Nicole Evelina ISBN: 9780996763288 Publisher: Lawson Gartner Part of a Series: Guinevere's Tale Trilogy Type of book: King Arthur, 497-518, kingdom, magic, Avalon, Anglo Saxons, Bretons, tribes, England, wars, rape, assault, obsession, adultery, affair, religions, Guinevere, Lancelot, Morgan  Year it was published: 2016 Summary: History remembers Guinevere’s sin, but it was Arthur who transgressed first. Forced into a marriage she neither anticipated nor desired, Guinevere finds herself High Queen, ruling and fighting alongside Arthur as they try to subdue the Saxons, Irish and Picts who threaten Britain from every direction. Though her heart still longs for her lost love, Guinevere slowly grows to care for her husband as they join together to defeat their enemies. Meanwhile, within the walls of Camelot their closest allies plot against them. One schemes to make Guinevere his own, another seeks revenge for past t...

Name of Book: Daughter of Destiny Author: Nicole Evelina ISBN: 9780996763288 Publisher: Lawson Gartner publishing Part of a Series: Guinevre's Tale Trilogy Type of book: King Arthur, loyalty, England, Queen Guinevere, Avalon priestesses, 491-496, friendships between women, old and new traditions, tournament, Isolde, Elaine, Morgan, prophecy, the sight Year it was published: 2016 Summary: Before queenship and Camelot, Guinevere was a priestess of Avalon. She loved another before Arthur, a warrior who would one day betray her. In the war-torn world of late fifth century Britain, young Guinevere faces a choice: stay with her family to defend her home at Northgallis from the Irish, or go to Avalon to seek help for the horrific visions that haunt her. The Sight calls her to Avalon, where she meets Morgan, a woman of questionable parentage who is destined to become her rival. As Guinevere matures to womanhood, she gains the powers of a priestess, and falls in love...

Name of Book: From Across the Room Author: Gina L Mulligan ISBN: 978-1-4328-3252-0 Publisher: Gale Cengage Learning Type of book: 1888-1889, first love, money, old money, intelligence, writing, Henry James, America, epistolary, letters, Year it was published: 2016 Summary: Self-indulgent young writer Thomas Gadwell has traveled from Boston to the new Hotel Del Coronado in California to at last finish his novel when he meets the clever and headstrong Miss Mary Harting. At once Thomas tosses aside his literary pursuits for a charmed summer of romance that ends with the happy couple making future plans. However, Mary Harting is the only unmarried daughter of notorious railroad tycoon Charles Harting, and he has no intention of letting a useless wordsmith derail his own critical plans for Mary. The couple must continue a clandestine courtship, but Thomas' ingenuity has unexpected repercussions and he unwittingly uncovers a sinister plot of deception, greed, and blac...