Book Review and GIVEAWAY: Beneath the Poet's House, by Christa Carmen {ends 2/28}

Guest review by: Becki Bayley

After checking her phone to make sure everyone’s arrived, Stacy turns in the opposite direction from which Saoirse and Emmit have come. “All right, everyone. Our tour has officially started. Onward, to what we in the biz still refer to as the Biltmore Hotel.”

Saoirse and Emmit match their strides to the half dozen or so other participants on the ghost walk. Saoirse wishes she’d thought to bring a pair of gloves. It’s much colder than when she had initially planned to be out with Emmit, nine hours earlier. 

“Are you excited?” Emmit asks.

“Sure,” Saoirse replies. “This is cool.”

“Are you scared?” He grins.

Saoirse feels her mouth lift into a half smile that mirrors the one Emmit so often wears. “It takes an awful lot to scare me these days.”

Saoirse is trying to move on from the death of her husband and create a life for herself after so many years of losing her own desires to her husband’s expectations.

Official synopsis:

Unmoored by her husband’s death and suffering from writer’s block, novelist Saoirse White moves to Providence, and into the historic home of Sarah Helen Whitman, the nineteenth-century poet and spiritualist once courted by Edgar Allan Poe. Saoirse’s certain she’ll find inspiration in the quiet rooms, as well as in the tucked-away rose garden and forgotten cemetery at the back of the property.

Saoirse is immediately welcomed by an effusive trio of transcendentalists obsessed with Whitman, the house, and Whitman’s mystic beliefs. Saoirse, emerging from grief and loneliness, welcomes the idea of new friends taking her mind off the past—even as they hope to summon it. When she meets Emmit Powell, a charismatic and charming prize-winning author, Saoirse thinks she’s finally turned a corner.

Emboldened by new romance, Saoirse begins to write again and, through her writing, rediscover herself. But as old fears return, she finds that nothing about her new life is what it seems—and a secret she’s tried so hard to bury may not be the only thing that comes back to haunt her.

Saoirse has some skeletons in her past, but she’s determined to leave the life that was making her miserable and smothering her creativity. She’s leaving the home she shared with her husband until he died and returning to Providence, where they met in college. She’s hoping to start fresh and get back to writing novels again.

She’s not surprised when things once again don’t go according to plan. The house she picked out to rent happens to have a history, and although it hasn’t been rented for five years, she finds visitors there on her first night. But she’s resilient and reminds herself that she wanted things to be different, and they are definitely seeming to shape up that way. Soon she even meets a new romantic interest, that she surely did not think would happen so soon, or maybe ever again.

Emmit is interested in her and her writing, and wants to know everything about her. Another new friend plants a seed of doubt, but of course Saoirse is a grown up who can make her own choices and judgments about people.

The book is beautifully told, thoroughly researched regarding the area and references of Edgar Allan Poe and Sarah Helen Whitman, and intricately plotted for some reminiscing of their doomed love story. This great gothic thriller earned 5 out of 5 stars. It would be an excellent spooky book club read. 

{click here to purchase via my Amazon Affiliates link}

Becki Bayley is a black cat mom who enjoys literary history and psychologically spooky stories. Check out more of what she and her family are up to on Instagram, where she posts as SweetlyBSquared.

GIVEAWAY:

One of my lucky readers will win a copy of Beneath the Poet's House!

Enter via the widget below. Giveaway will end on Friday, February 28th, at 11:59pm ET, and winner will be chosen the next day and notified via email, and have 24 hours to respond, or an alternate winner will be chosen.

U.S. residents only, please.

Good luck!

Beneath the Poet's House, by Christa Carmen Take Mobile Users to a Host

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Book Review - Love and Death in the Sunshine State: The Story of a Murder, by Cutter Wood

Guest review by: Becki Bayley

My departure from Florida after this interview bore some resemblance to a man disappearing into a crevasse. One moment, I was sitting in the parking lot of the prison listening to my messages; the next second, one could just make out the whinny of a loose steering belt in the distance as the station wagon banked a curve and headed north. The reason for this hurry was quite simple. There had been three messages on my phone when I left the prison:  the first, from Forrest, saying that if I was free he’d be happy to show me sandcastle pictures whenever was convenient – he was available all week; the second, from my mother, wondering if they’d found that motel woman yet – she hoped I was having fun; the last, from Erin, saying that she couldn’t stop thinking about me – she wanted to meet. 

I had to teach my first class of the semester in Iowa in about thirty-six hours. I spread the atlas out on the passenger-side seat. It was possible. If we met halfway, we could share four or five hours before I needed to turn west. I called her back, and as our rendezvous point, we selected a motel, the very name of which – the Lynnette – seemed to promise some indefinable intrigue. I was on the highway even before we’d said goodbye.

While the story claimed to be about a murder, the murder felt more like the background for the author’s discoveries about life.

Official synopsis:

When a stolen car is recovered on the Gulf Coast of Florida, it sets off a search for a missing woman, local motel owner Sabine Musil-Buehler. Three men are named persons of interest—her husband, her boyfriend, and the man who stole the car. Then the motel is set on fire; her boyfriend flees the county; and detectives begin digging on the beach of Anna Maria Island.

Author Cutter Wood was a guest at Musil-Buehler’s motel as the search for her gained momentum. Driven by his own need to understand how a relationship could spin to pieces in such a fatal fashion, he began to talk with many of the people living on Anna Maria, and then with the detectives, and finally with the man presumed to be the murderer. But there was only so much that interviews and transcripts could reveal.

In trying to understand how we treat those we love, this book, like Truman Capote’s classic In Cold Blood, tells a story that exists outside documentary evidence. Wood carries the investigation of Sabine’s murder beyond the facts of the case and into his own life, crafting a tale about the dark conflicts at the heart of every relationship.

Cutter Wood writes about the mystery of a missing woman from Anna Maria Island, Florida, while embarking on his own romantic relationship with a woman he knew from grade school, and furthering his education and career as a writer. Although he felt immersed enough in his research to imagine a relationship with the missing (and probably dead) woman, his interactions and review of information from the three suspects don’t bring him any closer to solving the mystery and possible crime than the police.

The writing style was pleasant, and the book earned 3 out of 5 stars. In spite of the description, this may not be a favorite for those who enjoy true-crime, as it read more like a memoir of the author’s life during the investigation of the crime. Those who like lifestyle stories would enjoy this book.

{click here to purchase via my Amazon Affiliates link}

Becki Bayley is a Gemini who enjoys the sense of accomplishment that comes with waking up early and checking off the tasks that need to be done. See some pictures of what she’s up to on Instagram, where she posts as SweetlyBSquared.

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Book Review and GIVEAWAY - Damaged Beauty: Joey Superstar by Margaret Gardiner {ends 2/14}

Guest review by: Becki Bayley

Joey lied all the time about little, unimportant things, like the time she told the South African back in Hamburg  about her ‘sisters’ when she had none. Well, none that she knew of, but how would her lie change the South African’s life? It hadn’t. Not really. Charlie wanted to go down a path. She took Joey’s lie to make the journey easier. For Joey? Lying was the lubrication of life. Even if you didn’t lie, everyone thought you did, so you might as well. Joey lied by omission, for control, because she could, and also because it was fun. But she never confused truth and lies. The lies she told hurt no one. They added color to life.

Fran was a whole other story. Part of Joey knew that she lived the lie of Giovanni because Fran could not face the truth of Hamburg. The House of Rest, the lithium, the subsequent fracas? It had been a fog to cover the lie that Fran perpetrated. Joey had tried to get Fran to talk about the truth of Hamburg, but Joey didn’t have a good track record with being heard or believed.

Joey has been let down by nearly everyone throughout her life, but she’s learning that she needs to be able to trust and rely on herself, most of all.

Official synopsis:

Welcome to the world of model Joey Superstar - a whirlwind of cocaine, sex, and money.

Josaphina Brinkley seems to have it all: she’s a superstar model in 1980s America, a cover girl plastered naked on fashion billboards above Sunset Blvd. Women want to be her. Men simply want her.

But underneath the glossy veneer she hides a traumatic past. The end of her marriage to Italian Aristocracy led to a stint in rehab. As she returns to parties, premiers and modeling, she’s hoping a life of designer clothes and beautiful people won’t take her back to blow. If only she could be truly seen, heard and understood, perhaps she wouldn't self-destruct again?

Joey sets out to confront the roots of her wildness – but must admit to a youthful act that haunts her. As Joey fights from addiction to redemption, can she change the course of her life, deal with her dark past and become the superstar she was always destined to be? Former Miss Universe Margaret Gardiner gives readers the key to a secret world of supermodels, sex, style and scandal in her deliciously intoxicating debut, Joey Superstar, the first in an exciting Damaged Beauty series.

Most other characters in the book don’t think very highly of Joey, and it seems like this has shaped a lot of her expectations for herself. Luckily, the ending of her marriage lands her in The House of Rest, where a doctor finally convinces her to look at how she really feels about things, and what serves her instead of just her image.

The craziness of a 1980s party lifestyle was fun to read, but even more curious was watching how the different characters existed to enjoy, manage, or even thrive. The relationships between the characters and Joey’s evolving observations about them was engaging.

Overall, the book earned 4 out of 5 stars, and as the first book in a Damaged Beauty series, it’s expected that the author will bring us more good reads with interesting stories of compelling characters.

{click here to purchase from my Amazon Affiliates link}

Becki Bayley is a Gemini who enjoys reading and watching 80s movies. See more of what she’s up to on Instagram, where she posts as SweetlyBSquared.

GIVEAWAY:

One of my lucky readers will win a copy of Damaged Beauty: Joey Superstar!

Enter via the widget below. Giveaway will end on Friday, February 14th, at 11:59pm ET, and winner will be notified the next day via email, and have 24 hours to respond, or an alternate winner will be chosen. 

U.S. residents only, please.

Good luck!

Damaged Beauty: Joey Superstar by Margaret Gardiner

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