BBAW 4 Book Blog Discovery & Giveaway

Thursday September 17 Today we encourage you to blog about a book you read only because you discovered it on another book blog. Preferably, this will be a book you loved! You might also write a bit about the blog you discovered it on!

Not sure if this really counts... but through reading Author Michelle Moran's Historical Fiction Author Interviews Blog I have discovered several books that now reside on my TBR list. Yet the one author that she interviewed that I immediately located the book at my local library was Deanna Raybourn, shortly after Silent in the Grave was published. I read that book and enjoyed it. Easily I was very attached to the characters of Lady Julia and Nicholas Brisbane. Since then I have jumped when the next Lady Julia Novel was published and each one has been better than the last. Really the one of hers that I would say I absolutely loved was Lady Julia #3 Silent on the Moor. However, I highly suggest Silent in the Sanctuary as a good read as well.

Make sure you check out my other post today: Blogoversary Giveaway Autographed Extra #1 to enter for your chance to win an autographed copy of Silent on the Moor from Deanna Raybourn for yourself!!

My Reviews:
MIRA
Deanna Raybourn - Julia Grey Series
Silent in the Grave
Silent in the Sanctuary
Silent on the Moor

Blogoversary Giveaway Autographed Extra #1

Blogoversary Giveaway Autographed Extra #1 is very exciting for me. Thanks to Author Deanna Raybourn, I have to offer you a signed copy of her latest in print Silent on the Moor, a Julia Gray Novel. This is the third Julia Gray Novel so far and luckily not the last! Easily this one could be read alone, yet I suggest all of Deanna's novels for a good long read. This giveaway will end Friday, September 18th.

Click any of the following links to read my review.

MIRA
Deanna Raybourn - Julia Grey Series
Silent in the Grave
Silent in the Sanctuary
Silent on the Moor

You can note in my review, my opinion of the cover.

This is a wickedly witty Lady Julia Grey mystery. 'There are things that walk abroad on the moor that should not. But the dead do not always lie quietly, do they, lady?' It is England, 1888. Grimsgrave Manor is an unhappy house, isolated on the Yorkshire moors, silent and secretive. But secrets cannot be long kept in the face of Lady Julia Grey's incurable curiosity. In the teeth of protests from her conventional, stuffy brother, Lady Julia decides to pay a visit to the enigmatic detective, Nicholas Brisbane to bring a woman's touch to his new estate. Grimsgrave is haunted by the ghosts of its past, and its owner seems to be falling into ruin along with the house. Confronted with gypsy warnings and Brisbane's elusive behaviour, Lady Julia scents a mystery. It's not long before her desire for answers leads her into danger unlike any other that she has experienced - and from which, this time, there may be no escape.

Who is your favorite Mystery Author? What is your favorite Mystery Novel??

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Mailbox Monday - May 11th, 2009

As far as the mailbox goes, this was a fairly uneventful week. Yet, I think for now that is probably a good thing, since I have a huge pile TBR and it does not seem to be shrinking in the normal manner and speed it usually does...

This week I received one book for review, and a second book from Paperbackswap.

Book 3 of Delaware Dawning (HP #823)
historical romance
Order through Heartsong Presents (call 1-800-847-8270 for toll-free; NOT on the HP site)
Order through Amazon.com
Order through Barnes & Noble
November 2008
ISBN-13: 9781602601895

View the spotlight on CAN's (Christian Author's Network) You've Got Books Blog

-- Living during the American Revolution and the formation of a new nation, Margret Scott gets involved with a spy and a life of deception that could endanger herself, her family and the man she loves. --

"If I have walked with vanity, or if my foot hath hasted to deceit; Let me be weighed in an even balance that God may know mine integrity." ~Job 31:5-6

Is deception fair in wartime?

Margret Scott finds she must deal with this question as she becomes attracted to the enigmatic Samuel Lowe. As the tensions grow between the colonists and the British soldiers and loyalists, Margret struggles to determine where Samuel's loyalties lie, despite his reassurances that they lie with the colonists.

Samuel's duties have him working for both sides of this war, and he is often torn between what is right and what is wrong. He promises Margret she can trust him, and Margret promises him she does.

But can promises born in deception be trusted? Can relationships built in uncertainty survive?

Read Chapter One

---

This is the third in a series that I have read for review from Amber Miller (Stockton). I really enjoyed the first two. You can read my reviews of those here (PP) and here (QP).

Secondly, from PaperBackSwap, I received a hardback copy of Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn. I read this last year and really enjoyed it. I am very eager to have my own copy, since I read it from the library. It makes me very happy. Now, I just have to get my hands on the other two. I do have an ARC of the third one, Silent on the Moor. But I do not have a copy of book two, Silent in the Sanctuary. I would really like to find a copy of the original print in trade paper back, since that is my favorite cover. Yet, all the copies that come up on PBS seem to be Mass Market. *sigh* That is what I get for being picky.



These ominous words, slashed from the pages of a book of Psalms, are the last threat that the darling of London society, Sir Edward Grey, receives from his killer. Before he can show them to Nicholas Brisbane, the private inquiry agent he has retained for his protection, Sir Edward collapses and dies at his London home, in the presence of his wife, Julia, and a roomful of dinner guests.

Prepared to accept that Edward's death was due to a long-standing physical infirmity, Julia is outraged when Brisbane visits and suggests that Sir Edward has been murdered. It is a reaction she comes to regret when she discovers the damning paper for herself, and realizes the truth.

Determined to bring her husband's murderer to justice, Julia engages the enigmatic Brisbane to help her investigate Edward's demise. Dismissing his warnings that the investigation will be difficult, if not impossible, Julia presses forward, following a trail of clues that lead her to even more unpleasant truths, and ever closer to a killer who waits expectantly for her arrival.

I also have my reviews of these three books here (SITG), here (SITS), and here (SOTM).

Silent on the Moor by Deanna Raybourn: a review

Silent On The Moor by Deanna Raybourn

Despite his admonitions to stay away, Lady Julia arrives in Yorkshire to find Brisbane as remote and maddeningly attractive as ever. Cloistered together, they share the moldering house with the proud but impoverished remnants of an ancient family—the sort that keeps their bloodline pure and their secrets close. Lady Allenby and her daughters, dependent upon Brisbane and devastated by their fall in society, seem adrift on the moor winds, powerless to change their fortunes. But poison does not discriminate between classes….

A mystery unfolds from the rotten heart of Grimsgrave, one Lady Julia may have to solve alone, as Brisbane appears inextricably tangled in its heinous twists and turns. But blood will out, and before spring touches the craggy northern landscape, Lady Julia will have uncovered a Gypsy witch, a dark rider and a long-buried legacy of malevolence and evil.

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Upon finishing this novel, the phrase that comes to mind is "thoroughly satisfying". I think that it is safe to say that I read this almost six hundred page novel in about three sittings, I just could hardly put it down. It was just that enthralling for me.

Side note: I agree with what has been said about the cover. The original cover for the first two novels was much more mysteries and intriguing to me. This cover presents itself as a romance, and this is so much more than a romance novel.


Easily this novel could stand alone, although you might feel the characters a bit more after having the background of what they have been through. Their stories are introduced well and it does not deter from this story to miss the background, so either way works. The first novel I enjoyed minus one certain part that just bugged me, not the writing, but a plot line. Anyway, the second novel was so much better than the first, so I was excited to read this one. Having already decided that I am a fan of Deanna's writing, I was expecting to enjoy this book. What I was not expecting was to absolutely love it beginning to end.



Of the three Julia Grey novels so far available, this is the best so far. Each book gets better and I cannot wait for more from Deanna Raybourn in the future.



With each twist of the plot and mysterious event to unfold I was shocked and amazed at the pieces that I missed and thrilled with the bits that I figured out myself. Julia Grey brings us through a fabulous journey with not just one big mystery, but bunches of little ones as well that kept the pages turning.



Throughout the novel, I laughed out loud, became infuriatingly angry, teared slightly, and snickered relentlessly. Within the main plot and all the side plots, I definitely feel that the entire story led up to a great overall tale and I was vastly entertained.



It is another one of those books, where I ask, why did it have to end and when can I get more?


View all my reviews.