Book Review: "Five Gold Rings" by Kristen Bailey

Oh, my heart. Given that We Three Kings is one of my favorite books this year, I decided to go backward and read Five Gold Rings now. (They're both standalones but this one was written first.) Loved this one, too, Kristen Bailey!!

“‘Nah, it’s just I know Christmas people. I thought you’d be more of a low-key Christmas dude. A sensible jumper and mulled wine kind of man.’”

“‘I’m novelty jumper, all the way. I Christmas hard.’”

Christmas is approaching and Eve is excited. She can’t wait to get home from a conference to see her boyfriend Chris and go shopping with him for the last few gifts they need to buy. But when she arrives home, she finds her boyfriend in the shower…with another woman.

Angry and devastated, Eve throws all of the gifts she got for Chris’ family out the window, and then escapes to the jewelry store where she works part-time. The owners call on Eve’s coworker, Joe, to help lift her spirits. Of course, Joe has more than a tiny crush on Eve, so he’s all too happy to help, although he doesn’t want to come across inappropriately.

There’s another crisis at the store: five rings were not delivered to their correct recipients, which means their events could be ruined. So Eve volunteers to distribute the rings and hopefully save the day, and Joe—fresh from his other job as a barely clothed elf—will serve as chauffeur and partner-in-crime. Can they keep Christmas from imploding?

I was hooked on this book from the first few sentences. I honestly loved everything—the characters and their stories, the banter, the holiday spirit, the emotion, all of it. I’m a Bailey fan for sure now!!

Book Review: "Stealing Time" by Tilia Klebenov Jacobs and Norman Birnbach

What a fun romp this was!! Thanks so much to Get Red PR Books for the complimentary copy!

It’s 2020 and teenage Tori is pretty dissatisfied with her life. Her parents are getting divorced, her father is annoying, and the pandemic has motivated her mother to move the two of them from their NYC home to Massachusetts to live with Tori’s aunt until the world gets back to normal.

Just before she heads to Massachusetts, “land of Boston accents, inferior bagels, lousy pizza, and having to be driven everywhere,” Tori makes a shocking discovery. (Well, she overhears it.) Apparently her paternal grandfather (whom she’s named after) was accused of a colossal jewel heist 40 years ago.

As if that’s not unsettling enough, the next thing Tori knows, she’s in 1980. The world—and NYC, for that matter—is very different than what she knows. She finds herself becoming allies with a teenage version of her father, on a mission to stop the jewel theft and perhaps correct the course of their family’s lives.

Getting used to a world without cell phones and the internet is not something that Tori ever wanted to do. It’s good to feel like you can have an impact on the future. But will she able to make it back to 2020? And will she have to share her secret with the 1980s version of her dad?

I’m a sucker for a time travel book, and this was a fun adventure. There was humor, emotions, family dysfunction, and so much more.

Book Review: "The Marriage Sabbatical" by Lian Dolan

“This isn’t a midlife crisis; this is a midlife triumph.”

Jason and Nicole have been married for 23 years. Their two children are in college, and they’ve made quite a life for themselves in Portland through the years. It’s about time they did something for themselves, and they’ve been planning a sabbatical, which includes a 9-month motorcycle trip through South America.

Nicole loves the idea of a sabbatical, but not the motorcycling trip. She’s been dreaming of going to Santa Fe, to study silversmithing, so she might be able to sell her jewelry creations at some point. Of course, she’s not sure how to tell Jason she really doesn’t want to take the trip he’s been planning for a while now.

One night, their neighbors tell them about a key component of their marriage: the 500-mile rule. When they’re more than 500 miles away from one another, they’re free to do as they wish, with whomever they wish to. No questions asked. At first, Nicole and Jason are adamant that they could never live like that, but the more they think on it, they decide that perhaps they can each take a separate sabbatical for nine months, and if they decide to sleep with someone, that’s fine—just no diseases and no pregnancies.

With enthusiasm and a bit of trepidation, they both head out on their journeys. The trips are life-changing and freeing in so many ways, and while chemistry sparks with new people for both, they start to realize what they want from their future—and their relationship.

I’ve become a fan of Lian Dolan after reading her last few books, and this was a fun and sweet read. It alternates between Jason and Nicole’s perspectives, and shifts between the present and retraces their relationship from the start. I can only wonder if the idea of a sabbatical might catch on!

Book Review: "The Jeweler of Stolen Dreams" by M.J. Rose

Powerful and magical. M.J. Rose has done it again!

This dual-timeline novel is focused on French jeweler Suzanne Belperron. In 1942, she was ahead of her time in terms of her jewelry creations, with color and form, and she counted heiresses and royalty among her customers.

But while Belperron was world-renowned for her jewelry, perhaps her greatest contribution to society was secretly getting countless Jewish families out of France since WWII began. As the Nazis draw closer to discovering her secret, the risks increase, until the unthinkable happens.

In 1986, Violine is an appraiser for an auction house who is asked to visit the home of a political candidate and son of a former Senator. He has inherited a house full of valuable items that he’d like Violine to appraise.

She’s wowed by everything, but feels particularly drawn to a vintage trunk. Since childhood, Violine has had the ability to determine the provenance of an object and feel the secrets of its owners. What she discovers inside the trunk, a secret cache of precious jewels, awakens nightmarish visions. What are they, and to whom did they belong?

The lives of Suzanne and Violine intertwine as she tries to find out more about the jewels. But what will her discoveries mean, not only to history, but to her own life?

I don’t read much historical fiction, particularly set during WW2, but I always make an exception for M.J. Rose. I’m so grateful to Get Red PR Books and Blue Box Press for inviting me on the tour for this book.

Book Review: "The Heist" by C.W. Gortner and M.J. Rose

With The Heist, this fun, glamorous caper series set in the late 1950s comes to a close.⁣

⁣ I’ve really enjoyed this series of novellas, which started with The Steal and The Bait. In this book, Ania Thorne has been hiding as she plots her next move to try and take down the notorious jewel thief, the Leopard. And she’s figured the perfect bait—she’ll design special jewelry for the Oscar-nominated actress of a major film.⁣

⁣ Jerome Curtis has been living a bleak existence in London, mourning the end of his relationship and the fact he threw away his career for the woman who abandoned him. A friend offers him a security job at her father’s movie studio, but unbeknownst to him, this job will put him right in the middle of Ania’s plan to trap the Leopard, who has gotten the jump on both of them before.⁣

⁣ This is really a series you should read in order, but since each book is less than 200 pages, it’s not that huge of a commitment. I love the glamour of old Hollywood that runs throughout the series, as well as the relationships and characters.⁣

⁣ Thanks so much to Get Red PR Books and Blue Box Press for the complimentary copy of the book. Here's hoping that C.W. Gortner and M.J. Rose team up again, or at the very least give us another installment in this series! ⁣

Book Review: "The Liz Taylor Ring" by Brenda Janowitz

When a family heirloom surfaces unexpectedly after a number of years, three adult siblings have very different ideas of what to do with it in The Liz Taylor Ring.

Lizzie fell in love with Ritchie when she was 16, when he was dating her older sister. And when they met again 9 years later, the two fell hard for each other and got married.

Through the years, their marriage is tested, particularly because of Ritchie’s serious gambling addiction, and that even causes them to separate for nine months at one point. To win her back, Ritchie gives Lizzie an 11-carat diamond ring, similar to the even larger ring that Richard Burton gave to Liz Taylor. Through the years, the ring symbolized the strength of their love, even through all of the ups and downs.

At some point, the ring disappeared, and each of their children believes something different happened to it. And then when the ring resurfaces in an unexpected place, all three siblings come together (a rarity) and try to decide what to do with the ring. Addy, the oldest, believes she’s entitled to keep it; Nathan, dealing with his own marital issues, sees the ring as a memory of their parents’ enduring love story and he feels like he's the only one who truly understood their relationship, so he should get to keep it; and Courtney, the youngest and a gambler like her father, wants to sell the ring to help her out of debt.

The story shifts back and forth between Lizzie and Ritchie’s love story and the present. Along the way, the siblings realize there’s a lot more to their parents’ lives—and the ring—as secrets and lies are uncovered.

You know I’m all about the family drama, so I enjoyed that aspect of this story, and I liked the dual timelines. However, I’m always a little frustrated when problems could be solved if people just communicated, but isn’t that just like life?

Book Review: "The Bait" by C.W. Gortner and M.J. Rose

Happy to get my hands on another fun, twisty story of greed and revenge among the rich and famous with The Bait!

This follow-up to The Steal (which you should read first) takes place in late 1958, one year later. Ania Throne, head of her family’s jewelry empire, is still angry about the sizable theft which occurred in Cannes. She’s determined to teach the perpetrator—believed to be the notorious jewelry thief the Leopard—a lesson.

Ania plans a heist of her own during the Venetian Carnival, hoping to flush out the Leopard. And while her lover, former insurance investigator Jerome Curtis, is in on the heist, he’s struggling to understand exactly where he fits in her glamorous world. But when things go awry with the scheme, they both realize that they’re playing a more complicated and dangerous game than they thought.

As a stranger to the circles in which Ania moves, Jerome is quickly eyed with suspicion for the crime. He’s going to need all of his wits about him to save himself—but is Ania on his side or off on her own?

I love the feel of these books and these characters fascinate me. I’m always up for a good heist story, the time period is right in my wheelhouse, and C.W. Gortner and M.J. Rose really make the setting so evocative.

This ends with a serious cliffhanger, but luckily the third book, The Heist, comes out in August! (See my review for The Steal here.)

Book Review: "The Steal" by C.W. Gortner and M.J. Rose

The Steal has a little bit of everything: a jewel heist and a glamorous setting, plus secrets, emotion, and family drama. Sound good to you? It sure did to me!

Cannes, 1957. The famed film festival is about to take place on this gorgeous island, and an A-list of glamorous celebrities are there. So is jewelry designer Ania Thorne, representing her family's jewelry company with a new multimillion-dollar collection, which will adorn the bodies of the world’s most beautiful actresses.

But shortly after Ania's arrival in Cannes, her entire collection is stolen in a brazen heist by the notorious jewel thief known as "The Leopard."

Jerome Curtis is an investigator for the company that insures Thorne & Company’s jewels. He’s let The Leopard get the best of him before (with tragic results) and he’s determined that won’t happen again. But this world-weary detective isn’t prepared for the depths to which The Leopard will stoop to get what he wants.

Ania knows the future of her company is at stake, and isn’t sure if she should trust Jerome. And when she learns just what might be behind the heist, she has to decide whether she can take the thief on herself or if she should let Jerome in. This is further complicated by an attraction that can’t go anywhere.

When you read certain books, do you find yourself picturing the movie adaptation in your head? That definitely happened while reading The Steal. I really enjoyed everything about it and tried to picture whom I’d cast in the lead roles. This book has everything—action, suspense, drama, steam, glamour—it’s made for a movie!

Can’t wait to get my hands on the second book, The Bait!

Book Review: "Cartier's Hope" by M.J. Rose

I love it when a book surprises you, not just with how compelling the story is but also with how layered the plot is, that it's so much more than you expected. That was definitely the case with M.J. Rose's newest book, Cartier's Hope.

New York, 1910. Vera Garland is the headstrong daughter of the owner of one of leading department stores. Much to her mother's chagrin, she has chosen to pursue a career as a journalist, a field that has not historically been amenable to women, paying them much less than their male counterparts, taking prime story assignments away from them, and relegating them to the traditional "soft" subjects like fashion and gossip.

But Vera has taken a different track, working under a pseudonym and wearing a disguise, and her undercover work on controversial topics such as abortion have received admiration from other female reporters, who could never imagine that the courageous reporter is actually Vera.

With New York City abuzz due to the arrival of the Hope Diamond at Cartier's jewelry store, society elite are mesmerized by the stone and the legends of bad luck that surround those who have possessed (and even touched) it. Still reeling from the death of her father, who always championed her bravado and willingness to fight for what she believed in, Vera discovers deep secrets and a blackmail scheme which appears to have led to her father's death. Devastated and angry, she vows revenge.

Determined to make the blackmailer, a ruthless magazine publisher known for blackmailing businessmen into buying advertising to guarantee his silence, pay for his sins, Vera decides to use the legends of the Hope Diamond's curse to her advantage. She creates a scheme which she hopes will "uncover" a scandal that the publisher can use to blackmail the famed jeweler, Cartier—and then the scheme can be turned on its head to expose the blackmailer.

It's a complicated and dangerous plan which requires keeping secrets from many she cares about. In order to succeed, she turns to a charismatic Russian jeweler for help. Yet as she does her research and pulls her facts together, she finds herself drawn to this man who has secrets of his own. For so long she's guarded her heart from love and the need for a man in her life; how ironic that her feelings are changing because of a man from whom she has to hide the truth about her plans and her identity?

Cartier's Hope is an utterly fascinating novel of historical fiction with a little bit of mystery thrown in for good measure. It's a fascinating look at a time just before the world changed dramatically, with World War I and women getting the right to vote both on the horizon. I also loved the look into New York society during that era and the role of women in journalism.

I've often said that I'm not a big fan of historical fiction, yet every time I've read a book in this genre lately, I've loved it. I loved the complexity of Cartier's Hope, the family dynamics, the secrets, the issues that would have been so controversial during that time. But more than that, I just loved the way M.J. Rose writes, and how she immediately pulled me into this story and didn't let go until the book's conclusion. Vera is a fascinating character I wouldn't mind seeing again.

I'm honored to have been part of the blog tour for Cartier's Hope. Atria Books and Get Red PR provided me an advance complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!