Her Majesty´s royal coven by Juno Dawson

Series: Her Majesty's Royal Coven (#1)

Format: 452 pages, Paperback

Published: August 3, 2022 by Harper Voyager

Paranormal/borrowed

First I was disappointed at once cos I stupidly believed it would take place in the 1800s...oops, ok that one is on me. It was modern time.

And it was sort of ok, but sigh. I thought this would be fun, it was not. I thought it would be friendship and women, no. The whole book was about women in different covens arguing.

There had been a war between warlocks and witches. One would think that would be in issue...nope.

Satan was coming through and all witches are going to die said an oracle, one would think that would be an issue..sort of, but still let's just argue instead.

So women being bitches to each other instead of witches. YAWN

If you look hard enough at old photographs, we’re there in the background: healers in the trenches; Suffragettes; Bletchley Park oracles; land girls and resistance fighters. Why is it we help in times of crisis? We have a gift. We are stronger than Mundanes, plain and simple.

At the dawn of their adolescence, on the eve of the summer solstice, four young girls--Helena, Leonie, Niamh and Elle--took the oath to join Her Majesty's Royal Coven, established by Queen Elizabeth I as a covert government department. Now, decades later, the witch community is still reeling from a civil war and Helena is now the reigning High Priestess of the organization. Yet Helena is the only one of her friend group still enmeshed in the stale bureaucracy of HMRC. Elle is trying to pretend she's a normal housewife, and Niamh has become a country vet, using her powers to heal sick animals. In what Helena perceives as the deepest betrayal, Leonie has defected to start her own more inclusive and intersectional coven, Diaspora. And now Helena has a bigger problem. A young warlock of extraordinary capabilities has been captured by authorities and seems to threaten the very existence of HMRC. With conflicting beliefs over the best course of action, the four friends must decide where their loyalties lie: with preserving tradition, or doing what is right.

Juno Dawson explores gender and the corrupting nature of power in a delightful and provocative story of magic and matriarchy, friendship and feminism. Dealing with all the aspects of contemporary womanhood, as well as being phenomenally powerful witches, Niamh, Helena, Leonie and Elle may have grown apart but they will always be bound by the sisterhood of the coven.

Audio: A Lady´s reputation by Amy DOrazio

By: Amy D'Orazio

Narrated by: Lillian Rachel

Series: The Engaged to Mr Darcy Series

Length: 13 hrs and 58 mins

Release date: 10-11-19

Publisher: Quills & Quartos Publishing

Pride and prejudice variation/from audible

I am appalled, appalled I say! Mr Bingley, you are not a gentleman!

In this one, Darcy is an idiot in love and goes and blabs to everyone that he and Lizzy is engaged, sigh. Well, see he has not actually asked her yet and the gossip is soon everywhere. If she "ends" it it will seems she jilted him and her reputation will suffer. MEN! But he invites her to Pemberley, and the Gardiners so they can get to know each other and maybe work it out.

And then there is Bingley who becomes more and more of a spineless toad. And when I thought he could not sunk any farther, he does! Where is my glove?! I will slap him and call him out.

Darcy and Lizzy will eventually fall in love, and then there is some drama that made me maaaad! You are dead to me Bingley!

All in all, everyone lives happily ever after, except those who deserves no happy endings.

I liked it

“Mr Darcy, I am eager to hear your explanation for the fact that quite a few people believe we are engaged.”

It starts with a bit of well-meant advice. Colonel Fitzwilliam suggests to his cousin Darcy that, before he proposes to Elizabeth Bennet in Kent, perhaps he ought to discuss his plans with their families first.

What neither man could have predicted however was that Lord Matlock would write the news to his sister, or that Viscount Saye would overhear and tell his friends, or that his friends might slip a little and let their friends know as well. The news spreads just as quickly through Hertfordshire once Mrs Bennet opens the express Mr Bennet receives from Mr Darcy, and in a matter of days, it seems like everyone knows that Mr Darcy has proposed marriage to Elizabeth Bennet.

Everyone, that is, except Elizabeth herself.

Her refusal is quick and definite - until matters of reputation, hers as well as Jane’s, are considered. Then Mr Darcy makes another summer at Pemberley so that Jane can be reunited with Mr Bingley and so that he can prove to Elizabeth he is not what she thinks of him. Falling in love with him is naturally impossible...but once she knows the man he truly is, will she be able to help herself?

Audio: An ordinary sort of evil by Kelley Armstrong

Narrated by: Kate Handford

Series: A Rip Through Time, Book 5

Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins

Release date: 05-19-26

Publisher: Macmillan Audio

Historical mystery/own

A new adventure, and finally! Mallory and Grey will get a bit closer. I get why nothing has happened before, but these two would be so perfect together.

But first there is a mystery, a psychic claims that Lady Adler´s maid is dead and Grey and Mallory is called in. There is no body, just a girl who seems to have quit her job.

A missing maid. More mysteries. How does the psychic know?

Though I must say, Mallory sure is sceptic of ghosts considering she time travelled from modern time to 1860s.

I enjoyed this one. Especially since these two clearly has something going on between them.

Modern-day homicide detective Mallory Mitchell has grown accustomed to life in Victorian Scotland after travelling 150 years into the past into the body of a housemaid. She’s built a new life for herself. Even though she works as an assistant to forensic-science pioneer Dr. Duncan Gray and Detective Hugh McCreadie, she considers them true friends. And with Gray in particular, perhaps, someday, something more.

Late one night, Gray and Mallory are summoned urgently to the home of Lady Adler, a patron of Gray’s undertaking business, and they assume there's been a death in the household. But instead, they arrive in the midst of a séance with a ghost demanding Gray's presence. The ghost is Lady Adler's former maid, who had gone missing but now requests that Gray investigate her murder. Although Gray and Mallory are skeptical, they agree to look into the matter, whether she's dead or alive. But unsure if there's been a murder or not, unable to call out the medium as a fraud, and concerned for the fate of the young maid, Gray and Mallory are once again drawn into a mystery much more puzzling—and more dangerous—than it first seems

The Belle of Belgrave square by Mimi Matthews

Series: Belles of London (#2)

Format: 432 pages, Paperback

Published: October 11, 2022 by Berkley

Historical romance/own

Julia loves reading, she hates parties and gatherings. Her parents are hypochondriacs, and she does pretend to be ill at times so she does not have to attend balls.

Jasper is called the hero of Crimea, but at the same time people gossip about how sadistic he was and about his brood of bastards. Also he needs a rich wife since his estate needs repairs. And he has his eye on Julia.

Of course it will happen, and sure he wants her money but he is falling. And she really needs to get out of her house, her parents are horrible.

I liked it, they fit well together. At first I was a bit worried about those kids, I hate when a stepmum comes in and the kids are just mean beyond words. But it all works out.

A London heiress rides out to the wilds of the English countryside to honor a marriage of convenience with a mysterious and reclusive stranger. Tall, dark, and dour, the notorious Captain Jasper Blunt was once hailed a military hero, but tales abound of his bastard children and his haunted estate in Yorkshire. What he requires now is a rich wife to ornament his isolated ruin, and he has his sights set on the enchanting Julia Wychwood. For Julia, an incurable romantic cursed with a crippling social anxiety, navigating a London ballroom is absolute torture. The only time Julia feels any degree of confidence is when she’s on her horse. Unfortunately, a young lady can’t spend the whole of her life in the saddle, so Julia makes an impetuous decision to take her future by the reins—she proposes to Captain Blunt. In exchange for her dowry and her hand, Jasper must promise to grant her freedom to do as she pleases. To ride—and to read—as much as she likes without masculine interference. He readily agrees to her conditions, with one provision of his own: Julia is forbidden from going into the tower rooms of his estate and snooping around his affairs. But the more she learns of the beastly former hero, the more intrigued she becomes…