The Riddle of St. Leonards by Candace Robb

Hello, everyone! Today I'm a stop the TLC Book Tour celebrating the latest releases in Candace Robb's Owen Archer series with The Riddle of St. Leonards (book 5 of the series).

As before, there is a tour wide giveaway going on so be sure to enter via the Rafflecopter below if you haven't already.

The plague is once again making its rounds and everyone in England is tense. Even Owen and Lucie have sent their children to the country to stay with their grandfather, in hopes it will keep them safe from the spreading infection. 

At the same time, in York, tongues have started wagging about St. Leonard's hospital and their money problems. It seems someone has been making off with small items as well, something that has recently come to the Archbishop's attention. And then the corrodians start dying off and it's all anyone can do not to immediately blame the ailing hospital. 

The first of the deaths was blamed on the plague, but the second was a clear murder. The third, a suspicious fire within the boundaries of St. Leonard's walls. In all cases the dead had left their property to St. Leonards, which immediately cast suspicion on the hospital itself. Is someone killing off locals in a skewed attempt to save St. Leonards?

The intricacies of the politics surrounding hospitals and their services in the fourteenth century are a big part of this particular installment. I'd not realized that, as the author points out, that in some cases (like St. Leonards, a very real historic hospital in York) they not only provided care for the sick and ailing but also served as:

“ 'A house or hostel for the reception and entertainment of pilgrims, travellers, and strangers; a hospice. A charitable institution for the housing and maintenance of the needy; an asylum for the destitute, infirm, or aged. A charitable institution for the education and maintenance of the young. An institution or establishment for the care of the sick or wounded, or of those who require medical treatment.' “St Leonard’s was, additionally, a monastic house, and it daily provided alms to the poor of York and fed the inmates of the York Castle prison. ”

That's quiet a lot for one institution to be responsible for, all mostly on the basis of charity. So it's no wonder that money problems would be an issue. A "corrody," as defined in the author's glossary of terms, is: “a pension or allowance provided by a religious house permitting the holder to retire into the house as a boarder; purchased for cash or by a donation of land or property.” So the corrodians I mentioned above all paid the hospital for their services by willing them their property. Hm... an interesting wrinkle, right? Suspicious deaths and the hospital profiting in a  time of need...

Readers, this may be my last official post as part of the the Owen Archer tour but trust me when I say I am legit hooked on this series and WILL be reading more! I've really enjoyed the setting - and the use of real history as inspiration for that setting and for the individual stories. I've also really enjoyed getting to know Owen and Lucie! 

If you love intriguing mysteries, historical setting, and fabulous characters, I highly recommend giving this series a try!  

To see more stops on the tour be sure to check out the official TLC tour page here. 

For more on Candace Robb you can visit her website here. You can also like her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter and Goodreads.

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Purchase Links

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New Releases 10/20/15

Some of the new titles hitting shelves this week are:

Smoke by Catherine McKenzie

The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School by Kim Newman

Carter & Lovecraft by Jonathan L. Howard

The Borrowed Man by Gene Wolfe

Golden Lion by Wilbur Smith

Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente

What You See by Hank Phillippi Ryan

Departure by A. G. Riddle

Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink

Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith

Mendocino Fire by Elizabeth Tallent

Predator: Incursion By Tim Lebbon

The Spy House by Matthew Dunn

The Lake House by Kate Morton

Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham

Fear the Dark by Kay Hooper

Host by Robin Cook

The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss by Max Wireston

Illuminae by Amie Kaurman & Jay Kristoff

Wolf By Wolf by Ryan Graudin

New on DVD:
Jurassic World
Z is for Zachariah
Paper Towns

New reviews at Bookbitch.com:
Wink of an Eye by Lynn Chandler Willis

Pre Pub Book Buzz: Travelers Rest by Keith Lee Morris

Holy crap the year has gone by fast! Too fast in my opinion. Especially when you consider I'm now looking at January releases for my TBR. I still have a mountainous pile of 2015 titles to get to! Ah, the plight of the bookworm, right?

So I very recently came across Keith Lee Morris's Travelers Rest and couldn't resist sharing it with you today. I mean, it's kind of a shame it isn't out in time for October horror reading but frankly I think it's going to make equally fabulous snowed in reading this winter. We'll see if you agree.

Here's a bit about the book from Goodreads:

The Addisons-Julia and Tonio, ten-year-old Dewey, and ne'er-do-well Uncle Robbie-are driving home, cross-country, after collecting Robbie from detox. When a blizzard strikes outside the eerie town of Good Night, Idaho, they seek refuge at the Travelers Rest, a once-opulent but now crumbling hotel where, they soon discover, the laws of the universe are bent.

Once inside the hotel, the family is separated. Something mysterious, tied to a tragic event more than a century past, prevents them, day after day, from reuniting, until Julia is faced with an impossible choice. Can she save her family from the fate of becoming Souvenirs-those citizens trapped forever in magnetic Good Night-or disappearing entirely? What her choice entails is revealed in prose as dizzyingly beautiful as the mystical world Morris creates.

Well??? Am I right?!

Travelers Rest is due out from Little Brown in early January, plenty of time to mark your calendars or even add it to your holiday wish lists!

Generation by Heather Hildenbrand

Agh! Heather Hildenbrand's final title in the Clone Chronicles trilogy is out! I have been waiting on pins and needles to see how this story was going to end!

Warning, spoilers ahead! If you haven't read both Imitation and Deviation stop here!

Ven awakens to find herself trapped in the bowels of Twig City with two other Ravens. It's been six months since Titus brought her here and in those six months a lot has changed, giving Titus the upper hand against Ven and the other Imitations. Even worse, Titus has been using the Ravens' blood to try and find the variables allowing for so much deviation amongst the Imitations in hopes of finally eliminating the issue. 

But the Imitations still in Twig City have started to act out, attacking their overseers and giving Ven hope that they may still have a chance to take Titus down once and for all. The first step: escaping Twig City and reuniting with the others. Fortunately, it looks like Ven might just have an ally inside.

When we left Ven it looked like all hope was lost. She was captured, the other escaped Imitations had just been killed in the warehouse explosion, and she had no way of letting her friends know what happened - if they were even still alive.

But Titus's agenda is just the first thing that allows hope for our heroine - he's found a use for her and has put off killing her at least temporarily. And this is where Generation begins, with Ven waking up six months after the events of Deviation.

Poor Ven! She deserves a break. It's been a trying time for her and her friends what with the constant fear of being discovered and killed, losing even more friends and loved ones, etc. But Ven has held onto her hope and humanity in spite of it all, guided by her determination to finally see the Imitations liberated.

If you're a fan of the previous two, you no doubt are already chomping at the bit to read Generation. It's always a shame to say goodbye to characters you've come to know and love, but I promise you will not be disappointed with Hildenbrand's finale.

Rating: 4/5

Blue Voyage by Diana Renn + a Giveaway

Zan is still trying to live down her recent shoplifting charges. It's an embarrassment both to her politically motivated father and to the teen as well. But her father's aspirations have been hurt by more than Zan's misadventures - he was caught kissing one of his contributors and has since left Zan and her mother. So it's not too surprising when Zan's mother announces a need for a change of scenery. So the two head off to Turkey where they'll accompany Zan's recently widowed aunt on a Blue Voyage cruise of archaeological sites that her late husband was to be leading. Since the family didn't make it out for Berk's funeral, it seems it's time to offer a bit of support especially when Aunt Jackie becomes convinced her husband's accident was murder. 

Their trip begins well enough, but the area is being heavily patrolled by police out to bust a group of smugglers. And Zan soon finds herself caught in the crosshairs! 

I don't know how I've not read Diana Renn before now! In Blue Voyage she's taken a feisty heroine with a penchant for rock climbing, thrown her into an exotic (and TEMPTING!) setting, wrapped it all in a mystery/thriller package, and added more than a dash of Indiana Jones worthy antiquities/archaeology based adventure to boot!

I'll admit that while I'm fascinated by Turkey (and the FOOD!), I know very little about the country and its history. Renn has definitely inspired me to change that. There's a good bit of both history and lore here in Blue Voyage, including the tantalizing tale of a lost treasure and a cursed tomb. But this history provides just one piece of the backdrop for the story. A teen in trouble - but for her father's influence, she would have been spending at least part of her summer in juvie or doing community service -, family drama, and the very real dangers of the current political scene in Turkey are all a part of this tale.

Zan gets just a taste of the potential danger on the docks when they arrive to meet the Gulet Yasemin, but doesn't fully understand the dangers until it's too late. The tension ratchets up exponentially as the story progresses, which makes for quite fun reading.

Blue Voyage is pretty much everything you could ask for in a book - whether you're a teen or an adult.  Renn's writing is wonderful - she's got fantastic character development and an excellent and truly gripping plot. Add to that the fact that Blue Voyage is obviously well researched (Renn even talks about the importance of accuracy in her Author's Note) and you've got a serious win in my book!

Renn, new-to-me at the time I read Blue Voyage, is definitely an author I plan to read more of in the future. Her two previous novels, Tokyo Heist and Latitude Zero, feature some of the same themes as Blue Voyage not the least of which are exotic locales, and I suspect that they are equally as fabulous as Blue Voyage. (You can find out more about Renn and her work on her website at DianaRennBooks.com.)

And now, thanks to Renn's publicist, I'm able to offer up a copy of Blue Voyage to one of you lucky readers! To throw your name in the hat, simply fill out the Rafflecopter below before Monday, October 26. (Open US only and no PO boxes please.) Good luck!

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Charlotte's Story by Laura Benedict + a Giveaway

Guys, by the time October rolls around I want to read pretty much nothing but horror. I know, I probably sound like a broken record. In truth, I want to read it all the time but in October it becomes kind impossible to tamp down. And nothing pleases me more than a great haunted house story. So Laura Benedict's latest Bliss House book hits two perfect marks for me right away - October release (yay!) and it's a guaranteed uber creepy haunted house story.

Charlotte Bliss has everything: a loving husband, two perfect children, and a generations-old house filled with light and space. But everything comes crashing down around Charlotte on the day her daughter dies. 

Charlotte had been alone in the house with the children, sleeping off an afternoon of champagne, when Eva drowned in the bathtub. She knows it was her fault. She knows if she hadn't indulged that afternoon Eva would still be alive. Her husband, Press, says he doesn't blame her but in the days and weeks following Eva's death he begins to change. And as Press changes, Bliss House does as well. 

It begins with Charlotte's glimpse of Olivia on the day of Eva's funeral. Impossible as it seems, her mother-in-law has reached out to her from beyond the grave and now Charlotte believes Eva could be waiting in Bliss House as well. But her dreams of seeing her daughter again soon turn to nightmares as Bliss House begins to reveal its darker secrets. 

Charlotte's Story begins almost innocently. Benedict tricks you into entertaining the idea that Charlotte might just be so distraught over the loss of her daughter that she's slowly spiraling into madness. Almost. If you haven't read any of the Bliss House books you're probably more likely to start out believing this than I was - I have read both Bliss House and Cold Alone, so I know this is one house that's up to no good. But again, things do begin innocently enough.

Poor Charlotte. Her life was pretty idyllic, at least until her mother-in-law passed away. I believe it's not the death of Eva but the death of Olivia that sets things in motion in spite of the fact that Charlotte herself doesn't notice anything truly odd until Eva's funeral. It's like a switch is flipped at that moment, though. Press becomes less loving and more out of tune with Charlotte (Understatement. Of. The. Year.) and the house's ghosts begin to reveal themselves.

Bliss House is the stuff of nightmares. Literally. If you've read the previous installments you know that the house tends to show people exactly what they're most afraid of - the things that will set them right over the edge into crazy land! It would almost have to considering how much pain and suffering it's witnessed and absorbed throughout the years. Like I said, that house is up to no good.

If you're looking for something scary that will sneak up on you, I highly recommend this series. You do not have to read them in any particular order - the order of release is moving in a backwards chronology with Bliss House set present day, Cold Alone set in the 80s, and Charlotte's Story set in 1957. Meeting the various personalities of Bliss House in this manner is, for me, pretty spectacular but that's just my opinion. You can approach the series in any order you like.

Rating: 5/5

Thanks to Laura I'm able to offer up a signed copy of the first Bliss House title - appropriately titled Bliss House - for a giveaway today. To enter simply fill out the Rafflecopter below before Monday, October 26. Open US only.

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Photo credit: Emily Ellsworth

The Nun's Tale by Candace Robb

Good morning, readers! As promised, today I'm a stop on the TLC book tour for Candace Robb's Owen Archer tour with The Nun's Tale, book three of the series. As a reminder, there is a tour wide giveaway for this one. If you haven't entered yet, you can do so via the Rafflecopter link at the bottom of this post.

June, 1935: Dame Joanna Calverley has fled St. Clements taking with her one of their holiest relics.  She arrives at the door of Will Longford, intent on selling the relic to fund a search for her brother. Unfortunately, Joanna falls ill and dies just days later. 

May, 1366: Will Longford has disappeared. Given his past associations and his activities, his house is under close watch by a local clerk in the service of King Edward. So it is not unnoticed when the formerly dead and buried Dame Joanna arrives back at Longford's home, worse for wear and babbling about having returned from the grave. 

Archbishop John Thoresby had been curious about Joanna's tale at the time of her death and her return has made him even more so. A trail of bodies seems to follow her wherever she goes, most recently the maid at Longford's home who was murdered just hours after Joanna's so called return from the dead, and the man whose body was found buried in her grave. He sets Owen Archer with the task of finding out more while Joanne is sent to rest at St. Mary's Abbey. Those who have questioned the woman all come away with nonsense and gibberish until Owen's wife, local apothecary Lucie Wilton, speaks to the woman. Owen doesn't want Lucie involved, but he may not have much of a say in the matter. 

The Nun's Tale is quite a captivating tale. Joanna Calverley, we learn, has been abandoned by her family. They paid St. Clements generously to wash their hands of her. She's referred to as being difficult, obsessively religious, and upsetting to those around her. And her story, when she returns from wherever she's been, changes as often as her personality seems to.

Owen, Lucie, and many of the characters we met in The Apothecary Rose return in this third of the series. Chaucer makes an appearance here as well, as a spy!

Robb notes in the Author's Note that both the politics of the time and a very real Joanna of leeds both inspired this entry. That Joanna faked her death in 1318 so, as she notes, by moving the story to the Owen Archer timeline none of the actual historical figures had any hand in the real story, but of course it makes for a more fascinating plot to entangle them in the imaginary one!

I have to say, I am so glad to have discovered this series and to be able to participate in the tour. While Robb may not be, as mentioned in my previous post, completely new to me this particular series is. With nine titles (so far) that gives me quite a backlist to get through (and three as part of the tour are a good head start).

Here is the entire series list in order if you're interested in staring yourself:

The Apothecary Rose
The Lady Chapel
The Nun's Tale
The King's Bishop
The Riddle of St. Leonard's 
A Gift of Sanctuary
A Spy for the Redeemer
The Guilt of Innocents
A Vigil of Spies

To see more stops on the tour be sure to check out the official TLC tour page here. 

For more on Candace Robb you can visit her website here. You can also like her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter and Goodreads.

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Purchase Links

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Google | iTunes