Tea & Read: A Study in Scarlet Women

Title: A Study in Scarlet Women

Author: Sherry Thomas

Rating: Three Cups of Tea (4 Stars)

Blurb:
With her inquisitive mind, Charlotte Holmes has never felt comfortable with the demureness expected of the fairer sex in upper class society. But even she never thought that she would become a social pariah, an outcast fending for herself on the mean streets of London. 

When the city is struck by a trio of unexpected deaths and suspicion falls on her sister and her father, Charlotte is desperate to find the true culprits and clear the family name. She’ll have help from friends new and old—a kind-hearted widow, a police inspector, and a man who has long loved her.

But in the end, it will be up to Charlotte, under the assumed name Sherlock Holmes, to challenge society’s expectations and match wits against an unseen mastermind.

I am normally a purist when it comes to my classic books. I am often frustrated by retelling/fan fiction because it is typically worse than the original. Or it takes away what you loved about the original.

A Study in ScarletWomen is not one of those books. This book is delightful.

It is a retelling of Sir Author Coyne Doyle's A Study in Scarlet, a Sherlock Holmes story. But the author adds to the story and makes it more interesting. First of all, Sherlock is a woman named Charlette. That only adds so much richness to the story. Thomas was able to deal with sexism and the limited opportunities of women during the Victorian age. So often in books set in this age, this topic is glossed over, but Thomas presents a different angle.

Also, Charlette has sisters. Her relationship with them shows another difference between the original and Charlotte Holmes. Unlike the original Sherlock, Charlotte is awkward but not calculating and unfeeling. There are other characters, including a love interest, that bring out different sides of Charlotte.

The pacing of the story moved at a manageable clip, even the backstory, and the audiobook narrator was amazing (the narrator can make or break a book). The case was another way it was different than the original. It was impossibly hard to figure out, but it also wasn't the center of the story. Charlotte and her relationships were the real drive of the plot.

Great read and I hope this is the first of many.

Tea pairing: Earl Grey, hot, of course. 

Tea & Read: Undeniably Yours

Title: Undeniably Yours
Author: Becky Wade
Genre: Contemporary Christian Romance
Rating: One Cup of Tea (★★★)

This is the second book by Becky Wade that I've read. I loved the first. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this one as much as I did the first. 

When Meg Cole's father dies unexpectedly, she becomes the majority shareholder of his oil company and the single inheritor of his fortune. Though Meg is soft-spoken and tenderhearted--more interested in art than in oil--she's forced to return home to Texas and to Whispering Creek Ranch to take up the reins of her father's empire.

The last thing she has the patience or the sanity to deal with? Her father's thoroughbred racehorse farm. She gives its manager, Bo Porter, six months to close the place down.

Bo's determined to resent the woman who's decided to rob him of his dream. But instead of anger, Meg evokes within him a profound desire to protect. The more time he spends with her, the more he longs to overcome every obstacle that separates them--her wealth, his unworthiness, her family's outrage--and earn the right to love her.

But just when Meg begins to realize that Bo might be the one thing on the ranch worth keeping, their fragile bond is viciously broken by a force from Meg's past. Can their love--and their belief that God can work through every circumstance--survive?

One of the things I enjoy about Becky Wade's writing is her voice. She has a very cozy tone in her books that makes me want to switch my hot tea to iced tea and find a porch to sit on. I also love her characters. They ring true and Meg and Bo are no different. I liked Wade's treatment of Meg's anxiety and her attitude towards her wealth. It resonates with me. Bo also is everything you want your strong male lead to be, handsome and conflicted. The plot lines were good although a little predictable. The pace kept me interested but it didn't have the urgency to keep reading. It was leisurely, which isn't exactly a bad thing. 

My main problem with this book was there is a surprise element at the ending that I didn't enjoy. If this element had been suggested throughout the whole book, I wouldn't have lowered the rating as much. The ending felt very deus ex machina. I found myself really disappointed at the ending. 

I think I will take another chance on Wade's next book since I so enjoy her voice and her characters.

Tea & Read: Flight of Earls

Title: Flight of Earls

Author: Michael K. Reynolds

Genre: Historical Christian Fiction

Rating: I’d throw it against the wall if it wasn’t on my Kindle (★)

I have a method for selecting the books I read. I read the back cover blurb first and then a few sample pages. I almost never buy a book from the reviews. Sometimes, after I read a book, I look at the reviews to see how my assessment of a book falls with everyone else. For this book, however, I did the reverse. I read the reviews of this book first and decided based on the reviews.

I’m never doing that again.

Blurb:

It’s 1846 in Ireland. When her family’s small farm is struck by famine, Clare Hanley and her younger brother, Seamus, set out across the ocean to the Promised Land of America.

Five years prior, Clare’s older sister Margaret and her Uncle Tomas emigrated in similar fashion and were not to be heard from again. But Clare must face her fears as she lands in the coming-of-age city of New York. There she discovers love, adventure, tragedy, and a terrible secret which threatens to destroy her family and all she believes.

Flight of the Earls is the first book in a historical novel trilogy based on Irish immigration in the 1840s.

This book was so unlike the reviews I read that I initially thought I was reading for the wrong book. First, let me say that the writing (I’m mean grammar and sentence structure) is not terrible. As a matter of fact, there are many passages with incredible imagery. There were times that I could almost smell the scenes being described.

Unfortunately, that’s as far as my admiration of this book went. The plot was slow and disjointed. At times, I felt I was just reading a random bunch of scenes of Clare and Semus’ life.  I found myself not caring about the characters. Since the story started with the potatoes famine, I found myself wondering about that plotline that the rest of the story. I skimmed quite a bit, and sadly, it didn’t appear that I’d missed anything in the story development by doing so.

I guess I’m just going to have to go against the tide of great review with mine.  

Tea and Read: My Stubborn Heart

Title: My Stubborn Heart

Author: Becky Wade

Genre: Christian fiction, women's fiction

Rating: Two cups of tea (★★★★)

This is the first book from Becky Wade I’ve read, so I went into it without any real expectations. I wanted to be entertained, at least, and this book turned out to be quite delightful.

Blurb:

Kate Donovan is burned out on work, worn down by her dating relationships, and in need of an adventure. When her grandmother asks her to accompany her to Redbud, Pennsylvania, to restore the grand old house she grew up in, Kate jumps at the chance.

Upon her arrival in Redbud, Kate meets Matt Jarreau, the man hired to renovate the house. Kate can't help being attracted to him, drawn by both his good looks and something else she can't quite put her finger on. He's clearly wounded--hiding from people, from God, and from his past. Yet Kate sets her stubborn heart on bringing him out of the dark and back into the light...whether he likes it or not.

When the stilted, uncomfortable interactions between Kate and Matt slowly shift into something more, is God finally answering the longing of her heart? Or will Kate be required to give up more than she ever dreamed?

Wade pulls off a feat in this book that I really enjoy: she took a common plot (at least common to Christian fiction nowadays) of a widower finding love again, and infused it with freshness. I love the tone of this book, which the setting lends itself to well. I also loved the writing, almost poetic.

In addition setting and tone, Kate and Matt made this book sing. Their struggle with their feeling about their lives and each other help earn the book the title. They are stubborn, but it’s not an annoying kind of stubborn. I also liked the development of the characters. The progression of their relationship was believable and enjoyable. I also quite enjoyed the secondary characters, especially Velma and Morty. 

This is a very cute enjoyable read. Looking forward to the next book from Wade.