Bookish Travels—April 2023 Destinations

I saw this meme on It’s All About Books and thought, I like this!! So, I decided to do it once a month also. Many thanks to Yvonne for initially posting this!!

This post is what it says: Places I travel to in books each month. Books are lovely and take you to places you would never get to. That includes places of fantasy too!!

Bon Voyage!!

Please let me know if you have read these books or traveled to these areas.


Earth 2

Government, Settlement

United States

New York (Crescent Cove), Nevada (Las Vegas)
Maryland (Pikesville)
California (Los Angeles)
Washington (Seattle)
New York (Seneca Springs)
Colorado (Longmont)
Kansas (Liverly)
Indiana (English), California (San Fransisco), Virginia (Perryville), Arizona (Tombstone), New York (New York City)
North Carolina (Neapolis)
New York (Manhattan), California (Newport Beach, Balboa Island, Newport, Menlo Park, Santa Barbara, Montecito, Goleta)
Louisiana (Unknown city), Rhode Island (Emerald Bay)
Unknown State (Unknown City)
New York (New York City, New Rochelle)
Wyoming (Wallace), Iowa (Fort Madison)
West Virginia (Huntington), Ohio (Crown City)
Pennsylvania
California (Mojave Desert, Aspen Flats, Pasatiempo, Santa Cruz, Watsonville, Aptos, Pajaro Dunes)
Southern California, Arizona
Colorado (Denver, Arvada)
Illinois (Chicago, Downers Grove)
Connecticut (Wingate)
New York (New York City, Brooklyn)

Western Foalinaarc

University of Western Foalinaarc

England

Unknown City
Regency London, Kingsclere, Amesbury, Bath
Oxford
Richmond-on-Thames, London, Birmingham, Guildford, Penzance
Oxford
Colchester, London

Hell


Train

Pan Pacifica

The Czech Republic

Prague

Italy

Florence, Rome, Tuscany

France

Paris

Post Apocalyptic Earth

ARC (fall-out shelter), Hope City

Ukraine


The Netherlands

Amsterdam

Canada

Toronto, Niagara Falls

South Korea

Seoul

Malta


Island States

Prospera, Annex, Nursery Isle

Kenya

Nairobi

April 2023 Wrap Up

Here is what I read/posted in April.

As always, let me know if you have read any of these books and (if you did) what you thought of them.


Books I Read:

ARC from author
KU Purchase—No Review
Free Kindle Purchase—No Review
Free Kindle Purchase—No Review
Non-ARC from Novel Cause
Non-ARC from Novel Cause
ARC from Sourcebooks Casablanca
ARC from author, Level Best Books, IBPA, Member’s Titles
Free Kindle Purchase—No review
Free Kindle Purchase—No Review
Non-ARC from author
KU Purchase—No Review
Free Amazon Prime Reads—No Review
KU Purchase—No Review
KU Purchase—No Review
KU Purchase—No Review
ARC from St. Martin’s Press, Wednesday Books
ARC from St. Martin’s Press
Non-ARC from Author
Non-ARC from Author
KU Purchase—No Review
KU Purchase—No Review
KU Purchase—No Review
ARC from St. Martin’s Press, St. Martin’s Paperbacks
ARC from Sourcebooks Fire
Non ARC from author
Free Kindle Purchase—No Review
Kindle Purchase—No Review
KU Purchase—No Review
Free Kindle Purchase—No Review
ARC from author
ARC from Crooked Lane Books
ARC from Sourcebooks Casablanca
ARC from Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine, Ballantine Books
ARC from Random House Publishing Group – Random House, Dial Press Trade Paperback

Books I got from NetGalley:

Read Now from St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books
Wish granted from Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine, Bantam
Wish Granted from Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine, Bantam
Read Now from Tor Publishing Group, Tor Books
Wish Granted from Sourcebooks Casablanca
Wished Granted from Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine, Delacorte Press
Invite from Random House Publishing Group – Random House, Random House Trade Paperbacks
SMP Influencer Program pick from St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books
Wish Granted from Random House Publishing Group – Random House, The Dial Group
Wish Granted from Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine, Ballantine Books
Request from Meryl Media Group, Rosewind Books

Books I got from Authors/Indie Publishers:

Non-Arc from author
ARC from Novel Cause
ARC from author
Non ARC from author
Non-ARC from author
Non-ARC from author
ARC from Author

Giveaway Winners

Goodreads Giveaway—Kindle download
Goodreads Giveaway—Paperback
Goodreads Giveaway—Paperback
Goodreads Giveaway—Paperback

Books Reviewed:

The Witch and the Vampire—review here

Prince of Typgar: Nurjan and the Monks of Meirar—review here

Read to Death at the Lakeside Library—review here

Dirty Laundry by Disha Bose—review here

Body Count by SM Thomas—review here

Prince of Typgar: Nujran and the Corpse in the Quadrangle by Krishna Sudhir—review here

Wings Once Cursed and Bound by Piper J. Drake—review here

No Time to Breathe by Lori Duffy Foster—review here

Another Chance at Happiness by Dani Phoenix—review here

Tales from the Box, Volume 1 by Weston Kincaide—review here

Pieces of Me by Kate McLaughlin—review here

Where Coyotes Howl by Sandra Dallas—review here

Bait by D.I. Jolly—review here

Missing by Amy Kulp—review here

How to Best a Marquess—review here

This Delicious Death—review here


Reading Challenges:

2023 Monthly Themes (Continue a series or reread an author already read this year): Claim My Baby—Finished 3-31-23

Romanceopoly 2023! (Read a book where the main character works at or owns a bar)-About LoveFinished 4-1-23

Buzzword Reading Challenge 2023 (words in the title related to emotions, from happy to sad, smile to frown, pride to rage)—P.S. I Hate You—Finished 4-3-23

2023 Sami Parker Reads Title Challenge (a book with one of these words in the title: Sunny, Bright, Cloud or Rain): Brightest Shadow—Finished 4-6-2023

Cover Scavenger Hunt 2023 (a flower): A Spirited Manor—Finished 4-7-2023

The StoryGraph’s OnBoarding Reading Challenge 2023 (read one of the first 10 books you added to your to-read pile): The Night Swim—Finished 4-8-2023

The StoryGraph Reads the World 2023 (Italy): Find Me—Finished 4-10-2023

The StoryGraph’s Genre Challenge (a biography about someone you don’t know much about): Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot—Finished 4-11-2023

Beat the Backlist 2023 (take place primarily in winter or a cold region): Tainted—Finished 4-19-2023

Scavenger Hunt TBR Book Challenge (go to the acknowledgments of the last book you read for this prompt. What name did you first see? Find a book written by an author with that name): Frost Burn—Finished 4-20-2023

Scavenger Hunt (Book I found that day): Delicate Ink—Finished 4-20-2023

Popsugar Reading Challenge 2023 (a book by a first time author): The Fifth Floor—Finished 4-21-23

2023 TBR Toppler (continue a series): Ten Thousand Lies—Finished 4-22-23

2023 Reading Challenge (book that has been on my TBR for the longest time): Purple Death—Finished 4-23-23

2023 ABC Challenge (D): Descendants—Carrying over to May

2023 TBR Prompts (A BookTok Favorite): The Song of Achilles—Carrying over to May

Where Coyotes Howl by Sandra Dallas

4 Stars

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Date of publication: April 18th, 2023

Genre: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Western, Historical, Adult, Adult Fiction

Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence, Death, Child Death, Child Murder, Death during Birthing, Stillbirth

Purchase Links: Kindle | Audible | B&N | WorldCat

Goodreads Synopsis:

Beautifully rendered, Where Coyotes Howl is a vivid and deeply affecting ode to the early twentieth century West, from master storyteller Sandra Dallas.

Except for the way they loved each other, they were just ordinary, everyday folks. Just ordinary.

1916. The two-street town of Wallace is not exactly what Ellen Webster had in mind when she accepted a teaching position in Wyoming, but within a year’s time she’s fallen in love—both with the High Plains and with a handsome cowboy named Charlie Bacon. Life is not easy in the flat, brown corner of the state where winter blizzards are unforgiving and the summer heat relentless. But Ellen and Charlie face it all together, their relationship growing stronger with each shared success, and each deeply felt tragedy.

Ellen finds purpose in her work as a rancher’s wife and in her bonds with other women settled on the prairie. Not all of them are so lucky as to have loving husbands, not all came to Wallace willingly, and not all of them can survive the cruel seasons. But they look out for each other, share their secrets, and help one another in times of need. And the needs are great and constant. The only city to speak of, Cheyenne, is miles away, making it akin to the Wild West in rural Wallace. In the end, it is not the trials Ellen and Charlie face together that make them remarkable, but their love for one another that endures through it all.


First Line:

A ragged curtain snapped against the broken glass of the window in the old shack, which had begun to list.

Where Coyotes Howl by Sandra Dallas

It is 1916, and Ellen has moved to Wallace, Wyoming, to start a career as a schoolteacher. But, what she wasn’t expecting, was to fall in love with a handsome cowboy named Charlie Bacon. After marrying Charlie, Ellen finds her purpose in being a rancher’s wife and purpose in her friendships with the other women living in the prairie. But life isn’t easy for Charlie or Ellen. When tragedies and trials threaten their happiness, Charlie and Ellen must face and endure them together. Can they weather everything life is throwing at them? Or will they crumble?

I wasn’t exactly sure what to get into when I started reading Where Coyotes Howl. I only knew what I read in the blurb: It was a Western, and the author set it in the Wild West. This book was so much more than what was in the blurb. But, this book’s center was the love story between Charlie and Ellen. It was this love story that made the book.

There are trigger warnings in Where Coyotes Howl. They are:

  1. Domestic Violence: There were several scenes in this book where one of Ellen’s good friends was beaten by her husband. Keeping with the time, Ellen’s husband wrote off the DV as something between that woman and her husband and refused to get involved. The DV was mainly off-page, but the author highlighted a few scenes. The most memorable one was when that woman’s husband burned her hands on the stove because she dared to crochet Ellen something.
  2. Death: Death is a common theme throughout the book. People died all the time from various things. There were a few on-page deaths, but I will explain more about them in the other trigger warnings.
  3. Child Death: There were quite a few scenes where children died, either from illness, accident, or murder.
  4. Child Murder: There was one brutal scene to read where a woman went crazy and killed two out of her six children. It was graphic (because of where and how she did it) and heartbreaking.
  5. Stillbirth: Ellen gets into a carriage accident when she is almost to term with her pregnancy and loses the baby. The author doesn’t get too much into detail, but enough is given to understand what happened.
  6. Death during Childbirth: There is a scene where one of the characters dies during childbirth, along with the baby.

If any of these triggers you, I suggest not reading this book.

Where Coyotes Howl is a medium-paced book set entirely in Wallace, Wyoming. There is a brief trip to Iowa at the beginning of the book but other than that; it stays in Wallace.

I enjoyed reading this book. It is a good book when it surprises me and captures my attention. What I liked the most about this book was that it didn’t sugarcoat how awful the living conditions were back then (they were pretty awful). But it also showcased how good people were to each other.

The author beautifully wrote the main storyline centered around Ellen, Charlie, and their love story. Neither Ellen nor Charlie was perfect, but they were perfect together if that makes sense. There were times when I laughed and other times when I cried. I hated how it ended (but I will get to that later in the review).

The secondary characters and storylines in Where Coyotes Howl gave this book extra depth and fleshed-out characters.

The end of Where Coyotes Howl was not a happy ending. I was astonished because, typically, in these types of books, they are. I had to reread the last couple of chapters before it sunk in. But, as surprised as I was, I understood why the author ended the book as she did.

I would recommend Where Coyotes Howl to anyone over 16. There are nongraphic sexual situations (off-page), violence, and mild language. Also, see my trigger warnings.

Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press, NetGalley, and Sandra Dallas for allowing me to read and review Where Coyotes Howl. All opinions stated in this review are mine.


If you enjoyed reading this review of Where Coyotes Howl, then you will enjoy reading these books:


Other books by Sandra Dallas:

WWW Wednesday: April 12th, 2023

WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?


What I Recently Finished Reading:

At first, Misha Orlov was the boss who got me pregnant.
But he has become so much more than just that.
He’s my husband and the father of my babies (yes, as in plural).
He’s my pakhan.
He’s my last hope.

Because of all the people in this messed-up world, he’s the only one I can trust to save me.
As bad men loom and my babies prepare to arrive, we’re both faced with a choice.
Can we let go of the pasts that shaped us?
Or will our scars become our undoing?

CHAMPAGNE WRATH is the second and final book of the Orlov Bratva duet. The story begins in Book 1, CHAMPAGNE VENOM.


What I am currently reading:

The next gut-punching, compulsively readable Kate McLaughlin novel, about a girl finding strength in not being alone.

When eighteen-year-old Dylan wakes up, she’s in an apartment she doesn’t recognize. The other people there seem to know her, but she doesn’t know them – not even the pretty, chiseled boy who tells her his name is Connor. A voice inside her head keeps saying that everything is okay, but Dylan can’t help but freak out. Especially when she borrows Connor’s phone to call home and realizes she’s been missing for three days.

Dylan has lost time before, but never like this.

Soon after, Dylan is diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder, and must grapple not only with the many people currently crammed inside her head, but that a secret from her past so terrible she’s blocked it out has put them there. Her only distraction is a budding new relationship with Connor. But as she gets closer to finding out the truth, Dylan wonders: will it heal her or fracture her further?


What books I think I’ll read next:

Beautifully rendered, Where Coyotes Howl is a vivid and deeply affecting ode to the early twentieth century West, from master storyteller Sandra Dallas.

Except for the way they loved each other, they were just ordinary, everyday folks. Just ordinary.

1916. The two-street town of Wallace is not exactly what Ellen Webster had in mind when she accepted a teaching position in Wyoming, but within a year’s time she’s fallen in love—both with the High Plains and with a handsome cowboy named Charlie Bacon. Life is not easy in the flat, brown corner of the state where winter blizzards are unforgiving and the summer heat relentless. But Ellen and Charlie face it all together, their relationship growing stronger with each shared success, and each deeply felt tragedy.

Ellen finds purpose in her work as a rancher’s wife and in her bonds with other women settled on the prairie. Not all of them are so lucky as to have loving husbands, not all came to Wallace willingly, and not all of them can survive the cruel seasons. But they look out for each other, share their secrets, and help one another in times of need. And the needs are great and constant. The only city to speak of, Cheyenne, is miles away, making it akin to the Wild West in rural Wallace. In the end, it is not the trials Ellen and Charlie face together that make them remarkable, but their love for one another that endures through it all.

Amber thought her life was perfect. She was in love with her boyfriend Frankie, had a nice summer job at Taylor’s Book and was enrolled at Marshall University to become a teacher. Everything was on track for the perfect life.

In this spellbinding exploration of the varieties of love, the author of the worldwide bestseller Call Me by Your Name revisits its complex and beguiling characters decades after their first meeting.

No novel in recent memory has spoken more movingly to contemporary readers about the nature of love than André Aciman’s haunting Call Me by Your Name. First published in 2007, it was hailed as “a love letter, an invocation . . . an exceptionally beautiful book” (Stacey D’Erasmo, The New York Times Book Review). Nearly three quarters of a million copies have been sold, and the book became a much-loved, Academy Award–winning film starring Timothée Chalamet as the young Elio and Armie Hammer as Oliver, the graduate student with whom he falls in love.

In Find Me, Aciman shows us Elio’s father, Samuel, on a trip from Florence to Rome to visit Elio, who has become a gifted classical pianist. A chance encounter on the train with a beautiful young woman upends Sami’s plans and changes his life forever.

Elio soon moves to Paris, where he, too, has a consequential affair, while Oliver, now a New England college professor with a family, suddenly finds himself contemplating a return trip across the Atlantic.

Aciman is a master of sensibility, of the intimate details and the emotional nuances that are the substance of passion. Find Me brings us back inside the magic circle of one of our greatest contemporary romances to ask if, in fact, true love ever dies.

The anchor of The O’Reilly Factor recounts in gripping detail the brutal murder of John Fitzgerald Kennedy—and how a sequence of gunshots on a Dallas afternoon not only killed a beloved president but also sent the nation into the cataclysmic division of the Vietnam War and its culture-changing aftermath.

In January 1961, as the Cold War escalates, John F. Kennedy struggles to contain the growth of Communism while he learns the hardships, solitude, and temptations of what it means to be president of the United States. Along the way he acquires a number of formidable enemies, among them Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, and Allen Dulles, director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In addition, powerful elements of organized crime have begun to talk about targeting the president and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

In the midst of a 1963 campaign trip to Texas, Kennedy is gunned down by an erratic young drifter named Lee Harvey Oswald. The former Marine Corps sharpshooter escapes the scene, only to be caught and shot dead while in police custody.

The events leading up to the most notorious crime of the twentieth century are almost as shocking as the assassination itself.

April TBR 2023

March has flown by for me (I don’t know about you guys).


Indie Authors/Publishers

From Book Sirens
From Novel Cause
From Novel Cause
From Author
From Author
From Author

NetGalley

Westering Women by Sandra Dallas

Westering Women: A Novel by [Dallas, Sandra]

3.5 Stars

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Date of publication: January 7th, 2020

Genre: Historical Fiction

Where you can find Westering Women: Barnes and Noble | Amazon | BookBub

Book Synopsis:

From the bestselling author of Prayers for Sale, an inspiring celebration of sisterhood on the perilous wagon-trail west

“If you are an adventuresome young woman of high moral character and fine health, are you willing to travel to California in search of a good husband?”

It’s February 1852, and all around Chicago Maggie sees the postings soliciting “eligible women” to travel to the gold mines of Goosetown. A young seamstress with a small daughter and several painful secrets, she has nothing to lose.

So she joins forty-three other women and two pious reverends on the dangerous 2,000-mile journey west. None of them are prepared for the hardships they face on the trek through the high plains, mountains, and deserts. Or for the triumphs of finding strengths they did not know they possessed. And not all will make it.

As Maggie gets to know the other women, she soon discovers that she’s not the only one looking to leave dark secrets behind. And when her past catches up with her, it becomes clear a band of sisters will do whatever it takes to protect one of their own.


First Line:

Hidden beneath her black umbrella, Maggie stood in the shelter of the church and stared at the woman reading the broadsheet.

Westering Women by Sandra Dallas

My Review:

When I read the plotline for Westering Women, I realized that I had read a few books about settlers immigrating to the western half of the country. Just on that, I decided to read Westering Women. While I am glad that I read Westering Women, I felt slightly disappointed by it too.

The plotline for Westering Women was medium paced. I didn’t mind it being medium paced. It was well suited for the book. But, I didn’t like the flow of the book. There were points where it lagged. But the author did a great job of getting the book back on track.

The characters in Westering Women made this book. In an age where women were considered weak, they showed the men exactly what they were made of. I loved it. I also loved the variety of women showcased here. From the preacher’s wife to the former prostitute to the unwed teen mother to the upper-class woman with her servant to the abused wife, they were all showed here. I loved seeing this group of women coming together and supporting each other. Whenever something happened to one of the group, they stood together. It did result in some unusual situations.

I am not sure how realistic life on the trail was portrayed, but it made for an exciting read. The views the men had were correct for the time.

I do want to include a trigger warning with this book. Several scenes put me on edge while reading it. There was a scene where a major character relived abuse, the death of her son, and the rape of her four-year-old daughter. There were several scenes of racism (one of the secondary characters was black). There were two scenes of attempted rape. There was a scene of a brutal fight after one of the women was brutally beaten. There was a scene where a child dies from drowning, and one dies from premature birth. I will admit these did affect my rating for the book.

The end of Westering Women broke my heart. I wasn’t expecting the death of one of the women on the train. I sobbed because that woman was one of my favorites. The epilogue also made me cry. But, at the same time, I was left feeling a little unfulfilled. I know it was because of that death.


I would give Westering Women an Adult rating. There is no sex. There is mild language. There is violence. I would recommend that no one under the age of 21 read this book.

I would reread Westering Women. I would recommend it to family and friends.

**I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book**