I saw this meme on It’s All About Booksand 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. This will be the last post where I include fantasy. Starting in May, it will be real-life (or set in real-life countries/states, but the cities are fictional) only.
Bon Voyage!!
Please let me know if you have read these books or traveled to these areas.
Countries I visited the most:United States, England, Scotland, Australia
States I visited the most:California, Virginia, New York, Oregon
Cities I visited the most:New York City, London, Los Angeles
Solomon Weiss has little interest in power, but to repay the half-brother who raised him, he pursues money, influence, and now—a respectable wife. That is, until outcast Hannah Moses saves his life, and Sol finds himself helplessly drawn to the beautiful pawnshop owner.
Forever tainted by her parents’ crimes, Hannah sees only a villain when she looks in the mirror—no one a prince would choose. To survive, she must care for herself, even if that means illegally hunting down whatever her clients wish. So, no matter how fair or charming she finds Sol, he belongs to a world far too distant from her own.
Only neither can resist their desires, and each meeting weakens Hannah’s resolve to stay away. But when Hannah discovers a shocking betrayal in Sol’s inner circle, can she convince him to trust her? Or will fear and doubt poison their love for good?
First Line
Night was the best time to hunt-especially if you relied on stealth, not strength, to snare your prey.
Important details about Wake Me Most Wickedly
Pace: Medium
POV: 3rd person (Hannah, Solomon)
Content/Trigger Guidance: Wake Me Most Wickedly contains themes of nongraphic sexual assault, nonconsensual sexual contact, emotional abuse, antisemitic language, antisemitic behavior, classism, physical abuse, religious bigotry, injury and injury detail, bullying, violence, medical content*, grief, death of a parent, pregnancy, and deportation. Please read carefully if any of these triggers you.
Medical Content: Solomon suffers anaphylactic shock after consuming a cake with nuts in it.
Language:Wake Me Most Wickedly does not contain swearing, but it does contain language that might offend some people.
Sexual Content: There is explicit sexual content in Wake Me Most Wickedly.
Setting: Wake Me Most Wickedly is set in the East End of London, England.
My Review:
I enjoy reading historical romances, but reading the same romance format gets boring after a while. So, I am always on the lookout for different historical romances (but do keep in context with the era the book is written in). So, when the Wake Me Most Wickedly widget slid into my inbox, I accepted immediately. Also, I had read the first book in the series and liked it.
Wake Me Most Wickedly is also a fairy tale retelling. I like reading fairy tale retelling and discovering how different authors interpret fairytales. Wake Me Most Wickedly is the retelling of Snow White. I admit I had an issue figuring out how Snow White fit into this. Thankfully, that only lasted for the first couple of chapters, and I enjoyed seeing how this retelling played out.
The main storyline of Wake Me Most Wickedly was your typical romance storyline. Hannah was an outcast in the Jewish community due to crimes that her parents and herself committed while running their pawnshop. Hannah spent two years in prison, and her parents were deported to a penal colony island (I figure it was either Australia or New Zealand). She continued running the pawn shop and took up a side gig of illegally hunting down things for her fence and clients. During one of those jobs, she saved Solomon from being attacked. Solomon, raised by his older brother after their father and his mother died, grew up very sheltered and had almost no worldly experience. Solomon soon becomes enamored with Hannah, much to her dismay. But even she can’t deny the scorching heat between them. When Solomon is injured after being chased by a group of men, Hannah investigates his accident. What she uncovers will rock Solomon’s world. Will her discovery mean the end of her relationship with Solomon?
The author graciously included content guidance at the beginning of the book. I love it when authors do that because I don’t have to take notes about content. At the end of the book (and she did this with the first book), she explains the history of the Jewish people in London’s East End and their treatment throughout the centuries.
I found Wake Me Most Wickedly’s storyline much darker than the first book. I wasn’t sure if I would like it (the firstchapter has nonconsensual sexual contact). But, the deeper I got into the storyline, the more I understood why the author wrote this book the way she did. Not everything was sunshine and roses in Victorian London. For people experiencing poverty and those forced to live on the outskirts of their communities, life was awful. The author was correct in reflecting the tone of the book. It made the book much more interesting to read.
Hannah started the book off with me not liking her very much. She had a chip on her shoulder that came across in her words and actions. But, the more the author got into her backstory, the more I saw how those events shaped her into the woman she was in the book. I felt terrible for her because she honestly didn’t think she was attractive enough to a man to commit to and was focused on getting a dowry for Tamara. What got me onto Team Hannah was her fantastic character growth. By the end of the book, I was amazed by her strength and devotion to those she considered family and friends.
I liked Solomon, but he reminded me somewhat of a puppy. How? Well, he was hard to train (no matter what Hannah did to push him away, he still came back), he was loyal, even when the person he was faithful to didn’t deserve it, and he was fiercely protective of his family and friends. I was also on Team Solomon because he deserved to be seen for the man he was instead of the image that he put out for family and friends. The one thing that I didn’t like was that he had a prominent blind spot when it came to his brother. But I also understood. It made what Hannah told him so painful to hear.
The romance angle of Wake Me Most Wickedly was spicy. The author turned the heat up on the sex scenes, and they had me fanning myself. But the sex was only a part of the romance. Solomon and Hannah falling in love was sweet. While Solomon immediately knew that Hannah was the one for him, Hannah fought it tooth and nail. She used every excuse in the book (the age gap: her 32 to his 26), her past, that he was just infatuated with her, his brother, and the considerable class divide to try and drive him away. Thankfully, Solomon didn’t care and pursued her anyway.
A secondary storyline that cropped up around the middle of the book involved Solomon, his brother, and Hannah. I was absolutely disgusted by what Solomon’s brother did, but I like how Solomon’s friends rallied around him and turned it around. It was poetic justice how that storyline ended.
I loved how Wake Me Most Wickedly ended. It was your typical HEA. The epilogue, which takes place five years later, almost made me cry. It also made me wonder who the next book will be about. I have a feeling I know who, but I can’t wait to see if I am right.
Many thanks to Forever (Grand Central Publishing), Forever, NetGalley, and Felicia Grossman for allowing me to read and review this ARC of Wake Me Most Wickedly. All opinions stated in this review are mine.
If you enjoy reading books similar to Wake Me Most Wickedly, then you will enjoy these books:
Here is what I am currently reading, recently finished, and plan to read from Thursday to Wednesday.
Let me know if you have read or are planning on reading any of these books!!
Happy Reading!!
What I am currently reading:
BookPage Most Anticipated Romances of 2024 “No one writes love stories with more heart, more swoons, and more sizzle” (Joanna Shupe, USA Today bestselling author) in this clever reimaging of Snow White, where a handsome businessman will do anything to win the heart of the only woman he cannot have. Solomon Weiss has little interest in power, but to repay the half-brother who raised him, he pursues money, influence, and now—a respectable wife. That is, until outcast Hannah Moses saves his life, and Sol finds himself helplessly drawn to the beautiful pawnshop owner. Forever tainted by her parents’ crimes, Hannah sees only a villain when she looks in the mirror—no one a prince would choose. To survive, she must care for herself, even if that means illegally hunting down whatever her clients wish. So, no matter how fair or charming she finds Sol, he belongs to a world far too distant from her own. Only neither can resist their desires, and each meeting weakens Hannah’s resolve to stay away. But when Hannah discovers a shocking betrayal in Sol’s inner circle, can she convince him to trust her? Or will fear and doubt poison their love for good?
What I recently finished reading:
Rise and shine. The Evans women have some undead to kill.
It’s 1999 in Southeast Texas and the Evans women, owners of the only funeral parlor in town, are keeping steady with…normal business. The dead die, you bury them. End of story. That’s how Ducey Evans has done it for the last eighty years, and her progeny―Lenore the experimenter and Grace, Lenore’s soft-hearted daughter, have run Evans Funeral Parlor for the last fifteen years without drama. Ever since That Godawful Mess that left two bodies in the ground and Grace raising her infant daughter Luna, alone.
But when town gossip Mina Jean Murphy’s body is brought in for a regular burial and she rises from the dead instead, it’s clear that the Strigoi―the original vampire―are back. And the Evans women are the ones who need to fight back to protect their town.
As more folks in town turn up dead and Deputy Roger Taylor begins asking way too many questions, Ducey, Lenore, Grace, and now Luna, must take up their blades and figure out who is behind the Strigoi’s return. As the saying goes, what rises up, must go back down. But as unspoken secrets and revelations spill from the past into the present, the Evans family must face that sometimes, the dead aren’t the only things you want to keep buried.
A crackling mystery-horror novel with big-hearted characters and Southern charm with a bite, Bless Your Heart is a gasp-worthy delight from start to finish.
What I think I will read next:
Terrifically vivid…Remarkable.” —The New York Times Book Review: A beautifully wrought novel on the aftershocks of the heady but dangerous late 1960s and the relationship between trauma and the creative impulse.
Now in his late-sixties, Daniel lives in quiet anonymity in a converted guest cottage in the Hollywood Hills. A legendary artist, he’s known for one seminal work—Thorn Tree—a hulking, welded, scrap metal sculpture that he built in the Mojave desert in the 1970s. The work emerged from tragedy, but building it kept Daniel alive and catapulted him to brief, reluctant fame in the art world.
Daniel is neighbors with Celia, a charismatic but fragile actress. She too experienced youthful fame, hers in a popular television series, but saw her life nearly collapse after a series of bad decisions. Now, a new movie with a notorious director might reignite her career.
A single mother, Celia leaves her young son Dean for weeks at a time with her father, Jack, who stays at her house while she’s on location. Jack and Daniel strike up a tentative friendship as Dean takes to visiting Daniel’s cottage–but something about Jack seems off. Discomfiting, strangely intimate, with flashes of anger balanced by an almost philosophical bent, Jack is not the harmless grandparent he pretends to be.
Weaving the idealism and the darkness of the late 1960s, the glossy surfaces of Los Angeles celebrity today, and thrumming with the sound of the Grateful Dead, the mania of Charles Manson and other cults, and the secrets that both Jack and Daniel have harbored for fifty years, Thorn Tree is an utterly-compelling novel.
SISTERS, SECRETS, LOVE, AND MURDER… Sally Hepworth’s new novel has it all.
For as long as they can remember, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia have been told how lucky they are. As young girls they were rescued from family tragedies and raised by a loving foster mother, Miss Fairchild, on an idyllic farming estate and given an elusive second chance at a happy family life.
But their childhood wasn’t the fairy tale everyone thinks it was. Miss Fairchild had rules. Miss Fairchild could be unpredictable. And Miss Fairchild was never, ever to be crossed. In a moment of desperation, the three broke away from Miss Fairchild and thought they were free. Even though they never saw her again, she was always somewhere in the shadows of their minds. When a body is discovered under the home they grew up in, the foster sisters find themselves thrust into the spotlight as key witnesses. Or are they prime suspects?
A thrilling page-turner of sisterhood, secrets, love, and murder by New York Times bestselling author Sally Hepworth.
Reading Challenge books I hope to get to this week
A small hiking group in the wilderness – with bloody revenge for company
Milly has barely spoken to her sister Judith in years. They hardly exchanged a word at their mother’s funeral. They could not be further apart.
So when Milly gets an invitation to go on a hiking trip, she hopes it will be an opportunity for reconciliation. Inviting her school-friend Harper along with her for support, the small party head off together into the bush.
What awaits Milly is far from just a bracing hike in the wilderness, but an unexpected encounter with the past. The form it takes is revenge. But who is enacting it against Milly, and why? Whilst the action in this book comes thick and fast, it is the relationship between the sisters and their mutual friend, Harper, that introduces the true darkness into the story. This book is set in the rugged landscape below Perth in South Western Australia, an area the author has explored in depth.
Have you heard the rumors of what lies beneath the PDX Airport? During an emergency evacuation, an airline supervisor is trapped with 4 others beneath the airport searching for an escape route. Terror grips the group while the airport doors are in lock-down. They are pursued by what appears to be port police officers, but something doesn’t feel right. A foreboding sense tells her not to trust them. Desperate to get to the one security door she thinks might work, she struggles to avoid being intervened by the men in uniform that she comes to know can’t be trusted. The supervisor juggles her innate need to be in control to find safety yet shake off the hidden attraction to the FBI Agent among the five of them. Does he feel it too? Will they eventually find safety . . . and romance? Their power struggle of who trumps who in the security hierarchy plays out throughout their dilemma Their escape appears hopeless until another person in the group reveals a big secret about what lies beneath the airport. How does he know this? It’s a thrill ride from the time they become trapped until the surprise ending you won’t see coming. Who will survive today . . . and who won’t? You will never see the airport the same way again! You’ll love this roller coaster action because everyone enjoys twists, turns, and unlikely heroes. Get it now.
It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? a place to meet and share what you have been and are about to be reading over the week. It’s a great post to organize yourself. It’s an opportunity to visit, comment, and add to your groaning TBR pile! So welcome in everyone. This meme started on J Kaye’s blog and then was hosted by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn at The Book Date.
Jen Vincent, Teach Mentor Texts, and Kellee of Unleashing Readers decided to give It’s Monday! a kid-lit focus. If you read and review books in children’s literature – picture books, chapter books, middle-grade novels, young adult novels, or anything in those genres – join them.
Personal
What I am Reading Now:
Sage Indarra’s childhood is forever changed when tragedy strikes and she’s forced to enroll in Eprah’s Institution—a cold, unfeeling place determined to make her forget everything good about her old life.
It doesn’t take long for Sage to learn that her new home is not as perfect as they would have her believe.
Unsure who to trust, she’s forced to build her new life on a lie. And she begins to question everything she’s ever known.
She has to play along if she has any hope of escaping.
But the Institution is hiding some dark secrets. And they won’t let her leave.
Can Sage keep up the ruse she’s begun?
Books I plan on reading later this week
Rise and shine. The Evans women have some undead to kill.
It’s 1999 in Southeast Texas and the Evans women, owners of the only funeral parlor in town, are keeping steady with…normal business. The dead die, you bury them. End of story. That’s how Ducey Evans has done it for the last eighty years, and her progeny―Lenore the experimenter and Grace, Lenore’s soft-hearted daughter, have run Evans Funeral Parlor for the last fifteen years without drama. Ever since That Godawful Mess that left two bodies in the ground and Grace raising her infant daughter Luna, alone.
But when town gossip Mina Jean Murphy’s body is brought in for a regular burial and she rises from the dead instead, it’s clear that the Strigoi―the original vampire―are back. And the Evans women are the ones who need to fight back to protect their town.
As more folks in town turn up dead and Deputy Roger Taylor begins asking way too many questions, Ducey, Lenore, Grace, and now Luna, must take up their blades and figure out who is behind the Strigoi’s return. As the saying goes, what rises up, must go back down. But as unspoken secrets and revelations spill from the past into the present, the Evans family must face that sometimes, the dead aren’t the only things you want to keep buried.
A crackling mystery-horror novel with big-hearted characters and Southern charm with a bite, Bless Your Heart is a gasp-worthy delight from start to finish.
BookPage Most Anticipated Romances of 2024 “No one writes love stories with more heart, more swoons, and more sizzle” (Joanna Shupe, USA Today bestselling author) in this clever reimaging of Snow White, where a handsome businessman will do anything to win the heart of the only woman he cannot have. Solomon Weiss has little interest in power, but to repay the half-brother who raised him, he pursues money, influence, and now—a respectable wife. That is, until outcast Hannah Moses saves his life, and Sol finds himself helplessly drawn to the beautiful pawnshop owner. Forever tainted by her parents’ crimes, Hannah sees only a villain when she looks in the mirror—no one a prince would choose. To survive, she must care for herself, even if that means illegally hunting down whatever her clients wish. So, no matter how fair or charming she finds Sol, he belongs to a world far too distant from her own. Only neither can resist their desires, and each meeting weakens Hannah’s resolve to stay away. But when Hannah discovers a shocking betrayal in Sol’s inner circle, can she convince him to trust her? Or will fear and doubt poison their love for good?