New Releases ~ week of 01/11/2016

A Gatlin Wedding by Kami Garcia, Margaret Stohl (#4 Beautiful Creatures: The Untold Story)

Assassin's Kiss by Sharon Kay (#2 Watchers Kiss)
Better Off Undead by Cynthia Eden (#2 Blood and Moonlight)
Blue Darker Than Black by Mike Jenne (#2 Blue Gemini)
Cut Me in by Ed McBain (#101 Hard Case Crime)
Destroyer by Brett Battles (#2 Rewinder)
Dictator by Robert Harris (#3 Cicero)
Dirty Together by Meghan March (#3 The Dirty Billionaire Trilogy)
Even the Dead by Benjamin Black (#7 Quirke)
Extra Yard by Mike Lupica (#2 Home Team)
Giving Up by Audra North (#1 Pushing Boundaries)
Henchgirl by Rita Stradling (#1 Dakota Kekoa)
Hidden Ink by Carrie Ann Ryan (#9 Montgomery Ink)

I Am Your Judge by Nele Neuhaus (#4 Bodenstein & Kirchhoff)
Isadora by Ella Frank (#2 Masters Among Monsters)
Love in the Light by Laura Kaye (#2 Hearts in Darkness)
Make Me Sin by J. T. Geissinger (#2 Bad Habit)
Mermaid Moon by Colleen Coble (#2 Sunset Cove)
Murdergram 2 by Nisa Santiago (#2 Murdergram)
Of Flame and Promise by Cecy Robson (#6 Weird Girls)
Ravishing Ruby by Lavinia Kent (#4 Bound and Determined)
Scandalous Behavior by Stuart Woods (#36 Stone Barrington)
Teen Frankenstein by Chandler Baker (#1 High School Horror)
Tempted by a SEAL by Cat Johnson (#7 Hot SEALs)
The 8th Circle by Sarah Cain (#1 Danny Ryan)
The Assassin's Masque by Sarah Zettel (#3 Palace of Spies)
The Bitter Season by Tami Hoag (#5 Kovac/Liska)
The Covenant by Jeff Crook (#2 Jackie Lyons Mystery)
The Dirt on Ninth Grave by Darynda Jones (#9 Charley Davidson)
The Terrible Two Get Worse by Mac Barnett (#2 Terrible Two (with Jory John))
Traveler by Arwen Elys Dayton (#2 Seeker)
Where It Hurts by Reed Farrel Coleman (#1 Gus Murphy)
Wolf on the Hunt by N J Walters (#5 Salvation Pack)
Written in Fire by Marcus Sakey (#3 Brilliance Trilogy)

Book Review ~ Palace of Spies

Palace of Spies (Palace of Spies #1)

by Sarah Zettel
published by HMH Books
genre: YA, Historical Fiction, Mystery/Spy

Summary (Goodreads): A warning to all young ladies of delicate breeding who wish to embark upon lives of adventure: Don't.

Sixteen-year-old Peggy is a well-bred orphan who is coerced into posing as a lady in waiting at the palace of King George I. Life is grand, until Peggy starts to suspect that the girl she's impersonating might have been murdered. Unless Peggy can discover the truth, she might be doomed to the same terrible fate. But in a court of shadows and intrigue, anyone could be a spy—perhaps even the handsome young artist with whom Peggy is falling in love...

History and mystery spark in this effervescent series debut.

My Thoughts: This was a hard book to write a review for. I really liked this book but thought there were many things wrong with it. I kept putting it down and it took me a lot longer to read than usual. Even though I put it down, something made me keep picking it back up.
I liked Peggy, she was stronger and more independent than you would think of a girl in this time period. All this was needed once she was working for the three and ended up at court. Everybody at court was a very different type of the lady in waiting. You had the smart, the pretty, the manipulative, and the airhead. All together they worked and made for an interesting read.
Two things that bothered me. One, there was a sexual assault early in the book and it bothered me the way it was handled and everybody including the person assaulted moved on by the next chapter and it wasn't really mentioned again. Two, the story of the girl that Peggy was taking over for. It just seemed to keep going around and around. Every time someone said something the whole story would change. I was happy with what seemed to be the final story, it just took too long to get there.
Overall, there were problems with the story but I still enjoyed reading it. I'm looking forward to how the author handles what they are wanting Peggy to do next.

Rating: 3.5