Review: Brazen by Katherine Longshore

Title: Brazen
Author: Katherine Longshore
Series: Untitled, book #3
Publisher: Viking Juvenile
Publication Date: June 12, 2014
Source: received from publisher via Netgalley
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Mary Howard has always lived in the shadow of her powerful family. But when she’s married off to Henry Fitzroy, King Henry VIII’s illegitimate son, she rockets into the Tudor court’s inner circle. Mary and “Fitz” join a tight clique of rebels who test the boundaries of court’s strict rules with their games, dares, and flirtations. The more Mary gets to know Fitz, the harder she falls for him, but is forbidden from seeing him alone. The rules of court were made to be pushed…but pushing them too far means certain death. Is true love worth dying for?

I don't know as much about the Tudor dynasty as I probably should, given that it's one of my favorite historical periods to read about, but Katherine Longshore excels at bringing that period to life in a way that is romantic -- poetic, even -- and not at all overbearing. It doesn't feel like a history lesson, but I learned a few things all the same, and I appreciate the author's note at the end detailing what liberties she took with the story and how they compare to what is known of that time period.

And I have to say that Brazen is now my favorite of her novels. I read an excerpt, and even from that brief bit of the story, I knew that I would end up preferring this novel over the rest in the series, though I also have to attest that it made me want to pick up the others again for a re-read. There was just something about this main character that I felt the others had been lacking. Maybe it's the fact that she bucked society's norms in a time when women had few rights and were little more than pawns. Maybe it's because she fought for love when she was told she could not have it. But I honesty just think I liked Mary's fire, her spirit and willingness to be good and honorable, even if those around her were not.

I really love how the focus of these books is always on one of the lady's maids to King Henry VIII's flavor of the moment. His breaking ties with Rome irrevocably changed the course of history, but the same could be said of the women's lives he touched as a result of that split. Gilt followed young Catherine Howard's rise to the queenship and her demise. (She was wife #5.) Tarnish followed a beguiling Anne Boleyn's rise to power. (For this book, the author took us back to Henry's second wife.) Brazen picks up at the end of young Anne's reign and her fall from grace, but it also depicted a friendship between Anne and her cousin and lady's maid Mary Howard and the heroine of our story.

When we first meet Mary, she is fourteen and about to marry Henry FitzRoy, King Henry VIII's illegitimate son, also only fourteen. And then the two are kept apart and not allowed to consummate the marriage for fear that it would bring illness to young FitzRoy if he was not mature enough when the deed was done. This meant that poor Mary's situation was always in flux, never knowing whether the King had other plans for his only son and planned to annul the marriage in favor of better partnerships.

That part is all true. Where Longshore deviates from the script is the actual relationship that develops between Mary and Fitz. Obviously, Mary had little power to control her future, but she did endeavor to love the man she was essentially forced to marry. With the help of her brother -- Fitz's best friend and boyhood companion -- and Mary's own friends Madge and Margaret, Mary and Fitz were able to spend a little time together and get to know one another, forming a bond despite the King's wishes. I loved how their awkward first encounters paved the way for some unbelievably swoony moments later on in the book.

And though I did know how their story would end, I was glad for those moments of happiness for them, especially considering how meddlesome both of their families were. As I said before, women were just used as pawns to strengthen alliances and in other business dealings, but the same can be said of illegitimate sons. Mary never had a hope of pleasing her mother, but her marriage to Fitz was everything her father could have dreamed of considering his aspirations to make Mary a queen. Or it could have been, had Mary done as he'd asked and gone against the King's wishes. But none of that compares to the demands the King made on young FitzRoy. Fitz wanted a father, but the King never deigned to be such to his only son. All the boy wanted to do was escape all of the court intrigue and be allowed to love his wife, but Henry VIII never saw fit to grant him that wish. Without the love of their parents that they so desired, Mary and Fitz took comfort in each other.

That's when things got interesting and quite delicious...until they took a turn toward heart-breaking. History -- or should I say the King -- wasn't particularly kind to any of Henry VIII's wives, nor to any of their lady's maids, and Mary is no exception. Nor were her friends. But Mary was quite a strong girl, and through it all -- family squabbles, Kingly dictates, and royal beheadings -- she held by her convictions and remained the good-hearted girl she'd always strived to be. The story Katherine Longshore presented here may be mostly fictitious, but I choose to believe that some good came from Henry's blasphemy, even if history is a cruel mistress. And because of that, Brazen will remain my favorite novel in this series...well, at least until the next book she writes.

GIF it to me straight:

Yep. Pretty much. But also...

About the Author:

I've always been a writer. I've been writing stories since I learned how to hold a pencil, asking my dad how to spell words while I worked under the bar stools at our kitchen counter.

In the course of my life, I've worked as a dishwasher, lingerie seller, coffee barista, cake decorator, ship's steward, video rental clerk, freelance journalist, travel agent, waitress, contracts manager, bookseller and Montessori preschool teacher.

But in writing for teens, I've finally found my calling.

And through writing, I am able to encompass all my loves. Becoming a character made of words. Exploring new worlds. And living history.

Find Katherine:

Website | Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

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Labels: all the swoons, beautiful covers, brazen, historical fiction, katherine longshore, penguin, reviews

Top Ten Tuesday: Recommended Reads

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the awesome ladies at The Broke and the Bookish. Apparently, they are overly fond of list-making and love to share their bookish lists with the rest of us book nerds.  =) We're game.

This week's topic is a FREEBIE, so our list features the Top Ten Books That Were Recommended To Us...For Better or For Worse:

April's picks:


The first three, Angelfall, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, and The Sky is Everywhere were all recommended to me by Jen! I'm always turned off by angel books but she insisted that I would love those two and she was right. The Sky is Everywhere was my first Audio book, and I told her to pick it out for me. She did good. :)

Hopeless was recommended to me by my friend Autumn, and our tastes don't always jive, but in this case, they did. :) The Host, my friend Jackie told me I should give it a try and it's now one of my favs.


Fifty shades was recommended to me by Autumn also, but I didn't love it. Or even like it but it was the source of much entertainment over the years, so there is that! I can't even remember who recommended the rest of these books. Poughkeepsie was recommended by multiple people but it just couldn't get into it. Evermore, The Summoning, and Imaginary Girls was so long ago, I can't think of who, but I didn't really like them all that much. 

Jen's picks:

These first few had been recommended to me time and again by several different people, and I kept putting them off because I hadn't hit my stride with contemporary young adult novels yet. But these all did the trick once I finally acquiesced and gave them a chance. And now they're absolute favorites, ones that I recommend over and over again to friends and random strangers. =)


I can't wait for Jandy Nelson's new novel, especially after the love-fest I had with The Sky is Everywhere. And I'm so glad I read The Fault in Our Stars so I can see the movie when it's released next week!

Kristen at My Friends Are Fiction recommended the following books to me earlier this year and I will forever trust her because they were both epic reads. I want the sequels stat.


My good friend Emily at Book Jems went on ad nauseam about this book, so I finally gave in and read it. And promptly loved it. It's written under Diana Peterfreund's pseudonym, too!


Heather from The Flyleaf Review was so eager for me to read this next book that she even lent me her copy, and I loved the girl power elements even more than I expected to.


And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the two that April's rec'd to me on more than one occasion, even going so far as to gift me with her copies...which I've still yet to read. o_O It's probably time I remedied that, especially with all the love this author gets from my fellow readers.



What are your favorite/least favorite books that were recommended to you?  :)  Share the link to you TTT post so we can visit!

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Labels: recommended reads, top ten tuesday

Review: Nantucket Red by Leila Howland

Title: Nantucket Red
Author: Leila Howland
Series: Nantucket, book #2
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Publication Date: May 13, 2014
Source: received for review from publisher
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Cricket Thompson's lifetime of overachieving has paid off: she's headed to Brown University in the fall, with a spot on the lacrosse team and a scholarship that covers almost everything. Who knew living in the dorm cost money? An Ivy League education seems to mean living at home for the next four years.

When Cricket is offered the chance to earn enough cash to afford a real college experience, she heads back to Nantucket for the summer. But the faraway island challenges Cricket in ways she hadn't anticipated. It's hard to focus on earning money for next year, when she finds her world opening up in entirely new ways-to art, to travel, and, most unexpectedly, to a future completely different from the one she has been working toward her whole life. A friendship blossoms with Ben, the gorgeous surfer and bartender who encourages Cricket to be free, even as she smarts at the pain of seeing Zack, her first love, falling for her worst enemy.

But one night, when Cricket finally lets herself break all her own rules, she realizes she may have ruined her carefully constructed future with one impulsive decision. Cricket must dig deep to fight for her future, discovering that success isn't just about reaching goals, but also about listening to what she's been trying to ignore-her own heart.

Last year I read Nantucket Blue. I liked it, it was a cute fast read, and though I had some issues with Crickets maturity, I still walked away feeling entertained. Nantucket Red though, I didn’t like it quite as much. It wasn’t bad, but it was lacking something.

It starts out pretty much where Nantucket Blue leaves off, but it speeds up like crazy. You get a tiny glimpse of Crickets Senior year. I mean TINY!!! Like pages… and I felt like I had pushed the super fast forward button on the dvd player and couldn’t get it to stop. Presto!!! It’s Summer again.

Cricket is now graduated and heading to Brown University in the Fall. (She is sure to tell everyone this at every opportunity so they know how smart she is. Lol) She needs money, so she heads back to Nantucket to get a high paying job to help fund her college room and board. She ends up finding a decent job, but there isn’t much of her actually working. So who knows if she ever did make the amount she needed, because it’s not really focused on.

Her friendship with Jules and a new boy interest, Ben, play a big part in the story. Then there is her ex, Zack, who is also spending the summer on the island with is new girlfriend around. Much drama ensues as well as stupid decisions.

Nantucket Red was okay.. it was a very fast read. I’ll give it that, but I still couldn’t build a connection with Cricket. I just didn’t like her. Honestly, I thought she was an idiot. Her relationships with everyone came off as fake to me, but that could be because she was kinda fake. I’m trying to go easy on it, because I did read an amazing book right before starting this and that can sometimes skew my feelings.. Overall I think it makes for a good summer read, but it’s nothing special.

About the author:

LEILA HOWLAND loves to read, explore L.A., and engage in funny and meaningful conversations with her friends and family, especially her brother who calls from Washington D.C. whenever he’s waiting for the bus. A lot gets discussed in those phone calls, but they tend to end abruptly when the bus shows up. She can really cut the rug, but wishes she could sing without people covering their ears. A graduate of Georgetown University, Leila spent five years acting in New York where she was a company member of the award-winning Flea Theater in Tribeca. It was a lot of fun and she often talks about “getting back into it.” The closest she has come was a stint as an extra on The Young and the Restless in 2010. Leila now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two dogs. She teaches high school English and blogs for HelloGiggles. NANTUCKET BLUE is her first novel.

Find Leila:

Tumblr | Twitter | Goodreads

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Labels: disney hyperion, leila howland, nantucket red, reviews, summer

Happy Memorial Day!!!

We're taking the day off to spend time with family and friends -- and in Jen's case, recover from the block party on Sunday! -- but we wanted to wish you all a Happy Memorial Day and to take a moment to thank all of those brave souls who have risked or given their lives so that the rest of us can continue to celebrate life. We hope you're all spending time with loved ones while also remembering that there's a reason for this three-day weekend. =)

Happy Memorial Day!!!

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Labels: holidays, summer

Stacking the Shelves #17

Stacking The Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews and is a way to share with everyone all the goodies you've received through out the week. 

Just click the covers to be taken to their goodreads pages. 

For Review

I read Flat-Out Love last year and I really liked it, so when I saw the review opportunity for the sequel I jumped on it! :o)

Freebies

Jen got me the hardcover for my Birthday, but I saw that the Audio Book version is free this week through SYNC. Admittedly, until recently I knew nothing of this SYNC thing, but it's pretty darn neat! Jen has been sharing posts every week about it. This is the second week and you can view the details in her post. 

SYNC Summer 2014: Week 2

I hope you all had a great week! Mine was busy, but I've managed to squeeze some good reading in there! And Gardening!!!! Last week we got most of the garden in. 

We accidentally bought these hot ass peppers. So we shall see how they are! 

Our onions are looking awesome. 

Cold Weather Crops are looking good. Cabbage, lettuce and Broccoli. We actually have some little broccoli florets starting on two of the plants. Will share some pics when they get a little bigger. 

Tomatoes and Peppers! 

So far, everything is going great. Can't wait to start getting some harvests! 

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Labels: stacking the shelves