Most Anticipated Historical Romance

 By Kelly Bridgewater

Most Anticipated Historical Romance that is published from May 1, 2023 through August 31st, 2023. 

All images come from Amazon. 

Enjoy!

In This Moment by Gabrielle Meyer

The Long March Home by Marcus Brotherton and Tosca Lee

Fairest of Heart by Karen Witemeyer

Man of Shadow and Mist by Michelle Griep

Ladies of the Lake by Cathy Gohlke

To Free the Stars by J'nell Ciesielski

In the Shelter of the Hollythorne House by Sarah E. Ladd

Voice of the Ancients by Connilyn Cossette

The Scarlet Spy by Rachel Scott McDaniel

What about you? Any to add!

Marcus Brotherton and Tosca Lee: The Long March Home

 By Kelly Bridgewater

Jimmy Propfield joined the army for two reasons: to get out of Mobile, Alabama, with his best friends Hank and Billy and to forget his high school sweetheart, Claire.

Life in the Philippines seems like paradise--until the morning of December 8, 1941, when news comes from Manila: Imperial Japan has bombed Pearl Harbor. Within hours, the teenage friends are plunged into war as enemy warplanes attack Luzon, beginning a battle for control of the Pacific Theater that will culminate with a last stand on the Bataan Peninsula and end with the largest surrender of American troops in history.

What follows will become known as one of the worst atrocities in modern warfare: the Bataan Death March. With no hope of rescue, the three friends vow to make it back home together. But the ordeal is only the beginning of their nearly four-year fight to survive.

Inspired by true stories, The Long March Home is a gripping coming-of-age tale of friendship, sacrifice, and the power of unrelenting hope. 

 

My Thoughts:

I have read a number of World War II stories. Most of them taking place in Europe. I have read a few of them that have taken place in the Pacific Theater, but not a lot. While The Long March Home does feature three friends that grew up together and show their struggles once they arrive in the Philippines with the Japanese, I had a hard time following the story. The story does have two timelines. The first one is in the past, which shows the friendship as the boys mature into young men. Then the second one shows them during World War II. The first part is interesting and shows the different sides of the boys and the coming-of-age lifestyle from Nebraska. The second plot line reads a lot like a history textbook. Japanese were bombing. Americans were running, fighting, and hiding in the foxholes. While I believe this helps show the historical aspect of the Bataan Death March, it just felt really dry to me. I wanted to have more of a story, not a textbook of the historical event. Of course, what young man in this time period did not miss a girl back home. Following one of the guys, readers will see him yearn for what happened in the past. The descriptions of the war and the setting were a play-by-play of what was happening. This is shown in an example with just a description “We held the line there for a week before being ordered to withdraw east” (Chapter 10). Overall, the World War II aspect felt more like a documentary feeling than a story feeling. Some readers this might be right up their alley, but for me, I wanted a story that I could follow and fall in love with. Not to be told what happens.

I received a complimentary copy of The Long March Home by Marcus Brotherton and Tosca Lee from Revell Publishing, but the opinions stated are all my own.

My Rating:  3 out of 5 stars

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Tosca Lee: A Single Light

By Kelly Bridgewater

Six months after vanishing into an underground silo with sixty others, Wynter and Chase emerge to find the area abandoned. There is no sign of Noah and the rest of the group that was supposed to greet them when they emerged—the same people Wynter was counting on to help her locate the IV antibiotics her gravely ill friend, Julie, needs in order to live.

As the clock ticks down on Julie’s life, Wynter and Chase embark on a desperate search for medicine and answers. But what they find is not a nation on the cusp of recovery thanks to the promising new vaccine Wynter herself had a hand in creating, but one decimated by disease. What happened while they were underground?

With food and water in limited supply and their own survival in question, Chase and Wynter must venture further and further from the silo. Aided by an enigmatic mute named Otto, they come face-to-face with a society radically changed by global pandemic, where communities scrabble to survive under rogue leaders and cities are war zones. As hope fades by the hour and Wynter learns the terrible truth of the last six months, she is called upon once again to help save the nation she no longer recognizes—a place so dark she’s no longer sure it can even survive.

Fast-paced and taut, A Single Light is a breathless thriller of nonstop suspense about the risks of living in a world outside the safe confines of our closely-held beliefs and the relationships and lives that inspire us.

From Amazon

My Thoughts:

End of the World thrillers are interesting. They take on a what-if scenario and run with it. As for Tosca Lee with her The Line Between and A  Single Light, Lee crafts a world that begins with a cult escape and turns into a vaccine that is needed to save the world from early dementia. I highly recommend reading these two novels in order or the second novel really won't make much sense. I even went back and re-read the first one before diving into the second one because I read so many books in between that I couldn't remember much of the first one. Boy, am I glad that I did. As for the plot of A Single Light, it moves quite rapidly. I recommend sitting aside an entire day with no interruptions, which I know is practically impossible. Lee is wonderful at ending each chapter on a cliffhanger, so of course, I wanted to keep reading and find out what happened. This story had so many twists and turns that I loved it. The plot is fast paced and had me flipping through the pages. The characters of Wynter and Chase are fabulous. I love how quickly Wynter fit into the world she escaped to and how much she did to save others. She has a heart to save not only her niece but anyone she comes in contact with. Chase, the hero, is an ex-Marine who does anything for Wynter, even love her when she doesn't want to be loved. Tosca Lee crafted a wonderful end of the world thriller that kept me glued to the page. If this is the last one, then I'm sad to see these characters go, I would love to see what happens next. How do they actually rebuild the world? Fans of The Hunger Games might enjoy this novel. I sure did.

I received a complimentary copy of A Single Light by Tosca Lee from Howard Books, but the opinions stated are all my own.

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

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About the Author:

From Amazon

Tosca Lee is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of ten novels including THE LINE BETWEEN, THE PROGENY, FIRSTBORN, THE LEGEND OF SHEBA, ISCARIOT, and the Books of Mortals series with New York Times bestseller Ted Dekker. Her work has been translated into seventeen languages and been optioned for TV and film. A notorious night-owl, she loves movies, playing football with her kids, and sending cheesy texts to her husband.

You can find Tosca at ToscaLee.com, on social media, or hanging around the snack table. A SINGLE LIGHT, Tosca's highly-anticipated sequel to THE LINE BETWEEN, releases September 2019 and is available for preorder now. (Taken from Amazon.)

Tosca Lee: The Line Between

By Kelly Bridgewater

In this frighteningly believable thriller from New York Times bestselling author Tosca Lee, an extinct disease re-emerges from the melting Alaskan permafrost to cause madness in its victims. For recent apocalyptic cult escapee Wynter Roth, it’s the end she’d always been told was coming.

When Wynter Roth is turned out of New Earth, a self-contained doomsday cult on the American prairie, she emerges into a world poised on the brink of madness as a mysterious outbreak of rapid early onset dementia spreads across the nation.

As Wynter struggles to start over in a world she’s been taught to regard as evil, she finds herself face-to-face with the apocalypse she’s feared all her life—until the night her sister shows up at her doorstep with a set of medical samples. That night, Wynter learns there’s something far more sinister at play and that these samples are key to understanding the disease.

Now, as the power grid fails and the nation descends into chaos, Wynter must find a way to get the samples to a lab in Colorado. Uncertain who to trust, she takes up with former military man Chase Miller, who has his own reasons for wanting to get close to the samples in her possession, and to Wynter herself.

From Amazon

My Thoughts:

Tosca Lee is a wonderful writer who captures the unusual and writes a wonderful, captivating story. With her newest thriller, The Line Between, she does definitely that. At first, I was a little confused by the beginning of the novel, but after getting into the story, it begins to make sense. A good thriller shows a world in dire need of some type of help from some type of threat either man-made or biochemical. In The Line Between, Lee gave us a story wrapped around a biochemical agent.

Lee's writing is clear and concise. Like I mentioned earlier, when the story starts, it jumps around from about three points of views, and I don't know whose story I was supposed to be following, then Lee leads us to two points of view and that took me a while to sort out too. It was a little confusing. But trust me, stick with it. It eventually makes complete sense why Lee wrote the story the way she did.

The plot was original and unpredictable too. I didn't see the cult twist when I read the synopsis, but I think it worked really well for the story Lee was trying to tell. I can't imagine the amount of research and horror stories she had to wade through to come up with a realistic background for New Earth and for Wynter. I liked the biochemical agent element too. I was wrapped up in the chase through the countryside, hoping Wynter met her goal.

There is a hint of a romance toward the end of the novel, but nothing like a contemporary romance or a romantic suspense. Nothing too touchy feely. Just the way I like my thrillers or suspense novels.

As a word of caution, there are a number of cuss words written in the text. I read them and kept moving on with the story. Yes, they were a little shocking to see, but I enjoy Lee's writing, so I just kept reading.

Overall, The Line Between by Tosca Lee is a unique story from an accomplished thriller writer who takes the unknown and makes it known. I really got wrapped up in the story and finished it one day. Can't wait to see what Lee comes up with next.  Fans of Ted Dekker, Amanda G. Stevens, and James Rubart might want to pick up this novel.

I received a complimentary copy of The Line Between by Tosca Lee from Howard Books, but the opinions stated are all my own.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

About the Author:

From Amazon

Tosca Lee is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of the House of Bathory duology (THE PROGENY and FIRSTBORN), ISCARIOT, THE LEGEND OF SHEBA, DEMON: A MEMOIR, HAVAH: THE STORY OF EVE, and the Books of Mortals series with New York Times bestseller Ted Dekker (FORBIDDEN, MORTAL, SOVEREIGN). A notorious night-owl, she loves watching TV, eating bacon, playing video games and football with her kids, and sending cheesy texts to her husband.

You can find Tosca at www.ToscaLee.com, on social media, or hanging around the snack table. Look for A SINGLE LIGHT, the follow-up to THE LINE BETWEEN, September 2019. (Taken from Amazon.)

Tosca Lee: Firstborn

By Kelly Bridgewater

Face-to-face with her past, Audra Ellison now knows the secret she gave up everything—including her memory—to protect. A secret made vulnerable by her rediscovery, and so powerful neither the Historian nor the traitor Prince Nikola will ever let her live to keep it.

With Luka in the Historian’s custody and the clock ticking down on his life, Audra only has one impossible chance: find and kill the Historian and end the centuries old war between the Progeny and Scions at last—all while running from the law and struggling to control her growing powers.

With the help of a heretic monk and her Progeny friends Claudia, Piotrek, and Jester, Audra will risk all she holds dear in a final bid to save them all and put her powers to the ultimate test. Love, action, and stunning revelation reign in this thrilling conclusion to The Progeny.

From Amazon

 My Thoughts:

Firstborn by Tosca Lee is a gripping, fast-paced psychological thriller with a historical aspect. I really enjoyed again returning to the interesting story of Audra Ellison and Luka Novak. A couple who proves love can withstand any trial humans put it through. Once the novel starts, Lee does not let up. Audra and Luka are on the run, hunting for a way to kill the Historian and return to a life where they don't have to keep running from the Hunters. Filled with intrigue, I had a really hard time putting the novel down. I came to an end of a chapter with the intent to do something else, but the chapter ended in a cliffhanger, so I had to keep reading. I really enjoyed learning more about Audra's past and more information about Elizabeth Bathory's history this time. My only issue is with the ending. After watching the untimely demise of the Historian, Audra and Luka jump in a car to chase someone, then the story jumps into a happily-ever-after moment for all the characters. I was confused. Did I miss something? Since this incident happens so close to the end, I thought it would be a prelude to another book, but the happy ending makes it appear that this is the end of the series. I could be wrong, and I hope I am. Fans of The Progeny by Tosca Lee and Steven James should pick this novel up.

I received a complimentary copy of Firstborn by Tosca Lee from Howard Books and the opinions stated are all my own.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

When reading a psychological thriller, do you want a happy ending? Do you want to see the murder resolve? How would you feel if an author decided to hold the real murder until the end of the series?

Tosca Lee: The Progeny

By Kelly Bridgewater

Emily Jacobs is the descendant of a serial killer. Now, she’s become the hunted.

She’s on a quest that will take her to the secret underground of Europe and the inner circles of three ancient orders—one determined to kill her, one devoted to keeping her alive, and one she must ultimately save.

Filled with adrenaline, romance, and reversals, The Progeny is the present-day saga of a 400-year-old war between the uncanny descendants of “Blood Countess” Elizabeth Bathory, the most prolific female serial killer of all time, and a secret society dedicated to erasing every one of her descendants. A story about the search for self amidst centuries-old intrigues and Europe’s underground scene…and one woman’s mission to survive.

From Amazon

My Review:

The synopsis of The Progeny gripped my attention and made me want to read this book. I couldn't wait to get my hand on a copy, so I was really excited to get an advanced reader copy directly from Howard books. With the non-stop run for life and the romance, Tosca Lee hit it out of the park with this novel.

 I am a huge fan of stories that don't stop moving. You know, the stories that capture your attention in the first chapter and don't let go. Trust me, I stayed up way too late, reading this book, but every time, I kept telling myself, I'll finish at the end of this chapter, Lee throws another twist in the story, so I couldn't put the book down. I had to keep reading to see what happens. There is a number of chases and encounters with the enemy to satisfy even the pickiest readers, like me. The story does end with a cliffhanger, begging me to return to the second book, which I can't wait for.

I really enjoyed learning about Elizabeth Bathory. I don't remember learning anything about her history class. It probably would have made me pay more attention. After finishing the book, I did a quick Google search and read some articles about her. Man, was she vicious! But I loved the idea of a female serial killer from the early seventh century. I, however, truly enjoyed how Lee introduced me to the history of Bathory without setting the story back in that time frame. It is a complete original and unpredictable story.

In DaVinci code fashion, Tosca Lee takes me on a journey through history, even though hers in based on truth not made up assumptions. With non-stop action, characters I enjoyed, and a lesson in history, Tosca Lee hit the mark with The Progeny causing me to want the second book right now. 

I received a complimentary copy of The Progeny from  Howard Books and the opinions stated are all my own.

My Rating:  5 out of 5 Stars

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Would you buy a historical suspense novel? Why or Why not? What draws you to this genre?