Showing posts with label Historical True Crime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Historical True Crime. Show all posts

Thursday, May 3, 2018

Cover Crush: The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson

Hello, my name is Colleen and I am a cover slut. I know, I know....you aren't supposed to judge a book by it's cover. I just can't help myself! A beautiful cover draws my eye every single time and I can't help but pick up the book it's dressing and see if the inside seems as intriguing as the outside. Sometimes it does, and sometimes a pretty cover is just a pretty cover. Either way, I love getting an eyeful!

One of my favorite bloggers, Erin at
Flashlight Commentary, created a weekly blog post called Cover Crush and she and some other blogger friends are sharing their favorite covers each Thursday. You'll find my Cover Crush selection below and I'll link to everyone else's at the end of the post.

So, without further ado, my Cover Crush this week is.....
 
 
 
 
I absolutely love the texture of these feathers! They look so soft yet ribbed...I just want to reach out and rub them. The iridescent coloring is beautiful as well and I can hardly even imagine a bird with such beautiful plumage (other than maybe a peacock). Having the title sort of tucked amongst the feathers is also a great touch. Just a really cool cover.
 
Read the synopsis to find out what "heist" this book is going to teach us about....
 
 
A rollicking true-crime adventure and a thought-provoking exploration of the human drive to possess natural beauty for readers of The Stranger in the Woods, The Lost City of Z, and The Orchid Thief.

On a cool June evening in 2009, after performing a concert at London’s Royal Academy of Music, twenty-year-old American flautist Edwin Rist boarded a train for a suburban outpost of the British Museum of Natural History. Home to one of the largest ornithological collections in the world, the Tring museum was full of rare bird specimens whose gorgeous feathers were worth staggering amounts of money to the men who shared Edwin’s obsession: the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying. Once inside the museum, the champion fly-tier grabbed hundreds of bird skins–some collected 150 years earlier by a contemporary of Darwin’s, Alfred Russel Wallace, who’d risked everything to gather them–and escaped into the darkness.

Two years later, Kirk Wallace Johnson was waist high in a river in northern New Mexico when his fly-fishing guide told him about the heist. He was soon consumed by the strange case of the feather thief. What would possess a person to steal dead birds? Had Edwin paid the price for his crime? What became of the missing skins? In his search for answers, Johnson was catapulted into a years-long, worldwide investigation. The gripping story of a bizarre and shocking crime, and one man’s relentless pursuit of justice, The Feather Thief is also a fascinating exploration of obsession, and man’s destructive instinct to harvest the beauty of nature.
 
 
Don't forget to check out what covers my blogger buddies are drooling over this week (updated as they become available):


Magdalena at A Bookaholic Swede
Erin at Flashlight Commentary
Heather at The Maiden's Court
Stephanie at Layered Pages
Holly at 2 Kids and Tired



Created by Magdalena of A Bookaholic Swede
 
 
 

Thursday, March 30, 2017

Cover Crush: See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt

Hello, my name is Colleen and I am a cover slut. I know, I know....you aren't supposed to judge a book by it's cover. I just can't help myself!  A beautiful cover draws my eye every single time and I can't help but pick up the book it's dressing and see if the inside seems as intriguing as the outside. Sometimes it does, and sometimes a pretty cover is just a pretty cover. Either way, I love getting an eyeful! 

One of my favorite bloggers, Erin at Flashlight Commentary, created a weekly blog post called Cover Crush and she and some other blogger friends are sharing their favorite covers each Thursday. I've decided to join in this year and will link to their posts down below.

So, without further ado, my Cover Crush this week is.....






As soon as I saw this cover I was instantly drawn to it. I can't even pinpoint exactly why...I just think it's stunning. Why is the painting of the bird dripping down the bottom? Does that signify something? It's a very simple yet alluring cover and I just have to know more!

Let's see what the story is about:



Haunting, gripping and gorgeously written, SEE WHAT I HAVE DONE by Sarah Schmidt is a re-imagining of the unsolved American true crime case of the Lizzie Borden murders, for fans of BURIAL RITES and MAKING A MURDERER.

When her father and step-mother are found brutally murdered on a summer morning in 1892, Lizzie Borden - thirty two years old and still living at home - immediately becomes a suspect. But after a notorious trial, she is found innocent, and no one is ever convicted of the crime.

Meanwhile, others in the claustrophobic Borden household have their own motives and their own stories to tell: Lizzie's unmarried older sister, a put-upon Irish housemaid, and a boy hired by Lizzie's uncle to take care of a problem.

This unforgettable debut makes you question the truth behind one of the great unsolved mysteries, as well as exploring power, violence and the harsh realities of being a woman in late nineteenth century America.


Don't forget to check out what covers my blogger buddies are drooling over this week:


Erin at Flashlight Commentary
Stephanie at Layered Pages


Created by Magdalena of A Bookaholic Swede

Monday, September 5, 2016

New Release Spotlight on Lady Cop Makes Trouble by Amy Stewart


Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Pub. Date: September 6th, 2016
Pages: 320

Book Series: A Kopp Sisters Novel (Book 2)

Genres: Historical Fiction / Mystery / True Crime


The best-selling author of Girl Waits with Gun returns with another adventure featuring the fascinating, feisty, and unforgettable Kopp sisters.


After besting (and arresting) a ruthless silk factory owner and his gang of thugs in Girl Waits with Gun, Constance Kopp became one of the nation’s first deputy sheriffs. She's proven that she can’t be deterred, evaded, or outrun. But when the wiles of a German-speaking con man threaten her position and her hopes for this new life, and endanger the honorable Sheriff Heath, Constance may not be able to make things right.

Lady Cop Makes Trouble sets Constance loose on the streets of New York City and New Jersey--tracking down victims, trailing leads, and making friends with girl reporters and lawyers at a hotel for women. Cheering her on, and goading her, are her sisters Norma and Fleurette--that is, when they aren't training pigeons for the war effort or fanning dreams of a life on the stage.

Based on a true story, Girl Waits with Gun introduced Constance Kopp and her charming and steadfast sisters to an army of enthusiastic readers. Those readers will be thrilled by this second installment--also ripped from the headlines--in the romping, wildly readable life of a woman forging her own path, tackling crime and nefarious criminals along the way.


Advanced Praise for Lady Cop Makes Trouble



“Constance Kopp’s real-life adventures as ‘New Jersey’s first lady deputy sheriff’ again make savory grist for Stewart’s fictional mill…Smart, atmospheric fun, with enough loose ends left dangling to assure fans there will be more entries in this enjoyable series.” - Kirkus Reviews

“Stewart’s second volume in her Kopp Sisters Series is a clever, suspenseful, and funny tale of a formidable woman facing crime, politics, social stigma, all while nailing evildoers….Fans of the first Kopp Sisters novel will find another treat in this follow-up.” - Publishers Weekly


Buy the Book




About the Author




Amy Stewart is the award-winning author of seven books, including the bestsellers The Drunken Botanist and Wicked Plants. She and her husband live in Eureka, California, where they own a bookstore called Eureka Books.


You can learn more about Amy Stewart on her website, and connect with her on Twitter and Goodreads.



Monday, February 1, 2016

TLC Book Tours: Review of The Evening Spider by Emily Arsenault + Giveaway!!


Publisher: William Morrow Paperback
Publication Date: January 26th, 2016
Pages: 400


Synopsis



A gripping blend of psychological suspense and historical true crime, this riveting novel—inspired by a sensational real-life murder from the 1800s—by critically acclaimed author Emily Arsenault delivers a heart-stopping mystery linking two young mothers from different centuries.


Frances Barnett and Abby Bernacki are two haunted young mothers living in the same house in two different centuries.

1885: Frances Barnett is in the Northampton Lunatic Hospital, telling her story to a visitor. She has come to distrust her own memories, and believes that her pregnancy, birth, and early days of motherhood may have impaired her sanity.

During the earliest months of her baby’s life, Frances eagerly followed the famous murder trial of Mary Stannard—that captivated New Englanders with its salacious details and expert forensic testimony. Following—and even attending—this trial, Frances found an escape from the monotony of new motherhood. But as her story unfolds, Frances must admit that her obsession with the details of the murder were not entirely innocent.

Present day: Abby has been adjusting to motherhood smoothly—until recently, when odd sensations and dreams have begun to unsettle her while home alone with her baby. When she starts to question the house’s history, she is given the diary of Frances Barnett, who lived in the house 125 years earlier. Abby finds the diary disturbing, and researches the Barnett family’s history. The more Abby learns, the more she wonders about a negative—possibly supernatural—influence in her house. She becomes convinced that when she sleeps, she leaves her daughter vulnerable—and then vows not to sleep until she can determine the cause of her eerie experiences.

Frances Barnett might not be the only new mother to lose her mind in this house. And like Frances, Abby discovers that by trying to uncover another’s secrets, she risks awakening some of her own.


What Did I Think About the Story?



When I read the synopsis for The Evening Spider I immediately reached out to the wonderful ladies at TLC Book Tours and asked to please be a part of this tour. It had so many elements I love in one package: historical setting and true crime; psychological suspense; possibly ghosts with nefarious plans creeping around a creaky old house, terrifying a new mom. Jackpot! Now having finished I'm a little torn about how I feel about the story overall. Did I enjoy it? Very much! Did it live up to what I was expecting in my head or give me the gasping shock I wanted as my mind was blown by unexpected revelations? Not exactly.

The set up of the chapters was a little odd to me at first, but as I kept reading I really began to enjoy it. The story is broken up in short, alternating chapters between Frances in a Lunatic Asylum in 1885 as she relays to her brother the actions that brought her there five years before and Abby in 2014 trying to figure out what spirits might be haunting her house and possibly injuring her baby daughter. Once I got used to this pattern I found that it definitely kept the pages turning  as little, unsettling bits of information are continuously dropped for the reader just before it switches back to the other storyline. And there are some legitimately creepy aspects about both storylines that I found just delicious.

I think my favorite creepy aspect would have to be Abby trying to figure out whether her house is truly haunted or whether she might be starting to lose her mind. She hears shushing on her baby monitor, doors are hard to open as though someone is pushing against it, she starts having these disturbing nightmares with someone else's baby in it as well as dreams that hint at something horrible having happened in Abby's past....it all adds up to just a general feeling of foreboding and I kept waiting to see exactly which way her somewhat tenuous  hold on sanity was going to fall.

This isn't to say that Frances's story didn't have a lot to offer. From the get-go the way she was having such a seemingly innocuous conversation with her brother while sitting in a Lunatic Asylum made me think she was off her rocker and was going to really shock me with what we were going to learn. She was a very odd character and the way she presented her story made me think I wasn't quite getting the full picture. Towards the end of the novel I kept feverously turning pages to see what would happen and then....

Unfortunately I found the ending for both storylines odd and mostly unsatisfying. For the life of me I cannot figure out why the author chose to end both the way she did. We only learn bits and pieces of what really happened in Frances's story while never getting much reasoning or follow up and, in Abby's case, I still don't fully know what was happening. Abby makes a decision in her past that, no matter which way I try to reason it, I cannot fathom why she did it and there is no real resolution to her story. I was left feeling sort of like....is that all?  

Unsatisfying ending aside The Evening Spider did hold my attention and give me hours of entertainment. Others might like the ending better than I did, so if the synopsis sounds like something you would generally enjoy I would recommend giving it a try. Just don't expect to be blown away when you turn the last page.


What Did I Think About the Cover?



You know something, I like it even though I can't pinpoint exactly why I do. I don't think it particularly represents the story all that well, and I have no idea which of our women this is supposed to be, but it definitely captures my attention. It's mysterious and draws the eye and I can't find any fault in this cover.


My Rating: 3.5/5.0


Thank you to TLC Book Tours for providing me with a free copy of The Evening Spider in exchange for an honest review. Continue below for more information about the author and the tour as well as how to enter to win a copy of The Evening Spider!
 
 

Buy the Book

 
 

About the Author

 
 
Emily Arsenault is also the author of The Broken Teaglass, In Search of the Rose Notes, and Miss Me When I’m Gone. She lives in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, with her husband and daughter.
 
 
Find out more about Emily at her website and connect with her on Facebook.
 
 
 

It's Giveaway Time!!

 
 

 Thanks again to TLC Book Tours I have one copy of The Evening Spider to give away today (open to US/CANADA only)!! All you have to do is enter your name and email address on the giveaway form HERE. Please be sure to leave both your name and your email on the form so I can contact you if you are my winner (no email address, no entry!). For extra entries  you can follow the blog in various ways (all links are on the right hand sidebar) and leave the name/email you follow with on the form. That's it!

I'll use a random number generator to pick a winner on February 8th, 2016 and will announce the winner here as well as email the winner for their mailing address. The winner will have 48 hours to respond to my email before I have to pick another winner. If you have already won this giveaway on another site please let me know so I can pick a new winner and give someone else a chance to win a copy.

Good Luck!!
 
 

The Evening Spider Blog Tour Schedule

 

Tuesday, January 26th: No More Grumpy Bookseller
Wednesday, January 27th: The Reader’s Hollow
Wednesday, January 27th: Kahakai Kitchen
Thursday, January 28th: A Bookworm’s World
Friday, January 29th: JulzReads
Monday, February 1st: A Literary Vacation
Tuesday, February 2nd: FictionZeal
Thursday, February 4th: Jenn’s Bookshelves
Friday, February 5th: Kritters Ramblings
Monday, February 8th: bookchickdi
Wednesday, February 10th: From the TBR Pile
Thursday, February 11th: Book Hooked Blog
Friday, February 12th: Peeking Between the Pages