The Constant Princess by Phillipa Gregory

Genre: Historical Faction
Distributor: Touchstone
Length: 393 pages
Rating: G
Author: Phillipa Gregory
Starring: Catherine of Aragon, Henry the 8th, Arthur
Theme: The Ruling Class is a Conniving Class
Comments: I confess, I love the Tudors. Catherine Parr is my favorite of Henry’s wives even though she had the bad taste to fall in love with Thomas Seymour. Catherine of Aragon is a favorite, too, even after this book. The Constant Princess is a story about a girl who was born to be Queen. Of course, for most of the book – maybe even a thousand times – she broadcasts, “I am the Princess of Wales.” Ten times would have done it for me. She marries (done very well in this book, especially the mention of Henry in white and the Duke of Buckingham’s welcome), puts up with, (with her future father in law and her ladies, and there’s a very rocky beginning with Arthur), falls in love (this was also done well), he dies (very quickly, but that’s also very true), and the rest of the book is a testament to her fortitude and conniving. This book had a lot of things to fall in love with, but with less soul searching narrations and repetitiveness, the book could have been longer so we could really see Anne Bolyn and then princess Mary in the conclusion. I honestly thought I'd missed a chapter when the end came. We went from victorious war with Catherine being honored to her trial and Mary was born and off stage.

Graveminder by Melissa Marr

Title: Graveminder
Genre: Paranormal
Plot: Taking Care of the Dead is one thing; Keeping them Dead is another.
Distributor: William Morrow
Length: 336 pages
Rating: PG 13
Author: Melissa Marr
Starring: Rebekkah Barrow, her grandmother Maylene,
Comments: This was a free giveaway at the Romantic Times Conference. If publishers wonder about whether or not giveaways work, I’ll tell you that this one did. I fully intend to buy her backlist and I’m mad that this is a first in the series because I don’t like to wait. Excellent book. Rebekkah has been picked to keep the people of Claysville safe. See, centuries ago their ancestors made a deal with… Mr. C… and it benefits both the living and the dead. But now Rebekkah is new to the job and before she quite figures out what is going on, the dead are making more dead.

The Dark Mirror by M.J. Putney

Title: The Dark Mirror
Genre: Young Adult Paranormal
Plot: Girl with powers sent away to ‘fix’. She doesn’t need fixing.
Distributor: St. Martin’s Griffin
Length: 320 Pages
Rating: G
Author: M.J. Putney
Starring: Tory Mansfield, youngest daughter of an earl and a witch.
Theme: Sometimes when you lose everything, you gain what you really need.
Comments: Tory is a witch and no one in the gentry can abide witches. Her embarrassed family sends her off to a school to be fixed. Instead, she finds other magical people who becomes her good friends (and by the way, she is the best witch of all) and they start using their magic to help the right side of wars (both their present day and the 1940’s).

The Gate to Eden by Cathy McDavid

Title: The Gate to Eden
Genre: Western
Plot: Women vow for justice and when the bad guy hires a gun, the man behind the gun not only falls in love but protects the good.
Distributor: Dorchestor
Length: 326 Pages
Rating: PG-18
Author: Cathy McDavid
Starring: Maddie Campbell and Scott McSween
Theme: Band of women survive despite the odds. This story is about their leader.
Comments: I'm reviewing this because today is Western day at the SuperLibrarian site, and this was the last western I read. It was very good. It combined the allure and danger of historic no-man's land Arizona with a strong heroine and an equally strong, but nurturing hero. When a mining accident kills a group of men, the widows are swindled and left to fend for themselves. They do it, but via cunning ways, make sure the mine owner pays in one way or another for his misdeeds. When he hires a former sheriff to find out and eliminate whoever is thwarting him. It's love and misdeeds galore. Good job, Cathy.

Listen by Rene Gutteridge

Genre: Christian Contemporary, non romance

Plot: Good versus evil

Distributor: Thomas Nelson

Length: Just right

Rating: G

Author: Rene Gutteridge

Starring: Damien, Kay, Jenna, and Hunter

Theme: The power of words

Comments: This was a free download from Kindle. It was an easy read, just took me three days. Someone is posting whole conversations on the web, and the conversations are causing grief and even pain, yet, the poster in his quest to make people see that words hurt doesn't seem to acknowledge that he's causing even more hurt: dead cat/hurt wife/kidnapped student. In the end justice prevails.