Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Happy New Year's Eve!



Good Morning and Happy New Year's Eve! 

Keep this quote in mind as we move forward into the new year! 2020 is going to be a great one! 


Thank Y'all for reading. Be sure to enter your email address to get all the latest updates from Pines and Peaches. 

Saturday, December 07, 2019

Off the Shelf: The Hunt by Jacqueline Terrill and First Christmas at Pemberley by Grace Sellers


Happy Saturday! 

Hope everyone had a fantastic week! It was hard to get back in the groove of things after having time off for Thanksgiving, but these great reads made up for it! 


While trying to repair her rocky marriage, Rachel Blackstone is floored by the change in her formerly sweet, attentive husband, Seth. When she finds out that they are about to lose their home, she moves back in with her parents, only to be shocked with divorce papers. Rachel soon uncovers a web of lies and deceit that encompasses the entire Blackstone family. This book was a non-stop thriller! Could not put it down! 




Mr. and Mrs. Darcy are celebrating their first Christmas at Pemberley as husband and wife. With Elizabeth expecting their first child, a house full of guests, and a snowstorm approaching, they are set for a Christmas to remember! When one of the kittens Darcy gave Georgianna escapes,  she and one of the guests must venture out to save it from the cold. This was a quick read at only eighty-six pages, but I loved every bit of it! A must-read for fans of Jane Austen and cats. 


I cannot wait to try more works by Jacqueline Terrill and Grace Sellers, I loved both these books!  


Thank Y'all for reading! Be sure to enter your email address to get all the latest updates from Pines and Peaches! 



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Monday, December 02, 2019

Monday Motivation- December 2nd, 2019



Happy Monday!

I love this quote so much. We can be so busy planning life that we forget to slow down and go with the flow. Don't forget to enjoy the ride this week. Sometimes, the journey is the destination. 


Thank Y'all for reading. Be sure to enter your email address to get all the latest updates from Pines and Peaches. 





Sunday, December 01, 2019

Books to Watch: Coming Soon in December 2019



Good Morning and Happy December! 

It's the most wonderful time of the year! I hope that during this busy time of Christmas shopping and family gatherings, you can fit in some reading time because there is a great lineup of new books to be released this month! Here are ten books that I just can't wait to get my hands on!!!



Note: This post contains affiliate links, which means a small portion of the proceeds go to support Pines and Peaches, at no additional cost to you. Read my disclosure policy here


Series: Legacy of OrĂ¯sha, Book #2
Available on December 3rd



After battling the impossible, ZĂ©lie and Amari have finally succeeded in bringing magic back to the land of OrĂ¯sha. But the ritual was more powerful than they could’ve imagined, reigniting the powers of not only the maji, but of nobles with magic ancestry, too.

Now, ZĂ©lie struggles to unite the maji in an OrĂ¯sha where the enemy is just as powerful as they are. But when the monarchy and military unite to keep control of OrĂ¯sha, ZĂ©lie must fight to secure Amari's right to the throne and protect the new maji from the monarchy's wrath.

With civil war looming on the horizon, ZĂ©lie finds herself at a breaking point: she must discover a way to bring the kingdom together or watch as OrĂ¯sha tears itself apart.

Children of Virtue and Vengeance is the stunning sequel to Tomi Adeyemi's New York Times-bestselling debut Children of Blood and Bone, the first book in the Legacy of OrĂ¯sha trilogy.

A Madness of Sunshine by Nalini Singh
Available on December 3rd 



On the rugged West Coast of New Zealand, Golden Cove is more than just a town where people live. The adults are more than neighbors; the children, more than schoolmates. 

That is until one fateful summer—and several vanished bodies—shatters the trust holding Golden Cove together. All that’s left are whispers behind closed doors, broken friendships, and a silent agreement to not look back. But they can’t run from the past forever. 

Eight years later, a beautiful young woman disappears without a trace, and the residents of Golden Cove wonder if their home shelters something far more dangerous than an unforgiving landscape.  

It’s not long before the dark past collides with the haunting present and deadly secrets come to light.


The Peppermint Tea Chronicles by Alexander McCall Smith
Series: 44 Scotland Street, Book #13 
Available on December 3rd 


Summer has come to Scotland Street. The long days have prompted its denizens to engage in flights of fancy. Some, like the Duke of Johannesburg’s plan to create a microlite seaplane, are literal flights, and some, like the vain Bruce Anderson’s idea of settling down with one of his many admirers, are more metaphorical.

With the domineering Irene off pursuing academic challenges, Stuart and Bertie are free to indulge in summer fun. Stuart reconnects with an old acquaintance over refreshing peppermint tea while Bertie takes his friend Ranald Braveheart Macpherson to the circus. But their trip to the big top becomes rather more than the pleasant diversion they were hoping for.

Once again, Scotland Street teems with the daily triumphs and challenges of those who call it home, and provides a warm, wise, and witty chronicle of the affairs in this corner of the world.  


Dead Astronauts by Jeff VanderMeer
Available on December 3rd

 

A messianic blue fox who slips through warrens of time and space on a mysterious mission. A homeless woman haunted by a demon who finds the key to all things in a strange journal. A giant leviathan of a fish, centuries-old, who hides a secret, remembering a past that may not be its own. Three ragtag rebels waging an endless war for the fate of the world against an all-powerful corporation. A raving madman who wanders the desert lost in the past, haunted by his own creation: an invisible monster whose name he has forgotten and whose purpose remains hidden.

Jeff VanderMeer's Dead Astronauts presents a City with no name of its own where, in the shadow of the all-powerful Company, lives human and otherwise converge in terrifying and miraculous ways. At stake: the fate of the future, the fate of Earth—all the Earths.

The Piper's Pursuit by Melanie Dickerson
Available on December 3rd


A fairy-tale journey of intrigue and romance that reimagines the classic Pied Piper story.

A plague of rats. A giant beast outside the village walls. A host of missing children. And one young woman determined to save her people.

In 1424 Hamlin, Katerina faces threats from all sides. An outbreak of rats has overtaken the village, a mysterious beast is on a killing rampage of the village’s children, and Katerina’s evil stepfather is a dark presence inside the walls of her own home. Katerina is determined to hunt and kill the Beast of Hamlin herself before more lives are lost.

When Steffan, the handsome but brash duke’s son, comes to town seeking glory and reward, Katerina decides he might be the ally she’s been looking for—even though the only gentle thing about him seems to be the sweet music he plays on his pipe. But there’s more to Steffan than she suspects, and she finds herself drawn to him despite her misgivings.

Together Katerina and Steffan must stop the enemy from stealing the children of Hamlin. But their interference might create an even worse fate for the entire village.


Series: The Stolen Kingdom, Book #2
Available on December 3rd

When Arie reveals her Gift, she thinks the worst is over. But she couldn't be more wrong. The only one who can save her now is a mermaid named Rena.

Rena is the youngest daughter of the Sea King, and she's dreamed of the surface for years. But her first visit on her 16th birthday isn't what she expects. She watches a Jinni fall from the sky—and chooses to save him, despite her mother's warnings that all Jinn are evil.

Once she meets Gideon, she can't get him out of her mind. And maybe, with a little help from Arie and some magic of her own, she doesn't have to...



Verse and Vengeance by Amanda Flower
Series: A Magical Bookshop Mystery, Book #4
Available on December 10th


With the help of Walt Whitman's works, magical bookshop owner Violet Waverly puts her pedal to the metal to sleuth a bicycle-race murder that tests her mettle.

A bicycle race is not Charming Books proprietor Violet Waverly's idea of a pleasant pastime. But police chief David Rainwater wheelie wants them to enter the Tour de Cascade as a couple, so she reluctantly consents.

The Tour de Cascade is the brainchild of Violet's Grandma Daisy. The race is a fundraiser to build the Cascade Springs Underground Railroad Museum. But not everyone in this Niagara Region village supports the race. As if the bike race weren't tiring enough, pesky private investigator Joel Redding is snooping around Charming Books. It takes all of Violet's and Grandma Daisy's ingenuity to keep Redding from discovering the shop's magical essence--which communicates with Violet through books.

When Redding perishes in an accident during the race, David discovers that the brake line of the private eye's bike was cut. Worse, Violet tops his list of suspects. As Emerson the tuxedo cat and resident crow Faulkner look on, Charming Books steers Violet to the works of Walt Whitman to solve the crime. But no other names ring a bell as culprits, and as David's investigation picks up speed, Violet will have to get in gear to clear her name.

Tombland by C. J. Sansom
Series: Matthew Shardlake, Book #7
Available on December 10th


Spring, 1549. Two years after the death of Henry VIII, England is sliding into chaos.

The nominal king, Edward VI, is eleven years old. His uncle, Edward Seymour, Lord Hertford, rules as Edward's regent and Protector. In the kingdom, radical Protestants are driving the old religion into extinction, while the Protector's prolonged war with Scotland has led to hyperinflation and economic collapse. Rebellion is stirring among the peasantry.

Matthew Shardlake has been working as a lawyer in the service of Henry's younger daughter, the lady Elizabeth. The gruesome murder of one of Elizabeth's distant relations, rumored to be politically murdered, draws Shardlake and his companion Nicholas to the lady's summer estate, where a second murder is committed.

As the kingdom explodes into rebellion, Nicholas is imprisoned for his loyalty, and Shardlake must decide where his loyalties lie — with his kingdom, or with his lady?


Murder at the Opera by D. M. Quincy
Series: An Atlas Catesby Mystery, Book #3
Available on December 10th


When a nobleman's mistress is gunned down on the steps of the Covent Garden opera house, brilliant adventurer Atlas Catesby discovers a sinister family connection that compels him to investigate.

London, 1815. Amateur sleuth Atlas Catesby is about to discover the dark side of the bright lights. His long-awaited night at the opera with Lady Lilliana ends abruptly when a notorious courtesan is shot to death in Covent Garden.

The infamous victim was the mistress of the powerful Marquess of Vessey. Atlas believes that the marquess--his former brother in law--is responsible for the long-ago death of Atlas's sister, Phoebe. Atlas seizes the opportunity to potentially avenge his sister's death. But his inquiry is complicated when Phoebe's grown son implores Atlas to help prove Vessey's innocence.

Plunging into the cutthroat backstage life of the theatre community, the adventurer and the noblewoman soon discover that ruthless professional rivalries can escalate into violence, setting the stage for death in Murder at the Opera, D. M. Quincy's third riveting Atlas Catesby mystery set in Regency England.


A Trace of Deceit by Karen Odden
Available on December 17th


From the author of A Dangerous Duet comes the next book in her Victorian mystery series, this time following a daring female painter and the Scotland Yard detective who is investigating her brother’s suspicious death.

A young painter digs beneath the veneer of Victorian London’s art world to learn the truth behind her brother’s murder...

Edwin is dead. That’s what Inspector Matthew Hallam of Scotland Yard tells Annabel Rowe when she discovers him searching her brother’s flat for clues. While the news is shocking, Annabel can’t say it’s wholly unexpected, given Edwin’s past as a dissolute risk-taker and art forger, although he swore he’d reformed. After years spent blaming his reckless behavior for their parents’ deaths, Annabel is now faced with the question of who murdered him—because Edwin’s death was both violent and deliberate. A valuable French painting he’d been restoring for an auction house is missing from his studio: find the painting, find the murderer. But the owner of the artwork claims it was destroyed in a warehouse fire years ago.

As a painter at the prestigious Slade School of Art and as Edwin’s closest relative, Annabel makes the case that she is crucial to Matthew’s investigation. But in their search for the painting, Matthew and Annabel trace a path of deceit and viciousness that reaches far beyond the elegant rooms of the auction house, into an underworld of politics, corruption, and secrets someone will kill to keep.

Hope you find a few great reads for the holiday season on this list! I know what I'm putting on my Christmas wish list. 


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