Stacking the Shelves #49!

Stacking The Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews and Reading Reality all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts, and of course ebooks! And audiobooks. Don’t forget audiobooks!

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A few good ones this week!

NetGalley:

I like Sarah Morgan, and it’s time for some Christmas books!

Synopsis: What happens if the only Christmas celebration you want to attend is one you haven’t been invited to? USA Today bestselling author Sarah Morgan delights with this hilarious and heartwarming Christmas cracker of a novel!

A family gathering.

This Christmas the Miller siblings have one goal—to avoid their well-meaning family’s endless stream of prying questions. Ross, Alice and Clemmie have secrets that they don’t intend to share, and they are relying on each other to deflect attention.

An uninvited guest

Lucy Clarke is facing a Christmas alone and the prospect of losing her job. Unless she can win a major piece of business from Ross Miller, the season promises to be anything but festive. She’ll just deliver her proposal to his family home and then leave. After all, she wouldn’t want to intrude on the Miller family’s perfect Christmas.

A Christmas to remember.

When Lucy appears on the Miller family’s snow-covered Highland doorstep, she’s mistaken for Ross’s girlfriend. By the time the confusion is cleared up, they’re snowed in—she can’t leave, even if she wants to! But does she want to? As secrets spill out like presents from an overstuffed stocking and the chemistry between her and Ross ignites, this is going to be either Lucy’s worst Christmas ever or the best mistake of her life.

I like the cover and the blurb, and I’ve been wanting to read a book by Amy Clipson for a while now.

Synopsis: Sometimes treasure can be found where you least expect it.

In the decade since high school graduation, Christine Sawyer has realized her dream of opening Treasure Hunting Antique Mall, the place where shoppers find gems that are new to them. Between her store, her house, and her role as a doting aunt, she’s happy with her life—if a bit lonely. But she’s used to being less lucky in love than her fraternal twin sister. Britney was always the popular one, the lead cheerleader who dated the homecoming king and quarterback, while Christine stayed in the shadows.

Brent Nicholson is still trying to come to grips with the shambles his life has become. After leading his football team to a state championship, he suffered a career-ending injury. Now he’s lost his construction business thanks to his so-called best friend. So when his great aunt Midge asks for his help readying her home to put it on the market, the opportunity to spend time with his biggest fan is a balm to his bruised soul.

But the antiques Brent finds in his aunt’s house lead him to an unexpected partnership with Christine. After being blind to her for so many years, is it too late for the former high school jock to win the heart of the self-proclaimed “nerdy twin”?

As they shift through things of the past, Christine and Brent learn to let go of the pieces they don’t want to bring into the future—and realize the value of what’s in front of them today.

I just thought this looked cute.

Synopsis: In Marlowe Banks, Redesigned, Jacqueline Firkins wonderfully captures the messiness of failure, forgiveness, and embracing a second chance on life and love.

Marlowe Banks’s life has come apart at the seams. Her engagement ended abruptly. Her latest costume design was shredded by critics. Her student loans are overdue. Her parents have never been more disappointed. Desperate to hide from her failures, Marlowe flees New York City to embrace invisibility in Los Angeles as a menial Production Assistant on a popular TV show. While sorting socks and taking care of her boss’ spoiled Weimaraner, no one can confront her poor artistic choices or the end of her engagement, the end her ex refuses to accept.

When a costume mix-up requires Marlowe to step into in a scene, the camera catches a heated look between her and Angus Gordon, the show’s arrogant bad boy, thrusting Marlowe into the spotlight. As the pair is forced together on set, Marlowe learns she’s not the only one hiding. Walls come down for both of them, revealing a life Marlowe isn’t sure she’s ready for, and when her past comes calling, she has to decide if she’s going to stay invisible or if it’s time for a redesign.

This is NOT my usual genre, but, I like the setting and the fact that it’s about sisters.

Synopsis: From New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hawkins comes a deliciously wicked gothic suspense, set at an Italian villa with a dark history, for fans of Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware.

As kids, Emily and Chess were inseparable. But by their 30s, their bond has been strained by the demands of their adult lives. So when Chess suggests a girls trip to Italy, Emily jumps at the chance to reconnect with her best friend.

Villa Aestas in Orvieto is a high-end holiday home now, but in 1974, it was known as Villa Rosato, and rented for the summer by a notorious rock star, Noel Gordon. In an attempt to reignite his creative spark, Noel invites up-and-coming musician, Pierce Sheldon to join him, as well as Pierce’s girlfriend, Mari, and her stepsister, Lara. But he also sets in motion a chain of events that leads to Mari writing one of the greatest horror novels of all time, Lara composing a platinum album––and ends in Pierce’s brutal murder.

As Emily digs into the villa’s complicated history, she begins to think there might be more to the story of that fateful summer in 1974. That perhaps Pierce’s murder wasn’t just a tale of sex, drugs, and rock & roll gone wrong, but that something more sinister might have occurred––and that there might be clues hidden in the now-iconic works that Mari and Lara left behind.

Yet the closer that Emily gets to the truth, the more tension she feels developing between her and Chess. As secrets from the past come to light, equally dangerous betrayals from the present also emerge––and it begins to look like the villa will claim another victim before the summer ends.

Blog Tour:

I’ve read the previous two books in this series and I’m excited to continue the series.

Synopsis: Many years have passed since the dramatic events of Pride and Prejudice.  In The Cousins of Pemberley series we follow a new generation of heroines – cousins with lives as different and interesting as those enjoyed by their mothers.

Mary Bennet – overlooked, laughed at, despised – married a missionary and vanished into a life of service out in Africa.  

But now Miriam, her daughter, is coming to England, disliking everything she has been told about her family.  

Her aunts and cousins are expecting someone quiet, dull and bookish, just like her mother, not the quick-tempered, impulsive girl who arrives.  

How can this adventurous girl with her desire for freedom possibly fit into their well ordered world?  

And what havoc will she cause as she tries?    
 

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That’s all I have for this week. Have you read any of these books? What’s on your list to read? Comment below!