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Editorial Content for Marvelous

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Reviewer (text)

Christine M. Irvin

Pedro Gonzales was born with hair all over his body. He is afflicted with a condition called hypertrichosis, which makes him look more like an animal than a human being. He was abandoned in front of a church when he was a baby, and the people who took him in has cared for him as their own. Read More

Teaser

1547: Pedro Gonzales, a young boy living on the island of Tenerife, understands that he is different from the other children in his village. He is mercilessly ridiculed for the hair covering his body from head to toe. When he is kidnapped off the beach near his home, he finds himself delivered by a slave broker into the dangerous and glamorous world of France’s royal court. Catherine de’ Medici is fascinated by Pedro and determined to find him a bride. Catherine Raffelin is a beautiful 17-year-old girl whose merchant father has fallen on hard times and offers up his daughter to Queen Catherine. The queen will pay his debts, and his daughter will marry Pedro. Catherine must learn to navigate this strange new world and the unusual man who is now her husband.

Promo

1547: Pedro Gonzales, a young boy living on the island of Tenerife, understands that he is different from the other children in his village. He is mercilessly ridiculed for the hair covering his body from head to toe. When he is kidnapped off the beach near his home, he finds himself delivered by a slave broker into the dangerous and glamorous world of France’s royal court. Catherine de’ Medici is fascinated by Pedro and determined to find him a bride. Catherine Raffelin is a beautiful 17-year-old girl whose merchant father has fallen on hard times and offers up his daughter to Queen Catherine. The queen will pay his debts, and his daughter will marry Pedro. Catherine must learn to navigate this strange new world and the unusual man who is now her husband.

About the Book

A mesmerizing novel set in the French royal court of Catherine de’ Medici during the Renaissance, which recreates the touching and surprising true story behind the Beauty and the Beast legend, from the acclaimed author of THE CLERGYMAN'S WIFE and THE HEIRESS.

1547: Pedro Gonzales, a young boy living on the island of Tenerife, understands that he is different from the other children in his village. He is mercilessly ridiculed for the hair covering his body from head to toe. When he is kidnapped off the beach near his home, he finds himself delivered by a slave broker into the dangerous and glamorous world of France’s royal court. There “Monsieur Sauvage,” as he is known, learns French, literature and sword fighting, becoming an attendant to the French King Henri II and a particular favorite of his queen, the formidable Catherine de’ Medici. Queen Catherine considers herself a collector of unusual people and is fascinated by Pedro…and determined to find him a bride.

Catherine Raffelin is a beautiful 17-year-old girl whose merchant father has fallen on hard times and offers up his daughter to Queen Catherine. The queen will pay his debts, and his daughter will marry Monsieur Sauvage.

Catherine meets Pedro for the first time on their wedding day. Barely recovered from the shock of her father’s betrayal, she soon finds herself christened “Madame Sauvage” by the royal courtiers, and must learn to navigate this strange new world, and the unusual man who is now her husband.

Gorgeously written, heartbreaking and hopeful, MARVELOUS is the portrait of a marriage, the story of a remarkable, resilient family, and an unforgettable reimagining of one of the world’s most beloved fairy tales.

Audiobook available, read by Ell Potter

Editorial Content for Not So Perfect Strangers

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Pamela Kramer

There's a saying that no good deed goes unpunished. In NOT SO PERFECT STRANGERS, L.S. Stratton takes that adage to the max by showing how Tasha Jenkins suffers from the good deed she performs late one night. Read More

Teaser

Tasha Jenkins has finally found the courage to leave her abusive husband. Taking her teenage son with her, Tasha checks into a hotel the night before their flight out of D.C. But escaping isn’t so easy, and Tasha soon finds herself driving back to her own personal hell. As she is leaving, a white woman pounds on her car window, begging to be let in. Behind the woman, an angry man is in pursuit. Tasha makes a split-second decision that will alter the course of her life: she lets her in and takes off. She and Madison Gingell may have very different everyday realities, but what they have in common is marriages they need out of. The two women want to help each other, but they have very different ideas of what that means. They are on a collision course that will end in the case files of the D.C. MPD homicide unit.

Promo

Tasha Jenkins has finally found the courage to leave her abusive husband. Taking her teenage son with her, Tasha checks into a hotel the night before their flight out of D.C. But escaping isn’t so easy, and Tasha soon finds herself driving back to her own personal hell. As she is leaving, a white woman pounds on her car window, begging to be let in. Behind the woman, an angry man is in pursuit. Tasha makes a split-second decision that will alter the course of her life: she lets her in and takes off. She and Madison Gingell may have very different everyday realities, but what they have in common is marriages they need out of. The two women want to help each other, but they have very different ideas of what that means. They are on a collision course that will end in the case files of the D.C. MPD homicide unit.

About the Book

One fateful encounter upends the lives of two women in this tense domestic thriller, a modern spin on Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train that flips the script on race and gender politics.
 
“I’m a big believer that women should help each other, Tasha,” she says. “Don’t you think?”

Tasha Jenkins has finally found the courage to leave her abusive husband. Taking her teenage son with her, Tasha checks into a hotel the night before their flight out of D.C. and out of Kordell Jenkins’ life forever. But escaping isn’t so easy, and Tasha soon finds herself driving back to her own personal hell. As she is leaving, a white woman pounds on her car window, begging to be let in. Behind the woman, an angry man is in pursuit. Tasha makes a split-second decision that will alter the course of her life: she lets her in and takes off.
 
Tasha and Madison Gingell may have very different everyday realities, but what they have in common is marriages they need out of. The two women want to help each other, but they have very different ideas of what that means.
 
They are on a collision course that will end in the case files of the D.C. MPD homicide unit. Unraveling the truth of what really happened may be impossible --- and futile. Because what has the truth ever done for women like Tasha and Madison?

March 31, 2023

If you remember back to the start of March, I told you that when my sons were little, they were amused by the lion/lamb monikers that were attached to the start and end of March. Here it’s been lamb/lamb, but I hear a storm is blowing in tomorrow, and that is no April Fools' joke.

Which of the following fiction titles releasing in April do you plan to read? Please check all that apply.

March 31, 2023, 581 voters

March 31, 2023 - April 14, 2023

Here are reading recommendations with your comments and a rating of 1 to 5 stars for the contest period of March 31 - April 14.

The Audie Awards 2023

The Audio Publishers Association (APA) has announced the winners of the 2023 Audie Awards®, the premier awards program in the United States recognizing distinction in audiobooks and spoken-word entertainment.

The Four Winds Event

April 2023

April's Books on Screen roundup includes the series premieres of "The Last Thing He Told Me" on Apple TV+, and Hulu's "Tiny Beautiful Things" and "Saint X"; part two of the second and final season of "Firefly Lane" on Netflix; the conclusion of "A Spy Among Friends" on MGM+; the season two finale of HBO's "Perry Mason"; the films Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret., One True Loves and Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman; and the DVD releases of Jesus Revolution, Emily and Marlowe.

March 28, 2023

In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of March 27th and April 3rd that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers, along with Bonus News, where we call out a contest, feature or review that we want to let you know about so you have it on your radar.

This week, we are calling attention to our review of LOYALTY, Lisa Scottoline's second historical novel following the 2021 release of ETERNAL. Set during the rise of the Mafia in Sicily, this emotional, action-packed epic of love and justice is now in stores and will be a Bookreporter.com Bets On pick. Don't miss Carol Fitzgerald's interview with Lisa in the March 31st Bookreporter Weekly Update newsletter and her Bets On commentary in the April 7th Weekly Update newsletter.

March 28, 2023

This Bookreporter.com Special Newsletter spotlights a book that we know people will be talking about this spring. Read more about it, and enter our Spring Preview Contest by Wednesday, March 29th at noon ET for a chance to win one of five copies of THE ONLY SURVIVORS by Megan Miranda, which releases on April 11th. Please note that each contest is only open for 24 hours, so you will need to act quickly!