BookCase Club February 2017 Subscription Box Review + Coupon – Thrill Seeker Case

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Bookcase.Club sends hand selected books to your door for less than $15 including shipping per month. With eight different reader options there is something for everyone. I picked the thrill seeker case: mystery/thriller books. This box contains two books, one hard cover and a paperback and as well as a card with a quick description of each.

DEAL: Save 15% on your first month. Use coupon code HelloSub.
Select your genre when you sign up!

Another bookmark, with ways to stay in touch via social media.

Quotes and a picture of the book are found on the back.

 

The Confabulist: A Novel by Steven Galloway ($13.42)

From the bestselling author of The Cellist of Sarajevo, a darkly fanciful, beautifully wrought novel of magic, intrigue, and illusion.

What is real and what is an illusion? Can you trust your memory to provide an accurate record of what has happened in your life?

The Confabulist is a clever, entertaining, and suspenseful narrative that weaves together the rise and fall of world-famous Harry Houdini with the surprising story of Martin Strauss, an unknown man whose fate seems forever tied to the magician’s in a way that will ultimately startle and amaze. It is at once a vivid portrait of an alluring, late-nineteenth/early-twentieth-century world; a front-row seat to a world-class magic show; and an unexpected love story. In the end, the book is a kind of magic trick in itself: There is much more to Martin than meets the eye.

Historically rich and ingeniously told, this is a novel about magic and memory, truth and illusion, and the ways that love, hope, grief, and imagination can—for better or for worse—alter what we perceive and believe.

I will try to give this book a good reading but will admit that the world of magic does nothing to intrigue me. The historical aspect is what has made me even want to open the front jacket. I’ve read a few reviews online of this book and the more I read the more I want to find a cozy patch of grass to read this but sometimes the reviewer should leave a little to the imagination.

From the Charred Remains by Susanna Calkins ($15.99)

It’s 1666 and the Great Fire has just decimated an already plague-ridden London. Lady’s maid Lucy Campion, along with pretty much everyone else left standing, is doing her part to help the city clean up and recover. But their efforts come to a standstill when a couple of local boys stumble across a dead body that should have been burned up in the fire but miraculously remained intact―the body of a man who died not from the plague or the fire, but from the knife plunged into his chest.

Searching for a purpose now that there’s no lady in the magistrate’s household for her to wait on, Lucy has apprenticed herself to a printmaker. But she can’t help but use her free time to help the local constable, and she quickly finds herself embroiled in the murder investigation. It will take all of her wits and charm, not to mention a strong stomach and a will of steel, if Lucy hopes to make it through alive herself.

With From the Charred Remains, Susanna Calkins delivers another atmospheric historical mystery that will enchant readers with its feisty heroine and richly detailed depiction of life in Restoration England.

From the Charred Remains recaptures much of what I enjoyed in the first book of the series (A Murder at Rosamund’s Gate). Both stories are firmly rooted in a specific place and time and all vividly described. The one place where this book struggles is finding Lucy’s motivation for her crime-solving. While she is present when the body is found and is drawn in by the bereaved lover of the presumed deceased, the mystery doesn’t have the same personal quality as when her friend was killed.  Part of this is because if the series is to continue, Lucy needs to have some history that explains why Constable Duncan might tell her about/ask her opinion about a murder. This story does a good job of establishing that history, and I love that the details of the murder reveal so much about shifting social status, class mobility, rules of marriage eligibility, and gender constraints of 17th century London.

This month’s Bookcase.Club box was just a bit different than normal with both books being time pieces. I love traveling back in time while still getting my thrills and mysteries. I will say that I don’t normally like getting books that are part of miniseries in this book because then I have to search for the first or rest of the series but was pleasantly surprised that I had already read the first book. Bookcase.Club is one of the best ways to discover new authors and still stay inside my favorite genre.

Have you tried any of the BookCase.Club subscriptions?

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