Book Reviews by @brittanythebookdragon

  **TRIGGER WARNING**  This book contains child abuse and sexual assault, just to name a couple. There are also mentions of abortion and teacher/student relations.  Synopsis: In 1986, Eddie and his band of misfit friends are on the verge of adolescence. Bonded by mutual awkwardness and a yearning for excitement, they spend their days biking around their English village looking for adventure. The chalk men are their secret code, little chalk figures they draw for each other as hidden messages, warning of bullies or signifying meeting spots. But one morning Eddie finds a chalk man directing him into the nearby woods. He follows the message, only to find the dismembered body of a teenage girl. That is the day when everything changes.  In 2016, Eddie is a grown man, working as a teacher at his old school, nursing a drinking problem, and trying to forget his past, until one day he gets a letter with no return address, containing a single chalk stick figure - the same figu...

  Synopsis: Even a fortune forged in railroads and steel can't buy entrance into the upper echelons of Victorian high society - for that you need a marriage of convenience.  American heiress August Crenshaw has aspirations. But unlike her peers, it isn't some stuffy British lord she wants wrapped around her finger - it's Crenshaw Iron Works, the family business. When it's clear that August's outrageously progressive ways render her unsuitable for a respectable match, her parents offer up her younger sister to the highest entitled bidder instead. This simply will not do. August refuses to leave her sister to the mercy of a lovely marriage.  Evan Sterling, the Duke of Rothschild, has no intention of walking away from the marriage. He's recently inherited the title only to find his coffers empty, and with countless lives depending on him, he can't walk away from the fortune a Crenshaw heiress would bring him. But after meeting her fiery sister, he realizes Viol...