Cova Reviews ARCs | The Cardinal's Court, by Cora Harrison

Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book via the publisher (The History Press). This does not affect the content of the following review in any way, which expresses my honest opinion on the book

Hello, everyone! Today I bring to you Cora Harrison's new novel, The Cardinal's Court, which will hit bookstores in just a couple of weeks - July 1st this year. It is a historical mystery set in the Tudor medieval time, with real historical characters like Anne Boleyn or Henri VIII, as well as fictional ones like our protagonist - lawyer Hugh Mac Egan. It is the first novel to what is going to be called the Hugh Mac Egan Mysteries. Up until this book I hadn't read any fictional works set before the XX century, and I found it very informative. It gave me an itch to look for more historical fiction about this period!

I found Goodreads' synopsis to be quite confusing, to be honest, so I've written a much simpler one myself for you (you're welcome 😎):

Hugh Mac Egan - an Irish Brehon lawyer who works for the Earl of Northemberland in Ireland, travels to Hampton Court to legally arrange the marriage between the Earl's son, James Butler, and Anne Boleyn. However, when he gets there the Instructor of the Guards is murdered while the King himself is in the palace, and all clues point towards James as the suspected murderer. It is in Hugh's hand to find the real murderer to clear his employer's son of the harsh punishment implemented by the English law of the beginning of the 16th century. 

Cova Reviews | The Evolution of Mara Dyer - Michelle Hodkin (Mara Dyer Trilogy #2)

The Evolution of Mara Dyer is the second book to the Mara Dyer trilogy by Michelle Hodkin. The series is a young adult, mystery, paranormal novel about a girl named Mara Dyer who goes through an ultra-traumatic event in her life -her best friend and her boyfriend died when the old building they were in at night collapsed. Only she survived, and now she sees things she should not be seeing. She suffers from PTSD, and her family thinks it's a good idea for them to move to Florida, where she can start a new life away from everything that reminded her of her now-dead friends. There she meets hot Noah -the hot, popular guy who strangely seems to be interested in her. 

Whatever my previous description made you think, this is no regular, cheeky love story. I loved the first book (the review of which you can find here), and I was dying to read the second one. If you haven't read The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (the 1st book in the series), I suggest you go read the post about it first. It's not like I am going to spoil anything, but I think there's no point in reading about the second book if you haven't even read what the first is about! hehe

Anyway. Let's start :)

The Lake House, by Kate Morton

 

Well then, so this one is a different type of read from the ones I'm used to, but I certainly did enjoy it nonetheless :) The Lake House is a Historical Fiction, mystery novel set in England in different timesets between the 1910s and 2004.

"An abandoned house...
June 1933, and sixteen-year-old Alice Edevane is preparing for her family's Midsummer Eve party at their country home, Loeanneth. But by the time midnight strikes and fireworks light up the night skies, the Edevane family will have suffered a loss so great that they leave Loeanneth forever.

A missing child...
Seventy years later, after a particularly troubling case, Detective Sadie Sparrow retreats to her beloved grandfather's cottage in Cornwall. Once there, she stumbles upon an abandoned house, and learns the story of a baby boy who disappeared without a trace.

An unsolved mystery...
Meanwhile, in her elegant Hampstead home, the formidable Alice Edevane, now an old lady, leads a life as neatly plotted as the bestselling detective novels she writes. Until a young police detective starts asking questions about her family's past, seeking to resurrect the complex tangle of secrets Alice has spent her life trying to escape..." (Goodreads)