Author: Elizabeth Loupas
Format: Paperback
Publisher: NAL Trade
Publish Date: April 3, 2012
Why You're Reading This Book:
- You're a historical fiction fan.
- You like your historical fiction with a little magic.
From Goodreads.com: "Rinette Leslie of Granmuir has the ancient gift of divining the future in flowers, but her gift cannot prepare her for the turmoil that comes when the dying queen regent entrusts her with a casket full of Scotland's darkest secrets. On the very day she means to deliver it to newly crowned Mary, Queen of Scots, Rinette's husband is brutally assassinated.
Devastated, Rinette demands justice before she will surrender the casket, but she is surrounded by ruthless men who will do anything to possess it. In the end, the flowers are all she can trust-and only the flowers will lead her safely home to Granmuir."
My Two Cents:
This book is rooted in truth but has a flavor of the fantastic. Rinette is gifted with fleuromancy, the ability to see the future through flowers. I loved this little bit of magic and the way that Loupas was able to weave it in to the story so realistically. I love when authors are able to take the magic and the fantasy and make it into something that we can really believe in.
I also liked how Loupas was able to take things that really happened (there really was a silver casket that held some very important secrets to the throne of Scotland) and use them for the basis of a fictional story. One thing that I really liked in the book is that Loupas gives you a list up front of which characters were real and which ones she made up. Rinette is one of the fictional characters and she is thrust with the great responsibility to get the silver casket from one queen to the new queen. It's an awesome responsibility that puts her in massive amounts of danger.
I also loved the setting of the book. Scotland is not a place that I have read a whole lot about. I thought it was interesting to see the tensions between Scotland and other countries as well as the tensions within Scotland. I also loved the mystery of the silver casket. Rinette is not quite sure why she is charged with such an important item. It was really interesting to gather all of the bits of information throughout the book to get to what the casket really means and how important is.
This is the first book that I have read by Elizabeth Loupas but I can tell you that it will not be the last. Loupas does a fantastic job of weaving the historical and the fiction in such a way that unless someone tells you what's real and what's not real that you would never know.
Bottom line: Loupas spins a wonderful historical fiction story!
Don't Forget to Follow the Rest of the Tour:
Tuesday, April 3rd
Review at Confessions of an Avid Reader
Wednesday, April 4th
Author Guest Post & Giveaway at Tina's Book Reviews
Thursday, April 5th
Review at Raging Bibliophile
Friday, April 6th
Author Guest Post at Confessions of an Avid Reader
Monday, April 9th
Review at The Owl Bookmark Blog
Tuesday, April 10th
Thursday, April 12th
Author Guest Post at The Owl Bookmark Blog
Friday, April 13th
Author Interview at Unabridged Chick
Tuesday, April 17th
Review & Giveaway at Let Them Read Books
Thursday, April 19th
Review at So Many Books, So Little Time
Friday, April 20th
Monday, April 23rd
Review at A Bookish Libraria
Tuesday, April 24th
Review at Always with a Book
Wednesday, April 25th
Review at Sharon's Garden of Book Reviews
Thursday, April 26th
Friday, April 27th
Review & Giveaway at Peeking Between the Pages
Monday, April 30th
Review at Reflections of a Book Addict
Tuesday, May 1st
Review at A Bookish Affair
Wednesday, May 2nd
Review & Giveaway at The Broke and the Bookish
Thursday, May 3rd
Review at Reviews by Molly
Review at My Reading Room
Friday, May 4th
Author Guest Post at A Bookish Affair
Author Interview at My Reading Room
Monday, May 7th
Review at Bippity Boppity Book
Tuesday, May 8th
Wednesday, May 9th
Monday, May 14th
Review at Bloggin' 'Bout BooksReview at Paperback Princess
Review at The Daily Bookmark
Historical fiction with a splash of magic...sign me up! The Flower Reader sounds fantastic - can't wait to read it!
ReplyDeleteI really, really liked it!
DeleteI think I would really like this one, I love books set in Scotland and the premise for this one sounds interesting. Thanks for the great review!
ReplyDeleteSame here. Scotland just seems like such a magical place!
DeleteI'm so glad you liked this! I just saw it on Book Movement today and added it to my TBR. It sounds so good! Thanks for the review!
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely a solid read!
DeleteMeg, thank you for this lovely review. The thing I think I love most is combining fiction with fact, as with the characters and the casket itself, and I'm so thrilled that you enjoyed the combinations.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for stopping by! I look forward to reading more by you in the future :)
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