It’s another month of our challenge: Tackle Your TBR Pile. So go dig through that stack taller than you of books you’ve been meaning to read and start reading away. Since this year is based on your TBR pile, I will not have a recommendations page, but I’m leaving the link here so it’s easier for me to set up NEXT year’s blog posts.
Find recommendations at Reading Challenge Recommendations, Crystal Caudill’s Reading Friends Facebook group, Avid Readers of Christian Fiction, or Inspirational Historical Fiction Index.
Don’t forget to comment at the bottom of the post for your chance to win a book off my prize shelf. *The list of prizes from my shelf can be found here.*
Reading Challenge 2025: Tackle the TBR Pile
If you’re anything like me, you have a TBR pile that is bigger than you can hope to read in a lifetime. This is the year we’re going to try an tackle at least twelve of those books. Head to your shelves and find books that fit each month’s challenge.
This Month: May – Cover in your favorite color
Next Month: June – Recommended by friend/family
Masquerade at Middlecrest Abbey
by Abigail Wilson
Review by: Crystal Caudill
Oops! the month got away from me, and while I did read some books, none of them were really in a favorite color. So I went back and stole an old review. 🙂 But I LOVE the color of this dress on the cover, and I remember enjoying the book. I really need to catch up on Abigails backlist.
As many of you know, first-person perspectives are NOT my favorite. An author really has to engage me and make me forget I am in the first-person in order for me to really get through the story. That being said, I needed an audiobook to listen to on a road trip that would have a bit of mystery, danger, and romance. The blurb for this story intrigued me enough to make me willing to try and listen to a first-person point of view novel. (And I totally blame Erica Vetsch’s The Lost Lieutenant and The Gentleman Spy for sending me on a Regency binge.)
I was pleasantly surprised, enough so, that I am considering going back and listening to and/or reading the first two books in the series. Masquerade at Middlecrest Abbey is a standalone book, although it is connected to other stories. I am sure there are little antidotes I missed by reading out of order, but I still found the story engaging and believable. While not always able to suspend the thought of being in first-person, I loved the unusual marriage of convenience story. Elizabeth and Lord Torrington proved to be unique characters who drew me in. Lord Torrington especially was an unexpected kind of man. I struggled to make him out just as Elizabeth did, but found him a hero whose company I enjoyed.
If you like the first-person point of view, marriage-of-convenience stories, mysterious heroes, danger, and mystery, I highly recommend this Regency story.
Genre: Historical Romance, England, 1815
Plot Overview:
In this new Regency romance, a young unwed mother must protect her heart from the charms of her convenient new husband, Lord Torrington. She is not, however, prepared to protect her life.
When the widowed Lord Torrington agreed to spy for the crown, he never planned to impersonate a highwayman, let alone rob the wrong carriage. Stranded on the road with an unconscious young woman, he is forced to propose marriage to protect his identity and her reputation, as well as his dangerous mission.
Trapped not only by her duty to her country but also by her limited options as an unwed mother, Miss Elizabeth Cantrell and her infant son are whisked away to Middlecrest Abbey by none other than the elder brother of her son’s absent father. There she is met by Torrington’s beautiful grown daughters, a vicious murder, and an urgent hunt for the missing intelligence that could turn the war with France. Meanwhile, she must convince everyone that her marriage is a genuine love match if her new husband has any hope of uncovering the enemy.
Determined to keep her son’s true identity a secret, Elizabeth will need to remain one step ahead of her fragile heart, her uncertain future, and the relentless fiend bent on her new family’s ruin.
Giveaway
For your chance to win a print copy, comment with what book YOU read for this month. Use the Rafflecopter below for extra entries and to mark that you left a comment. Entries end on the 7th of each month at midnight EST, and the winner will be drawn sometime that week and notified by email. The winner will be announced on the Rafflecopter widget. *Giveaway Policies can be found here.
Book looks like a good read looking forward to reading this book in print format
My favorite color is red, so I read “Of Gold and Shadows” by Michelle Griep. I always enjoy her books, and the dress on the cover is probably my favorite shade! 🙂
I read Between You and Us by Kendra Broekhuis. I won it a while back and it’s been sitting in my TBR pile. The cover is beautiful, featuring my favorite turquoise so it was the perfect book to pull out this month. It was an amazing, thought provoking story about the choices we make and what might have been. Highly recommend!
I read The Lines Between Us by Amy Lynn Green. The shades of green/teal that are in the cover are some of my favorite. And I just picked up a copy of Masquerade at Middlecrest Abbey at Ollie’s tonight…otherwise, I might have read it as a book in my favorite color.
I’m reading The Song of Sourwood Mountain by Ann H.Gabhart.
I read The Purple Nightgown by A.D. Lawrence. (My favorite color is purple) It was very well written, but definitely a heavy read.
At Love’s Bidding, by Regina Jennings. I’m not very good at having only one favorite color. This book had three of my favorite colors, pink dress, green grass, and blue sky! And the book is as good as the cover is pretty!
I read Heart of the Crown by Hannah Currie because the color of the dress on the cover is my favorite color. The book was so good!! It’s the last in that series, I got way behind on my reading, but oh it was the perfect ending for the series.