RCR: Lost in Darkness by Michelle Griep

RCR: Lost in Darkness by Michelle Griep

by | Mar 31, 2024 | Reading Challenge

It’s another month our challenge: Unlocking Ecclesiastes 3. I’m so excited to join you again this year with guest reviews from our reading challenge participants. If you want to submit a review for upcoming months, feel free to email me using my contact form. If you are looking for reading suggestions, I’ve cultivated a page just for that. (Note that it is still being updated throughout the year, so feel free to message me with suggestions.) I recommend you also checking Inspirational Historical Fiction Index or the Facebook Group Avid Readers of Christian Fiction or my Facebook group Crystal Caudill’s Reading Friends. I’ll also include a short list at the bottom of this post.

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 available from my prize shelf can be found here.*

Unlocking the Past: Ecclesiastes 3

Just as Ecclesiastes has two opposites in each verse, most months will leave you with two options to choose from.

“For everything there is a season,
a time for every activity under heaven.”

 

March Verse: A time to kill and a time to heal.
Challenge Theme: A book with a serial killer or a character in the medical profession.

April Verse: A time to tear down and a time to build up.
Challenge Theme: A book with characters or plots related to construction, remodeling, demolition, or architecture.

Lost in Darkness

by Michelle Griep

Review by: Crystal Caudill, repost from 11/2021

If I were to describe this book in one word, it would be intense. Marvelously so. Michelle Griep has taken her writing to new levels in this gothic romance that leaves characters battling the monsters within . . . and without. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein had nothing on this story where the famed author makes several appearances. The story of Amelia Balfour, Graham Lambart, Colin Balfour, and Dr. Peckwood is sure to have your angst ratcheting tight all the way to the spell-binding ending, that while holding to magnificent gothic tradition, leaves the reader with hope for the future.

This was the most intense book from Michelle Griep that I have ever read, and to be honest, I was glad that I was listening to it as an audiobook and was forced to do thirty or fewer minute increments. The tension was so deep, so constant that my heart couldn’t take it all at once. I’m looking forward to reading it again soon, this time in one fell swoop. This is an unforgettable tale that will sweep readers away to a different time to face monsters that they might even see reflected in themselves.

I recommend this book for fans of Gothic romances, Frankenstein, obscure history, and deep truths discovered during trying circumstances.

Genre: Historical Romance, Victorian England

Plot Overview:

Travel writer Amelia Balfour’s dream of touring Egypt is halted when she receives news of a revolutionary new surgery for her grotesquely disfigured brother. This could change everything, and it does. . .in the worst possible way.

Surgeon Graham Lambert has suspicions about the doctor he’s gone into practice with, but he can’t stop him from operating on Amelia’s brother. Will he be too late to prevent the man’s death? Or to reveal his true feelings for Amelia before she sails to Cairo?

Purchase Links:

Amazon  |  Baker Book House  |  Barnes & Noble  |  Christianbook.com

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.

*Open to all residents of the contiguous USA, legally able to enter, and an e-book format or Amazon Gift Card will be awarded to those outside that range who are legally able to enter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Recommendations for April:

  • A Model of Devotion by Mary Connealy
  • On This Foundation by Lynn Austin
  • A Battle Worth Fighting by Sarah Hanks
  • Daughtry House series by Beth White
  • Lost Castle series by Kristy Cambron
  • Engaging Deception by Regina Jennings

What did you read for the challenge? What were your thoughts on it? Would you recommend it?

Lost in Darkness by Michelle Griep

Lost in Darkness by Michelle Griep

by | Nov 23, 2021 | Book Reviews

Lost in Darkness

by Michelle Griep

If I were to describe this book in one word, it would be intense. Marvelously so. Michelle Griep has taken her writing to new levels in this gothic romance that leaves characters battling the monsters within . . . and without. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein had nothing on this story where the famed author makes several appearances. The story of Amelia Balfour, Graham Lambart, Colin Balfour, and Dr. Peckwood is sure to have your angst ratcheting tight all the way to the spell-binding ending, that while holding to magnificent gothic tradition, leaves the reader with hope for the future.

This was the most intense book from Michelle Griep that I have ever read, and to be honest, I was glad that I was listening to it as an audiobook and was forced to do thirty or fewer minute increments. The tension was so deep, so constant that my heart couldn’t take it all at once. I’m looking forward to reading it again soon, this time in one fell swoop. This is an unforgettable tale that will sweep readers away to a different time to face monsters that they might even see reflected in themselves.

I recommend this book for fans of Gothic romances, Frankenstein, obscure history, and deep truths discovered during trying circumstances.

*While I’ve purchased an additional copy myself, a copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher and the review above is my honest opinion of the book and was not influenced in any way.*

Genre: Historical Romance, Regency Era, England

Plot Overview:

Even if there be monsters, there is none so fierce as that which resides in man’s own heart.

Amelia Balfour has one dream . . . to tour Egypt as a travel writer. But when her wish is finally within reach, her father dies, and her malformed brother, Colin, depends on her to arrange for a revolutionary surgery. Amelia returns home, hoping he’ll recover before the ship sails for Cairo.

Former Navy surgeon Graham Lambert is sick–of traveling, loneliness, and especially the injustice of the world. Leaving behind the military, he partners with a renowned surgeon, the man who promises new life to Amelia’s brother.

But just as the operation begins, Graham suspects the surgeon is a fraud. After a botched procedure, Colin goes mad and escapes, terrorizing their neighbor, author Mary Godwin–planting the seed for her greatest creation, Frankenstein.

Can Amelia and Graham stop Colin before he destroys everyone in his path and find the tender soul still trapped inside . . . or will they be too late?

What I loved: The storyline that so well reflected Frankenstein while bringing spiritual depth that it will long live in my mind.

Favorite Character and Why:  There was such a fantastic cast of characters that it is so hard to tell. Aside from Amelia and Graham, I loved Nemo and Mrs. Bap. Nemo was an adorable child, and Mrs. Bap’s wisdom and positive outlook were the perfect addition to the story.

Who would like this? I recommend this book for fans of Gothic romances, Frankenstein, obscure history, and deep truths discovered during trying circumstances.

Rating and Why: Five stars. This story was amazingly written, intense, and impactful. It will live in my mind for a long time to come, and I will be rereading it when I have some free time in my reading schedule.

PURCHASE LINKS

Amazon     Barnes and Noble     BooksAMillion     Book Depository     Bookshop.org     Christianbook.com

 

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