3 stars-- Blood Oath (Laura Elliston/Sawbones #2) by Melissa Lenhardt

I'd heard good things about this series and was excited to dive into the gritty wild west adventure but in the end wasn't totally enamored by Blood Oath.

The Gist: Laura and Kindle are on the run. She's been accused of murder and he's abandoned his military post to help her escape and flee though the dangers of the frontier--battling harsh climates, nature, bounty hunters, outlaws and Indian attacks-- in search of a safe haven.

**Pick of the Litter** Tiffany Girl by Deeanne Gist

As preparations for the 1893 World’s Fair set Chicago and the nation on fire, Louis Tiffany—heir to the exclusive Fifth Avenue jewelry empire—seizes the opportunity to unveil his state-of-the-art, stained glass, mosaic chapel, the likes of which the world has never seen.

But when Louis’s dream is threatened by a glassworkers’ strike months before the Fair opens, he turns to an unforeseen source for help: the female students at the New York Art Institute. Eager for adventure, the young women pick up their skirts, move to boarding houses, take up steel cutters, and assume new identities as the “Tiffany Girls.”

Tiffany Girls is the heartwarming story of the impetuous Flossie Jayne, a beautiful, budding artist who is handpicked by Louis to help complete the Tiffany chapel. Though excited to live in a boarding house when most women stayed home, she quickly finds the world is less welcoming than anticipated. From a Casanova male, to an unconventional married couple, and a condescending singing master, she takes on a colorful cast of characters to transform the boarding house into a home while racing to complete the Tiffany chapel and make a name for herself in the art world.

As challenges mount, her ambitions become threatened from an unexpected quarter: her own heart. Who will claim victory? Her dreams or the captivating boarder next door?

Type: Historical Fiction
Heat: N/A
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars **Pick of the Litter**

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Breathtakingly beautiful. It's not often that a novel leaves me stunned. Where I find myself closing the book and looking around the room with tears in my eyes wondering what in the world I'm going to do with myself next because I've just read something so overwhelmingly moving I'm simply stunned trying to process all of the emotions it's ripped out of me. Tiffany Girl..joined the ranks of the elite few that left me completely spent and raised the bar to near impossible heights for any future reads. Even weeks later as I'm sitting here editing this post one last time it has me fighting back tears just thinking about Flossie and everything she went through.

It Happened at the Fair (It Happened at the Fair #1) by Deeanne Gist

Gambling everything, including the family farm, Cullen McNamara travels to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair with his most recent invention. But the noise in the Fair’s Machinery Palace makes it impossible to communicate with potential buyers. In an act of desperation, he hires Della Wentworth, a teacher of the deaf, to tutor him in the art of lip-reading.

The young teacher is reluctant to participate, and Cullen has trouble keeping his mind on his lessons while intently watching her lips. Like the newly invented Ferris Wheel, he is caught in a whirl between his girl back home, his dreams as an inventor, and his unexpected attraction to his new tutor. Can he keep his feet on the ground, or will he be carried away?

Type: Historical Fiction
Heat: 1 out of 5
Rating: 4.5-5 out of 5

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Gist is one of those authors that just leaves me rather speechless--in an absolutely amazing and astonishing way. Blows me away and leaves me a whole bundle of emotions. And I love it! It Happened at the Fair was no different as two young individuals put everything they have on the line during the Chicago World's Fair in hopes of changing both their own futures and the lives of others.

Fair Play (It Happened at the Fair #2) by Deeanne Gist

Saddled with a man’s name, the captivating Billy Jack Tate makes no apologies for pursuing a man’s profession. As a lady doctor at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, she is one step closer to having her very own medical practice--until she doctors an imposing man who threatens the fulfillment of her dream.

Hunter is one of the elite. A Texas Ranger and World’s Fair guard specifically chosen for his height, physique, character, and skill. Hailed as the toughest man west of any place east, he has no patience for big cities and women who aspire to walk in a man's shoes.

But the abandoned baby Hunter discovers at the Fair finds him teaming up with the good doctor to give the foundling a better future than the slums of Chicago, where the children play on flea-infested, garbage-strewn streets. AS Billy and Hunter fight for the foundling's welfare, their hearts warm to the precious child--and to each other. Soon their concern grows to encompass the Nineteenth Ward's burgeoning population of street children. In the interest of fair play, Billy and Hunter let nothing stand in their way as they labor to build a park for them, birthing Chicago's first playground and a national movement that will sweep the nation.

But the Fair is coming to an end, posing impossible decisions for Billy and the man who has won her heart. Will they become a footnote in the Fair's history books, or will what they discovered in Chicago be longer lasting than the World's Exhibition.

Type: Historical Fiction
Heat: 1.5 out of 5
Rating: 4-4.5 out of 5

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I am...so glad I gave Fair Play a chance. Historical fiction isn't one of my normal genres but let me tell you. Gist about did me in with an incredible story of hope, heartbreak and love set during the final days of the 1893 Chicago World Fair as a lady doctor and a Texas Ranger are drawn together by an abandoned infant that sets their lives on a new course they never would have expected.