Birthday Giveaway!

I wanted to do something special to help celebrate my birthday week, and what better way than a giveaway? I have been wanting to host a giveaway to help clear some of my ARC’s from my bookshelf, and this seems like the perfect opportunity. I have six books that are up for grabs, with six different winners!

Second Time Around by Beth Kendrick- Tiffany Drew

The Summer We Read Gatsby by Danielle Ganek- Emily Wolff

Fly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner-Nancye Davis

Call Me Mrs. Miracle by Debbie Macomber-Michelle Bell

A Chesapeake Shores Christmas by Sherryl Woods-Kathy Shrum

Perfect on Paper by Maria Murnane- Marianne Morales

**This contest is now closed***

To enter:

1.       Send an email with your full mailing address to Samantha(at)chicklitplus.com. You will not be entered unless I have this email! When you send the email, please also include if there are specific books you would like to win. Or if you would like a chance at all of them, just say so!

2.       Post a comment below and let us know one of your favorite birthday memories.

3.       For bonus entries, spread the word! Post this contest on Facebook or Twitter.

That’s it! The contest will close the day after my birthday, on Thursday March 24. Please note that I will be choosing a different winner for each book. This contest is open for US residents only.

Second Time Around by Beth Kendrick

Ten years after graduating from Leighton College in New York, five friends hold a reunion, where they reminisce on old times. All former English majors, the women wonder what would have become of their lives if they had chosen a different major and profession. A professor, a bartender, a copyright, and an administrative assistant all get that second chance when the fifth member of the group passes away, leaving her four friends $1,000,000 to reinvent themselves.

Now, a novelist, an event planner, a pastry chef, and a bed and breakfast owner are finding the answers to their “what if” questions. They are finally following their dreams and desires, and are doing it together back in the town of their college. Finding their true callings amidst career struggles and love battles, the four friends grow closer to one another while honoring their friend’s spirit and life along the way.

Second Time Around by Beth Kendrick is a heart-felt story on the value of friendship and finding a way to follow your heart. Each woman’s story was interesting and colorful, and the way each character could tie in with one another was excellent. A unique subplot involving the deceased friend kept the mystery up throughout the novel, and the ending will make all readers satisfied.

In My Mailbox- Week of February 14

I have seen the “In My Mailbox” feature from quite a few other book sites, so I decided to try it out for myself! Each week, I will list what books I have either bought, got from the library, borrowed from friends, received from authors, etc. Enjoy!

 

Title: Second Time Around

Author: Beth Kendrick

Received: From Beth Kendrick for Review

Synopsis:

Thanks to an unexpected inheritance, four college friends get an opportunity to start over and pursue their dream jobs. But the road not taken has a few speed bumps…

 

Every summer, a group of former English majors hold a mini-reunion. They laugh, reminisce, and commiserate about their soul-sucking jobs. Maybe they should have listened to everyone who warned them to study something “practical.”

 

Then an unexpected windfall arrives—one million dollars, to be exact—with the stipulation that they use it to jump-start their new careers. Almost overnight, a professor, a bartender, a copywriter, and an administrative assistant reinvent themselves as a bed-and-breakfast owner, a pastry chef, a novelist, and an event planner. But the changes in their professional roles create unexpected turbulence in their personal lives, and soon the secrets and scandals from their past resurface.

 

 For anyone who has ever wondered

“What if?”, this engaging novel provides a sweet, funny look at friendship, romance, and second chances.

 

 

Title: Pieces of Happily Ever After

Author: Irene Zutell

Received: From SheKnows.com for Review

Synopsis:

What happens after “happily ever after”? Alice Hirsh is about to find out…

Alice, a former New Yorker who thought she’d never feel at home in the bizarre world of the San Fernando Valley, was adapting, raising her 5-year-old daughter while trying to keep her job and make her new house a home. When her attorney husband lands a trophy client – box-office queen Rose Maris – things begin to look up. Then Alex starts working late – a lot. He crunches his paunch into a six-pack and trades his Gap ensembles for Armani everything.

Soon, Rose and Alex’s affair blazes in the tabloids and Alice is plunged into trash-gossip hell. Her life crumbles around her as she navigates her newly single self through suburban LA –a place rife with porn stars, psycho soccer moms and nutty neighbors.

Is there a chance to wrest Alex from the Sexiest Woman Alive? And if so… would Alice want him back? And what about George–her college sweatheart? Or Johnny, a walking charm-bomb paparazzo? As Alice inventories the rubble of her life, she desperately searches for her bearings and is forced to ask herself what she really wants from life, love and herself.

 

Title: Bergdorf Blondes

Author: Plum Sykes

Received: Public Library

Synopsis: Plum Sykes’s beguiling debut welcomes readers to the glamorous world of Park Avenue Princesses, the girls who careen through Manhattan in search of the perfect Fake Bake (tan acquired from Portofino Tanning Salon), a ride on a PJ (private jet) with the ATM (rich boyfriend), and the ever-elusive fiancé.

With invitations to high-profile baby showers and benefits, more Marc Jacobs clothes than is decent, and a department store heiress for a best friend, our heroine known only as Moi is living at the peak of New York society. But what is Moi to do when her engagement falls apart? Can she ever find happiness in a city filled with the distractions of Front Row Girls, dermatologists, premieres, and eyebrow waxes? Is it possible to find love in a town where her friends think that the secret to happiness is getting invited to the Van Cleef and Arpels über-private sample sale? And how is she going to deal with the endless phone calls from her mother in England demanding that she get married to the Earl next door?

With enormous wit and an insider’s eye, Sykes captures the nuances of the rich and spoiled in a heartwarming social satire, featuring a loveable “champagne bubble of a girl” who’s just looking for love (and maybe the perfect pair of Chloé jeans).

 

Title: The Debutante Divorcee

Author: Plum Sykes

Received: Public Library

Synopsis: A major national media event when published in hardcover, this delicious follow-up to Bergdorf Blondes was an immediate New York Times bestseller and confirmed Plum Sykes’ status as a literary superstar.

Sylvie Mortimer has just married and is blissfully happy with The Divine New Husband, Hunter. Sylvie’s new friend, Lauren Blount, is very rich, very young, very thin, very pretty — and very, very divorced. The most reckless and glamorous of Manhattan’s Debutante Divorcée set, Lauren captivates Sylvie, the group’s token newlywed. But while Lauren sets out on a morality-lite, orgasm-heavy “Make Out Challenge,” Sylvie discovers her marriage isn’t exactly an Eternity ad — especially when the city’s most notorious Husband Huntress zeros in on her spouse.

Fashionably Late by Beth Kendrick

Becca Davis has a boring life. She doesn’t quite realize just how boring and predictable it has become until her boyfriend, Kevin Bradley, pops the question on her. She is twenty-five years old and living with her parents in Phoenix. She needs a change of pace. What could be more perfect then moving to Los Angeles, where Becca’s rich, married sister Claire is living the good life. So Becca breaks it off with her controlling fiancé and heads to LA. She has dreams to start a fashion career, and may have gotten her big break when she meets Fiona, a celebrity stylist who needs someone to put her clients together. In the meantime, Becca takes a part-time job as a hostess in an upscale restaurant, run by the sexy and adventurous Connor Sullivan. Becca feels the connection between them, but can she convince Connor of the same?

Fashionably Late by Beth Kendrick has fashion, celebrities, and romance, all with a witty and clever tone. The heroine has a story to tell, coming a long way from a floundering, boring young woman, to becoming a risk-taking, self aware individual. The supporting characters are well written, with unique tales as well, making Fashionably Late an irrestistible chick lit novel.