I’m Married!
So…I got married. Yes, I know this post is only about 2 months late, but do you know how crazy one can become after the…
Chick Lit Plus
Celebrity gossip, articles on fashion, health, fitness, and beauty.
In My Mailbox: Week of November 10
Title: Vegas to Varanasi
Author: Shelly Hickman
Received: CLP Blog Tours
Synopsis: Anna has never been the beautiful one; she’s always been the nice one. So when the gorgeous man sitting across the table at a wedding reception remembers her from high school—and quite fondly at that—she’s taken off guard. Formerly overweight and unpopular, Kiran has never forgotten Anna, the one person who was kind to him when no one else could be bothered, and Anna’s a bit flustered as she slowly comes to grips with his intense attraction for her. In what feels like a romantic dream come true, all-grown-up, hunky Kiran invites Anna on a trip to Varanasi. But her troubled, whack-a-do ex-boyfriend starts interfering, creating drama at every turn, which begs the question, “Can nice girls really finish first?”
Title: Last Christmas
Author: Talli Roland
Review: Talli Roland
Synopsis: For Lucy, the best Christmas present is forgetting the past.
Eager to banish the ghost of Christmas past – when her boyfriend dumped her on the streets of Paris – Lucy is determined to make this the best Christmas ever. She rallies friends and family for an epic celebration that just happens to fall on the same day as her ex’s festive wedding. Furious at how she’s been treated, Lucy can’t help relishing the party v wedding smackdown.
But when the wedding is threatened and only Lucy can help, can she find the spirit inside to save the day, or will this Christmas be even more disastrous than the last?
Title: Doubting Abbey
Author: Samantha Tonge
Received: Samantha Tonge
Synopsis: Swapping downstairs for upstairs… How hard can it be!? Look up the phrase ordinary girl and you’ll see a picture of me, Gemma Goodwin – I only look half-decent after applying the entire contents of my make-up bag, and my dating track-record includes a man who treated me to dinner…at a kebab shop. No joke! The only extraordinary thing about me is that I look EXACTLY like my BFF, Abbey Croxley. Oh, and that for reasons I can’t explain, I’ve agreed to swap identities and pretend be her to star in the TV show about her aristocratic family’s country estate, Million Dollar Mansion. So now it’s not just my tan I’m faking – it’s Kate Middleton style demure hemlines and lady-like manners too. And amongst the hundreds of fusty etiquette rules I’m trying to cram into my head, there are two I really must remember; 1) No-one can ever find out that I’m just Gemma, who’d be more at home in the servants quarters. And 2) There can be absolutely no flirting with Abbey’s dishy but buttoned-up cousin, Lord Edward. Aaargh, this is going to be harder than I thought…
Title: It Would Be Wrong to Steal My Sister’s Boyfriend (Wouldn’t It?)
Author: Sophie Ranald
Received: Sophie Ranald
Synopsis: You live together, laugh together, borrow her shoes and eyeliner – is there anything you can’t share with your sister?
Ellie’s younger sister Rose has it all. She’s beautiful, stylish and dates gorgeous, glamorous millionaires, while Ellie is quite happy watching TV on the sofa with her old mate Ben. But when Rose brings her new boyfriend home, it’s lust at first sight for Ellie. And although she knows it’s wrong, everything changes: she’ll do whatever it takes to get Oliver, even if it means abandoning her principles and turning a deaf ear to her friends. After all, would it be so wrong to take up running, put some highlights in her hair and make herself look a tiny, little bit more like Rose? But as Ellie follows in her sister’s stiletto-heeled footsteps, she realises that finding love could mean losing the most important thing in the world.
It Would Be Wrong to Steal My Sister’s Boyfriend… is a warm, witty whirlwind romance. If you’re a fan of Tracy Bloom, Pippa Wright and Mhairi McFarlane, you’ll love Sophie Ranald.
Title: The End
Author: Denise Moncrief
Received: Denise Moncried
Synopsis: Sometimes the end is only the beginning.
Almost a year after her husband dies, Ellie Marston opens the file for Tab’s last manuscript, a thriller so compelling it reads like a true story. His manuscript needs an ending, so Ellie writes the obvious conclusion. The same morning she types The End, her career as an assistant district attorney falls apart. Accused of throwing the high profile Patterson case, she resigns in disgrace. The only friend she has left in the criminal justice system is Det. Paul Santiago, a man she has worked closely with on numerous cases. While she was married to Tab, she squashed her growing feelings for Paul, determined to make her deteriorating marriage work, but circumstances after Tab’s death bring Ellie and Paul together.
Ellie’s paranoia increases as she becomes convinced Patterson is harassing her, certain that someone is searching her belongings for any hidden evidence she might have that would reopen his case. It becomes clear there was a conspiracy to release Patterson. She seeks help from her former co-worker, Presley Sinclair, but soon discovers Presley is deeply involved in the subsequent cover up. Worse yet, Tab’s affair with Presley drew him into the twisted conspiracy as well.
Together Paul and Ellie attempt to uncover the conspiracy in the District Attorney’s office, the set up that forced her to resign. The key to the mystery is hidden in the pages of Tab’s manuscript. Once Paul and Ellie come to the correct conclusion—Tab’s manuscript is a true story and Ellie’s added ending is the only logical outcome—Ellie attempts to reveal Patterson’s hidden partner in the District Attorney’s office, but the co-conspirator she uncovers is not whom she suspects. Danger swirls around her as she steps further and further into the conspirator’s trap.
Title: Wish Upon a Star
Author: Trisha Ashley
Received: LightBrigade PR
Synopsis: Cookery columnist and author Cally’s world is turned upside down when her baby daughter is born with serious heart problems. Her ex disappeared when she was pregnant, and Cally has spent much of the early years of daughter Stella’s life at the hospital. When Stella’s only hope is hugely expensive life-saving surgery in the States, Cally moves in with her mother in the rural village of Sticklepond, to save money for the operation.
The village rallies round and begins fund raising with a vengeance, including the laid back and rather handsome baker Jago, who is still trying to escape the clutches of his controlling ex-fiance. With everything that is going on, the last thing Cally wants to do is fall in love, but she is also tired of going it alone. In the run up to Christmas, the true spirit of the festive season begins to show.
A warmly told tale that takes Trisha Ashley fans back to Sticklepond, with colourful characters old and new.
In My Mailbox: Week of November 3
Title: Driving Me to You
Author: Julie Farrell
Received: CLP Blog Tours
Synopsis: When Sam meets her sister’s sexy mechanic, Verlaine, she instantly falls for those gorgeous brown eyes and rugged charms, and a secret romance begins. Unfortunately, there’s unfinished business between Sam and her monstrous childhood nemesis. No, not her sister Gemma, but her late-father’s beloved Bentley.
Gemma is struggling to save the family vintage-car business, and it doesn’t help that little sis has just swanned back home, with no intention of helping. Gemma knows the only solution is to involve Sam’s old flame, the charismatic venture capitalist, Marcus Priestley. But Marcus is compelled to win Sam back, and he certainly won’t let the hired help muscle-in.
Verlaine is Gemma’s sexy mechanic, who’s trying to blag it as a chauffeur. But he’s so bad at tying his necktie, he looks like a stripper at a hen night. Working with Gemma’s vintage cars is his dream job, but things get complicated when he falls for the boss’s sister and sets himself up as rival to Marcus. Then the road trip adventure from London to Brighton beach begins!
Who will Sam choose in the love triangle? The penniless new love or the wealthy ex? And how will she tame the Bentley, to become the strong and powerful woman that she’s always known she could be?
This charming comedy covers modern issues for modern women, such as dating, relationships, careers, friendship, and, of course, love.
Title: White Lies
Author: Emily Harper
Received: Emily Harper
Synopsis: Imagine standing in line at Harvey Nichols waiting to buy the most gorgeous silk Gucci dress. The only minor problem? You can’t afford it, it’s a size smaller than you are, and you have absolutely no place to wear it.
Meet Natalie Flemming: a twenty-something woman working in London for a fabulous shoe-designing firm, but the only thing they let her touch is the company’s tax forms. She has decided to give fate a vacation and takes the task of finding the man of her dreams (or Johnny Depp if he would just return her calls…) into her own hands.
She craves adventure, spontaneity, passion- or will just settle for a decent date.
Title: Love & Limoncello
Author: Alexandra Sage
Received: Alexandra Sage
Synopsis: Disgruntled City lawyer Alessia Vincenzi is bullied at work by the boss from hell and increasingly frustrated with her volatile love life revolving around commitment-phobe Matt and reserved workaholic Josh.
When Alessia is made redundant following a drunken email rant at her bosses, she quickly takes up her cousin Luca’s offer to spend the summer at his luxury villa in Sorrento, and attend the high-profile opening of his new restaurant, ‘Decadenza’.
Disappointed when work prevents Josh from spending a week at the villa with three other friends – Sophie, Charles and Giles – Alessia soon meets hard-up but hunky gardener Antonio, and handsome but intense artist Giancarlo, and tries her hand at making limoncello as a money-making scheme to help Antonio.
Following a disastrous date with Giancarlo, things get increasingly complicated when Josh unexpectedly flies out to Sorrento, and it soon becomes clear that a disturbing secret ties Alessia’s family with Giancarlo’s, threatening Alessia’s chances with Josh, and leading to potentially fatal consequences.
Title: Broken
Author: CJ Lyons
Received: Sourcebooks
Synopsis: For Scarlet Killian, every day is a game of Russian roulette—she has a 1 in 5 chance of dying…
New York Times bestselling author CJ Lyons makes her YA debut with a fast-paced thriller sure to keep readers guessing to the very last page.
Fifteen-year-old Scarlet Killian has one chance for a normal life. Only problem? It just might kill her. Diagnosed with a rare and untreatable heart condition, Scarlet has never taken the school bus. Or giggled with friends during lunch. Or spied on a crush out of the corner of her eye. Scarlet has come to terms with the fact that despite the best efforts of her doctors and parents, she’s going to die. Literally of a broken heart. So when her parents offer her a week to prove she can survive high school, Scarlet knows her time is now… or never.
Scarlet can feel her heart beating out of control with every slammed locker and every sideways glance in the hallway. But for the first time in her life she makes real friends. She also makes new discoveries about the truth behind her illness… a truth that might just kill her before her heart does.
Title: Dangled Carat
Author: Hilary Grossman
Received: Hilary Grossman
Synopsis: Hilary had gotten used to dating the commitment-phobic Marc, thirteen years her senior. They had a great relationship—why rush into things? She saw no need to pressure him for marriage, believing that when the time was right, he would propose. But after they had been together for four years, their friends decided to take matters into their own hands, pushing Marc to propose and making Hilary realize how much she really did want to marry the man that she loved. Unfortunately, Marc still wasn’t ready—and their friends’ meddling in the form of a faux engagement party led to a disastrous New Year’s Eve that brought their relationship to an inevitable turning point.
In this relatable, lighthearted, and playful memoir, Hilary reminisces about her life before Marc—from the insecure and awkward teenage years she spent in a back brace and dealing with the loss of her father, to her early relationships and, finally, to the day she met Marc and realized that she really wanted to see him again. Through their first date—even though Hilary was technically seeing someone else at the time—and the ease of their early time together until Marc first decided that they were moving too quickly, up until that fateful New Year’s Eve, Hilary shares the details of their relationship and how Marc’s inability to commit led her to find an inner strength and confidence she didn’t know she possessed.
For anyone who has ever dated a commitment-phobe, who has found their patience wearing thin with the one they love, or who has sat around wondering if he is ever going to pop the question while trying to remain the very picture of patience and grace, Hilary’s humorous and honest story will hit home.
Title: Christmas Bliss
Author: Mary Kay Andrews
Received: Tandem Literary
Synopsis: ‘Twas the night before Christmas, and Savannah was breezy
But there’s trouble afoot – and it’s heading toward Weezie.
Seems BeBe’s been holding a big secret back
that would make Santa’s reindeer stop dead in their tracks.
Can these two best friends wriggle out of these twists?
Will they do it in time to ensure CHRISTMAS BLISS?
Return to the wonderful world of Mary Kay Andrews’ Savannah with Christmas Bliss.
The Grief of Glee
Contributor: Allie The Grief of Glee Watching Glee has always put me in a good. How can you not smile at the joy the cast…
In My Mailbox: Week of October 27
Title: The Art of Being Rebekkah
Author: Karoline Barrett
Received: Via CLP Blog Tours
Synopsis: When Rebekkah Gelles suspects her husband, Avram of not only lying to her, but also contriving not to have the children she so desperately wants and embezzling money from his business, she wants out of their marriage. Her life gets complicated when she falls in love with detective Nick Rossi. Convinced Nick’s wrong for her—he’s not Jewish for one thing—she walks away after they share a night of passion. Nick warns her even though he loves her, he won’t beg. Their budding relationship seems to have ended. When Rebekkah finds herself staring at a positive pregnancy test, she wavers between joy and sadness. Motherhood wasn’t supposed to happen this way.
Title: The Sister Season
Author: Jennifer Scott
Received: Penguin Group
Synopsis: Sometimes coming home for the holidays isn’t as easy as it seems….
It’s December 21, and the Yancey sisters have been called home. When the girls were young, holidays at their family farm meant a tinsel-garnished tree, the scent of simmering food, and laughter ringing through the house. But as the years unfolded, family bonds fractured, and the three sisters scattered and settled into separate lives. Until now. The Yancey sisters are coming to spend the holidays with their mother. They’re also coming to bury their father.
Claire, the youngest, a free spirit who journeyed to California, returns first. Then comes Julia, the eldest, a college professor with a teenage son of her own. And finally there’s Maya, the middle child, who works so hard to be the perfect mother and wife.
During the sisters’ week together, old conflicts surface, new secrets emerge, and the limits and definitions of family are tested. And as the longest night of the year slips by and brightening days beckon, the sisters will have to answer one question: When you’re a sister, aren’t you a sister forever?
Title: Where the Pink Houses Are
Author: Rebekah Ruth
Received: Rebekah Ruth
Synopsis: When unthinkable tragedy strikes, will Brenna and her mother-in-law, Anna, find healing half a world away amid the green Irish hills? Brenna begins to think she may be able to build a new life in a new land when Anna’s eccentric family welcomes her with open arms. But it’s in the arms of the town heartbreaker, Luke Dillon, that she begins to wonder if she can truly fall in love again.
Luke is a handsome charmer who’s used to getting what he wants. Just talking to him ties Brenna’s stomach in knots and sets her cheeks ablaze. He’s persistent too. She tells him she’s not interested but he doesn’t listen. Secretly, she loves his attention but something tells her to be careful. Is he good for her or will a relationship with him lead her straight into more heartbreak?
As if one confusing relationship isn’t enough, when Brenna meets Ryan Kelly she’s instantly drawn to him. He’s like no guy she’s ever met. While every guy in town has been asking her out, Ryan doesn’t seem to have any romantic interest in her at all. He’s much older than she is and he’s only interested in friendship–yet she can’t stop thinking about him.
Brenna questions her sanity when she finds herself falling for two very different men at the same time. As always, Anna has comforting and wise advice but Brenna needs to decide for herself as she struggles to understand God’s plan for her life. Should she give in to Luke’s attentions? Will her new friendship with Ryan become something more? Or will events that none of them can foresee take her life down a frightening new path?
Title: Suburban Underbelly
Author: Michele Theron
Received: Michele Theron
Synopsis: For suburban moms Quinn, Jill, and Lucy, freedom from motherhood as a competitive sport starts innocently enough: three hours a week without kids. And what could be the harm in indulging a fantasy or two? Before they know it, things are careening way out of control. Sexy, snarky, smart, and laugh-out-loud funny, SUBURBAN UNDERBELLY takes you on the ride of a lifetime with the best friends we all wish we had.
Title: Because of You
Author: Kathryn Starke
Received: Kathryn Starke
Synopsis: Lilly, the main character, never wanted to settle, not in her education, her career, and especially not in her relationships. She observes the countless number of couples in her circle of family and friends, but is unsure if marriage is actually for her. At thirty-one, she is convinced she has finally found the man of her dreams. It is not until her actual wedding day, when she shares a conversation with a mysterious stranger in a hotel elevator, that she begins to question her “happily ever after.” An instant connection with this new male leads her to doubt what and who she believes in. She recalls flashbacks of her courtship with fiance Patrick Wellington and begins to wonder if she is indeed settiling for the first time in her life, which scares her to no end. Lilly struggles internally with her decision and begins debating between two lifestyles. Will Lilly marry Patrick or will she ultimately start her search for love all over again?
In My Mailbox: Week of October 20
Alone in an empty house, Lucy tries to imagine the lives of her two young children. They have been gone for seven years, and she is tormented by the role she played in that heartbreaking loss. You can hardly see a glimpse of the sexy, edgy woman she used to be. Back then, she was a magnet for men like Matt, who loved her beyond reason, and Griffin, who wouldn’t let go but always left her wanting more. Now the lies they told and the choices they made have come to haunt all three of them.
With shattering turns, Lies You Wanted to Hear explores the way good people talk themselves into doing terrible, unthinkable things. What happens when we come to believe our own lies? And what price must we pay for our mistakes?
A searing story that will leave you wondering what choices you would make, Lies You Wanted to Hear is a stunning debut.
Beauty Review: Garnier Sleek and Shine Moroccan Sleek Oil Treatment
People…meet my new best friend! I’ve always struggled with frizzy hair and have tried (and reviewed) about a zillion products, and much like I have a go-to moisturizer, I now have a go-to hair product. Garnier Sleek and Shine Moroccan Sleek Oil Treatment is a must when I get out of the shower. I was worried that an oil would make my hair greasy and gross looking, but I’m so happy with the way my hair looks when I use this. The smell is great, it makes my hair soft and frizz-free, and it has a healthy shine to it that I rarely ever see. I’ve been recommending this product left and right, and I hope you can grab a bottle if you have unruly hair – it’s quite inexpensive! I was looking through the reviews and one gal says she even uses some mixed in with her conditioner when she showers – you can bet I’m trying that idea out right away!
5 stars
New Releases: October 2013
Contributor: Allie October is my favorite month. The back-to-school routine has worked itself out and the holiday madness still seems like it’s months away. Don’t…
Lauren Conrad Engaged!
Congratulations are in order for Lauren Conrad! The former reality star got engaged to law student William Tell over the weekend. Conrad, 27, shared the news on her blog today. “I am very excited to share with you guys that William and I got engaged over the weekend. I am beyond thrilled!” She also posted a picture of her new bling, and it’s gorgeous! I was always Team Conrad during the Laguna Beach days, and it’s been fun to watch her move away from reality TV and into more fashion and design work, and I’ll definitely be interested in seeing what she chooses for her wedding dress!
