Book Review: The Shadow Year by Hannah Richell
Reviewer: Samantha I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Summary: Still grieving the death of her prematurely delivered infant,…
Future Tour: If I Say Yes by Brandy Jellum
Brandy Jellum will be on tour June 30-July 14 with her romantic suspense novel If I Say Yes Elizabeth Lewis was the child of Hollywood’s darling…
Book Review: If I Say Yes by Brandy Jellum
Reviewer: Michelle I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Summary: Elizabeth Lewis was the child of Hollywood’s darling couple,…
Book Review: The Perfect Location by Kate Forster
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Summary:
Three glamorous actresses gliding through a life lived on the silver screen. One Hollywood Blockbuster. One perfect location.
Rose Nightingale is an English actress recovering from a bad marriage, who wonders if her dream being a mother will ever come true.
Sapphira De Mont is the world’s most beautiful movie star,
but hides a secret addiction and the deepest of grief imaginable.
Calypso Gable is a young star on the rise trying to escape
her mum-manager’s clutches and find her independence.
As they come together on set in the Italian hills, they are faced with their biggest battles yet, but they soon learn that friendship is the greatest weapon a woman can have.
Review:
The Perfect Location is a cute story that brings together a range of different characters. Sapphira’s story was the most interesting for me to read about, because she had such a secret life hidden from everyone, even those closest to her. I connected the most with Calypso, probably due to her age, but each woman brought an element to the story. The book was pretty long and dragged for me at parts, but the parts I found intriguing I really enjoyed reading. I just wish a lot of the unneeded plot points were cut out so my interest was held longer. Still cute, but not for you if you are looking for a quick read.
3 stars
Book Review: Grim edited by Christine Johnson
Reviewer: Andrea I received a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. The Summary: Inspired by classic fairy tales, but with a…
CLP Blog Tours Book Review: Unwell by Marie Chow
Marie Chow is now on tour with CLP Blog Tours and Unwell
Summary:
How do you tell your child that you won’t be there when they grow up? UNWELL is the raw, honest story of a mother who writes to her unborn child, sharing her decision of choosing not to be a mother. She doesn’t choose abortion. Nor does she consider adoption. Instead, she decides to give her child a fighting chance in life, without the angst and drama that’s shaped her own bittersweet life.
With a poignant lack of emotion, the young mother shares her life story. As the child of Asian parents who moved to America early in her life, the mother shares how her life disintegrated after her parents’ divorce. From upper middle class suburban to sharing her mean aunt’s house to a one bedroom apartment in a shabby neighborhood, this mother endures the indignity that comes with the change of status. From her father’s absence to her mother becoming a married man’s mistress, her story reads like a tragic Victorian novel set in the 21st century, but that’s where the similarity ends—she is definitely not a shy country miss and she certainly did not take the easy way out.
This amazing story chronicles the life of a woman who fought for everything she got, faced her demons and made the hard choices. Her fortitude and candor are disarming, her avant-garde views strangely endearing. You’ve never read a book like this and probably never will again. Get your copy today and take the literary journey of a lifetime. Through this glimpse into the life of a woman of integrity, sacrifice and love, you’ll feel her pain, live her failures and cheer for the meager joys that come her way. But the one thing you’ll never do… is forget her. Or her story.
Review:
When I first started reading Unwell, I was trying to figure out just where the book would take us. Was this a suicide note? Was it being written to a baby who wouldn’t make it after birth? Did the mom plan on putting it up for adoption or just walking away from the family? That air of mystery drove this story from beginning to end, where it all comes together in a beautiful resolution to the book, and made me close with my Kindle with feeling after I read the last word. It’s a very touching, realistic and raw story, and quite captivating throughout.
4 stars
Future Tour: French Toast by Glynis Astie
Glynis Astie will be on tour July 7-August 4 with her chick lit novel French Toast Sydney Bennett is back! And her pursuit of perfection is…
CLP Blog Tours Sign Up: Not Quite Dead by Lyla …
Lyla Payne will be on tour in July with her mystery/paranormal novel Not Quite Dead. I am looking for book bloggers to post reviews, guest posts, interviews,…
In My Mailbox: Week of May 19
Title: The Curvy Girls Club
Author: Michele Gorman
Received: Notting Hill Press
Synopsis: A funny, heart-warming story about overcoming the prejudices we hold, no matter where we tip the scales.
When the pounds start falling off Katie, founder and president of London’s most popular social club for the calorie-challenged, it seems like a dream come true. But as the overweight stigma recedes and her life starts to change, she faces losing more than the inches around her waist. Everything that’s important to her – her closest friends, boyfriend, and acceptance into the club itself – are at stake in a world where thin is the new fat.
Title: The No-Kid Club
Author: Talli Roland
Received: Talli Roland
Synopsis: At almost forty, Clare Donoghue is living child-free and loving it.
Then her boyfriend says he wants kids, breaking off their promising relationship. And it’s not just boyfriends: one by one, her formerly carefree friends are swallowed up in a nonstop cycle of play dates and baby groups. So Clare declares enough is enough and decides it’s time for people who don’t have children to band together. And so the No-Kids Club is born.
As the group comes together—Anna, who’s seeking something to jumpstart a stale marriage, and Poppy, desperate for a family but unable to conceive—Clare’s hoping to make the most of the childless life with her new friends. But is living child-free all it’s cracked up to be?
Title: Right Click
Author: Lisa Becker
Received: Lisa Becker
Synopsis: Love. Marriage. Infidelity. Parenthood. Crises of identity. Death. Cupcakes. The themes in Right Click, the third and final installment in the Click series, couldn’t be more pressing for this group of friends as they navigate through their 30’s. Another six months have passed since we last eavesdropped on the hilarious, poignant and often times inappropriate email adventures of Renee and friends. As the light-hearted, slice of life story continues to unfold, relationships are tested and some need to be set “right” before everyone can find their “happily ever after.”
Title: The Breakup Doctor
Author: Phoebe Fox
Received: Phoebe Fox
Synopsis: A broken leg requires an orthopedist. A broken car requires a mechanic. And a broken heart requires a specialist too. The Breakup Doctor is now in.
Call Brook Ogden a matchmaker-in-reverse. Let others bring people together; Brook, licensed mental health counselor, picks up the pieces after things come apart. When her own therapy practice collapses, she maintains perfect control: landing on her feet with a weekly advice-to-the-lovelorn column and a successful consulting service as the Breakup Doctor: on call to help you shape up after you breakup.
But when her own relationship suddenly crumbles, Brook finds herself engaging in almost every bad-breakup behavior she preaches against. And worse, she starts a rebound relationship with the most inappropriate of men: a dangerously sexy bartender with anger-management issues—who also happens to be a former patient.
As her increasingly out-of-control behavior lands her at rock-bottom, Brook realizes you can’t always handle a messy breakup neatly—and that sometimes you can’t pull yourself together until you let yourself fall apart.
Title: I Like You Just the Way I Am
Author: Jenny Mollen
Received: St. Martins Press
Synopsis: By the actress, writer, and one of the funniest women on Twitter, an outrageous, hysterical memoir of acting on impulse, plotting elaborate hoaxes, and refusing to acknowledge boundaries in any form
Jenny Mollen is an actress and writer living in Los Angeles. She is also a wife, married to a famous guy (which is annoying only because he gets free shit and she doesn’t). She doesn’t want much from life. Just to be loved—by everybody: her parents, her dogs, her ex-boyfriends, her ex-boyfriends’ dogs, her husband, her husband’s ex-girlfriends, her husband’s ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriends, etc. Some people might call that impulse crazy, but isn’t “crazy” really just a word boring people use to describe fun people? (And Jenny is really, really fun, you guys!)
In these pages, you’ll find stories of Jenny at her most genuine, whether it’s stalking her therapist (because he knows everything about her so shouldn’t she get to know everything about him?); throwing a bachelorette party so bad that one of the guests is suspected dead; or answering the eternal question, Would your best friend blow your husband on a car ride to dinner if she didn’t know you were hiding in the backseat?
I Like You Just the Way I Am is about not doing the right thing—about indulging your inner crazy-person. It is Jenny when she’s not trying to impress anyone or come across as a responsible, level-headed member of society. With any luck it will make you better acquainted with who you really are and what you really want. Which, let’s be honest, is most likely someone else’s email password.
