On Tour: Riverstar by Tess Thompson
Tess will be on tour September 2-9 with her novel Riverstar After ending a dysfunctional affair with a powerful movie producer, feisty Hollywood makeup artist…
Book Review: While We Were Watching Downton Abbey by Wendy …
While We Were Watching Downton Abbey, by Wendy Wax, centers on three woman, Samantha, Claire, and Brooke, all residents of a Midtown Atlanta apartment building, who are each at different crossroads in their lives. Samantha is contemplating 25 years of marriage to a man she doesn’t think she loves. Claire is the divorced single mother whose daughter has just left for college. She’s starting over in a new place, with a new job as full time novelist. Brooke is the harried mother of two young children, and recently divorced from a narcissistic plastic surgeon who continues to chip away at her self-esteem.
At first the women don’t seem to have much in common. When the building’s concierge starts a Sunday night viewing party for Downtown Abbey, the women begin to bond. As they become friends, each experiences a personal crisis. The selfish actions of Samantha’s siblings threaten her already fragile marriage, Claire’s career ends up in shambles and Brooke can’t find the strength to face the machinations of her Ex. On their own, they’re unable to help themselves, but together they find the strength to persevere. Things get uncomfortably complicated when something terrible happens that threatens to destroy their friendships.
I’ve read all of Wendy Wax’s books and she’s a wonderful writer, expert at creating realistic women who come alive on the pages. I liked Samantha, Claire and Brooke, even when I was frustrated by them, which I sadly was sometimes. All three have self-esteem issues that I just wanted to shake out of them. Conversely, there were some characters that I just couldn’t stand – Hunter, Zachery, Meredith! They were so selfish and mean-spirited that it was almost cartoonish. More than once, I wanted to throw the book over things they’d said and done.
I live in the Atlanta area, so I love the descriptions of the city and its citizens, which in my opinion are dead on. What really resonates with me though, is the story of friendship between the women. Meeting late in life, they’re tentative with one other at first, which is natural because it’s hard to make friends late in life. I know this, because I hear women lament about it all the time. But I think once a connection is made, these friendships can be deeper than the fleeting ones of our youth. I enjoyed their interactions and the slow, authentic development of their relationship.
Before I read this book, I’d never seen Downton Abbey – although I’m now addicted! Other than a plot point that brings the women together by way of their shared love for the show, the series has very little to do with the story. The book is an enjoyably easy read about friendship and how it can help us during our darkest times. Although I think it’s better classified as women’s fiction than chick lit, it’s still a fun ride.
Book Review: The List of Possibilities by Miriam Brady and …
Reviewer: Terry I was given this book in exchange for an honest review. It would be impossible not to read book two in this series…
In My Mailbox: Week of August 25
Title: Hijack in Abstract
Author: Larissa Reinhart
Received: CLP Blog Tours
Synopsis: With a classical series sold and a portrait commissioned, Cherry Tucker’s art career is in Georgia overdrive. But when the sheriff asks Cherry to draw a composite sketch of a hijacker, her life takes a hairpin as the composite leads to a related murder, her local card-sharking buddy Max Avtaikin becomes bear bait and her nemesis labels the classical series “pervert art.”
Cherry’s jamming gears between trailer parks, Atlanta mansions, and trucker bars searching for the hijacker who left a widow and orphan destitute. While she seeks to help the misfortunate and save her local reputation, Cherry’s hammer down attitude has her facing the headlights of an oncoming killer.
The Husband’s Secret by Liane MoriartyTitle: The Husband’s Secret
Author: Liane Moriarty
Received: She Reads
Synopsis: At the heart of The Husband’s Secret is a letter that’s not meant to be read
My darling Cecilia, if you’re reading this, then I’ve died. . .
Imagine that your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret—something with the potential to destroy not just the life you built together, but the lives of others as well. Imagine, then, that you stumble across that letter while your husband is still very much alive. . . .
Cecilia Fitzpatrick has achieved it all—she’s an incredibly successful businesswoman, a pillar of her small community, and a devoted wife and mother. Her life is as orderly and spotless as her home. But that letter is about to change everything, and not just for her: Rachel and Tess barely know Cecilia—or each other—but they too are about to feel the earth-shattering repercussions of her husband’s secret.
Acclaimed author Liane Moriarty has written a gripping, thought-provoking novel about how well it is really possible to know our spouses—and, ultimately, ourselves.
Title: The Theory of Opposites
Author: Allison Winn Scotch
Received: Get Red PR
Synopsis: In her anticipated fifth novel THE THEORY OF OPPOSITES (Publication date: November 12, 2013), New York Times bestselling author Allison Winn Scotch takes readers on one woman’s trek to cast aside her doubts and start owning her choices.
Willa Chandler-Golden and Shawn Golden, aka “Shilla,” are perfectly comfortable. As a couple they do EVERTHING together. They never argue. There aren’t any over-arching marital issues. They’re even trying for a baby. But when Willa spots a credit card receipt to a trendy Manhattan club in Shawn’s wallet, she senses that something is awry with her handsome but nerdy better half.
Soon after her discovery, her neat house of cards collapses at rapid speed. Willa is fired from her job. She learns that her tween nephew is moving in. Her Yogi-to-the-Stars brother is indicted for a Ponzi scheme. Her best friend Vanessa gets the best writing gig on the hottest new reality show Dare You! And a former boyfriend has requested to be friended on Facebook . . . but that’s just the tip of the iceberg: Shawn announces—with a list of rules— that he wants a two month “break” from the marriage.
Is this her destiny or can Willa change the topsy-turvy direction of her life? According to her father—the author of the bestselling Is It Really Your Choice? Why Your Entire Life May Be Out of Your Control—you can’t escape the inevitable. It’s a thesis that Willa doubts, but one that’s controlled her life and has kept her in the safe cocoon of inertia.
Prodded by Vanessa, Willa signs on to help write The Theory of Opposites, a book that contradicts her father’s premise. Willa becomes a guinea pig for the book’s concept when she is dared by Vanessa to step out from behind her father’s shadow to live her life and take chances.
Will Willa be brave enough to get out of her own way and write her own map to a rewarding life?
THE THEORY OF OPPOSITES is Allison Winn Scotch’s heartfelt and funny tale about life’s curveballs and how to catch them … or not.
For the Love of Cupcakes by ANita KushwahaTitle: For the Love of Cupcakes
Author: Anita Kushwaha
Received: Anita Kushwaha
Synopsis: Priya Patel has wanted to become a baker since the first time she saw the light of her Easy Bake Oven. However, working as an assistant baker at Sugarplum Fairy Cakes isn’t the glamorous life she dreamed about. Priya tries to impress her boss, Helen Bouffant, with creative twists on traditional recipes but her culinary skills are completely ignored as she is forced to scrub toilets and clean up everyone else’s mess. After Priya is blamed for a major screw up at Sugarplum Fairy Cakes, she decides to throw in her apron. With the support of her husband, Arj, and a kick in the pants from her best friend, Mae, she decides to start her own cupcakery.
Just when Priya thinks she’s washed her hands of Helen once and for all, they both enter a charity bake off with a grand prize of $10,000. Priya will have to cook the most creative, delicious cupcakes of her life and defend herself against Helen, who will stop at nothing to see Priya and her cupcakery fail. The competition gets heated but there is one thing that will keep Priya going- the love of cupcakes. Does she have what it takes to win the bake-off? Whose talent will prevail?
For the Love of Cupcakes will leave your mouth watering for cupcakes and your cheeks sore from smiling.
The Reluctant Bride by Beverley EikliTitle: The Reluctant Bride
Author: Beverley Eikli
Received: Choc Lit
Synopsis: Can honour and action banish the shadows of old sins?
Emily Micklen has no option after the death of her loving fiancé, Jack, but to marry the scarred, taciturn, soldier who represents her only escape from destitution.
Major Angus McCartney is tormented by the reproachful slate-grey eyes of two strikingly similar women: Jessamine, his dead mistress, and Emily, the unobtainable beauty who is now his reluctant bride.
Emily’s loyalty to Jack’s memory is matched only by Angus’s determination to atone for the past and win his wife with honour and action. As Napoleon cuts a swathe across Europe, Angus is sent to France on a mission of national security, forcing Emily to confront both her allegiance to Jack and her traitorous half-French family.
Angus and Emily may find love, but will the secrets they uncover divide them forever?
You Knew Me When by Emily LiebertTitle: You Knew Me When
Author: Emily Liebert
Received: Sarah Hall Productions
Synopsis: Best friends forever…until life got in the way.
Katherine Hill left her small New England hometown in pursuit of a dream. Now, twelve years later, she’s a high-powered cosmetics executive in Manhattan and a much glossier version of her former self, unrecognizable to her family and old friends. Not that she would know—she hasn’t been home in over a decade.
Laney Marten always swore she’d never get “stuck” in Manchester, Vermont. No, she was destined to live out her glamorous big-city dreams. Instead, she wound up a young wife and mother. That was when her best friend ran out.
When Katherine receives word of an inheritance from former neighbor Luella Hancock, she reluctantly returns home to the people and places she left behind. Hoping for a second chance, she’s met by an unforgiving Laney, her former best friend. And there’s someone else who’s moved on without her—someone she once loved.
Tethered to their shared inheritance of Luella’s sprawling Victorian mansion, Katherine and Laney are forced to address their long-standing grudges. Through this, they come to understand that while life has taken them in different directions, ultimately the bonds of friendship and sisterhood still bind them together. But are some wounds too old and deep to mend?
Kiss Me In Paris by Kimberly KinradeTitle: Kiss Me in Paris
Author: Kimberly Kinrade & Dmytry Karpov
Received: Badass Marketing
Synopsis: When the city of love brings two lost souls together, only their darkest secrets can tear them apart.
Winter Deveaux tried love once. It didn’t end well. Unable to open herself up to another heartbreak, she hides in her romance novels as she struggles to break out as a real author. She thinks Paris holds the answer to a new start, but when her nightmare follows her across the world, she’s forced to face the darkness living like cancer inside her soul. If she doesn’t, she might miss her chance to become the kind of writer she’s always wanted to be. But more than that, she’ll miss out on the greatest love she’s ever known.
Cade Savage is heir to the largest ranching family in Texas. Part cowboy, part architect, Cade has his feet forever in two worlds. When he receives an acceptance letter from the school of his dreams, he must decide between family and destiny. But ghosts from his past still haunt him, and circumstances beyond his control may decide his fate.
When Winter and Cade meet, everything they believe about life, love and what it means to be happy is put to the test.
Will the magic of Paris pull these two lost souls together? Or will their darkest secrets tear them apart?
Wedding Countdown: Two Weeks!
Two weeks. TWO WEEKS. OMG, the two week countdown is here! I thought it was so bizarre once one month rolled around and I was saying to people, “I’m getting married in a month.” But now two weeks?! Okay, I’ll try to stop saying that. Puzzle pieces are falling into place. Final numbers are being tallied. Balances are being paid. Week of and day of schedules are being written. My days are getting filled with appointments – for wedding dress fittings, hair highlights, a meeting with the photographer and cake lady. The gifts we bought for our wedding party are being delivered and packaged. Our marriage license has been applied for. Family is going to start coming in just one week – so excited to see my mom! These last two weeks are going to be fairly maniacal, but the end result will be so worth. Husband and wife. This year of engagement has absolutely flown by, and I’m sure these two weeks will as well. My Twitter statuses might get a little out of control but if you want to follow my excitement, I’m @chicklitplus. Two weeks…until I’m a bride. Pinching myself.
Blog Tour Sign Up: Won’t Last Long by Heidi …
Can two people who are totally wrong for eachother ever be right?
She’s a feisty, sly marketing exec intent on hiding her small-town roots. He’s a laid-back engineer with a shaggy mutt and a pushy ex.
When Joshua asks Melina out, she asks what kind of car he drives. She’ll do drinks, not dinner. She’s always in control. But with Joshua’s easy confidence and sharp wit, Melina is soon breaking the dating rules she made for herself.
Opposites attract—but friends think Melina and Joshua can’t possibly last. When crisis throws their world off its axis, Melina must confront her childhood family, the people she’s come to care about, and the destruction of her pristine image.
Book Review: How I Exiled My Inner Bitch by Miv …
I received a copy of How I Exiled My Inner Bitch by Miv Evans in exchange for an honest review.
Summary:
The Story…Dionne is 36, and still hooked on the imaginary twin she invented to get you through her desolate childhood. With such an odd companion, long-term relationships are impossible and she is doomed to live her life as a serial monogamist, until the Go Along Guy shows up. Greg has denial on intravenous, so Dionne’s quirks simply pass him by and, pretty soon, shallow love blossoms. Unfortunately, however, what are also blossoming are Greg’s teenage daughters. They don’t like Dionne and their hormones are raging.
Review:
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and thought Evans did such an amazing job at crafting such a fun story. At first, I was a little hesitant given the name and the cover, but once I flipped open the book, I was instantly taken aback by the fresh writing and the overall feel of the story. The characters are charming and I enjoyed most of them and I think that definitely added to my enjoyment. Often times authors will write characters but give them no depth, Evans definitely gives the characters depth. Overall, this story is refreshing and funny and the writing is crisp. I would highly recommend it.
Rating: 4 stars
Future Tour: Everybody’s Got a Story by Heather Wardell
Heather will be on tour October 14-November 4 with her women’s fiction novel Everybody’s Got a Story Both personally and professionally, Alexa knows all too…