Chick Lit Plus by Samantha March

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In My Mailbox: Week of March 3
Chick Lit Plus

In My Mailbox: Week of March 3

Title: We’ll Always Have Paris
Author: Jennifer Coburn
Received: Jennifer Coburn
Synopsis: How her daughter and her passport taught Jennifer Coburn to forget about dying and truly live
Jennifer Coburn has always been terrified of dying young. It’s the reason she drops everything during the summers on a quest to travel through Europe with her daughter, Katie, before it’s too late. Even though her husband can’t join them, even though she’s nervous about the journey, and even though she’s perfectly healthy, she spends three to four weeks per trip jamming Katie’s mental photo album with memories. In this heartwarming generational love story, Jennifer reveals how their adventures helped relinquish her fear of dying…for the sake of living.
Title: Giving Myself Away
Author: Grete DeAngelo
Received: Grete DeAngelo
Synopsis: In Giving Myself Away, divorced mother Adrienne Manning is devastated to find out she’s pregnant after messing around with a guy who’s clearly not boyfriend material.

He’s a lonely mortician with a spiteful daughter, and things just happened late one night after a funeral. When Adrienne meets George Freihoffer in a coffee shop to tell him the news, he asks her to get married and promises to take care of her.

Adrienne hasn’t been single long and she doesn’t trust men so easily after Drew, her high school sweetheart turned husband, left her for a perky soccer mom.

Adrienne and Drew’s two sons don’t like spending weekends with their dad and his new wife, who has three wild boys of her own. They are confused about why Adrienne plans to give up the new baby and they worry she’ll get rid of them too.

Adrienne gives George an ultimatum: agree to the adoption or she won’t talk to him anymore. He accepts, but in the meantime, drifts into a relationship with Carolyn, a woman Adrienne initially set him up with to get him off her back. Adrienne realizes when he’s gone that although she might not have been madly in love with him, George was a good friend and she misses having him around. Being alone causes Adrienne to second-guess her decision about the baby.

Giving Myself Away grabs readers by the heart and guides them through a realistic journey fraught with tough decisions.

Title: After Wimbledon
Author: Jennifer Gilby Roberts
Received: Jennifer Gilby Roberts
Synopsis: After 12 years on the pro. tennis tour and four years with her sort-of boyfriend, Lucy Bennett has had enough. She wants real life… and real love.

Her life, her decision. Right? Well, no one else seems to think so. With opinions on all sides, Lucy’s head is spinning. And she’s stumbling right into the arms of long-term crush and fellow player Sam. Shame her boyfriend – his arch-rival – would sooner smash a racquet over their heads than agree to a simple change of partners.

As the Wimbledon Championships play out, Lucy fights for her life on and off the courts. The question is: what will she be left with after Wimbledon?

March 3, 2014
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CLP Blog Tours Book Review: Private Air by Billie Bates
Chick Lit Review

CLP Blog Tours Book Review: Private Air by Billie Bates

Reviewer: Samantha Billie Bates is now on tour with CLP Blog Tours and Private Air Summary: When Sienna Harris joined the Australian Air Force as…

February 26, 2014
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Book Review: Bring Me Sunshine by Janet Gover
Chick Lit Review

Book Review: Bring Me Sunshine by Janet Gover

* I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*
Summary:
Sometimes, you’ve just got to take the plunge …
When marine biologist, Jenny Payne, agrees to spend Christmas working on the Cape Adare cruise ship to escape a disastrous love affair, she envisions a few weeks of sunny climes, cocktails and bronzed men …
What she gets is an Antarctic expedition, extreme weather, and a couple of close shaves with death. And then there’s her fellow passengers; Vera, the eccentric, elderly crime writer and Lian, a young runaway in pursuit of forbidden love …
There’s also Kit Walker; the mysterious and handsome man who is renting the most luxurious cabin on the ship, but who nobody ever sees.
As the expedition progresses, Jenny finds herself becoming increasingly obsessed with the enigmatic Kit and the secrets he hides. Will she crack the code before the return journey or is she bound for another disappointment?
Review:
What a refreshing read! In the beginning, Jenny finds out that her relationship wasn’t the happily ever after she thought it would be. Then she agrees to spend time away on a cruise, which again, wasn’t the sunny, delightful getaway she imagined but it was quite an adventure! I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the array characters. I was pleasantly surprised that I was completely engrossed by the first chapter.
I would recommend this light quick read to almost anyone.
5 stars

February 25, 2014
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Book Review: Weightless by Michele Gorman
Chick Lit Review

Book Review: Weightless by Michele Gorman

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review
Summary:
Sometimes looks can be deceiving

Annabel’s not surprised when nobody recognizes her at her 10 year reunion. The spotty fat teen nicknamed AnnaBall by the school bullies is long gone. But standing on the edge of the popular crowd, she still feels like that girl. That is, until Jack, her teen crush, starts flirting with her. Much to her amusement, he has mistaken her for Christy Blake, Annabel’s chief tormenter before she moved to France in their last year.

It’s just a bit of fun at first, letting Jack believe she’s Christy. After all, he was nuts about her before she said au revoir to England. And when he asks Annabel out, the fun becomes something even more interesting. The more they date the deeper they fall for each other. So what if Annabel has to fib a little to keep up the façade?

As the lies start compounding, and she realizes that they’re falling in love, she has to tell him who she really is. But she’ll lose the love of her life if she does.
Review:
I’m a big fan of Michele Gorman. I’m not a big fan of novellas. That being said, I think I enjoyed Weightless enough. It’s only about 40 pages, and maybe took me a half hour to read in one sitting. The story itself was cute, though sometimes I struggled to believe it, but if you let yourself just flow along with the characters you can try to put that factor out of your mind. Again, since it’s so short it’s tough for me to say I was really invested or hooked, because by the time I was really getting into Annabel’s story it was over. I do think Gorman did a good job building the characters and giving readers enough plot to get interested in. I liked that we got to know a client of Annabel’s and some back story on her time in college. For a novella, I think this is a good one, and I highly recommend Michele Gorman to chick lit readers. I just wish I liked short stories more!
3.5 stars

February 21, 2014
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Book Review: Done With Men by Shuchi Singh Kalra
Chick Lit Review

Book Review: Done With Men by Shuchi Singh Kalra

Reviewer: Samantha I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review Summary: Travel journo, Kairavi Krishna (Kay) has had it with…

February 18, 2014
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Book Review: The Dr. Pepper Prophecies by Jennifer Gilby Roberts
Chick Lit Review

Book Review: The Dr. Pepper Prophecies by Jennifer Gilby Roberts

I was given this book in exchange for an honest review. 4 stars

This book is a fun read! If you are looking for a light, funny read this is the one! From the very start you can just tell that Mel is going to keep you laughing til the end! Poor Mel seems to find trouble where ever she goes! But then she also seems to create a lot of her misery as well. From dating worthless guys, to trying to fix up everyone she meets or even just sternly steer her friends in the direction that she feels they should be. She means well, but often times each of these “fixes” end in total disaster. Especially so the ad dates she sets her roommate up with!

Poor Mel seems to be doomed to be stuck in a bad job dealing with her ex that seems to have it out for her in a bad way. She has a rocky sad relationship with her family, and to boot her best friend is dating a woman that hates her. She really does have it pretty bad!

This was seriously one of the funniest books I have read in a long time. I giggled through the whole thing and I really did not think she would ever turn anything around. I too am a chocolate lover so I loved that Mel used chocolate as a way to deal with her problems, albeit she was a little excessive with her chocolate, but hey who doesn’t overdo it sometimes?

February 6, 2014
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Book Review: The Chick Lit Cookbook by Alicia de los Reyes
Chick Lit Review

Book Review: The Chick Lit Cookbook by Alicia de los …

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Summary:
You’ve said it a dozen times before: If only you had the chance, you would write a chick lit novel. But between job, boyfriend, kids, school — life — you just can’t find the time.

The Chick Lit Cookbook: A Guide to Writing Your Novel in 30 Minutes a Day is the solution. This fun, cupcake-themed guide will take you from start to finish of your first draft. In 13 chapters, each with a short exercise that will get you writing now, you will learn how to create the perfect main character, her ideal love interest, a world for her to live in and an adventure that will draw in readers. You will outline your entire first draft — and then you will write it.

The Chick Lit Cookbook is a beginner’s guide to writing funny, snappy, sucks-you-into-the-story prose about modern women, life and love. It is full of tips and techniques, prompts and pep talks that will spark your imagination and inspire you to put pen to paper. The exercises can be done while sitting on the bus, waiting at the doctor’s office, or talking on the phone with your mother-in-law. This book will show you that you can and will write a chick lit novel.

Whether you’ve been wishing for years that you could write chick lit or are a brand-new fan of Bridget Jones and Becky Bloomwood, you owe it to yourself to pick up this guide. The Chick Lit Cookbook will prove to you that writing a novel can be fun and easy — it’s just like baking cupcakes!
Review:
This is a great and quick read for someone wanting to write chick lit books. There are exercises to help you get the most out of your reading, and if you are a first time writer, I really suggest doing these and helping create your story for when you start writing. I thought the format she wrote in – comparing writing to baking cupcakes – was a great spin and made it easy to read, easy to follow, yet also fun. A great guide that I recommend!
4 stars

January 28, 2014
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Future Tour: Private Air by Billie Bates
CLP Blog Tours

Future Tour: Private Air by Billie Bates

When Sienna Harris joined the Australian Air Force as a flight attendant for the Prime Minister, she thought she’d hit the glam-job jackpot. But three years of weapons training, outback destinations, and a cheating fighter pilot fiancé, and she’s realized it’s not so fabulous after all. Time to embark on a new adventure, this time to the prestigious world of international VIP aviation.
Sienna and her best friend leave behind their small-town lives for a glitzy career flight attending on a Saudi prince’s private jet. Money, parties, designer clothes, and exotic locations fill the job description, while the sexy pilot, Ted, makes it hard for Sienna to obey the “no fraternizing” rule.
But even the most opulent of journeys can hit turbulence. Sienna’s boss, the appearance-obsessed chief stewardess, issues diuretics and Botox with the uniforms and catering orders, and the prince is a man who’s never told no. Underneath its lush appearance, could this desert oasis be more of a muddy puddle?
The Devil Wears Prada meets Pan Am in this fun frolic to the glamorous side of air travel, inspired by the author’s own experience as a VIP flight attendant in Saudi Arabia and Europe.

January 20, 2014
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Book Review: The House of Bathory by Linda Lafferty
Chick Lit Review

Book Review: The House of Bathory by Linda Lafferty

Reviewer: Andrea I received a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. The summary: In the early 1600s, Elizabeth Báthory, the infamous…

January 15, 2014
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