On Tour: When Girlfriends Chase Dreams by Savannah Page
Savannah will be on tour July 15-29 with her novel When Girlfriends Chase Dreams A novel about chasing dreams, for better or worse, and living…
Book Review: Down and Out in Bugtussle by Stephanie McAfee
I received a copy of Down and Out in Bugtussle by Stephanie McAfee in exchange for an honest review.
Summary:
With her fiancé now her ex-fiancé, Ace has hightailed it back to Bugtussle, Mississippi, and back to her Gramma Jones’s house. Her best friends, Lilly and Chloe, are delighted she’s back, but Ace still has some challenges ahead of her.
For one thing, her replacement as Bugtussle High School’s art teacher, Cameron Becker, refuses to vacate the position. So Ace is stuck working as a substitute teacher while harboring fantasies of running Miss Becker out of town. On top of that, Lilly and Chloe are obsessed with setting her up on less-than-romantic blind dates—even though all she wants is a break from her pitiful love life.
To ease her troubled mind, Ace resolves to restore her grandmother’s gardens to their former glory. But in the well-worn gardening book she’s dug out of her grandmother’s attic there are a series of suspicious notes that indicate her grandmother may have had a special someone in her past. Now, with her faithful chiweenie, Buster Loo, by her side, Ace is determined to get to the bottom of her grandmother’s secret life, all the while hoping her own life isn’t about to implode….
Review:
I’ve been having a lot of fun read Ace’s series, and I was just as excited to get to Down and Out in Bugtussle. I wondered how Ace was going to be now that she is back in Bugtussle after fleeing her seemingly-charmed life in Florida. I supported her decision in moving but was still curious how the pieces would fall into place for her. With the same wit, charm, and crass that readers are sure to know and love by now, Ace’s journey will continue to keep you laughing through it all. From trying to get her job back to being made over into an eighties chick, Ace also takes on uncovering her grandmother’s secrets and trying to find love…kind of. Such a fun series and I hope there is more!
4 stars
More reviews from this series…
My 5 star review for Diary of a Mad Fat Girl!
My 5 star review for Happily Ever Madder!
I received a copy of Down and Out in Bugtussle by Stephanie McAfee in exchange for an honest review.
Summary:
With her fiancé now her ex-fiancé, Ace has hightailed it back to Bugtussle, Mississippi, and back to her Gramma Jones’s house. Her best friends, Lilly and Chloe, are delighted she’s back, but Ace still has some challenges ahead of her.
For one thing, her replacement as Bugtussle High School’s art teacher, Cameron Becker, refuses to vacate the position. So Ace is stuck working as a substitute teacher while harboring fantasies of running Miss Becker out of town. On top of that, Lilly and Chloe are obsessed with setting her up on less-than-romantic blind dates—even though all she wants is a break from her pitiful love life.
To ease her troubled mind, Ace resolves to restore her grandmother’s gardens to their former glory. But in the well-worn gardening book she’s dug out of her grandmother’s attic there are a series of suspicious notes that indicate her grandmother may have had a special someone in her past. Now, with her faithful chiweenie, Buster Loo, by her side, Ace is determined to get to the bottom of her grandmother’s secret life, all the while hoping her own life isn’t about to implode….
Review:
I’ve been having a lot of fun read Ace’s series, and I was just as excited to get to Down and Out in Bugtussle. I wondered how Ace was going to be now that she is back in Bugtussle after fleeing her seemingly-charmed life in Florida. I supported her decision in moving but was still curious how the pieces would fall into place for her. With the same wit, charm, and crass that readers are sure to know and love by now, Ace’s journey will continue to keep you laughing through it all. From trying to get her job back to being made over into an eighties chick, Ace also takes on uncovering her grandmother’s secrets and trying to find love…kind of. Such a fun series and I hope there is more!
4 stars
More reviews from this series…
My 5 star review for Diary of a Mad Fat Girl!
My 5 star review for Happily Ever Madder!
Book Review: Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe by Jenny …
I received a copy of Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe by Jenny Colgan in exchange for an honest review.
Summary:
A sweet and satisfying novel of how delicious it is to discover your dream
Issy Randall can bake. No, Issy can create stunning, mouthwateringly divine cakes. After a childhood spent in her beloved Grampa Joe’s bakery, she has undoubtedly inherited his talent. She’s much better at baking than she is a filing so when she’s laid off from her desk job, Issy decides to open her own little café. But she soon learns that her piece-of-cake plan will take all of her courage and confectionary talent to avert disaster.
Funny and sharp, Meet Me at the Cupcake Café is about how life might not always taste like you expect, but there’s always room for dessert!
Review:
I liked a lot of things right off the bat about this book – the title, the cover, and the sweet tagline. I thought this book would be right up my alley, but it seems to have missed the mark for me. I think there were too many POV’s for my liking. It seems everyone got a chance to chime in, and the story would have been easier to follow if only one or two characters got the lead. I did really enjoy the storyline between Issy and her grandfather, and the sections with Issy and her on and off again boyfriend were interesting to read about. While this wasn’t a favorite novel of mine, I didn’t highly dislike and wouldn’t not recommend for reading. It’s still a cute chick lit book, I just had trouble connecting with the story.
3 stars
Book Review: Sweet Nothings by Janis Thomas
Reviewer: Allie I received a copy of Sweet Nothings by Janis Thomas in exchange for an honest review. The last few books I’ve read have…
Book Review: The Back-Up List by Miriam Brady and Amber …
The book was given to me in exchange for an honest review
When I begun this book, the first chapter really threw me…I recall thinking-great another mushy novel about a perfect women that ends up with a perfect non-realistic life with a rock star. I was determined not to like it after that first chapter…….
And then I was introduce to Maddy and Kinley….In all honesty my heart broke and I cried….and cried…and cried throughout this book. The ability to capture and describe grief without minimizing or making less of the experience is not often done well, in this book they did so well that as I not only could relate I truly felt the grief written. It was moving to read how the accident affected Kinley and her family and I was pleased that this was not left out of the story. Often times when someone passes, we don’t get to really experience how many lives they touched and how many are truly affected by their death…Especially when taken so unexpectedly and tragically.
This story is a unique surprising story about recovering…or at least surviving a terrible tragedy. It was so well written that I grieved and hurt with the character’s all throughout the story and I celebrated with them as well. I felt like I was very much apart of this unique family and all that is their sweet quirky clan.
I won’t go in to many details, because I feel that I can not do justice to this story. However, I will tell you this story has it all! It has grief, happiness, scandal, an amazing story about how friendship can replace family, and of course it was what ever story needs…Rock stars!
Through the story you see a dynamic between Maddy and her friends, something every girl should have in her life, and I am feeling slighted that my and my girlfriends have never thought to create validation cards. It will now be done, actually the friendships between the ladies in this book lighten my heart and have reminded me how important it is to treasure those unique friends that support your highs and lows in life. Lifetime friends as I would call what these 4 have, is never to be taken lightly nor should one ever live without having at least one.
The ending of the story was a fun happy way to end a story and I am looking forward to book 2 and the twists that Kinley will add to the next in this series.
Rarely am I surprised by a novel quite like I was with this one…If I could give this higher then 5 stars-I would! It was a pleasure and privilege to read this story and I will be reading it again.
Future Tour: Is This All There Is? by Patricia Mann
Patricia will be on tour August 5-26 with her chick lit novel Is This All There Is? Beth Thomas has the perfect life. At thirty…
Book Review: Expected by Sarah England
I received a copy of Expected by Sarah England in exchange for an honest review.
Summary:
Red Alert.
Sam Sweet is terrified of giving birth.
Only, she doesn’t dare tell anyone. Especially her grandchild-obsessed mother, or her fiancé, Simon – top surgeon by day, mind-game expert by night.
Repressed by the expectations of others, Sam feels trapped. All she ever wanted was a career and a crack at independence, but as a catastrophically failed psychiatric nurse who now injects fillers into the crinkled faces of unhappy women, a career is proving tricky. There’s something wrong with the product and now clients are suing.
Nasty work colleagues stir up scandalous gossip, and soon Sam hits rock bottom, consoling herself with button-popping chocolate binges and terrifying spending sprees.
Sam is going to have to find her voice if she ever wants to be herself, fall in love, and follow her dreams.
Alas, the wedding date is set…
Review:
I struggled a bit with this novel. I understand that Sam could be trapped and like she feels, well, Expected, to do certain things, but I didn’t really get why she wouldn’t eventually stand up for herself. She seems to hate her fiancé who was portrayed as mind-game expert and was really quite a piece of work. She out and out said she wasn’t attracted to him and didn’t want to be with him, so why she stayed with him for so long confused me. It was interesting to read about her work and the bit of scandal that came with that, but then I also couldn’t decide if her friend Minnie was truly her friend or not. I spent most of time confused and unsure about the heroine, but still certain pieces of the story caught my interest.
2.5 stars
Book Review: What She Left Us by Stephanie Elliot
Reviewer: Kate I received a copy of What She Left Us by Stephanie Elliot in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: Jenna and Courtney are…
Book Review: Kept by Elle Field
I received a copy of Kept by Elle Field in exchange for an honest review.
Summary:
‘Did she really just say that? I am fifteen again, except the reality is I am experiencing full parental horror, aged twenty-five. I want to die.’
Life hasn’t quite worked out how Arielle Lockley imagined it would. Becoming the next Coco Chanel was always her childhood dream, but she’s spent the past four years living a dizzying whirl of glitzy parties, luxurious holidays and daily shopping sprees – all paid for by boyfriend Piers – and not doing anything to make her Coco dreams happen.
When the recession hits, it’s not just the economy that takes a tumble and Arielle finds herself living back with her parents, on bad terms with Piers, and having a CV that’s as welcome as a pair of knock-off Jimmy Choos. And maybe it’s the location, but she’s also finding unwelcome thoughts of her childhood sweetheart are popping into her head…
What’s a girl to do? Can Arielle figure out what it is she now wants to do with her life and move on, or will she be doomed to spend the rest of her life dwelling over her worst mistakes, stuck listening to her parents’ embarrassing dinner table talk each night?
Review:
This might be a bit of a strange review, because I was kind of all over the place with this book. There were moments I loved, parts I disliked, areas where I was scratching my head, and then scenarios that made me laugh out loud. The bottom line – I enjoyed this book. Arielle was a funny character, someone who I thought of as unique and spirited. It was a little hard to really stand behind her when she did nothing but seemingly mooch off her boyfriend for four years, but I could see how Piers wasn’t doing much to help that situation. Sometimes the romance between her childhood sweetheart tripped me up. I don’t like to give anything away in my reviews, but the ending was where I was scratching my head. Sometimes I disliked too that everything was quite easy for her. I know we see her penniless and homeless for a few pages, but really, she was quite fine throughout the book. And even in the end when she wanted to do something on her own, an opportunity just fell into her lap. I liked that she ran with the opportunity and really worked hard at it, but still – she didn’t have to do much to make it happen in the first place. With that being said, like I stated earlier, I enjoyed this book. I was sucked into Arielle’s strange little world and I thought the writing was quite snappy and fast-paced. So even though I think I had a love/confusion relationship with Arielle, she still thoroughly entertained me.
4 stars
