GIVEAWAY: Sad Desk Salad by Jessica Grose
As a writer for Chick Habit, an increasingly popular women’s website, Alex Lyons gets paid to be a bitch. She’s churning out several posts a…
Future Tour: I Kill Me: Tales of A Jilted Hypochondriac …
Tracy will be on tour January 14- February 4 with her novel I Kill Me: Tales of A Jilted Hypochondriac.
Christine Bacon has a fatal attraction. To all things fatal. A veteran hypochondriac, her near-death experiences are exacerbated when her husband proposes they have a menage a trois with Eleanor, his busty British massage therapist, to “shake things up.” Christine reluctantly agrees (although she is more wholesome than threesome), never expecting just how much she’d be rattled. As her marriage to Richard, a/k/a “Dick,” falls apart, so, too, does Christine, whose fear of her own demise causes her to research every freckle, blemish, cough, bump, lump, tingle and hiccup. She isn’t a doctor, but she plays one on the internet.
There is solace for Christine: in raising daughters Lily and Carli, leaning on her friends, and wearing out the shower massager. In order to heal, she struggles to become her own person and to view her symptoms (and ex-husband) as less malignant, while searching for that special someone who will love her–despite her grave condition.
Please visit CLP Blog Tours for the full tour schedule!
On Tour: Falling For You by Heather Thurmeier
Heather will be on tour November 26-December 17 with her novel Falling For You Newly single Cassidy Quinn is thrilled to be a contestant on…
Review & Guest Post : From Notting Hill with Love…Actually by …
I received a copy of From Knotting Hill with Love…Actually in exchange for an honest review.
This was the first I have read from Ali McNamara, and I was really excited for it. Everything about it just screamed classic chick lit, and it left me with a smile at the end. Main character and movie fanatic Scarlett O’Brien has an obsession with movies. She loves dreaming about the glamorous and romantic lives some of her favorite leading ladies have had. There is a tiny problem though – her life is quite unexciting and unglamorous. When Scarlett gets the opportunity to house-sit in none other than Knotting Hill, she jumps at the chance. Finally, a way to show her father and boring fiancé that life really can imitate art. But her romantic comedy plans turn out decidedly more complicated than Scarlett ever expected. Will she get her happy ending?
This is a really fun chick lit book, and I immensely enjoyed it. Scarlett is such a fab heroine, a bit mixed-up and clueless but such an optimist you have no choice but to love her. I enjoyed her quite complicated love life, and was really on the end of chair when I was reading the last few chapters. The supporting cast mixed in seamlessly and the minor plot points were interesting and kept the story moving along. One for chick lit lovers to check out!
[Rating: 4]
Big thanks to Ali McNamara for sharing this guest post!
I think one of the most commonly asked questions of novelists is “Where do you get your ideas from?’
And it’s one of the hardest to answer, because usually they spring out of nowhere. What sometimes seems like a great idea when you first think of it, might never actually lead anywhere. Sometimes you don’t even know you’ve had an idea until it keeps banging away in your mind trying to tell you it needs to escape and become something else. And sometimes an idea hits you so hard in the face you feel like you’ve been hit by a clown throwing ‘idea’ shaped custard pies.
‘From Notting Hill with Love…Actually’ was the second of those three. It came to me when I was watching one of those countdowns on one of the music channels on TV – ‘50 greatest movie theme tunes.’
As each of the songs came on to the screen I realised the movies were so well known I knew exactly what was going on in each plot even without dialogue, and I thought wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could get all those great movies into one story, and that’s how the idea began to slowly take shape.
‘Breakfast at Darcy’s’ my second novel was the latter of three. One year I was on holiday with my husband. In a momentary fit of insanity I’d agreed it would be a good idea to take a touring holiday around Ireland in a motorhome, I have no idea why now to this day, I’m much more your luxury hotel sort of holiday-maker. The ‘luxury’ motorhome we hired was not quite the home-from-home we were promised over the Internet, I actually christened it the ‘dustbin on wheels’ it was so bad. But however as we trundled about Ireland, one night when we parked up amongst spectacular scenery in County Kerry, directly opposite the island of Great Blasket, a casual chat about the beauty and remoteness of the island led to one of those random conversations about how you might go about trying to live on an island as isolated as that, and the seed of an idea was immediately planted in my brain for a new novel based around such an island.
So you could say the idea for ‘Breakfast at Darcy’s’ pretty much came from the trashcan!
My third novel is a sequel to my first; it just felt like I had more to tell about the characters and their lives. And my fourth, which I’m writing now, is a story I’ve wanted to write for sometime. It has a music theme this time – with a twist!
Ali McNamara
www.alimcnamara.co.uk
Twitter @AliMcNamara
Blog Tour Sign Up: Work For Hire by Margo Karasek
Tekla’s law school career couldn’t be any better. She has top grades. She’s on Law Review. She’s a frontrunner in a mock oral argument with a sweet prize: a judicial clerkship. One problem, though: Tekla has no more money to pay for school. She needs a part-time job. Fast.
Luckily, her roommate has just the solution: help two uber-wealthy prep school teens, the twin son and daughter of a billionaire Wall Street short-seller and a world-renowned model turned fashion photographer, with their schoolwork, and earn $150 an hour. Plus, enjoy an additional perk on the job, in the form of a gorgeous photo assistant who happens to have his eye on Tekla.
Easy money.
Well, not so much. Within days, Tekla’s job begins to unravel. In a world of super-wealth and high fashion, Tekla finds herself surrounded by a peculiar cast of players: two teens whose self-destructive behavior becomes ever more erratic, a father whose ambitions for his son constantly test Tekla’s notions of what is fair and ethical and what is cheating, a mother whose emotional negligence borders on abuse, and a gorgeous man who may or may not be what he appears.
As Tekla struggles to hold onto a job that takes more time and energy than she ever anticipated, her own school life begins to suffer. She makes an enemy of a professor who seems to want nothing more than to bring her down. And he’s succeeding. Soon Tekla’s life is a paradox: without her high paying part-time job, she can’t afford law school; but with it, she’ll surely flunk out of school.
Daughters-in-Law by Joanna Trollope
I received a copy of Daughters-in-Law in exchange for an honest review.
Summary:
As Anthony and Rachel Brinkley welcome their third daughter-in-law to the family, they don’t quite realize the profound shift that is about to take place. For different reasons, the Brinkleys’ two previous daughters-in-law hadn’t been able to resist Rachel’s maternal control and Anthony’s gentle charm and had settled into their husbands’ family without rocking the boat. But Charlotte—very young, very beautiful, and spoiled—has no intention of falling into step with the Brinkleys and wants to establish her own household. Soon Rachel’s sons begin to think of their own houses as home and of their mother’s house as simply the place where their parents live—a necessary and inevitable shift of loyalties that threatens Rachel’s sense of herself, breaks Anthony’s heart, and causes unexpected consequences in all the marriages. Then a crisis brings these changes to the surface, and everyone has to learn what family love means all over again.
My Review:
I was looking forward to reading Joanna Trollope, as this was my first book from her. Unfortunately, my experience was not a good one. I was not able to connect on any level with the book or the characters. There are a lot of characters, but quite a few were unlikeable or unrelatable. I also thought the plot was predictable overall, and some of the dialogue didn’t seem to match the characters, so that was throwing me off. Very difficult one for me to finish.
[Rating: 1]
Blog Tour Sign Up: Finding Out by Sheryn MacMunn
Getting dumped on the sidewalk by her live-in boyfriend of seven years and realizing that he nearly emptied their savings account is the first of Sheila Davenport’s problems. At thirty-six, Sheila had thought her life was on track.
But life no longer makes sense. Now she’s saddled with a mortgage that’s about to skyrocket, a psychotic boss, and a new employee who is unqualified and hell-bent on messing with the company’s rules.
Her friends advise her to date immediately, preferably someone rich and successful, or risk being old and alone. But Sheila needs to figure out what went wrong and how she got to this place. Since Prince Charming has ruined Sheila’s life, who can save her now?
Help comes unexpectedly from her elderly neighbor, Ruth Grey, who has had her own share of ups and downs. As their friendship grows, Ruth reveals her deeply moving story of survival in WWII Germany. Ruth’s mesmerizing past is a powerful tale of love and revenge that provides the perspective Sheila desperately needs to put the pieces of her own life back together.
Will Sheila succeed at work or walk away? Can she save her home? And why do her friends think they have it any better?
A story of love found and lost, true friendship, and how the human spirit endures.
The Look of Love by Judy Astley
I received a copy of The Look of Love in exchange for an honest review. Summary: Bella has given up on men. Happily divorced, her…
Blog Tour Sign Up: Next Year I’ll Be Perfect …
Sarah always thought her life was on track, that is until her 29th birthday party. The discovery of a list her younger self put together outlining what she wanted to achieve by the age of 30 turns Sarah’s world upside down. Suddenly, her seemingly happy life and career look lackluster and Sarah sets off on a journey to transform her life. On her quest to achieve perfection one month at a time – a happy marriage, partnership in a law firm and being able to fit in a size six purple suede miniskirt – Sarah learns to challenge society’s ideals of achievement.
Filled with harsh reality, humor, and romance, Next Year I’ll Be Perfect explores what true happiness and success is all about.
