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Blogging my way through my extensive to be read pile of books.

Review: First Frost

ondbookshelfJanuary 20, 2015January 8, 2015Leave a comment

First Frost (Waverley Family #2)

From the New York Times bestselling author of Garden Spells comes a story of the Waverley family, in a novel as sparkling as the first dusting of frost on new-fallen leaves...

It's October in Bascom, North Carolina, and autumn will not go quietly. As temperatures drop and leaves begin to turn, the Waverley women are made restless by the whims of their mischievous apple tree... and all the magic that swirls around it. But this year, first frost has much more in store.

Claire Waverley has started a successful new venture, Waverley’s Candies. Though her handcrafted confections—rose to recall lost love, lavender to promote happiness and lemon verbena to soothe throats and minds—are singularly effective, the business of selling them is costing her the everyday joys of her family, and her belief in her own precious gifts.

Sydney Waverley, too, is losing her balance. With each passing day she longs more for a baby— a namesake for her wonderful Henry. Yet the longer she tries, the more her desire becomes an unquenchable thirst, stealing the pleasure out of the life she already has.

Sydney’s daughter, Bay, has lost her heart to the boy she knows it belongs to…if only he could see it, too. But how can he, when he is so far outside her grasp that he appears to her as little more than a puff of smoke?

When a mysterious stranger shows up and challenges the very heart of their family, each of them must make choices they have never confronted before. And through it all, the Waverley sisters must search for a way to hold their family together through their troublesome season of change, waiting for that extraordinary event that is First Frost.

Lose yourself in Sarah Addison Allen's enchanting world and fall for her charmed characters in this captivating story that proves that a happily-ever-after is never the real ending to a story. It’s where the real story begins.

My review..............4 stars

I received an advance copy of this book through NetGalley. I had read Lost Lake by Allen, and while it was not my typical style (magical realism), I actually quite enjoyed it. The other reason I had to read it was because of the cover! Oh my goodness, how I love this cover!! I've seen other covers shown on Goodreads, and I don't understand why they would think of changing it? It's beautiful.......so pretty that I'm going to buy a physical copy of the book (Sarah is coming to my local Indie, sadly I will be out of town, but I can still get it autographed!).

This book is actually a sequel to Garden Spells, written back in 2007. I have not read this one, and was a bit worried that I would be lost at the beginning, but I was not. The writing flows well, I was interested in the characters, even the "magic" parts didn't bother me that much (although it does lose some star power from me because of that). The characters all were pretty quirky, but it just works well. I was very engaged in the story, and yes, the end is quite predictable, but I'm ok with that if it's written well (which this was).

I'm ready to go back and read Garden Spells now, and since this is listed as book #2, I'm wondering if this is the last we will see of the Waverlys? Grab yourself a copy of this for a light, fun read. And if nothing else, grab a copy just to put that gorgeous cover on your shelves 🙂

Review: The Unexpected Waltz

ondbookshelfJanuary 15, 2015Leave a comment

The Unexpected Waltz

by Kim Wright

Kelly Wilder becomes recently widowed from a much older wealthy man with whom she spent her married life doing charity work, building a lovely home, and, as she says, “pretending to be a whole lot more conservative and stupid and nicer than I really am.”

Now, with too much time and money on her hands, Kelly has absolutely no idea what happens next. So on a whim she signs up for a ballroom dancing class, and slowly, step by high-heeled step, begins to rebuild her life with the help of friends old and new: Nik, a young Russian dance teacher who sees the artistic potential she left behind; Carolina, a woman in hospice, anxious to experience a whole lifetime in a few months; and Elyse, Kelly’s girlhood best friend who knows all of her past secrets—including the truth about the man who long ago broke Kelly’s heart.

In the vein of Jennifer Weiner's novels, Unexpected Waltz is a deeply felt story about moving on after loss and finding a new walk—or dance—of life through the power of second chances.

My review.........4 stars

What a lovely read! I love to watch ballroom dance (whether it be Dancing with the Stars, So You Think You Can Dance, or the occasional "real" thing on PBS), but I've certainly never taken a lesson in my life. I loved all the references to dance, right down to how much practice and sweat it takes to master one part of a dance, but this book was much more than just about ballroom dancing. It was about a middle aged woman rediscovering herself, and dance was just one of the mediums that she used to do so. There are also concurrent storylines about a woman who is dying at a hospice house, the best friend who has been there forever, and a former flame.....all of which impact the main character's transformation. Lots of great supporting characters, who you will come to like and care about, as much as the main character.

I signed up through Goodreads to receive a copy of this book from the publisher. It was already one that I had on my wishlist, so many thanks to the publisher for providing me a copy for review. I love the cover I have pictured here, unfortunately they changed the cover for the paperback copy, probably my only complaint I have with this book.

All around great read, I would highly recommend it, especially to anyone who loves ballroom dance.

Review: Still Life With Bread Crumbs 8

ondbookshelfJanuary 12, 2015January 12, 20158 Comments

Still Life with Bread Crumbs

by Anna Quindlen

Still Life with Bread Crumbs begins with an imagined gunshot and ends with a new tin roof. Between the two is a wry and knowing portrait of Rebecca Winter, a photographer whose work made her an unlikely heroine for many women. Her career is now descendent, her bank balance shaky, and she has fled the city for the middle of nowhere. There she discovers, in a tree stand with a roofer named Jim Bates, that what she sees through a camera lens is not all there is to life.

Brilliantly written, powerfully observed, Still Life with Bread Crumbs is a deeply moving and often very funny story of unexpected love, and a stunningly crafted journey into the life of a woman, her heart, her mind, her days, as she discovers that life is a story with many levels, a story that is longer and more exciting than she ever imagined.

My review................4 stars

A wonderful read! Perhaps one of my favorite things about this book is that the main character is a 60 year old woman. Not many books out there have an older middle aged woman, who is not ill or dying or defined mostly by being someone's mother, as the subject. And the writing was superb! It's not often when I am reading that I will stop and pause after reading a section just to appreciate how well it was written. I did that on several occasions with this one. There are many quotes, but this is one of my favorites:

"Then when she really thought about it she realized she'd been becoming different people for as long as she could remember but had never really noticed, or had put it down to moods, or marriage, or motherhood. The problem was that she'd thought that at a certain point she would be a finished product. Now she wasn't sure what that might be, especially when she considered how sure she had been about it at various times in the past, and how wrong she'd been.”

Not a lot happens in this book action-wise, it is more of a character development novel. There were some very humorous parts, as well as some sad parts. It pretty much had all your emotions going. The end was pretty predictable, but how I loved the characters, and was rooting for them all.

If you are looking for a great read that takes you on a journey into the self discovery of a woman, this is the book for you.

I got the chance to hear Anna Quindlen speak about this book at a local college library back in November. Suffice it to say, hearing her speak is as wonderful as reading her writing! And yes, she had wonderful quotes to take away from her appearance. One I can remember:

"We read in bed because books are the bridge between reality and dreams"

The other I can only remember the gist of, but it was when she was speaking about her two boys (who are now grown). She said that she knew she had done her job raising them when the only criteria they had about where they were living was if there were enough bookshelves. 🙂

Review: The Moment of Everything 4

ondbookshelfJanuary 9, 2015January 9, 20154 Comments

The Moment of Everything

by Shelly King

In the tradition of The Cookbook Collector comes a funny, romantic novel about a young woman finding her calling while saving a used bookstore.

Maggie Duprès, recently "involuntarily separated from payroll" at a Silicon Valley start-up, is whiling away her days in The Dragonfly's Used Books, a Mountain View institution, waiting for the Next Big Thing to come along.

When the opportunity arises for her to network at a Bay Area book club, she jumps at the chance -- even if it means having to read Lady Chatterley's Lover, a book she hasn't encountered since college, in an evening. But the edition she finds at the bookstore is no Penguin Classics Chatterley -- it's an ancient hardcover with notes in the margins between two besotted lovers of long ago. What Maggie finds in her search for the lovers and their fate, and what she learns about herself in the process, will surprise and move readers.

Witty and sharp-eyed in its treatment of tech world excesses, but with real warmth at its core, The Moment of Everything is a wonderful read.

My review..........3.5 stars

For the most part, this was an enjoyable read. It was about working in/owning a bookstore. I don't know about you, but this is something that has always appealed to me. I found it extremely helpful that the author doesn't sugarcoat the hard work that goes into such a venture. One of my favorite quotes:

Bookstores are romantic creatures. All great readers fantasize about owning one. They think spending a day around all those books will be the great fulfillment of their passion. They don't yet know about the sorting of what comes in, the tracking of what goes out, the backaches from carrying and shelving, and the little money that comes from any of it. All those readers just think about the wedding without giving much thought to the marriage.

I loved all the bookstore parts of the story, but what I didn't love as much was the romance of the main character. I just didn't like the guy at all. He seemed kind of skeevy, and I almost wish that the book had just not had this relationship built into it at all. I don't feel that it added that much to the story, although it was somewhat related to the notes in the Lady Chatterly book. It was intriguing to follow the story about the notes in the book, but I felt a bit let down with its conclusion.

Definitely worth the read for the bookstore parts, and if you don't have an issue with the boyfriend, you will love it.

I'd like to thank the author for sending me a copy of this book for review. I am looking forward to reading more of her work, hopefully I'll like the romantic lead next time 🙂

Review: The Mistletoe Promise 4

ondbookshelfJanuary 6, 2015January 6, 20154 Comments

The Mistletoe Promise

by Richard Paul Evans

Elise Dutton dreads the arrival of another holiday season. Three years earlier, her husband cheated on her with her best friend, resulting in a bitter divorce that left her alone, broken, and distrustful.

Then, one November day, a stranger approaches Elise in the mall food court. Though she recognizes the man from her building, Elise has never formally met him. Tired of spending the holidays alone, the man offers her a proposition. For the next eight weeks—until the evening of December 24—he suggests that they pretend to be a couple. He draws up a contract with four rules:

1. No deep, probing personal questions
2. No drama
3. No telling anyone the truth about the relationship
4. The contract is void on Christmas Day

The lonely Elise surprises herself by agreeing to the idea. As the charade progresses, the safety of her fake relationship begins to mend her badly broken heart. But just as she begins to find joy again, her long-held secret threatens to unravel the emerging relationship. But she might not be the only one with secrets.

My review...............5 stars

I wish I could have reviewed this one before the holidays, but I read it while on vacation, so the review had to wait until I got back (and finished up other blog posts under a time constraint). I absolutely loved this book, it was my favorite holiday read, and I think I read about 7 books? What a great idea for a story! The book was just adorable for the most part, but it did have some gritty topics. I must admit that these gritty topics were glossed over, which may bother some, but it's a holiday book, you can't get too heavy with things. The characters were fantastic, you are rooting for them from beginning to end. I've seen blogger polls that ask who your book boyfriend of the year is, Nicholas would be my pick for certain. It's a fairly short book, you can read it in a sitting or two, especially since you'll want to find out what happens!

Put this one high on your list, whether it be for next season, for a Christmas in July read, and especially if you read holiday books year round 🙂

Review: Before I Go 8

ondbookshelfJanuary 4, 20158 Comments

Before I Go

by Colleen Oakley

A heart-wrenching debut novel in the bestselling tradition of P.S. I Love You about a young woman with breast cancer who undertakes a mission to find a new wife for her husband before she passes away.

Twenty-seven-year-old Daisy already beat breast cancer three years ago. How can this be happening to her again?

On the eve of what was supposed to be a triumphant “Cancerversary” with her husband Jack to celebrate three years of being cancer-free, Daisy suffers a devastating blow: her doctor tells her that the cancer is back, but this time it’s an aggressive stage four diagnosis. She may have as few as four months left to live. Death is a frightening prospect—but not because she’s afraid for herself. She’s terrified of what will happen to her brilliant but otherwise charmingly helpless husband when she’s no longer there to take care of him. It’s this fear that keeps her up at night, until she stumbles on the solution: she has to find him another wife.

With a singular determination, Daisy scouts local parks and coffee shops and online dating sites looking for Jack’s perfect match. But the further she gets on her quest, the more she questions the sanity of her plan. As the thought of her husband with another woman becomes all too real, Daisy’s forced to decide what’s more important in the short amount of time she has left: her husband’s happiness—or her own?

My review...........4 stars

Great debut novel about a very difficult topic. What do you do when you discover you only have months to live? Whose happiness is more important, yours or the ones you will leave behind? I was expecting this to be a huge tear jerker, and give major kudos to the author for surprising me. Yes, the story is sad, but it's handled in a way that doesn't focus just on the tragedy surrounding Daisy. There are some very well done details that were upbeat, that focused on the anger and various mood swings that come when one is in the middle of a catastrophic diagnosis. I did think there was a bit too much of a coincidence when Jack ends up knowing one of the "potential" replacement wife candidates, but then the story takes a turn that is, once again, not expected.

Thanks to NetGalley for the chance to review this before it's release date of January 6, 2015. This is one I would recommend to anyone wanting to read a book about an emotionally heavy subject, but that won't leave you feeling like you got run over by a truck by the end of it. Very impressive debut novel.

Review: Let It Snow 4

ondbookshelfDecember 18, 20144 Comments

Let It Snow

by John Green, Maureen Johnson, Lauren Myracle

An ill-timed storm on Christmas Eve buries the residents of Gracetown under multiple feet of snow and causes quite a bit of chaos. One brave soul ventures out into the storm from her stranded train and sets off a chain of events that will change quite a few lives. Over the next three days one girl takes a risky shortcut with an adorable stranger, three friends set out to win a race to the Waffle House (and the hash brown spoils), and the fate of a teacup pig falls into the hands of a lovesick barista.

A trio of today's bestselling authors - John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle - bring all the magic of the holidays to life in three hilarious and charming interconnected tales of love, romance, and kisses that will steal your breath away.

My review.........3 stars

It's been a while since the holiday read-a-thon, and I still have a few holiday stories I'd like to get to this year, this being one of them. I liked this book, but didn't love it. The first story, by Maureen Johnson, was adorable, and I would have given that one 4 or 4.5 stars as a stand-alone book. The other two were somewhat "meh" for me. They weren't awful, and they were a quick read, but nothing outstanding about either. I did really like the fact that the book, composed of 3 different stories by 3 authors, does take place over the same time period, and the characters do interact at various points in each story. That was a clever writing surprise.

This would be a fun, fast read that could be consumed during the Christmas festivities, when your attention may not be at it's best (with all the distractions of the season). However, if you have not read My True Love Gave to Me, that would be my pick for a seasonal short story collection.

Review: Belzhar 11

ondbookshelfDecember 12, 2014December 17, 201411 Comments

Belzhar

by Meg Wolitzer

If life were fair, Jam Gallahue would still be at home in New Jersey with her sweet British boyfriend, Reeve Maxfield. She’d be watching old comedy sketches with him. She’d be kissing him in the library stacks.She certainly wouldn’t be at The Wooden Barn, a therapeutic boarding school in rural Vermont, living with a weird roommate, and signed up for an exclusive, mysterious class called Special Topics in English.

But life isn’t fair, and Reeve Maxfield is dead.Until a journal-writing assignment leads Jam to Belzhar, where the untainted past is restored, and Jam can feel Reeve’s arms around her once again. But there are hidden truths on Jam’s path to reclaim her loss.

From New York Times bestselling author Meg Wolitzer comes a breathtaking and surprising story about first love, deep sorrow, and the power of acceptance.

My review...........4 stars

I can't believe it.......I really liked this book!! I'd heard so many good reviews about this one, and was reluctant to try it for two reasons. It deals with time travel, which ranks right up there with my hatred of aliens, zombies, spirits and ghosts. And it's written by an author whose previous book (The Interestings) I did not like. I decided since it was a rather short book, and it was in the young adult category, that it would be a quick read, even if not my cup of tea. No one was more surprised than me that I couldn't put it down! The characters were so well written, and the plot was so compelling, I had to see what was going to happen!

The title is in reference to the book that the Special Topics in English class is studying, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I had read this book way back either in high school, or shortly thereafter, and considered whether I should re-read it before starting this. It's really not necessary, there are a few references to the book, but nothing that would require you to even have read that book previous to reading this one.

If it weren't for the fact that there was the issue with time travel (which had to be included or there would have been no story!), this would have been a 5 star for me! Pick this one up if you want a book that you will fly through in one or two sittings!

Review: Saving Grace 1

ondbookshelfDecember 9, 20141 Comment

Saving Grace

by Jane Green

Grace and Ted Chapman are widely regarded as the perfect literary power couple. Ted is a successful novelist and Grace, his wife of twenty years, is beautiful, stylish, carefree, and a wonderful homemaker. But what no one sees, what is churning under the surface, is Ted’s rages. His mood swings. And the precarious house of cards that their lifestyle is built upon. When Ted’s longtime assistant and mainstay leaves, the house of cards begins to crumble and Grace, with dark secrets in her past, is most vulnerable. She finds herself in need of help but with no one to turn to…until the perfect new assistant shows up out of the blue. To the rescue comes Beth, a competent young woman who can handle Ted and has the calm efficiency to weather the storms that threaten to engulf the Chapman household. Soon, though, it’s clear to Grace that Beth might be too good to be true. This new interloper might be the biggest threat of all, one that could cost Grace her marriage, her reputation, and even her sanity. With everything at stake and no one to confide in, Grace must find a way to save herself before it is too late.

Powerful and riveting, Jane Green's Saving Grace will have you on the edge of your seat as you follow Grace on her harrowing journey to rock bottom and back.

My review...........4 stars

I really enjoyed this one. It was an interesting story, the text flowed well, there were characters you loved and disliked. I wanted to keep reading to find out what was going to happen at the end. Essentially all the qualities I like in my books.

I did have a few issues that kept me from the 5 star ranking. I was annoyed several times in the book with Grace. I really just wanted her to stand up for herself and not be so wishy-washy. She was a professional woman, and while I know there are plenty of them who stay in bad marriages, that didn't mean I had to like it. I can't really say more about this without revealing spoilers (which I never want to do). There are also recipes at the end of most chapters which I found annoying. I would have been fine with them at the end of the book, but I thought they were out of place (even though they were briefly mentioned within the chapter) and distracting.

I received an advance copy of this to review. This novel will be released on Dec. 30th, 2014. Overall a good read, I would recommend it. If you like your female characters to have a lot of backbone though, this may not work for you.