Follow Friday 7.6.12

Q: Jumping Genres: Ever pick up a book from a genre you usually don’t like and LOVE it? Tell us about it and why you picked it up in the first place.

I've been reading chick lit more. I've been introduced to some really good titles and have been getting more into it.

Review: Great-Aunt Sophia's Lessons for Bombshells by Lisa Cach

Great-Aunt Sophia's Lessons for Bombshells by Lisa Cach
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: June 19, 2012
Despite her misgivings, Grace Cavanaugh can't resist when her great-aunt asks for help with her hip surgery recovery.  It's pretty much an expense free vacation in California and she'll be able to write her dissertation for her Ph. D.  The misgivings return in full force when her great-aunts house turns out to be a mansion in Pebble Beach, fully staffed at that.  Grace and her friend Cat are barely in the door before sexy playboy Declan O'Brien who sends Grace aflutter.  Meeting fellow intellectual Dr. Andrew Pritchard sets Grace at ease.  Aunt Sophia's obvious distaste at Grace's field, Women's Studies, and her dissertation asserting that beauty is ruinous for women is seemingly shared by both Declan and Andrew.  This summer might not be such a slam dunk for her writing her dissertation.
Aunt Sophia somewhat viciously ridicules Grace's dissertation and her friend Catherine who supports it.  Sophia challenges Grace to a experiment that will either confirm or derail all of Grace's Ph. D. research.  Aunt Sophia's plan consists three intense months of diets, personal training, lessons in charm, and coquettish behavior.  Basically using your feminine wiles to accomplish your intellectual goals.  An immediate payoff of wild sex does much to affirm Grace's new plan of action.  As the month's go by Grace's rigid beliefs start to sway worrying her friends and family.  Using Great-Aunt Sophia's tips but keeping her core belief's changes Grace for the better and helps her realize bombshells aren't necessarily victimized anti-feminist bimbos.
Aunt Sophia's Lessons hits many of the romance novel cliches: headstrong heroine and two suitors, the socially awkward doctor and the playboy money man but manages not to be boring.  The difference is Aunt Sophia who essentially plays all of them masterfully against each other and still manages to drop several bombshells of her own.   Great-Aunt Sophia's Lessons for Bombshells is a great summer read.

** This was book was provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion.**

Review: Summerland by Elin Hilderbrand

Summerland by Elin Hilderbrand
Publisher:Hachette Book Group
Publshed: June 2012







Giddy from excitement of the end of the school year and the beginning of summer, no one expects a tragedy that will alter the lives of Nantucket's year round residents.  Penny Alistair recklessly speeding drives her twin brother, boyfriend, and friend off an embankment.  Initially, everyone thinks it was an accident until the toxicology reports and statements from the others bring up some doubts. With Penny dead, her twin Hobby in a coma, and her boyfriend Jake and friend Demeter unscathed, all the certainties start to unravel.  Tragedy is the great leveler.
As Hobby heals from his injuries, he has to adjust to life without Penny and the loss of his athletic prowess.  His mother, Zoe,  loses a child, has to become nursemaid to a convalescent, and loses a lover in a short period of time.  Jake, Penny's boyfriend, must get used to Penny being gone and being in all the spaces that remind him of her.  When his Dad decides to move to Australia, he is not too happy about it.  After spending the summer away, both he and his father decide to move back to Nantucket and deal with their loose ends
Everyone wonders why Penny would drive so recklessly; she was so disciplined in every other area of her life.  Only Demeter knows why.  Desperate for attention and acceptance, Demeter tells Penny a pretty big secret regarding her family.  Penny, who as it turns out might be more than a little disturbed, flips out and follows the course of action which leads to her death.  Shaken, Demeter keeps this incident to herself and tries to keep a tough front. 
I really tried to like this book but couldn't get into it.  Summerland seems a little heavy for beach reading.  It's set in one of those claustrophobic towns where everyone is all in each other's business and have the sort of relationships that require charts to follow.  For all the gossiping in the town, several significant secrets are kept simply because people ignore what they don't want to see.  Like apparently actively ignoring your kid's obvious problems isn't going to help them get any better. Who would have thought?  It just seemed like so many problems could have been solved if people tried to have actual conversations with each other as opposed to avoiding any conversations that could have gone unpredictably.
** This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion.**

Review: The Reckoning by Alma Katsu

The Reckoning by Alma Katsu
Publisher: Gallery Books
Publication Date: June 2012

The Reckoning is the 2nd book in The Taker Trilogy.  We resume company with Lanore and Luke shortly after the events of the first book.  Lanny feels the reconnection of her psychic bond with Adair and realizes her must have been freed from the prison she created from him.  She knows he's coming for her and the realization both frightens and excites her. 

First, she has to settle things with Luke.  Then she has to find the other members of Adair's entourage.    She begins to see that while she was happy to be free of Adair and his imperious whims, the others were lost without Adair's rule.  Despite all this, she tries to pump them regarding information about Adair and the possibility of breaking the curse of their immortality.  Along the way, she realizes Adair truly loved her despite all the drama of their relationship.

Meanwhile, Adair is coming to terms with the modern world that engulfs him once he emerges from his prison. He is awestruck by the wizardry of the everyday items like cars, computers, the Internet, etc.  (In my mind, this played out like Thor and his reaction to coffee.) Using the connection, he finds Jude and sets to work getting acclimated to the modern world and finding Lanore.  In addition to finding his spell books and using new spells, Adair discovers and hones his increased capabilities in the dark arts leading to a discovery of a new entity that could spell trouble in his new world.  Adair starts to realize that he might actually care for Lanore as something more than a sexual plaything or bonded sycophant.

The inevitable reunion between Lanore and Adair occurs in a manner neither of the two anticipated.  Folded back into Adair's company against her will, Lanore chafes at even pretending to want to be around Adair.  To her surprise, Adair has changed in ways beyond her comprehension. 

In The Reckoning, we get more parts of Adair's story and start to see the events that shaped him into the man he became.  If the first book was about Lanore, this book provide a fuller picture of Adair and his motivations.  His change when he emerges in the modern era are startling but provide good context for his character development.  Lanore is pretty much scrambling to outmaneuver him while still recovering from the demise of Jonathan.  There were a couple of time where I started to wonder how one lived for so many centuries being so naive especially in regards to people who were reprobates when she knew them.  The supporting members of Adair's entourage were the same old, same old.  Overall, this was a great continuation of the series.  Can hardly wait for book three.

** This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion.   **

Review: Happily Ever After by Harriet Evans

Happily Ever After


Happily Ever After by Harriet Evans
Publisher: Gallery Books Publish date: June 5, 2012

appily Ever After by Harriet Evans is a somewhat typical growing up story. Growing up in the English countryside, Eleanor Bee wants to work in publishing. After several weeks on her friend's couch, she starts to fret that her dream is not going to happen. Chancing on an ad looking for a secretary for Bluebird Publishing, she applies. Luckily, no one else did. Over the course of several years, she progresses in her career at Bluebird, weathering a merger and first love and heartbreak. She makes new friends and gains some lovers. Coming to terms with the true extent of her mother's alcoholism and her own fledgling alcohol problem while running from a complicated "situation", she jumps on an opportunity to move to New York. Despite finding love and success in New York, she still feels like something is missing. A trip home to England in attempt to tie up loose ends leaves her feeling even more adrift. She begins to wonder whether she should leave her New York life, the fantasy she made into her reality, or stay and deal with the longings for something to fill the void in her life. Happily Ever After is in the vein of Bridget Jones' Diary and Something Borrowed If you like those types of books, you'll like this one. The major difference is that Elle is successful in her job and her love life - even as she struggles with the way her success dictates her choices. The choices Elle makes seems true to the character and her actions. I also liked the fact that the book was written as a complete book and not a prequel or part of a continuing series. ** This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion.**

Review: The Midwife of Venice by Robrta Rich

The Midwife of Venice by Roberta Rich
Gallery Books
February 2012
Hannah Levi is a Jewish midwife in 16th century Venice.  Despite segregation of the Jews, her skills are known to all Jews and gentiles.  When a Venetian nobleman shows up in her ghetto, she knows he must be desperate to sidestep Papal Edict to ask a Jewish midwife to save his child.  Hannah would love to refuse his request and avoid any trouble for herself or her people.  However, several months before her husband was captured and was held for ransom.  Helping the Content could give her enough money to pay the ransom.
Of course she agrees to help with so much riding on her decision.  Ransoming Isaac is the most important thing;enough to make her more than willing to disobey both Catholic and Jewish law.
We also find out that Isaac is alive and struggling to his life as a slave.  A man who uses his wits he has difficulty adjusting to the physical labor of his new life.  Dodging all the attempts at forced conversion, he uses his wits to try to better his situation.
There are many twists and turns.  Thwarting laws are only the beginning of Hannah's problems.  Dragged into the intrigues of a Venetian noble family ,she crosses boundaries and makes alliances she never thought she would, sacrificing everything for Isaac.
This was a great debut novel.  Ms. Rich did a great job of building an authentic and historically correct 16th century Venice.  My only issue was the somewhat predictable plot and ending.  A sequel would be interesting since it could go anywhere.
This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion.

Review: The Folded Earth by Anuradha Roy

The Folded Earth: A Novel by Anuradha Roy
Free Press
April 2012    






 The Folded Earth is the story of Maya, a young woman who abandons her big city life and prominent past shortly after being widowed.  Already estranged from her family due to her mixed marriage to a Christian, she has little to keep her from escaping the city to begin anew in a rural mountain town close to where her husband died.
Having a teaching at a Christian school courtesy of her husbands priest, she can observe the town and its inhabitants in a different way than the other outsiders.  She is able to quickly make friends with her landlord, the last remnant of the local aristocracy.  The addition of his nephew to the household causes a subtle shift in the rhythm of life in the house. Political and religious issues in the background also cause tensions in several aspects of her life in ways she is unused to. Despite what she thinks life turns out to be just as complicated living an isolated life as it was dodging the past in the city.
Over the course of time, Maya begins to realize she may have more of a connection via her late husband with the nephew than he let on.  Realizing she has been taken advantage of, Maya makes a vengeful decision that affects the lives of several people close to her.  
Anuradha Roy is back with another great book.  Her last, The Atlas of Impossible Longing, gave us a look into the lives of multiple generations of an Indian family.  This book follows a young woman life after the death of the husband she gave everything up for.  I really like this book  I love Ms. Roy's way with words and the worlds she creates for her characters.  I look forward to future books from Ms. Roy.

** This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion.           **