This is a place where you can link up reviews during the year. There will be two link ups during the year. One from January to June and the other from July to December.
At the end of each link up there will be a $12 draw for either a Book Depository book choice or Amazon gift voucher.
Reviews are not mandatory but this is one link up where I will be really looking forward to reading the reviews. Not that I need to add to my groaning shelves but I am a bookaholic!
I've read my first two books for this challenge. The first was "The Good Luck Girls of Shipwreck Lane" by Kelly Harms which I thoroughly enjoyed. About 2 young women from the same town who happen to have the same name and have both entered a contest to win a house (Much like HGTV) who both make their way across the country to claim their prize! It's about learning that family doesn't always have to be related by blood, sometimes you just have to make your own family. It also had a lot of cooking going on with great descriptions of the food, which I loved. Today, I also finished "The Silent Sister" by Diane Chamberlain which I really liked. It was a great story about family, secrets, lies and the consequences you pay when it all comes out. Both great books, good start to the New Year!
ReplyDeleteBetty the first one sounds really interesting. I've read The Silent Sister and really liked it to. Indeed an excellent start to 2015.
ReplyDeleteI finished another book today which I consider women's fiction, but I have also seen it described as "chick-lit", although I don't like that term and I really think it's a little "meatier" than some of the so called "chick-lit" books. I read "The House on Mermaid Point" by Wendy Wax. I enjoyed this book, the same as I enjoyed the first 2 in this trilogy + a novella, although I'm hoping the author writes another in this series as I enjoy the settings and the characters. I like pretty much anything set at the beach! This is a book about women's friendships (which are some of my favorite books), house renovation, reality TV, romance - endings and beginnings of, relationships between Moms and daughters, sisters and brothers, moms and son, paparazzi, celebrity and just life in general at different stages. I found this to be a kind of light (certainly lighter than my last, "The Silent Sister"), but enjoyable read!
ReplyDeleteTotally agree with you on two counts. I hate the term "chick lit" and I think The House on Mermaid Point is meatier. You are with a number of us Betty who would love another one in this series.
DeleteFinished another book for this challenge today, "The Beekeeper's Ball" by Susan Wiggs. It's been awhile since I read the first book in the Bella Vista Chronicles, but I liked this one more. Isabel's story just resonated with me, I felt she grew so much over the course of this book! I loved Isabel and Mac's relationship and how it developed, the cooking and planning for the cooking school and her sister's wedding, the way she finally brought a resolution to her past trauma and I found the passages about her grandfather's past as part of the resistance movement during the war, very moving. This book, for me, had a little of everything, romance, an abuse storyline, food (book included several recipes) and a trip to Italy. I found this to be a very enjoyable read.
ReplyDeleteI loved this one too for all the reasons you mention. I think at some stage I would like to reread these by listening to the audio of them.
DeleteYesterday I finished "The Sweetness of Forgetting" by Kristin Harmel. Loved this book. The main characters were Mamie or Rose, the grandmother who is in an assisted living facility with Alzheimer's, Hope, the granddaughter, and Hope's daughter, Annie. Mamie has a secret that her family knows nothing about and she wants to get it out there, before she completely loses all her memories. The story is about Alzheimer's, the Holocaust, family relationships, and how they affect who you are. On top of that, there is a family bakery with a few recipes included. This was a sometimes sad, but very good read.
ReplyDeleteBetty this sounds great, I am going to look at it on Goodreads and add it to my list of want to reads!
DeleteToday I finished Nancy Thayer's "An Island Christmas." I have always loved her books, but I did not even care enough to finish her last one, and this one, I only finished because it was short. I just didn't find the characters that appealing and the story was not really interesting. To me, it was kind of like reading a "back-in-the-day" Harlequin series romance. I don't know that I'll even bother with her next book, the last 2 have been such disappointments. It did have quite a few good reviews on Goodreads, but I just didn't see it.
ReplyDeleteFinished "The Food of Love Cookery School" by Nicky Pellegrino. I love books about women and their friendships, and travel and food. This book is about 4 women in different stages of life who book a trip to Italy to a cooking school for their vacations. One woman is a high-powered lawyer with a husband and kids at home in England, another is a young divorcee from Australia, another is a social worker/single mother facing cancer treatments and the last is a 60 something woman from New York whose partner of 20 years recently died and who believes her passion died with him. I enjoyed the story of them getting to know each other, as they see a bit of Sicily and learn to cook Sicilian dishes. Very enjoyable read for me.
ReplyDeleteBetty you have decided me, I am reading this book this year as I need a food fiction book for another challenge and Nicky Pellegrino also while being English lives here in New Zealand. Awesome and loving your reads and reviews.
DeleteMy latest book was "Lost Lake" by Sarah Addison Allen. I've read nothing but good things about her writing, her stories, the magic, etc. I'm afraid I'm in the minority, I'm not sure I'll even try to read any more of her novels. They all sound good in their synopses and in the reader reviews, but I just don't get it. I tried to read another of her books a few years ago and did not finish it, so I thought I would try again. This one sounded good on paper and it was well-written, and I did finish this one at least, but it just didn't grab my interest. I didn't come to really care about any of the characters. I guess you could say the "magic" just wasn't there for me.
ReplyDeleteSorry this wasn't for you - her books do contain magical realism and if that doesn't gel with a reader I guess then they aren't going to like her books. Never mind, so many great books out there to read. Hope your next read delights you.
DeleteWow Kathryn, you are doing a ton of Challenges this year. Besides this one, I am doing a re-read challenge, the Foodie Challenge, a nonfiction challenge and 2 on Goodreads, Snagged at the Library and Finishing the Series and I thought that was quite a handful. I don't see how you keep them all straight.
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DeleteI am not sure I am! Fortunately I am now retired so have more time. It's the linking up of reviews I get a little lost with, as some do and some don't and I find it difficult to remember! You are doing quite a few!
Yesterday, I finished another read, Mary McNear's "Up at Butternut Lake." This was my first read by this author, the beginning of a trilogy (so far) plus a holiday novella. I kind of wobbled back and forth with this book but in the end, I enjoyed it. I liked the small town feel and the characters and the writing was pretty good, I just felt at times, it sounded like a Harlequin romance, a little too sweet, which I was not in the mood for. But, the characters did develop and grow over the course of the book. I particularly liked the secondary character of Jax and I hope she will be getting more time in another of the novels, so I will be reading the other books in this series.
ReplyDeleteOh good. I have Up at Butternut Lake in my TBR pile so I am looking forward to reading it, will keep your thoughts in mind.
DeleteJust finished One Wish, by Robyn Carr, one of my fav authors. When I'm in the mood for a little romance, Robyn Carr is on my "go-to" short list. Although I'm not as into this Thunder Point series, as I was her Virgin River series, there's just something about her writing and characters that appeals to me. Although I spent the first 10 years of my life in a very small community, and hated it, even at that young age (you couldn't pay me to move back there, I just didn't like the way everybody felt they had a right to know everybody else's business!), a fair amount of the books I read and enjoy take place in small communities. This one is Grace and Troy's story. She is an ex-Olympic gold-medalist figure skater who has changed her name and bought a flower shop, running it very well and he is a high-school teacher. Although I could have told you how this would turn out, I still enjoyed it and read it in a matter of hours. Her books are always an enjoyable way to spend a few hours of downtime.
ReplyDeleteI just finished "House Broken" by Sonja Yoerg late last evening. It was well written and readable, but given the picture of the cute puppy peeking over the fence on the cover and even though the cover summary talked about alcoholism and family secrets, I just wasn't prepared for the dark, uncomfortable turn the story line would take. I felt like there should have been one of those disclaimers on the cover like, "subject matter may be a little uncomfortable for some people." Another reason, this book was just okay for me, was that I really didn't identify or like any of the main characters, the wife was controlling and the husband was wishy-washy, the kids were out of control. If I had to pick one character, I guess I would say I had the most sympathy for the grandma, as I felt she really had a reason for being the way she was. In the end, I didn't hate the book, but I didn't love it either. It was just okay. It was a little out of my comfort zone. It wasn't graphic, so if you like stories about families in crisis and long-held family secrets, you just might like this book.
ReplyDeleteBetty I have this book on my Kindle to read at some point so will be interesting to see what I think of it. I have seen other readers talking about the cute cover doesn't quite match the content!
DeleteI will be looking to see what you think of it Kathryn. It was definitely one of those books that I couldn't decide how I felt about it. I think because I sometimes am attracted to books by their covers, and to me this one was misleading. It made the book so not what I expected and sometimes my expectations tend to get in the way. But, then when I think about, I'm not sure what type of cover would have given me a hint of what was to come.
DeleteI was going to read it last month then it fell off because of too many to read! Will get to it soon though hopefully.
DeleteJust finished reading "The Dress Ship of Dreams" by Menna Van Praag. I'm not quite sure how I feel about this book, I hover between, "It was OK" to "I liked it." I'm trying to expand my reading a little, I tend to read the same authors, usually series, all the time, so I'm reading a few new authors that I find recommended on different web sites. "The Dress Shop of Dreams" was one of the 4 books picked for Winter by SheReads.org. For me, the story was just ok, but the writing itself was wonderful! Early on, there was this description of the grandmother's shop. "Stepping through the door is like stepping back in time. 1,349 dresses in every style hang on racks, clustered together as if holding hands and gossiping among themselves. Sequins flash from sleeves, sparkling beads swish from hems, and every color that one could possibly imagine (and a good number that one couldn't) shimmer and twinkle like galaxies of stars bottled in jars." And I was drawn in and wanted to visit Etta's shop. Then there was this passage about Walt and his bookshop. "At night, after Walt flips over the "closed" sign on the front door, he sits back behind the counter and opens doors to other worlds: bookshelves transmute into swamp trees, floors into muddy marshes, the ceiling into a purple sky cracked with lightning as he floats down the Mississippi with Huck Finn. When he meets Robinson Crusoe, the trees become heavy with coconuts, the floorboards a barren desert of sand dunes whipped by screeching winds. When he fights pirates off the coasts of Treasure Island, the floors dip and heave, the salty splash of ocean waves stings his eyes and clouds of gunpowder stain the air." This description almost made me want to go grab these books and read them. This author is definitely worth a read.
ReplyDeleteI have this on my list to read, I know that those who read the She Reads books are reading it. Pat at Posting For Now on my side bar has read it. I'll only get to it, if I lower my TBR pile! Although I try to step out of my comfort zone too from time to time.
DeleteLate last night (or early this morning) I finished reading Susan Mallery's newest, "The Girls of Mischief Bay." I thought this was a good start to a new series by this author. Not as lighthearted as her previous series but an enjoyable read. "The Girls" are Nicole, married with a 5-year-old, who owns an exercise studio/business, whose husband comes in one day and tells her he has quit his well-paying job and is going to write a screen play and proceeds to spend his days surfing "to clear his head", writing, and "taking meetings," as well as taking a writing class and going to a critique group. He pretty much leaves her to not only support them monetarily, but do most everything else to keep their lives on track. There is Shannon, single, almost 40 with a high paying job which takes much of her time who would like to "have it all" but finds that most men are intimidated by her job and dislike it when dates are interrupted by her work. Then there is Pam, married for 30-some years to a wonderful man with 3 grown kids, about to become a grandmother. These 3 women forge a strong bond of friendship and support through some tough times. Looking forward to the next in this series.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the first in this series too. I am now waiting for the 2nd one, which happens when you read the series when it first comes out!
DeleteYesterday, I finally finished "The Life Intended" by Kristin Harmel. I had a bit of a hard time getting into this book, kept putting it down and starting other books. I loved "The Sweetness of Forgetting" by this author, this one was a little harder to get into. Part of it was my own personal bias. I really hate any type of time travel or "dream" book and in this one, the main character started having vivid dreams of a terribly realistic life she would have had with her husband, if he hadn't been killed 12 years ago. This starts to occur right after she has finally accepted the proposal of her current boyfriend. She starts to want to sleep all the time, so hopefully she will dream about her husband. The other thing is I couldn't wait for her to dump the current boyfriend/fiance, I hated him from day one. He treated her like she was either a child or stupid, but everyone else loved him. I especially disliked him when at the engagement party, her husband's mother comes in (they had remained close) and he asks her when she is going to stop that relationship. Later as I got deeper into the story, I realized why the author used the dream part of the story (but still didn't like it!) and ended up enjoying the book. The main character is a music therapist which is something I once considered, so really enjoyed the parts about her career. During the course of the book, because of the dreams, she starts learning ASL and begins to work with several hard of hearing children. I loved the book's ending, so despite the parts I didn't like, I ended up enjoying this book.
ReplyDeleteA couple of days ago, I finished the latest in Jodi Thomas's Harmony series, "One True Heart." I love this series. Its set in a great small town with interesting and sometimes quirky characters. The love stories are pretty clean yet still the chemistry is usually good and there is usually some kind of little mystery. Most of the main characters are in some way related to one of the three founding families of the town. In this installment, one of the McAllen's comes home from the war, injured so badly, she had to be discharged from her military service only to find that her discharge has been held up while she is charged with finding a terrorist hiding in plain site. The story as usual was engaging, readable and enjoyable. Love Jodi Thomas's writing.
ReplyDeleteBetty absolutely love this series too. Jodi Thomas is a pleasure to read.
DeleteToday I finished "French Coast" by Anita Hughes. Love this author! This book starts in San Francisco where Serena is a editor at Vogue magazine, daughter of a retired U.S. Senator and engaged to be married to her "perfect match", Chase, who is ready to begin his campaign for mayor of San Francisco. The night that she accepts the engagement ring from Chase, she also tells him that her next assignment is in Cannes, interviewing the retired editor of French Vogue. Serena goes to Cannes where first, her reservations have been messed up and she has nowhere to stay until she is befriended by another woman she meets in the hotel bar. It is the story of finding love, losing love, and finding it again. I was very involved in this story and never wanted to put the book down. Excellent enjoyable read!
ReplyDeleteSounds great, haven't read this author but I am going to chase this one up!
DeleteThis week I finished Amanda Quick's "Garden of Lies" and Jayne Ann Krentz's "Trust No One." These are actually the same author, I'm not sure why but she uses 3 different names for the 3 slightly different genre's she writes. Amanda Quick is the only Victorian-type author I read. This one was not her best, but still not bad. Trust No One was pretty good. This is her contemporary one. Her chemistry is usually pretty good and her stories are interesting. Have also been catching up on some of my "go-to" romance-type authors (I just lump these all together under the Women's fiction heading). Have been catching up on Hope Ramsay's Last Chance series over the last few months, have read "Last Chance Book Club," "Last Chance Knit and Stitch," and "Inn at Last Chance." Also read the last in Jill Shalvis's Lucky Harbor series, "One in a Million." I'm going to miss this series. Chemistry always rocks. Also read Rae Anne Thayne's "Wild Iris Ridge" and Susan Mallery's latest Fool's Gold installment, "Hold Me." Read Sherryl Woods' "Dogwood Hill" and Emily March, "Teardrop Lane" When I want to read romance, I usually go for the small-town series books instead of stand alones.
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ReplyDeleteI really enjoy Jayne Ann Krentz books and liked Trust No One as well. I sometimes read her Amanda Quick historicals. I have One in a Million on my Kindle waiting for reading space. I love Emily March's series too. I tried Rae Anne Thayne but for some reason I didn't gel with it. So many small town series stories to choose from.
Today I finished "The Vintage Teacup Club" by Vanessa Greene. It took me awhile, but it wasn't the fault of the book, I just had a lot of library books to get back so I put this one aside for awhile. Once I got into this book, I really enjoyed it. Its about one of my favorite subjects, the friendships of women. The three main characters meet at a swap meet over a tea set. All 3 want the set, so having just met, they decide to buy it together and share it. Jenny wants the tea set for her wedding reception, so she'll use it first; Maggie owns a floral shop and event planning business and wants to use it for a wedding event she is planning, she'll be second in line; and Ali sells a lot of homemade things to boutiques and online and wants the teacups for candles, she'll receive it finally, make her candles and sell them. This is the start of their friendship and the book covers the happenings of the summer they meet. All three women are in different stages of their lives. Jenny is just starting out, Maggie is single, divorced, and childless; and Ali is married with 2 girls and her husband is out of work. Loved the story of how these women bonded over the teacups and the things that were happening in their lives over this summer. This was the first book I've read by this author and I will definitely be looking for more of her books.
ReplyDeleteBetty this sounds good, love this kind of book and women's friendships. It is already on my radar and I hope I get to it some time.
ReplyDeleteToday, I finished another book that I had started and set aside to finish some library holds. "The Bake-Off" by Beth Kendrick was a fun read, as are most by this author. This is the story of 2 sisters, Linnie and Amy. Linnie was a child prodigy gone "bad" and Amy is a dental hygienist, wife, and mother of twins. They have been long estranged for many reasons, but they have a sneaky grandma who tricks them into doing a pie-baking contest together to try to make them into BFFs. The problem besides them not getting along, is that neither of them can bake! Its a comedy of errors with some maturing and growing up in the background. Its a story of family, especially sisters, baking, and a little romance. Enjoyable read.
ReplyDeleteBetty I have heard of this one but not read it. I hope maybe one day I get to it. Sounds fun.
ReplyDeleteThis morning I finished "The Liar" by Nora Roberts and I truly enjoyed it! I think it has to be in the top 5 of all the Nora Roberts books I've read and I've read most of hers. I loved the main character, Shelby, and the story of this smart, sassy woman who loses her way for awhile, gets the smart and the sassy kind of beat down out of her by an uncaring husband. Husband dies, woman takes her 4-year-old daughter and goes back home to family in the Smoky Mountains and finds her way back to herself, reconnects with her family and old friends, finds work she enjoys, finds happiness and love. There's also some suspense, although I kind of knew what was going to happen from the beginning but it was interesting enough that I didn't mind that. Altogether a very enjoyable few hours of reading. Great for a summer beach read or a rainy weekend.
ReplyDeleteBetty I have this on audio and so I will be looking forward to it reading what you have to say about it.
ReplyDeleteFinished Karen White's "The Sound of Glass" this evening on my dinner break. I was trying to finish before I started work this afternoon and I just had about 5 or 6 pages. I hate when that happens! This book was sooo good! I have read a couple of her books before, but it's been awhile. This one, like a lot by this author, was set in the low country of South Carolina. It was a great story about starting over, about family, facing our fears. Merritt is a widow, living in Maine, when she inherits the family home of her deceased husband. The thing is, she didn't know her husband had any family and she tells everyone that she has no family. So, she decides to start over by selling most everything she has and moving to Beaufort, South Carolina. She's barely arrived when her widowed stepmother and her 10-year-old brother show up and move in. There is tension between the characters and a back-burner story line about her husband's grandmother and the characters do a lot of growing up. Very engaging book, I couldn't put it down and I had a great cry near the end! Will be checking out more of this author's books very soon.
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ReplyDeleteI've had this book on my radar for a while, but your review decides me, I am definitely going to read this book, it sounds really good. It seems I have been reading quite a few books set in the Carolinas so it will fit right in.
Finished Nancy Thayer's newest, "The Guest Cottage" this morning. Okay, this author was back to her usual good reads with this book. It was soooo much better than her last one, which I didn't even finish (and I don't do that lightly!). This story was about 36-year-old Sophie, a wife and mother with 2 children, 15-year-old Jonah and 10-year-old Lacey, whose husband has just asked her for a divorce. She packs the kids and herself off to Nantucket for the summer, using most of an inheritance from her Aunt Fancy to pay for it. The surprise is that the house she has rented is owned by 2 cousins who both arranged a rental for the summer. So, she is sharing a house with 30-year-old widower, Trevor, and his 4-year-old son, Leo. This is the story of their summer, getting to know each other and a band of friends and family that come to visit. This was a really good beach read. I started it on Thursday night and finished it before work on Saturday. It was an enjoyable, relaxing read; almost like taking a little vacay on Nantucket myself!
ReplyDeleteFinished reading "The Life List" by Lori Nelson Spielman this morning. Actually, to begin with, I thought the premise of this story was pretty silly. The book begins with thirty-something Brett, a single woman losing her mom to cancer. Her inheritance is a life list she wrote when she was 14 with a list of things she wanted to accomplish in life. Mom gives Brett 1 year to accomplish everything she has marked on this list, if she does this, she will receive her real inheritance. So, based on this, I wasn't sure I would enjoy this book. However, I was drawn in right from the start. There was a line right near the beginning when Brett is thinking about losing her mom, it reads, "How will I ever manage to stumble through this world without her? I have so much more daughter left in me." Having lost my father 3 years ago, even at the age of 54, I felt the same way. Like Brett, I thought that the difference between what you want in life at 14 and what you want and can accomplish at 30-something are probably quite different. However, it seems Brett's mom may have been right. The story of Brett's list and how she goes about completing it and the scary changes she makes in her life to do that, are quite a story. This was an enjoyable read!
ReplyDeleteBetty you are reading through the books! I enjoyed The Guest Cottage too, actually my first by Nancy Thayer. The Life List sounds interesting so I will add it to my TBR.
ReplyDeleteFinished reading "The Art of Baking Blind" by Sarah Vaughan today. This one unfortunately was just okay for me. It sounded really good on paper and I was excited to get it off hold at the library, but reading it was, for me, difficult. It was written in this kind of odd style where each chapter was named after one of the main characters and kept flipping back and forth. The story was about a baking competition for the new Mrs. Eaden. Mrs. Eaden, Kathleen, was the wife of a grocery store chain owner who was really part of the success of the stores. She became an "expert" on cooking and baking, even writing a book called "The Art of Baking." Most of the timeline of this story takes place after she is already dead. So, the book goes back and forth between the current time, during the baking competition, where, Mike, Vickie, Jenny, Claire, and Karen are the participants in the competition, and the 1960s when Kathleen was in her heyday. Kathleen's sections were mostly involving her writing of the book and her continuing problems with trying to have a child. There are chapters titled Kathleen, Vickie, Jenny, Claire, and Karen. Mike, although a participant is kind of a peripheral character with no chapters of his own. I found it somewhat confusing and hard to follow. Just as you would get interested in one character's story line, it would switch to someone else, and I kept having to look at the synopsis on the book flap to remember which character was which. One was an empty nester, one was described as "perfect," one was a 20-something single mom, and another a 30-something career teacher, turned stay-at-home mom. I was halfway through the book before I got the women all straight! I did finish the book, but did not "love" it. Not sure I would read this author again.
ReplyDeleteFinished "The Accidental Book Club" by Jennifer Scott. I really enjoyed this book. It was the first time I have read this author. The story started with Jean, a widow of 3 years, but still grieving. She started a book club soon after her husband died, in the hopes it would help her form new friendships and be less lonely. It's about the friends she shares her book club with and their relationships with each other and their own families. It's also about Jean's daughter, son-in-law, and most importantly, her granddaughter. All their relationships change over the course of this book in various ways. The story had great moments that made me laugh but also had a serious side involving alcoholism. It was a really engrossing read, one which I didn't want to put down, and I will be looking for other books by this author.
ReplyDeleteBetty I have put The Accidental Book Club into my wish list, sounds like one I'd enjoy.
ReplyDeleteFinished reading "Beach Town" by Mary Kay Andrews this morning. Mary Kay Andrews is always on my summer reading list. Beach reads to me, are just that, books that are set at or very near a beach, any beach! In this one, the main character is Greer and she is a movie location scout out to find an old-time type Florida beach town as a setting for her latest movie project. In this book she deals with a dictatorial director, a out of control hip-hop/rapper turned leading man, a new man in her life, a love-sick teenager, and a father that she hasn't seen in 30 years, all while keeping tabs on her movie people and dealing with the problems of her job. As usual, Mary Kay Andrews' writing is sassy and funny and a bit Southern! As always, this author provides an enjoyable read.
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