Where I Belong

Author:  Gwendolyn Heasley                          where i belong
Publisher:  HarperTeen
Genre:  Young Adult
Source: Little Bird Publicity

 

 

 

 

Goodreads:  Meet Corrinne. She’s living every girl’s dream in New York City—shopping sprees at Barneys, open access to the best clubs and parties, and her own horse at the country club. Her perfect life is perfectly on track. At least it was. . . . When Corrinne’s father is laid off, her world suddenly falls apart. Instead of heading to boarding school, she’s stripped of her credit cards and shipped off to the boonies of Texas to live with her grandparents. On her own in a big public school and forced to take a job shoveling manure, Corrinne is determined to get back to the life she’s supposed to be living. She doesn’t care who she stomps on in the process. But when Corrinne makes an unlikely friend and discovers a total hottie at work, she begins to wonder if her life B.R.—before the recession—was as perfect as it seemed.

Ope’s Opinion:  Corrinne was very whiny in the beginning of this book.  I thought she was very self centered.  Some times it takes a difficult situation to bring out the best in someone.  There are always lessons to be learned in each event in life.

Corrinne’s attitude toward drinking really bothered me.  She acted like most people did it and she was just staring high school.  When Rider said he didn’t drink, she acted like he was weird.  I don’t think I would want a young person to read this and think that it was acceptable.

I did like that the story was mostly about Corrinne and her friendships.  There were boys involved, but that wasn’t the center of the story.  Her family was great, especially her grandpa and her brother.

In the end, this was a good, easy read with lessons learned.

Rating: Three Chairs – I like the book enough to suggest it to a friend or two.
3 chairs

Recipe for a Happy Life

Author:  Brenda Janowitz               recipe
Publisher:  St. Martin’s Griffin
Genre:  Women’s Fiction
Source:  Author

 

 

 

Goodreads:  There’s more than one recipe for a happy life.

Hannah Goodman doesn’t grow up like most kids on the Upper East side. Her mother, Gray, is an award-winning photojournalist with little time for the banalities of child-rearing, and when she’s not jetting off to follow the latest scoop, she’s camped out at the Hotel Chelsea. The closest thing Hannah’s got to a traditional matriarch is her grandmother—a glamorous widow six times over with a sprawling Hampton’s estate. But Gray is determined that her daughter resist the siren song of the trust fund set, and make her own way in the world. So Hannah does just that—becoming a successful lawyer in New York City, and dating a handsome musician. Hannah has it all, or so it seems, until one hot June day the carefully constructed pieces of her life break apart. When she throws it all in and seeks solace at her grandmother’s estate, she discovers that where happiness is concerned, you don’t have to stick to the recipe.

Ope’s Opinion:  If you like family relationship books – you will really like this one!  It has a very deep loving relationship between granddaughter and grandmother.  There is a difficult relationship between mother and daughter.  There are some romantic relationships as well.  

The writing sweeps you away to the Hamptons – I did not want to come back!  You can see the houses as she describes them.  You can hear the waves hit the beach.  Janowitz draws a beautiful picture with her words.

I love strong women characters.  This grandmother was so much fun to read – everyone should have someone like her in their lives.

I want to read another Brenda Janowitz book.

Rating:  Four Chairs – I like this book so much I know several friends to share it with.
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Saving Grace

Author:  Pamela Fagan Hutchins               saving grace
Publisher:  SkipJack Publishing
Genre:  Mystery
Source:  Shelf Awareness

Goodreads:   2010 Winner of the Writers League of Texas’s Romance Manuscript contest
2012 Winner of the Houston Writers Guild’s Ghost Story contest

Katie Connell is a high-strung attorney whose sloppy drinking habits and stunted love life collide hilariously in a doomed celebrity case in Dallas. When she flees Texas for the Caribbean, Katie escapes professional humiliation, a broken heart, and a wicked Bloody Mary habit, but she trades one set of problems for another when she begins to investigate the suspicious deaths of her parents on the island of St. Marcos. She’s bewitched by the voodoo spirit of an abandoned house in the rainforest and discovers that she’s as much a danger to herself as the island’s bad guys are. As the worst of her worlds collide, Katie drags herself back to the courthouse to defend her new friend Ava, an island local accused of stabbing the senator she’s been sleeping with.

Pamela Fagan Hutchins, a former attorney and native Texan, lived in the U.S. Virgin Islands for nearly ten years. She refuses to admit to taking notes for this novel during that time.

Ope’s Opinion: This is the first in a series of books.  Hutchins took a lot of time in this book to set up the story behind Katie Connell being on the island of St. Marcos.  The description of the island is vivid.  Hutchins made you feel like you were there.

The jumbie ( ghost ) part was not my favorite.  I do not care for super natural things in stories.  If you do, you will probably like that part of the story.

The mystery part of it only seem to happen in the last part of the book.  It was all solved at the end of this book.

Rating:  Three Chairs – I like the book enough to suggest it to a friend or two.
3 chairs