Monthly Archives: June 2016

This Just In….

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Purchased from Barnes and Noble:

things you won't say

Published: May 26, 2015
Publisher: Washington Square Press

Goodreads:  In this timely and provocative novel, internationally bestselling author Sarah Pekkanen takes us inside a family in crisis and a marriage on the brink after a tragic shooting.

How far would you go to save your family?

Every morning, as her husband Mike straps on his SIG Sauer and pulls on his heavy Magnum boots, Jamie Anderson tenses up. Then comes the call she has always dreaded: There’s been a shooting at police headquarters. Mike isn’t hurt, but his long-time partner is grievously injured. As weeks pass and her husband’s insomnia and disconnectedness mount, Jamie realizes he is an invisible casualty of the attack. Then the phone rings again. Another shooting but this time Mike has pulled the trigger.

But the shooting does more than just alter Jamie’s world. It’s about to change everything for two other women. Christie Simmons, Mike’s flamboyant ex, sees the tragedy as an opportunity for a second chance with Mike. And Jamie’s younger sister, Lou, must face her own losses to help the big sister who raised her. As the press descends and public cries of police brutality swell, Jamie tries desperately to hold together her family, no matter what it takes.

In her characteristic exploration of true-to-life relationships, Sarah Pekkanen has written a complex, compelling, and openhearted novel her best yet.

Kristin of Kritters Ramblings  introduced me to Sarah Pekkanen’s books,
now I can’t get enough of them!  She is awesome!

 

unexpected everything

Published: May 3, 2016
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Goodreads:  Andie had it all planned out.

When you are a politician’s daughter who’s pretty much raised yourself, you learn everything can be planned or spun, or both. Especially your future.

Important internship? Check.

Amazing friends? Check.

Guys? Check (as long as we’re talking no more than three weeks).

But that was before the scandal. Before having to be in the same house with her dad. Before walking an insane number of dogs. That was before Clark and those few months that might change her whole life.

Because here’s the thing—if everything’s planned out, you can never find the unexpected.

And where’s the fun in that?

Morgan Matson hasn’t written a book I don’t love!!

Someone Like You

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Author: Victoria Bylin                     someone
Publisher: Bethany House
Genre: Christian Fiction
Source: Bethany House

 

 

Goodreads:  Julia Dare is trying to run her own business, raise her young son, Max, and help her widowed mother. Her biggest worry, though, is keeping Max’s father from being a bad influence while still allowing the boy to spend time with his dad. When an account from her event-planning business sends her to Caliente Springs resort, she’s shocked to encounter Zeke Monroe, her college sweetheart.

Zeke is determined to keep Caliente Springs running despite financial trouble. When Julia walks back into his life, he’s surprised at the feelings she stirs up. As they work together on an important client’s wedding, the fate of the resort soon depends on their success. With Zeke and Julia both pushed to their limits, will their history put up walls between them or bring them together?

Ope’s Opinion:  This is definitely a Christian Fiction book.  God is the center of this book from beginning to end.  It is not preachy, just God centered.  It should be in every church library.  The characters are all different ages and stages of life and stages in their Christian walk with God. 

The description of the resort setting took me away!  I felt like I was sitting there ( and I wanted to stay there ).  It was a nice back drop for falling in love.

I could have lived without the goat in the story.  That part felt a little cheesy to me.  It didn’t ruin the book, but it didn’t feel like it added anything either.

Thank you Victoria Bylin for making sure I received a copy of your book.

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One Paris Summer

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one paris summer

Author: Denise Grover Swank
Publisher: Blink
Genre: Contemporary Young Adult
Source: BEA 2016

Goodreads:  Most teens dream of visiting the City of Lights, but it feels more like a nightmare for Sophie Brooks. She and her brother are sent to Paris to spend the summer with their father, who left home a year ago without any explanation. As if his sudden abandonment weren’t betrayal enough, he’s about to remarry, and they’re expected to play nice with his soon-to-be wife and stepdaughter. The stepdaughter, Camille, agrees to show them around the city, but she makes it clear that she will do everything in her power to make Sophie miserable.

Sophie could deal with all the pain and humiliation if only she could practice piano. Her dream is to become a pianist, and she was supposed to spend the summer preparing for a scholarship competition. Even though her father moved to Paris to pursue his own dream, he clearly doesn’t support hers. His promise to provide her with a piano goes unfulfilled.

Still, no one is immune to Paris’s charm. After a few encounters with a gorgeous French boy, Sophie finds herself warming to the city, particularly when she discovers that he can help her practice piano. There’s just one hitch—he’s a friend of Camille’s, and Camille hates Sophie. While the summer Sophie dreaded promises to become best summer of her life, one person could ruin it all.

Ope’s Opinion: This is definitely a YA I would encourage my student to read.  It has a lot of relationships that are easy to relate to.  The characters are typical high school students.  They have relationships with each other that are up and down.  The parents are very involved in the students lives – I like that.

I just wanted to keep reading this book.  It had a nice flow of tension, quiet and tension through the whole book.

It was great to see Sophie so focused on her piano.  She was interested in Mathieu, but he wasn’t her sole focus. I like the well rounded characters Swank created.  These are good examples to read about.

At BEA each year, I try to pick up an author that is new to me.  This was my pick this year and it was a hit! I will be looking into Denise Grover Swank’s other books.

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This Just In….

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From HarperCollins:

forever beach

Publication Date: June 7, 2016
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks

Goodreads:  From the New York Times bestselling author of Beach Colors and Breakwater Bay comes this heartwarming story of love, family, and redemption. Two young girls pledged to be best friends forever. Separated by circumstance and hurt, they are reunited years later as they struggle to put their differences aside for the sake of a special little girl—perfect for fans of Elin Hilderbrand, Jane Green, and Kristin Hannah.

Two women…
One little girl…
Can they forgive the past in order to ensure the future of an innocent child…?

Once a foster child herself, Sarah Hargreave can’t wait to finalize the adoption of her foster daughter Leila. Sarah longs to give her all the love and stability she was denied in her own childhood. She’s put her own friendships and even her relationship with Wyatt, her longtime lover, on hold in order to give Leila her full attention.

When Leila’s biological mother suddenly reappears and petitions the court for the return of her daughter, Sarah is terrified she’ll lose the little girl she’s come to love as her own. Convinced the mother is still addicted to drugs, Sarah and her social worker enlist the help of high profile family lawyer, Ilona Cartwright. But when they meet, Sarah recognizes her as Nonie Blanchard who grew up in the same group foster home as Sarah. They’d promised to be best friends forever, then Nonie was adopted by a wealthy family, and Sarah never heard from her again. Sarah still hurts from the betrayal. But Nonie harbors her own resentment toward Sarah who she believes abandoned her when she needed her most.

Mistrustful of each other, the two women form a tenuous alliance to ensure Leila’s future, but when Leila’s very survival is on the line, they’ll have to come to terms with their own feelings of hurt and rejection to save the child they both have come to love.

I love a book with the beach on the cover and  a good story too!

the perfect girlPublished: March 3, 2016
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Goodreads:  To everyone who knows her now, Zoe Maisey – child genius, musical sensation – is perfect. Yet several years ago, Zoe caused the death of three teenagers. She served her time. And now she’s free.

Her story begins with her giving the performance of her life.

By midnight, her mother is dead.

The Perfect Girl is an intricate exploration into the mind of a teenager burdened by brilliance. It’s a story about the wrongs in our past not letting go and how hard we must fight for second chances.

This one looks scary good!

bookshop

Publication Date: September 20, 2016
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks

Goodreads: “Losing myself in Jenny Colgan’s beautiful pages is the most delicious, comforting, satisfying treat I have had in ages.”—Jane Green, New York Times bestselling author of Summer Secrets

Nina Redmond is a librarian with a gift for finding the perfect book for her readers. But can she write her own happy-ever-after? In this valentine to readers, librarians, and book-lovers the world over, the New York Times-bestselling author of Little Beach Street Bakery returns with a funny, moving new novel for fans of Meg Donohue, Sophie Kinsella, and Nina George’s The Little Paris Bookshop.

Nina Redmond is a literary matchmaker. Pairing a reader with that perfect book is her passion… and also her job. Or at least it was. Until yesterday, she was a librarian in the hectic city. But now the job she loved is no more.

Determined to make a new life for herself, Nina moves to a sleepy village many miles away. There she buys a van and transforms it into a bookmobile—a mobile bookshop that she drives from neighborhood to neighborhood, changing one life after another with the power of storytelling.

From helping her grumpy landlord deliver a lamb, to sharing picnics with a charming train conductor who serenades her with poetry, Nina discovers there’s plenty of adventure, magic, and soul in a place that’s beginning to feel like home… a place where she just might be able to write her own happy ending.

When I am done reading this one, I want to frame the cover!

Thank you HarperCollins for sending  great books for me to read!

 

 

Before the Fall

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Before the fallAuthor: Noah Hawley
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Genre: Mystery
Source:  Kristin of Kritters Ramblings

Goodreads:  From the Emmy, PEN, Peabody, Critics’ Choice, and Golden Globe Award-winning creator of the TV show Fargo comes the thriller of the year.

On a foggy summer night, eleven people-ten privileged, one down-on-his-luck painter-depart Martha’s Vineyard on a private jet headed for New York. Sixteen minutes later, the unthinkable happens: the plane plunges into the ocean. The only survivors are Scott Burroughs-the painter-and a four-year-old boy, who is now the last remaining member of an immensely wealthy and powerful media mogul’s family.

With chapters weaving between the aftermath of the crash and the backstories of the passengers and crew members-including a Wall Street titan and his wife, a Texan-born party boy just in from London, a young woman questioning her path in life, and a career pilot-the mystery surrounding the tragedy heightens. As the passengers’ intrigues unravel, odd coincidences point to a conspiracy. Was it merely by dumb chance that so many influential people perished? Or was something far more sinister at work? Events soon threaten to spiral out of control in an escalating storm of media outrage and accusations. And while Scott struggles to cope with fame that borders on notoriety, the authorities scramble to salvage the truth from the wreckage.

Amid pulse-quickening suspense, the fragile relationship between Scott and the young boy glows at the heart of this stunning novel, raising questions of fate, human nature, and the inextricable ties that bind us together.

Ope’s Opinion:    I took this book from a Starbucks in Virginia on the airplane to California!  Might not have been the wisest of choices to read on an airplane!

The story in this book is amazing and intense. The story toggled from present day, where they are trying to figure out how the accident happened to each character and how they ended up on the plane. Noah Hawley can write  a great story, but all the characters are rich men who only want money and women.  It was kind of disappointing to have such a great story, not followed up with great characters.  Scott and JJ are the two characters that kept me reading this book.

The ending wrapped up the investigation, but left me wanting more of how Scott and JJ’s lives moved on

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