Monthly Archives: December 2016

End of the Year Stats

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My reading this year has been a little less, but there has been so much else in my life that filled in the spaces.  Here is a look back over this year in books.

86 books / 28,640 pages

My average rating was 3.7 – that means most books I choose spend time with were worth
it!!

My top three picks were:
Mending Fences by Sherryl Woods
This is Where it Ends by Marieke Nijkamp
One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Choices We Make by Karma Brown

Surprising new author ( new to me ): One Paris Summer by Denise Grover Swank

Authors I want to read everything they write: 
Rosalind Noonan
Kristy Woodson Harvey
Steena Holmes

 

Happy New Year!
Happy reading!!

 

 

Coming Soon…..

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…. On a Bookshelf near you!

In January I hope to read….

pretty-little-worldPublication Date:  January 17, 2017
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing

Goodreads:   On a cozy street in Philadelphia, three neighboring families have become the best of friends. They can’t imagine life without one another—until one family outgrows their tiny row house. In a bid to stay together, a crazy idea is born: What if they tear down the walls between their homes and live together under one roof? And so an experiment begins.

Celia and Mark now have the space they need. But is this really what Celia’s increasingly distant husband wants? Stephanie embraces the idea of one big, happy family, but has she considered how it may exacerbate the stark differences between her and her husband, Chris? While Hope always wanted a larger family with Leo, will caring for all the children really satisfy that need?

Behind closed doors, they strive to preserve the closeness they treasure. But when boundaries are blurred, they are forced to question their choices…and reimagine the true meaning of family.

What is coming soon …. to a bookshelf near you?

Let me know – I am always looking for a good read!

The Marriage Lie

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marriage

Author: Kimberly Belle
Publisher: MIRA
Genre: Mystery
Source:  MIRA Books

Goodreads:  Even the perfect marriage has its dark side… 

Iris and Will’s marriage is as close to perfect as it can be: a large house in a nice Atlanta neighborhood, rewarding careers and the excitement of trying for their first baby. But on the morning Will leaves for a business trip to Orlando, Iris’s happy world comes to an abrupt halt. Another plane headed for Seattle has crashed into a field, killing everyone on board, and according to the airline, Will was one of the passengers on this plane.

Grief-stricken and confused, Iris is convinced it all must be a huge misunderstanding. But as time passes and there is still no sign of Will, she reluctantly accepts that he is gone. Still, Iris needs answers. Why did Will lie about where he was going? What is in Seattle? And what else has he lied about? As Iris sets off on a desperate quest to find out what her husband was keeping from her, the answers she receives will shock her to her very core.

Ope’s Opinion:  Intense!  That is the best way to describe this book. 

When you are at the half way point of this book – go to the bathroom, get a drink, get comfortable and take a large breath because you are not going to put it down or breath until you are finished reading it!

I have loved Kimberly Belle books before, this was another great one!  Try any one of her books.

Thank you Emer for sending this book.

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This Just In…

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two-books

Both of these books came to me from HarperCollins.

A Simple Favor

Publication Date:  March 21, 2017
Publisher:  Harper

Goodreads:  She’s your best friend.
She knows all your secrets.
That’s why she’s so dangerous.
A single mother’s life is turned upside down when her best friend vanishes in this chilling debut thriller in the vein of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train

It starts with a simple favor—an ordinary kindness mothers do for one another. When her best friend, Emily, asks Stephanie to pick up her son Nicky after school, she happily says yes. Nicky and her son, Miles, are classmates and best friends, and the five-year-olds love being together—just like she and Emily. A widow and stay-at-home mommy blogger living in woodsy suburban Connecticut, Stephanie was lonely until she met Emily, a sophisticated PR executive whose job in Manhattan demands so much of her time.

But Emily doesn’t come back. She doesn’t answer calls or return texts. Stephanie knows something is terribly wrong—Emily would never leave Nicky, no matter what the police say. Terrified, she reaches out to her blog readers for help. She also reaches out to Emily’s husband, the handsome, reticent Sean, offering emotional support. It’s the least she can do for her best friend. Then, she and Sean receive shocking news. Emily is dead. The nightmare of her disappearance is over.

Or is it? Because soon, Stephanie will begin to see that nothing—not friendship, love, or even an ordinary favor—is as simple as it seems.

A Simple Favor is a remarkable tale of psychological suspense—a clever and twisting free-fall of a ride filled with betrayals and reversals, twists and turns, secrets and revelations, love and loyalty, murder and revenge. Darcey Bell masterfully ratchets up the tension in a taut, unsettling, and completely absorbing story that holds you in its grip until the final page.

Miss You

Publication Date: April 4, 2017
Publisher:  Harper

Goodreads:  “If ever a couple was ‘meant to be,’ it’s Tess and Gus. This is such a witty, poignant, and uplifting story of two lives crisscrossing over the years, with near miss after near miss. . . . I couldn’t put it down.”—Sophie Kinsella

A wryly romantic debut novel with echoes of One Day that asks, what if you just walked by the love of your life, but didn’t even know it?

“TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.” Tess can’t get the motto from her mother’s kitchen knickknack out of her head, even though she’s in Florence on an idyllic vacation before starting university in London.

Gus is also visiting Florence, on a holiday with his parents seven months after tragedy shattered their lives. Headed to medical school in London, he’s trying to be a dutiful son but longs to escape and discover who he really is.

A chance meeting brings these eighteen-year-olds together for a brief moment—the first of many times their paths will crisscross as time passes and their lives diverge from those they’d envisioned. Over the course of the next sixteen years, Tess and Gus will face very different challenges and choices. Separated by distance and circumstance, the possibility of these two connecting once more seems slight.

But while fate can separate two people, it can also bring them back together again. . . .

I hope one or both of these books look of interest to you.

Thank you Heather!

NYC Weekend

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Mike and I spent the weekend with my daughter Kristi and her husband John Paul.

tree-with-miketree-with-k-and-jp

We went to look at the lights.  Tiffany’s had the best ones.

 

tiffanysThen we walked by some nutcrackers.

nutcrackersNext was Macy’s.

macys-windowSaturday we went to see Jersey Boy’s
and had a special dinner at Peter Luger.

jersey-boys-toopeter-luger

Sunday on the way home we went to Essex Market.  I saw these snowmen!

snowmenFun way to add to our holidays!
Thanks to Kristi for the planning
and John Paul for the driving!!

Home Field

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home

Author: Hannah Gersen
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Genre: Fiction
Source:  William Morrow

 

Goodreads:  The heart of Friday Night Lights meets the emotional resonance and nostalgia of My So-Called Life in this utterly moving debut novel about tradition, family, love, and football.

As the high school football coach in his small, rural Maryland town, Dean is a hero who reorganized the athletic program and brought the state championship to the community. When he married Nicole—the beloved, town sweetheart—he seemed to have it all—until his troubled wife committed suicide. Now, everything Dean thought he knew about his life and the people in it is thrown off kilter as Nicole’s death forces him to re-evaluate all of his relationships, including those with his team and his three children.

Dean’s eleven-year old son Robbie is acting withdrawn, and running away from school to the local pizza parlor. Bry, who is only eight, is struggling to understand his mother’s untimely death. And nineteen-year- old Stephanie has just left for Swarthmore and is torn between her new identity as a rebellious and sophisticated college student, her responsibility towards her brothers, and feeling like she is still just a little girl who misses her mom. As Dean struggles to continue to lead his team to victory in light of his overwhelming personal loss, he must fix his fractured family—and himself. And what he discovers along the way is that he’ll never view the world in the same way again.

Transporting you to the heart of small town America, Home Field is an unforgettable, poignant story about the pull of the past and the power of forgiveness.

Ope’s Opinion:   This is definitely a Friday Nights Lights books.  If you enjoyed that show you will like this book.  There is some football and the characters lives happen around the football and the field, but it is more about their lives then the football game itself. 

This is a minor complaint – the chapters were too long.

 

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Now I’ll Tell You Everything

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now

Author: Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Genre: Young Adult
Source:  Purchased

 

 

Goodreads:  Alice McKinley is going to college! And everything, from her room to her classes to her friends, is about to change. Stoically, nervously, Alice puts her best foot forward…and steps into the rest of her life.

Just how crazy will her college life get? Will Alice’s dream of becoming a psychologist come true? Are she and her BFFs destined to remain BFFs? And with so many miles between them, will Alice and Patrick stay together…or is there a hot, mysterious stranger in her future? As Alice well knows, life isn’t always so predictable, and there are more than a few curveballs waiting to be thrown her way.

This is it. The grand finale. You’ve loved her, you’ve learned with her, you’ve watched her grow up through twenty-eight books. And now everything you’ve ever wanted to know about Alice McKinley will be revealed!

Ope’s Opinion:  This was a very long book.  Parts of it were deep and fun to read.  Parts of it went fast – years past by quickly, but felt rushed.  I think trying to fit all of this into one book was a bit too much.

This is one book where you did need to read from the beginning of the series or you would be lost on a lot of the background and the relationships that were wound up in each other.

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This Just In….

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just-in

I was on travel last week and indulged myself by buying Jodi Picoult’s book
Small Great Things

Published: October 11, 2016
Publisher:  Ballantine Books

Goodreads:  Ruth Jefferson is a labor and delivery nurse at a Connecticut hospital with more than twenty years’ experience. During her shift, Ruth begins a routine checkup on a newborn, only to be told a few minutes later that she’s been reassigned to another patient. The parents are white supremacists and don’t want Ruth, who is African American, to touch their child. The hospital complies with their request, but the next day, the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Does she obey orders or does she intervene?

Ruth hesitates before performing CPR and, as a result, is charged with a serious crime. Kennedy McQuarrie, a white public defender, takes her case but gives unexpected advice: Kennedy insists that mentioning race in the courtroom is not a winning strategy. Conflicted by Kennedy’s counsel, Ruth tries to keep life as normal as possible for her family—especially her teenage son—as the case becomes a media sensation. As the trial moves forward, Ruth and Kennedy must gain each other’s trust, and come to see that what they’ve been taught their whole lives about others—and themselves—might be wrong.

With incredible empathy, intelligence, and candor, Jodi Picoult tackles race, privilege, prejudice, justice, and compassion—and doesn’t offer easy answers. Small Great Things is a remarkable achievement from a writer at the top of her game.

This looks like another Jodi Picoult that will open my eyes to new points of view.

Claire of Little Bird Publicity kindly sent me Robyn Carr’s book.

Any Day Now

Publication Date:  April 18, 2017
Publisher: Mira Books

Goodreads:  Any Day Now is the highly anticipated sequel to #1 New York Times bestselling author Robyn Carr’s What We Find. Readers fell in love with Sullivan’s Crossing and the characters who settled there and will be delighted to spend time with their favorite people again. The rustic campground at the crossroads of the Colorado and Continental Divide Trails welcomes everyone—whether you’re looking for a weekend getaway or a new lease on life.

I always look forward to reading Robyn Carr.

My daughter Kristin of Kritters Ramblings always knows which books I am going to enjoy, so she passed this one to me.

Miracle on 5th Avenue

Published:  July 28, 2016
Publisher: MIRA

Goodreads:  Exciting free extract from Sarah Morgan’s Christmas novel Miracle on 5th Avenue.

Sometimes love needs a Christmas Miracle…

Hopeless romantic Eva Jordan loves everything about Christmas. She might be spending the holidays alone this year, but when she’s given an opportunity to housesit a spectacular penthouse on Fifth Avenue, she leaps at the chance. What better place to celebrate than in snow-kissed Manhattan?

What she didn’t expect was to find the penthouse still occupied by its gorgeous–and mysterious–owner.
Bestselling crime writer Lucas Blade is having the nightmare before Christmas. With a deadline and the anniversary of his wife’s death looming, he’s isolated himself in his penthouse with only his grief for company.

But when the blizzard of the century leaves Eva snowbound in his apartment, Lucas starts to open up to the magic she brings…
This Christmas, is Lucas finally ready to trust that happily-ever-afters do exist?

These all look – so many good books and not enough time to read!!  Especially at the holidays.  I hope I will fit these in between all the other activities. 

Just Fine with Caroline

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just-fine

Author: Annie England Noblin
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Genre: Romance
Source: Kristin of Kritters Ramblings

 

 

Goodreads:  From the author of Sit! Stay! Speak! comes a tender, terrific novel complete with long-buried secrets, a three-legged pot belly pig, and an irresistible dog—an unforgettable story about love, friendship, and community. Perfect for fans of Mary Kay Andrews and Mary Alice Monroe.

Caroline O’Connor never dreamed she’d be back home in Cold River, Missouri, the Ozark Mountain town where everyone is ‘up your business.’…they mean well as they drive you crazy. She thought she’d left town for good, but now she’s back, helping to care for her New York born mother—struck with Alzheimer’s, and prone to saying and doing anything—and her father, the beloved local doctor frustrated he can’t cure his own wife.

As for Caroline, she’s doing ‘just fine’ coping with her parents, her brazen cousin Ava Dawn’s marital disasters, her mostly-deaf dog…and with Noah Cranwell, far-flung relative of a local family mostly infamous for running moonshine, an ex-veteran who’s come to Cold River with troubles of his own.

Caroline believes she knows everything about Cold River and the people who live in its hills and hollers … but sometimes life’s greatest surprises happen closest to home.

Ope’s Opinion:  This story takes place in a small country town where everyone knows everyone else and their secrets – that they think they are hiding.

Noah’s and Caroline’s story line is romantic, cute and fun to follow throughout the book.  Caroline’s mom’s story is sad and a little hard to read. 

The foul language was unnecessary and added nothing to the story.

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Roomies

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roomies

Author: Sara Zarr
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Genre: Young Adult
Source:  Purchased

Goodreads:  It’s time to meet your new roomie.

When East Coast native Elizabeth receives her freshman-year roommate assignment, she shoots off an e-mail to coordinate the basics: television, microwave, mini-fridge. That first note to San Franciscan Lauren sparks a series of e-mails that alters the landscape of each girl’s summer — and raises questions about how two girls who are so different will ever share a dorm room.

As the countdown to college begins, life at home becomes increasingly complex. With family relationships and childhood friendships strained by change, it suddenly seems that the only people Elizabeth and Lauren can rely on are the complicated new boys in their lives . . . and each other. Even though they’ve never met.

National Book Award finalist Sara Zarr and acclaimed author Tara Altebrando join forces for a novel about growing up, leaving home, and getting that one fateful e-mail that assigns your college roommate.

Ope’s Opinion:  This is a realistic look at two girls getting ready to leave home and go off to college.  The story went through all the emotions from the students, parents, and friends perspective.  This won’t be everyones experience, but I think it is a good representation of many students. 

I would recommend this book to a junior or senior in high school who may be concerned about what it will be like to leave for college.

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