Category Archives: Book Opinion

Emma’s Secret

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Author: Steena Holmes
Publisher:  Amazon Publishing
Pages:  243
Genre: Contemporary Fiction                                          

Source:  BookSparks

Goodreads:      For two years, Megan, Peter, and their two older daughters, Alexis and Hannah, dream of nothing but being reunited with the family’s youngest child, Emma, who was kidnapped just before her third birthday. When Emma is miraculously found living with an elderly couple just miles from the family’s home, they are hopeful that her return will heal the wounds her disappearance created.

But Emma is vastly different from the sunny toddler they remember. She barely remembers her parents or her older sisters. She is quiet and withdrawn, and, worst of all, longs for the very people who kidnapped her.

Megan is consumed with bitterness, while Peter works later and later nights in the company of his gorgeous business partner. And in the middle of everything, Megan’s best friend has become suddenly distant and secretive.

Then a chance encounter in town leads to a secret that changes everything again for Emma. And Peter must decide between the happiness of his youngest daughter and the trust of his family.



Ope’s Opinion:  The story was very well written.  It was fascinating to see a story written about after a child returns from the kidnapping.  You read so many kidnapping stories that end when the child is returned home ( happily ever after ).  I enjoyed seeing the authentic struggle I am sure it is to put a family back together after the child is returned.  This story feels like it was written by someone who had experienced a being child returned to them.

                                 Each characters emotions were expressed.  It was written so you could feel what each child and the parents were experiencing.  Your heart was pulled in all directions.  You wanted them all to be okay and be a united family again, but it was clear it wasn’t going to be an easy road.

                                The book Finding Emma was a wonderful story.  I wasn’t sure it could be followed up by an equally excellent book, but Steena Holmes did it!  You could read this book alone, but it is sooo much better if you read Finding Emma first.  I highly recommend them both! 


Rating:  Five Chairs – This book is so good it will be passed on and on and on…



                 FTC – Disclosure of Material Connection: 
      I received one copy of this book free of charge from BookSparks. 
            I was not required to write a positive review
                 in exchange for receipt of the book;
         rather the opinions expressed in this review are my own.
                                                       

Island Girls

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Author:  Nancy Thayer
Publisher:  Ballantine Books                                      

     

Pages:  320
Genre:  Women’s Fiction
Source: Edelweiss

Goodreads:   “Nancy Thayer is one of my favorite writers, and Island Girlsis one of her best. The Randall sisters are like your own family members or your best friends: funny, smart and emotional, infuriating and good-hearted. Here is a book to be savored and passed on to the good women in your life.”—New York Timesbestselling author Susan Wiggs

New York Times bestselling author Nancy Thayer returns to her beloved Nantucket in a highly emotional, wholly entertaining tale of three sisters forced to confront the past over one event-filled summer on the island.
 
Charming ladies’ man Rory Randall dies with one last trick up his sleeve: His will includes a calculating clause mandating a summer-long reunion for his daughters, all from different marriages—that is, if they hope to inherit his posh Nantucket house. Relations among the three sisters are sour thanks to long-festering jealousies, resentments, and misunderstandings. Arden, a successful television host in Boston, hasn’t been back to the island since her teenage years, when accusations of serious misbehavior led to her banishment. College professor Meg hopes to use her summer to finish a literary biography and avoid an amorous colleague. And secretive Jenny, an IT specialist, faces troubling questions about her identity while longing for her sisters’ acceptance.
 
To their surprise, the three young women find their newfound sisterhood easier to trust than the men who show up to complicate their lives. And if that weren’t problematic enough, their mothers descend on the island. When yet another visitor drops by the house with shocking news, the past comes screaming back with a vengeance. Having all the women from his life under his seaside roof—and overseeing the subsequent drama of that perfect storm—Rory Randall might just be enjoying a hearty laugh from above.
 
Nancy Thayer’s novel insightfully illustrates how the push and pull of family altercations make us whole. It’s how the Randall sisters come to forgive, and learn to open their hearts to love.



Ope’s Opinion:  Well, in my opinion, Nancy Thayer hit another one out of the park!  This is such a great story of sisters who become friends.  I am sure anyone who reads this will be able to relate to at least one of the characters.  Their personalities and their situations are true to life and interesting.

                                        The setting is the beach, which is one of my favorite places in the world to be, so of course I enjoyed that part of the book.  Spending an entire summer at the beach would be a dream.

                                         The plot kept moving.  It kept my attention throughout the whole book.  At the end of the book a character, who was not introduced previously shows up.  It is a little awkward and didn’t really fit with the rest of the story.  But in spite of that, it was a good read

                                         I am left wanting more – a sequel!  Please!!


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

                 FTC – Disclosure of Material Connection: 
      I received one copy of this book free of charge from Edelweiss. 
            I was not required to write a positive review
                 in exchange for receipt of the book;
         rather the opinions expressed in this review are my own.
                                                       


Candy and the Cankersaur

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Author:  Jason Sandberg
Publisher:  Jason Sandberg                                    

Pages:  32
Genre: Children
Source:  Jason Sandberg



Amazon:  Available for purchase

This is the sweet and funny tale of a young girl named Candy and a Cankersaurus Rex! Candy receives a dinosaur as a gift and is determined to train him to be a good pet.


Ope’s Opinion:  This book really entertained me and my granddaughter who is almost four years old.  The art work is fabulous!    When we were done she asked to read it again.  She wanted to know if there were more stories to read.  Later in the day, she asked again if we could read that story on my computer!  I think this was a hit!!!








Rating:  Four chairs – I like this book so much I know several Little friends to share it with.



                 FTC – Disclosure of Material Connection: 
      I received one copy of this book free of charge from Jason Sandberg. 
            I was not required to write a positive review
                 in exchange for receipt of the book;
         rather the opinions expressed in this review are my own.
                                                       

Always Watching

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Author: Chevy Stevens
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press                          

Pages:  352
Genre:  Thriller
Source:  Publisher

Goodreads:   She helps people put their demons to rest.

But she has a few of her own…

In the lockdown ward of a psychiatric hospital, Dr. Nadine Lavoie is in her element. She has the tools to help people, and she has the desire—healing broken families is what she lives for. But Nadine doesn’t want to look too closely at her own past because there are whole chunks of her life that are black holes. It takes all her willpower to tamp down her recurrent claustrophobia, and her daughter, Lisa, is a runaway who has been on the streets for seven years.

When a distraught woman, Heather Simeon, is brought into the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit after a suicide attempt, Nadine gently coaxes her story out of her—and learns of some troubling parallels with her own life. Digging deeper, Nadine is forced to confront her traumatic childhood, and the damage that began when she and her brother were brought by their mother to a remote commune on Vancouver Island. What happened to Nadine? Why was their family destroyed? And why does the name Aaron Quinn, the group’s leader, bring complex feelings of terror to Nadine even today? 

And then, the unthinkable happens, and Nadine realizes that danger is closer to home than she ever imagined. She has no choice but to face what terrifies her the most…and fight back. 

Sometimes you can leave the past, but you can never escape.



Ope’s Opinion: Wow!  This book really made me want to forget anything else I was suppose to be doing. It was an awesome story.  I felt like it could have really happened.  At times I found myself holding my breath while I was reading.  I couldn’t read fast enough during certain parts of the story.

                                    The main character Nadine, she was such a real person.  She feels like someone I would know.  It is nice to see a very strong female character and to also see her vulnerabilities.  

                                     Chevy must have done a lot of research on communes.  It felt very authentic.  I do not have experience with communes, except from what I have read.  Chevy made me feel like I was there and I could believe how people were drawn into that life.

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




                 FTC – Disclosure of Material Connection: 
      I received one copy of this book free of charge from St. Martin Press. 
            I was not required to write a positive review
                 in exchange for receipt of the book;
         rather the opinions expressed in this review are my own.
                                                       

Crumble

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Author:  Fleur Philips
Publisher: Fleur Philips                                

Page:  168
Genre: New Adult
Source:  BookSparks

Goodreads:   Eighteen-year-old Sarah McKnight has a secret. She’s in love with David Brooks. Sarah is white. David is black. But Sarah’s not the only one keeping secrets in the close-knit community of Kalispell, Montana. Her father George, who owns a local gun shop and proudly drives a truck with a Confederate flag bumper sticker, hides his own complicated past. When he discovers Sarah’s relationship, George decides to share his feelings with Alex Mackey-a lonely classmate of Sarah’s whom George has taken under his wing. As Alex embraces the power of Sarah’s father’s dark hatred, the hopes and dreams of young lives hang in the balance. In just a few short months, Sarah and David will graduate from high school and leave Kalispell for a new life together in Los Angeles. Maybe in California, they can stop hiding their love-and the other secret they share…something George McKnight-and Alex Mackey-will never accept.


Ope’s Opinion:  Knowing this book was on the shorter side, I thought it would be hard to get attached to the characters – I was wrong!  There were a lot of issues being tackled in this book.  I thought in the beginning of book that the whole issue was interracial relationships, but Fleur added pregnancy, abuse and beliefs about fire arms.  It was a lot to take in, but somehow she weaved it all in – it worked.  The ending was a unexpected.   

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



                 FTC – Disclosure of Material Connection: 
      I received one copy of this book free of charge from BookSparks. 
            I was not required to write a positive review
                 in exchange for receipt of the book;
         rather the opinions expressed in this review are my own.
                                                       

The Last Time I Saw You

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Author:  Elizabeth Berg                                                  

Publisher:  Ballantine Books
Pages:  288
Genre:  Women’s Fiction
Source:  Purchased

Goodreads:   As onetime classmates meet up over the course of a weekend for their fortieth high school reunion, they discover things that will irrevocably affect the rest of their lives. For newly divorced Dorothy, the reunion brings with it the possibility of finally attracting the attention of the class heartthrob. For the ever self-reliant, ever left-out Mary Alice, it’s a chance to reexamine a painful past. For Lester, a veterinarian and widower, it is the hope of talking shop with a fellow vet—or at least that’s what he tells himself. For Candy, the class beauty, it’s the hope of finding friendship before it’s too late. As these and other classmates converge for the reunion dinner, four decades melt away: desires and personalities from their youth reemerge, and new discoveries are made. For so much has happened to them all. And so much can still happen.


Ope’s Opinion:  I had a hard time getting interested in the present lives of the characters that would be going to a class reunion.  It was hard to believe that many people were single and interested in going back to see what everyone else would look like.

                                        It is nice to see a story about more mature characters, but hearing about their aches and pains was not interesting.  Some of them still haven’t grown up!  I was not anxious to see them at the class reunion, to see who would be attracted to whom and what would happen.  There were too many details that drug the story along.

                                            This story meandered.  It didn’t seem to have a purpose or a place to go, then it ended.


                                        


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


My Summer of Pink & Green

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Author:  Lisa Greenwald                                       

Publisher:  Harry N. Abrams
Pages:  272
Genre:  Young Adult
Source:  Purchased










Goodreads:        At the end of My Life in Pink & Green, Lucy Desberg had just won the grant that would save her family’s pharmacy—and turn it into a modern eco-spa. Now it’s summer, and the work has begun in earnest. Lucy figures that with the spa opening and her sister, Claudia, home, she’ll have a great summer. But her sister brings a new boyfriend, and their investor brings his extremely irritating daughter, Bevin. Plus there’s a new spa coordinator in charge of the plans, and so Lucy finds herself at loose ends. What’s a girl to do? A makeover, of course. But this time Lucy’s makeover skills might not smooth over the cracks in her happy family . . .


Ope’s Opinion:  If you are a middle school student or if you know a middle school student, I highly recommend  this book for a good summer read!

                                     The story is a fun read.  It will keep your attention from beginning to the end.  The story moves at nice quick pace.

                                     Lucy is the main character and she is a contrast between being immature and adult like – which I think is typical middle school students.  They are in that time of life where they want to be adults, but are still enjoying their childhoods.  I think Lisa wrote Lucy in a way that most readers can relate to that time in their life – no matter what age they are now.

                                          Let me say that even my almost four year old granddaughter loved the cover!  She picked up my copy of the book and said, ” Can we read this?”.  The nice thing is I felt like I could read it to her – there was no foul language and the characters were ones I wouldn’t mind her knowing. 

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


The Book of Broken Hearts

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Author:  Sarah Ockler
Publisher:  Simon Pulse
Pages:  352
Genre:  Young Adult / Contemporary                    

Source:  Edelweiss

Goodreads:   When all signs point to heartbreak, can love still be a rule of the road? A poignant and romantic novel from the author ofBittersweet and Twenty Boy Summer.

Jude has learned a lot from her older sisters, but the most important thing is this: The Vargas brothers are notorious heartbreakers. She’s seen the tears and disasters that dating a Vargas boy can cause, and she swore an oath—with candles and a contract and everything—to never have anything to do with one.

Now Jude is the only sister still living at home, and she’s spending the summer helping her ailing father restore his vintage motorcycle—which means hiring a mechanic to help out. Is it Jude’s fault he happens to be cute? And surprisingly sweet? And a Vargas?

Jude tells herself it’s strictly bike business with Emilio. Her sisters will never find out, and Jude can spot those flirty little Vargas tricks a mile away—no way would she fall for them. But Jude’s defenses are crumbling, and if history is destined to repeat itself, she’s speeding toward some serious heartbreak…unless her sisters were wrong?

Jude may have taken an oath, but she’s beginning to think that when it comes to love, some promises might be worth breaking.



Ope’s Opinion:  I really liked the perspective of the daughters dealing with dad’s illness.  It was a unique look at families dealing with difficulties.  This was a deep story that I think young adults will enjoy and also learn a lot.

                                      The characters in this book are realistic.  They relate to each other the way regular families do.  Jude watching her father slip away a little at a time – over and over again was heart breaking, intense and written so well you could feel and see it.  I felt like Emilio was a comic relief for Jude, since her dad’s situation was so difficult to deal to with.  

                                 I think the only part of the book that I was not fond of was the constant insert of Spanish words.  Yes, the family immigrated to this country – the food was a good expression of that, but the Spanish words were annoying.  I could have lived without Pancake ( the dog ) having such a large part of the story.
 
                                   I have heard Sarah’s book Bittersweet is a better read. I will  try another Sarah Ockler book. 


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

                 FTC – Disclosure of Material Connection: 
      I received one copy of this book free of charge from Edelweiss. 
            I was not required to write a positive review
                 in exchange for receipt of the book;
         rather the opinions expressed in this review are my own.
                                                       


The Apple Orchard

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Author:  Susan Wiggs

Publisher:  Harlequin                                     

Pages:  432
Genre:  Romance
Source: Harlequin
Goodreads:      “Sometimes you stumble across a treasure when you’re looking for something else entirely.”#1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs brings readers to the lush abundance of Sonoma County in a novel of sisters, friendship and how memories are woven like a spell around us.


Tess Delaney makes a living restoring stolen treasures to their rightful owners. People like Annelise Winther, who refuses to sell her long-gone mother’s beloved necklace—despite Tess’s advice. To Annelise, the jewel’s value is in its memories.

But Tess’s own history is filled with gaps: a father she never met, a mother who spent more time traveling than with her daughter. So Tess is shocked when she discovers the grandfather she never knew is in a coma. And that she has been named in his will to inherit half of Bella Vista, a hundred-acre apple orchard in the magical Sonoma town called Archangel.

The rest is willed to Isabel Johansen. A half sister she’s never heard of.

Against the rich landscape of Bella Vista, Tess begins to discover a world filled with the simple pleasures of food and family, of the warm earth beneath her bare feet. A world where family comes first and the roots of history run deep. A place where falling in love is not only possible, but inevitable.

And in a season filled with new experiences, Tess begins to see the truth in something Annelise once told her: if you don’t believe memories are worth more than money, then perhaps you’ve not made the right kind of memories.



Ope’s Opinion:  This review is hard to write.  I was in the  middle of moving both my daughters into their new houses when I was reading this.  I was interrupted and didn’t have a chunk of time to enjoy reading.  

                                      My interest in the book came and went.  Parts of it grabbed my attention and I wanted to keep reading and other parts were boring to me.  The overall story line itself was very good.

                                      The genre says romance and there was some, but I thought it was more of a mystery.  It was about figuring out secrets from the past.  I liked the twists and turns and where it took me as a reader.

                                     If you enjoy history and figuring out how it effects the people in the present – you will enjoy this book.

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


                 FTC – Disclosure of Material Connection: 
      I received one copy of this book free of charge from Harlequin. 
            I was not required to write a positive review
                 in exchange for receipt of the book;
         rather the opinions expressed in this review are my own.
                                                       

Black Tuesday

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                                           Author:  Susan Colebank
                                           Publisher:  Dutton Juvenile    
                                           Pages:  208
                                           Genre:  Young Adult
                                            Source:  Purchased

                      Goodreads:   Everything is going just the way super achiever Jayne Thompkins planned. She’s at the top of her class and captain of the girls’ varsity tennis team. Her ultimate goal? Harvard. She wouldn’t be killing herself with all these extracurriculars otherwise. But her life changes when she crashes into another car and a little girl dies as a result. Will she ever be able to live with the guilt she feels over this accidental death? A gripping and fast paced story about guilt, anger, forgiveness, and second chances by first time author Susan Colebank.

Ope’s Opinion:  I really enjoyed this book!  It was a well written story.  The story line was fascinating.  The book kept my attention from the beginning through to the end.

                                     It is amazing how a moment in your life can change everything.  This book made me think about those moments in my life that made a big impact on me.

                                    There are so many lessons in this book, but it doesn’t feel like a lecture.  You learn them through the characters, as you watch them deal with what life has handed them.  You need to find your own path in life and some times it takes a life altering situation to make the path clear.

                                    I would suggest this to anyone that is about to start driving.  It might be the wake up call need to keep your eyes on the road.  

                                      


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