One More for Christmas

Author: Sarah Morgan
Publisher: Hqn
Genre: Holiday Romance
Source: Kristin of Kritters Ramblings

Goodreads:  From the USA TODAY bestselling author of The Christmas Sisters comes this sparkling tale of Christmas redemption. Brimming with Sarah Morgan’s trademark festive cheer, you won’t want to miss it!

For sisters Samantha and Ella Mitchell, Christmas is their most precious time of the year—a time for togetherness, love and celebration. Most of all, it’s about making up for everything their childhood Christmases lacked. But this year, they’ll be buying presents for the most unexpected guest of all—their estranged mother. It’s been five years since they last saw each other. But when their mom calls out of the blue and promises that this Christmas will be different, Samantha and Ella cautiously agree to spend it all together…

Gayle Mitchell is at the top of her career, but her success has come at a price—her relationship with her daughters. She never seemed to say or do the right things. Her tough-love approach was designed to make them stronger, but instead managed to push them away…until a brush with her own mortality forces Gayle to make amends. As the snowflakes fall on their first family celebration in years, the Mitchell women must learn that sometimes facing up to the past is all you need to heal your heart…

Ope’s Opinion: I realize this is a romance, so my complaint of the detailed steamy parts should be taken with a grain of salt.  The rest of the story, the relationships between sisters and their mother was wonderful, real and moved at a perfect pace.

If you are wanting a holiday book, I would recommend this as a good “get away” read.  You will most likely find yourself in one these characters.  The romantic relationships were fun to follow – I just didn’t need to the details behind the closed doors.

The ending was exactly what you would expect and was a wonderful read to get there.

Another Holiday Book

I saw this while I was out shopping
and my daughter said it was really good,
so I didn’t think twice –
I picked it!

Goodreads:  This funny, charming and heartwarming new Christmas novel is USA TODAY bestselling author Sarah Morgan at her festive best!

In the snowy perfection of Aspen, the White family gathers for youngest daughter Rosie’s whirlwind Christmas wedding. First to arrive are the bride’s parents, Maggie and Nick. Their daughter’s marriage is a milestone they are determined to celebrate wholeheartedly, but they are hiding a huge secret of their own: they are on the brink of divorce. After living apart for the last six months, the last thing they need is to be trapped together in an irresistibly romantic winter wonderland.

Rosie’s older sister, Katie, is also dreading the wedding. Worried that impulsive, sweet-hearted Rosie is making a mistake, Katie is determined to save her sister from herself! If only the irritatingly good-looking best man, Jordan, would stop interfering with her plans…

Bride-to-be Rosie loves her fiance but is having serious second thoughts. Except everyone has arrived–how can she tell them she’s not sure? As the big day gets closer, and emotions run even higher, this is one White family Christmas none of them will ever forget! 

Thanks Kristin for a good recommendation!

How to Keep a Secret

                                                               Author: Sarah Morgan
Publisher: HQ
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Source: Anna Robinson at ARO Publicity

 

Goodreads:  When three generations of women are brought together by crisis, they learn over the course of one hot summer the power of family to support, nourish and surprise

Lauren has the perfect life…if she ignores the fact it’s a fragile house of cards, and that her daughter Mack has just had a teenage personality transplant.

Jenna is desperate to start a family with her husband, but it’s… Just. Not. Happening. Her heart is breaking, but she’s determined to keep her trademark smile on her face.

Nancy knows she hasn’t been the best mother, but how can she ever tell Lauren and Jenna the reason why?

Then life changes in an instant, and Lauren, Mack, Jenna and Nancy are thrown together for a summer on Martha’s Vineyard. Somehow, these very different women must relearn how to be a family. And while unraveling their secrets might be their biggest challege, the rewards could be infinite…

Heartwarming and fresh, Sarah Morgan’s brilliant new novel is a witty and deeply uplifting look at the power of a family of women.

Ope’s Opinion:  Any book surrounded by women’s relationships makes me want to read.  This is a good one.  I enjoyed seeing how the two sisters reacted to each others secrets and how the mother handled it all.  The teenage daughter was a bit whiny ( but aren’t teenagers ) – it did get in my nerves at times.

I did like the Martha Vineyard setting.  I also liked that this was more of a women’s fiction rather then a romance, even though it is the romance genre.  

Sleepless in Manhattan

sleepless

 

Author: Sarah Morgan
Publisher: HQN Books
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Source:  Kristin of Kritters Ramblings

 

Goodreads:  USA TODAY bestselling author Sarah Morgan introduces a sizzling new trilogy about three best friends embracing life—and love—in Manhattan 

Cool, calm and competent, events planner Paige Walker loves a challenge. After a childhood spent in and out of hospitals, she’s now determined to prove herself—and where better to take the world by storm than in the exhilarating bustle of Manhattan? But when Paige is let go from the job she loves, she must face her biggest challenge of all—going it alone.

Except launching her own events company is nothing compared to hiding her outrageous crush on Jake Romano—her brother’s best friend, New York’s most in-demand date, and the only man to break her heart. When Jake offers Paige’s fledgling company a big chance, their still-sizzling chemistry starts giving her sleepless nights. But can she convince the man who trusts no one to take a chance on forever?

Ope’s Opinion: I know this book is in the romance genre, so I expect some sex scenes, but this one had a little too much concentration on that and not enough on the story line for me.   The story was a great one, so that kept me reading.

This is the first in a series of three – each book is about a different friend. I did like it enough to want to read about the other two friends.

If you are a romance reader this is definitely a book you won’t want to miss.

c229c-3chairs

This Just In….

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. 

This Just In….

From Kristin of Kritters Ramblings

sleepless

Published: May 31, 2016
Publisher: HQN Books

Goodreads:  USA TODAY bestselling author Sarah Morgan introduces a sizzling new trilogy about three best friends embracing life—and love—in Manhattan 

Cool, calm and competent, events planner Paige Walker loves a challenge. After a childhood spent in and out of hospitals, she’s now determined to prove herself—and where better to take the world by storm than in the exhilarating bustle of Manhattan? But when Paige is let go from the job she loves, she must face her biggest challenge of all—going it alone.

Except launching her own events company is nothing compared to hiding her outrageous crush on Jake Romano—her brother’s best friend, New York’s most in-demand date, and the only man to break her heart. When Jake offers Paige’s fledgling company a big chance, their still-sizzling chemistry starts giving her sleepless nights. But can she convince the man who trusts no one to take a chance on forever?

This sounds like a really fun read!

griddley girls

Publication Date: June 21, 2016
Publisher: Sparkpress

Goodreads: Sometimes you have to go back before you can move forward. Meg Monahan was born to be a secret keeper. From the moment she became a peer counselor in high school, Meg has been keeping her friends secrets from sordid family drama to their sex lives that she never wanted to know. Flash forward to adulthood when Meg is a recruiter for the world s hippest (and most paranoid) high-tech company and now Meg is a professional secret keeper. When sudden tragedy strikes before Meg hosts the wedding of her childhood BFF, Anne Calzaretta, the women are forced to face their past and their secrets in order to move on to their future. In 1978, Meg, Anne, Jennifer, and Tonya were such close friends, they were known as The Group in their hometown of Gridley, California. But in ninth grade, their lives were changed forever. Loss, lies, and secrets separated them, but could not break their bonds of friendship. Thirty years later, Meg and Anne reminisce about those days dealing with parents, school, boys, sex, love, and betrayal. Anne remembers their freshman year as an easier time, but Meg, still feeling guilty about a betrayal of Anne s trust, is haunted. Even now, Meg is keeping a secret she s not prepared to face, let alone share. In her debut novel, based on true events, Meredith First tells a timeless story about the bonds of friendship, loss, and betrayal and the forgiveness that is within everyone. Can anyone really keep a secret forever?”

This looks like a good friendship book.

meternityPublished: April 26, 2016
Publisher: Mira

Goodreads:  Not quite knocked up… 

Like everyone in New York media, editor Liz Buckley runs on cupcakes, caffeine and cocktails. But at thirty-one, she’s plateaued at Paddy Cakes, a glossy baby magazine that flogs thousand-dollar strollers to entitled, hypercompetitive spawn-havers.

Liz has spent years working a gazillion hours a week picking up the slack for coworkers with kids, and she’s tired of it. So one day when her stress-related nausea is mistaken for morning sickness by her bosses—boom! Liz is promoted to the mommy track. She decides to run with it and plans to use her paid time off to figure out her life: work, love and otherwise. It’ll be her “meternity” leave.

By day, Liz rocks a foam-rubber belly under fab maternity outfits. By night, she dumps the bump for karaoke nights and boozy dinners out. But how long can she keep up her charade…and hide it from the guy who might just be The One?

As her “due date” approaches, Liz is exhausted—and exhilarated—by the ruse, the guilt and the feelings brought on by a totally fictional belly-tenant…about happiness, success, family and the nature of love.

Just the cover makes you stop and want to read this one.

one true love

Published:  June 7, 2016
Published:  Washington Square Press

Goodreads:  From the author of Maybe in Another Life—named a People Magazine pick and a “Best Book of the Summer” by Glamour and USA Today—comes a breathtaking new love story about a woman unexpectedly forced to choose between the husband she has long thought dead and the fiancé who has finally brought her back to life.

In her twenties, Emma Blair marries her high school sweetheart, Jesse. They build a life for themselves, far away from the expectations of their parents and the people of their hometown in Massachusetts. They travel the world together, living life to the fullest and seizing every opportunity for adventure.

On their first wedding anniversary, Jesse is on a helicopter over the Pacific when it goes missing. Just like that, Jesse is gone forever.

Emma quits her job and moves home in an effort to put her life back together. Years later, now in her thirties, Emma runs into an old friend, Sam, and finds herself falling in love again. When Emma and Sam get engaged, it feels like Emma’s second chance at happiness.

That is, until Jesse is found. He’s alive, and he’s been trying all these years to come home to her. With a husband and a fiancé, Emma has to now figure out who she is and what she wants, while trying to protect the ones she loves.

Who is her one true love? What does it mean to love truly?

Emma knows she has to listen to her heart. She’s just not sure what it’s saying.

Anything by Taylor Jenkins Reid is worth the read!

sunshine beach

Publication Date: June 21, 2016
Publisher: Berkley

Goodreads: In this brand-new summer read by the USA Today bestselling author of The House on Mermaid Point, three women join forces to bring a historic seaside hotel back to life…
 
There’s nothing that a fresh coat of paint and a few glasses of wine can’t fix…
 
After losing their life savings in a Ponzi scheme, Maddie, Avery, and Nikki have banded together to make the most of what they have left, using their determination, ingenuity, guts, and a large dose of elbow grease. It’s Maddie’s daughter Kyra who stumbles across a once glorious beachfront hotel that has fallen into disrepair. The opportunity to renovate this seaside jewel is too good to pass up—especially when they come up with the idea of shooting their own independent television show about the restoration. What could possibly go wrong?

Everything. With the cameras rolling, Maddie’s second-chance romance with her all-too-famous new boyfriend gets complicated, Avery struggles with grief over the loss of her mother, and Nikki’s reluctance to commit to the man who loves her could leave her to face the biggest challenge of her life. Even the hotel seems to be against them, when their renovation uncovers a decades-old unsolved murder which just might bring their lives tumbling down all over again…

Thanks to Kristin for all these great books to read this summer!!