Review: The Forever Farmhouse

 

The Forever Farmhouse

About the Book:

When Ryan Hastings first came to Teaberry Island, he was a troubled teen on his last chance. He’s returning as a renowned scientist, checking in on his widowed foster mother. But one thing hasn’t changed—Ryan’s feelings for the girl next door who he loved…and left. Mellie Anderson has a son now, and a good life that Ryan believes he’s still too damaged to share. But he knows he can help young Alfie, who’s getting picked on at his new school.

Mellie is grateful her gifted son is getting extra support, and torn about where it’s coming from. Ryan has no idea he’s Alfie’s father. No matter how valid her reasons were, could Ryan ever understand why she didn’t tell him? But in this close-knit community, friendship and forgiveness are always near at hand, and forever love might be waiting just next door.

My Comments:

There are some books that people familiar with the author could attribute to the author almost without looking at the cover.  This is one of those.  Like most Lee Tobin McLain books, this one is set in a small Chesapeake Bay town and features a close-knit group of family and friends, along with a delightful canine companion.  

I loved the way Ryan was able to help is overly-intelligent son find his way in the world--takes one to know one and all that.  

The Forever Farmhouse is the first in a series and I'm ready to read the rest.  Grade:  B

Thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy via NetGalley. 

Changes to NetGalley That I'd Like to See

 

 For the uninitiated, NetGalley is a website where you can sign up to read and review digital advance reader copies. In the last ten years or so, as e-readers, smart phone and tablets have become more common ways of reading, NetGalley has grown from serving a few niche presses to carrying ARCs from large publishers and small, as well as some self-published writers.  How well it accomplishes the task of publicizing new works is a discussion I'll leave to others.  This post is from the reader/blogger's point of view.  I love using NetGalley but I can't help but want some new features.

Special Instructions?  Please Put Them on the Feedback Page

Reading and reviewing books is a hobby, not a job.  Please make it easy for me to do what you want.  I don't want to create elaborate spreadsheets or search email folders for directions.  If publishers want me to publish during a certain timeframe,  to use hashtags or use blue font or whatever, it would be nice if that information popped up when I hit the "leave feedback" button. 

A "Save for Later" Button

Often when I am perusing NetGalley I find books I want to read but which I just don't have time to read right now.  It would be great if there was a "Save for Later" button which would do nothing but tag the book and add it to my "Save for Later" list and allow me to give feedback on the book.  If my schedule cleared, I could check the list and request it if it was still available.  If it was not still available, I could check my bookstore or library, and, if I chose, leave feedback for it (which would not count against my ratio but which could improve it). 

This could be helpful to publishers and could earn them a few more reviews than they get now.  Also, if they see that I marked it, they could contact me about it if desired. It could be another way to gauge interest in a book. 

Downloadables/Pre-Written Content

Many bloggers include author information and/or bookstore links in their posts. It would be nice if that stuff was easily available on NetGalley.  If I want to use my affiliate links I could always switch them out, but for those of us who don't, save us the trouble of searching for the links. Give us an author biography and photo.  Don't require us to use it, but make it available.  

Are you a NetGalley user?  Reader or Author? What would you like to see NetGalley provide that it does not currently?  

Join the Discussion!

The House Guests: My Review

 

The House Guests

About the Book

In the wake of her husband’s sudden death, Cassie Costas finds her relationship with her teenage stepdaughter unraveling. After their move to historic Tarpon Springs, Florida, Savannah hates her new town, her school and most of all her stepmom, whom she blames for her father’s death. Cassie has enough to contend with as she searches for answers about the man she shared a life with, including why all their savings have disappeared.

When Savannah’s rebellion culminates in an act that leaves single mother Amber Blair and her sixteen-year-old son homeless, Cassie empathizes with the woman’s predicament and invites the strangers to move in. As their lives intertwine, Cassie realizes that Amber is hiding something. She’s evasive about her past, but the fear in her eyes tells a darker story. Cassie wonders what the woman living under her roof is running from…and what will happen if it finally catches up to her.

My Comments:

Emilie Richards is one of  the authors whose books I read when I find them, and there is a good reason for that--for the most part I've enjoyed them and found them to be my type of books.  When The House Guests came across NetGalley I missed it because the cover didn't look like the kind of book I usually read and I didn't notice the author's name.  Then I saw people starting to talk about it, so I went and grabbed it. 

On the one hand, I don't usually read suspense or mystery books, so I don't really know what normal expectations are, but this story had two major plot lines and I found the resolution of one to be unrealistic.  As noted above, the reader learns early in the story that Amber is running from something--we just do  not know what.  When we learn and when that whole plotline resolves, I just didn't find it believable.  Maybe that's because this isn't my usual genre.  

The other plotline is Cassie learning that her late husband cleaned out their retirement accounts not long before he died and trying to find out why.  I found the resolution of this plotline to be very believable.

 

Emilie Richards' strength as a writer is her characters, and that holds true in this book too.  Cassie's grandmother was my favorite.  

A lot of Richards' books have strong romantic subplots.  The romance is there in this book but it isn't a major factor  and in the end, it isn't HEA, but rather, the suggestion that HEA will happen eventually.  

 

I'd like to thank the publisher for providing a review copy via NetGalley.  Grade: B 

Book Review: The Road to Rose Bend

 The Road to Rose Bend

About the Book:

Sydney Collins left the small Berkshires town of Rose Bend eight years ago, grieving her sister’s death—and heartbroken over her parents’ rejection. But now the rebel is back—newly divorced and pregnant—ready to face her fears and make a home for her child in the caring community she once knew. The last thing she needs is trouble. But trouble just set her body on fire with one hot, hot smile.

Widower and Rose Bend mayor Coltrane Dennison hasn’t smiled in ages. Until a chance run-in with Sydney Collins, who’s all grown-up and making him want what he knows he can’t have. Grief is his only connection to the wife and son he lost, and he won’t give it up. Not for Sydney, not for her child, not for his heart. But when Sydney’s ex threatens to upend everything she’s rebuilt in Rose Bend, Cole and Sydney may find that a little trouble will take them where they never expected to go.

My Comments:

 If you were looking for a sweet relatively clean romance, the cover of The Road to Rose Bend could make you think you'd found one, but you would be wrong.  While I enjoyed to story of Cole and Sydney, it was a very "physical" book.  The word "dick" was used 18 times in the book, and most of those references were not during bedroom scenes.  There were several bedroom scenes and they were vivid enough to serve as tutorials.  

Those looking for diversity in reading material may be interested in knowing that Sydney is Black and Cole is Puerto Rican (but adopted by a family of Irish heritage).  While his heritage is explicitly made clear early in the book, I was quite a ways into the book before I realized that she was African-American. 

I liked both Cole and Sydney and enjoyed watching them let go of old hurts and learn to love again but I didn't like all the crude references to male anatomy nor the front row seat on the bedroom action.  

Thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy via NetGalley.  Grade: B-

Review: Two Week Wait

 

Two Week Wait

About the Book:

For the last two decades, Jane has been trying for a baby. She knows all about surviving the agonising two-week wait between ovulation and test. Increasingly desperate, Jane opens her laptop, clicks, ‘TWW Forum: New Thread’, and types. ‘Anyone else starting their two-week wait? Shall we wait it out together?’

Four women respond to Jane’s message online; all strangers, all embarking on the same emotional two-week journey. All wanting just one thing. A baby.

This fast-paced, light-hearted read explores the heartache of infertility through the bittersweet stories of five women;

Mandi is young and eager. She needs all the help she can get.

Becks already has one child and is stuck in the hellish limbo of secondary infertility.

Instagram sensation, Star, is living and selling a false dream, online and off.

Finally, feisty Fern is scheduling a pregnancy in between film shoots

.

Five women, five stories, waiting to find out if it’s their turn for a baby. Love, heartache, shattered dreams and broken relationships. The two-week wait pushes them all to their limits.

My Comments:

This wasn't the book for me.  I knew I was older and at a different stage in life than these women, and luckily infertility was not the cross I was chosen to carry, when I chose to read this book.  I liked the premise of an online support group as I have (and do) belong to some, but I never really warmed up to any of the women and in the end, well, I hated the ending.

Chapters are dated throughout the 14 days between ovulation and pregnancy test.  Each chapter contains the messages on the forum, which are full of internet forum lingo (DH, TWW, etc) and then the story of what is happening in the characters' lives. 

As I said, I hated the ending.  Toward the end, one of the women tells the others she is pregnant--and we know who she is.  The others have all gotten negative tests and say their goodbyes--maybe they'll get together again in two weeks to start another TWW.    Then one posts to the forum that she too has a positive test--but no one responds and we don't know who it is.  Nope.  Not the way I like a book to end.  If you are going to get me invested in characters, tell me what happened to them.  

I'd like to thank the publisher for making a review copy available via NetGalley.  Grade: C 

Short Review: The Girl Who Escaped from Auchwitz

The Girl Who Escaped from Auschwitz

About the Book:

Nobody leaves Auschwitz alive.

Mala, inmate 19880, understood that the moment she stepped off the cattle train into the depths of hell. As an interpreter for the SS, she uses her position to save as many lives as she can, smuggling scraps of bread to those desperate with hunger.

Edward, inmate 531, is a camp veteran and a political prisoner. Though he looks like everyone else, with a shaved head and striped uniform, he’s a fighter in the underground Resistance. And he has an escape plan.

They are locked up for no other sin than simply existing. But when they meet, the dark shadow of Auschwitz is lit by a glimmer of hope. Edward makes Mala believe in the impossible. That despite being surrounded by electric wire, machine guns topping endless watchtowers and searchlights roaming the ground, they will leave this death camp.

A promise is made––they will escape together or they will die together. What follows is one of the greatest love stories in history…

My Comments:

Spoiler Alert

I read the Prologue and then the last chapter.  The title made me think there was a happily ever after.  There wasn't, and I didn't want to read the rest.  Yes, I know, few people made it out of Auschwitz, that's reality.  Yes, it was millions of individual people who were killed there, not a bunch of statistics.  Still, reading about and learning to care for people who are going to die a horrible death is not how I choose to spend my spare time.  Your mileage may vary.  

Thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy of the book via NetGalley.  DNF.  

Why This Title: Review and Discussion on The Nature of Fragile Things

 

 

The Nature of Fragile Things 

 

About the Book:

Sophie Whalen is a young Irish immigrant so desperate to get out of a New York tenement that she answers a mail-order bride ad and agrees to marry a man she knows nothing about. San Francisco widower Martin Hocking proves to be as aloof as he is mesmerizingly handsome. Sophie quickly develops deep affection for Kat, Martin's silent five-year-old daughter, but Martin's odd behavior leaves her with the uneasy feeling that something about her newfound situation isn't right.

Then one early-spring evening, a stranger at the door sets in motion a transforming chain of events. Sophie discovers hidden ties to two other women. The first, pretty and pregnant, is standing on her doorstep. The second is hundreds of miles away in the American Southwest, grieving the loss of everything she once loved.

The fates of these three women intertwine on the eve of the devastating earthquake, thrusting them onto a perilous journey that will test their resiliency and resolve and, ultimately, their belief that love can overcome fear.

 

My Comments:

It's been a long time since I sat down after work and read a book cover-to-cover in one night (and early morning) but that's exactly what I did last night, and it was time well spent.  

 

Set in San Francisco in the early 1900's, just prior to and just after the great earthquake and fire, the book follows Sophie through the days of her marriage to Martin and through her relationship with Martin's daughter "Kat".  One of my secret vices is trashy Kindle Unlimited romances and a bunch of them are "mail order bride" books--the spunky (or fearful) woman from back east travels across the country to marry a man almost sight unseen and of course before the end of the book they fall in love.  This book is a reminder that the reason many of these women answered those ads was lack of other viable options.  While I'm sure many of those relationships were at least somewhat satisfactory to both parties, I'm also rather sure that some of the men weren't completely honest about their circumstances and that others were abusive in one way or another.  

 

I find the title of the book to be interesting:  The Nature of Fragile Things.  With most books I'm pretty sure how the title relates to the story before I start reading, or, if not then, by the time I'm done.  With this one, I'm pondering.  

What is the nature of fragile things?  Well, they break, that's practically the definition.  Usually if I think of something "fragile" I think of something with some value, even though it is easy to break.  I just googled "fragile" and it means easily broken or damaged, flimsy or unsubstantial, easily destroyed or (of a person) not strong or sturdy, delicate and vulnerable.  So how does the title relate to the book?  

While I'd never call Sophie "fragile", her marriage to Martin certainly was.  We don't consider buildings to be fragile, but the earthquake broke many of them.  Sophie develops a relationship with Kat that is anything but fragile.  Kat's mother has tuberculosis and is very fragile--but also very strong.  Sophie also develops a strong relationship with the woman mentioned above.  

 

Is this a book about being broken?  I don't think so.  Actually I found the women in the book to be strong, despite their circumstances.  The three main adult female characters were all fooled by Martin, so in some ways I suppose he broke all of them, though he didn't end up getting what he wanted from any of these three.  

 

If you read the book, why do you think it has the title it does?  

I'd like to thank the publisher for making a review copy available via NetGalley.  Grade: A