Review: Sandpiper Shore

Sandpiper Shore

About the Book:

There's nothing Jenna Bell loves more than a happily-ever-after. That's why being a wedding planner is her dream job - until the groom is Logan Gallagher. She's had a crush on him since . . . well, forever. And now she has to make his day magical as he walks down the aisle without her.

As a secret service agent, Logan's already married - to his career. A wife was never in his plan, until he finds out he needs to marry the woman he's been protecting. He takes his latest assignment in stride, but when he sees Jenna again, he can't deny the attraction sparking between them. Can he really say "I do" if it means saying goodbye to the woman of his dreams?

My Comments:

From beginning to end, this book was absolutely unbelievable.  Seriously, I don't think there was anything that happened in the book that seemed like something that would happen in real life.  For one thing, this is yet another book set in Harmony Harbor in and around the Graystone Inn.  The ghost of Colleen Gallagher makes an appearance, and I have no problem with that--she's part of the world Mason has built and I can suspend reality enough to accept that Mason's world has the people she writes about, and a ghost.  However, once the world has been built, I expect things to be believable within that world, and in this case they were not.

The book starts in a bridal shop, with a customer in tears because she was just dumped, right before the wedding.  While another bride is comforting her, that bride's fiancee comes in and dumps her, for her stepmother.  The second dumped bride runs out of the store and is pushed out of the way of an oncoming car by Logan, who shortly thereafter punches the ex-fiance.  He asks the dumped bride to run to the bar across the street (she's still in a wedding dress) and call his brother the lawyer.  While at the bar she gets drunk and then starts pole dancing in her wedding dress--and the story continues in just this vein.  

Fans of the Harmony Harbor series may want to give this one a try, just to keep up with the series, but if you haven't read the others, I'd skip this one.  

Thanks to the publisher for making a review copy available via NetGalley.  Grade:  C

Not Perfect: My Review

Not Perfect

About the Book:

Tabitha Brewer wakes up one morning to find her husband gone, leaving her no way to support herself and their two children, never mind their upscale Philadelphia lifestyle. She’d confess her situation to her friends—if it wasn’t for those dreadful words of warning in his goodbye note: “I’ll tell them what you did.”

Instead, she does her best to keep up appearances, even as months pass and she can barely put food on the table—much less replace a light bulb. While she looks for a job, she lives in fear that someone will see her stuffing toilet paper into her handbag or pinching basil from a neighbor’s window box.

Soon, blindsided by catastrophe, surprised by romance, and stunned by the kindness of a stranger, Tabitha realizes she can’t keep her secrets forever. Sooner or later, someone is bound to figure out that her life is far from perfect.

My Comments:

I guess it is easy to say that "I'd never do that" when you've never been in someone else's shoes, and I'll never be in Tabitha's shoes--if my husband ever left me, I have a job that will pay the basic bills around here and keep food on the table--but I can't imagine every doing what Tabitha did, and maybe that's why I never quite liked this book.  Here is this woman with a degree from a fancy school who has been a stay at home mom and wife to a well-paid lawyer.  They have all the trappings of their upper-middle class lifestyle, including private school for the kids, and a love for gourmet food.

After months she realizes that her husband isn't coming back and that she has no money and so she looks for a job, and is given one, albeit one she didn't apply for and is probably not well-paid.  Does she keep it, and keep looking, figuring some money is better than none?  No, she just continues in her angst-filled self-pitying world and avoids anyone who might be able to help her.  She steals basil from the neighbor's window boxes and toilet paper from friends but instead of selling her husband (presumeably expensive) cuff links she gives them away.  

Then there are the other characters.  One is an old woman who offers Tabitha pot-laced candy and who makes it easy for Tabitha to "borrow" money she needs by leaving it laying about the house.  The other is a man Tabitha meets at Stuart's alumni function who realizes she is an imposter (not an alumna) who becomes the new love interest in her life--and don't get me started on Stuart.  They all just seemed strange, not realistic at all.  

I'd like to thank the publisher for providing a review copy via NetGalley.  I read the second half of the book at a pace between fast and skimming so maybe I missed something, but I'm giving this one a "C", and hope that others enjoy it more than I did.  

Review: Bella Flora Christmas

Bella Flora Christmas

About the Book:

The ladies of Ten Beach Road are home for the holidays in this brand-new novella.

Although their lives have changed since their first desperate renovation of Bella Flora, friends Madeline, Avery, and Nicole have always been there for each other. Now they're returning to Bella Flora for Christmas—where Maddie’s daughter Kyra isn’t feeling particularly celebratory. 

 

Kyra was hoping for a peaceful holiday at Bella Flora—a last gathering before a wealthy, mystery tenant moves into the home she’s been forced to rent out. Instead, she must make a life altering decision by New Year’s -- a decision that becomes even more difficult when unexpected guests arrive at Ten Beach Road on Christmas Eve. Now Kyra, Maddie, Avery and Nikki will need to pull together to secure Bella Flora’s future, as well as their own.

My Comments:

I'm guessing that this book would be a lot more fun if I had read the other books in the series.  As it was, to me, there were far too many characters doing far too little and nothing ever quite grabbed me. 

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

To Be Where You Are: My Review

To Be Where You Are

About the Book:

After twelve years of wrestling with the conflicts of retirement, Father Tim Kavanagh realizes he doesn't need a steady job to prove himself. Then he's given one. As for what it proves, heaven only knows.

Millions of Karon fans will be thrilled that it’s life as usual in the wildly popular Mitford series: A beloved town character lands a front-page obituary, but who was it, exactly, who died? And what about the former mayor, born the year Lindbergh landed in Paris, who’s still running for office? All this, of course, is but a feather on the wind compared to Muse editor J.C. Hogan’s desperate attempts to find a cure for his marital woes. Will it be high-def TV or his pork chop marinade?

 

In fiction, as in real life, there are no guarantees. 

 

Twenty minutes from Mitford at Meadowgate Farm, newlyweds Dooley and Lace Kavanagh face a crisis that devastates their bank account and impacts their family vet practice. 

 

But there is still a lot to celebrate, as their adopted son, Jack, looks forward to the most important day of his life—with great cooking, country music, and lots of people who love him. Happily, it will also be a day when the terrible wound in Dooley’s biological family begins to heal because of a game—let’s just call it a miracle—that breaks all the rules.

 

In To Be Where You Are, Jan Karon weaves together the richly comic and compelling lives of two Kavanagh families, and a cast of characters that readers around the world now love like kin.

My Comments:

I've read most of the Mitford books and like many long-time fans will, I'm sure, I grabbed this one when it became available (I got it on NetGalley).  I wanted to visit with old friends and watch them have new adventures.  However, I'm about a third of the way in and I have no desire to finish.  I think every person in Mitford has at least made an appearance and if  you haven't read the other books, they will mean very little to you--they meant little to me because it has been a couple of years since I read the last book.  I'm hoping that by the end of the book Lace finds out that she really can have a baby, but other than that, well, so far nothing in this book has grabbed me and I'm having trouble keeping people straight, or even figuring out who is on stage right now.  

Thanks to the publisher for making a review copy available via NetGalley.  Grade C (real Mitford fans may enjoy it, but don't bother with this if you haven't read the others.  

Review: The Promise of Provence

The Promise of Provence (Love in Provence Book 1)

About the Book:

On the evening of her twenty-second wedding anniversary, Katherine Price can’t wait to celebrate. But instead of receiving an anniversary card from her husband, she finds a note asking for a divorce.

Fifty-five and suddenly alone, Katherine begins the daunting task of starting over. She has her friends, her aging mother, and her career to occupy her, but the future seems to hold little promise—until, after a winter of heartbreak, Katherine is persuaded to try a home exchange holiday in the South of France.

In Provence, bright fields of flowers bloom below medieval hilltop villages with winding cobblestone streets. Charmed by the picturesque countryside, the breathtaking Côte d’Azur, and the enchantment-filled boulevards of Paris, Katherine feels life opening up once again. Lavender perfumes the air, and chance encounters hint at romance and passion. But memories of heartbreak and betrayal linger—and her former life waits for her back home. Can she find the courage to begin again?

My Comments:

Holly over at Two Kids and Tired recommended this book so I gave it a try.  Like Holly, I like the fact that the heroine is close to my age.  I agree that Patricia Sands paints vivid pictures with words so that the reader can see everything from the goat on the side of the road to the flowers in the vase.  Unlike Holly, I didn't love all that description and kept wanting Sands to get on with the story. I gave up half way through.  Grade:  C (a story that I didn't care for (far too much description for my taste) but which you might like.)

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

Review: Last One Home

Last One Home: A Novel

About the Book:

Growing up, Cassie Carter and her sisters, Karen and Nichole, were incredibly close—until one fateful event drove them apart. After high school, Cassie ran away from home to marry the wrong man, throwing away a college scholarship and breaking her parents’ hearts. To make matters worse, Cassie had always been their father’s favorite—a sentiment that weighed heavily on her sisters and made Cassie’s actions even harder to bear.

Now thirty-one, Cassie is back in Washington, living in Seattle with her daughter and hoping to leave her past behind. After ending a difficult marriage, Cassie is back on her own two feet, the pieces of her life slowly but surely coming together. Despite the strides Cassie’s made, she hasn’t been able to make peace with her sisters. Karen, the oldest, is a busy wife and mother, balancing her career with raising her two children. And Nichole, the youngest, is a stay-at-home mom whose husband indulges her every whim. Then one day, Cassie receives a letter from Karen, offering what Cassie thinks may be a chance to reconcile. And as Cassie opens herself up to new possibilities—making amends with her sisters, finding love once more—she realizes the power of compassion, and the promise of a fresh start.

A wonderful novel of perseverance and trust, and an exciting journey through life’s challenges and joys, Last One Home is Debbie Macomber at the height of her talents.

My  Comments:

If you click this link you'll see my post on negative reviews, and what types of books are likely to garner negative reviews as opposed to being ignored if I do not like them.  In this case, I have read and positively reviewed many of Debbie Macomber's books.  I did not enjoy this one and frankly, I believe that if it was sent to a publisher or agent by an unknown author, it would have never made it past the reject bin.  The writing is not professional quality.  While the story concept was good, and the opening strong, the book never got out of the starting blocks and the characters, usually Debbie Macomber's strong point, never really came to life.  

Cassie was a battered wife and the story opens with her supporting another battered wife as the other woman testifies in court against the man who hurt her.  We learn that Cassie left her husband after being beaten many times, went to a battered women's shelter, and is now working as a hair stylist and living in a small dumpy apartment.  However, she has just been accepted as a Habitat for Humanity homeowner, and it is while putting in the necessary sweat equity that she meets her love interest in this book.  Of course they clash, and eventually, each decides the other isn't all bad.  

While the blurb above pitches this book as being about the relationship between sisters, Cassie's sisters remind me of teenagers, not grown women.  Of course their lives aren't as ideal as they appear on the surface, but we never really get into what makes them tick either. In the end, it is happily ever after with everyone's problems solved and a big group hug--but I still didn't think I knew the characters; rather I had just been told what happened over this time in their lives. At times the writing was repetitive, and the whole story just never grabbed me, despite the potential.  The book was a disappointment to me and I'm giving it a C because so many Amazon readers gave it five stars, putting it the category of a book that I didn't like, but which  you might.

Thanks to Edelweiss for providing a review copy.

Rivers: My Review

Rivers: A Novel

About the Book:

"It had been raining for weeks. Maybe months. He had forgotten the last day that it hadn’t rained, when the storms gave way to the pale blue of the Gulf sky, when the birds flew and the clouds were white and sunshine glistened across the drenched land."

Following years of catastrophic hurricanes, the Gulf Coast—stretching from the Florida panhandle to the western Louisiana border—has been brought to its knees. The region is so punished and depleted that the government has drawn a new boundary ninety miles north of the coastline. Life below the Line offers no services, no electricity, and no resources, and those who stay behind live by their own rules.

Cohen is one who stayed. Unable to overcome the crushing loss of his wife and unborn child who were killed during an evacuation, he returned home to Mississippi to bury them on family land. Until now he hasn’t had the strength to leave them behind, even to save himself.

But after his home is ransacked and all of his carefully accumulated supplies stolen, Cohen is finally forced from his shelter. On the road north, he encounters a colony of survivors led by a fanatical, snake-handling preacher named Aggie who has dangerous visions of repopulating the barren region.

Realizing what’s in store for the women Aggie is holding against their will, Cohen is faced with a decision: continue to the Line alone, or try to shepherd the madman’s captives across the unforgiving land with the biggest hurricane yet bearing down—and Cohen harboring a secret that may pose the greatest threat of all.

Eerily prophetic in its depiction of a southern landscape ravaged by extreme weather, Rivers is a masterful tale of survival and redemption in a world where the next devastating storm is never far behind.

My Comments:

There was one reason and one reason only I ever selected this book--it is the book for the Common Reading Initiative at my alma mater, Mississippi University for Women, and I was curious about it.    The reason I say that is because I didn't like the book but I'm perfectly willing to admit that my love of happy endings and pleasant plots (you don't see any horror reviewed here, or murder mysteries or too many other books that are filled with death, blood or gore) may be the reason.

Two words that come to mind when describing the book are "wet" and "gray".  It rained all the time, a heavy driving rain, and then wind blew.  There was no let up.  There had been no let up for weeks, as noted above.  Many of the characters smoke, and smoke frequently, adding to the gray aura.  While there are a few bad guys in the book, most of the people are gray--they do bad things but aren't evil people; deep down, they are just trying to survive.

I will say that the writing is well-done.  The language itself paints pictures as vivid as photographs.  Michael Farris Smith is clearly a gifted writer; I just don't happen to like this story.  I like sunshine and happy endings and this book had neither.  You can sample  Smith's writing in this New York Times article.

I'd like to thank the publisher for making a review copy available on NetGalley.  Grade:  C (A book I didn't care for, usually for a stated reason, but which you might like.)

Review: My New Orleans, Gone Away

My New Orleans, Gone Away

About the Book:

 In this poignant and vivid memoir, Peter M. Wolf, a member of one of New Orleans’s oldest Jewish families, provides an insider’s look at his fabled city and the wider world beyond that he comes to inhabit.

Written with humor and telling detail, My New Orleans contains rare insight about the social structure of New Orleans; student life at Exeter, Tulane and Yale; the thrill of original scholarship; around the world travel before jets; medical school trauma; ingrained southern racism, and anti-Semitism; and American students’ role in anti-Vietnam uprisings in Paris. In the background, he traces the rags to riches rise and fall of his city’s and his family’s engagement in the cotton, sugar and retail trades.

After a year of medical school at Columbia, Wolf returns to New Orleans to work in his father’s cotton brokerage and simultaneously earns a master’s degree at Tulane. Wolf later returns to the Northeast, completes doctoral studies at NYU, and becomes an architectural historian.

Reflecting the yearnings and anxieties of a generation that came of age after World War II, this is the journey of a restless man who leaves the hometown he loves to discover the world, and in so doing, to find himself. My New Orleans offers a penetrating and memorable account of a fading period of America’s evolution, turbulence and possibilities, as unique as the city of Wolf’s memory.

My Comments:

When I first saw the book cover and title I figured this was another "how things are different since Katrina" book.  If you read the above summary, you'll see that  it is not.  Rather, it is the memoir of an old man.  I made it half-way through before calling it quits.  Frankly, if you have no connection with New Orleans, the first half will mean little to you.  Wolf included long lists of people he knew and with whom he associated.  The names mean something to me; being in the legal business, I'm familiar with many of the old New Orleans names.  I know the streets Wolf mentions and the school he attended.  

You might also like it if you want to remember your days at Yale, or if you wonder about life at Yale in the 1950's.  Wolf tells us about his dorm room, joining the student newspaper, and joining exclusive clubs.

Peter Wolf was raised as a non-observant reform Jew in suburban New Orleans.  The biggest social event his parents hosted every year was a Christmas party--the the rabbi was a regular guest.   He talks about his complete lack of religious belief and about how he, as a rich Jewish man, was discriminated against because he was not allowed to join the Carnival Krewes populated by the rich Uptown crowd.

Basically, the book has too much detail about things that are of little interest to me--some would have been interesting but I'd say the book is at least twice as long as it should be and there were a couple of times I think I read basically the same paragraph on different pages.  

Still, if you are looking for a picture of a particular time in New Orleans' history as viewed by a wealthy secular Jew who had deep roots in the community at large, this may be just what you are looking for.

My Review: Within Reach

Within Reach (Harlequin Super Romance)

About the Book:

Being a single dad was never on Michael Young's agenda. Yet with the sudden loss of his wife, that's exactly the role he has. On his best days, he thinks he can handle it. On his worst… Luckily, family friend Angie Bartlett has his back, easily stepping in to help out.

Lately, though, something has changed.

Michael is noticing exactly how gorgeous Angie is, and how single she is. She's constantly in his thoughts and he feels an attraction he never expected. Does he dare disrupt the very good thing they have going? If they have a fling that goes nowhere, he stands to lose everything—including her. But if they make it work, he stands to gain everything!

My Comments:

I was disappointed in this book. I thought the premise was good--a man moving from being friends with his late wife's best friend to falling in love with her, but what I got was two people who genuinely liked each other falling in lust with each other.  They both felt guilt, like they were cheating on the late wife, but instead of talking about their relationship, instead of deciding they wanted to explore whether they were going to go further with it than friendship, they lusted after each other, had sex with each other and then, finally, decided that yes, they did love each other and should get married.  Too much  cart before the horse for me, and way too much detail in the sex scenes (I won't even call them love scenes because that's not what they were thinking).  Grade:  C.  

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