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Category: Women’s Fiction

Review: She’s Gone Country by Jane Porter

[ 11 ] August 22, 2010

Reviewed by Vera (Luxury Reading)

Shey Darcy, a former top model, is left to pick up the pieces after her husband of seventeen years leaves her for someone else. Angry and hurt, she picks up her glamorous New York life and moves home to Texas, with her three teenage sons in tow. Back at the family ranch where she grew up, Shey attempts to make sense of what has happened while dealing with her nosy – but well meaning – brothers and overbearing mother.

When Shey was sixteen, she was madly in love with her brothers’ older friend, Dane Kelly. Fearing that their daughter was getting too involved too fast, her parents sent her away to a boarding school in California. Returning to Texas post her split, Shey runs into Dane – a rugged and handsome former bull riding champion – once again. While things between him and her brothers seem to have taken a wrong turn, Shey immediately knows that her affection for him has not changed. Now, on top of quelling her unhappy children and becoming reacquianted with her family, Shey is forced to confront the feelings that she has long ago put to rest.

Much of the so-called chick lit genre tends to be very predictable, so I’m always somewhat apprehensive about starting a new book. However, I was blown away by how fun She’s Gone Country was to read and it single handedly restored my faith in this genre.

Jane Porter is the author of other books like Flirting with Forty which was made into a Lifetime movie starring Heather Locklear. She’s Gone Country was my first introduction to her work and if it’s any indication of her writing style and story telling abilities, I will definitely keep reading. Shey Darcy was an inspiring character – smart, strong, sexy – and the delicious romantic tension between her and Dane only added to the book’s appeal. Was the story a bit predictable? Sure, but it didn’t make it any less entertaining or enjoyable.

This book was provided free of any obligation by BookSparks PR. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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Review: I’ll Have Who She’s Having by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke

[ 10 ] August 21, 2010

Reviewed by Alice P.

I’ll Have Who She’s Having is an engaging book about two very competitive sisters, and their takes on love, family and life in general. Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke have successfully blended the lives of women who are polar opposites in an easy read that is likely to absorb the readers.

Even though she is known for her fast lifestyle and crazy relationships, 32 year-old gorgeous blond Kate is ready to settle down. But when her long term boyfriend dumps her, she finds her life spiraling out of control; she succumbs to depression that consists of pigging out and staying home with a dirty martini and watching Pretty Woman, her all time favorite movie. Kate has a hard time understanding why her life can’t have a fairy tale ending like her sister’s or the other women around her who all seem to be getting married.

Seeing Kate’s miserable condition, in steps Kelly, Kate’s younger and married sister. As much as Kelly wants to help her sister, Kate’s down-in-the-dumps attitude grates on her nerves. After all, Kelly knows that her marriage isn’t the happy ending Kate makes it out to be; once the vows are done, lives move on, and time passes by. Craving her husband’s attention and overwhelmed with housework, Kelly feels herself wasting away. When a chance encounter at a Starbucks connects Kelly with Tim, a handsome volleyball coach, she finds herself encouraging Kate to join her in the volleyball class in the hopes of catching Tim’s eye.

I’ll Have Who She’s Having follows the sisters as they battle their inner selves and each other in their constant search for a happy ending. In the course of the book, they realize that they were looking for love in all the wrong places and come to appreciate life as it transpires. Both the readers and the characters learn that the concept of happy ending, after all, is not just a fairytale…

Visit Liz and Lisa at their awesome blog, Chick Lit Is Not Dead.

Alice, a.k.a. Sunny, is a full time student at LakeLand College. She is originally from India, but has been traveling the world with her mom and sister ever since she was two.

This book was provided free of any obligation by BookSparks PR. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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Blog Tour & Giveaway: Waxed by Robert Rave

[ 186 ] August 12, 2010

Please join Robert Rave, author of Waxed, as he tours the blogosphere with TLC Book Tours!

To learn more about Robert Rave, visit his website and follow him on Twitter!

Reviewed by Vera (Luxury Reading)

The Impresario sisters could not be more different. Owner of the uber-posh waxing salon Impresarios, Carolina is outwardly beautiful and successful at everything she puts her mind to. On the inside, she is compulsively clinging to perfection, lashing out at anyone who dares to ruin her “perfect” world. The middle sister, Anna, is far removed from Carolina’s glamorous life, but comes looking for a job at Impresarios following a disastrous divorce. The youngest, Sofia, is newly married and madly in love with her handsome husband. When a client from the salon turns into a friend and lures Sofia to the glow of New York’s nightlife, one night out turns into much more than what Sofia bargained for.

The three sisters all struggle with different issues and Impresarios becomes the stomping ground for their arguments, frustrations and ultimately resolutions. Robert Rave packs in a lot of story lines, – Carolina’s long lost and resurfaced love, Anna’s unconventional family, Sofia’s penchant for partying, and so on – making Waxed a very fun ride through and through.

I sped through Waxed most of the way, guiltily enjoying the flawed characters and delicious revelations that made my jaw drop. The end, however, was a bit of a let down. While I was almost satisfied with the endings allotted to Anna and Sofia, I wanted to know more about Carolina. I was waiting for a better background or explanation of her need to control everyone and everything around her, and that explanation never came. Neither did a resolution to the situation she found herself in. I hope that there’s a sequel in the works…

Robert Rave on open endings and Carolina

My answer to the question about whether or not I was leaving the ending of Waxed open for a sequel, is yes AND no.

I do have a larger plan for some of the characters in Waxed, but that’s not my reason for the choice in how the novel ends.

I’m a believer that life is often messy and there’s not always going to be a tidy ending for everything. As we all know through our own experiences, not everything comes with a beautiful ribbon tied around it. Even though countless women (and some men) strive and often obtain a perfectly manicured and flawless exterior when visiting The Impresarios salon in Waxed, their interior is usually quite the opposite as is the case with our main characters. For me personally, to tie things up neatly in these very complex and complicated women would be a total cheat to readers. I don’t like predictable and had I gone with that I think I would not only have let myself down, but also those who went on the journey with these three very different sisters.

Carolina – why I chose to make her as neurotic as she was, the inspiration behind it, etc.

Strangely, there are personality traits in all three sisters that I share. I won’t say which ones because if I do I’m certain I will remain single forever. However, I will admit to having a bit of Carolina’s neurosis. I’m not exactly as OCD as she, is but I can be pretty neurotic. I typically can’t sit down to write unless my house and my writing space are completely clean. An exterior mess equals a mess inside my head. Yes, I win the crazy award for the day.

Carolina has a need for everything to be exactly in order. Walls need to be a pristine white. Uniforms perfect. Meanwhile, her emotional life is the exact opposite. I loved exploring that dichotomy. She’s tough and there’s no sugar coating, but as the layers are peeled away an entirely different Carolina is revealed.

Giveaway:
1 winner will receive a copy of Waxed!

Mandatory entry: Please comment on this post with your e-mail address.

Extra entries (please post each entry separately, i.e. 2 posts for subscribing):
- Subscribe via e-mail, follow or subscribe to the feed. You must verify the subscriptions. (1 entry each)
- Follow Robert Rave on Twitter (1 entry)
- Share this giveaway on a social network of your choice. Click the “Share/Save” button at the bottom of this post (1 entry each)
- Become a fan on Facebook (2 entries)

This giveaway is open to U.S. and Canada residents only. Deadline to enter is midnight on September 3rd.

Review and giveaway copies were provided free of any obligation by St. Martin’s Griffin. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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Review: Georgia’s Kitchen by Jenny Nelson

[ 12 ] August 9, 2010

Reviewed by Michelle S.

Just when Georgia Gray thinks her life is perfect, it all changes in an instant. Her career as the head chef at one of Manhattan’s best restaurants is destroyed after the restaurant owner’s dalliance with the teenage daughter of a major food critic. Then Georgia’s fiancé, a handsome entertainment lawyer, calls off the wedding.

So what is a girl with a culinary reputation in shambles and a shattered love life to do? She escapes to the Italian countryside, that’s what. With a little help from her friends, Georgia pulls herself out of a funk and contacts her former boss, Claudia. As luck would have it, Claudia just happens to be opening a new trattoria and could use one more chef on the staff.

Georgia’s Kitchen, by Jenny Nelson, follows Georgia through her ups and downs, with not only her career and love-life, but also with the relationships with her family and friends. In her travels through Italy, Georgia learns about love, ambition, redemption, and relationships, as well as following her own dreams and desires.

Nelson’s novel reminds me of a younger Under the Tuscan Sun, with the mouth-watering details of the food, and the colorful descriptions of the locations. Georgia’s Kitchen is funny, witty, thought provoking, and inspiring. I could easily relate to Georgia’s search for the right guy and the right life. The only thing missing were the recipes!

Michelle recently returned to her West Virginia roots to re-invent herself. She is the principal (okay, only) web and graphic designer at Michelle My Belle Designs and uses the rest of her free time to write her own book blog 52 Self-help Books. Putting up with her madness is her husband Jason, dog Leo, and rabbit Macchiato.

This book was provided free of any obligation by BookSparks PR. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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Blog Tour: Sand in My Eyes by Christine Lemmon

[ 7 ] August 5, 2010

Please join Christine Lemmon, author of Sand in My Eyes, as she tours the blogosphere with BookSparks PR!

Reviewed by Poppy J.

Anna Hott lives on Sanibel Island with her husband and three kids. Through the use of flashbacks, we see what life was like for Anna when her kids were younger. She relishes her relationship with her spouse, even loves her cluttered house and overly active children – all standard fare for this stage of her life. Anna doesn’t have the energy to find a clean towel, effectively deal with her children or berate her husband about his past transgressions – including his prior affair with another woman.

The reader will have a short attention span when it comes to Anna’s complaints. She is overburdened, over scheduled and generally coming apart at the seams. She meets her neighbor Fedelina Aurelio and the reader is let in on the secret of their separate pasts. Through her relationship with Fedelina, Anna is able to come to terms with the hurt she has been carrying, and discovers what is most important in her life. She develops the courage to work on her relationships and later learns to love again because of the deep friendship between the two women.

On the surface, Sand in My Eyes is about survival. The gems come from the letters and correspondence depicting the lives of the characters in the past. The book is interesting in that every reader will get something different out of the story within.

After a decade of working in several NYC law departments and teaching, Poppy decided she enjoyed writing full-time. She currently works as a freelance writing consultant, and lives with her husband and sons on the East Coast.

A review copy was provided free of any obligation by BookSparks PR. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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“Fabulously Fashionable” by Holly McQueen

[ 5 ] July 28, 2010

Reviewed by Abby A.

Isabel Bookbinder is a character who has appeared in the first novel in the series which I have not had a chance to read, The Glamorous (Double) Life of Isabel Bookbinder. However, reading Fabulously Fashionable by Holly McQueen without being formally introduced to Isabel and all her quirks did not prove to be a hassle at all. Fabulously Fashionable turned out to be a breezy read, and it came to remind me a lot of the Confessions of a Shopaholic series with slightly less witty characters.

Although I did enjoy the novel, I could not help but make continuous comparisons between Isabel and the main character of Confessions of a Shopaholic, Rebecca Bloomwood. The only difference between the two is their paths in the fashion industry: Isabel is an aspiring novelist-turned-fashion-designer, and Rebecca is an obsessive shopper turned journalist for a financial magazine. Everything else, from the setting (London) to their lack of self-restraint proves to be all too familiar.

As much as one can try not to compare the two, it is fairly obvious who Holly McQueen was inspired by when thinking up the protagonist of her series. All in all, Isabel and Rebecca are two very likeable characters, but in the end, Becky proves to be the more intelligent and clever counterpart, seeing as Isabel finds herself in legally sticky situations. Some issues were not tied up as cleanly as they could, but then again, that is what cliffhangers are for. Hopefully we will get some resolve in the next book…

Abby lives in coastal New Jersey and spends her free time writing anything from short articles to multi-chapter novels. She loves to read and her favorite book genres are Young Adult, Chick-Lit, and How-To/Guides.

This book was provided free of any obligation by Atria. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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Blog Tour & Giveaway: “Hearts on a String” by Kris Radish

[ 154 ] July 26, 2010

Please join Kris Radish, author of Hearts on a String, as she tours the blogosphere with TLC Book Tours!

To learn more about Kris Radish and her books, please visit her website or blog!

Reviewed by Claudia R.

Nan, Margo, Holly, Patti & Cathy find their paths merging in a most unusual place, the ladies room of Tampa’s International Airport. Drawn, inexplicably, fate or destiny at hand, the women are joined together by forces of nature that leave them stranded and flightless, forced to seek alternate agendas until a surprise Spring storm blows over.

When Nan offers to share her beach side hotel suite with them, the women pool their resources, toss aside convention and caution goes to the wind, and load their belongings in to the last rental car in Tampa.

Hearts on a String brings together an insecure hairdresser, a control freak mom with three teenagers, an aging club singer, a secret Agent and a shameless sexpot. Forced under one roof for four days, the women find themselves looking in to their hearts, analyzing their lives, and seeking answers to life’s most elusive questions, tethered, through good and bad, by the invisible string that binds all females together.

With the aide of copious amounts of alcohol and quality room service food, the women battle out their differences, try hard to play nice, and work at breaking down the barriers that come with the different lifestyles and ghosts of the past each woman brings to the table. Toss in a Psychic Convention that happens, to also, be stranded at the Hotel, and Hearts on a String becomes a pretty volatile situation. Hormones and Tarot Card readings, oh my.

Allow me to say that Kris Radish is one of my favorite authors. She has an uncanny ability to take feelings, especially of the female persuasion, and tender them on to paper in a way that no one else can. As usual, she succeeds, in Hearts on a String, to vocalize thoughts and ideas many of us have had when in the presence of our female ‘sisters’.

Unfortunately, in this book, I found myself being turned off by the incessant whining banter between the five women. There was too much ‘talk’ to allow the reader to just succumb to Kris’s grace and skill. I grew annoyed with the women, and almost felt as if Kris had written the book in a state of utter frenzy and exhaustion. Gone were her lush and vivid descriptives of scenery and situation. In fact, the prologue and the ending both contained Kris’ true essence, the stuff in between seemed contrived and forced.

As I said, I love Kris Radish and own every book she’s ever written which is why I had to review this one. Unfortunately, the delivery fell short of the anticipation. Everyone has an off day, I’m hoping Hearts on a String was Kris’ and that her next book will provide the soul food she usually dolls out generously.

Claudia lives on Cape Cod with her husband and two children. She entertains her passion for reading in between being a full-time Mom, aspiring writer, avid photographer & volunteer for Missie’s Closet, an emergency food & necessities pantry for the low-income in her area.

Giveaway:
I have 1 copy of Hearts on a String to give away, courtesy of the publisher!

Mandatory entry: Please comment on this post with your e-mail address.

Extra entries (please post each entry separately, i.e. 2 posts for subscribing):
- Subscribe via e-mail, follow or subscribe to the feed. You must verify the subscriptions. (1 entry each)
- Enter another current giveaway and tell me which one you entered (1 entry each)
- Share this giveaway on a social network of your choice. Click the “Share/Save” button at the bottom of this post (1 entry each)
- Become a fan on Facebook (2 entries)

This giveaway is open to U.S. and Canada residents only. Deadline to enter is midnight on August 10th.

Review and giveaway copies were provided free of any obligation by Bantam. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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SheKnows Book Club Pick: “Heart of the Matter” by Emily Giffin

[ 11 ] July 22, 2010

Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin is the June/July pick for the SheKnows Book Club!

Reviewed by Vera (Luxury Reading)

Heart of the Matter was my first foray into reading Emily Giffin’s books; I’ve previously listened to Baby Proof on audio.

Heart of the Matter is narrated alternatively by the two leading female characters, Tessa and Valerie. Married to a brilliant plastic surgeon, Nick Russo, Tessa gave up her teaching career at a local university to be a stay-at-home mom to the couple’s two young children. Valerie, an attorney and single mom, has dedicated her life to raising her son Charlie and little else.

A freak accident leaves Charlie with serious burns over his face and arm, bringing the duo into Nick’s path. As he works to repair the damage, Nick’s concern for the patient and his mother evolves into something more than simple professional courtesy. Long room visits turn into daily phone calls; when Charlie is discharged from the hospital, Nick finds reasons to visit him, and Valerie, at home.

The quiet dissatisfaction Nick has with his marriage finds an outlet when he’s around Valerie, while Tessa is left to contend with Nick’s increasingly long “work” hours. Much of the novel grapples with Nick’s ultimate decision of whether or not to give into his growing affection for Valerie, and the potential ramifications of his choice on Tessa and their family.

Reading Heart of the Matter was akin to having a crush, and hoping that the other party felt the same way. The anticipation of mutual affection in real life and in Giffin’s novel was one and the same. In Heart of the Matter, she created the perfect combination of knowing what’s right, and still being able to sympathize with the side that’s wrong. While I felt for Tessa and understood that Nick’s actions were wrong, I also felt for Valerie and could not help but want her’s and Nick’s relationship to work out in some way.

Visit Emily Giffin’s website for more information.

This book was provided free of any obligation by SheKnows Book Club. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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