Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Author: Kim Gruenenfelder
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
ISBN: 978-031261459-1
Publish Date: December 21, 2010
Type: Fiction: Women’s
Purchase: $8.81 at Amazon.com
Be Aware of What You Pull Out of a Cake!
Have you ever been to a bridal shower in which you participated in a “cake pull?” In this fantastic novel, a bride carefully makes a cake that holds silver charms in each slice. Each charm is tied by a ribbon that the guest pulls out of their slice of cake to learn a fortune of their future. Nicole, the bride, believes that these charms will magically change the future of each of her guests. For example, if a friend was to pull the baby carriage, then a baby was in her future. Nicole painstakingly arranges the cake to match her seating chart for the bridal shower so that the each charm she chose for her friends match their destiny. However, the cake gets accidentally shifted and nobody gets the charms intended for them.
Nicole’s best friends, Seema and Melissa, are disappointed to pull the shovel and the chili pepper, respectively. Nicole is even more disappointed when she pulls the baby carriage charm. After all, she is marrying the love of her life, Jason, who happens to bring two darling daughters to the marriage. Nicole had picked out the chili pepper for Seema so that she would have a steamy-hot love life while she chose the engagement ring for Melissa so that she would tie the knot with her long-time boyfriend of 6 years. All three of the women were disappointed in the charms they pulled and dreaded what that may mean for their future especially because they begin to see the other women’s fortunes coming true!
Over the course of this book, we get to intimately know Nicole (aka “Nic”), Seema, and Melissa as we watch their lives unfold. Filled with laugh-out-loud moments, the reader gets completely consumed in the lives of these three friends. This book is so intriguing, yet light enough to read at a deliciously quick pace. Kim Gruenenfelder scores again with a superb novel.
How Does It Rate?
This author also penned two of my favorite “Chick Lit” novels: A Total Waste of Makeup and Misery Loves Cabernet. Although this isn’t a sequel to these two other fabulous books, this novel stands proudly on its own. The characters are well-developed and easily relatable. You cannot miss with this book as a hillarious tale of self-discovery and love.
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Posted in Books Books Books
Friday, Apr 29, 2011
Author: Wendy Wax
Publisher: Berkley Trade
ISBN: 978-0425240861
Publish Date: May 3, 2011
Pages: 432 Trade Paperback
Type: Fiction: Women’s
Purchase: $9.39 at Amazon.com
Summary
The most unlikely trio of women, Madeline, Avery and Nikki are brought together via a mutual tragedy. Their commonality is that they have discovered that their entire life savings has been stolen by their financial advisor in a “ponzi-like” scheme.
Madeline is a housewife whose children, Kyra and Andrew, have left the nest. Unlike some mothers in her circle, she finds joy in the possibilities of her new lifestyle. She looks forward to clearing out the house, creating a craft room, and dedicating her time to personal interests that she’s long since put off after becoming a full-time mother. Madeline is married to Steve, an investment broker, who she comes to find out has placed all of their live savings in the hands of Malcolm Dyer. Malcolm Dyer is now currently missing and under investigation by the FBI for mismanaging millions in private funds. Of course, both Malcolm and the money are nowhere to be found. As Steve had not only invested the couple’s money in Malcolm Dyer’s “to-good-to-be-true-return” funds, but many others as well, he had lost his job months ago. Afraid of Madeline’s reaction, Steve has kept this secret from her leaving for work every day as though it was business as usual. It isn’t until Steve’s mother has an accident that Madeline tries to reach Steven at the office and discovered that he has been lying to her for over 6 months about not only his job, but the fact that they are broke.
Avery is part of the duo who host “Hammer & Nail,” a home fixer-upper show in which she and her gorgeous husband, Trent, renovate projects. Shortly after Trent and their producer begin to have an affair, Avery divorces Trent. Little did she know that when the show was renewed for another season, her contract was not. Not worried about the financial repercussions, she doesn’t go after the normal alimony and financial equality that she was entitled to during the split because the divorce was of her doing. She didn’t expect that she would lose her job just as much as she didn’t expect to discover that her inheritance from her father’s death was completely depleted. Her father had also invested everything with Malcolm Dyer.
Nicole (aka “Nikki”) is a professional match-maker who is suddenly facing financial troubles when she discovers that her nest egg, seemingly growing in Malcolm Dyer’s fund, was lost forever.
What Madeline, Avery and Nikki discover is that, via the Malcolm Dyer investing, they each own a 1/3 share of a home in Florida at Ten Beach Road. This evacuated, beach-side mansion in Florida, is apparently worth millions; that is, had it been in decent enough shape to sell. The trio discover that they are able to double their money in selling this historic building by first bringing it back to life via a renovation. They meet up with an old acquaintance of Avery’s who agrees to perform the renovation, as the general contractor, for a percentage of the sales when the home is sold. He convinces them that the renovation could take place over the summer and that the best approach is for the women to live in the home together and perform much of the “grunt-work” required for the renovation to save money. This begins their adventure, the three women and the contractor on a road to restore their desolate financial situation by renovating and selling this dilapidated home.
Despite their newly discovered camaraderie, family members and secrets emerge that threaten to tear their friendships apart and they almost lose all hope of financial redemption, when a hurricane threatens the nearly-completed mansion.
Rating
The first in a hopefully delightful choice in 2011 summer reads, this book had me longing for a sunset, a margarita, and a great friend to share it with. The novel provides emotional layers of each of the characters and delivers their motivations and fears with subtle precision. For your summer beach-read list, this makes the top 10.
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Posted in Books Books Books
Sunday, Apr 17, 2011
Author: Tate Hallaway
Publisher: NAL
ISBN #: 978-0-451-23311-0
Type: Fiction:Teen/Fantasy
Pages: 273 Trade Paperback
Published: May 3, 2011
Purchase: $9.99 (HERE)
Nicole’s Review
Anastasija Parker is just a normal teenager, despite the fact that most of her heritage came from Hell. She is a vampire/witch princess who wants to live a nomal teenage life. When the spring musical auditions arrive, her first reaction is to try-out. As soon as they begin, Ana learns that Nikolai Kirov, a vampire hunter and her who often behaves as her boyfriend, will be performing in the spring musical with his band. When tension rises between the two, their bickering throws her into the arms of Elias, a vampire, she feels a strange attraction to.
Through the mayhem, Ana finds herself in the biggest trouble of all. Ana and Elias must track down a secret talisman that was stolen. If they don’t find it, all of the vampires could be enslaved to witches and killed. The dangers are high and the pressure forces her dad to put a death sentence to her mother. Can Ana and Elias find the talisman and save her mother before the curtain falls?
The Rating
The story Almost Final Curtain was a exciting fantasy that kept me reading until the very last page. Tate Hallaway brilliantly brought together the ideas of forbidden love, attraction, and pure mystery. I sincerely hope for another novel in the Vampire Princess series and for more exciting books yet to come.
FTC Disclosure: This book was provided to Sheri from the publisher. Her daughter, Nicole, offered to read and review the book. Clicking on the either the photo of the book cover or the link next to the purchase price stated above will bring you to my Amazon Affiliate page. No purchases are necessary.
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Posted in Books Books Books
Saturday, Apr 16, 2011
I have just started reading Ten Beach Road by Wendy Wax. So far the first couple of chapters are good.
In the mailbox, I received Almost Final Curtain by Tate Hallaway, author of Almost to Die For. Not being much of a vampire girl, my daughter Nicole will most likely be reviewing the book for ANM Readers. She’s completely addicted and has read nearly every vampire series there are.
What are you reading this weekend?
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Posted in Books Books Books
Tuesday, Feb 15, 2011
Author: Karen Marie Moning
Publisher: Delacourte Press/Random House
ISBN #: 978-0-385-34167-7
Type: Fiction:Fantasy
Pages: 389 Hardback
Published: January 18, 2011
The Story
The last in a series of 5 books about MacKayla Lane, ShadowFever begins with the aftermath of Barrons’ death… Mac holding the spear that killed her beloved protector and lover. Overwhelmed with grief and despair, Mac’s mission is to follow through with her destiny to find the Sinsar Dubah (the holy book) which she believes will aid the good forces to restore earth. Mac’s pain drives her to become one with this powerful book so that she may reveal all of it’s secrets and abilities. Her focus is to turn back time to bring back her dead sister, Alina, and her lover Jerricho Barrons.
She is faced with an Unseelie enemy, Darroc, a powerful dark prince who craves the Sinsar Dubah as much, if not moreso, than Mac. His merging with the book will bring him the power to become the Unseelie King and his sights are set on making MacKayla his queen. Mac believes that she has the ability to fool Darroc into believing that she will become his partner in searching for the Sinsar Dubah, amongst other things including becoming his lover. Yet, she believes that Darroc is the one who killed Alina and her revenge brews in the dark crevices of her mind, hidden from Darroc’s ability to hear her thoughts.
With Dublin still under siege, it is MacKayla’s eventual hope to undo all that evil has done. But, can she do it alone? To ensure that their are no spoilers here… I will stop my summary here. But, what I can share is that all of the loose ends, all of the quetions, get answered in this tremendous finale. (FINALLY!)
My Review
The book series is:
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DarkFever
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BloodFever
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ShadowFever
If you read my previous reviews on FaeFaver and DreamFever, you will see that I was disappointed being left dangling off a cliff at the end of each book. As it has been over a year since I read DreamFever, I wish that I would have had the time to go back and re-read the book before commencing my read of ShadowFever just to get myself re-acquainted with the story and where I left off. However, I must give kudos to Karen Marie Moning because not long into the novel, I felt as thought I was right back on track with the storyline.
All of my prior ranting and raving about being left wanting more completely dissapated in reading ShadowFever. The reader gets to understand all of the truths about Rowena, V’Lane, Barrons and the Sinsar Dubah. I am, at last, finally sated!
The Rating
In the genre: Fiction, on Sher’s “Out of Ten Scale,” I am giving the book a 9 out of 10. Now that the final book of the series has been published, I highly recommend you check out the books from the library at the same time, because of the cliffhangers in the prior novels, you will want to read on and on… until you reach the fantastic finale, ShadowFever!
Many thanks to TLC Book Tours for including me on this extraordinarily popular and exciting book tour!
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Posted in Books Books Books
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