Now she is contemplating her first case as an independent bodyguard, but she is not sure that she wants to take on guarding a show dog. However, his owner, Myrtle, somehow persuades her by revealing that someone is threatening Chumley.

Natasha is one of those feisty characters that somehow manages to get into one scrape after another. While the antics add humor to the mix, they also show us the flawed, yet lovable woman she is. The chemistry between Natasha and Striker is so intense it is almost palpable, but when the sparks fly, they are not necessarily the good kind; and as Natasha struggles to assert herself and make her own decisions, Striker, in an effort to protect her, often takes on a controlling attitude.

Sometimes Natasha’s attitude is a bit extreme, but the story is more amusing because of her behavior.

Will Natasha allow Striker to take control of her life and her decisions? If she persists in her independence, will she lose him in her life? And how will the advice of her feminist grandmother guide or distract her? What unexpected danger will present itself at the dog show and reveal the final pieces to the puzzle of the threat against Chumley?

Another delightful tale in a fun series, The Bodyguard and The Show Dog earned five stars.

Good morning, and welcome to my Monday Memes.  For those who participate in Monday Mailbox, Apple Blossom, of 4 the Love of Books is hosting for May; and, as usual, Book Journey is hosting What Are You Reading?

MAILBOX MONDAY:

This week, I received one e-book (my purchase) and a book from another blogger.

1.  Sweet Salt Air, by Barbara Delinsky (from Diane, at Bibliophile by the Sea)

Charlotte and Nicole were once the best of friends, spending summers together in Nicole’s coastal island house off of Maine. But many years, and many secrets, have kept the women apart. A successful travel writer, single Charlotte lives on the road, while Nicole, a food blogger, keeps house in Philadelphia with her surgeon-husband, Julian. When Nicole is commissioned to write a book about island food, she invites her old friend Charlotte back to Quinnipeague, for a final summer, to help. Outgoing and passionate, Charlotte has a gift for talking to people and making friends, and Nicole could use her expertise for interviews with locals. Missing a genuine connection, Charlotte agrees.

 

But what both women don’t know is that they are each holding something back that may change their lives forever. For Nicole, what comes to light could destroy her marriage, but it could also save her husband. For Charlotte, the truth could cost her Nicole’s friendship, but could also free her to love again. And her chance may lie with a reclusive local man, with a heart to soothe and troubles of his own.

 

Bestselling author and master storyteller Barbara Delinsky invites you come away to Quinnipeague…

 

The Lost Husband (e-book), by Katherine Center

Perfect for fans of Jennifer Weiner and Emily Giffin, this tender and heartwarming novel explores the trials of losing what matters most—and how there’s always more than we can imagine left to find.

Dear Libby, It occurs to me that you and your two children have been living with your mother for—Dear Lord!—two whole years, and I’m writing to see if you’d like to be rescued.

The letter comes out of the blue, and just in time for Libby Moran, who—after the sudden death of her husband, Danny—went to stay with her hypercritical mother. Now her crazy Aunt Jean has offered Libby an escape: a job and a place to live on her farm in the Texas Hill Country. Before she can talk herself out of it, Libby is packing the minivan, grabbing the kids, and hitting the road.

Life on Aunt Jean’s goat farm is both more wonderful and more mysterious than Libby could have imagined. Beyond the animals and the strenuous work, there is quiet—deep, country quiet. But there is also a shaggy, gruff (though purportedly handsome, under all that hair) farm manager with a tragic home life, a formerly famous feed-store clerk who claims she can contact Danny “on the other side,” and the eccentric aunt Libby never really knew but who turns out to be exactly what she’s been looking for. And despite everything she’s lost, Libby soon realizes how much more she’s found. She hasn’t just traded one kind of crazy for another: She may actually have found the place to bring her little family—and herself—back to life.

***

Welcome to our weekly bookish place where we share our adventures in reading.  Come along and join us as we explore other blogs and feel a community spirit.

Another busy week behind me….not a lot of reading.  A little bit of blogging, like Tempting Images on Pinterest, Bookish Treats, & New Obsessions.

Hump Day Serendipity:  Waiting for “No Child of Mine”

Let’s Curl up and Talk Books

Sweet Saturday Sample:  Neighborhood Watch (An Excerpt from Defining Moments)

Sunday Potpourri:  Bookish Tidbits & Treasures

Reading:  (Click Titles for Reviews)

Fly Away, by Kristin Hannah

Instructions for a Heatwave, by Maggie O’Farrell

Finding Lily (e-book), by Lisa D. Ellis (Review will be up on Rainy Days and Mondays on 5/30/13 – Blog Tour)

What’s Up Next?  (Click Titles/Covers for More Info)

Today I’m reading The Bodyguard and the Show Dog, by Christy Tillery French (A Mt. TBR/Sequel Challenge read).

Walled-In, by J. Elke Ertle

Just Breathe, by Susan Wiggs

***

That’s what my week looked like…and what’s up ahead.  Come on by and share….

The event will bring Gretta and Robert’s grown children back to the homestead. Michael Francis, from his wife and children; Monica, from the countryside where she lives with her second husband Peter and his two children; and unexpectedly, Aoife, the youngest, who has been living in New York for years.

A convergence of the siblings will resurrect old rivalries, secrets, and hostilities. What secret has Aoife been hiding all these years? And why is Monica, the favorite, harboring such ill will for her younger sister, while sporting a “holier-than-thou” attitude? And what has happened to derail Michael’s marriage, even as part of him longs for an escape route?

The characters came alive on the pages, from perpetually loyal, yet flawed Michael and good-girl Monica, to the misunderstood Aoife, who has no trouble challenging the others when they constantly exclude her from almost everything. We come to know each of them as they tell their stories from their perspectives, in the third person narrative.

Who among us can’t relate to the roles siblings play within a family? And have any of us survived our families without realizing that secrets abound in the nooks and crannies?

Set in London, the English countryside, Ireland, and Manhattan, we can see the unfolding of events as the surroundings define and characterize them all.

Reading like a mystery, a confessional, and a family chronicle, Instructions for a Heatwave is Maggie O’Farrell at her best. She shows us the interior journey of a family from its inception, pulling back the cloak of secrecy to reveal the darkest and innermost feelings of them all. I like the fact that the author did not tie up all the loose ends, but brought them to a point at which they seem poised for resolution. Leaving it to the reader’s imagination to fill in the rest. Five stars.

Good morning, and welcome to my Monday Memes.  For those who participate in Monday Mailbox, Apple Blossom, of 4 the Love of Books is hosting for May; and, as usual, Book Journey is hosting What Are You Reading?

MAILBOX MONDAY:

My physical and electronic mailbox (Sparky) have received four books this week:  two review books and two purchases.

1.  Instructions for a Heatwave, by Maggie O’Farrell (Amazon Vine)

Sophisticated, intelligent, impossible to put down, Maggie O’Farrell’s beguiling novels—After You’d Gone, winner of a Betty Trask Award; The Distance Between Us, winner of a Somerset Maugham Award; The Hand That First Held Mine, winner of the Costa Novel Award; and her unforgettable bestseller The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox—blend richly textured psychological drama with page-turning suspense. Instructions for a Heatwave finds her at the top of her game, with a novel about a family crisis set during the legendary British heatwave of 1976.

Gretta Riordan wakes on a stultifying July morning to find that her husband of forty years has gone to get the paper and vanished, cleaning out his bank account along the way. Gretta’s three grown children converge on their parents’ home for the first time in years: Michael Francis, a history teacher whose marriage is failing; Monica, with two stepdaughters who despise her and a blighted past that has driven away the younger sister she once adored; and Aoife, the youngest, now living in Manhattan, a smart, immensely resourceful young woman who has arranged her entire life to conceal a devastating secret.

Maggie O’Farrell writes with exceptional grace and sensitivity about marriage, about the mysteries that inhere within families, and the fault lines over which we build our lives—the secrets we hide from the people who know and love us best. In a novel that stretches from the heart of London to New York City’s Upper West Side to a remote village on the coast of Ireland, O’Farrell paints a bracing portrait of a family falling apart and coming together with hard-won, life-changing truths about who they really are.

2.  The K Street Affair (e-book), by Mari Passananti (Author Request)

What if a massive corporation, one with political ties on both sides of the Atlantic, decided to start a war?

Hours after a crippling attack rocks Washington, D.C., Lena Mancuso, a talented young associate at one of the country’s best law firms, finds federal agents at her door, bearing unbelievable news.

Lena’s clients may have financed the murder of hundreds of civilians.

The FBI wants Lena’s insider access to spy on her firm’s high-profile roster of international clients, whose ranks include a disgraced K Street lobbyist, a flamboyant Russian oil baron and the future Saudi king – unlikely bedfellows linked by common interests in a massive multinational corporation with lofty but sinister goals: control of the world oil markets and a takeover of the United States government.

Helping the FBI means Lena will endanger herself and everyone she loves, but refusing them feels unthinkable. Armed with a mix of smarts, intuition and grit she never knew she possessed, Lena will risk everything in a race to stop a catastrophic chain of events.

3.  The Obituary Writer (e-book), by Ann Hood (My Purchase)

A sophisticated and suspenseful novel about the poignant lives of two women living in different eras.

On the day John F. Kennedy is inaugurated, Claire, an uncompromising young wife and mother obsessed with the glamour of Jackie O, struggles over the decision of whether to stay in a loveless marriage or follow the man she loves and whose baby she may be carrying. Decades earlier, in 1919, Vivien Lowe, an obituary writer, is searching for her lover who disappeared in the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. By telling the stories of the dead, Vivien not only helps others cope with their grief but also begins to understand the devastation of her own terrible loss. The surprising connection between Claire and Vivien will change the life of one of them in unexpected and extraordinary ways. Part literary mystery and part love story, The Obituary Writer examines expectations of marriage and love, the roles of wives and mothers, and the emotions of grief, regret, and hope.

4.  Dark Places (e-book), by Gillian Flynn (My Purchase)

I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ.

Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” As her family lay dying, little Libby fled their tiny farmhouse into the freezing January snow. She lost some fingers and toes, but she survived–and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, Ben sits in prison, and troubled Libby lives off the dregs of a trust created by well-wishers who’ve long forgotten her.

The Kill Club is a macabre secret society obsessed with notorious crimes. When they locate Libby and pump her for details–proof they hope may free Ben–Libby hatches a plan to profit off her tragic history. For a fee, she’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club . . . and maybe she’ll admit her testimony wasn’t so solid after all.

As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the narrative flashes back to January 2, 1985. The events of that day are relayed through the eyes of Libby’s doomed family members–including Ben, a loner whose rage over his shiftless father and their failing farm have driven him into a disturbing friendship with the new girl in town. Piece by piece, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started–on the run from a killer.

***

WHAT ARE YOU READING?

Welcome to our weekly bookish place where we share our adventures in reading.  Come along and join us as we explore other blogs and feel a community spirit.

My week had a lot more TV/Movie Watching, with a little bit of reading and blogging mixed in.

As a soap opera addict, I was thrilled to be able to again watch One Life to Live and All My Children, that debuted on Hulu.com this week.

Tuesday Potpourri:  Soap Magic, the Online Reboot

Because watching on my laptop seemed a bit tedious, even though I found it fairly easy to do, I discovered something else to make my experience better.  My son hooked my TV to my laptop via an HDMI cable and the show plays out on my TV screen!

Then yesterday, I went to the theater again…yeah, I know, two weeks in a row!  And saw The Big Wedding, with Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon, Robert DeNiro, Katherine Heigl, etc.

Then last night, I watched Silver Linings Playbook on DVD…and that was a totally engaging film that had me riveted to the very end.

More Blogging:

April Monthly Reading Wrap-Up

What Else?  Sharing at Booking Through Thursday

Sweet Saturday Sample:  Someone is Watching Over Me (An Excerpt)

Books Read/Reviewed (Click Titles for Reviews):

The Engagements, by J. Courtney Sullivan

Cocktail Hour (e-book), by Tara McTiernan

Summer on Blossom Street, by Debbie Macomber (Sequels Challenge) 

What’s Up Next? (Click Titles/Covers for More Info)

Still Reading:  Finding Lily, by Lisa Ellis

The Submission, by Amy Waldman

Fly Away, by Kristin Hannah (Amazon Vine)

***

And that’s what my week looked like…and what’s ahead.  Enjoy!  Come on by and let’s chat!

Good morning, and welcome to my Monday Memes.  For those who participate in Mailbox Monday, click for Mari Reads in April; and, as usual, Book Journey is hosting What Are You Reading?

This week brought a bonanza of books:  two review books in the mail; one e-book for review; and two purchased e-books.

1.  The Engagements, by J. Courtney Sullivan (Amazon Vine)

From the New York Times best-selling author of Commencement and Maine comes a gorgeous, sprawling novel about marriage—about those who marry in a white heat of passion, those who marry for partnership and comfort, and those who live together, love each other, and have absolutely no intention of ruining it all with a wedding.

Evelyn has been married to her husband for forty years—forty years since he slipped off her first wedding ring and put his own in its place. Delphine has seen both sides of love—the ecstatic, glorious highs of seduction, and the bitter, spiteful fury that descends when it’s over. James, a paramedic who works the night shift, knows his wife’s family thinks she could have done better; while Kate, partnered with Dan for a decade, has seen every kind of wedding—beach weddings, backyard weddings, castle weddings—and has vowed never, ever, to have one of her own.

As these lives and marriages unfold in surprising ways, we meet Frances Gerety, a young advertising copywriter in 1947. Frances is working on the De Beers campaign and she needs a signature line, so, one night before bed, she scribbles a phrase on a scrap of paper: “A Diamond Is Forever.” And that line changes everything.

A rich, layered, exhilarating novel spanning nearly a hundred years, The Engagements captures four wholly unique marriages, while tracing the story of diamonds in America, and the way—for better or for worse—these glittering stones have come to symbolize our deepest hopes for everlasting love.

2.  Fly Away, by Kristin Hannah (Amazon Vine)

Once, a long time ago, I walked down a night-darkened road called Firefly Lane, all alone, on the worst night of my life, and I found a kindred spirit. That was our beginning. More than thirty years ago. TullyandKate. You and me against the world. Best friends forever. But stories end, don’t they? You lose the people you love and you have to find a way to go on. . . .

 

Tully Hart has always been larger than life, a woman fueled by big dreams and driven by memories of a painful past. She thinks she can overcome anything until her best friend, Kate Ryan, dies. Tully tries to fulfill her deathbed promise to Kate—to be there for Kate’s children—but Tully knows nothing about family or motherhood or taking care of people.

Sixteen-year-old Marah Ryan is devastated by her mother’s death. Her father, Johnny, strives to hold the family together, but even with his best efforts, Marah becomes unreachable in her grief. Nothing and no one seems to matter to her . . . until she falls in love with a young man who makes her smile again and leads her into his dangerous, shadowy world.

Dorothy Hart—the woman who once called herself Cloud—is at the center of Tully’s tragic past. She repeatedly abandoned her daughter, Tully, as a child, but now she comes back, drawn to her daughter’s side at a time when Tully is most alone. At long last, Dorothy must face her darkest fear: Only by revealing the ugly secrets of her past can she hope to become the mother her daughter needs.

A single, tragic choice and a middle-of-the-night phone call will bring these women together and set them on a poignant, powerful journey of redemption. Each has lost her way, and they will need each one another—and maybe a miracle—to transform their lives.

An emotionally complex, heart-wrenching novel about love, motherhood, loss, and new beginnings, Fly Away reminds us that where there is life, there is hope, and where there is love, there is forgiveness. Told with her trademark powerful storytelling and illuminating prose, Kristin Hannah reveals why she is one of the most beloved writers of our day.

3.  Some Are Sicker Than Others (e-book), by Andrew Seaward (Author Request)

ADDICTION: CUNNING, BAFFLING, & POWERFUL  

In this gripping debut novel by Andrew Seaward, the lives of three addicts converge following an accidental and horrific death.

Monty Miller, a self-destructive, codependent alcoholic, is wracked by an obsession to drink himself to death as punishment for a fatal car accident he didn’t cause.

Dave Bell, a former all-American track star turned washed-up high school volleyball coach, routinely chauffeurs his bus full of teens on a belly full of liquor and head full of crack.

Angie Mallard, a recently divorced housewife with three estranged children, will go to any lengths to restore the family she lost to crystal meth.

All three are court-mandated to a secluded drug rehab high in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. There, they learn the universal truth among alcoholics and addicts:
Though they may all be sick…SOME ARE SICKER THAN OTHERS.

Based on the author’s own personal experience with substance abuse and twelve-step programs, Some Are Sicker Than Others, transcends the clichés of the typical recovery story by exploring the insidiousness of addiction and the harrowing effect it has on not just the afflicted, but everyone it touches.

With the harsh realism of Brett Easton Ellis and the dark, confrontational humor of Chuck Palahniuk, Mr. Seaward takes the reader deep inside the psyche of the addict and portrays, in very explicit details, the psychological and physiological effects of withdrawal and the various stages of recovery.

4.  Somewhere off the Coast of Maine (e-book), by Ann Hood (My Purchase)

“Brilliant….[The Vietnam era] is vividly captured by Ann Hood.”—New York Times Book Review

In 1969, as Peter, Paul and Mary croon on the radio and poster paints are splashing the latest antiwar slogans, three friends find love. Suzanne, a poet, lives in a Maine beach house awaiting the birth of a child she will call Sparrow. Claudia, who weds a farmer during college, plans to raise three strong sons. Elizabeth and her husband marry, organize protests, and try to rear two children with their hippy values. By 1985, things have changed: Suzanne, now with an MBA, calls Sparrow “Susan.” Claudia spirals backward into her sixties world—and into madness. And Elizabeth, fatally ill, watches despairingly as her children yearn for a split-level house and a gleaming station wagon. Reading group guide included.

5.  Don’t Go (e-book), by Lisa Scottoline (My Purchase)

Bestselling author Lisa Scottoline has thrilled millions with her emotionally-charged novels that feature strong women exploring the boundaries of family, justice, and love.   In Don’t Go, she breaks new ground and delivers the story of a soldier who discovers what it means to be a man, a father, and ultimately, a hero.

When Dr. Mike Scanlon is called to serve as an army doctor in Afghanistan, he’s acutely aware of the dangers he’ll face and the hardships it will cause his wife Chloe and newborn baby.  And deep inside, he doesn’t think of himself as a warrior, but a healer.

However, in an ironic turn of events, as Mike operates on a wounded soldier in a war-torn country, Chloe dies at home in the suburbs, in an apparent household accident.  Devastated, he returns home to bury her, only to discover that the life he left behind has fallen apart.  His medical practice is in jeopardy, and he is a complete stranger to the only family he has left – his precious baby girl.  Worse, he learns a shocking secret that sends him into a downward spiral.

Ultimately, Mike realizes that the most important battle of his life faces him on the home front and he’ll have to put it all on the line to save what’s dearest to him – his family.  Gripping, thrilling, and profoundly emotional, Don’t Go is Lisa Scottoline at her finest.

***

WHAT ARE YOU READING?

Welcome to our weekly bookish place where we share our adventures in reading.  Come along and join us as we explore other blogs and feel a community spirit.

I’ve done quite a bit of reading, a little blogging, and yesterday I took a break to see  a movie I’ve been eagerly awaiting.

The Company You Keep, with a wonderful cast that includes Robert Redford, Julie Christie, Susan Sarandon, and many others, took me back to a time in my life….and I just sat there absorbing it all.  I haven’t been buying as many DVDs lately (I have 800+ on my shelves!), but this is one I’m going to add.

So after a nice respite, I grabbed my book again.

My Week on the Blogs:

Tuesday Intros/Teasers:  The Smart One

Waiting on Wednesday with Morning Glory

Thursday Potpourri:  Disturbing Midnight Moments

A Guilty Pleasures Treat:  Book Beginnings/Friday 56 – Tapestry of Fortunes

Sweet Saturday Sample:  Awaiting her Fate (An Excerpt from Defining Moments)

Sunday Potpourri:  Moments of Reflection

Reading-Click Titles for Reviews:

Drinking with Men, by Rosie Schaap

The Smart One, by Jennifer Close

The Good House (e-book), by Ann Leary

Lucky Me (Memoir), by Sachi Parker

Tapestry of Fortunes, by Elizabeth Berg

What’s Up Next? (Click Titles/Covers for More Info)

The Engagements, by J. Courtney Sullivan

Summer on Blossom Street, by Debbie Macomber

Cocktail Hour (e-bo0k), by Tara McTiernan

Finding Lily (e-book), by Lisa D. Ellis

***

And that’s how my week is unfolding….stop on by and let’s chat!

Finding a sense of community and camaraderie, a place where “everyone knows your name,” if you will, is the primary theme of Drinking with Men: A Memoir.

The author leads the reader through her own unique journey with bars, beginning with the impact that a particular railroad car had on her as a teen, and then we saunter along with her in her Deadhead years, a time of youthful excesses in a number of places almost forgettable except for the drinking.

Still very young, she first experiences a pub in Dublin that set the tone for many to follow. And the bars during her college years left their mark on her and would become part of her bar identity for all that followed, from New York to Montreal.

A sense of family and community seemed to dominate the appeal, lending itself to why she chose a particular bar. Sometimes a bar would become hers almost serendipitously…and then would belong to her for years. A sense of being a regular was a guiding force in showing up at a particular bar several nights a week. Finding old friends in new places would also lend that special connection, that celebratory reminiscence that would coalesce and anoint the place…until another would take over as The Bar of Choice at the moment.

I thoroughly enjoyed the narrative voice of the author, as she rambled on, not necessarily in a linear fashion, sharing tidbits about her life and the people in her journey, inhabitants of the bar culture where she took up residence. A quest for family, friends, and a feeling of refuge would heighten the experiences more than the actual drinking. I am familiar with that quest and have enjoyed a few favorite “watering holes” over the years. As I read about the bars in this memoir, I could almost feel them and sense them. The author made them real for me. Five stars.

Good morning, and welcome to my Monday Memes.  For those who participate in Mailbox Monday, click for Mari Reads in April; and, as usual, Book Journey is hosting What Are You Reading?

All of my “mailbox” reads this week arrived via download onto Sparky.  I received one review book, one freebie, and one purchase.

Cocktail Hour (e-book), by Tara McTiernan (Author Request)

Lessons from Generation X to Generation Next (e-book-free), by McKenzie McPherson

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

As you read this, take a moment to pontificate about your life, what are some of the lessons you wish the generation that preceded you had left behind in a diary that you could access anytime you needed advice in a non-judgmental way?

As you think about that, also think about the lessons you hope to pass on to the generation succeeding you?

Lessons from Generation X to Generation Next is a compilation of over 3,000 anecdotes that describe some of the lessons the author has learned throughout her life. The book is divided into 10 categories: family, parents,
education, career, health, finances, relationships, pop culture, life, and spirituality.

The book offers real-life guidance to people of all ages that will greatly improve the quality of life for anyone who reads it and perhaps generations to come.

It is not only wise to learn from our mistakes but generationally advantageous to share what we have learned with those who might be heading down the path we are all too familiar with. Eleanor Roosevelt suggested that we won’t live long enough to make them all ourselves and realistically why would we want to?

There are few guarantees in life, but one of the most sobering is that one day we will die, and even though death might capture our bodies, our spirits will forever be liberated in the lessons we pass on from one generation to the next.

Virgin Soul (e-book), by Judy Juanita (Purchase)

From a lauded poet and playwright, a novel of a young woman’s life with the Black Panthers in 1960s San Francisco

At first glance, Geniece’s story sounds like that of a typical young woman: she goes to college, has romantic entanglements, builds meaningful friendships, and juggles her schedule with a part-time job. However, she does all of these things in 1960s San Francisco while becoming a militant member of the Black Panther movement. When Huey Newton is jailed in October 1967 and the Panthers explode nationwide, Geniece enters the organization’s dark and dangerous world of guns, FBI agents, freewheeling sex, police repression, and fatal shoot-outs—all while balancing her other life as a college student.

A moving tale of one young woman’s life spinning out of the typical and into the extraordinary during one of the most politically and racially charged eras in America, Virgin Soul will resonate with readers of Monica Ali and Ntozake Shange.

***

WHAT ARE YOU READING?

Welcome to our weekly bookish place where we share our adventures in reading.  Come along and join us as we explore other blogs and feel a community spirit.

I’d like to welcome all bloggers to check out my Five-Year Blogoversary over at Story Corner.  Yes, I know I mentioned it last week, but now it is underway until 4/27.  I will be giving away books from my reading room.

Now…last week, I enjoyed some blogging, like my Tuesday Potpourri:  Book Lust post.

On my Hump Day Sparks, I enthused about what I was waiting for….

And over at my group blog, Betty Dravis shared Why Are These Authors So Happy?

My Creative Journey post took me back:  Spotlighting Moments Along the Way.

Thursday Potpourri revealed Bookish Surprises.

My Sweet Saturday Sample captured moments of Venturing Out (An excerpt).

Sunday Potpourri:  Books Into Movies & Other Sunday Tidbits

Reading-Click Titles for Reviews:

Oodles of Poodles, by Linda O. Johnston (Cozies/Sequel Challenges)

Backseat Saints (e-book), by Joshilyn Jackson (Sequels Challenge)

Heart Like Mine (e-book), by Amy Hatvany

The Sugar House, by Laura Lippman (Sequels Challenge)

What’s Up Next? (Click Titles/Covers for More Info)

Drinking with Men, by Rosie Schaap (Amazon Vine Review)

The Smart One, by Jennifer Close

The Good House (e-book), by Ann Leary

***

And that’s what’s happening here.  Enjoy your week, and come on by and chat!

In Backseat Saints, we are gifted with the versions of Rose Mae. There is the little girl of eight, whose mother has walked out on her. A version that continues into high school. She is full of mouthiness and is a guy magnet. But she picks the bad ones.

As Ro, she is married to Thom Grandee, a mix of good and bad. Because we see so much of the abuse almost immediately, it is impossible to realize the good parts right away. The parts that keep Ro hooked.

But something else is stirring up inside Ro these days, beginning on the day she meets a Gypsy at the airport. It’s the pull of another journey: a journey to find her mother.

Ro’s journey (she has taken on another version now as Ivy Wheeler) carries her from Amarillo, Texas, to Chicago, and then to Fruiton, Alabama, where she grew up. Ultimately she arrives in Berkeley, California.

Will Rose Mae find her mother? And when she does, will she discover the truth of why her mother left? Or will she find something completely different under a blanket of untruths?

The ending of this story crept up on me and I didn’t see this version coming. I could have guessed, but the unfolding drama left me wanting so much more of these characters and their stories. And perhaps more from the characters who were not primary ones in this tale. At the end, I enjoyed reading the author’s truths about how she came to write these characters…and what might lie ahead. Five stars!

Good morning, and welcome to my Monday Memes.  For those who participate in Mailbox Monday, click for Mari Reads in April; and, as usual, Book Journey is hosting What Are You Reading?

MAILBOX MONDAY:

This week, I received two review books and one purchase from Amazon.

1.  Tapestry of Fortunes, by Elizabeth Berg (My gift to myself!)

In this superb new novel by the beloved New York Times bestselling author of Open House, Home Safe, and The Last Time I Saw You, four women venture into their pasts in order to shape their futures, fates, and fortunes.

Cecilia Ross is a motivational speaker who encourages others to change their lives for the better. Why can’t she take her own advice? Still reeling from the death of her best friend, and freshly aware of the need to live more fully now, Cece realizes that she has to make a move—all the portentous signs seem to point in that direction.

She downsizes her life, sells her suburban Minnesota home and lets go of many of her possessions. She moves into a beautiful old house in Saint Paul, complete with a garden, chef’s kitchen, and three housemates: Lise, the home’s owner and a divorced mother at odds with her twenty-year-old daughter; Joni, a top-notch sous chef at a first-rate restaurant with a grade A jerk of a boss; and Renie, the youngest and most mercurial of the group, who is trying to rectify a teenage mistake. These women embark on a journey together in an attempt to connect with parts of themselves long denied. For Cece, that means finding Dennis Halsinger. Despite being “the one who got away,” Dennis has never been far from Cece’s thoughts.

2.  Drinking with Men, by Rosie Schaap (Amazon Vine)

A vivid, funny, and poignant memoir that celebrates the distinct lure of the camaraderie and community one finds drinking in bars.

Rosie Schaap has always loved bars: the wood and brass and jukeboxes, the knowing bartenders, and especially the sometimes surprising but always comforting company of regulars. Starting with her misspent youth in the bar car of a regional railroad, where at fifteen she told commuters’ fortunes in exchange for beer, and continuing today as she slings cocktails at a neighborhood joint in Brooklyn, Schaap has learned her way around both sides of a bar and come to realize how powerful the fellowship among regular patrons can be.

In Drinking with Men, Schaap shares her unending quest for the perfect local haunt, which takes her from a dive outside Los Angeles to a Dublin pub full of poets, and from small-town New England taverns to a character-filled bar in Manhattan’s TriBeCa. Drinking alongside artists and expats, ironworkers and soccer fanatics, she finds these places offer a safe haven, a respite, and a place to feel most like herself. In rich, colorful prose, Schaap brings to life these seedy, warm, and wonderful rooms. Drinking with Men is a love letter to the bars, pubs, and taverns that have been Schaap’s refuge, and a celebration of the uniquely civilizing source of community that is bar culture at its best.

3.  Finding Lily, (e-book), by Lisa Ellis (Virtual Author Blog Tours)

When her newborn baby Lily dies suddenly, Claire Edwards runs away to live in a lighthouse she had fallen in love with as a young child. The lighthouse is reputed by some to have magical powers, but Claire isn’t looking for a miracle. She just wants an escape from her husband Jim’s colder way of grieving, and from their apartment filled with the tiny clothes and stuffed animals they had collected over the past few months. But once Claire is situated in the lighthouse, it begins to illuminate things for her in a new way and she’s suddenly forced to rethink her views on life, death, and her marriage.

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WHAT ARE YOU READING?

Welcome to our weekly bookish place where we share our adventures in reading.  Come along and join us as we explore other blogs and feel a community spirit.

My week brought lovely weather and some fabulous reads.  Not much blogging, however, except for some memes and my Saturday Snapshot post, along with my Sweet Saturday Sample (an excerpt from Defining Moments).

I am looking forward to the five-year blogoversary for my very first blog, Story Corner.  Check in later next week (April 21 is the date of the event) for details about the giveaway.

When you have a lot of blogs, as I do (eleven!), you only celebrate a few of the blogoversaries.

So now, let’s talk about books!

Books Read (Click Titles for Reviews):

1.  The Summer of France, (e-book), by Paulita Kincer (Fellow blogger!)

2.  Me Before You, by JoJo Moyes

3.  The Banks of Certain Rivers (e-book), by Jon Harrison (Review Book)

4.  Glory in Death, by J. D. Robb (Sequel Challenge)

What’s Up Next? (Click Titles/Covers for More Info)

1.   Oodles of Poodles, by Linda O. Johnston (Cozy/Sequel Challenges)

2.  Backseat Saints (e-book), by Joshilyn Jackson (Sequel Challenge)

3.  Heart Like Mine (e-book), by Amy Hatvany

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And that’s my week!  Come on by and let’s chat.

But, as usual, the most obvious suspects are not necessarily the killers, and when two more high profile women are slashed in a similar fashion and apparently with the same weapon, Eve has to dig deeper. And then, as if hiding in plain sight, the right perpetrator is now in Eve’s cross hairs.

Along the way toward the conclusion, the reader is treated to the usual visual images of the futuristic world of 2058. I enjoyed imagining the kind of world that has shuttles to other planets, and the various communication devices that are a regular part of life in those times. And yet, we are also gifted with the beginnings of an interior exploration of the traumatic childhoods of both Eve and Roarke. I hope that future books will reveal more of these inner depths.

As usual, the story is fast-paced with intriguing and sometimes annoying characters, peppered with great dialogue. What gives it a bit more fun is how the author shows us a deeper look into the relationship between Eve and Roarke, and offers a fabulous glimpse of his luxurious homes and lifestyle. An engaging book, with a bit of predictability. I honed in on the killer about 2/3 of the way through. Recommended for fans of the series. Four stars.