Review: Blind by Rachel DeWoskin

Imagine this: You are fourteen, watching the fireworks at a 4th of July party, when a rocket backfires into the crowd and strikes your eyes, leaving you blind. In that instant, your life is changed forever. How do you face a future in which all your expectations must be different? You will never see the face of your newborn sister, never learn to drive. Will you ever have a job or fall in love? This is Emma’s story. The drama is in her manysmall victories as she returns to high school in her home town and struggles to define herself and make sense of her life, determined not to be dismissed as a PBK – Poor Blind Kid. This heartfelt and heart wrenching story takes you on Emma’s journey and leaves you with a new understanding of the challenges to be faced when life deals a devastating blow.

Hardcover, 416 pages

Expected publication: August 7th 2014 by Viking Juvenile

Terri's Thoughts

I won a copy of this book as part of a Goodreads firstreads giveaway in exchange for an honest review.  I was pretty excited because I had previously been turned down for a galley copy of the book.

This was written for a YA audience and I feel that it appropriately represented the demographic.  It captures the journey of Emma as she learns to deal without her vision in a world that is vision obsessed.  The reader is along for the ride as she copes with denial, anger, and acceptance.

I think the part that makes this story a real gem is that it deals with all of the usual teenage drama that a fifteen year old would go through and added to it the aspect of being newly blind.  Although perhaps at a greater extent, Emma still has to deal with insecurities, family, less than truthful friendships, boys and heartbreak.  This to me made the story more real.  The fact that she had to live everyday life with a disability was intensified by the fact that she was dealing with the same issues she would have been before her accident.

There was a good cast of supporting characters.  I enjoyed her family and their differences along with her friends.  I wish that Sebastien had a greater presence in the story as I really loved his character. As a great lover of dogs I can't leave out her companion dog who was present with her throughout the story.  What Emma does with him at the end of the story had me in tears.

This was a coming of age story with the twist of losing ones eyesight.  I think younger readers will be able to identify with Emma because aside from her vision she was dealing with normal everyday issues.  Overall I would recommend this read.

About the Author

Rachel DeWoskin is the author of Foreign Babes in Beijing, a memoir about her inadvertent notoriety as the star of a Chinese soap opera, and a novel, Repeat After Me. She lives in New York City and Beijing and is at work on her fourth book, Statutory.


Website:  http://www.racheldewoskin.com/    
   

Review: Bittersweet by Colleen McCullough

This is the story of two sets of twins, Edda and Grace, Tufts and Kitty, who struggle against all the restraints, prohibitions, laws and prejudices of 1920s Australia. Only the submissive yet steely Grace burns for marriage; the sleekly sophisticated Edda burns to be a doctor, the down-to-earth but courageous Tufts burns never to marry, and the too-beautiful, internally scarred Kitty burns for a love free from male ownership.

Turbulent times, terrible torments, but the four magnificent Latimer sisters, each so different, love as women do: with tenderness as well as passion, and with hearts roomy enough to hold their men, their children, their careers and their sisters.

Hardcover, 352 pages

Expected publication: August 19th 2014 by Simon & Schuster
Genre: Historical Fiction

Kristine's Thoughts:

I received an advanced readers copy of this book from Simon & Schuster via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!

I was extremely excited to read this book because I loved The Thorn Birds and was hoping that McCullough would blow me away again with this one.

What I liked...

I liked the fact that the story revolved around two sets of twins. Being a twin myself, I could relate to the relationships and closeness of the four sisters.

The fact that the story takes place during a time of great differences and historically significant events was very appealing to me. Although a fictional story I got a good feel for the trials and tribulations of that time period.

I also liked that the book told each sisters story.

But...

At times I felt like the story really dragged and I had to force myself not to skim the pages.

With telling each of the sisters story I felt that each individual story was a little rushed and lacked some of the necessary development. Each sister almost needed her own story in a separate book so that I could connect fully with each character and understand each one of them better. Although each sister is touched on, I felt there could have been more and in the end I really didn't know a whole lot about Tufts.

In the end I liked the book but found that it lacked that certain something that I found in The Thorn Birds. I was hoping for another epic love story but it fell a little short of it.

About the Author

 Colleen McCullough AO (born 1 June 1937) is an internationally acclaimed Australian author. Colleen was born in Wellington in central west New South Wales to James and Laurie McCullough.

She grew up during World War II. In her first year of medical studies at the University of Sydney she suffered dermatitis from surgical soap and was told to abandon her dreams of becoming a medical doctor. Instead, she switched to neuroscience and worked in Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney. In 1963 she moved to the United Kingdom where she met the chairman of the neurology department at Yale University at the Great Ormond Street hospital in London, who offered her a research associate job at Yale. McCullough spent ten years researching and teaching in the Department of Neurology at the Yale Medical School in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. In the late 1970s she settled on Norfolk Island in the Pacific, where she met her husband, Ric Robinson, to whom she has been married since 1983. She now lives in Sydney.

Review: Her Best Mistake by Donna McDonald

Maybe other forty year old divorced women were different, but Lisa Dennison was not the kind of woman to climb into bed with every guy she dated. Actually, she should never have agreed to date younger man, Eric Roberts at all. She was flattered by the attention, but Eric never really interested her. But how is she ever going to rationalize sleeping with Eric's Harvard Professor of Archeology twin?

Kindle Edition, 79 pages

Published March 4th 2014

Terri's Thoughts

I got this book as a free download on Amazon.

Every once in a while you need a quick distracting interlude from the mundane every day chores.  Sometimes you want a distraction in your reading material that will not require any mental exertion and this story does that.  Sometimes you do not have the time to commit to a long read.

It was a very short novella that provided all sorts of steamy bedroom scenes with a little bit of comedic plot.  It certainly distracted and rated high on the steamy scale.  I enjoyed the fact that the female was older than the male although I do not recall if the age difference was ever defined.

This story is not going to win any awards for epic storytelling and I doubt that the rights are going to be sold to make a movie however it does not matter.  It simply delivers as advertised and that is a short and sexy read with the intention of taking us away from our to do lists.

About the Author

Donna McDonald is an active dreamer and finds writing to be the best way to use her creativity. Needing to satisfy both sides of her brain, she is a cross-genre author of contemporary, fantasy, and paranormal romances.

Her books appear on bestseller lists for humor, romantic comedy, space opera, and more. She craves laughter from her readers and focuses her attention on making that happen as often as possible.

She loves to hear from anyone who has read her books.


Website:  http://donnamcdonaldauthor.com
Twitter:   donnamcdonald13    
  

Feature and Follow Friday #41

Feature & Follow Friday is a weekly meme that allows book bloggers to interact with each other and find new blogs! It has two hosts, Parajunkee and Alison Can Read. The rules are...
 
(Required) Follow the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts {Parajunkee & Alison Can Read}
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Put your Blog name & URL in the Linky thing. You can also grab the code if you would like to insert it into your posts.
Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say “hi” in your comments and that they are now following you.
If you are using WordPress or another CMS that doesn’t have GFC (Google Friends Connect) state in your posts how you would like to be followed
Follow Follow Follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don’t just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don’t say “HI”
If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the Love…and the followers
If you’re new to the follow Friday hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog.

Question of the Week: Suggest a question! We need questions of the week for future FFs. Any ideas? 

 

What book or books have you read lately that you think are relevant and do a great job in tackling the hot topics in society today?

 

What is your all time favourite book cover?

 

If you were sent to live on a desert Island and could only take three books, which books would you take?

That is our Feature and Follow Friday for this week! Comment down below if you're a new follower of ours with a link to your blog and we will make sure to follow you back. You can follow us via gfc, bloglovin, email, facebook and/or twitter.
 

Review: The Story of Land and Sea by Katy Simpson Smith

Set in a small coastal town in North Carolina during the waning years of the American Revolution, this incandescent debut novel follows three generations of family—fathers and daughters, mother and son, master and slave, characters who yearn for redemption amidst a heady brew of war, kidnapping, slavery, and love.

Drawn to the ocean, ten-year-old Tabitha wanders the marshes of her small coastal village and listens to her father’s stories about his pirate voyages and the mother she never knew. Since the loss of his wife Helen, John has remained land-bound for their daughter, but when Tab contracts yellow fever, he turns to the sea once more. Desperate to save his daughter, he takes her aboard a sloop bound for Bermuda, hoping the salt air will heal her.

Years before, Helen herself was raised by a widowed father. Asa, the devout owner of a small plantation, gives his daughter a young slave named Moll for her tenth birthday. Left largely on their own, Helen and Moll develop a close but uneasy companionship. Helen gradually takes over the running of the plantation as the girls grow up, but when she meets John, the pirate turned Continental soldier, she flouts convention and her father’s wishes by falling in love. Moll, meanwhile, is forced into marriage with a stranger. Her only solace is her son, Davy, whom she will protect with a passion that defies the bounds of slavery.

In this elegant, evocative, and haunting debut, Katy Simpson Smith captures the singular love between parent and child, the devastation of love lost, and the lonely paths we travel in the name of renewal.

Kindle Edition, 256 pages

Expected publication: August 26th 2014 by Harper 

Genre: Historical Fiction

Kristine's Thoughts:

I received an advanced readers copy of this book from Harper via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!

Part one of this book tells the story of John and his daughter Tabitha and then part two goes back to tell the story of Tabitha's mother Helen. The third part tells the story of Helen's father, husband, slave and her slaves son.

There were parts of this book that I really enjoyed and parts that I didn't. The writing was good but I found that it dragged on numerous occasions. If I had to pick, I would say that I enjoyed the second part of the book the best. Helen's story interested me and kept me engaged the most. I found the third part of the book to be all over the map and the least interesting. I would have loved to read more about Helen's slave Moll.

I won't re-tell the story but if I had to pick one word that best describes this story it would be DEPRESSING. The entire book revolves around grief, loss and loneliness. There is no silver lining to be found at all. If you like a book with a happily ever after, I don't recommend picking this one up because you won't find it. Perhaps this is with keeping true to a time of great hardship where things were never easy but it was still depressing all the same.

About the Author

Katy Simpson Smith was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. She attended Mount Holyoke College and received a Ph.D. in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She has been working as an Adjunct Professor at Tulane University and is the author of We Have Raised All of You: Motherhood in the South, 1750-1835. She lives in New Orleans.

Review: Three Story House by Courtney Miller Santo

Renovating an historic Memphis house together, three cousins discover that their spectacular failures in love, career, and family provide the foundation for their future happiness in this warm and poignant novel from the author of The Roots of the Olive Tree that is reminiscent of The Postmistress, The Secret Life of Bees, and Kristin Hannah’s novels.

Nearing thirty and trying to avoid the inescapable fact that they have failed to live up to everyone’s expectations and their own aspirations, cousins and childhood best friends Lizzie, Elyse, and Isobel seek respite in an oddly-shaped, three-story house that sits on a bluff sixty feet above the Mississippi.

As they work to restore the almost condemned house, each woman faces uncomfortable truths about their own failings. Lizzie seeks answers to a long-held family secret about her father in her grandmother’s jumble of mementos and the home’s hidden spaces. Elyse’s obsession with an old flame leads her to a harrowing mistake that threatens to destroy her sister’s wedding, and Isobel’s quest for celebrity tempts her to betray confidences in ways that would irreparably damage her two cousins.

Told in three parts from the perspective of each of the women, this sharply observed account of the restoration of a house built out of spite, but filled with memories of love is also an account of friendship and how relying on each other’s insights and strengths provides the women a way to get what they need instead of what they want.

Paperback, 416 pages

Expected publication: August 19th 2014 by William Morrow & Company

Terri's Thoughts

I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher William Morrow via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.  The expected publication date is August 19, 2014.

This is the story of Lizzie, Elyse and Isobel as they come together to renovate a house and simultaneously attempt to put the pieces of their lives together.  I have to give kudos to the author for the appropriately named title of the story.  It is told in three stories giving a perspective to each of the cousins.  Hence Three story house...well done.

This was a nice read where I enjoyed some of the characters more than others.  For example I enjoyed Lizzie and her determination to reach her goals.  I also enjoyed watching her struggle with the realization that these goals may be out of her reach.  On the flip side I felt that Elyse was a little too desperate to truly identify with.  Isobel fell somewhere in between.

While the story was good I did find that there were some glitches in the execution of the story.  Many times the transitions did not work and I had to re-read portions of the book to find out what was going on.  Also the majority of the romance happens "off-screen" which left me wondering how they had progressed.  Lastly I struggled with the character of Benny.  I found that he was a surplus character that should have had more involvement in the outcome of the story.  Although I knew he wasn't what the reader is led to believe he was (no spoilers here I promise) he was present too much in the story to not have a greater significance to the storyline.

This story entertained me.  If you can overlook the inconsistencies in the story and the fact that everything seems to only touch the surface then I say read it.

About the Author

Courtney Miller Santo teaches creative writing at the University of Memphis, where she received her MFA. She has a BA in journalism from Washington and Lee University and although born and raised in Portland, Oregon, she’s spent most of her adult life in the South. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Los Angeles Review, Irreantum, Sunstone and Segullah.


Twitter:  courtney_santo

Review: Love Letters: A Rose Harbor Novel by Debbie Macomber

In this enchanting novel set at Cedar Cove’s cozy Rose Harbor Inn, #1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber celebrates the power of love—and a well-timed love letter—to inspire hope and mend a broken heart.

Summer is a busy season at the inn, so proprietor Jo Marie Rose and handyman Mark Taylor have spent a lot of time together keeping the property running. Despite some folks’ good-natured claims to the contrary, Jo Marie insists that Mark is only a friend. However, she seems to be thinking about this particular friend a great deal lately. Jo Marie knows surprisingly little about Mark’s life, due in no small part to his refusal to discuss it. She’s determined to learn more about his past, but first she must face her own—and welcome three visitors who, like her, are setting out on new paths.

Twenty-three-year-old Ellie Reynolds is taking a leap of faith. She’s come to Cedar Cove to meet Tom, a man she’s been corresponding with for months, and with whom she might even be falling in love. Ellie’s overprotective mother disapproves of her trip, but Ellie is determined to spread her wings.

Maggie and Roy Porter are next to arrive at the inn. They are taking their first vacation alone since their children were born. In the wake of past mistakes, they hope to rekindle the spark in their marriage—and to win back each other’s trust. But Maggie must make one last confession that could forever tear them apart.

For each of these characters, it will ultimately be a moment when someone wore their heart on their sleeve—and took pen to paper—that makes all the difference. Debbie Macomber’s moving novel reveals the courage it takes to be vulnerable, accepting, and open to love.

Kindle Edition, 288 pages

Expected publication: August 12th 2014 by Ballantine Books
Genre: Womens Fiction/Romance

Kristine's Thoughts:

I received an advanced readers copy of this book from Random House Publishing Group- Ballantine Books via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!

Love Letters is the third book in the Rose Harbor series. I did not read the two books before this one and was still able to easily follow along with the story. It centres around Jo Marie, the owner of the Inn, and the guests that stay there.

There are basically three stories that unfold within the pages of this book...

First there is Jo Marie who owns the Inn and is still coming to terms with the loss of her husband two years earlier. Along with taking care of her guests she has an overwhelming curiosity about Mark her neighbour, friend and handyman. She wants to know why he is so secretive and what he is hiding. Their friendship is somewhat strained and often difficult. Although she finds him quite infuriating at times she wants to know more about him and figure out why he is so mysterious.

The first guest to arrive at Rose Harbor is Ellie who is taking a chance on love with meeting the man that she has been communicating with on line and by phone but with whom she has never met. She is dealing with an overprotective mother who disapproves of the meeting and going against her wishes for the first time in her life. What starts out as an initial meeting of two people who are attracted to each other turns into so much more when things become complicated and she has to deal with lies and deceit while listening to her heart, head and her mother's voice.

The next couple to arrive are Maggie and Roy who are using the weekend getaway to try to rekindle their marriage after both of them made enormous mistakes. As they try to forgive the past and move on they discover something so big that it seems impossible for them ever to recover. I have to admit that this story was my least favourite of the three only because the issues were so big that I found it a little unrealistic that it could all be solved in one weekend.

The story weaves between these three stories as each character struggles with the cards that have been dealt to them. I found myself equally invested in all of the stories and hoping for a good outcome for them all. There is a tremendous amount of hurt, anger and sadness but at the centre of it all it was filled with love and hope.

This was a perfect summer read. I do have to warn you that one story is left unresolved and wide open for another addition to the series. When I finished the book I was wishing that I had the next instalment at hand so that I could know how it will play out. Although it left me extremely frustrated it also left me eagerly anticipating the next book. I am going to go back and read the first two books while I wait for the next one to come out. I really like the fact that the books are about the different guests that stay at the Inn. It keeps the stories fresh and unique and a pleasure to read.

About the Author

DEBBIE MACOMBER is a leading voice in women’s fiction, with more than 170 million books in print worldwide. Three of her novels have scored the #1 slot on the New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists.

Connect with Debbie

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