Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Waiting on Wednesday #144: Hungry Heart by Jennifer Weiner


"Waiting on Wednesday" is a weekly event hosted by Jill over at Breaking the Spine where we spotlight upcoming releases we are eagerly anticipating. 


Synopsis from Goodreads:

Jennifer Weiner is many things: a #1 New York Times bestselling author, a Twitter phenomenon, and “an unlikely feminist enforcer” (The New Yorker). She’s also a mom, a daughter, and a sister; a former rower and current cyclist; a best friend and a reality TV junkie. In her first foray into nonfiction, she takes the raw stuff of her personal life and spins into a collection of essays on modern womanhood as uproariously funny and moving as the best of Tina Fey, Fran Lebowitz, and Nora Ephron.

Jennifer grew up as an outsider in her picturesque Connecticut hometown (“a Lane Bryant outtake in an Abercrombie & Fitch photo shoot”) and at her Ivy League college, but finally found her people in newsrooms in central Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, and her voice as a novelist, activist, and New York Times columnist.

No subject is off-limits in this intimate and honest essay collection: sex, weight, envy, money, her mom’s newfound lesbianism, and her estranged father’s death. From lonely adolescence to modern childbirth to hearing her six-year-old daughter’s use of the f-word—fat­­—for the first time, Jennifer Weiner goes there, with the wit and candor that have endeared her to readers all over the world.

By turns hilarious and deeply touching, this collection shows that the woman behind treasured novels like Good in Bed and Best Friends Forever is every bit as winning, smart, and honest in real life as she is in her fiction.

Why am I waiting on this book? It sounds like an interesting collection of essays. I like the subtitle: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing. It promises to be humorous at least in part. And I can kind of relate to the line, "a Lane Bryant outtake in an Abercrombie and Fitch photo shoot." This book is due out October 11, 2016 from Atria Books.

What book are you waiting on this week? Share it or a link in the comments so we can check it out. Thanks for coming by!

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Teaser Tuesday: Halloween by David J. Skal


Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Books And A Beat.
Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
 Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
 BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title and author so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Published June 20th 2016
by Dover Publications
Call it Samhain, Summer's End, All Hallow's Eve, November Eve,  or Witch's Night - Halloween has its essential roots in the terrors of the primitive mind, which made no distinction between the waning of the sun and the potential extinction of the self. ~ 7% on my Kindle
In reality, contemporary Halloween is a patchwork holiday, a kind of cultural Frankenstein stitched together quite recently from a number of traditions, all fused beneath the cauldron-light of the American melting pot. ~ 9% on my Kindle
What's your teaser this week? Share it or a link in the comments so we can check it out and maybe add it to our ever-growing TBR list. Thanks for coming by!

Thursday, June 23, 2016

Review: Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler

Published June 21st 2016
by Hogarth
Kate Battista has been feeling a little stuck. Stuck in her job at which she seems to be frequently in trouble. Stuck in taking care of her widowed father and her somewhat obnoxious teenage sister. Now Kate is in a bit of a pickle. Her beloved, socially inept father wants her to marry his research assistant so that he can remain in the country. He feels that he is on the verge of a breakthrough and losing Pyotr will set him back.

This is a reworking of The Taming of the Shrew. Instead of multiple suitors, Kate has just the one, Pyotr. And it becomes a question of will Kate be able to resist the clumsy plan of Pyotr and her father to woo her into acceptance and get her to marry Pyotr. Kate isn't as biting as the character in The Taming of the Shrew. Instead she has her own social awkwardness. She seems to feel like she doesn't quite belong at work. And at home, she feels taken advantage of by her sister and father.

Will she marry Pyotr? Will she fall in love with him or would it be in name only?

It's a nice little tale at 240 pages and a good summer read. There is humor in the way that the characters handle things. I found it to be a quick read, the pace gradually increasing until the end. There is a short epilogue at the end, sort of a this is how things worked out in the long run.

I give it 4 stars out of 5 because it's well written. It feels a little awkward at times. There are some surprises as to how the characters acted. Three of the main characters are portrayed as lacking socially, and yet it works. I could almost picture this taking place in mid twentieth century rather than in the 21st. I would recommend this book for people who enjoy retellings of classic literature and enjoy the modern twists that they often involve.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Waiting on Wednesday #143: Lowcountry Book Club by Susan M. Boyer


"Waiting on Wednesday" is a weekly event hosted by Jill over at Breaking the Spine where we spotlight upcoming releases we are eagerly anticipating.

Expected publication: July 5th 2016
by Henery Press
Synopsis from Goodreads:

Somebody pushed Shelby Poinsett out her second-floor library window and it wasn’t her husband. At least that what Charleston’s most prestigious law firm wants Liz Talbot to prove. Liz must run the spectrum of Southern society, from the local homeless shelter where Shelby volunteered to the one-hundred-year-old book club where Charleston’s genteel ladies are dying to join, to bring a killer to justice. 

Related subjects include: women sleuths, private investigator mystery series, cozy mysteries, murder mysteries, whodunit mysteries (whodunnit), book club recommendations, Southern fiction, Southern humor, Southern living.


Why am I looking forward to this book? It's going to be a humorous, Southern, mystery. I enjoy reading that type of thing. And I have enjoyed the other books in the Liz Talbot mystery series. This is the fifth one in the series. It looks like a winner to me.

What book are you waiting on this week? Share it or a link in the comments so we can check it out. Thanks for coming by!

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Teaser Tuesday: Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler


Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Books And A Beat.
Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
 Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
 BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title and author so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Expected publication:
June 21st 2016 by Hogarth
She tried to remember how Mrs. Darling had worded her threat from the day before. She hadn't said anything about "Just one more offense and you're out, " had she? No, it had been less specific than that. It had been something like the vague "or else" that grown-ups were always threatening children with, that children eventually realized was not as dire as it sounded.
The phrase "thin ice" had been involved she seemed to recollect.
~ 19% through on my Kindle
What's your teaser this week? Share it or a link in the comments so we can check it out and maybe add it to our ever-growing TBR list. Thanks for coming by!

Friday, June 17, 2016

Review: Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet by H.P. Wood

Published June 7th 2016
by Sourcebooks Landmark
Some Unusuals, Dozens, and a Plague
It's Coney Island 1904 and Kitty's mother has disappeared from their hotel while Kitty went to fetch medicine for her. Kitty is alone, penniless, and has no place to stay until conman Archie introduces her to the other Unusuals at Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet. And so we get to meet Zeph who has no legs and pretty much runs Magruder's, P-Ray the boy who tends to the flea circus, Rosalind - half man/half woman act, and Timur a brilliant scientist who lives upstairs at the Cabinet to name a few.

The Unusuals agree to help Kitty even though she is one of the Dozens - so called normal people. A sickness is spreading across the island. It's definitely worse than the flu. It's killing people seemingly randomly and without mercy. The end result is a quarantine of Coney Island cutting them off from the rest of New York. What will become of them all?

The characters are well developed and interesting to read about. They all are confronted with the plague and handle it in different ways. Some rise to be better, while others sink lower. My favorites are Kitty, Nazan, and Zeph. Kitty and Nazan were two of the Dozens. Zeph is an Unusual . It's interesting to watch how some of the Dozens become used to the Unusuals and start to see past their appearances and behaviors. I very much enjoyed the story and wished for a better outcome for several of the characters. It definitely has its dark moments.

This is not a story for children. It is very much an adult story and an excellent one at that. It deals with adult themes such as how people behave when they are cut off from the general populace with disease running rampant, racism, and differences in class.

I gave this book 4 stars based on the characterization, the plot, and pace. Even with the dark moments, it is a good read. There is more information about the book and its inspiration on the author's website.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Waiting on Wednesday #142 - Summerlong by Peter S. Beagle


"Waiting on Wednesday" is a weekly event hosted by Jill over at Breaking the Spine where we spotlight upcoming releases we are eagerly anticipating.


Synopsis from the publisher:

Beloved author Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn) returns with this long-anticipated new novel, a beautifully bittersweet tale of passion, enchantment, and the nature of fate.

It was a typically miserable Puget Sound winter before the arrival of Lioness Lazos.  An enigmatic young waitress with strange abilities, when the lovely Lioness comes to Gardner Island even the weather takes notice.


As an impossibly beautiful spring leads into a perfect summer, Lioness is drawn to a complicated family. She is taken in by two disenchanted lovers—dynamic Joanna Delvecchio and scholarly Abe Aronson—visited by Joanna’s previously unlucky-in-love daughter, Lily. With Lioness in their lives, they are suddenly compelled to explore their deepest dreams and desires.
Lioness grows more captivating as the days grow longer. Her new family thrives, even as they may be growing apart. But lingering in Lioness’s past is a dark secret—and even summer days must pass.
Advance praise for the book from Patricia A. McKillip: "Peter Beagle’s novel Summerlong is a lovely, tantalizing read that moves through a finely-detailed, familiar world into a tale as old and as urgent as language.  Its strong-minded characters grab threads of the tale and try to pull it into wildly different directions, tangling passion, comedy, love, despair into a study of life on the B-flat harmonica, accompanied by a soundtrack of wind and waves, and, always, good smells from the kitchen.”
Summerlong is due out September 30, 2016 from Tachyon Publications. About half way down the publisher's page for the book, there is an excerpt.

Why am I waiting on this book? I've enjoyed Peter S. Beagle's writing in the past. I'm intrigued by the character Lioness and what her special abilities might be. And I wonder what tale it is that Patricia McKillip refers to in her advance praise. 

What book are you waiting on this week? Share it or a link in the comments so we can check it out and maybe add it to our TBR lists. Happy Reading!

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Teaser Tuesday: Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet by H.P. Wood


Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Books And A Beat.
Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
 Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
 BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title and author so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Published June 7th 2016
by Sourcebooks Landmark
Did he really tell Miss Nazan that their Fiji mermaid is a fake? It's one thing to explain how shrunken heads are made - that only increases interest. But warning against paying to see a gaff? 
He sighs, yanking off his gloves in defeat. "I gotta stop talking to pretty girls."
~12% through on my Kindle
What's your teaser this week? Share it or a link in the comments so we can check it out and maybe add it to our ever-growing TBR list. Thanks for coming by!

Saturday, June 11, 2016

Review: Wicked Burn by Rebecca Zanetti

Demons, shifters, and witches... Oh my! Well, there certainly was a lot of action in this book. There was both the action sequences of fighting and running and the bedroom action scenes. This was my first book by Rebecca Zanetti. The action scenes were good. The bedroom scenes I wasn't as thrilled with.

I was surprised by how quickly the characters fell back in bed together after being broken up for 100 years. It seemed like some kind of insta-love or insta-lust. And also surprised by how frequently they were in bed together. There's nothing really wrong with that. It's just not really my cup of tea. Especially with one of the characters tending to be on the controlling side of things.

The plot was interesting. Simone is an Irish witch who has been falsely accused of some things including attempted murder of other witches on the high council. And someone is definitely after her. If they can't get her in court, they seem determined to kill her outside of it. Some of her family want her to hide out while they prepare a defense and they've chosen Nikolaj Veis to aid them - her former demon lover who broke up with her 100 years ago.

I liked the idea of shifters that can change at will. And this was my first bear shifter story. I liked that there were other kinds of shifters. How the group interacts seemed explained well.

These characters are supposed to be immortals of sorts. And they are trying to hide their existence from the other people on the planet. Frankly, I don't know how they could with chase scenes and the like.

It is a fast paced book. I read it as a standalone, but it definitely should be read as part of the series in order to fully appreciate what's going on. I was a little lost at times.

By the time I got to the novella that is included in the book I had a fairly good grasp of what kinds of things to expect from the characters. I actually enjoyed the novella a little more than the novel. Again it was action intense. There were people out to kill or kidnap one of the main characters in the novella named Cara. The reason why isn't fully understood until near the end of the piece.

Overall I give both the novel and novella a rating of 3. I liked them, but for me they weren't great. They are paranormal romances, and  hot ones, definitely aimed at adults. They have enjoyable stories overall. If you like your paranormal romances hot, then this is a good book for you. Just read the other 2 in the series first for your best experience.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Waiting on Wednesday #141: The Dragon Lords: Fool's Gold by Jon Hollis


"Waiting on Wednesday" is a weekly event hosted by Jill over at Breaking the Spine where we spotlight upcoming releases we are eagerly anticipating.  

This one sounds like a little light reading. Synopsis from Goodreads: 

A brand new adventure fantasy: imagine Guardians of the Galaxy planning a heist on Smaug's gold, for fans looking for something with a modern twist and some humor.

Guardians of the Galaxy meets The Hobbit in this rollicking fantasy adventure.

It's not easy to live in a world ruled by dragons. The taxes are high and their control is complete. But for one group of bold misfits, it's time to band together and steal back some of that wealth.

No one said they were smart.


This is number one in a new series entitled The Dragon Lords. It's due out July 19, 2016 from Orbit.

Why am I waiting on it? It sounds like a fun fantasy read. Something light for the beach or even a weekend.

What are you waiting on this week? Share it or a link in the comments so we can check it out. Happy Reading!

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Teaser Tuesday: Dreams of Distant Shores by Patricia A. McKillip


Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Books And A Beat.
Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
 Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
 BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title and author so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Expected publication: June 14th 2016
by Tachyon Publications
"She was part cormorant, the witch sensed, and part human, with some very old regional powers tossed into the mix. Like the witch herself, she'd been around a long time, and had many connections, not all of them innocent or unambiguous."
~ From the short story "Mer" at 10% into the collection of stories in Dreams of Distant Shores on my Kindle
What's your teaser this week? Share it or a link in the comments so we can check it out.

Friday, June 3, 2016

Review: Gone with a Handsomer Man by Michael Lee West

Teeny Templeton catches her fiance, Bing, butt naked playing badminton with 2 beautiful yet skanky women. Her reaction is to climb a tree and throw peaches at the lot of them. Bing presses charges against her and gets a restraining order, he says to avoid a repeat of the assault. Now someone has texted Teeny in Bing's name and summoned her to their former home with the  lure of mending their relationship. The reality is different though. Teeny finds Bing dead just before someone knocks her cold. Who texted her? And who knocked her out? And who is framing Teeny for murder?

Add onto Teeny's troubles that she needs bail, a place to live, and a job. And she needs the help of her first love who is now a lawyer. But just who all can Teeny trust as she navigates the legal system and life in Charleston, SC?

It's a pretty good book. It reads some like chick lit and some like a mystery. It has its funny points(throwing peaches) and not so funny(funerals and restraining orders). Some of the characters are more developed than others which is to be expected since not all of them have a large role to play. The tempo of the book picks up the closer you get to the end. I liked that I couldn't tell who the murderer was going to be pretty much up until the end.

I had a couple of minor complaints. It's a little slow in places, but that's to be expected, for example, as we have a flashback to when Teeny and Coop were an item 10 yrs ago. And Teeny falls into bed kinda quickly with Coop after losing her fiance. Her relationship with Bing would have had to have been already rocky before he died, I would have thought, in order for her to go to bed with Coop that quickly. Michael Lee West uses Teeny's past relationship with Coop to help explain that.

Overall I give the book 4 out of 5 stars. It's  best for people who don't mind a little chick lit with their mysteries. As a bonus there are recipes at the end of the book for some of the Teeny's creations like Lavender Short Bread. I listened to the book on CD. The narrator reads with a pleasant southern accent. This audiobook was released in 2011 from Tantor Media.

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Waiting on Wednesday #140: Fixin' to Die by Tonya Kappes


"Waiting on Wednesday" is a weekly event hosted by Jill over at Breaking the Spine where we spotlight upcoming releases we are eagerly anticipating.  


Synopsis from Goodreads:

Kenni Lowry likes to think the zero crime rate in Cottonwood, Kentucky is due to her being sheriff, but she quickly discovers the ghost of her grandfather, the town’s previous sheriff, has been scaring off any would-be criminals since she was elected. When the town’s most beloved doctor is found murdered on the very same day as a jewelry store robbery, and a mysterious symbol ties the crime scenes together, Kenni must satisfy her hankerin’ for justice by nabbing the culprits. 

With the help of her Poppa, a lone deputy, and an annoyingly cute, too-big-for-his-britches State Reserve officer, Kenni must solve both cases and prove to the whole town, and herself, that she’s worth her salt before time runs out.


Why am I waiting on this book? This is a mystery series with a paranormal element to it as well as some humor. I love a good mystery that also happens to have a sense of humor about it. 

Fixin' to Die by Tonya Kappes is the first book in a new series featuring Sheriff Kenni Lowry. It's due out June 14, 2016 from Henery Press.

What book are you waiting on this week? Share it or a link in the comments so we can check it out and maybe add it to our ever-growing TBR lists. Thanks for coming by!