Teaser Tuesday: Relatively Normal by Whitney Dineen

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by The Purplebooker.
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!

"Everyone's crazy in their own way. What makes two people compatible is finding someone whose crazy complements yours and vice versa." (p. 255)

Relatively Normal by Whitney Dineen was published in September 2019 by 33 Partners Publishing. It's the first in the Relatively series.

Would you keep reading? What's your teaser this week? Share it or a link in the comments. Are you enjoying your book? Let us know! Happy Reading!

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.

Throwback Thursday Review: Dollar Daze by Karin Gillespie

Romance and relationships are the themes for Dollar Daze by Karin Gillespie. This is the third book in the Bottom Dollar series. All of the women tied together because of the Bottom Dollar store are having issues with romance and relationships.

First off Mavis and Birdie both are trying to get former high school classmate Brewster Clark's attention. Mavis and Birdie are close friends, but will this competition destroy that relationship? Who will end up with Brewster?

Then there is Attalee the octagenarian soda jerk at the Bottom Dollar store. She has found love again. Something she didn't think possible at her age. She ends up engaged to Dooley, a man after her own wild heart.

And then there is Gracie aka Mrs. Tobias. Will her relationship with Rusty, a duct cleaner, be able to survive the difference in their class backgrounds?

Finally, there is Elizabeth who is struggling with the role of stay-at-home Mom. She wants more, but her husband isn't sure that a job outside the home is a good idea.

It's lovely to read how the women interact and what obstacles they face in their pursuit of love and relationships. And it's funny. At times it made me smile, other times laugh aloud. Attalee, in particular, was good for soliciting a laugh. This is southern chick lit at its best.

I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars. It's enjoyable, humorous chick lit. I don't read much like this, but when I do I appreciate the dose of humor with the story. Dollar Daze was published May 12, 2015 by Henery Press.

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