Weekly Book Haul by July 19, 2015

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer, Showcase Sunday is hosted by Books, Biscuits and Tea, Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews, The Sunday Salon is a new facebook group I've joined and Monday Mailbox is hosted by Marcia to be Continued.

I skipped my weekly book haul post last week because I had a friend from Illinois come to Arizona for a weekend getaway.  It's been cool and rainy all summer there, and she was determined to get every hour of sun that she could.  So we played all weekend, getting manicures and massages, swimming, going out to eat.  It was a four day escape from life, and that included blogging.

Having my youngest turn 18 has turned my life upside down.  I'm entering the empty nest phase and depending on the day, or sometimes the hour, I think it is either the greatest or worst thing ever.  

Today as I sip my coffee, and blog, I'm feeling good.   I know that everyone who has kids goes through it, but when it's happening to you, it feels like you are the first person to ever experience it.   

But it colors everything, including what you are reading.  I just finished Celeste Ng's "Everything I Never Told You", and it was heartbreaking.

NetGalley

No Place to Hide by Susan Lewis....Perfect for readers of Jodi Picoult, Diane

Chamberlain, and Heather Gudenkauf, No Place to Hide is an intimate and deeply moving story of one woman's desperate attempt to escape a troubled past—and the haunting mystery she's forced to confront.

Fleeing her native England with her three-year-old daughter, Justine Cantrell gives herself a new name and a new life in America. In a quiet midwestern town on the shores of glittering Lake Maxinkuckee, Justine hopes to recapture the fleeting days of happiness in the long-ago summers she spent with her grandmother. And though her memories of that time are scant, Justine knows they must have shared a special bond. After all, the power of her grandmother's love has pulled her back to this haven in search of a new beginning.

But fate has other plans. The more Justine gets to know the small town and its people, the more she realizes that her grandmother had her own devastating secrets—secrets that will soon threaten Justine just as surely as her own dark memories.

Edelweiss

The Sparrow Sisters by Ellen Herrick....With echoes of the alchemy of

Practical Magic, the lushness of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, and the darkly joyful wickedness of the Witches of East End, Ellen Herrick’s debut novel spins an enchanting love story about a place where magic whispers just beneath the surface and almost anything is possible, if you aren’t afraid to listen

The Sparrow Sisters are as tightly woven into the seaside New England town of Granite Point as the wild sweet peas that climb the stone walls along the harbor. Sorrel, Nettie and Patience are as colorful as the beach plums on the dunes and as mysterious as the fog that rolls into town at dusk. 

Patience is the town healer and when a new doctor settles into Granite Point he brings with him a mystery so compelling that Patience is drawn to love him, even as she struggles to mend him. But when Patience Sparrow’s herbs and tinctures are believed to be implicated in a local tragedy, Granite Point is consumed by a long-buried fear—and its three hundred year old history resurfaces as a modern day witch-hunt threatens. The plants and flowers, fruit trees and high hedges begin to wither and die, and the entire town begins to fail; fishermen return to the harbor empty-handed, and blight descends on the old elms that line the lanes. 

It seems as if Patience and her town are lost until the women of Granite Point band together to save the Sparrow. As they gather, drawing strength from each other, will they be able to turn the tide and return life to Granite Point?

Booksparks

The Witch of Bourbon Street by Suzanne Pamieri....When Frances Sorrow  

returns home to the now dilapidated Sorrow Estate to restore her birthright, she finds herself haunted by a 100-year-old mystery only she can unravel

Set amidst the charming chaos of The French Quarter and remote bayous of Tivoli Parish, Louisiana, Suzanne Palmieri’s The Witch of Bourbon Street weaves an unforgettable tale of mystery and magic.

Situated deep in the bayou is the formerly opulent Sorrow Estate. Once home to a magical family, the Sorrows, it now lays in ruins, uninhabited since a series of murders in 1902 shocked the entire community. When Frances Green Sorrow is born, the family is on the brink of obscurity and the last remaining Sorrows cling to the hope that she is the one who will finally resurrect the glory of what once was.

However, Frances has no wish to be the family’s savior. Disillusioned, she marries young, attempting an "ordinary life," and has a son, Jack. When her marriage fails and she loses custody of her boy, she runs away to live a quiet life on the dilapidated Sorrow Estate, where she practices solitary magic amid ghosts and gardens. But when Jack disappears, she is forced to rejoin the world she left behind and solve the century-old murder that casts a long shadow over Tivoli Parish and its inhabitants in order to find her son.

The Witch of Bourbon Street is a story of love, family, redemption and forgiveness. It’s a story that bridges the nostalgia of time, and brings those that are separated back together again.

The Road Home by Kathleen Shoop....Find your way home... 

1891—Living separately for three years, fourteen-year-old twins, Katherine and Tommy Arthur, have done their best to make each boarding house feel like home. But unrest grows as they are driven to questionable actions just to survive. Meanwhile their desperate mother is confronted with breaking yet another promise to her children. Then a miracle descends. Hope rises on a cold, rainy night and changes everything. If Jeanie could just get word to Katherine and Tommy, she knows she can set their lives right again. Agitators, angels, and dangerous “saviors” illuminate the Arthurs’ unmatched determination and smarts. 

1905—Though she tries to forget the awful years that hurt so much, the memories still haunt Katherine. Now, tearful mourners at her mother’s funeral force her to revisit a time in her life that both harmed and saved her in the most unexpected ways. Tommy grieves his mother’s passing as well. He too is thrust backward, compelled to rediscover the events in his life that shaped the man he has become. Will he commit to reconstructing his broken life? The Arthurs come to understand that forgiveness is the only way back to hope, the only way to find all that was good in the misfortune that transformed their lives forever.

Fire Season by Hollye Dexter....Who would you be if you lost everything? 

Hollye Dexter and her husband Troy woke one night to find their house ablaze. To escape the fire, they had to jump from their second-story window with their toddler son—and then watch their house and home-based businesses burn to the ground. Over the next two years, the family went bankrupt, lost their cars and another home, and got dropped by their best friends. As the outer layers of her life were stripped away, Dexter began to unravel emotionally; but then she found herself on the brink of losing her marriage, and she realized that if she was going to save her family, she would have to pull herself back together somehow. 

As she fought to reassemble the pieces of the life she’d had, Dexter discovered that a shattered heart has the ability to regenerate in a mighty way; that even in the midst of disaster, you can find your place; and that when everything you identify with is gone, you are free to discover who you really are. Poignant and inspiring, Fire Season is a story for anyone who has ever lost hope—and found it again.

I Bought

Alucard by Matthew Scott....For countless centuries, the evil known only as

 Dracula has terrorized the Transylvanian countryside. Every attempt to destroy his evil has failed, leaving the villagers of Vasaria in despair for generations. A sliver of hope arrives through an unlikely alliance with a small pack of werewolves who have been waging their own war against Dracula’s evil tyranny. While the villagers and the werewolves struggle among themselves in addition to Dracula’s forces, another unforeseen force becomes known: Dracula’s half-vampire-half-human son, Alucard, who appears to have joined the fight against his father. While Alucard adds additional and much-needed assistance in the battle against Dracula, his intentions are less clear. Is he heroically freeing the world from his father’s evil, or does he have his own nefarious agenda in mind? 

What I Wrote

Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella

Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid

What They Say.....From the acclaimed author of Forever, Interrupted and After I Do comes a breathtaking new novel about a young woman whose fate hinges on the choice she makes after bumping into an old flame; in alternating chapters, we see two possible scenarios unfold—with stunningly different results.

At the age of twenty-nine, Hannah Martin still has no idea what she wants to do with her life. She has lived in six different cities and held countless meaningless jobs since graduating college. On the heels of leaving yet another city, Hannah moves back to her hometown of Los Angeles and takes up residence in her best friend Gabby’s guestroom. Shortly after getting back to town, Hannah goes out to a bar one night with Gabby and meets up with her high school boyfriend, Ethan.

Just after midnight, Gabby asks Hannah if she’s ready to go. A moment later, Ethan offers to give her a ride later if she wants to stay. Hannah hesitates. What happens if she leaves with Gabby? What happens if she leaves with Ethan?

In concurrent storylines, Hannah lives out the effects of each decision. Quickly, these parallel universes develop into radically different stories with large-scale consequences for Hannah, as well as the people around her. As the two alternate realities run their course, Maybe in Another Liferaises questions about fate and true love: Is anything meant to be? How much in our life is determined by chance? And perhaps, most compellingly: Is there such a thing as a soul mate?

Hannah believes there is. And, in both worlds, she believes she’s found him.

What I Say....This was a truly unique book.  Hannah flees New York after an affair with a married man, running back to California to her best friend Gabby.

On her first night back, she meets up with her high school boyfriend, Ethan, the one who got away, and he asks her to go home with him.  This is where the story splits in two.  

In one version, Hannah stays with Ethan and begins to explore that relationship.  In the alternate universe, Hannah leaves with her friends, only to be struck by a car.  

Each chapter alternates between the two storylines, and Hannah learns that she may have more than one soulmate, although she is blissfully unaware that she is having two different lives.

I know that it sounds weird, but it really just worked.  I don't want to say too much and be a plot spoiler, but I loved that some things still happened in both lives, but other things didn't seem to be much of a possibility.  

I also liked that the author didn't go with the easy ending, having one of the lives end up being a dream or the product of a coma.  

It was just a really neat ending and felt very wrapped up.

Really good writing, storyline and imagination on the author's part.

Thank you to the author, publisher and Booksparks for the ARC.

Current Goodreads rating 4.07

Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella

What They Say.....From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Shopaholic series comes a terrific blend of comedy, romance, and psychological recovery in a contemporary YA novel sure to inspire and entertain.

An anxiety disorder disrupts fourteen-year-old Audrey’s daily life. She has been making slow but steady progress with Dr. Sarah, but when Audrey meets Linus, her brother’s gaming teammate, she is energized. She connects with him. Audrey can talk through her fears with Linus in a way she’s never been able to do with anyone before. As their friendship deepens and her recovery gains momentum, a sweet romantic connection develops, one that helps not just Audrey but also her entire family.

What I Say....I've always loved the Shopaholic series, so that made me want to try Sophie Kinsella's new book, even if it was YA (my guilty pleasure).  

It felt like even the author felt invigorated by a foray into this new genre.  I loved this book.  I loved all of the characters.  

Audrey's mother felt a little too familiar, a mother who has recently discovered how vulnerable her children really are to the cruelty of the world.  Couple that with suddenly becoming a stay at home mom, and her control freak tendencies become aimed at her family.  Even in the form of throwing a laptop out the window.

The book is told from Audrey's point of view, and it's only as she begins to recover from her trauma that she notices how her illness has actually affected their entire family.  

You will definitely root for Audrey as she begins to step back into the outside world.  I found Linus to be a very touching character, and his willingness to slip notes back and forth was as sweet as it was romantic.

A definite must read!  And I'll be keeping that jagged graph in my head to reassure myself! LOL

Current Goodreads rating 3.79

Weekly Book Haul....July 5, 2015

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer, Showcase Sunday is hosted by Books, Biscuits and Tea, Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews, The Sunday Salon is a new facebook group I've joined and Monday Mailbox is hosted by Marcia to be Continued.

This was a nice week.  I unpacked a little every day and slowly started to get used to my new house.  The worst part of living in a new house is getting used to the sounds at night.  As a single girl, I hear every creak, every click, every leaf blow by the window.  I got an alarm system installed, but it still doesn't keep the scary thoughts away.  So I just read until I can't keep my eyes open.

One more week until I go back to work.  I finally have clearance to swim, so I will be floating and reading for the next seven days until I get sucked back into the corporate whirlwind.  

I hope everyone has a great week!

Netgalley

The Guilty One by Sophie Littlefield....From the award-winning author of The

Missing Place—in which “Littlefield’s writing shines" (The Boston Globe)—another gripping exploration of the damage people can do to each other, and the resilience they find in themselves.

A man stands on the Golden Gate Bridge, poised to jump…if a woman on the other end of the phone tells him to.

Maris’s safe suburban world was shattered the day her daughter was found murdered, presumably at the hands of the young woman’s boyfriend. Her marriage crumbling, her routine shattered, Maris walks away from her pampered life as a Bay Area mom the day she receives a call from Ron, father of her daughter’s killer. Wracked with guilt over his son’s actions (and his own possible contribution to them), he asks Maris a single question: should he jump?

With a man’s life in her hands, Maris must decide, perhaps for the first time, what she truly wants. Retribution? Forgiveness? Or something more? Having lost everything, she’s finally free to recreate herself without the confining labels of “wife,” “mother,” or “mourner.” But will this shocking offer free her, or destroy her?

Booksparks

Rooville by Julie Long....Even after thirteen years in Southern California, Owen Martin

can feel the corners of his squareness still sharply evident. He’s a TV weatherman bored by the beautiful climate. He wants to coach basketball but all the kids play soccer. And he seems to be the only person who thinks a fruit smoothie is a poor substitute for a vanilla shake. 

When he’s fired from his job, Owen is relieved to head home to Iowa, to the town his ancestors founded and the simple life he knew before his father died. He can’t predict the atmospheric pressure he's about to encounter, which, as any meteorologist knows, is the key catalyst for change. . . .In his absence, Martinville has become the center of the Transcendental Meditation movement and host to all things alternative. 

There are golden domes for mass meditations, a vegan café where the burger joint stood, and all the shop doors around Town Square now face east. But far worse than anything is the danger to the Martin family farm. 

In a town divided between “Regulars” and “Roos” (gurus), Owen is clear where he stands until he falls for a levitator instead of the down-to-earth girl he had in mind. With old customs and open-mindedness clashing like warm and cold fronts, Owen gets caught in a veritable tornado. Can he save the farm, get the girl, and reunite the town? Maybe . . . if he’s willing to embrace a change in the weather.

A Different Kind of Same: A Memoir by Kelley Clink....Two weeks before his college

graduation, Kelley Clink’s younger brother Matt hanged himself. Though he’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder as a teenager and had attempted suicide once before, the news came as a shock—and it sent Kelley into a spiral of guilt and grief. 

After Matt’s death, a chasm opened between the brother Kelley had known and the brother she’d buried. She kept telling herself she couldn’t understand why he’d done it—but the truth was, she could. Several years before he’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, she’d been diagnosed with depression. Several years before he first attempted suicide by overdose, she had attempted suicide by overdose. She’d blazed the trail he’d followed. If he couldn’t make it, what hope was there for her?

A Different Kind of Same traces Kelley’s journey through grief, her investigation into the role her own depression played in her brother’s death, and, ultimately, her path toward acceptance, forgiveness, resilience, and love.

The S Word by Paolina Milana....In accordance with her Sicilian Catholic family’s

unspoken code, Paolina Milana learned at an early age to keep her secrets locked away where no one could find them. Nobody outside the family needed to know about the voices her Mamma battled in her head; or about how Paolina forged her birth certificate at thirteen so she could get a job at The Donut Shop; or about the police officer twenty-six years her senior whose promise to her Papà to “keep an eye on her” quickly translated into something sinister. And perhaps that’s why no one saw it coming when—on the eve of her sweet sixteen, pushed to edge—Paolina attempted to take her own mother’s life. Raw and compelling, The S Word is the true story of a girl who nearly suffocates in the silence she was taught to value above all else—until she finally finds the strength to break free of the secrets binding her and save herself.

What I Wrote This Week

It's You by Jane Porter

All the Single Ladies by Dorothea Benton Frank

It's You by Jane Porter

What They Say....In the wake of a tragedy that tore her life down to the foundations, Dr. Alison McAdams has lost her way. So when she’s summoned to Napa to care for her ailing father, she’s not sure she has anything to offer him—or anyone else.
 
What Ali finds in Northern California wine country is a gift—an opportunity to rest, and distance from her painful memories. Most unexpectedly, she finds people who aren’t afraid of her grief or desperate for her to hurry up and move on.
 
As Ali becomes part of her father’s community, makes new friends of her own, and hears the stories of a generation who survived the Second World War, she begins to find hope again. In a quest to discover the truth about another woman’s lost love, she sets off on a journey across oceans and deep into history. And in making sense of that long-ago tragedy, Ali is able to put together the broken pieces of her heart and make new choices that are right for her.

What I Say....I LOVED this book!  Really, really loved.  I've read a few chick lit books lately that have been so formulaic that it could bring you to tears.  This book was totally unique and engaging.

The story starts out with a hook you don't often see.  Ali's fiancee has committed suicide, and a year later she is still trying to make sense of it, while working as a dentist in his father's Scottsdale practice (it was cool to see the Arizona setting - we don't get a lot of books set here!)   

A nasty note about her crappy parking at the mall jolts her out of going through the motions of her life.  Ali decides to go to Napa to visit her father, who she has a distant relationship with.

Falling into the florist job, having her father's house to stay in, meeting handsome Craig, these were all the makings of great chick lit, but bringing in Edie's story made it feel unique.

The story of Edie's great love, set in Germany during WWII, was the most interesting part of the book.  I loved the diary entries, and the way the story flowed.  I loved that it didn't make her a suddenly soft person when she told her story.  Some things that happen in our lives shape us, and Edie allowed that wall around her heart to grow strong, at age 95, that wasn't going to change.

But her story helped to crumble the wall around Ali's heart that had been growing stronger each day.

My one complaint is that I wish we found out a little more about why Andrew killed himself, and in a way that guaranteed that Ali would be the one to find him.  But I think there is never a good enough answer to why, and millions of people live with this horrible unanswered question.

A great read, and I'll be looking for more by this author.

Current Goodreads rating 4.04

I received a copy of this book from Booksparks in exchange for an honest review - the only kind I give!