Friday, July 10, 2009

Friday Fill-ins

1. The last thing I ate was: mini Reese's Cups and Whoppers
2. Lucky Charms is something I recently bought
3. When it rains it smells great!
4. My sweetie was the first person I talked to today
5. Hugs are always appreciated!
6. a blanket provides extra comfort
7. And as for the weekend: I will be visiting my brother in the hospital, cleaning, then sitting outside reading and enjoying some "me" time and relaxing!


Tour Stop~ The Castaways by Elin Hilderbrand

About the book:

Greg and Tess MacAvoy are one of four prominent Nantucket couples who count each other as best friends. As pillars of their close-knit community, the MacAvoys, Kapenashes, Drakes, and Wheelers are important to their friends and neighbors, and especially to each other. But just before the beginning of another idyllic summer, Greg and Tess are killed when their boat capsizes during an anniversary sail. As the warm weather approaches and the island mourns their loss, nothing can prepare the MacAvoy's closest friends for what will be revealed.


Book Details:

Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (July 7, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0316043893
ISBN-13: 978-0316043892

About the author:


Elin Hilderbrand lives on Nantucket with her husband and their three young children. She grew up in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, and traveled extensively before settling on Nantucket. She is the author of ten novels. Hilderbrand is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the graduate fiction workshop at the University of Iowa.

my thoughts:

I read the first 3 pages and had to put the book down. I'm so glad I picked it back up! This story is narrated by 6 different people, taking turns with each chapter. At first I found it odd and a little hard to deal with, but the flow of the book was great and I never thought “Wait, what just happened to…”? So it didn’t take long to get into the book.

The Castaways are a group that I wouldn't mind visiting again in a couple of years to see where they are, how the kids are doing. The Castaways made me long for a close knit group of friends, that you can turn to for anything.

Like so many of the books I've reviewed lately, I have not read Ms. Hilderbrands work before but I am looking forward to reading more in the future!

my suggestion:
If I were to buy one new book, by an author I hadn't read before, this would be the one I would buy. And Elin Hilderbrand has made it on my list of authors to rush out and buy!!!

Thursday, July 09, 2009

New Look...

I got the itch today. The itch to make a change! A change to my blog, that is! Every once in awhile, something happens to me and something either gets painted, moved, given away or bought. Today, it was a new blog layout. Don't become too attached to this one, it might change a few times before I decide "Oh that's it"! Or I just throw my hands up in the air and give up! LOL! That won't happen. If you know of great blog layout sites (that are free), let me know! I'm alookin'!

This award was given to me by Missy at Missy's Book Nook.
Thanks Missy!
The rules state that in order to accept this award,
I need to list seven of my very favorite things.
Then I may pass the award on to seven other bloggers!
My Seven Favorite Things
1. Spending time with my family
2. McDonalds Iced Vanilla Coffee
3. Books/ reading
4. root beer floats (made with A&W Root Beer & Edy's Ice Cream)
5. snuggling up with my sweetie, watching tv on a chilly day
6. Playing with the dogs
7. Just talking to my kids

I will now pass this award on to:

A Bookish Mom

Book ♥ Soulmates

~ Bambi Reads ~

The Novel Bookworm

The Eclectic Book Lover

Peeking Between the Pages

Just Another New Blog


And The Winners Are...



AND THE WINNERS ARE:


LADY ROX

LORIDES

BELLE

I will be emailing you today!
Please respond back within 48 hours
with your mailing info!
Thanks!

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Giveaway~ Tamed By A Laird by Amanda Scott

Jenny Easdale is ready to accept her fate. She's agreed to marry a man she will never love - yet not before slipping away for one last adventure. Following a traveling minstrel troupe, she's whisked into a world of intoxicating freedom. Then, all too soon, she finds herself in danger - from a vengeful political plot against Scotland and from the man who has come to take her home. Dutybound to return with his brother's wayward bride, Sir High Douglas is not prepared for how her quick wit, courage, and laughing eyes touch his warrior heart. Now, as the merry minstrels play matchmaker and passion sparks between Hugh and Jenny, the conspiracy against Scotland builds...and threatens all they hold dear.


About the Contest:
Open to US and Canadian address.
No PO Boxes please.
Five winners will be chosen on July 31st.
A special thanks to Hachette Book Group.
To Win:
Leave a Comment with your name & email address
For an added chance, be a follower!
I will notify the winners by email and on my blog on August 1st.
Please respond within 48 hours with your mailing information!

Giveaway~ My Name Is Will by Jess Winfield

A Tale of two Shakespeares...
Struggling UC Santa Cruz grad student Willie Shakespeare Greenberg is trying to write his thesis about the Bard. Kind of...Cut off by his father for laziness, and desperate for dough, Willie agrees to deliver a single giant, psychedelic mushroom to a mysterious collector, making himself an unwitting target in Ronald Reagan's War on Drugs. Meanwhile, would-be playwright (and oppressed Catholic) William Shakespeare is eighteen years old and stuck teaching Latin in the boondocks of Stratford-upon-Avon. The future Bard's life is turned upside down when a stranger entrusts him with a sacred relic from Rome... This, at a time when adherents of the "Old Faith" are being hanged, drawn, and quartered as traitors.Seemingly separated in time and place, the lives of Willie and William begin to intersect in curious ways, from harrowing encounters with the law (and a few ex-girlfriends) to dubious experiments with mind-altering substances. Their misadventures could be dismissed as youthful folly. But wise or foolish, the bold choices they make will shape not only the 'Shakespeare' each is destined to come... but the very course of history itself.

About the Contest:
Open to US & Canadian addresses. No PO Boxes please.
5 winners will be chosen on July 20th by random.org
A very special thanks to Hachette Book Group
To Win:
Leave a comment with your name & email address
For an added chance, be a follower!
I will notify the winners by email & on my blog on July 21st
Please respond within 48 hours with your mailing information!

Giveaway~ Off Season by Ann Rivers Siddons

For as long as she can remember, they were Cam and Lilly--happily married, totally in love with each other, parents of a beautiful family, and partners in life. Then, after decades of marriage, it ended as every great love story does...in loss. After Cam's death, Lilly takes a lone road trip to her and Cam's favorite spot on the remote coast of Maine, the place where they fell in love over and over again, where their ghosts still dance. There, she looks hard to her past--to a first love that ended in tragedy; to falling in love with Cam; to a marriage filled with exuberance, sheer life, and safety-- to try to figure out her future.It is a journey begun with tender memories and culminating in a revelation that will make Lilly re-evaluate everything she thought was true about her husband and her marriage.



About the Contest:

Open to US and Canadian address.

No PO Boxes please.

Five winners will be chosen on July 20th.

A special thanks to Hachette Book Group.

To Win:

Leave a Comment with your name & email address

For an added chance, be a follower!

I will notify the winners by email and on my blog on July 21st.

Please respond within 48 hours with your mailing information!

Giveaway~ Knight of Desire by Margaret Mallory

FEARLESS IN BATTLE
His surcoat still bloody from battle, William FitzAlan comes to claim the strategic borderlands granted to him by the king. One last prize awaits him at the castle gates: the lovely Lady Catherine Rayburn.
TENDER IN BED
Catherine risked everything to spy for the crown. Her reward? Her lands are declared forfeit and she is given this choice: marry FitzAlan or be taken to the Tower. Catherine agrees to give her handsome new husband her body, but she’s keeping secrets and dares not give him her heart. As passion ignites and danger closes in, Catherine and William must learn to trust in each other to save their marriage, their land, and their very lives.

About the Contest:

Open to US and Canadian address.

No PO Boxes please.

Five winners will be chosen on July 27th.

A special thanks to Hachette Book Group.

To Win:

Leave a Comment with your name & email address

For an added chance, be a follower!

I will notify the winners by email and on my blog on July 28th.

Please respond within 48 hours with your mailing information!

Not so consistent postings coming your way!

I might not be posting as often as I usually do, and when I do, it will probably be several posts at once. The reason you ask? Last week, I recieved notice that one of my brothers had to be lifelined to a hospital here in Indianapolis (he lives close to the Illinois border) because he had to have surgery to remove a blood clot from his noggin. It had been touch & go, the docs were saying that he would probably be in the regular hospital for 4-6 weeks, then need in patient rehab. BUT. Last Friday, they took the ventilator out and the tube that was draining the excess fluid off of his brain came out too! Sunday he was sitting up & talking just a little. Last night they took him out of the Intensive Care Unit & put him in a regular room! He was very talkative, asking how my kids were, how work was going, etc. Now they are saying that he might be ready for rehab as soon as next week!
This is NOT my brother!

So, but anyway. I am working my regular 8-5, heading to the hospital immediately after work and hanging out with him, since the other siblings had to return to work this week (and they live at least 2 hours away). By the time I'm getting home, I'm exhausted. But I am writing (long hand) my reviews while he dozes and will get them posted asap!

I will have several (4!!) giveaways posted tonight, so look for them. They all look great & I can't wait to read them!

oh, P.S.~ I will try my best to keep the giveaways on schedule! If I post a blog naming the winners, but you don't get an email that day...I WILL GET IT TO YOU! Don't worry. I start the 48 hours from when I email you, not when I post it! Thanks for understanding!

Tour Stop~ "How Perfect Is That" by Sarah Bird

Blythe Young’s recent divorce from Trey Dix has left her outside the protective bubble of Austin’s high society. As her catering business goes broke and the IRS starts to chase her down, Blythe seeks a haven at Seneca House, the housing co-op where she lived 10 years ago during college. There, she must face Millie Ott, one of many friends Blythe shucked off in a frenzy of social climbing. Once portly Millie is now slender and, as a perfect foil for Blythe, also saintly: she delivers aid to the homeless by way of a tandem recumbent bike (which Blythe names the “dorkocycle”). At Seneca House, Blythe tries to make amends with people she’s stepped on, to avoid the IRS, and to kick both a lingering drug habit and an addiction to scamming people into helping her out. She slowly starts to wins over the affection of her housemates until one of her unthinking decisions brings potential ruin on the co-op’s financial well-being. The result is a laugh-out-loud addition to Bird’s long line of estrogen-fueled dramedies.

About The Author:
Born Dec. 26, 1949 in Ann Arbor, Mich., Bird lived a peripatetic childhood in an Air Force family. She received a bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of New Mexico in 1973 and a master's degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin in 1976. Bird was an editor and contributor for the no-longer-active Austin magazine Third Coast. She authored five romance novels under the name Tory Cates before publishing her 1986 comic novel "Alamo House," set on frat row at a Texas university.
Visit her site HERE!

my thoughts:
I am now a Bird watcher! I will be on the look out for all of her books! "How Perfect Is That" would be a great, fun book to read this summer! The characters are detailed in such a way that you really get to know & care (or really dislike) them. I've never been to Austin, but I feel like if I did go, I would know my way around.
What I thought was so great about "How Perfect Is That", you almost feel like you're reading about a friend (or in some cases, maybe you!). Blythe is a mess. Like most people. She was not perfect. She's divorced, broke, her business is crappy. Who hasn't been there? And like most people who have been there, she finds out who her real friends are.
my suggestion:
If you want a funny read to add to your bookshelves, this is it!

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