Book talk and signing

Posted in For the love of books by rebeccabook17

So last night I went to a book talk and signing with Kristan Higgins at the Durham Public Library. She talked about her two most recent books, The Perfect Match and Waiting on You. Her talk was just awesome! I figured out why her books are so funny, she is just hilarious! She talked about her process with writing the two books (two most recent books in her Blue Heron series) and the part I found most interesting I think was when she talked about the different things she had to research when writing the books.

Kristan discussed the research she had to do for her two most recently published books. For The Perfect Match she had to research immigration laws, toxic friendships, and boxing. For Waiting on You she had to research kidney failure, Chicago, and fraternal twins. I never really considered before how much work and research has to be put into each novel for it to work and make sense. I thought it was fun that she got to research vineyards while she was looking for the right setting for the Blue Heron series. Who doesn’t want to do research at a winery? I think it might be interesting to try and write a book. Obviously it is extremely difficult and I’m not really sure I could manage but it might be interesting to try.

Kristan also talked about her writing process and how she finds a celebrity guy to crush on when she’s first forming the hero’s character in the book. I thought this was funny, she even included some pictures of cute celebrities in her PowerPoint! I also liked how she connects a lot of things from her life into the books. Like one of her books has a teenage girl in it and at the time she was writing this book her daughter was just entering teenage age. Kristan was very personable and gave such a great presentation!

What a great talk, Kristan kept me interested the whole time! And then I got my book signed, I felt like I was meeting a celebrity I was so nervous 🙂

And surprise Mom (in case you read this before tomorrow) but I got a signed copy for you in addition to my signed copy!

Link to review on Waiting on You: https://rebeccabookreview.wordpress.com/2014/04/08/2014-book-24/

Link to author website: http://www.kristanhiggins.com

Link to author’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/KristanHigginsBooks

16May2014

2014 – Book #39

Posted in Book reviews, Contemporary romance by rebeccabook17

The thirty-ninth book I read in 2014 was The Dream Dress by Janice Thompson. This was the third book in the Weddings by Bella series but was the first book I’ve read by this author. I finished this book on 5/16/14. I rated this book 2.75 stars out of a scale of 5. This book is about Gabi Delgado and Jordan Singer. Gabi is an alterations girl in the most renowned wedding gown salon in Galveston, TX. She secretly designs wedding gowns at night and on the weekends though. Jordan Singer is a reporter who comes in to do an article on one of the brides who is buying a dress from Gabi’s boss.

Overall I found this story very hard to connect with. The characters in the story were all nice all the time except for the one villain of course, but even he came around in the end. There was one scene where the four girls are all sitting around talking and the three girls that are currently in relationships start talking about how amazing their significant other is and they get all teary-eyed thinking about how wonderful their husbands/boyfriends are. WHO DOES THAT. The answer is no one. No one actually does that in real life. Ever. And while I like to read about romance novels because I like the happy endings, this book was just too far fetched for me.

Another piece of this book that was difficult for me to relate to was the overwhelming topic of God in this book. To be honest this book felt like it was more about Gabi finding God than about Gabi finding Jordan. Which is fine, I certainly have no problem with God. But did it really have to come up in every single conversation? And (**SPOILER ALERT**) in the end Gabi ends up this super successful wedding designer and she’s going to design a dress for someone to wear to the Academy Awards all because she prayed to God? That isn’t really how it works. I just couldn’t relate to that at all and I found it almost insulting in its lack of feasibility.

Overall I was not a fan of this book (obviously) not only because of the reasons already listed but also because I just couldn’t get into the book. The characters weren’t developed very deeply and the conversations all felt forced, awkward, and choppy. Just wasn’t my type of book I guess.

Link to author website: http://janiceathompson.com/blog/

Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Dream-Dress-The-Weddings-Design/dp/0800721543/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400245606&sr=8-1&keywords=the+dream+dress

13May2014

2014 – Book #38

Posted in Book reviews, Book series, Contemporary romance, Parable, Montana - Big Sky series by rebeccabook17

The thirty-eighth book I read in 2014 was Big Sky Secrets by Linda Lael Miller. This is the sixth and final book in the Parable, Montana series by this author (I have read the other 5 books in the series though none of them I read in 2014 so no others in the series are discussed on this blog). I finished this book on 5/12/14. I rated this book 4 stars out of a scale of 5. This book is about Ria Manning and Landry Sutton. Landry is brother to Zane Sutton who was featured in the 5th book in the Parable series. All the characters of the different books are connected which I found interesting. Got confusing by the time I got to this last book in the series though, trying to keep all the different characters from the previous books straight.

I thought this was a very cute love story. It was an easy read and I was interested throughout the book. Ria was an utterly loveable heroine and I found myself rooting for her the whole time. Landry was a tough guy with a heart of gold. The whole story was just very sweet. The only part I had trouble with was that they got married like a week after they started dating. That just seemed a little unrealistic to me. Other than that though, this was a feel-good love story with the best kind of ending, a happy one.

Link to author website: http://www.lindalaelmiller.com/

Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Big-Secrets-Linda-Lael-Miller/dp/0373778317/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1399947251&sr=8-1&keywords=big+sky+secrets

10May2014

2014 – Book #37

Posted in Book reviews, Historical Romance, Paranormal romance by rebeccabook17

The thirty-seventh book I read in 2014 was The Midnight Witch by Paula Brackston. I finished this book on 5/9/14 and it was the first book I’ve read by this author. I rated this book 2.5 stars out of a scale of 5. This is the story of a necromancer witch, Lady Lilith, set in London in the early 1900’s. She falls in love with a young artist, Bram. Together they are faced with what seem to be insurmountable obstacles that get in the way of their love.

This was a hard read for me. There was a lot of very lengthy descriptions that weren’t necessary to set scene. Also the story randomly jumped forward years at a time twice towards the end of the book. And the narration was constantly jumping from Lilith’s point of view in the 1st person and Bram and various other points of view in the 3rd person. Between all of this the story was honestly a little hard to follow. The plot line itself was interesting and could’ve resulted in a much better story I think. Of course there were some parts of the story that I didn’t like. Lilith is described as having such a strength of will and character and she twice defied the creed of the Lazarus Coven. I just found that surprising and couldn’t reconcile these facts.

I considered giving up halfway through this book. At that point I knew there was very little possibility that I would end up loving this book. I decided to finish it to see what happened and how it ended. I have to say that I am glad I finished it because the 2nd half of the book was slightly better than the first. However, the first half of the book was not what I would call fantastic so it would’ve been hard not to have it improve. I just had so much trouble being drawn into the story. I couldn’t get involved in the characters or what drove them. And there are so many loose ends and unresolved issues. Violet is lost to the Darkness in the beginning of the book and is never recovered. Lilith’s dad isn’t heard from at all in the second half of the book. I feel like the soup kitchen and the nuns were important to the story but they were mentioned so little that I had trouble understanding. I feel like there could’ve been more development of the relationship between Lilith and the nuns through conversations and what not. And pieces of the story were so dark. And (**SPOILER ALERT**) at the end Lilith comes back to life and then her and Bram live happily ever after? Even though she’s living in a dead body now and will have to drink the Elixir regularly for the rest of her life.

Overall I was just disappointed with this book. It was definitely not one of my favorites. I read on Amazon that other people were disappointed with this book and said her other two books were much better. I might try one of her other books in the future to see for myself but I’m not sure I can risk it just yet.

Link to author website: http://www.paulabrackston.com/

Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Witch-Paula-Brackston-ebook/dp/B00FCR3QUC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1399690241&sr=8-1&keywords=midnight+witch

7May2014

2014 – Book #36

Posted in Book reviews, Historical Romance, Romantic suspense by rebeccabook17

The thirty-sixth book I read in 2014 was Otherwise Engaged by Amanda Quick (which is a pen name of Jayne Ann Krentz). I finished this book on 5/6/14. I rated this book 3.75 stars out of a scale of 5. This book is about Amity Doncaster and Benedict Stanbridge. They met on a ship bound for New York when Amity found Benedict shot and bleeding badly in an alleyway. She manages to get him back to the cruise ship, and thankfully she has some medical training from her doctor so she is able to stitch up Benedict and care for him through his fever and subsequent recovery. After passing through New York though, Amity is heading back home to London and Benedict is heading to California before then heading home to London later on. Benedict promises to call on her when he returns to London.

Some time later, Benedict finally shows up in London and pays a call to Amity. Unbeknownst to him though Amity was recently attacked by the killer they call the Bridegroom due to her friendship with Benedict. The story that follows is really Amity and Benedict, along with Amity’s sister Penny, assist Scotland Yard’s Inspector John Logan in hunting down this killer. One of the interesting things about this book is the heroine’s weapon of choice, something called a tessen, its a Japanese iron war fan. The heroine uses this as a weapon against the Bridegroom in order to escape his clutches. If you’d like to read more about tessens, here is an article about them on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_fan.

Overall I thought this was a very good story. It was interesting to go along on the journey to search for the killer. Some of the conversations felt a bit awkward though. But the plot was fairly well-paced and I liked the characters. This wasn’t my favorite book by this author but it was enjoyable.

Link to author website: http://www.krentz-quick.com/

Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Otherwise-Engaged-Ladies-Lantern-Street-ebook/dp/B00FX7R5QM/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1399486343&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=otherwis+engaged

5May2014

2014 – Book # 35

Posted in Book reviews, Historical Romance by rebeccabook17

The thirty-fifth book I read in 2014 was A Dash of Scandal by Amelia Grey. I finished this book on 5/4/14. I rated this book 3.5 stars out of a scale of 5. This was the second book I read by this author. This book is about Miss Millicent Blair and Chandler, Earl of Dunraven. Millicent has been called to London to assist her aunt who recently took a very serious fall. What she doesn’t know is that her aunt doesn’t need help getting back on her feet, she needs help collecting gossip from each evening’s parties for the Lord Truefitt gossip column.

At first Millicent is horrified by what her aunt needs help with, but after some needling her aunt finally convinces her to help. As Millicent makes the rounds at all the ton’s best soirees, she meets Lord Dunraven, one of the ton’s Terrible Three. Dunraven has made a name for himself as a terrible rogue, and since Millicent’s own mother was run out of London after her own scandal twenty years ago, Millicent knows she must not fall under Dunraven’s spell. Try as she might though, she can’t seem to resist Dunraven’s charm. And the more Dunraven gets to know Millicent, the more he can’t seem to stop thinking about her. No one has ever gotten under his skin before, and he finds himself absolutely smitten.

During all of this, Dunraven is searching for the “Mad Ton Thief,” as is London’s police force. He enlists Millicent’s help to investigate on their own. Together they try to piece together the clues to figure out who the thief is and all the while become more and more infatuated with each other. Overall this was a cute story with a lovely heroine. A couple points were slow/dry but overall was a good plot.

Link to author website: http://www.ameliagrey.com/main.html

Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Dash-Scandal-Amelia-Grey-ebook/dp/B005J4OZRQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1399247638&sr=8-1&keywords=a+dash+of+scandal

4May2014

2014 – Book #34

Posted in Book reviews, Romantic suspense by rebeccabook17

The thirty-fourth book I read in 2014 was Night Diver by Elizabeth Lowell. I finished this book on 5/1/14. This was the first book I’ve read by this author. I rated this book 3.75 stars out of a scale of 5. This book was about Kate Donnelly and Holden Cameron. Kate Donnelly had a tragic experience as a teen and has been running from her family and her old life ever since then. The last thing she wants is for her brother to drag her back home to St.Vincent’s to clean up his mess. Kate’s brother Larry signed a dive contract (Kate’s family owns a salvage diving business) that is going to end up putting the family business into bankruptcy. Kate can’t leave her family to fail though, so she comes to the rescue and flies down to St. Vincent’s to meet with the consultant coming in from AO, the company that owns the dive contract.

And that consultant is none other than Holden Cameron, a former British military diver who is consulting for AO. Holden can’t figure out why Kate fascinates him so much but the more he gets to know her the more he seems to like her. Holden was sent from AO to assess whether or not the diving project should be shut down. There hasn’t been quite enough results from this project to satisfy AO but Larry is sure there’s more down there. Holden thinks there’s a possibility that someone on the dive is stealing and keeping the treasures for themselves. And the deeper he gets into his investigation, the more Kate starts to suspect that there may be something going on as well.

But what neither of them realize is that they are getting elbow deep in issues that are turning deadly. Kate tries to protect her family and Holden tries to protect her. One of the things I liked about this book was the growth of the heroine during the story, she overcomes her fears of the water as her relationship with Holden matures. Overall this was a great story and had an interesting plot. A couple parts were a little dry/slow but the love story was sweet and heart-warming and the danger was palpable at points. It was also interesting to learn about diving through the story.

Link to author website: http://www.elizabethlowell.com/

Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Night-Diver-Novel-Elizabeth-Lowell-ebook/dp/B00ENGU6MO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1399243847&sr=8-1&keywords=night+diver

1May2014

Book Recommendation Sites

Posted in For the love of books by rebeccabook17

Many times we’ll find that one book that just completely knocks our socks off. Its thrilling, heart-wrenching and extremely moving and you just don’t want it to end. The tears are falling by the time we get to the end because it was just so beautiful but also because we just don’t want it to end! I know I’ve felt this a bunch of times before. Even if you don’t know exactly what I mean, I’m sure that you readers out there have come across books that you love and just can’t put down. So what do you do when it’s over?

One of the options you have is to go to a book recommendation website. There are many websites out there that you can use to find other books like the one that you are in love with but just finished. Also if there is a book you really love, I would highly recommend reading more by that same author. Many authors have certain writing styles even if the plot isn’t exactly the same you may find that you really enjoy other books by the same author. I’ve done this with a few authors, including Linda Howard and many many others. Once you run out of books on an author’s list though, book recommendation sites can be extremely helpful in finding books by other authors that you might also enjoy.

One of the more popular book recommendation sites is What Should I Read Next (http://whatshouldireadnext.com/). With this site you can put in either a title or author and the site will produce results similar to your input. For example, I put in one of my all-time favorite books, Now You See Her by Linda Howard, and got the below results: http://whatshouldireadnext.com/isbn/0743482891. Some of the authors I noted that came up as results were Julie Garwood and Nora Roberts, and I know both these authors also write romantic suspense so the results make sense to me and provide me with new options of books I might enjoy.

Another option is you could browse different company’s recommendations. Barnes & Noble and Amazon are two larger companies that make listings of recommendations. One such list I mentioned in an earlier blog was Amazon’s 100 books to read in a lifetime (http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=bhp_brws_100bks?ie=UTF8&node=8192263011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-leftnav&pf_rd_r=1A3DWGXAGXQQ9XAMRSV5&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1779646742&pf_rd_i=283155). Also with Amazon there are listings by genre. On Barnes & Noble’s website they have many different listings of recommendations including B&N’s top 100 and B&N’s Biggest Books (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/Books-We-Recommend/379003220/).

Yet another interesting search engine to find a new book to read is WhichBook (http://www.openingthebook.com/whichbook/). I found this one interesting because you can set different parameters to help you find your next read, like whether you want a happy or sad book, a long or short book, and an expected or unpredictable book, among other options.

So as you can see there are many different ways to find your next book. Does anyone have any sites that they love using? I’d love to hear about some new sites, I’m always looking for new authors and new books to read!

30Apr2014

2014 – Book #33

Posted in Book reviews, Books made into movies, Young Adult by rebeccabook17

The thirty-third book I read in 2014 was The Giver by Lois Lowry. I finished this book on 4/30/14. I rated this book 4 stars out of a scale of 5. I didn’t know this before I went to the author’s website, but this is apparently the first in a 4 book series. This book is about a boy named Jonas who lives in a dystopian society. Jonas’ world is free from war, pain, or really any other kind of strong emotion. He lives in an extremely structured society where children are taught strict rules and are grouped by ages into groups (Ones, Twos, Threes, etc).

When the Elevens graduate into becoming Twelves however, they are assigned their jobs where they will work for the rest of their lives. When it comes to be Jonas’ turn though he is not assigned but selected. He is selected to be the next Receiver of Memories for his community. Apparently in this Society they select one person to hold the memories of the world so that those memories can assist the Elders in making tough decisions but the whole population will not be subjected to these memories. The worst part about this is that one person has to hold all the pain of the world but the Elders only ask him for advice every few years. And as Jonas learns, receiving these memories from the previous Receiver (now named The Giver as he is giving all his memories to Jonas) is extremely painful, especially when you have lived your whole life sheltered from any kind of pain. Jonas learns to truly feel things for the first time, not only pain but love, joy, and warmth. He learns about colors and begins seeing them in his daily life. This is a lonely task though as none of the other people in his life can feel anything.

This book is classified as a dystopian novel. Per Wikipedia, “a dystopia is a community or society that is in some important way undesirable or frightening.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystopia) Other examples of recently popular dystopian novels include Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Divergent by Veronica Ruth, and The Host by Stephanie Meyer, all of which have been made into movies in recent years as well. Dystopian novels normally portray some kind of futuristic society in which the hero/heroine is in danger because of that society. I find these books to be fascinating portrayals of what society could end up as in some future era.

One of my mini-goals for this year was to read a book from Goodread’s/Amazon’s “100 Books to Read in a Lifetime” listing. This book was on that list as a “classic dystopia” novel. Here is a link to the listing: http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=bhp_brws_100bks?ie=UTF8&node=8192263011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-leftnav&pf_rd_r=15NGNHHEHC9AP9YBWM40&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1779646742&pf_rd_i=283155. This technically was a re-read for me since I read this book in middle school as part of a Mother-Daughter Book Club. With the movie coming out soon though (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435651/?ref_=nv_sr_1) I thought it was worth a re-read to make sure I am up to speed. I always think that reading the book before you see the movie is the better way to do it. Our minds are powerful things and can create magical worlds from the descriptions on a page, but the movies tell you what is and how it should look. I much prefer to imagine it myself.

This novel was utterly fascinating, I could not put the book down. And one of the things I love about dystopian novels is that they are so thought provoking. To think that society could someday end up like this, taking away all choices and feelings in order to protect people, is astounding. This is a great novel and honestly is a great read for young adults.

Link to author website: http://www.loislowry.com/

Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Giver-Lois-Lowry/dp/0385732554/ref=br_lf_m_1002140381_2_38_clkmr?ie=UTF8&s=books&pf_rd_p=1736476662&pf_rd_s=center-3&pf_rd_t=1401&pf_rd_i=1002140381&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=05YZJVS9F27YVSQF866H

30Apr2014

2014 – Book #32

Posted in Book reviews, Book series, Historical Romance, Lords of Vice series, Romantic suspense by rebeccabook17

The thirty-second book I read in 2014 was Till Dawn wit the Devil by Alexandra Hawkins. This is the second book in the Lords of Vice series by this author. I finished this book on 4/29/14. I rated this book 4 stars out of a scale of 5. This book is about Lady Sophia Ravenshaw and Gabriel Housely, the Earl of Rainecourt, affectionately known to his friends as Reign. When these two meet at a ball, Reign is instantly attracted to the blond angel Sophia. When Sophia’s brother storms onto the terrace to rescue her from Reign’s scandalous nature, Reign discovers that his lady is a Ravenshaw. The Rancourt and Ravenshaw names are twisted together in a number of sordid past tragedies, but Reign can’t stop himself from wanting Sophia.

After Reign finds out Sophia is in trouble he races off to her rescue, but in rescuing her from her family he doesn’t realize he’s placing her in even greater danger. When he is faced with losing the love that’s begun to bloom inside of him, he knows he must fight for his wife’s life in order to keep what’s developing between them.

My blog post on the first book in the Lords of Vice series was overall not my favorite. There was a lot of things in the story that made me slightly uncomfortable while I was reading it. The second book in the series though was greatly improved, I liked it a lot better than the first. It was touching and interesting, sweet and steamy at the same time. Overall this was a great book and I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

Link to author website: http://www.alexandrahawkins.com/

Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Till-Dawn-Devil-Lords-Vice/dp/0312381255/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398817956&sr=8-1&keywords=till+dawn+with+the+devil