Category Archives: 2016

2016 Book #26 – Tales of My Childhood by Anna Lillian Young

Posted in 2016, Book reviews, Non-fiction, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2016 checklist, Reading Challenges by

Title: Tales of My Childhood
Author: Anna Lillian Young
Date finished: 3/26/16
Genre: Autobiography
Pages in book: 313
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: Author’s relative NOTE: I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

 

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. Also, this book will count towards my “PopSugar 2016 Checklist” reading challenge, marking off the “an autobiography” square since it is is an autobiography. This books tells the story of Anna Lillian Young’s life as written by Anna Lillian Young. There is a foreword included in the book that was written by my Uncle Will, who is Anna’s great-grandson. This book begins during Anna’s childhood and chronicles the journey of her life up through her 89th year. Anna had a difficult childhood at times and struggled at different points during her life but her life was full of family and love and many times adventure. It was a very interesting story and I’m glad that my Uncle found the manuscript and was able to bind it. Anna traveled a lot, when she was younger traveling between other family member’s households and when older she traveled to where her husband was able to find work. Anna had an astounding memory and recorded many details not only from her later years but also from her childhood in her manuscript. I’m glad I was able to experience pieces of her life, thanks Will for sharing with this one with me!

 

2016 Book #23 – Nerd In Shining Armor by Vicki Lewis Thompson

Posted in 2016, Book reviews, Contemporary romance, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2016 checklist, Reading Challenges by

51xCdBbrd-LTitle: Nerd In Shining Armor
Author: Vicki Lewis Thompson
Date finished: 3/17/16
Genre: Contemporary romance
Publisher: Dell
Publication Date: April 29, 2003
Pages in book: 324
Stand alone or series: #1 in the Nerd series (stand alone stories)
Where I got the book from: My personal collection! I’ve had this one since High School

Blurb from the cover:

For Genevieve Terrence it seemed like a dream come true: a weekend alone on Maui with her sexy boss, Nick Brogan. But little did she know that Nick had dreams of his own–a nefarious scheme that nearly got her killed on the flight over the Pacific. Lucky for her, brilliant computer programmer Jack Farley was on board and quick-witted enough to crash-land the plane. Now Jack is her sole companion on a remote desert island with nothing but guava trees and sharks for company. Who’d expect the shy genius–and the least alpha male she knows–to turn out to be the uninhibited stud of her wildest dreams?
Saving Genevieve’s life has made Jack a hero in the eyes of the woman he has secretly lusted after for months. Now they’re alone together in a tropical eden where they’re free to give in to their every sensual whim. But when some nasty unfinished business puts them at risk again, Gen will learn there’s nothing quite as dangerous as a fully aroused ex-nerd who’ll move heaven and earth to protect the woman he loves…

My rating: 4.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will count towards my “PopSugar 2016 Checklist” reading challenge, marking off the “a book you haven’t read since high school” square since I last read this book sometime in high school. This is the first book in the “Nerd” series by this author, which became a fast favorite of mine once I discovered the existence of romance novels during high school. I had a hankering to re-read this one after my recent read A Sudden Crush had a somewhat similar story line and reminded me how much I had originally liked this type of story. This book is about Genevieve Terrence who gets stuck on a remote island with the nerd computer programmer from her firm, Jackson Farley. Jack has had a crush on Genevieve since he started at the firm and he’s never worked up the courage to tell her how he felt. Luckily for him this stay on a deserted island with her is a great chance for some one on one bonding time.
Overall I enjoyed this book the first few times I read it back in high school and I enjoyed reading it again now. The characters are all full of spunk and heart and I loved the side story with Genevieve’s mom, Annabelle. The story line is full of adventure and intrigue. This really was a pleasure to read again and I am hoping to find time to re-read more of the Nerd series soon!

The bottom line: This is one of my favorites in the romance genre, love the Nerd series . This story in particular is exciting and full of adventure. Very romantic as well.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

2016 Book #21 – A Sudden Crush by Camilla Isley

Posted in 2016, Book reviews, Contemporary romance, Fiction, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2016 checklist, Reading Challenges by

51YnLTiTjYL._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_Title: A Sudden Crush
Author: Camilla Isley
Date finished: 3/14/16 (just after midnight)
Genre: Fiction, contemporary romance
Publisher: Pink Bloom Press
Publication Date: February 4, 2016
Pages in book: 255
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: The Reading Room NOTE: I received this book for free from The Reading Room in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

Joanna Price is a city girl with the perfect life. She loves her job as a book editor, she just married Liam, high profile bestselling author and the man of her dreams, and she’s headed to the Caribbean to enjoy two weeks of paradise for her luxurious honeymoon.
Connor Duffield is a gruff, grumpy rancher from the Midwest. He is a country boy who has a no-nonsense approach to life, more scars than he’d like to admit, and he hates city girls.
So it’s just a misfortune they have to sit next to each other for a six hour plane ride. Even more so when their flight is caught in the perfect storm and Joanna wakes up stranded on a desert island with Connor, the very man she hoped she would never have to see again.
Why are they alone on this forsaken island? What happened to Joanna’s husband?
When her dream honeymoon turns into a hilarious tropical nightmare, Joanna’s first thought is survival. However, she and Connor will quickly discover just how boring paradise can be. As the days turn to weeks, and then months, this mismatched pair will have to learn how to coexist and how to resist the sparkles of an attraction they weren’t prepared to feel.
When they are finally rescued will Joanna’s marriage be saved as well, or will the life she knew and loved be in ruins?

My rating: 4.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. Also, this book will count towards my “PopSugar 2016 Checklist” reading challenge, marking off the “a book you can finish in a day” square since I started it yesterday afternoon and finished just after midnight. This book is about Joanna Price, who while flying to her honeymoon destination is involved in some freak plan accident and ends up on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean with one of the other plane passengers, who unfortunately was not her husband but a farmer from Illinois named Connor. Somehow Connor and Joanna manage to survive the jungle covered island for months before (**spoiler alert**) they are rescued. But after Joanna returns to her life at home, she finds out that her life isn’t exactly in the same rosy status as it was when she disappeared. From there she has to learn to find the strength to move on and forge a new life for herself.
Overall I really enjoyed this book. It was a quick and easy read and I really liked the plot line. When I first read the book synopsis I thought it was going to be a little more like one of my favorite romance novels, Nerd In Shining Armor, and while the story line was very different, they both had that whole plane crash on a deserted island thing which I enjoyed. The emotions in this book too are really powerful and really draw the reader in.  I was really rooting for Joanna when she was encountering her struggles head on and I was cheering her on to forge through whatever crap life was dealing her. I think that was one of the things that I especially liked about this book was that the romance for Joanna came after she already had her stuff figured out. She became a success entirely on her own and was really just living her dream and being her own person. Not to go too deep into feminism here but I thought that was a really important thing for women readers, and especially any younger women reading this, to see that a woman can be successful and happy without a man, that the love and companionship of finding that special person is a bonus but does not rule over your whole life. Anyways, I liked the book a lot. And with all the descriptions of the steamy weather on the island I think this would be a great book to read on the beach while lying in the sun. Make sure to check this one out!

The bottom line: This was an easy read for me and was a sweet story. Great beach read, I would definitely recommend!

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

2016 Status Update: February

Posted in 2016, Book Riot Read Harder Reading Challenge 2016, Bookish Bingo Holiday 2015, For the love of books, Penguin Random House: Challenge Your Shelf A-Z Challenge, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2016 checklist, Reading Challenges by

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Ugh. I can’t believe it is March already! Its tax season for me right now so I am definitely finding myself falling behind schedule a little bit. That and I am requesting WAY more than I can possibly manage to read on the various ARC sites.  Anyways, here is my status update for progress I made on reading challenges this month and some highlights of my posts for this month.

Monthly Stats:
# books read this month: 7
# pages read this month: 1,988
# books read year-to-date: 15
# pages read year-to-date: 4,793

Favorite Books I Read:

Missing Pieces by Heather Gudenkauf
The Children’s Home by Charles Lambert
Try Not to Breathe by Holly Seddon

Books I Didn’t Particularly Enjoy: 

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Slaughter House-Five by Kurt Vonnegut – Was just too much weird stuff all thrown together for me

Other Posts this month:

Friday Finds (Feb 5)

Status of 2016 Reading Challenges:

PopSugar Reading Challenge 2016 Checklist – 5/20 books read
Book Riot Read Harder Reading Challenge – 1/24 books read
Penguin Random House: Challenge Your Shelf A-Z Reading Challenge – 0/26 books read
Holiday Bingo 2015 Reading Challenge – 13/25 books read – this challenge is over as of 2/29/16, look for my wrap-up post on this coming in the next couple days! My next challenge I will be doing is the Bout of Books in May

March TBR list: 

-Wedding Night with the Earl by Amelia Grey (NetGalley)
-I Kissed a Rogue by Shana Galen (rolled from Feb TBR – didn’t get to) (NetGalley)
-The Last Girl by Joe Hart (NetGalley)
-The Passenger by Lisa Lutz (rolled from Feb TBR – didn’t get to) (NetGalley)
-A Sudden Crush by Camille Isley (The Reading Room)
-Tales of My Childhood by Anna Lillian Young (author request)
-Little Bee by Chris Cleave (book club)
-Just Fall by Nina Sadowsky (NetGalley)
-Dreaming of Antigone by Robin Bridges (NetGalley)
-Good on Paper by Rachel Cantor (Reading with Robin book discussion)
-A Certain Age by Beatriz Williams (BookBrowse)

So I have a full schedule for March and I’m sure I’ll still end up requesting more as we go through the month because (a) I’m addicted to books and (b) I love reading. I have to say though I am looking forward to my post-tax season time when I can take a few days off and hopefully get caught up! Maybe even read one of the 300 books that I own and haven’t read (a girl can dream). Specifically if I have time I think I’ll be picking up The Glass Sword (sequel to The Red Queen) since I pre-ordered it and it came during Feb but of course I couldn’t read it because of all my other books I already had scheduled. Hopefully this month!

So! That was February overview and my plan for March! Hoping to find more time for reading this month! Happy reading to all!

2016 Book #16 – El Nino: The WILD side of the weather cycle by Bill Limmer

Posted in 2016, Book reviews, Book Riot Read Harder Reading Challenge 2016, Non-fiction, Reading Challenges by

51VGXflXw+L._SX384_BO1,204,203,200_Title: El Nino: The WILD side of the weather cycle: What we know, what we don’t, and why you should care!
Author: Bill Limmer
Date finished: 3/1/16
Genre: Non-fiction, weather
Publisher: Wild Weather Publishing
Publication Date: August 31, 2015
Pages in book: 88
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: Author/publisher NOTE: I received this book for free from the author/publisher in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

El Niño is here and it’s rocking our world! This El Niño has already set records. Look out for a wet, wild, and stormy winter. This El Niño is special and like famous ones before it, has the potential to bring massive flooding, roof crushing snowstorms, debilitating ice storms, and powerful, destructive tornadoes to the U.S. and the World. Meteorologist, Bill Limmer chronicled the history of these events and their catastrophic effects in his new eBook. What disasters will this El Niño season bring? How can you protect your family? The 2015-16 winter/spring season could be a ROUGH one. Everyone needs to know and prepare for the worst. This is the eBook for the proactive and for all of those who think it can never happen to them! Filled with valuable information and helpful links, this eBook will help you and your family get prepared for the stormy, destructive, unsettling winter season heading your way. Bill says, “All the signs have aligned. It’s time to sound the trumpet.”

My rating: 3.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book will count towards my Book Riot 2016 Read Harder reading challenge, marking off the “Read a book under 100 pages” box since this book was only 88 pages. This is a non-fiction book about the upcoming potential El Nino weather season and the effect it may have on the U.S. (based on past experiences). I thought this book was well done in the fact that there was a bunch of scientific and statistical information included in the book, but it wasn’t so much that an ordinary person couldn’t read it. I personally know absolutely nothing about weather or weather patterns but this book was explained in such a way that it was easy for a “regular” person to understand it but had enough information that I think someone who has more expertise on weather would also find it interesting. That being said I’m going to do my best to give a summary of the book without getting anything wrong (fingers crossed).
The El Nino weather season is due to changing ocean temperatures (overly simplified explanation, if it is technically accurate) which causes extreme weather conditions such as tornadoes, flooding, extreme snow storms and rain storms, etc. The US is currently in an El Nino weather system and there are a number of examples from the book on storms that happened in Oct 2015 that are substantiating the fact that this El Nino is going to be stronger than ever. There are a number of examples of past El Nino seasons in this book including the many storms and side effects, as a guideline of what we can expect in the coming months. There are also some tips included in this book for anyone looking to prepare for any upcoming large storms.
Overall I thought this book was interesting, though it isn’t something I normally would have read on my own. The only reason I did not score it higher was because it wasn’t really a topic that I have a lot of interest in. I think this is a great book for any one is interested in learning more about weather, especially since it seems like this will have a significant impact on people’s lives in the upcoming year.

The bottom line: I thought the subject matter of this book was interesting and definitely was explained well enough that an ordinary citizen would be able to understand the changes in the weather patterns. Also had great tips for preparing for upcoming storms!

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

2016 Book #11 – Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonegut

Posted in 2016, Book Clubs, Book reviews, Fiction, Literary Greats, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2016 checklist, Reading Challenges, Terryville - Fiction Lovers by

610pDdsNz1LTitle: Slaughterhouse-Five (or the Children’s Crusade)
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Date finished: 2/8/16
Genre: Fiction, science fiction, literary fiction
Publisher: Delacorte
Publication Date: 1969
Pages in book: 215
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: Terryville Public Library

Blurb from the cover:

Unstuck in time, Billy Pilgrim, Vonnegut’s shattered survivor of the Dresden bombing, relives his life over and over again under the gaze of aliens; he comes at last to some understanding of the human comedy. The basis of George Roy’s great 1972 film and perhaps the signature student’s novel in the 1960’s embracing protest and the absurdity of war.

My rating:  2.75 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I read this book for the Terryville Library’s Fiction Lover’s Book Discussion group discussion for this month (February). Also, this book will count towards my “PopSugar 2016 Checklist” reading challenge, marking off the “a science-fiction novel” box since this is a science fiction novel. Obviously this is a well known book, popular for many high-school reading lists. I never happened to read this book in high school so I was interested to read it now. It was… weird. Not what I expected it would be. I said this at my book club tonight, but for anyone that watches Family Guy it felt a lot like a Family Guy episode to me, with pretty much any random thing you can think of all thrown into one story line. That’s mostly what this book felt like to me.
Overall this book left me feeling like I missed something. I felt like there should’ve been more of a point or an ah-ha! moment, but I didn’t find one. It was a quick read and kept my interest but other than that I just wasn’t thrilled with the book. Its a classic though, even included on Amazon’s 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime listing. So I can’t say that I don’t recommend it but be prepared for a good dose of weird.

The bottom line: I have to say I would recommend mostly because this is one of those things that I think everyone should read. Like I said before though, be prepared for some just odd stuff.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

2016 Book #10 – A Small Indiscretion by Jan Ellison

Posted in 2016, Book reviews, Fiction, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2016 checklist, Reading Challenges, Thriller, Women's fiction by

51aKu5z1x8LTitle: A Small Indiscretion
Author: Jan Ellison
Date finished: 2/6/16
Genre: Fiction, women’s fiction, suspense
Publisher: Random House
Publication Date: January 20, 2015
Pages in book: 318
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: BookBrowse NOTE: I received this book for free from BookBrowse in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

At nineteen, Annie Black trades a bleak future in a washed-out California town for a London winter of drinking and abandon. Twenty years later, she is a San Francisco lighting designer and happily married mother of three who has put her reckless youth behind her. Then a photo from that distant winter in Europe arrives inexplicably in her mailbox, and an old obsession is awakened.
Past and present collide, Annie’s marriage falters, and her son takes a car ride that ends with his life hanging in the balance. Now Annie must confront her own transgressions and fight for her family by untangling the mysteries of the turbulent winter that drew an invisible map of her future. Gripping, insightful, and lyrical, A Small Indiscretion announces the arrival of a major new voice in literary suspense as it unfolds a story of denial, passion, forgiveness—and the redemptive power of love.

My rating: 3.75 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. Also, this book will count towards my “PopSugar 2016 Checklist” reading challenge, marking off the “a book set in Europe” square as probably about half of the book took place in Europe (London, Paris, Ireland, etc.). This book was sent to me for participation in Book Browse’s Book Talk. I have never participated in an online book discussion before but I am looking forward to it! I think this book will be particularly interesting to discuss due to the moral and ethical questions raised by some of the events in the novel. The discussion group for this book opens on the site on February 9th so if anyone else is interested in joining in on the discussion you are welcome!
Anyways, so this book is about Annie Black. The book starts off in September 2011, when her son Robbie is involved in a significant automobile accident that has left him in a coma. The narrator (Annie) tells the reader at the beginning of the book that her marriage had fallen apart days before her son’s accident. From there, Annie uses the book as a sort of journal/letter where she talks to her son Robbie. As the book unfolds, Annie explains to Robbie how her and his father came to be together, and the events that shaped not only their relationship in the beginning but also her as a person. The story for Annie really began in 1989 (22 years ago) when she leaves her childhood home to travel (first to Maine to confront her father but this is explained later on in the book) to Europe to start over and find her place in the world.
Overall I liked this book. It had a really interesting story line, definitely different from anything I’ve read before. There was a lot of commentary strung into the story on marriage and forgiveness, which I enjoyed a lot. For some reason though the story line just didn’t really grab me. There were some good plot twists but I saw them coming so it took away from the surprise a little for me. And while I wouldn’t say that overall I was thrilled with this story, there were a lot of things that I liked about the book. One of the things was that I found it interesting that even though Annie is extremely flawed, we are still lead to feel sympathy for her as the main character of the book. While I personally had trouble connecting to some of the characters, there were complex layers of wants and needs in each character in the book.

 

The bottom line: I liked this book, it was interesting and had some great toughts included in the story on marriage and forgiveness. I would recommend it for reading.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

2016 Book #9 – Missing Pieces by Heather Gudenkauf

Posted in 2016, Book reviews, Fiction, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2016 checklist, Reading Challenges, Thriller by

71QVUdo4D4LTitle: Missing Pieces
Author: Heather Gudenkauf
Date finished: 2/2/16
Genre: Fiction, thriller/suspense
Publisher: MIRA
Publication Date: February 2, 2016
Pages in book: 288
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: NetGalley NOTE: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

Sarah Quinlan’s husband, Jack, has been haunted for decades by the untimely death of his mother when he was just a teenager, her body found in the cellar of their family farm, the circumstances a mystery. The case rocked the small farm town of Penny Gate, Iowa, where Jack was raised, and for years Jack avoided returning home. But when his beloved aunt Julia is in an accident, hospitalized in a coma, Jack and Sarah are forced to confront the past that they have long evaded.
Upon arriving in Penny Gate, Sarah and Jack are welcomed by the family Jack left behind all those years ago—barely a trace of the wounds that had once devastated them all. But as facts about Julia’s accident begin to surface, Sarah realizes that nothing about the Quinlans is what it seems. Caught in a flurry of unanswered questions, Sarah dives deep into the puzzling rabbit hole of Jack’s past. But the farther in she climbs, the harder it is for her to get out. And soon she is faced with a deadly truth she may not be prepared for.

My rating:  4.5 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book will count towards my “PopSugar 2016 Checklist” reading challenge, marking off the “murder mystery” square, since this book had a number of murders that no one knew who committed them. I’m not going to say how many murders because that would spoil it! So this book is about Sarah Quinlan, who accompanies her husband Jack back to his hometown of Penny Gate after his aunt falls down the stairs. Sarah knows about Jack’s history with the town and why he’s hesitant to return; his dad was drunk driving when he wrecked his car twenty years ago and both Jack’s parents were killed. At least, that’s the version Sarah knows about. Once they arrive in town though, multiple people say something that piques Sarah’s interest and leads her to think there may be more to the story that Jack isn’t telling her.
Overall I really liked this book! I was finishing the book at 11:30 at night and I can’t even tell you how creeped out I was. This book will keep you on the edge of your seat for hours, I couldn’t put it down I was so desperate to find out who the killer was. I thought the author did a fantastic job of really getting the reader into the main characters head and making us as a reader question what we could and couldn’t trust of the other characters in the book. I also really loved Sarah as a character, I was so glad that she stood up to Jack when she found out he was lying to her. I love a main female character with a strong backbone and Sarah was definitely a great example of that. There weren’t many things I didn’t enjoy about this book, there were a good number and twists and turns. The only thing is that the ending ending up feeling almost anti-climactic for me, it happened so fast. It was an ending I didn’t exactly expect though so that was good! Overall though great read and everyone should go read this one!

The bottom line: I would absolutely recommend this book. I could not put it down, it was suspenseful and kept me hooked the whole time. Great book!

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

2016 Status Update: January

Posted in 2016, For the love of books, Reading Challenges by

I can’t believe January is over already. Unfortunately I didn’t read as much as I might have liked to this past month, and even more unfortunately these next couple months are going to be pretty busy for me. I’m hoping to find some time in between working hours to read still next month, I have a good amount of books on the TBR listing for next month. Anyways, here is my status update for progress I made on reading challenges this month and some highlights of my posts for this month.

Monthly Stats:
# books read this month: 8
# pages read this month: 2,805
# books read year-to-date: 8
# pages read year-to-date: 2,805

Best Books I Read:
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The Swans of Fifth Avenue
The Return of the Witch

Books I Didn’t Particularly Enjoy: 
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Mirror Mirror – just a lot of really weird stuff going on

Other Posts this month:

Top Ten 2015 Releases I Meant to Get to But Didn’t
Top Ten Books I’ve Recently Added to my TBR

Status of 2016 Reading Challenges:

PopSugar Reading Challenge 2016 Checklist – 2/20 books read
Book Riot Read Harder Reading Challenge – 0/24 books read
Penguin Random House: Challenge Your Shelf A-Z Reading Challenge – 0/26 books read
Holiday Bingo 2015 Reading Challenge – 10/25 books read

February TBR list: 

-Missing Pieces by Heather Gudenkauf
-Slaughter House Five by Kurt Vonnegut
-A Small Indiscretion by Jan Ellison
-The Children’s Home by Charles Lambert
-Nookietown by V.C. Chickering
-Try Not to Breathe by Holly Seddon
-El Nino: The Wild Side of Weather by Bill Limmer
-The Passenger by Lisa Lutz
-I Kissed a Rogue by Shana Galen

Looks like I have a full plate for February already but I also have a stack of books that I bought last year that I’ve been really dying to read, including 2 Kristan Higgins books that came out last year. I also really want to read The Martian after seeing the movie, and read The Witch’s Daughter after reading the book’s sequel. So if I can find some space for those books anywhere in my month then I’ll be reading those as well.

So! That was January and also my plan for February. Looking forward to a busy month ahead! Happy reading to all!

2016 Book #6 – The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin

Posted in 2016, Book reviews, Fiction, Historical fiction, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2016 checklist, Reading Challenges by

413Jo9GzA2LTitle: The Swans of Fifth Avenue
Author: Melanie Benjamin
Date finished: 1/23/16
Genre: Fiction, biographical fiction
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: January 26, 2016
Pages in book: 368
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: NetGalley NOTE: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

Of all the glamorous stars of New York high society, none blazes brighter than Babe Paley. Her flawless face regularly graces the pages of Vogue, and she is celebrated and adored for her ineffable style and exquisite taste, especially among her friends—the alluring socialite Swans Slim Keith, C. Z. Guest, Gloria Guinness, and Pamela Churchill. By all appearances, Babe has it all: money, beauty, glamour, jewels, influential friends, a prestigious husband, and gorgeous homes. But beneath this elegantly composed exterior dwells a passionate woman—a woman desperately longing for true love and connection.
Enter Truman Capote. This diminutive golden-haired genius with a larger-than-life personality explodes onto the scene, setting Babe and her circle of Swans aflutter. Through Babe, Truman gains an unlikely entrée into the enviable lives of Manhattan’s elite, along with unparalleled access to the scandal and gossip of Babe’s powerful circle. Sure of the loyalty of the man she calls “True Heart,” Babe never imagines the destruction Truman will leave in his wake. But once a storyteller, always a storyteller—even when the stories aren’t his to tell.
Truman’s fame is at its peak when such notable celebrities as Frank and Mia Sinatra, Lauren Bacall, and Rose Kennedy converge on his glittering Black and White Ball. But all too soon, he’ll ignite a literary scandal whose repercussions echo through the years. The Swans of Fifth Avenue will seduce and startle readers as it opens the door onto one of America’s most sumptuous eras.

My rating:  4.5 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book will count towards my “PopSugar 2016 Checklist” reading challenge, marking off the “a book that is published in 2016” square, since this book will be published this coming Tuesday. I had heard a lot about this book over the last couple months so when I saw it on NetGalley I requested it right away. This book is about a set of socialites from New York City and their friendship with author Truman Capote from the 1950’s to the 1970’s. What I thought was really interesting about this book was that it was based on the lives and known facts about real people, with some embellishing thrown in there to connect all the dots. All the people mentioned in the book though are real people, you can read about their lives and their actual friendship with Truman Capote and many of the characters have actual biographies you can read.
Overall I very much liked this book. The characters were all interesting and the story line was just scandalous. There was so much juicy gossip within the book it was hard to put it down. Also I thought the story of Truman and Babe’s friendship was truly touching and heart breaking in the end. This book gives the reader a window into the lives of the elite of the social world of New York City during the 1950’s and 1960’s. Where everything is glamour and glitz and the best that money can buy. And while it is nice to be able to do whatever you want when you have all the money in the world, according to this story it comes with a price. Cheating, lies, deceit. All are very prevalent in this story, to the point where the reader starts to pity these swans for the things they’ve all wanted in life but can never seem to have – love, happiness, a sense of belonging, people you can count on. The details of these socialite’s lives are spread through the pages of this book, and while the reader may feel sadness for these characters who can never seem to find love, the story is still entirely entrancing in its scandal and glamour.

The bottom line: I would definitely definitely recommend this book. I was riveted throughout the story, the whole thing was simply scandalous! Great story and especially interesting that its based around so many facts and actual history.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page