Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Favorite Authors

Posted in Book memes, For the love of books, Top Ten Tuesday by rebeccabook17

Top Ten Tuesday is a book meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Every Tuesday there is a different bookish topic and bloggers are asked to post their own top ten list based on the topic. This week is a listing of the Top Ten All Time Favorite Authors. My favorite authors can fluctuate every so often but below I’ve put together a listing of my 5 all-time favorite authors , 3 authors that I’ve discovered in the last year or so that I’m in love with, and 2 authors of which I read their debut novels and absolutely loved them.

All-time favorite authors:

1. Linda Howard – I’ve loved most of her novels, especially Mr. Perfect and Now You See Her
2. Kristan Higgins – Just love entirely. There are no other words.
3. Meg Cabot – I love her adult series, they’re funny and witty and sweet
4. MaryJanice Davidson – Every book I’ve read of hers is funny. Every one.

Recently added favorite authors:

5. Emily Giffin – Loved her Something Borrowed and Something Blue
6. Eloisa James – LOVE the Fairy Tale series
7. Sandra Brown – I always end up on the edge of my seat with her books

Favorite Debut authors I read in the last year and LOVED:

8. Susan Rieger – Last year I read The Divorce Papers and I devoured it, it was amazing!
9. Cynthia Swanson – Read The Bookseller and loved it
10. Kristen Harnisch – Recently read The Vintner’s Daughter and it was great!

So! That’s my list! What about you all, who are your favorite authors?

20Apr2015

2015 Book #34 – Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Posted in #ReadingMyLibrary Reading Challenge, 2015, Book reviews, Reading Challenges, Young Adult by rebeccabook17

Title: Fangirl
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Date finished: 4/20/15
Genre: Young Adult
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Publication Date: September 10, 2013
Pages in book: 433
Stand alone or series: Stand alone

Blurb from the cover:

In Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl, Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan, but for Cath, being a fan is her life–and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.
Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.
Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.
Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words . . . And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.
For Cath, the question is: Can she do this?
Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories?

My rating: 4.25 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will count for the challenge I am participating in for April, the#ReadingMyLibrary reading challenge. I checked out this book from the Simsbury Public Library. I saw this book awhile ago, can’t remember where, but it looked good so I added it to my TBR list. I saw it at the library and decided to pick it up. I’ve never read anything by this author before, but I have heard a lot of good things.
There were a lot of things I liked about this book. I loved almost all the characters in this story. All of them evolved so much through the book I felt like I was growing and changing with them. Cather is such a great character and I really connected with her on her anxiety issues since I suffer from similar issues a lot of the time. I couldn’t necessarily connect with her on her shyness with boys but overall she was just such an easy character to connect with. And oh my gosh, Levi. If I could pick any of the characters I’ve read about that I would want for a boyfriend, it would be Levi. He is just amazingly sweet and so happy its disgusting and awesome at the same time.
One of the characters I really just didn’t like in the book (mostly because I think I wasn’t supposed to) was the mom, Laura. She was so disinterested in her own daughters and she leaves them when they’re 8 and never contacts them again. But she goes on to get remarried and she has step-kids and that’s ok? And what the hell is with the thing that when she ended up with twins instead of one baby, she didn’t even pick a second name she just split up the one name she had already picked out (Cather + Wren = Catherine). I mean it ended up being cute names for the girls but the mom was just being lazy and it just makes me dislike her more.

There was a good amount of teen angst in this book which is why I stopped reading young adult books a few years ago, it just became too frustrating. This book was not overwhelmingly teen angst though and the story line I still found to be solid and interesting. I couldn’t put this book down yesterday, I was up reading til I finished it at 1am. Great story, great characters, great feels. I will definitely be reading more by this author in the future.

The bottom line: Great book, lots of feels. Sweet characters. I would definitely recommend.

Link to author website
Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

16Apr2015

2015 Book #31 – Every Boy’s Got One by Meg Cabot

Posted in #ReadingMyLibrary Reading Challenge, 2015, Book reviews, Fiction, Reading Challenges, Women's fiction by rebeccabook17

Title: Every Boy’s Got One
Author: Meg Cabot
Date finished: 4/15/15
Genre: Women’s fiction
Publisher: Paw Prints
Publication Date: May 29, 2008
Pages in book: 328
Stand alone or series: Stand alone

Blurb from the cover:

Cartoonist Jane Harris is delighted by the prospect of her first-ever trip to Europe. But it’s hate at first sight for Jane and Cal Langdon, and neither is too happy at the prospect of sharing a villa with one another for a week—not even in the beautiful and picturesque Marches countryside. But when Holly and Mark’s wedding plans hit a major snag that only Jane and Cal can repair, the two find themselves having to put aside their mutual dislike for one another in order to get their best friends on the road to wedded bliss—and end up on a road themselves … one neither of them ever expected.

My rating: 3.75 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will count for the challenge I am participating in for April, the #ReadingMyLibrary reading challenge. I checked out this book from the Terryville Library. I’ve read this book before and liked it a lot. I like all of Meg Cabot’s books, she writes funny, entertaining stories and she doesn’t disappoint with Every Boy’s Got One. This book was in the epistolary style, which I very much enjoy as a writing style. Jane Harris goes to Italy to witness her best friend’s elopement and meets Cal Langdon, a total ass. The descriptions of the Italian hillsides and scenery were just wonderful. I could really feel like I was there. And the food! The meals that Jane described made me just salivate, it all sounded so delicious! And Jane was such a funny character, and I love the WonderCat drawings that got incorporated into the story. The characters were all entertaining and the really fun part about the epistolary style is that you get to see the story from so many different points of view. There were emails to and from almost everyone involved in the story, it makes for a very nice, well-rounded read.
I also thought it was cool that Meg Cabot wrote this story loosely based around a story she herself lived. She eloped in Italy and encountered some of the same difficulties as Holly and Mark do in the novel.

The bottom line: I’ve always liked this book, even reading it multiple times. I would recommend it.

Link to author website
Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

9Apr2015

2015 Book #29 – You’re So Fine by Kieran Kramer

Posted in #ReadingMyLibrary Reading Challenge, 2015, Book reviews, Contemporary romance, Reading Challenges by rebeccabook17

Title: You’re So Fine
Author: Kieran Kramer
Date finished: 4/8/15
Genre: Contemporary romance
Publisher: St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Publication Date: December 30, 2014
Pages in book: 395
Stand alone or series: Stand alone

Blurb from the cover:

CAN THE ROLE OF A LIFETIME…
Lacey Clark’s dreams of Hollywood stardom didn’t turn out quite the way she planned. Instead, her life is more of the daytime-drama variety: One of her actor ex-boyfriends fathered a child with another　woman, and now, long story short, Lacey is the adopted single mother of his son. She takes little Henry with her to South Carolina to escape the film business but winds up working at a small movie studio,　determined　to do a good job both on set and at “home.” Only problem is she ends up sharing a house with movie star Beau Wilder, who is no role model for Henry—and only spells trouble for Lacey…
LEAD TO A HAPPY ENDING?Beau is arguably the most gorgeous man on the planet—and a known ladies’ man. His wealthy Lowcountry pedigree is rivaled only by his bad-boy charm, a combination that proves irresistible for Lacey. And he adores Henry! If they weren’t both on a movie set, their lives would seem too good to be true…unless the chemistry—not to mention the burning attraction—between them is real, and Hollywood’s golden boy is actually falling for this sassy single mom? When it comes to love, sometimes you just have to throw out the script…

My rating: 3.25 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will count for the challenge I am participating in for April, the #ReadingMyLibrary reading challenge. I saw this book at the Bristol Library and I had added it to my TBR list in January (this book was one of my featured “Friday Finds” on Jan 23. At first I found it difficult to really get into the story of this book. I ended up liking it overall but there were a lot of things that I wasn’t a huge fan of. Some of the scenes were hard to follow along with and honestly some of them I thought didn’t really fit. The flow was a little off with some of the book and it made it hard to fully connect with the characters I think. Also, I thought it was a little wordy, it was a pretty long book.
There were also a lot of things about this story that I liked, Henry was a total sweetheart and I found it really touching how amazingly devoted Lacey was to him even though she wasn’t his birth mother. I wasn’t really feeling Beau’s character at the beginning (he was honestly kind of an ass) but by the end I was more fond of him.

The bottom line: Story was ok, not sure I would necessarily recommend but I wouldn’t discourage anyone from reading it either.

Link to author website
Link to Amazon

3Apr2015

Friday Finds (April 3)

Posted in Book memes, For the love of books, Friday Finds by rebeccabook17

FRIDAY FINDS is hosted by A Daily Rhythm and showcases the books you ‘found’ and added to your To Be Read (TBR) list. Whether you found them online, or in a bookstore, or in the library — wherever! (they aren’t necessarily books you purchased).

My finds this week include 2 different YA novels, a historical fiction and of course a romance:

1. The Goddess Test by Aimee Carter

I’ve always loved mythology, the stories about Greek gods were fascinating to me when I was younger. This book is about a girl who falls in love with a guy named Henry, who turns out to be Hades. And she will get to be a goddess if she decides to marry him. This is the first in a three (I think its only three) book series. It looks really interesting and I can’t wait to give it a try!

2. The Royal We by Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan

Royal wedding! Need I say more? This is a love story of a girl name Rebecca (Woo!) who ends up falling in love with a prince. Just awesome all around.

3. At the Water’s Edge by Sara Gruen

While I haven’t read Water for Elephants yet, I heard it was a great book. And this book sounds like it will be a great hit as well, a man and wife go to Scotland in search of the Loch Ness Monster. I don’t usually include the blurbs here but even the description of the book was so well written. I love this specific piece “Maddie begins to see that nothing is as it first appears: the values she holds dear prove unsustainable, and monsters lurk where they are least expected.As she embraces a fuller sense of who she might be, Maddie becomes aware not only of the dark forces around her, but of life’s beauty and surprising possibilities.” How could you not want to read this book!!?

4. Heartbreak Cove by Lily Everett

I thought this sounded like a sweet love story. Woman sheriff takes her niece to a town for some quiet healing, and the niece likes horses. Nearby guy who rehabilitates abused horses helps out and then him and the sheriff fall in love. Just love the cover.

So those are my finds this week! Please feel free to share your finds or leave a link to your own “Friday Finds” blog posting below! Happy Friday!

28Mar2015

Gretna Green

Posted in For the love of books by rebeccabook17

Unfortunately, this was supposed to have posted on St. Patrick’s Day but was mistakenly saved as a draft instead of posting. Definitely a user error! Hopefully all you readers will keep in mind that this was posted with Ireland in mind on St. Patrick’s Day. Happy reading!

If you read historical romance novels, odds are you have read one from the Georgian or Regency era. And odds are there’s been some mention of Gretna Green. But for those of you who aren’t aware (and in connection-ish with today’s holiday, St Patrick’s Day!) Gretna Green is part of Dumfries and is a town just over the border of Scotland traveling from England. It is on what was a main coaching route from England to Scotland and is located at the junction of five old coaching roads, the junction being known as “Headless Cross.” And because of its location, Gretna Green became well known for runaway marriages. This tradition began about halfway through the 18th century when Lord Hardwiske’s Marriage Act was signed into law in England. Under this Act, no minor (under the age of 21) was allowed to get married without parental consent. However, in Scotland, boys were able to marry by age 14 and girls able to marry at age 12 with or without the consent of their parents.

This difference in laws created a large influx of young men and women who would flock to Scotland to get married against their parents wishes. And given Gretna Green’s convenient location (right over the border and on the main route from London to Scotland in the 1750’s) many couples would immediately stop here to get hitched as soon as possible. And luckily, in Scotland it was easy to find someone to marry you since, as long as your had two witnesses, almost anyone really could perform a “handfasting” ceremony or a “marriage by declaration.” Since the blacksmith shop was a central hub of towns at this time, most of these runaway marriages were performed over the blacksmith’s anvil, and blacksmiths in Gretna Green became known as “anvil priests.” As noted from the Gretna Green Wedding website “the hammering of the anvil soon became a notorious sound; romantically it is said that like the meals he forged, the Blacksmith would join couples together in the heat of the moment but bind them for eternity.”

To this day, people still flock to Gretna Green to get married, I’m sure some find the concept and tradition romantic (I do). It is mentioned in a lot of books and was even mentioned on the well-known TV Show Downtown Abbey. Even further, Gretna Green marriages have come to represent a general term for marriages that are entered into in a different location than where they live so that they can avoid certain laws or restrictions imposed on them in their home town/country. These “runaway marriage” locations in the United States have included at certain points Elkton, Maryland, Reno, and Las Vegas.

If you’d like further information on getting married at Gretna Green, there is a website you can visit here.

13Mar2015

Friday Finds (March 13)

Posted in Book memes, For the love of books, Friday Finds by rebeccabook17

My finds this week include a memoir, a YA thriller, and of course a romance:

1. He Wanted the Moon: The Madness and Medical Genius of Dr. Perry Baird, and His Daughter’s Quest to Know Him by Mimi Baird and Eve Claxton

This book looks at a man’s life in dealing with manic depression and how it affected the daughter who was forever apart from him. I think that this will be a very interesting book, and there are a lot of “good” things being said about it by numerous sources, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe. When I say good I don’t mean happy, skip down the lane holding hands good. This is quoted as being a “disturbing and profoundly moving book” and while I’m sure it will be heart-wrenching, I think it will be a thought-provoking read.

2. The Memory Key by Liana Liu

I think this sounds like its going to be a great book. At some point in the future, there is a viral form of Alzheimer’s that ravages the nation so everyone is issued “memory chips” that are installed in their brains to help them hold onto memories. The heroine’s memory chip gets damaged, so then she starts remembering odd things, but who can tell if they’re real memories or just products of a damaged memory chip? We will find out! (Hopefully)

3. The One That Got Away by Bethany Chase

This is Chase’s debut novel. Amazon compares her writing to that of Emily Giffin, who I’ve fallen in love with this year. I’m excited to give this one a try.

So those are my finds this week! Please feel free to share your finds or leave a link to your own “Friday Finds” blog posting below! Happy Friday!

7Mar2015

2015 Book #18 – The Marriage Charm by Linda Lael Miller

Posted in Book reviews, Book series, Bookish Bingo: Jan-March 2015, Brides of Bliss County, Contemporary romance, Reading Challenges by rebeccabook17

Title: The Marriage Charm
Author: Linda Lael Miller
Date finished: 3/7/15
Genre: Contemporary romance
Publisher: HQN Books
Publication Date: January 27, 2015
Pages in book: 297
Stand alone or series: #2 in Brides of Bliss County series

Blurb from the cover:

The women of Bliss County have a pact—to find husbands. The right husbands.
One already has: Hadleigh Stevens, who married rancher Tripp Galloway a few months ago. Now Melody Nolan thinks it’s her turn. Melody has recently found success as a jewelry designer, and her work is the focus of her life. She’s not exactly unhappy, but she wants more. She’s always been attracted to Spence Hogan, the local chief of police, but she’s convinced that Spence, a notorious charmer, isn’t what you’d call husband material.
Spence is a good cop who isn’t scared of anything—except love. And he’s done everything he can to preserve his reputation as a womanizer—a reputation that keeps marriage-minded women, including Melody, at bay. And yet…there’s something about Melody he can’t forget. Something his heart can’t ignore.

My rating: 2.75 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will count towards my “Bookish Bingo” reading challenge, marking off the “Pretty Dress Cover” square. When I saw this book at the store one of my first thoughts was “what a pretty wedding dress that is” so I thought it would fit into this category appropriately for bingo. So this book tells the story of the second girl in a group of three friends. And I can already see that the three girlfriends who have been best friends since they were children are going to magically fall in love with a group of three guy friends. I always find it interest how neat and tidy these things end up sometimes. So Melody and Spencer have a history I guess, she asked him to marry her after one hot and heavy summer when she was 20 and he said no because he didn’t want to ruin her life so then they didn’t talk for 7 years until their best friends got married. Seems realistic right?
So then the wedding throws them in each other’s paths again and then all of a sudden they are running into each other everywhere, even though they’ve managed to pretty much avoid each other for the past seven years. And then they fall in love and stuff. Honestly I was a little disappointed with this one. The conversations all felt unnatural and forced. The plot seemed unrealistic to me. I mean there was like a mystery/suspense aspect thrown in there with the robberies but I felt like it wasn’t really serious through the whole book and why would a master antique thief running an antiquities ring in multiple states care about some small town police chief? Seriously? And why didn’t we get to find out what kind of charm Melody would make for the three girls’ bracelets based on her engagement? THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF THE SERIES! I got to the end and I was like, what about the charm? The book is even CALLED the Marriage CHARM and we don’t get to find out what kind of charm she designates for herself.

The bottom line: I’m fairly neutral on this one. It was a cute story but not too interesting. Don’t think I’d recommend it but also wouldn’t discourage anyone from reading it.

Link to author website
Link to Amazon

4Mar2015

2015 Book #17 – The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen

Posted in Book reviews, Bookish Bingo: Jan-March 2015, Fiction, Magical realism, Reading Challenges by rebeccabook17

Title: The Girl Who Chased the Moon
Author: Sarah Addison Allen
Date finished: 3/3/15
Genre: Fiction, magical realism
Publisher: Bantam Books
Publication Date: March 16, 2010
Pages in book: 269
Stand alone or series: Stand alone

Blurb from the cover:

Emily Benedict came to Mullaby, North Carolina, hoping to solve at least some of the riddles surrounding her mother’s life. Such as, why did Dulcie Shelby leave her hometown so suddenly? And why did she vow never to return? But the moment Emily enters the house where her mother grew up and meets the grandfather she never knew—a reclusive, real-life gentle giant—she realizes that mysteries aren’t solved in Mullaby, they’re a way of life: Here are rooms where the wallpaper changes to suit your mood. Unexplained lights skip across the yard at midnight. And a neighbor bakes hope in the form of cakes.
Everyone in Mullaby adores Julia Winterson’s cakes—which is a good thing, because Julia can’t seem to stop baking them. She offers them to satisfy the town’s sweet tooth but also in the hope of rekindling the love she fears might be lost forever. Flour, eggs, milk, and sugar . . . Baking is the only language the proud but vulnerable Julia has to communicate what is truly in her heart. But is it enough to call back to her those she’s hurt in the past?
Can a hummingbird cake really bring back a lost love? Is there really a ghost dancing in Emily’s backyard? The answers are never what you expect. But in this town of lovable misfits, the unexpected fits right in.

My rating: 4.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will count towards my “Bookish Bingo” reading challenge, marking off the “Magical realism” square. For anyone who doesn’t really understand what the magical realism genre is (because I didn’t really know) its basically when magic is readily accepted in the “rational world” as being normal or accepted. If you’d like to read more about the concept of magical realism as a genre, you can do so here. I really liked this book a lot. It hooked me in almost from the beginning and I couldn’t seem to put it down. Allen has such a talent for writing, as you read her books you can feel the magic in the words leaping off the pages. It is really something special to experience. I loved the plot too, the connection between Julia and Emily. One had given up her daughter a long time ago and the other had just recently lost her mother, both searching for comfort and home. It was a touching and magical (duh) story and I can’t wait to read more by this author.

The bottom line: This was a charming and magical story, I would definitely recommend!

Link to author website
Link to Amazon

25Feb2015

Waiting on Wednesday (6): Garden of Lies by Amanda Quick

Posted in "Waiting On" Wednesday, Book memes, For the love of books by rebeccabook17

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine that spotlights eagerly anticipated upcoming releases.

This week’s spotlight is on:

Garden of Lies by Amanda Quick

Release date: April 21, 2015

Blurb from the cover (Amazon):

The Kern Secretarial Agency provides reliable professional services to its wealthy clientele, and Anne Clifton was one of the finest women in Ursula Kern’s employ. But Miss Clifton has met an untimely end—and Ursula is convinced it was not due to natural causes.
Archaeologist and adventurer Slater Roxton thinks Mrs. Kern is off her head to meddle in such dangerous business. Nevertheless, he seems sensible enough to Ursula, though she does find herself unnerved by his self-possession and unreadable green-gold eyes…
If this mysterious widowed beauty insists on stirring the pot, Slater intends to remain close by as they venture into the dark side of polite society. Together they must reveal the identity of a killer—and to achieve their goal they may need to reveal their deepest secrets to each other as well…

Why am I waiting?

I’m a big Amanda Quick / Jayne Ann Krentz / Jayne Castle fan. I’ve read many of her books under the various pen names and have liked the majority. And I think the description of the books sounds interesting!

Link to author website
Link to Amazon