Beyond Coincidence by Jacquie Underdown (@authoraire) – Review & Raffle

30 September 2014 by Melissa

About the book Beyond Coincidence

Publisher: Escape Publishing – Harlequin Enterprises, Australia Pty Ltd (Sept 1, 2014)
ebook, 220 pages
Beyond Coincidence: Mixing romance, history, and a touch of the unexplained comes a new novel from Jacquie Underdown about love that needs to cross oceans and time before finding a place to come true.

In 2008, 250 Australian and British soldiers are uncovered in a mass grave in Fromelles, France, lost since the Great War. One soldier, bearing the wounds of war so deep it has scarred his soul, cannot be laid to rest just yet.

When Lucy bumps into the achingly sad soldier during a trip to France, she doesn’t, at first glance, realise what he is – a ghost who desperately needs her help. Lucy can’t turn away from someone who needs her, even someone non-corporeal, and they travel back together to Australia in search of answers and, hopefully, some peace.

This chance meeting and unexplainable relationship sets into motion a chain-reaction of delicate coincidences that affect the intertwined lives of family, friends, and lovers in unexpected, beautiful ways.

Buy, read, and discuss Beyond Coincidence

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About the author, Jacquie Underdown

Jacquie resides in hot and steamy Central Queensland, Australia, with her husband and two sons. On permanent hiatus from a profession she doesn’t love, she now spends her time wrapped up in her imagination creating characters and exploring alternative realities.

Jacquie is an author of a number of novels, novellas and short stories that are emotionally driven and possess unique themes beyond the constraints of the physical universe. She strives to offer romance, but with complexity; spirituality, without the religion; and love, with a tantalizing splash of spice.

Her novels express a purpose and offer subtle messages about life, the spirit and, of course, love.

Connect with Jacquie

Blog | Facebook | Twitter

My Thoughts:

I love a good ghost story, and I love a rood romance, so it should come as no surprise that I loved Beyond Coincidence as it combines both. Even better, coffee – my own obsession – is a major theme in the book.

At first Lucy seems like a fairly cookie-cutter romance character, but she quickly becomes much more dimensional, and not only because she can see Freddy, the ghost of a long-dead Australian soldier. I love that she has a dream of opening her own business, and that the author used Lucy’s entrepreneurial spirit in everything she went through in this novel.

Freddy, the ghost, is equally compelling, at once sweet and sorrowful, rugged and wry, with his period slang and big heart. You want to either hug him or slap him on the back and take him out for a friendly drink – or both, but as he lacks corporeal form, one cannot do either. Still, as much as Lucy becomes his champion, he also becomes her protector, as much as he’s able.

And then there’s Nate, the third point in the novel’s triumvirate. He’s Freddy’s descendant, and it becomes obvious very quickly that he and Lucy are going to click, even though our first introduction to him is less than savory. He quickly wins Lucy’s – and our- favor, however, and when he and Freddy join forces, Lucy becomes one of the luckiest women in the world.

Either Freddy’s story or Lucy’s story would make excellent reading fodder, but by combining them author Jacquie Underdown has created something truly special that transcends conventional romance novel tropes. Her plot is solid. Her characters are fantastic. Her use of dialogue is so good that I can hear the Australian accents each character has, and even the nuanced differences in the way each of them speaks.

I would be happy to read more of Lucy and Nate in the future, but I’d be equally happy to discover what comes next.

If you want an entertaining read – perfect for a rainy day, or a long soak in the bath – Beyond Coincidence is an excellent choice.

Goes well with A double latte and lemon pound cake.

This review is part of a blog tour sponsored by TLC Book Tours, who are also hosting a giveaway raffle. See below to enter. For more information, and to see the complete list of tour stops, click HERE.

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Review: Early Decision by Lacy Crawford (@lacy_crawford)

18 September 2014 by Melissa

About the book Early Decision

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; Reprint edition (August 26, 2014)

A delightful and salacious novel about the frightful world of high school, SATs, the college essay, and the Common Application—and how getting in is getting in the way of growing up

Anne Arlington is twenty-seven, single, and in demand: she is the independent “college whisperer” whose name is passed from parent to parent like a winning lottery ticket, the only tutor who can make a difference with the Ivy League.

Early Decision follows one application season and the five students Anne guides to their fates: Hunter, the athletic boy who never quite hits his potential, a kind, heavily defended kid who drives his mother mad; Sadie, an heiress who is perfectly controlled but at the expense of her own heart; William, whose intelligence permits him to dodge his father’s cruel conservatism but can’t solve the problem of loneliness; Alexis, a blazing overachiever whose Midwestern parents have never heard of a tiger mom; and Cristina, who could write her ticket out of her enormous, failing high school, if only she knew how.

Meanwhile, Anne needs a little coaching herself, having learned that even the best college does not teach a person how to make a life.

In this engrossing, intelligent novel, Lacy Crawford delivers an explosive insider’s guide to the secrets of college admissions at the highest levels. It’s also a deft commentary on modern parenting and how the scramble for Harvard is shaping a generation. Told in part through the students’ essays, this unique and witty book is so closely observed that it has been mistaken for a memoir or a how-to guide. A wise and deeply felt story, Early Decision reveals how getting in is getting in the way of growing up.

Buy, read, and discuss Early Decision

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About the author, Lacy Crawford

For fifteen years Lacy Crawford served as a highly discreet independent college admissions counselor to the children of powerful clients in cities such as New York, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and London. Her “day jobs” included serving as senior editor of Narrative magazine and director of the Burberry Foundation. Educated at Princeton and the University of Chicago, Crawford lives in California with her husband and two children.

Connect with Lacy

Website | Twitter

My Thoughts

If you, like me, remember being flooded with college applications in high school, each one more interesting and attractive than the last, then this book, Earl Decision is for you.

The story is fresh and original – instead of a coming of age novel about one kid getting into his or her dream school, it’s a novel about a woman, Anne, who gudes kids toward finding the school that best matches their dreams, allowing both the kids and Anne herself to come of age along the way.

Anne is twenty-seven, but that’s not important. Coming-of-age is something that can be done no matter what age you are. Some of us are still doing it in our forties – figuring out our dreams, our desires, and how they mesh with the prosaic reality of everyday life.

But I digress. What I loved about this novel, was the crisp, contemporary language, and the way Anne adapted her use of language for whatever situation she was in. Talking with a bigwig lawyer, she used more formal speech. Speaking with a lazy high school boy, she turned to soft joking. It’s a skill we all need, and many of us lack.

I also thought the book felt cinematic. I could totally see it as a movie on ABC Family or Lifetime, with a quartet of well-scrubbed twenty-year-olds playing the teenagers and Amy Adams or Allison Mack (has she done any work since Smallville) playing Anne. What I mean is, the places described in this novel felt real. You could feel the air conditioning, hear the lawn mowers, taste the tea.

Finally, I thought the convention of showing us the examples of student essays was fantastic. It took me back to my own high school days, and the endless practice essays our teachers would make us write. (I confess, my default essay mode is a five-paragraph persuasive essay to this day.)

Whether you’re looking at colleges right now, or have a child who is approaching the application frenzy, this novel will entertain and educate, and never disappoint, except when you reach the last page, and realize it’s over.

Goes well with A fruit and cheese plate and mango iced tea.

This review is part of a blog tour sponsored by TLC Book Tours. For more information, and the complete list of tour stops, click HERE.

Review: A Matter of Mercy by Lynne Hugo (@LynneHugo)

2 September 2014 by Melissa

About the book A Matter of Mercy

Paperback: 278 pages
Publisher: Blank Slate Press (August 1, 2014)

Caroline Marcum thought she’d escaped the great mistake of her life by leaving Wellfleet harbor, but is forced to face it when she returns, reluctantly, to care for her dying mother. Ridley Neal put his past-and his prison term-behind him to return home to take over his father’s oyster and clam beds. Casual acquaintances long ago, when a nor’easter hits the coast, Rid and Caroline’s lives intersect once again. When Rid and two other sea farmers are sued by the wealthy owners of vacation homes who want to shut them down, and Caroline accidentally meets the person she most wronged, they each must learn to trust-and love. Inspired by a 1996 lawsuit, A Matter of Mercy is a riveting novel about treasuring the traditional way of life in the shallows of beautiful Cape Cod bay by discovering where forgiveness ends. And where it begins.

Buy, read, and discuss A Matter of Mercy

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About the author, Lynne Hugo

Lynne Hugo is a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship recipient who has also received grants from the Ohio Arts Council and the Kentucky Foundation for Women.

She has published five previous novels, one of which became a Lifetime Original Movie of the Month, two books of poetry, and a children’s book. Her memoir, Where The Trail Grows Faint, won the Riverteeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize.

Born and educated in New England, she and her husband currently live in Ohio with a yellow Lab feared by squirrels in a three state area.

Connect with Lynne

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My Thoughts

I read A Matter of Mercy during a month when I was also attempting to write an produce a podcast every day as part of the Dog Days of Podcasting Challenge, and I have to say, even though emotions run high among the characters, author Lynne Hugo captured the feeling of living on the shore so well, that the novel itself felt restful while I was reading it.

But ‘restful’ should in no way be interpreted as ‘boring.’

The two main characters, Caroline “CiCi” Marcum and Ridley “Rid” Neal are each interesting in their own right, each recovering from a somewhat tumultuous past, and each a little bit cracked around the edges, if not actually broken. Caroline has returned to Wellfleet to see her mother through the older woman’s final days with ovarian cancer. (As someone who watched a dear friend of my mother’s go through just such a disease – there is no cure – those scenes were especially poignant for me). Rid is running the family oyster business. Together, they learn to forgive, to let go, to grab onto something new, and even to find love.

What I really loved about these characters, and all the characters in the novel, is that all of them were richly layered. Even Caroline’s mother, whom we see pretty much entirely cloaked by her cancer, is a vibrant soul, and through Caroline’s rememberances we learn about both women. There’s a flash of memory, early on, where Caroline recalls her mother brushing out her hair, as a child. What mother and daughter haven’t had that same experience?

Likewise the men in the novel are really dimensional. I’m often frustrated by women who write women characters really well, and then turn all the men into cardboard cutouts, but Lynne Hugo is a master of her craft, and every person we meet, friend or foe, local or summer person, feels like a real person.

The novel was, of course, inspired by an actual summerfolk vs. locals lawsuit, as happens wherever people want the shoreline to be more about development, and less about sustainable lifestyles, but while the suit may have been a jumping-off point, it’s clear that Hugo’s work is her very own.

I want to add a note, as well about the author herself. When I received the ARC of this novel, directly from the author, she’d included a bunch of promotional bookmarks and postcards, and a really lovely note apologizing for the sending of an ARC! As well, she signed it, which makes it all the more special.

Bottom line? This is a wonderful, poignant, novel by an extremely classy woman, and you should waste no time reading it. Don’t let the shoreline setting confuse you; this is a year-round novel. It’s not just for summer reading.

Goes well with a raw oyster bar (hello, Ceviche) and a good local microbrew beer.

This review is part of a blog tour sponsored by TLC Book Tours. For more information, and the complete list of tour stops, click HERE.

Review: Camp Utopia and the Forgiveness Diet, by Jenny Ruden

22 August 2014 by Melissa

About Camp Utopia & the Forgiveness Diet

Paperback: 300 pages
Publisher: Koehler Books (July 1, 2014)

Sixteen-year-old Baltimore teen Bethany Stern knows the only way out of spending her summer at Camp Utopia, a fat camp in Northern California, is weight-loss. Desperate, she tries The Forgiveness Diet, the latest fad whose infomercial promises that all she has to do is forgive her deadbeat dad, her scandalous sister, and the teenage magician next door and (unrequited) love of her life. But when the diet fails and her camp nemesis delivers the ultimate blow, Bee bids sayonara to Camp-not-Utopian-at-all to begin what she believes will be her “real” summer adventure, only to learn that running away isn’t as easy—or as healing—as it seems.

Her wry and honest voice bring humor and poignancy for anyone, fat or thin, tired of hearing “you’d be so pretty if…[insert unwelcome judgment about your appearance from loved one or perfect stranger].”

Buy, read, and discuss Camp Utopia & the Forgiveness Diet

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About the author, Jenny Ruden

Jenny Ruden has published short stories and essays in Nerve, Salon, Eclectica Magazine, Literary Mama and High Desert Journal. She won an Orlando award for creative nonfiction, was named a finalist in Glimmertrain’s short fiction contest, and has been nominated for the Pushcart prize two years in a row.

She has worked with teenagers for over ten years as a teacher of Reading, Writing and GED, and has an MFA in Fiction from the University of Oregon. She lives with her husband, two daughters, two basset hounds and cat in Albuquerque, New Mexico

Connect with Jenny

Website | Facebook | Twitter

My Thoughts

Camp Utopia & the Forgiveness Diet is everything I needed to read when I was fourteen, and sixteen, and twenty-one. It’s fresh, funny, and grounded in a heightened reality that never takes itself too seriously.

Protagonist Bethany is painfully real, depicted at the age when so many of us were battling the desire to conform to peer-defined norms with the equally strong urges to be true to ourselves. She faces the world with a combination of spunk and sadness, idealism and naivete that make her pop out from the pages and seem as if she’s recounting her story from across the kitchen table. So much did I feel for her, that I wanted to pull her into a hug, and assure her that things would eventually get better, even if she never lost an ounce.

While her sister (and her sister’s boyfriend) were also interesting characters, it is TJ, the boy-magician next door, who really captured my attention. How many of us have just such an unrequited love in our lives, even today. How many of us have done stupid things in an attempt to seem bolder, more interesting, more attractive?

Jenny Ruden has written a story that is part comedy, part drama, and wholly true, in the way that the best stories always are. Maybe you can’t lose weight by writing names on pieces of paper, but you can gain a stronger perspective of who you really are in the world by reading this novel.

Goes well with a plate of apples, strong cheddar cheese, and a handful of cashews, and a glass of peach iced tea.

This review is part of a blog tour sponsored by TLC Book Tours. For more information, and the complete list of tour stops, click HERE.

Review: Games Divas Play, by Angela Burt-Murray

28 July 2014 by Melissa

About the book Games Divas Play

Series: A Diva Mystery Novel (Book 1)
Paperback: 340 pages
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer (July 29, 2014)

The former Editor-in Chief of Essence magazine, Angela Burt-Murrary’s new novel takes readers inside the high-stakes world of professional basketball—where everyone plays to win. In GAMES DIVAS PLAY, the first book in the Diva Mystery Series, Burt-Murray introduces an ambitious entertainment reporter battling backstabbing colleagues and reeling from murderous threats, the desperate wife of NBA star Marcus King, who’s as popular with the ladies as he is with hoops fans, and a scandalous groupie shopping a reality show based on her affair with Marcus. These three women soon learn what it really takes to stay on top when they engage in a ruthless battle for love and the limelight. GAMES DIVAS PLAY is a juicy, gossipy, and flat-out fun read; James Patterson meets Real Housewives of Atlanta.

Buy, read, and discuss Games Divas Play

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About the author, Angela Burt-Murray

Angela Burt-Murray is the cofounder and editorial director of Cocoa Media Group, cohost of the talk show Exhale, and coauthor of two previous books, The Vow and The Angry Black Woman’s Guide to Life. She was formerly the editor-in-chief of Essence magazine, where she was the recipient of numerous honors. Her work is regularly featured in such publications as Ebony, Parenting, and Heart & Soul. She lives in Atlanta with her husband and two sons.

My Thoughts

It’s not often that you come across a mystery that is also funny and sassy, but Games Divas Play is all three. From the very first page, the reader is thrust into the action, witnessing a murder in progress, and from there, the three women at the core of the novel, Nia, Vanessa, and Laila, take us on a fast-paced journey that feels like you’re riding a roller-coaster and shopping for designer shoes at the same time.

I have to confess that Nia was my favorite character, possibly because when I’m not doing book reviews, I interview a lot of celebrities for my day job, and I know how hard it is to build trustworthy connections with publicists, agents, and managers. That said, Vanessa and Laila were no less interesting, and no less dimensional. These women were all people you could easily run into during your life.

Similarly the supporting characters were well-rounded and believable, though my favorite was the fabulous MJ, Nia’s flamingly gay assistant. With this character author Burt-Murray stays just this side of caricature, and I know this to be true, because I’ve worked with versions of MJ for most of my life.

The plot of the novel, especially the mystery, was well-crafted, with a nice balance of information, action, and intrigue. I was kept guessing til the very end, which I found to be satisfying in every way.

This novel is the first in a series, and I’m looking forward to finding out what happens in the next book.

Goes well with Cocktails and coconut shrimp.

This review is part of a blog tour hosted by TLC Book Tours, who provided me with an ARC of the novel in exchange for my review. For more information, and to see the entire list of tour stops, visit the tour page by clicking HERE.

Review: Painting Juliana, by Martha Louise Hunter

17 June 2014 by Melissa

About the book, Painting Juliana

Hardcover: 362 pages
Publisher: Goldminds Publishing, LLC (May 20, 2014)

A young girl’s terrifying nightmare, five mysterious oil paintings and a red, flaming firebird all carry the same message:

Stand still, look up and let the funnel cloud suck you up inside.

It’s the last thing Juliana Birdsong wants to hear. Now a woman who’s losing everything, she’s still running from the dream, and it’s catching up fast. When her Alzheimer’s-stricken father’s canvases come to life exposing secrets, heartbreak and yearnings that mirror her own, Juliana discovers that some memories can be a blessing to forget.

Hit with devastating loss and betrayals, her old life stripped away, Juliana has no choice but to call on the person who’s never helped her before. Steering the chrome handlebars of a vintage motorcycle down a long, tapering highway, she must face her defining moment. It’s the only way she’ll gain the strength and courage to begin painting Juliana.

Buy, read, and discuss:

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About the author, Martha Louise Hunter

Martha Louise Hunter has an English degree from the University of Texas. After writing magazine features, working in politics and owning homebuilding and interior design companies, she now has an estate jewelry collection, www.marthasjewelrycase.com.

With four children between them, she and her husband, David live in Austin, Texas. This is her first novel.

Painting Juliana was awarded finalist in the Writers League of Texas Mainstream Fiction Contest.

Connect with Martha

Website | Blog

My Thoughts

As the daughter of a type-A, independent woman who is also a staunch feminist, and as someone who is all those things herself, it’s always a little bit difficult for me to empathize with the kind of women, who, like the Juliana we meet at the beginning of this novel, sublimate all their dreams and desires and let their husbands rule their lives.

For the first few chapters, then, I wanted to grab the lead character and shake some sense into her.

Then my mad “willful suspension of disbelief” skills took over, and I was able to simply experience her story, which is wonderfully told by author Martha Louise Hunter.

I particularly liked Juliana’s interactions with her Alzheimer’s-stricken father, and with her brother and his partner. Those two (three) relationships helped form the picture of how Juliana became the woman we first encounter, but also let us see that she really did have a core of steel, just just needed to use it.

Weaving through the novel was Juliana’s discovery of her father’s artwork, and her response to it, and her eventual assistance in giving him his art back, because while her father was painting pictures, it was very clear that Juliana was painting herself a whole new life.

Hunter’s characters and dialogue never felt flat or false, and even though I initially didn’t particularly like Juliana, I found myself rooting for her in the end, and even applauding her ballsy-est moves.

If you want a great summer read that has a bit more depth than the typical “beach novel,” but isn’t asking you to remember chunks of European history in order to follow the plot, and if you enjoy reading about adult women who reinvent themselves, this novel should appeal to you.

Goes well with anything Tex-Mex and a pitcher of margaritas.

This review is part of a blog tour sponsored by TLC Book Tours, who provided me with a copy of the book. For more information, and the list of tour stops, click HERE.

Review: Bee Summers, by Melanie Dugan

10 June 2014 by Melissa

About the book, Bee Summers

The spring she is eleven years old, Melissa Singer’s mother walks out of the house and never returns. That summer her father, a migratory beekeeper, takes her along with him on his travels. The trip and the people she meets change her life. Over the years that follow, Melissa tries to unlock the mystery of her mother’s disappearance and struggles to come to terms with her loss.

Buy, read, discuss

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About the author, Melanie Dugan

Melanie Dugan is the author of Dead Beautiful (“the writing is gorgeous,” A Soul Unsung), Revising Romance, and Sometime Daughter.

Born in San Francisco, Dugan has lived in Boston, Toronto, and London, England, and has worked in almost every part of the book world: in libraries and bookstores, as a book reviewer; she was Associate Publisher at Quarry Press, where she also served as managing editor of Poetry Canada Review and Quarry Magazine. She has worked in journalism, as a freelancer, and as visual arts columnist. Dugan studied at the University of Toronto Writers Workshop and the Banff Centre for the Arts, and has a post-graduate degree in Creative Writing from Humber College. She has done numerous public readings.

Her short stories have been shortlisted for several awards. She lives in Kingston, Ontario with her partner and their two sons.

Connect with Melanie

Website | Blog

My Thoughts

First of all, it’s kind of weird reading a novel written in first person about a person who shares your first name. True, the Melissa in this novel is called “Lissy” by most people, but even so, I was always the slightly out of place, voracious reader, and as such I really identified with her, except that I never lost my mother – in any sense. That aside, I was instantly drawn into Lissy’s story. My own childhood involved moving (and changing schools) roughly every eighteen months, so her sense of displacement, especially the first summer she traveled with her father, was familiar to me, and helped draw me further in.

The story itself was compelling, both in seeing the way Lissy grew and changed – going from lost child, to accomplished adult – and also in the evolution of er relationships, not only with her father, but with the array of characters they encountered on their bee-related excursions, and the way those connections formed a whole picture, once you had enough distance to see it from the right perspective.

Bee Summers is a thoroughly engaging novel, that, while sad in places, is also incredibly satisfying and really real.

Goes well with peanut butter and banana sandwiches, drizzled with honey, and fresh, cold milk.

This review is part of a blog tour organized by the lovely folks at TLC Book Tours, who also provided me with a copy of the book. For more information, or the complete list of tour stops, click HERE.

Review: Cutting Teeth, by Julia Fierro

5 June 2014 by Melissa

About the book, Cutting Teeth

Hardcover: 336 pages

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press (May 13, 2014)

One of the most anticipated debut novels of 2014, Cutting Teeth takes place one late-summer weekend as a group of thirty-something couples gather at a shabby beach house on Long Island, their young children in tow.

Nicole, the hostess, struggles to keep her OCD behaviors unnoticed. Stay-at-home dad Rip grapples with the reality that his careerist wife will likely deny him a second child, forcing him to disrupt the life he loves. Allie, one half of a two-mom family, can’t stop imagining ditching her wife and kids in favor of her art. Tiffany, comfortable with her amazing body but not so comfortable in the upper-middle class world the other characters were born into, flirts dangerously, and spars with her best friend Leigh, a blue blood secretly facing financial ruin and dependent on the magical Tibetan nanny everyone else covets. Throughout the weekend, conflicts intensify and painful truths surface. Friendships and alliances crack, forcing the house party to confront a new order.

Cutting Teeth is about the complex dilemmas of early midlife—the vicissitudes of friendship, of romantic and familial love, and of sex. It’s about class tension, status hunger, and the unease of being in possession of life’s greatest bounty while still wondering, is this as good as it gets? And, perhaps most of all, Julia Fierro’s warm and unpretentious debut explores the all-consuming love we feel for those we need most, and the sacrifice and compromise that underpins that love.

Buy, read, discuss

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About the author, Julia Fierro

Julia Fierro’s debut novel, Cutting Teeth, was listed as one of the “Most Anticipated Books of 2014” by HuffPost Books, The Millions, Flavorwire, Brooklyn Magazine, and Marie Claire. Her work has been published, or is forthcoming, in Guernica, Ploughshares, Poets & Writers, Glamour, and other publications, and she has been profiled in the L Magazine, The Observer, and The Economist.

Connect with Julia

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My Thoughts

Julia Fierro is an awesome writer.

I know that sounds really flippant, but seriously, she’s created this group of “mommies,” – a bunch of women, and one man – who are largely unlikeable, self-entitled, damaged people, and managed to make their lives and stories not only seem interesting, but in the process also made them into characters we can care about.

As a child-free woman in her early forties, I’m pretty certain Cutting Teeth was not written with me in mind, and, in truth, I found myself wanting to knock some sense into these people, make them wake up and realize that while their children really are not the little princes and princesses of the world, they are, in fact, actual (very small, unformed) people, and should be treated accordingly.

I also had to fight urges to crawl into the book and remind these women that it’s unhealthy (and kind of annoying) when women describe themselves as Moms or Mommies first, and only talk about their careers or the rest of their interests as things they squeeze in around the child. (This tendency annoys me in real life, as well.)

If these two statements make it seem like I didn’t “like” this book, you’re misreading. I did like it. I liked it well enough that even though I felt rather like a bug-eyed alien looking into a strange, new, world, I could accept these characters as people who could exist outside the scope of their pages.

And speaking of pages, Julia Fierro crafts an excellent story. The constant changing of POV means we get to see the way each character perceives herself, and the way each of them is perceived by the others. As well, while the women are incredibly three-dimensional, she did a good job of not making the men interchangeable hipsters or guys in pastel golf shirts and khakis (a peeve of mine that often comes up around this type of year.) Rip, the father in the group of “mommies,” Michael, and Josh are all just as dimensional as the women in their lives.

And yes, these people are largely unlikeable, so it’s pretty amazing that you end up feeling for them at the end. Cutting Teeth has struck the sweet spot of summer reading. Fast-paced enough to take to the beach, it’s also meaty enough to really sink your teeth into (no pun intended). Read it. You might find yourself shaking your fist at the characters, but you won’t be disappointed in the story.

Goes well with homemade lemonade and tuna-fish sandwiches. Followed by cocktails.

This review is part of a blog tour sponsored by TLC Book Tours. For more information, and the complete list of tour stops, click HERE.

Review: Vintage, by Susan Gloss

2 April 2014 by Melissa

About the book, Vintage

Vintage

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow (March 25, 2014)

At Hourglass Vintage in Madison, Wisconsin, every item in the boutique has a story to tell . . . and so do the women whose lives the store touches.

Yellow Samsonite suitcase with ivory, quilted lining, 1950s

A small-town girl with a flair for fashion, Violet Turner had always dreamed of owning a shop like Hourglass Vintage. But while she values the personal history behind each beautiful item she sells, Violet is running from her own past. Faced with the possibility of losing the store to an unscrupulous developer, she realizes that despite her usual self-reliance she cannot save it alone.

Taffeta tea-length wedding gown with scooped neckline and cap sleeves, 1952

Eighteen-year-old April Morgan is nearly five months along in an unplanned pregnancy when her hasty engagement is broken. When she returns the perfect vintage wedding dress to Violet’s shop, she discovers a world of new possibilities, and an unexpected sisterhood with women who won’t let her give up on her dreams.

Orange silk sari with gold paisley design, 1968

Betrayed by her husband, Amithi Singh begins selling off her vibrant Indian dresses, remnants of a life she’s determined to leave behind her. After decades of housekeeping and parenting a daughter who rejects her traditional ways, she fears her best days are behind her . . . until she discovers an outlet for her creativity and skills with a needle and thread.

An engaging story that beautifully captures the essence of friendship and style,Vintage is a charming tale of possibility, of finding renewal, love, and hope when we least expect it.

Read and Discuss Vintage

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About the author, Susan Gloss

Susan Gloss

Susan Gloss is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and the University of Wisconsin Law School. When she’s not writing fiction, Susan can be found working as an attorney, blogging at GlossingOverIt.com, or hunting for vintage treasures for her Etsy shop, Cleverly Curated. She lives with her family in Madison, Wisconsin.

Connect with Susan

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My Thoughts

I remember exploring all the different closets in my grandmother’s house – her bedroom, the guest room, the wardrobe in the middle bedroom – taking out dresses from different periods, trying them on, clacking around in too-big shoes, and too-long necklaces. Vintage isn’t about that, but it had the same soft-focus feel.

Violet, the owner of Hourglass Vintage, struck me as being a person I’d love to have a coffee with, while Karen, her lawyer/friend with a nursing baby struck me as the person I sometimes (but not often) wish I was. April, the young teenaged) woman who comes into Violet’s life first by buying, then returning a vintage wedding dress is a bright soul, and reminds me very much of the daughters of some of my friends.

This feeling was enhanced by the author’s decision to open each chapter with the profile of a vintage garment or accessory, each of which is related to the overall story. It makes you feel like you’re in Violet’s store, looking at the items she has for sale.

It is this easy familiarity that is part of the reason Vintage is such a great read. From the first page, I was enchanted, as well as slightly regretful that in the years we lived in South Dakota, we never managed to visit any part of Wisconsin – including Madison – except for an accidental detour into Eau Claire on the way to Minnapolis. (There were cornfields involved. It was a thing.) As I wrote to author Susan Gloss in a comment on her blog (see link above), her writing voice makes you feel like you’re chatting with an old friend.

And let’s not underestimate Gloss’s nuanced tone. This story could have gone to extremes, becoming either maudlin or saccharine-sweet, but it didn’t. It has elements of romance, yes, but it reads like the best contemporary fiction. The relationships, both the friendships between women of different generations, and the romantic relationships with men, feel completely organic and believable.

This is not a book to rush through, although it is a fast read. Instead, it’s a novel to be savored, preferably while wearing a vintage outfit and your grandmother’s ancient pearls.

Goes well with: Hot tea with lemon and cucumber sandwiches.

This review is part of a virtual book tour sponsored by TLC Book Tours. For more information about Vintage, by Susan Gloss, visit the tour page by clicking here.

Review: The Gods of Heavenly Punishment by Jennifer Cody Epstein

5 February 2014 by Melissa

About the book, The Gods of Heavenly Punishment

The Gods of Heavenly Punishment

One summer night in prewar Japan, eleven-year-old Billy Reynolds takes snapshots at his parent’s dinner party. That same evening his father Anton–a prominent American architect–begins a torrid affair with the wife of his master carpenter. A world away in New York, Cameron Richards rides a Ferris Wheel with his sweetheart and dreams about flying a plane. Though seemingly disparate moments, they will all draw together to shape the fate of a young girl caught in the midst of one of WWII’s most horrific events–the 1945 firebombing of Tokyo.

Exquisitely-rendered, The Gods of Heavenly Punishment tells the stories of families on both sides of the Pacific: their loves and infidelities, their dreams and losses–and their shared connection to one of the most devastating acts of war in human history.

Buy a copy:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble

About the author, Jennifer Cody Epstein

Jennifer Cody Epstein

Jennifer Cody Epstein is the author of The Gods of Heavenly Punishment and the international bestseller The Painter from Shanghai. She has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Asian Wall Street Journal, Self, Mademoiselle and NBC, and has worked in Hong Kong, Japan and Bangkok, Thailand.

Jennifer lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband, two daughters and especially needy Springer Spaniel.

Connect with Jennifer

Website | Facebook

My Thoughts

While I’m not typically a fan of historical fiction, I make exceptions for recent history. The recent acquisition of a scrapbook my grandfather made when he was stationed in Hawaii in the 1930s had sparked my interest in the period just before and during World War II, and when I was offered The Gods of Heavenly Punishment to read and review, it seemed like a sign, especially since so much of the literature about that period is so Eurocentric.

This book, however, is a refreshing change from the usual, both because of the subject, and because it tells such an earthy, gritty, human story. We meet three boys in different parts of the world, and we revisit them during their lives, as tragedy occurs, finally saying goodbye to the last of them as a grown man.

We meet the girls and women who dance in and out of the boys’ lives, and they are as dimensional, as fully-realized as any lead characters in any work, despite not being on ‘center stage.

Even though we know the bare facts of history, there are thousands of stories, some separate, some interconnected, and Epstein weaves her fiction into the historical context with deftness and grace. From the opening chapters – a boy kissing a girl on a Ferris wheel, another boy snapping pictures with his brand new camera – to the closing ones – a man confronting the truth of his fathers actions toward another, a woman seeing treasured photos of her parents – we are treated to beautiful human moments that pull us away from the brutal atrocities of war.

I won’t pretend that some aspects of The Gods of Heavenly Punishment aren’t difficult. They are, and they should be. War isn’t clean and pretty. War stories shouldn’t be either.

But the book is still hauntingly beautiful and achingly poignant, and I found myself emerging from it with a deeper sense of history.