Tag Archives: women’s fiction

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

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About Camp Utopia & the Forgiveness Diet 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

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.

TLC Book Tours

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 Better Place, by Barbara Hall

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About the book A Better Place A Better Place

Print Length: 270 pages
Publisher: Open Road Media (July 1, 2014)

A Southern novel in the tradition of Anne Tyler and Anne Rivers Siddons, A Better Place marks the adult fiction debut of one of television’s most successful and creative writers

In an attempt to discover why her life hasn’t worked out the way she had hoped it would, Valerie Caldwell returns to the Southern town she left twelve years earlier to visit her old haunts and two friends from her school days, Tess and Mary Grace—much to their alarm and chagrin.

Buy, read, and discuss A Better Place
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About the author, Barbara Hall Barbara Hall

To TV audiences she may be better known as a four-time Emmy-nominated writer and producer (Joan of Arcadia, Judging Amy) and the co-Executive Producer of Homeland, but to avid readers she’s a novelist with 11 published works whose imagination has been honored by numerous institutions, including the American Library Association in both their Best Books and Notable Books categories.

An accomplished author, Hall wrote three young adult novels including: Skeeball and the Secret of the Universe, Dixie Storms and Fool’s Hill, as well as the mystery House Across the Cove. Her other novels include A Better Place, Close to Home and A Summons to New Orleans.

Connect with Barbara

Twitter

My Thoughts

From time to time, I get invitations from NetGalley to review books, and from time to time I take them up on the offer. After all, free books are never bad.

Anyway, I finished reading this book today, while fighting a migraine, completely convinced it was something I committed to for one of the blog tour sponsors I work with, only to realize it actually wasn’t, which is good, since I’m writing this review at ten pm.

I loved the book! It’s author Barbara Hall’s first foray out of YA and into contemporary adult literature (according to what I read in Publisher’s Weekly, and it’s the perfect novel for a lazy summer’s day. The characters are the kinds of southern women you expect to find in a small town, and their dialogue never felt at all unreal.

Likewise the theme of the novel – the romanticizing of home and youth – is a universal one, and one that I, at an age significantly older than the characters in this novel, am still prone to engage in.

But there’s another theme, one the main character Valerie brings up about a third of the way into the book: Everyone wants their life to have a story.

It was that thought that really made the rest of the novel sing for me, because I think it’s completely true.

Comparisons to Anne Rivers Siddons are actually pretty spot on, in tone if not in detail, and I look forward to more of Halls work in this genre, though I’ve never been opposed to reading YA even though the Y part still applies to me.

Goes well with Sweet tea and chicken salad.

Review: The Little Women Letters, by Gabrielle Donnelly

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About the book, The Little Women Letters The Little Women Letters

USA TODAY sings that “Fans of Louisa May Alcott can rejoice” thanks to this charming and uplifting story of the imagined lives of three of Jo March’s passionate, spirited descendants—that’s Jo March from Little Women!

With her older sister, Emma, planning a wedding and her younger sister, Sophie, preparing to launch a career on the London stage, Lulu can’t help but feel like the failure of the Atwater family. Lulu loves her sisters dearly and wants nothing but the best for them, but she finds herself stuck in a rut, working dead-end jobs with no romantic prospects in sight.

Then Lulu stumbles across a collection of letters written by her great-great-grandmother Josephine March. As she delves deeper into the lives and secrets of the March sisters, she finds solace and guidance, but can the words of her great-great-grandmother help Lulu find a place for herself in a world so different from the one Jo knew?

As uplifting and essential as Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Gabrielle Donnelly’s novel will speak to anyone who’s ever fought with a sister, fallen in love with a fabulous pair of shoes, or wondered what on earth life had in store for her.

Buy, read, and discuss The Little Women Letters

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About the author, Gabrielle Donnelly (from her website) Gabrielle Donnelly

Gabrielle Donnelly was born in London and has known that she wanted to be a writer for as long as she can remember. She read, wrote, and daydreamed her way through grammar school in North London and to a Bachelor of Arts degree from London University; when she was 22, she got her first job as a reporter in the London office of the DC Thompson newspaper The Weekly News; she has made her living as a journalist ever since.

In 1980, realizing that she had lived for all of her life in London and deciding that she should probably at least briefly experience living somewhere else before it was too late, she moved to Los Angeles for a six-month-long working vacation. She has never returned. She writes about show business for a variety of British magazines and newspapers, and, as a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, votes every year for the Golden Globe Awards.

The Little Women Letters is Gabrielle’s fifth novel. Previously, Holy Mother, Faulty Ground, and All Done With Mirrors were printed in Britain by Victor Gollancz; The Girl In The Photograph was printed in America by Penguin Putnam. The Little Women Letters is the first to be published in both countries, and she says it is the one she has had by far the most fun writing.

A committed singleton throughout her twenties and thirties, she surprised herself and everyone else at over forty by falling madly in love with and marrying Los Angeles-born computer specialist Owen Bjornstad. They live in Los Angeles in a spectacularly untidy house a couple of miles from the ocean, and make each other laugh a very great deal.

Gabrielle is a Corporator of Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House Museum in Concord, Massachusetts.

Connect with Gabrielle

Website | Facebook

I don’t remember how I heard of The Little Women letters, but it might have appeared on my radar (bookdar?) around Christmas, after watching The March Sisters at Christmas and finding a forum thread talking about other contemporary interpretations of Alcott’s classic story.

I didn’t actually buy my copy until March (we got our check from the class action suit against a certain bookseller named after a river and a tribe of warrior women, and bought a ton of kindle books), but I read it in one sitting on a blustery spring day, and really enjoyed the experience.

At first, I thought it was an odd choice to have only three sisters instead of the expected four, but it made sense in the end. I also liked the twist of Lulu (the Jo surrogate) following a path slightly different than what the reader – at least this reader – was led to expect.

Overall, this is a lovely, entertaining read about fully-fleshed-out, smart, interesting young women, and the convention of treating the source material as if it were real works wonderfully.

Nothing ever seems hokey, and nothing is ever too sweet or too perfect, despite the ultimate happy ending.

Goes well with hot tea and apple crumble.

Review: Painting Juliana, by Martha Louise Hunter

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About the book, Painting Juliana 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:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Add to Goodreads

About the author, Martha Louise Hunter 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.

TLC Book Tours

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: Cutting Teeth, by Julia Fierro

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About the book, Cutting Teeth Cutting Teeth by Julia Fierro

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

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.

TLC Book Tours

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: Driving Lessons, by Zoe Fishman

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About the book, Driving Lessons

Driving Lessons by Zoe Fishman

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (April 8, 2014)

Sometimes life’s most fulfilling journeys begin without a map.

An executive at a New York cosmetics firm, Sarah has had her fill of the interminable hustle of the big city. When her husband, Josh, is offered a new job in suburban Virginia, it feels like the perfect chance to shift gears.

While Josh quickly adapts to their new life, Sarah discovers that having time on her hands is a mixed blessing. Without her everyday urban struggles, who is she? And how can she explain to Josh, who assumes they are on the same page, her ambivalence about starting a family?

It doesn’t help that the idea of getting behind the wheel—an absolute necessity of her new life—makes it hard for Sarah to breathe. It’s been almost twenty years since she’s driven, and just the thought of merging is enough to make her teeth chatter with anxiety. When she signs up for lessons, she begins to feel a bit more like her old self again, but she’s still unsure of where she wants to go.

Then a crisis involving her best friend lands Sarah back in New York—a trip to the past filled with unexpected truths about herself, her dear friend, and her seemingly perfect sister-in-law . . . and an astonishing surprise that will help her see the way ahead.

Read and discuss Driving Lessons

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Add Driving Lessons to GoodReads

About the author, Zoe Fishman

Zoe Fishman

Zoe Fishman is the author of Balancing Acts and Saving Ruth. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband and son.

Connect with Zoe

Website | Facebook | Twitter

My Thoughts

In many ways, Sarah reminds me of me when I first left the San Francisco Bay area of California and moved to South Dakota, where I married my husband. My big move happened at the very dawn of our marriage, but after returning to California three years later, we moved to Texas during our tenth year of marriage, and I faced many of the same issues Sarah did: redefining my career, learning to live in a place where public transportation simply does not exist, and learning to fit into a culture that was vastly different from what I was accustomed to.

It’s for this reason that I identified with Sarah so much, even feeling a bit of envy when she realized she was pregnant (we have dogs, but no human children). She read like a real person to me, one I’d have loved to meet for coffee or sushi some afternoon.

All of the other characters were well-drawn as well. I particularly enjoyed Ray the driving instructor, and Sarah’s sweet husband, Josh. While the latter was not on very many pages, he reminded me very strongly of my own sweet, gentle, incredibly patient husband.

As to the novel itself, it is a shining example of what contemporary women’s fiction can be: laughter through tears, humor that comes from life, and characters who aren’t all either twenty-somethings in stilettos or older married women who hate their lives. In fact, reading this book felt like visiting a small town for a few days – you’re welcomed like family, but no one makes you feel bad when it’s time to leave.

I haven’t read any of Zoe Fishman’s other work, but if Driving Lessons is anything to judge by, I’m sure I’d love everything she writes.

Goes well withBBQ brisket, potato salad, and iced sweet tea.

TLC Book Tours

This post is part of a virtual book tour hosted by TLC Book Tours. For more information, or the complete list of tour stops, click here.

Review: Vintage, by Susan Gloss

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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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Add VINTAGE to GoodReads

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

Web | Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter

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.

TLC Book Tours

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

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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:

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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.

TLC Book Tours

This review is part of a virtual book tour. For more information, visit the tour page by clicking here.

Review & First Chapter: Maggie’s Turn by Deanna Lynn Sletten

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About the book, Maggie’s Turn

Maggie's Turn

Maggie Harrison is a devoted wife and mother, always putting the needs of her family ahead of her own. Then, one day, without planning to, she drives away, leaving behind an indifferent husband and two sulking teenagers. Maggie goes off on a quest of self-exploration, enjoying adventures, meeting new people, and rediscovering her passions. For the first time in years, she dreams about what she wants out of life, and she realizes that her deteriorating marriage can no longer continue as it is. Can she and Andrew repair their floundering relationship, or is their marriage over?

Andrew Harrison likes his life to be in perfect order. He enjoys his work and status in the community, leaving Maggie to take care of everything at home. He knows his marriage isn’t perfect, but after twenty-three years and two kids, whose marriage is? When Maggie leaves without a word, he is forced to start paying more attention to his home life and his almost grown children, and he begins to do a little self-exploration of his own. Slowly, he begins to understand what drove Maggie away, and how important she is in his life. Is it too late to resolve their differences and save their marriage? Or will Andrew lose Maggie forever

Buy a copy from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

About the author, Deanna Lynn Sletten

Deanna Lynn Sletten

Deanna Lynn Sletten writes women’s fiction and romance novels that dig deeply into the lives of the characters, giving the reader an in-depth look into their hearts and souls. She has also written one middle-grade novel that takes you on the adventure of a lifetime.

Deanna’s romance novel, Memories, was a semifinalist in The Kindle Book Review’s Best Indie Books of 2012. Her novel, Sara’s Promise, was a semifinalist in The Kindle Book Review’s Best Indie Books of 2013 and a finalist in the 2013 National Indie Excellence Book Awards.

Deanna is married and has two grown children. When not writing, she enjoys walking the wooded trails around her northern Minnesota home with her beautiful Australian Shepherd or relaxing in the boat on the lake in the summer.

Her latest book is the contemporary women’s fiction, Maggie’s Turn.

Connect with Deanna

Website: Deanna Lynn Sletten, author
Facebook: Deanna Lynn Sletten
Twitter: @deannalsletten

My Thoughts

I jumped at the chance to read Deanna Lynn Sletten’s novel Maggie’s Turn because it’s so rare to find a story about an adult woman that doesn’t begin with her involvement with either a murder attempt or a torrid affair, and I’m glad I did, because in many ways, I feel this book was written just for me.

Okay, I don’t have Maggie’s two kids (mine all have four feet and fur), and my husband works from home, so when he says he has to work late, that just means I bring him a mug of soup, but I know all too well how it feels to find yourself in the middle of a marriage that’s happy on the surface, but leaves you somewhat diminished.

I also know what it’s like to want to run away from home. “Let’s blow off life and go traipsing around Europe,” I often wistfully tease my closest girlfriends. “Or teach improv in a progressive school in Colorado.” They know it’s mostly a joke, but there’s always the possibility. (As it is, I run off to Baja Sur, Mexico, a couple of times a year.)

Deanna Lynn Stetten makes it clear, however, that Maggie is not a victim of any kind. We see that her life, in the beginning of the novel, is the result of choices, both made and unmade, and opinions both spoken and not.

Likewise, we are privileged to see Maggie, not rescued by a man (although she does meet at least one very interesting man), but rescued by herself.

There’s an old adage, “If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t no one is.” I’ve learned through many of the people I’ve interviewed that being happy isn’t enough. You have to put yourself first, as a whole person. You have to acknowledge that ‘mother’ and ‘wife’ (and daughter, sister, friend, volunteer, writer, artist, whatever) are not your whole self, but that each role you play is one aspect of your life. Then you have to model this for others – you can’t teach fulfillment and self-esteem, but you can demonstrate them.

In Maggie’s Turn, we see what happens when Mama – Maggie – ain’t happy, even if the root of that unhappiness is somewhat indefinable, but we also get to see what happens when she is.

More to the point, we see this through richly drawn characters who feel as much like aspects of ourselves as they do real people. Maggie, especially, is so real, so vivid, but so is her husband, her children, and people like “Wild Bill” whom she meets on her journey.

As I said, I’m not a soccer mom with two kids, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t made choices that sometimes put family before fulfillment in my own life. Maggie’s Turn was a well-written, entertaining, novel, but it was also an object lesson in finding, if not happiness, then at least contentment.

Well done, Ms. Sletten. Well done.

Goes well with A latte laced with cinnamon and nutmeg, and a slice of freshly baked pumpkin bread.

Read the first chapter of Maggie’s Turn

It had not been a good morning at the Harrison household. At least not for Maggie. Her nineteen-year-old son, Kyle, had slept in late, which meant he was late showering and would be late to one of the four college courses he was intent upon failing. Because he was running behind, her fourteen-year-old daughter, Kaia, was late getting ready for school, which meant Maggie’s husband, Andrew, had to rush to shower for work. And, of course, Maggie had to rush too since she was always the last person to use the bathroom.

Kaia was pouting and stomping around, because she’d wanted to get to school early to “hang” with her friends. Kyle rolled his eyes as he went out the door to his rusted pickup truck, mumbling that it really didn’t matter if he made it to class or not. And Andrew ran through his schedule with Maggie as he rushed out the door to work.

“Remember, I have a seven o’clock meeting tonight, so make sure dinner is on time so I’m not late,” he instructed Maggie and was gone a second later.

All Maggie had time for was one long sigh as she slipped a light sweater over her head, pulled on khaki pants, and grabbed her short, red wool jacket and purse, then ran out the door, hoping Kaia wouldn’t be late for school.

Click to continue reading the first chapter of MAGGIE’S TURN

Review: Buying In by Laura Hemphill

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About the book, Buying In:

Buying In

Bright, ambitious Sophie Landgraf has landed a job as a Wall Street analyst. The small-town girl finally has her ticket to the American elite, but she doesn’t realize the toll it will take—on her boyfriend, on her family, and on her. It isn’t long before Sophie is floundering in this male-dominated world, and things are about to get worse.

With the financial crisis looming, Sophie becomes embroiled in a multi-billion-dollar merger that could make or break her career. The problem? Three men at the top of their game, each with very different reasons for advancing the merger. Now Sophie doesn’t know who to trust—or how far she’ll go to get ahead.

Set inside the high-stakes world of finance, Manhattan’s after-hours clubs, and factories in the Midwest and India, this is the high-powered, heartfelt story of a young woman finding her footing on Wall Street as it crumbles beneath her. Written by an industry veteran, Buying In tackles what it means to be a woman in a man’s world, and how to survive in big business without sacrificing who you are.

Buy a copy at Amazon

About the author, Laura Hemphill:

Laura Hemphill

After graduating from Yale in 2003, Laura Hemphill spent seven years on Wall Street, at Lehman Brothers, Credit Suisse, and hedge fund Dune Capital. She left finance to write Buying In. Her writing has appeared in Bloomberg Businessweek and on NewYorker.com. Laura lives with her husband and daughter in Manhattan, where she’s working on her second novel.

Connect with Laura:

Website: Buying In: the Book
Twitter: @HemphillLaura

My Thoughts:

Buying In rides the edge of being contemporary women’s fiction and falling into the recently coined category, “New Adult,” largely because the main Point of View character, Sophie is a recent college graduate on her first real job, struggling to swim in a high-stakes, high stress environment.

While I’ve never worked in the same part of the financial industry Sophie has, I spent more than half my life in the real estate finance industry as a loan officer, loan processor, and underwriter, for local brokers and for corporate bankers, so I’ve had a taste of what was happening in 2007-09 – the period this book covers – during the great financial collapse.

My own experience made me more likely to empathize with Sophie, but while I enjoyed the novel as a whole, there were times when I found Sophie a little unlikeable. I wanted to accost her in the bathroom and shake some sense into her, and suggest she grow a spine. I also found myself tempted to skip ahead to the other characters’ POV chapters, especially those of Vishu, her Delhi-born colleague, and Ethan, her boss, although once Sophie hit it off with client “Hutch,” and her trajectory began an upwards trend, I became more interested in her story. (Vishu’s story, specifically, is really touching.)

A lot of this novel gets bogged down by financial details that could cause the average reader’s eyes to glaze a bit, and some of the characters in the non-work areas of Sophie’s life feel a bit one-dimensional – SPOILER ALERT: she breaks up with her boyfriend, and because we barely know him, we don’t feel the impact we should – but overall, Buying In is readable, and I think the author has done really well with her first novel.

Unlike Sophie, I had almost twenty years of industry experience when I saw the credit crisis coming, and I was smart enough to bail out when I had the chance. Sophie’s choices may not always have been ones I agree with, but they did make for interesting conflict, both within herself and with others, and by the novel’s somewhat abrupt ending, I had the sense that she would, ultimately, figure out who she was, and get what she wanted.

Goes well with Chinese chicken salad eaten at one’s desk, and a bottle of water.

TLC Book Tours

This review is based on the NetGalley uncorrected proof of the novel, provided courtesy of TLC Book Tours. For the complete list of tour stops, click here.