This OR That #Giveaway № 92 ~ Matched by Ally Condie OR The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown #Matched #TheWeirdSisters

 

I have sooooo many books!

The This or That Giveaway! feature that I post every Saturday is a way for me to cull my collection and to share some of the many books I have. I get to clear off some of my shelves to make room for more books and give someone else the chance to enjoy these treasures.

Good luck and be sure to stop back next week!

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Matched

(Matched #1)

by Ally Condie

Paperback ~ Pub date September 2011

In the Society, officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die.

Cassia has always trusted their choices. It’s hardly any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is the one…until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path no one else has ever dared follow—between perfection and passion.

Matched is a story for right now and storytelling with the resonance of a classic. 

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The Weird Sisters

by Eleanor Brown

Paperback ~ Published February 2012

There is no problem that a library card can't solve. [Love this first line!]

The Andreas family is one of readers. Their father, a renowned Shakespeare professor who speaks almost entirely in verse, has named his three daughters after famous Shakespearean women. When the sisters return to their childhood home, ostensibly to care for their ailing mother, but really to lick their wounds and bury their secrets, they are horrified to find the others there. See, we love each other. We just don't happen to like each other very much. 

But the sisters soon discover that everything they've been running from-one another, their small hometown, and themselves-might offer more than they ever expected. 

Read my thoughts here

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This OR That #Giveaway № 77 ~ The Beach House by Georgia Bockoven OR The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown #TheBeachHouse #TheWeirdSisters

 

I have sooooo many books!

The This or That Giveaway! feature that I post every Saturday is a way for me to cull my collection and to share some of the many books I have. I get to clear off some of my shelves to make room for more books and give someone else the chance to enjoy these treasures.

Good luck and be sure to stop back next week!

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The Beach House

(The Beach House #1)

by Georgia Bockoven

Mass Market Paperback ~ Published July 1997

The beach house is a peaceful haven, a place to escape everyday problems. Here, three families find their feelings intensified and their lives transformed each summer.

When thirty-year-old Julia, mourning the death of her husband, decides to sell the Santa Cruz beach house they owned together, she sets in motion a final summer that will change the lives of all the families who rent it year after year. Teenaged Chris discovers the bittersweet joy of first love. Maggie and Joe, married sixty-five years, courageously face a separation that even their devotion cannot prevent. The married woman Peter yearns for suddenly comes within his reach. And Julia ultimately finds the strength to rebuild her life—something she once thought impossible.

With equal measures of heartbreak and happiness, bestselling author Georgia Bockoven's unforgettable novel tells of the beauty of life and the power of love, and speaks to every woman who has ever clung to a child or loved a man. 

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The Weird Sisters

by Eleanor Brown

Paperback ~ Published February 2012

There is no problem that a library card can't solve. [Love this first line!]

The Andreas family is one of readers. Their father, a renowned Shakespeare professor who speaks almost entirely in verse, has named his three daughters after famous Shakespearean women. When the sisters return to their childhood home, ostensibly to care for their ailing mother, but really to lick their wounds and bury their secrets, they are horrified to find the others there. See, we love each other. We just don't happen to like each other very much. 

But the sisters soon discover that everything they've been running from-one another, their small hometown, and themselves-might offer more than they ever expected. 

Read my thoughts here

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Be sure to check the sidebar for my current giveaways!

This OR That #Giveaway № 65 ~ The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown OR When We Fall by Emily Liebert #TheWeirdSisters #WhenWeFall

 

I have sooooo many books!

The This or That Giveaway! feature that I post every Saturday is a way for me to cull my collection and to share some of the many books I have. I get to clear off some of my shelves to make room for more books and give someone else the chance to enjoy these treasures.

Good luck and be sure to stop back next week!

*****************

The Weird Sisters

by Eleanor Brown

Paperback ~ Published February 2012

There is no problem that a library card can't solve. [Love this first line!]

The Andreas family is one of readers. Their father, a renowned Shakespeare professor who speaks almost entirely in verse, has named his three daughters after famous Shakespearean women. When the sisters return to their childhood home, ostensibly to care for their ailing mother, but really to lick their wounds and bury their secrets, they are horrified to find the others there. See, we love each other. We just don't happen to like each other very much. 

But the sisters soon discover that everything they've been running from-one another, their small hometown, and themselves-might offer more than they ever expected. 

Read my thoughts here

Ms. Brown just released another book this week, Any Other Family, which I have read. I loved it!

You can read my thoughts here

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When We Fall
by Emily Liebert
Paperback ~ Published September 2014

LOVE LOST, LOVE FOUND

 

Ready for a fresh start, Allison Parker moves back to her hometown in the suburbs of New York. While she’d once savored the dynamic pace of city life, sadly, it lost its allure after her husband’s untimely death. Now, ready to focus on her art career accompanied by her ten-year-old son, Logan, Allison doesn’t anticipate that her past will resurface. When the wife of her husband’s best friend from summer camp takes her under her wing, things begin to spin out of control.

At one time, Charlotte Crane thought she had it all—a devoted husband, a beautiful little girl, and enough financial security to never have to worry. But behind her perfect facade lie a strained marriage and a fractured relationship with her sister. When new girl Allison arrives in Wincourt, Charlotte welcomes the chance to build a friendship. Before long, Charlotte begins to see her life through Allison’s eyes, and the cracks in her seemingly flawless existence become impossible to ignore.

As Allison heals from the loss of her husband—even wondering if she might be ready to date again—Charlotte feels more distant from her loved ones than ever before. The emerging friendship between the two women appears to be just the antidote both of them so desperately need...until everything falls apart.

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New Release! Any Other Family by Eleanor Brown ~ My Thoughts #AnyOtherFamily #NetGalley

 

Congratulations Eleanor

on the recent release of

Any Other Family!

Any Other Family by Eleanor Brown

Sisters Fiction, 368 pages

Published July 12, 2022 by G.P. Putnam's Sons

The New York Times bestselling author of The Weird Sisters returns with a striking and intimate new novel about three very different women facing an impossible question: What makes a family?

They look just like any other family. But they aren't a family like any other – not quite. Instead, they are three sets of parents who adopted four biological siblings, committing to keeping the children connected after the death of their grandmother.

Tabitha, who adopted the twins, is the planner of the group, responsible for coordinating playdates and birthdays and Sunday night dinners, insistent that everything happens just so. Quiet and steady Ginger, single mother to the eldest daughter, resists the forced togetherness, her own unsettled childhood leaving her wary of trusting too much. And Elizabeth is still reeling from going directly from failed fertility treatments into adopting a newborn, terrified that her unhappiness means she was not meant to be a mother at all.

But when the three women receive a surprising call from their children’s birth mother, announcing she is pregnant again and wants them to help her find an adoptive family for this child too, the delicate bonds they are still struggling to form threaten to collapse. As tensions rise, the women reckon with their own feelings about what it means to be a mother and what they owe each other as a family.

Set across the span of a family vacation, one full of boisterous laughter and emotional upheaval, Any Other Family is a thought-provoking and poignant look at how families shift and evolve and a striking portrait of motherhood in all its forms.

  

My thoughts about Any Other Family ~~

(I love to note the first lines of the books I'm reading. First lines can really grab a reader's attention and I love seeing where the author takes the reader after their first line.)

First line—"They look like any other family. A real one: cousins, siblings, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters."

I've been waiting years for another book by this author. I was sad to hear that she was taking time away from writing to adjust to her life with a newly adopted son. I totally understand though, good for her! I was so excited when I learned that she had returned to her writing life as well. 

So adoption, and all the challenges that that entails, is very familiar to Ms. Brown and it shows in this very well written, very insightful story of three couples who adopt four siblings and immediately become one huge family. 

Being on the periphery of an open adoption myself, I know what a loving, fulfilling relationship it can be for all. But it is not always easy. Things come up that cause loved ones to distance themselves, at least for a little bit. 

I really loved all of the characters in this story and enjoyed spending their vacation with them as they try to work out fitting a new baby to their already solid family dynamic. Everyone has their strengths, and weaknesses, and the reader is along for the ride as they all try to figure it out.

The wait for another book from Ms. Brown was well worth it and I highly recommend Any Other Family. It is beautiful, full of love, and a must read for anyone interested at all in adoption stories. 

I received an ARC of Any Other Family from the publisher via NetGalley and this is my honest opinion.

About the author

Eleanor Brown is the New York Times and international bestselling author of the novels The Weird Sisters, The Light of Paris, and Any Other Family.

She is also the editor of A Paris All Your Own. She lives in Colorado with her family. ~ Goodreads 

Connect with Eleanor

Website | Goodreads | Amazon

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Be sure to check the sidebar for my current giveaways!

Book Spotlight #Giveaway! The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown #TheWeirdSisters

I have sooooo many books! The Book Spotlight Giveaway feature that I post every Saturday is a way for me to clear my shelves, to share some of the many books I have, and to give someone else the opportunity to enjoy these treasures.

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Good luck and be sure to stop back next week!

The Weird Sisters

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown
Paperback, 320 pages
Published January 20th 2011 by Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam 

There is no problem that a library card can't solve.

The Andreas family is one of readers. Their father, a renowned Shakespeare professor who speaks almost entirely in verse, has named his three daughters after famous Shakespearean women. When the sisters return to their childhood home, ostensibly to care for their ailing mother, but really to lick their wounds and bury their secrets, they are horrified to find the others there.

See, we love each other. We just don't happen to like each other very much.

But the sisters soon discover that everything they've been running from -- one another, their small hometown, and themselves -- might offer more than they ever expected.

About the author

Eleanor Brown is the New York Times and #1 international bestselling author of The Weird Sisters, The Light of Paris and the editor of the forthcoming anthology, A Paris All Your Own: Bestselling Women Writers on the City of Light. Her writing has been hailed by People magazine as “delightful” and “creative and original” by Library Journal.

Eleanor teaches writing workshops at Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, CO, as well as writing conferences and centers nationwide. An avid CrossFit participant, Eleanor is the author of WOD Motivation and a contributor to CrossFit Journal.

Born and raised in the Washington, D.C. area, Eleanor lives with her family in Colorado.

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Be sure to check the sidebar for all of my current giveaways!

Book Spotlight Giveaway! The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown #TheWeirdSisters

I have sooooo many books! The Book Spotlight Giveaway feature that I post every Saturday is a way for me to clear my shelves and to share some of the many books I have. This feature is a way for my to cull my collection and to give someone else the opportunity to enjoy these treasures.

****************************

Good luck and be sure to stop back next week!

The Weird Sisters

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown
Paperback, 320 pages
Published January 20th 2011 by Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam 

There is no problem that a library card can't solve.

The Andreas family is one of readers. Their father, a renowned Shakespeare professor who speaks almost entirely in verse, has named his three daughters after famous Shakespearean women. When the sisters return to their childhood home, ostensibly to care for their ailing mother, but really to lick their wounds and bury their secrets, they are horrified to find the others there.

See, we love each other. We just don't happen to like each other very much.

But the sisters soon discover that everything they've been running from -- one another, their small hometown, and themselves -- might offer more than they ever expected.

About the author

Eleanor Brown is the New York Times and #1 international bestselling author of The Weird Sisters, The Light of Paris and the editor of the forthcoming anthology, A Paris All Your Own: Bestselling Women Writers on the City of Light. Her writing has been hailed by People magazine as “delightful” and “creative and original” by Library Journal.

Eleanor teaches writing workshops at Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, CO, as well as writing conferences and centers nationwide. An avid CrossFit participant, Eleanor is the author of WOD Motivation and a contributor to CrossFit Journal.

Born and raised in the Washington, D.C. area, Eleanor lives with her family in Colorado.

Connect with Eleanor

Website | Goodreads | Twitter | Facebook

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Be sure to check the sidebar for all of my current giveaways!

Book Spotlight Giveaway! The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

I have sooooo many books! The Book Spotlight Giveaway feature that I post every Saturday is a way for me to clear my shelves and to share some of the many books I have. This feature is a way for my to cull my collection and to give someone else the opportunity to enjoy these treasures.

****************************

Good luck and be sure to stop back next week!

The Weird Sisters

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown
Paperback, 320 pages
Published January 20th 2011 by Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam 

There is no problem that a library card can't solve.

The Andreas family is one of readers. Their father, a renowned Shakespeare professor who speaks almost entirely in verse, has named his three daughters after famous Shakespearean women. When the sisters return to their childhood home, ostensibly to care for their ailing mother, but really to lick their wounds and bury their secrets, they are horrified to find the others there.

See, we love each other. We just don't happen to like each other very much.

But the sisters soon discover that everything they've been running from -- one another, their small hometown, and themselves -- might offer more than they ever expected.

About the author

Eleanor Brown is the New York Times and #1 international bestselling author of The Weird Sisters, The Light of Paris and the editor of the forthcoming anthology, A Paris All Your Own: Bestselling Women Writers on the City of Light. Her writing has been hailed by People magazine as “delightful” and “creative and original” by Library Journal.

Eleanor teaches writing workshops at Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, CO, as well as writing conferences and centers nationwide. An avid CrossFit participant, Eleanor is the author of WOD Motivation and a contributor to CrossFit Journal.

Born and raised in the Washington, D.C. area, Eleanor lives with her family in Colorado.

Connect with Eleanor

Website | Goodreads | Twitter | Facebook

a Rafflecopter giveaway

******************************

Be sure to check the sidebar for all of my current giveaways!

Book Spotlight Giveaway! The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

I have sooooo many books! The Book Spotlight Giveaway feature that I post every Saturday is a way for me to clear my shelves and to share some of the many books I have. This feature is a way for my to cull my collection and to give someone else the opportunity to enjoy these treasures.

****************************

Good luck and be sure to stop back next week!

My book this week is one that I read way back in 2011. I loved it then and I selected it for our book club read this month. You can read my thoughts here. I'm excited to head back into the sister's weird world. I have an extra copy from book group that I'm giving away. From what I can see, the author is taking a break from writing for a bit but I sure hope that she comes back soon. 

The Weird Sisters

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown
Paperback, 320 pages
Published January 20th 2011 by Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam 

There is no problem that a library card can't solve.

The Andreas family is one of readers. Their father, a renowned Shakespeare professor who speaks almost entirely in verse, has named his three daughters after famous Shakespearean women. When the sisters return to their childhood home, ostensibly to care for their ailing mother, but really to lick their wounds and bury their secrets, they are horrified to find the others there.

See, we love each other. We just don't happen to like each other very much.

But the sisters soon discover that everything they've been running from -- one another, their small hometown, and themselves -- might offer more than they ever expected.

About the author

Eleanor Brown is the New York Times and #1 international bestselling author of The Weird Sisters, The Light of Paris and the editor of the forthcoming anthology, A Paris All Your Own: Bestselling Women Writers on the City of Light. Her writing has been hailed by People magazine as “delightful” and “creative and original” by Library Journal.

Eleanor teaches writing workshops at Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, CO, as well as writing conferences and centers nationwide. An avid CrossFit participant, Eleanor is the author of WOD Motivation and a contributor to CrossFit Journal.

Born and raised in the Washington, D.C. area, Eleanor lives with her family in Colorado.

Connect with Eleanor

Website | Goodreads | Twitter | Facebook

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Release Day: A Paris All Your Own: Bestselling Women Writers on the City of Light ~ My Thoughts

Happy Release Day!!

A Paris All Your Own

A Paris All Your Own: Bestselling Women Writers on the City of Light
Paperback and e-book, 304 pages
Published July 4th 2017 by G.P. Putnam's Sons

A collection of all-new Paris-themed essays written by some of the biggest names in women's fiction, including Paula McLain, Therese Anne Fowler, Maggie Shipstead, and Lauren Willig, edited by Eleanor Brown, the New York Times bestselling author of The Weird Sisters and The Light of Paris.

"My time in Paris," says New York Times-bestselling author Paula McLain (The Paris Wife), "was like no one else's ever." For each of the eighteen bestselling authors in this warm, inspiring, and charming collection of personal essays on the City of Light, nothing could be more true.

While all of the women writers featured here have written books connected to Paris, their personal stories of the city are wildly different. Meg Waite Clayton (The Race for Paris) and M. J. Rose (The Book of Lost Fragrances) share the romantic secrets that have made Paris the destination for lovers for hundreds of years. Susan Vreeland (The Girl in Hyacinth Blue) and J. Courtney Sullivan (The Engagements) peek behind the stereotype of snobbish Parisians to show us the genuine kindness of real people.

From book club favorites Paula McLain, Therese Anne Fowler (Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald), and anthology editor Eleanor Brown (The Light of Paris) to mystery writer Cara Black (Murder in the Marais), historical author Lauren Willig (The Secret History of the Pink Carnation), and memoirist Julie Powell (Julie and Julia), these Parisian memoirs range from laugh-out-loud funny to wistfully romantic to thoughtfully somber and reflective.

Perfect for armchair travelers and veterans of Parisian pilgrimages alike, readers will delight in these brand-new tales from their most beloved authors.

Content:

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a French Woman
Too Much Paris
Paris is Your Mistress
A Myth, a Museum, and a Man
French for "Intrepid"
Paris, Lost and Found
Failing At Paris
The Passion of Routine
Investigating Paris
My Paris Dreams
We'll Never Have Paris
Reading Paris
Finding Paris's Hidden Past
Secret Eatings
Until We Meet Again
A Good Idea?
Paris Alone
Thirty-Four Things You Should Know About Paris
What is it about Paris? 

My thoughts about A Paris All Your Own ~~

A trip to Paris is on my bucket list of places to visit someday. I have always wanted to go there. It just seems like such a beautiful, romantic place to be so how could I not love a whole book about Paris? People have a passion for Paris, whether it's real or their fantasy.

A Paris All Your Own is a wonderful anthology of Paris stories written by eighteen fabulous authors. The book is full of personal stories about the Paris that each of these women experienced. Some of the experiences were wonderful, like you would expect, and then some of them were not. It just goes to show that everyone's expectations and experiences are different.

Some of the women are authors that I have read before and I loved reading their stories. Others were new-to-me authors and I enjoyed the little taste that I got of their writing style. Each chapter was a little autobiographical glimpse into the author's life. I learned about their personalities which is something that you typically don't get in their normal work.

And at the end of the chapters, each author lists some interesting facts for the reader, such as what a person must do when visiting Paris and a list of things to skip. It's sort of like a little travel guide for Paris. Bonus!

I received an copy of A Paris All Your Own in exchange for my honest opinion. 

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The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

The Andreas sisters were raised on books – their family motto might as well be, ‘There’s no problem a library card can’t solve.’ Their father, a renowned, eccentric professor of Shakespearean studies, named them after three of the Bard’s most famous characters: Rose (Rosalind – As You Like It), Bean (Bianca – The Taming of the Shrew), and Cordy (Cordelia – King Lear), but they have inherited those characters’ failures along with their strengths.

Now the sisters have returned home to the small college town where they grew up – partly because their mother is ill, but mostly because their lives are falling apart and they don’t know where to go next. Rose, a staid mathematics professor, has the chance to break away from her quiet life and join her devoted fiance in England, if she could only summon up the courage to do more than she’s thought she could. Bean left home as soon as she could, running to the glamour of New York City, only to come back ashamed of the person she has become. And Cordy, who has been wandering the country for years, has been brought back to earth with a resounding thud, realizing it’s finally time for her to grow up.

The sisters never thought they would find the answers to their problems in each other, but over the course of one long summer, they find that everything they’ve been running from – each other, their histories, and their small hometown – might offer more than they ever expected. ~~synopsis from author's website

I loved, loved, loved this book! You have 3 quirky sisters from a quirky family that have to come together when their mom gets sick. But really, that is not the reason they all come home. They are each dealing with issues in their lives and home is the 'safe' place. Almost immediately they fall into the same roles that they had when they were growing up, even tho' they are all completely different in their other lives. 

There is a lot of wisdom in this story and it is wonderful to see the sisters 'figure it out' and see the paths they choose. This is a book that I read slowly so that I could savor it. I am looking forward to reading it again, it is that good! If you have sisters, you will be able to relate to the dynamics of the sisters in this book. Aren't we all a little weird  around our families?

(P.S. I am one of 3 sisters and the only one in our family that is not quirky)

This book has some great lines - check out my post for a couple of my favorites.

Author's website

Great line(s) from..........

...... The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown 

"There is no problem a library card can't solve." 

• Yea for libraries!!!!!

"See, we love each other. We just don't happen to like each other much." 

•  Yea for sisters!!!!!

Love these lines - what a great book!