Saturday, April 6, 2019

Book Spotlight Giveaway! Pure by Julianna Baggott


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.

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Good luck and be sure to stop back next week!

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Pure

Pure by Julianna Baggott
Series: Pure #1
Paperback, 431 pages
Published September 4th 2012 by Grand Central Publishing 

We know you are here, our brothers and sisters . . . 

Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost-how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers . . . to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run.

Burn a Pure and Breathe the Ash . . . 

There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked. Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely. Different. He thinks about loss-maybe just because his family is broken; his father is emotionally distant; his brother killed himself; and his mother never made it inside their shelter. Or maybe it's his claustrophobia: his feeling that this Dome has become a swaddling of intensely rigid order. So when a slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her.

When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again.

 


About the author



Critically acclaimed, bestselling author, Julianna Baggott -- who also writes under the pen names Bridget Asher (The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted) and N.E. Bode (The Anybodies) -- has published more than 20 books, including novels for adults, younger readers, and collections of poetry. Her latest novel, Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wonders, was published in August 2015. Her novel, Pure, was the first of a trilogy; and was a New York Times Notable Book of 2012, and received the ALA's Alex Award. For more, go to: www.pure-book.com.

Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Best American Poetry, Best Creative Nonfiction, Real Simple, on NPR.org, as well as read on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" and "Here and Now." Her novels have been book-pick selections by People Magazine's summer reading, Washington Post book-of-the-week, a Booksense selection, a Boston Herald Book Club selection, and a Kirkus Best Books of the Year list. Her novels have been published in over 50 overseas editions. She's a professor in the College of Motion Picture Arts at Florida State University and hold the Jenks Chair at The College of the Holy Cross. ~ Amazon

Connect with Julianna




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Tuesday, April 2, 2019

Release Day! The Girl He Used to Know by Tracey Garvis Graves ~ My Thoughts #TGHUTKnatasha #TheGirlHeUsedToKnow #NetGalley

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Congrats Tracey
on the release today of 
The Girl He Used to Know!

The Girl He Used to Know by Tracey Garvis Graves 
Print and e-book, 304 pages
Published April 2nd 2019 by St. Martin's Press

Annika (rhymes with Monica) Rose is an English major at the University of Illinois. Anxious in social situations where she finds most people's behavior confusing, she'd rather be surrounded by the order and discipline of books or the quiet solitude of playing chess.

Jonathan Hoffman joined the chess club and lost his first game--and his heart--to the shy and awkward, yet brilliant and beautiful Annika. He admires her ability to be true to herself, quirks and all, and accepts the challenges involved in pursuing a relationship with her. Jonathan and Annika bring out the best in each other, finding the confidence and courage within themselves to plan a future together. What follows is a tumultuous yet tender love affair that withstands everything except the unforeseen tragedy that forces them apart, shattering their connection and leaving them to navigate their lives alone.

Now, a decade later, fate reunites Annika and Jonathan in Chicago. She's living the life she wanted as a librarian. He's a Wall Street whiz, recovering from a divorce and seeking a fresh start. The attraction and strong feelings they once shared are instantly rekindled, but until they confront the fears and anxieties that drove them apart, their second chance will end before it truly begins. 


My thoughts about The Girl He Used to Know ~~ 

(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 lines.)

First line—"I run into him at Mariano's, of all places."

I just love books with a quirky character or two. The Girl He Used to Know has the wonderful Annika, a woman with plenty of quirks. As she struggles living her life, she encounters a couple of people who 'get' her—they really 'get' her. And as they slowly and lovingly bring her out of her anxiety-filled life, she finds strength that she never knew she possessed.

This story, and Annika, captured my heart from the very first page. I turned the pages quickly–but not too quickly so that I could savor it all–and watched her life unfold before me, starting to understand what her life must have been like. When she feels that she has lost the person she loves the most, she faces her fears and forges ahead.

The Girl He Used to Know is a beautiful story of love, differences, and acceptance. It is a story that I thoroughly enjoyed reading and one that I highly recommend. I will remember Annika, and her quirkiness for quite some time.

Tracey's bio on Goodreads says that she is hard at work on her next book. Yay for us!!

I received an ARC of The Girl He Used to Know in exchange for my honest opinion.


About the author


Tracey Garvis Graves is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author of contemporary fiction. Her debut novel, On the Island, spent 9 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, has been translated into thirty-one languages, and is in development with MGM and Temple Hill Productions for a feature film.

She is also the author of Uncharted, Covet, Every Time I Think of You, Cherish, Heart-Shaped Hack, White-Hot Hack, and The Girl He Used to Know. She is hard at work on her next book. ~ Goodreads

Connect with Tracey


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Book Blitz! Relatively Sane by Whitney Dineen ~ an Excerpt and a Giveaway!



Congrats Whitney
on the release of your new book
Relatively Sane!

Relatively Sane by Whitney Dineen
(Relativity Series, #2)
Publication date: April 1st 2019
Genres: Adult, Comedy, Contemporary


Catriona Masterton’s family is not normal.

Her father has a passion for taxidermized animals that he dresses in the family plaid. Her mother has a penchant for hoarding kitchen gadgets and other oddities that leave her sanity in question. Her grandmother, Nan, has never met a swearword she doesn’t like.

Despite all this, party-planner Cat leaves the hustle and bustle of New York City to move back to her tiny hometown outside of Chicago. She even buys her parents’ farm with plans to turn the barn into a stylish wedding venue.

Enter House to Home Television’s Renovation Brothers. Cat gets accepted as one of the show’s projects, bringing two gorgeous brothers to her doorstep. Unbeknownst to Cat, the TV hosts are behind a secret her newfound boyfriend will go to great lengths to keep hidden.

With all the upheaval—her parents’ chaotic move, her grandmother joyfully causing trouble wherever she goes, a film crew documenting her home being torn apart, and her boyfriend’s odd behavior—Cat’s starting to wonder if signing up for a reality TV show was a big mistake.

Will the renovation be a success? Or will secrecy and jealousy make Cat regret the day she packed her bags and left New York?

Find out in this hysterical tale packed with small-town charm, family drama, and true love.

“The Masterson clan is back and funnier than ever in this delightful tale. Dineen’s comedic timing is pure gold!” - Jennifer Peel, Bestselling Author of My Not So Wicked Stepbrother


Book 1, Relatively Normal
is FREE for a limited time only!


Excerpt

As a kid, I had an ongoing fantasy. I’m waiting for the school bus to pick me up in front of my family farm, when a shiny black Lincoln Town Car pulls up next to me. A very attractive woman in the back seat rolls down her window and bursts into tears. She gasps, “Buffy, is that you?” (Note: I might have been enthralled with the television show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer at the time. I was definitely a fan of the name.) The woman and her equally handsome husband leap out of the car and throw their arms around me, engulfing me in a cloud of Chanel Number 5 and Versace Man.

Between sobs of joy, she calls to her husband, “Charles, it’s our baby. It’s really her!”

They tighten their embrace and I become the filling in a Pendleton wool sandwich. This wonderful, loving, perfectly ordinary couple, decked out in city clothes, explains how there was a mix-up at the hospital where I was born. Their baby and another were returned to the wrong bassinets after feeding time. They only discovered the truth when the person they thought was their daughter ran off and joined the circus as it passed through their town.

The woman says, “We knew then and there a mistake had been made. A child of ours would never dream of such nonsense.”

In retrospect, I realize I hadn’t thought this through very well. I should have wondered what kind of parents wouldn’t go after the child they’d raised and save her from a life of carnie living. At the time, I was too involved in my fantasy and the comforting explanation of why I was growing up in a near-insane asylum—a.k.a. Masterton Hall, a.k.a. an old farm house in Central Illinois. It was much easier to convince myself that I didn’t belong to the people who laid claim to me. I was Buffy Summers and my real family wasn’t embarrassing in the least.

This fantasy got me through some tough times. Like when my grandmother Nan called my little league coach a fukakta screwball who needed his eyes examined, I consoled myself that we didn’t share the same blood. As such, the shame I was feeling wasn’t really my own.

When my dad showed up to all my school functions wearing a kilt and boasting about the joys of being Scottish, I was comforted that the wrong girl was being called Catriona Masterton. When my mother bought six sauerkraut crocks because they were on sale, even though she hated sauerkraut, I said to myself, “Cat, these aren’t your people. Don’t lose hope. Your real parents will find you and take you away from all this.” When my brother Travis started to walk around the house in my mom’s high heels, I reminded myself that Buffy was an only child.

It wasn’t until high school that I finally accepted the Summers were no more than wishful thinking on my part, and that I belonged to the Masterton clan, hook, line, and sinker. Part of my acceptance was because I’d fallen head over heels in love with my childhood playmate, Sam Hawking.

Sam and I frolicked in the mud, learned to play cards, and studied for science tests together before discovering more adult games in the hayloft of my family barn. He gave my life meaning. He was enough reason to give up my dream of belonging to a normal family. If I wanted a life with him, I needed to stay right where I was. Goodbye, Summers Family! Hello, kooky Mastertons.

Sam made me feel things I’d never felt before. My body blossomed under his touch, my heart filled to the point of bursting, and my dreams shot out of the stratosphere. There was nothing he and I couldn’t do, be, or achieve as long as we were together. While my family was as odd as they came, around Sam I felt relatively sane. I’d even given us a celebrity couple name, SamCat.

Tragically, as often happens with first loves, we ultimately went our separate ways. The end of high school was the end of us. I was crushed, as it wasn’t my idea to break up, but college eventually softened the pain and my life moved on. My subsequent move to New York City propelled me into adulthood, which is where I met Ethan.

For two years, Ethan and I were a good couple. We were grown-ups together. We paid a mortgage, put money away for retirement, and we planned a wedding. Ethan was as different from Sam as I could find in a man. He’s what I thought I wanted, what I thought I needed. I was wrong.

About the author

Whitney loves to laugh, play with her kids, bake, and eat french fries -- not always in that order.

Whitney is a multi-award-winning author of romcoms, non-fiction humor, and middle reader fiction. Basically, she writes whatever the voices in her head tell her to.

She lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her husband, Jimmy, where they raise children, chickens, and organic vegetables.

Gold Medal winner at the International Readers' Favorite Awards, 2017.
Silver medal winner at the International Readers' Favorite Awards, 2015, 2016.
Finalist RONE Awards, 2016.
Finalist at the IRFA 2016, 2017.
Finalist at the Book Excellence Awards, 2017
Finalist Top Shelf Indie Book Awards, 2017
Connect with Whitney 

Website | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter


$20 Amazon Giftcard (INT) 
Ends April 11
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Monday, April 1, 2019

Release Day! I'm Fine and Neither Are You by Camille Pagán ~ My Thoughts #ImFineAndNeitherAreYou #TallPoppyWriter #NetGalley

I'm Fine and Neither Are You by [Pagán, Camille]

Congrats Camille
on the release today of 
I'm Fine and Neither Are You!

I'm Fine and Neither Are You by Camille Pagán 
Print and e-book, 266 pages
Published April 1st 2019 by Lake Union Publishing

Honesty is the best policy…except maybe when it comes to marriage in this brilliant novel about the high price of perfection from bestselling author Camille Pagán.

Wife. Mother. Breadwinner. Penelope Ruiz-Kar is doing it all—and barely keeping it together. Meanwhile, her best friend, Jenny Sweet, appears to be sailing through life. As close as the two women are, Jenny’s passionate marriage, pristine house, and ultra-polite child stand in stark contrast to Penelope’s underemployed husband, Sanjay, their unruly brood, and the daily grind she calls a career.

Then a shocking tragedy reveals that Jenny’s life is far from perfect. Reeling, Penelope vows to stop keeping the peace and finally deal with the issues in her relationship. So she and Sanjay agree to a radical proposal: both will write a list of changes they want each other to make—then commit to complete and total honesty.

What seems like a smart idea quickly spirals out of control, revealing new rifts and even deeper secrets. As Penelope stares down the possible implosion of her marriage, she must ask herself: When it comes to love, is honesty really the best policy?


My thoughts about I'm Fine and Neither Are You ~~ 

(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 lines.)

First line—"Mistakes were made. The first wasn't even something I did; it was only a germ of an idea, fleeting but infectious."

The usual response when someone asks "How are you?" is "I'm fine. How are you?". We're all fine, aren't we? But so many of those times, we really aren't fine. And how much do we really know someone, when realistically, we aren't completely honest with one another?

Penny thought she knew her best friend Jenny so well and was envious of her seemingly perfect life. But when that all comes crashing down, Penny takes a good look at her own life and decides some changes need to be made. But can she, her marriage, and her family survive those changes?

I loved I'm Fine and Neither Are You. I loved it because it was a story with relatable characters that drew me in and who I immediately cared about. I also loved it because it shows that no one is perfect, everyone has issues, and that we all need to remember we don't really know what someone else is going through. And lastly, this story reminded me that we need to be honest and let others know what and how we are feeling. They won't know if we don't tell them, leading them to believe that everything is 'fine'. 

I'm Fine and Neither Are You is a wonderful look at all kinds of relationships and what it means to be honest in those relationships. You definitely should add it to your must-read book list. 


I received an ARC of I'm Fine and Neither Are You in exchange for my honest opinion.


#1 Best Sellerin Women's Domestic Life Fiction

About the author

Camille Pagán

I’m the author of Woman Last Seen in Her Thirties (out 2/27/18), Forever is the Worst Long Time, The Art of Forgetting, and the #1 Kindle bestseller Life and Other Near-Death Experiences, which was recently optioned for film. My novels have been translated into twelve languages.

In another life, I was a health editor at Real Simple and Fitness magazines; these days, I write for publications like Fast Company, Forbes, O: The Oprah Magazine, Parade, Time, and others.

When I'm not at my computer, you'll find me with my nose in a book, running after my two kids, or planning my next trip (most likely to Puerto Rico, where my husband was born and raised). Visit me at www.camillepagan.com.

Connect with Camille


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It's Monday! What Are You Reading? April 1, 2019


It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a place to meet up and share what you have been, are and about to be reading over the week. It's an opportunity to visit other blogs and to comment on their reads. And ... you can add to that ever growing TBR pile! So welcome everyone. This meme started with J Kaye's Blog and then was taken up by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn at the Book Date. And here we are!

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Whoo hoo!! We are finally seeing temps in the 60's. I love it and can't wait to get the patio furniture out so I can get in some patio reading. That's the best!  

Keep your guard up. I hope you don't get fooled today. 


Thanks for stopping by. I hope you all have a good week. Happy reading!

What I'm currently reading

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Life at the Coffin Joint
(Deadwood Undertaker #1)
by Ann Charles and Sam Lucky
I love this author and I'm so excited that she has another series out. 💖

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A Curve in the Road
by Julianne MacLean
Narrated by Coleen Marlo
(audio-book)

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To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
Narrated by Sissy Spacek
(audio-book)

What I recently finished

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The Girl He Used to Know
by Tracey Garvis Graves
Pub date 4/2
My thoughts will be posted tomorrow.

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I'm Fine and Neither Are You
by Camille Pagán
It's release day!!
My thought will be posted later today.

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Some Luck
(Last Hundred Years: A Family Saga #1)
by Jane Smiley

What I am going to read next

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Saving Meghan
by D. J. Palmer
Pub date 4/9

I really love my reading life!

What are you reading this week?

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