Book Spotlight Giveaway! The Beach House: Coming Home by Georgia Bockoven #TheBeachHouseComingHome

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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This week I have an copy of a great beach read. I read it when it came out in 2017. Read my thoughts here. This is book #4 in The Beach House series. I've read one other one and want to read the rest.  

Good luck and be sure to stop back next week!

The Beach House: Coming Home

The Beach House: Coming Home by Georgia Bockoven
Paperback, 334 pages
Published May 16th 2017 by William Morrow Paperbacks

Bestselling author Georgia Bockoven is at her powerful and emotional peak in this novel perfect for fans of Nancy Thayer and Elin Hilderbrand.

Unlock the door to the beach house…a place where life slows down, people come together, and love is the strongest force of all.

After you’ve given your baby to strangers, what do you say when someone asks if you have children?

Fourteen years ago, Melinda Campbell was fifteen and a half, pregnant and terrified. Desperate to protect her baby from a malicious grandfather and needed at home to take care of her own critically ill father, Melinda makes the most generous, heart-wrenching choice of all: adoption. Now she’s living the successful life her father struggled to give her, but missing her daughter with a longing that shadows every joy.

Jeremy Richmond knows the beach house the way a painter knows his canvas, intimately and focused on detail. His life revolves around his adopted daughter, Shiloh, the girl who’s owned his heart from the moment he first held her as an infant. They were a picture-perfect family until Shiloh was diagnosed with pediatric lupus and Jeremy’s wife walked away.

When Shiloh tells her father she’s tired of fighting her illness and wants to meet her biological mother before it’s too late, Jeremy agrees to find a woman he has no desire to meet.

From the moment Melinda and Jeremy come face-to-face, they realize their worlds will never be the same. Will the beach house that has harbored troubled hearts for decades prove to be the balm they need to heal…?

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It's Monday! What Are You Reading? August 19, 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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Thanks for stopping by. I hope you all have a good week. Happy reading!

What I'm currently reading

The Snow Child
by Eowyn Ivey
This is our book club read this month. Have you read it?

Delusion In Death
(In Death #35)
by J.D. Robb
Narrated by Susan Ericksen


Lift and Separate
by Marilyn Simon Rothstein
Narriated by Donna Postel

What I recently finished

The Women of Great Heron Lake

by Deanna Lynn Sletten

Pub date 9/10

Check out my giveaway for another one of Deanna's books, Finding Libbie.

Shut Up and Dance With Me

(Oceanic Dreams #7)

by Monique McDonell 

I love this fun series. Check it out here.

Silent Tears: A Journey of Hope in a Chinese Orphanage
by Kay Bratt
Narrated by Shannon McManus

What I am going to read next

Summer of '69
by Elin Hilderbrand

I really love my reading life!

What are you reading this week?

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Book Spotlight Giveaway! White Sand, Blue Sea by Anita Hughes #WhiteSandBlueSea

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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This week I have an ARC of a wonderful book that I read when it came out. Read my thoughts here. I felt like I was on vacation the whole time I was reading it. Now it's someone else's turn to vacation in St. Barts. 

Good luck and be sure to stop back next week!

White Sand, Blue Sea

White Sand, Blue Sea: A St. Barts Love Story by Anita Hughes
ARC, 288 pages
Published April 11th 2017 by St. Martin's Griffin

Olivia Miller is standing on the porch of her mother and stepfather's plantation style villa in St. Barts. They have been coming here every April for years but she is always thrilled to see the horseshoe-shaped bay of Gustavia and white sand of Gouverneur's Beach. This trip should be particularly exciting because she is celebrating her twenty-fifth birthday and hoping that Finn, her boyfriend of four years, will propose.

The only person who won't be here is her father, Sebastian, who she hasn’t seen in twenty years. He’s a well-known artist and crisscrosses the globe, painting and living in exotic locations like Kenya and China. When Sebastian walks unexpectedly walks through the door and floats back into Olivia’s life like a piece of bad driftwood she never knew she wanted, she starts to wondering if her world is too narrow. She questions the dreams and the relationship she’s always thought she wanted. But there seems to be more to the story than an innocent fatherly visit, and Olivia must decide if love is more important than truth.

Set on St. Barts, the jewel of the Caribbean, White Sand, Blue Sea is a heartwarming story about romance and adventure, and most importantly, about knowing yourself, and what makes you happy.

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About the Author

Anita Hughes was born in Sydney, Australia. She attended UC Berkeley's Masters in Creative Writing program. She is the author of MONARCH BEACH, MARKET STREET, LAKE COMO, FRENCH COAST, ROME IN LOVE, ISLAND IN THE SEA, SANTORINI SUNSETS, CHRISTMAS IN PARIS, WHITE SAND, BLUE SEA, EMERALD COAST, CHRISTMAS IN LONDON and CALIFORNIA SUMMER, and CHRISTMAS IN VERMONT published by St. Martin's Press. ROME IN LOVE is coming to the HALLMARK channel in July, 2019! ~ Goodreads

Connect with Anita

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

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Book Blitz: The Year I Left by Christine Brae, an Excerpt and a #Giveaway! #TheYearILeft

The Year I Left

The Year I Left by Christine Brae
Published by: Vesuvian Books
Publication date: August 20th 2019
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Women’s Fiction

“A thousand half loves must be forsaken to take one whole heart home.”

Carin Frost doesn’t understand what’s happening to her. A confident businesswoman, wife, and mother, she begins to resent everything about her life. Nothing makes sense. Nothing makes her feel. Maybe it’s the recent loss of her mother in a tragic accident. Or maybe she’s just losing her mind.

Enter Matias Torres. As their new business partnership thrives, so does their friendship—and his interest in her. Carin is determined to keep her distance, until a work assignment sends them to Southeast Asia where a storm is brewing on the island. In the midst of the chaos, Matias asks her to do something unimaginable, exhilarating, BOLD. Carin knows the consequences could be dire, but it may be the only way to save herself.

An honest look at love and marriage and the frailties of the human heart, this is a story of a woman’s loss of self and purpose and the journey she takes to find her way back.

Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

iBooks | Kobo

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Excerpt

Sometime in the late summer when the air began to tingle and the leaves started to fall, I opened my eyes one morning and my view of the world had changed.

Just like that. I can still see it in my head. The way I let it all unfold. It was a train wreck waiting to happen, and I let it.

I left for a business trip that morning with my house in total disarray. I had no good reason for refusing to take Charlie to his school bus, and despite having some time to change our dog’s water bowl, I chose not to do it. There it lay, next to the unwashed food dish, crusted with the remains of last night’s dinner. I figured Jack would get home from the gym and handle it all.

Piles of paper gathering dust on the floor and debit card receipts busting out of a little white box screamed for my attention. I ignored them. My home office, the place where I used to hide all day, was like a war zone.

And it wasn’t like we had money issues. Paying our bills was the least of my worries. Jack had made a killing when his startup was bought out, and I was the head of client services at a global real-estate company.

I just stopped giving a damn. Nothing interested me. I was beset by indifference. I just couldn’t keep up anymore. The sleepless nights, the exhaustion, the constant streaming in my head. Everything seemed so insignificant, so mundane. My successes, my accomplishments, they had lost all meaning.

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About the author

Christine Brae is a senior executive with a full time career, who thought she could write a book about her life and then run away as far as possible from it. She never imagined that her words would touch the hearts of so many women with the same story to tell. Christine has written six books since her first release in 2013. She is the author of The Light in the Wound and His Wounded Light (2013), Insipid (2014), In This Life (2016) and Eight Goodbyes (2018).

Her latest book, The Year I Left is scheduled for release in August, 2019.

When not listening to the voices in her head or spending late nights at the office, Christine can be seen shopping for shoes and purses, running a half marathon or spending time with her husband and three children in Chicago.

Christine is represented by Italia Gandolfo of Gandolfo Helin & Fountain Literary Management.

Connect with Christine

Website | Goodreads | Facebook

Twitter | Instagram

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Release Day! All the Flowers in Paris by Sarah Jio ~ My Thoughts #AllTheFlowersInParis #NetGalley

Congrats Sarah

on the release today of

All the Flowers in Paris!

All the Flowers in Paris by Sarah Jio
Print & e-book, 240 pages
Published August 13th 2019 by Ballantine Books

Two women are connected across time by the city of Paris, a mysterious journal, and shocking secrets, sweeping from World War II to the present--for readers of Sarah's Key.

When Caroline wakes up in a Paris hospital with no memory of her past, she's confused to learn that she's lived a sad, reclusive life for years in a sprawling apartment on the Seine. Slowly regaining vague memories of a man and young child, she vows to piece her life back together--though she can't help but feel she may be in danger. A budding friendship with the chef of a charming nearby restaurant takes her mind off of her foggy past, as does a startling mystery from decades prior...

In Nazi-occupied Paris, young widow Celine lives a quiet life with her father, the local florist, and her daughter, Cosi. When a ruthless German officer discovers the family's Jewish ancestry, he blackmails Celine, forcing her to become his mistress in exchange for the others' safety. The trio plans an escape, but their mission goes horribly awry and Celine's beloved father and daughter are sent away to a cruel fate. Initially distraught, Celine fears the worst. Yet she soon discovers that Cosi has snuck away and followed her into captivity. More motivated than ever, Celine must now fight to hide and protect the person she loves most.

Parallel timelines intersect when Caroline discovers Celine's diary tucked away in a closet, and it is revealed that the walls of her apartment harbor dark secrets. With the help of a local student from the Sorbonne, she realizes that she may have more in common with Celine than she could ever imagine.

My thoughts about All the Flowers in Paris ~~

(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—"How could he?" 

I have been a huge fan of Sarah Jio's stories since the day I read her very first novel. Her words weave together such beautiful, heartwarming tales and this book did not disappoint.

Her stories always seem to have a magical feel to them and leave me with such good feelings. I loved the dual story-line in All the Flowers in Paris and I loved it when the two women's connection was revealed—because come on, you knew that was going to happen, right? 

Caroline and Celine both had troubled pasts and have hardships to get through in their present lives. Traveling back and forth between the two time periods gave me a rich understanding of the two women and demonstrated the strength of these two amazing women. 

I love opening a book by this amazing author and getting lost in one of her worlds. I get so excited when I learn that she has a new book out and I can't wait! If you have not read any of her books yet, I highly recommend that you pick one up. All the Flowers in Paris would be the perfect one to start with. 

I received a copy of All the Flowers in Paris via NetGalley and this is my honest opinion of the book.

About the author

Sarah Jio is the New York Times bestselling author of ALWAYS, published by Random House (Ballantine), as well as seven other novels from Penguin Books, including, THE VIOLETS OF MARCH, THE BUNGALOW, BLACKBERRY WINTER, THE LAST CAMELLIA, MORNING GLORY, GOODNIGHT JUNE, and THE LOOK OF LOVE.

Sarah is also a journalist who has contributed to The New York Times, Glamour, O, The Oprah Magazine, Glamour, SELF, Real Simple, Fitness, Marie Claire, and many others. She has appeared as a commentator on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Her novels are translated into more than 25 languages. Sarah lives in Seattle with her three young boys. ~ Goodreads

Connect with Sarah

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads

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