Marrying Mr Valentine by Laura Barnard ~ Spotlight #MarryingMrValentine

Marrying Mr Valentine

Marrying Mr Valentine by Laura Barnard

Series: One Month Til I Do #2

Published May 9th 2018

Nadine Roberts smiles for everyone, but beneath it she hides a heartbreaking past that only a few know about. Throwing herself into her new career; wedding planner at The Duck & Goose, a property recently purchased by newlyweds Florence and Hugh, has helped distract her from her loneliness.

When a teary bride suddenly cancels her upcoming wedding Nadine looks to the two year waiting list. Clara Blumenkrantz and Hartley Valentine. It’ll have to be a quick turnaround, but what’s the worst that can happen, right?

This should be like every other wedding she plans, but the magnetism she feels towards Mr Valentine disrupts the orderly life she’s worked hard to carve out. 

Can she ignore her intense desires and be a professional? Or will she open up her heart to the one person that has the power to break it? And in doing so endanger not just her job, but her venue’s reputation? 

Marrying Mr Valentine is now available to read for FREE via Kindle Unlimited - mybook.to/MarryingMV 

 Find out if Nicole is willing to put her heart and career on the line for the delicious Mr Valentine.

Adventurous Proposal

book #1

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The Child Garden by Catriona McPherson ~ My Thoughts #TheChildGarden #NetGalley

The Child Garden

The Child Garden by Catriona McPherson
Print and e-book, 314 pages
Published September 1st 2015 by Midnight Ink

Eden was its name. "An alternative school for happy children." But it closed in disgrace after a student's suicide. Now it's a care home, its grounds neglected and overgrown. Gloria Harkness is its only neighbor, staying close to her son who lives there in the home, lighting up her life and breaking her heart each day.

When a childhood friend turns up at her door, Gloria doesn't hesitate before asking him in. He claims a girl from Eden is stalking him and has goaded him into meeting her at the site of the suicide. Only then, the dead begin to speak—it was murder, they say.

Gloria is in over her head before she can help it. Her loneliness, her loyalty, and her all-consuming love for her son lead her into the heart of a dark secret that threatens everything she lives for.

My thoughts about The Child Garden ~~

(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—"It was far from silent in the dark wood."

Okay, that's a fabulous first line. What kind of creepiness can the reader expect after that line?

With a cover like this one has, the reader knows from the start that this story is going to be quite a page-turner. I think the cover is amazing, by the way. And The Child Garden was definitely a pager-turner for me.

I think this is one of the best lines in the book, and sort of sums of my thinking through the whole story. "The worst thing is not knowing who knows what." I'm not sure I ever felt comfortable with any of the characters and I never knew who to trust. I doubted everyone and everything. And I loved it!

I received The Child Garden via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

About the author

Catriona McPherson was born in South Queensferry. After finishing school, she worked in a bank for a short time, before going to university. She studied for an MA in English Language and Linguistics at Edinburgh University, and then gained a job in the local studies department at Edinburgh City Libraries. She left this post after a couple of years, and went back to university to study for a PhD in semantics. During her final year she applied for an academic job, but left to begin a writing career.

These days, McPherson lives with her husband on a farm in the Galloway countryside, where she spends her time writing, gardening, swimming and running. ~ Goodreads

Connect with Catriona

Website | Faceboook | Twitter | Goodreads

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It's Monday! What Are You Reading? February 11, 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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I am sooooo ready for winter to be over. It has been so blasted cold here and the snow is endless. We have a huge pile in our parking lot that will be there until July, I'm sure. 😉 Okay, now I'll stop complaining about the weather, for a little while anyway. 

On the reading side of my life, I stayed up way too late last night finishing The Beautiful Strangers (pub date 3/5), but I just had to get to the end. It is such a wonderful story! And then it's always exciting to dive into the next book on my list. 

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

What I'm currently reading

How to Eat a Cupcake
by Meg Donohue

Ripper

by Isabel Allende 
(audio-book)

Gone Haunting in Deadwood
(Deadwood #9)
by Ann Charles
(audio-book)

What I recently finished

The Beautiful Strangers
by Camille Di Maio
Pub date 3/5

The Child Garden
by Catriona McPherson

What I am going to read next

Until the Day I Die
by Emily Carpenter 
Pub date 3/12

I really love my reading life!

What are you reading this week?

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Book Spotlight #Giveaway! Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands by Chris Bohjalian

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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I read this book in December and posted about it last month. I really enjoyed this book even though it wasn't what I expected when I started it. You can read my thoughts here. I'm making room on my shelves and one of you will win it for your's. 

Good luck and be sure to stop back next week!

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands by Chris Bohjalian

Hardcover, 288 pages

Published July 8th 2014 by Doubleday

A heartbreaking, wildly inventive, and moving novel narrated by a teenage runaway, from the best-selling author of Midwives and The Sandcastle Girls.

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands is the story of Emily Shepard, a homeless teen living in an igloo made of ice and trash bags filled with frozen leaves. Half a year earlier, a nuclear plant in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom had experienced a cataclysmic meltdown, and both of Emily's parents were killed. Devastatingly, her father was in charge of the plant, and the meltdown may have been his fault. Was he drunk when it happened?

Thousands of people are forced to flee their homes in the Kingdom; rivers and forests are destroyed; and Emily feels certain that, as the daughter of the most hated man in America, she is in danger. So instead of following the social workers and her classmates after the meltdown, Emily takes off on her own for Burlington, where she survives by stealing, sleeping on the floor of a drug dealer's apartment, and inventing a new identity for herself - an identity inspired by her favorite poet, Emily Dickinson.

When Emily befriends a young homeless boy named Cameron, she protects him with a ferocity she didn't know she had. But she still can't outrun her past, can't escape her grief, can't hide forever - and so she comes up with the only plan that she can.

A story of loss, adventure, and the search for friendship in the wake of catastrophe, Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands is one of Chris Bohjalian's finest novels to date - breathtaking, wise, and utterly transporting.

About the author

Chris Bohjalian is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 20 books. Chris's work has been translated into over 30 languages and three times become movies ("Midwives," "Secrets of Eden," and "Past the Bleachers.")

"The Flight Attendant" lands March 13, 2018. It has been optioned by Kaley Cuoco and set up with Warner Brothers Television for a limited series. Kaley will play Cassie Bowden, the flight attendant.

Chris's books have been chosen as Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Hartford Courant, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Bookpage, and Salon.

Awards include the ANCA Freedom Award for educating Americans about the Armenian Genocide; the ANCA Arts and Letters Award for The Sandcastle Girls, as well as the Saint Mesrob Mashdots Medal; the New England Society Book Award for The Night Strangers; the New England Book Award; Russia's Soglasie (Concord) Award for The Sandcastle Girls; a Boston Public Library Literary Light; a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Trans-Sister Radio; and the Anahid Literary Award. "Midwives" was a number one New York Times bestseller, a selection of Oprah's Book Club, and a New England Booksellers Association Discovery pick.

Chris is a Fellow of the Vermont Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude of Amherst College, and has written for a wide variety of magazines and newspapers, including the Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, Reader's Digest, and the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine. ~ Amazon

Connect with Chris

Website | Twitter | Amazon | Goodreads

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America Deconstructed by Chaithanya Sohan and Shaima Adin ~ My Thoughts #AmericaDeconstructed #JKSCommunications

America Deconstructed

America Deconstructed by Chaithanya Sohan and Shaima Adin
Paperback, 184 pages
Expected publication: March 5th 2019 by Motivational Press

Naseer was nine years old when he escaped Taliban and fled Afghanistan with his mom and siblings. His story, “There are some people who are coming to take me away”, chronicles the resilience of a nine year old boy as he traveled from Afghanistan to America in his quest for the American dream.

“I saw a ripe mango I’d like to pluck” showcases the love story of Chidiebere and Ifeyinwa, which begins in rustic Nigeria and culminates into a life in America. Their journey chronicles their struggles with language, culture and being African in America.

In the story “ Kosovo, really...cool”, Lisian takes us through his journey to America and often being asked his identity in spite of being white.

In the story “I am exotic, mocha, P-diddy”, Parag describes his journey from a young sixth grader who hid his attraction to boys in conservative India to embracing his sexuality in America.

America Deconstructed follows the journeys of sixteen immigrants who have left their home countries in search of the American dream. The stories combine humor and emotions as the protagonists maneuver cultural differences, accents and uncomfortable situations while feeling a sense of belonging in America.

     

My thoughts about America Deconstructed ~~

America Deconstructed was a very enlightening book for me. It opened my eyes to the strength and perseverance of the sixteen people who wrote about their lives—their dreams of coming to America and the life they hoped they would find here, the reality of it all when they finally did get here, and how they felt after being here for awhile. I know I would not be brave enough, or as determined as these people were, to uproot myself and move to a foreign country. 

I had not really thought about the fact that so many people have this big dream of coming to America and how they envision their lives being so much better than the life they are leaving behind. But at what cost? And is that dream realistic? As an American, it was humbling for me to imagine that living in this country was seen as one of the goals in their lives, something that I just take for granted every day. I can't even imagine moving to a different country and a totally different culture, while rarely returning home, if at all.

I was struck by the hardships they encountered when they found themselves in a totally foreign place, most of the time not being able to speak the language very well. And then the reality of the streets not being 'lined with gold', as they dreamed they would be.    

In all of the stories in America Deconstructed, each writer has made a life for themselves here, even with all the hardships they had to endure to adjust to their new world. A recurring thread that I found through all of the stories was that even though they are 'living the dream' now in America, they all still think of their country as their 'home' and they still yearn for that familiar life and for their families. And that is as it should be—no one should have to give up or forget about their past. 

To all sixteen of the people I met in America Deconstructed, I want to say, 'Welcome to America!'

I received America Deconstructed from JKS Communications in exchange for my honest review.

About the author

I am Chaithanya Sohan, an Electrical Engineer by day and an author by chance. I am currently a full time Engineer with dreams to be a full time writer at some point. I live in California with my African American husband, kid, mom and 90lbs of German Shepherd goodness named Zed. He has me by his little tail! My everyday is a cultural mix masala of African American-ness and Indian-ness which has been chronicled in the first story, An Alien in America in my book America Deconstructed.

My debut novel: America Deconstructed which will be out in 2018

My next novel: America Deconstructed part 2 or a murder mystery! ~ Author's website

Connect with Chaithanya

Website | Twitter | Blog | Goodreads

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