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Showing posts from February, 2011

Save The Date by Jenny B Jones

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Synopsis : When Alex and Lucy pick out wedding invitations, they wonder if they can be printed in vanishing ink. Former NFL star Alex Sinclair is a man who has it all–except the votes he needs to win his bid for Congress. Despite their mutual dislike, Alex makes Lucy a proposition: pose as his fiancée in return for the money she desperately needs. Bound to a man who isn’t quite what he seems, Lucy will find her heart on the line–and maybe even her life. When God asks Alex and Lucy to scrap their playbook and follow his rules, will they finally say, “I do”? First time reading Jenny B Jones. I enjoyed Save the Date . It’s light and witty. Reminds me of Sophie Kinsella but Jenny infused the story with Christian values here and there. Very different from what I experienced when reading Karen Kingsbury but equally soul enriching. I love the main characters. I think they are so cute together. Each time I read about the encounter and conversation exchange between Alex and Lucy,

Picture Perfect by Jodi Picoult

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Yet another excellent book by Jodi on human relationship. I read this quite immediately after t his . This time she brought us to the lives of Hollywood Mega Star, Alex River and his wife, Cassie Barrett, a renowned anthropologist. To the world, they seemed to have it all. Having met on set of a motion picture while in Tanzania, they fall in love under the African sky and had a fairy-tale wedding all within weeks of meeting. But like the synopsis says, ‘ when they return to California, something altered the picture of their perfect marriage. A frightening pattern took shape – a cycle of hurt, denial and promises, thinly veiled by glamour. Torn between fear and something that resembled love, Cassie wrestled with questions she never dreamed she would face: How could she leave? Then again, how could she stay?' Picture Perfect  starts with Cassie waking up in a graveyard with amnesia, not knowing who she is. From there it moved on to her discovering that she was married to Hollyw

Holiday Read - The Burning Girl by Mark Billingham

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I'm off to a short family holiday and I'm hoping that I can complete this book during the trip.  Wouldn't you agree with me that time waiting for flights and in the plane are the best time to catch up on your reading.  Once you reach the destination, it's one activities after another unless it's a trip to the beach.  That would then be a different story. As you can see from the bookmark peeping out, I have just a bit go before reaching the end.  Should I consider packing another book in case I read this even before my holiday ends?  Should I try an e-book instead?

The Hanging Wood by Martin Edwards

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Synopsis : Twenty years ago, a teenage boy, Callum Hinds, went missing in England's Lake District. His uncle was suspected of having done the boy harm and interviewed by the police. When he committed suicide close to his cottage in the Hanging Wood, everyone assumed it was a sign of guilt. But the body of the boy was never found. Now his sister, Orla Payne, who never believed in their uncle's guilt, has returned to the Lakes, and taken up a job in an atmospheric residential library, close to her father's farm, the upmarket caravan park where her step father works, and the Hanging Wood. She wants to find the truth about Callum's disappearance, and-at the prompting of Daniel Kind-tries to interest DCI Hannah Scarlett, head of Cumbria's Cold Case Review Team, in the case. Hannah is reluctant, leading Orla to demand whether she cares about justice. Hannah does care, and when Orla dies in strange and shocking circumstances, she determines to find the truth about wha

Reaching out to older adults - an interview with author Missy Buchanan

With so many authors focusing on churning out books for young adults, it's refreshing to come across books written just for those in their golden years.  Missy Buchanan is one such author.  Her  books are Talking With God in Old Age and Living with Purpose in a Worn-out Body .  I was sent a copy of Talking With God in Old Age for review which I will post soon.  In the meantime, here is a interview sent to me which would be a good introduction to who Missy is and why she writes what she writes. Q: What made you decide to start ministering to and writing books for older adults? Well, as a middle-aged adult, I never had any intention of becoming an author of books for older adults. But because of the journey that my own aging parents were on, I realized how they had become disconnected from their church as their lives changed. They started off as active older adults and then that circle got smaller as they had more needs and physical limitations. As I would visit them at their

Softly & Tenderly by Sara Evans with Rachel Hauck

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Synopsis: Happily married and owner of two successful boutiques, Jade longs to begin a family with her husband, Max. But when she discovers that Max has an illegitimate son, who he wants her to help raise, Jade’s life is turned upside down. She flees to her childhood home, a rambling Iowa farmhouse with enough room to breathe. There, while her mother’s health grows fragile, and the tug of her first love grows stronger – Jade begins to question everything she thought she knew about family, love and motherhood. In the wide-open landscape, jade begins to see a future that doesn’t rest on the power of her past but in the goodness of God’s tender mercies. This is the 2nd book in a 3 books series. The first was The Sweet By and By . I didn’t read the first book and thus going straight into book 2 took some effort in knowing about previous events that was vaguely mentioned in book 2. It would have been great to follow the series starting with book 1 but even without reading the 1st boo

Sparkles by Louise Bagshawe

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Sparkles follows the lives of the Massot family after the disappearance of Pierre Massot, the charismatic and secretive head of the family. The vastly wealthy Massot owes House Massot, Paris’s greatest jewellery firm. 7 years after his disappearance, his beautiful young widow, Sophie decided that she and her son, Tom and the family firm must move on to survive and declared him dead.  Not everyone is receptive to the idea. Certainly not 18 year old Tom who is doing poorly in Oxford and Pierre’s mother, Katherine also opposed to this declaration. Hugh Montfort, the CEO of rival firm, Mayberry couldn’t be happier when Sophie whom the world deemed to be a meek housewife decided to take charge of the affairs of House Massot for Hugh has big plans to takeover House Massot. However, like everyone else, he underestimated Sophie. From there, the saga moved on with lots of twist and turn and we read that things are not what it seems and people are not really who they said they are. Totally

First Lady by Michael Dobbs

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Synopsis: Michael Dobbs returns to the subject that made him a household name - the high drama and machinations of the political world. This is House of Cards for the 21st century, an insider's view of the dynamics of power by a writer who has had a privileged seat at the court of government for many years. This time the king maker is a woman, Virginia Edge, mid-thirties, attractive, self-sufficient, ambitious. Knowledge is power and she gleans it from the Other Half Club, a lunching group for Opposition parliamentary wives, and the gay network at Westminster. This is the story of her transformation from dutiful political wife to masterful manipulator of the entire political process at Westminster. She is a woman who is driven by the failings of men and the greed of others to take over their system and undermine it, to repay them in kind. In this battle, she has two great allies - the intuition and determination of a wronged wife, and the blind ineptitude of Westminster men. But

Four Blondes by Candace Bushnell

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I bought this book because of Candace Bushnell’s fame as the author for Sex and the City and Lipstick Jungle. I read Lipstick Jungle but not Sex and the City . I must also confess now that I have not watched any of the TV series nor SATC series nor the movie. I thought I would give Four Blondes a try to see if I would like it. Unfortunately, I didn’t like it. It is just not my type of read. However, they do have potential to be developed into a sleek and sexy movie or TV series but as a book, it is lacking the ‘wow’ factor. Four Blondes consists of four short stories about four different women, all of them blondes, naturally. The four stories are totally not related. I find the stories pretty insulting to blondes as the characters were portrayed in very typical bombastic manner. First up we have Janey, a beautiful B-list model who scams rent-free summerhouses in the Hamptons from her lovers until she discovers that getting a man isn’t the same as getting what she wants. The