“The Summerhouse” 

               By Jude Deveraux                                                                                                           

2011 Book Review # 114

Book List Review

Serendipity brings three career women together at the DMV in New York City on their twenty-first birthdays. Ellie, cute and perky, is a hopeful artist. Leslie is an aspiring dancer, and Madison is in New York to pursue a modeling career.

Nineteen years later, Ellie, a successful popular fiction writer who hasn't written for three years, asks the other two to meet at a summerhouse in Maine to find out if their lives went as wrong as hers.

Beautiful Madison tells the group about giving up modeling to nurse an ungrateful husband and Leslie talks about leaving the dance world to marry the boy back home, who now may be cheating on her. But neither is as bitter about men as Ellie, whose ex-husband has taken all her money and her self-confidence.

The catharsis achieved by their confessions is helpful, but what really changes their lives is the mysterious Madame Zoya, who promises to let them relive any three weeks of their lives and to choose a new path or remain with the old.

Deveraux is at the top of her game here as she uses the time-travel motif that was so popular in A Knight in Shining Armor (1996), successfully updating it with a female buddy twist that will make fans smile.

My Thoughts:  A different kind of book for me, but I liked it.  No blood or gore, but plenty of human feelings and a little magic.  It’s interesting to see what choices are made in these women’s lives when they are given a "second chance". 

“A Midwinter’s Tale” 

            by Andrew M. Greeley

          A Fictional Memoir from the O'Malley Family Series

2011 Book Review #90

While pulling occupation duty with the First Constabulary Regiment in post-WWII Bamberg, Germany, brave, "dangerously smart" Sergeant Charles "Chuck" O'Malley is assigned to help an FBI agent locate a family of Nazis wanted by the Russians as war criminals. Told the Russians will shoot the father and rape the mother and two daughters to death, O'Malley determines to save them despite the fact that it will mean violating his oath of trust to his country.

In this deft addition to his shelf of novels (after White Smoke), Father Greeley once again shows his knack for combining solid characterization, folksy prose, a bantamweight sense of history and understated Catholic morality to make highly entertaining fiction.

The novel covers Chuck's youth in Depression-ravaged Chicago as part of a large, close-knit family, his love for his sister's best friend, his decision to join the Army in order to acquire money for college and the growth of his moral conscience, especially as he sees the defeated Germans suffering from official corruption, black marketeering and other postwar evils

My Thoughts: I was born a couple of months before WWII started.  Although this is a fictional account of the aftermath of war, I know some of the things told about in this book were real!  The action is not intense, but some of it is maddening!  Not my usual kind of book, but interesting.

“If Wishes Were Horses”  

          by  Robert Barclay

2011 Book Review #47

  Library Journal Review

Wyatt Blaine is still grieving the death of his wife and son in a DWI accident on his birthday five years ago. Even so, he decides to reinstate on his family's Florida ranch a therapeutic riding program for troubled teens that had been a beloved project of his late wife.

Gabby Powers, the widow of the driver of the other car, would love to see her 15-year-old son included. With great reluctance and a nudge from his own irascible father, Wyatt accepts the teen, who definitely doesn't want to be there.

Gabby and Wyatt are attracted to each other but are afraid to act on those feelings. Family loyalty and love, self-forgiveness, learning to love again after loss, and the benefits of equine therapy both physical and emotional are themes developed in this faith-tinged tale.

With detail on horses and their use in rehabilitation services, consultant Barclay's first novel is ultimately a feel-good story. The couple eventually find love but without engaging in graphic sex; still, the frequent use of off color language might be a deterrent to fans of Christian fiction.

My Thoughts:  I am not a big fan of romance books, but this story appealed to me because of the emphasis on the Horse Therapy.  There is a lot of bad language but, it is used as I suspect anyone in those circumstances would use it and…you can skip the words as you read. Don’t let that stop you from reading this book.  I liked it!

"ECHOES"  By Danielle Steel

2011 Book Review #14

Summary: 
For the Wittgenstein family, the summer of 1915 was a time of both prosperity and unease, as the guns of war sound in the distance. But for eldest daughter, Beata, it was a time of awakening. 

By glimmering Lake Geneva, the Jewish beauty met a young French officer and fell in love. Even though her parents would never accept her marriage to a Catholic, Beata followed her heart anyway. As the two built a new life together, Beata's past would stay with her, and when Europe faces war once again, Beata must watch in horror as Hitler's terror threatens her family, even her daughter Amadea who has taken on the vows of a Carmelite nun. 

As family and friends are swept away without a trace, Amadea is forced into hiding, thus beginning a harrowing journey of survival, first in the Nazi death camps and then in the French resistance.  

My Thoughts: This is a heartbreaking story and one of the best Danielle Steel has ever written.  I haven't read Danielle Steel's books for years, but I'm glad I read this one!   

"Mossy Creek"  

by Deborah Smith, Sandra Chastain, Donna Ball, Debra Dixon, Nancy Knight and Virginia Ellis 

Review #190

Mossy Creek is the first book in series of Mossy Creek books.  I reviewed A Day in Mossy Creek in November.  All the Mossy Creek books are written in the same style. Each chapter features a different character and is written by a different author.  

Surprisingly, all of these individual units come together to form an overall look at this small town and its people.  This unique style of writing actually makes the stories more realistic, as readers seem to go from house to house collecting tantalizing tidbits of gossip.

I love the characters in these books and have new to say about them.  If you need to, you may go back and read the review of A Day in Mossy Creek.

http://carolynnsbookshelf.blogspot.com/2010/11/day-in-mossy-creek-by-deborah-smith.html

“A Day in Mossy Creek”          

by Deborah Smith, Sandra Chastain, 

Virginia Ellis and Debra Dixon       

 

        Review #182  

        The fifth book in the Mossy Creek Series

You won't want to leave Mossy Creek!  These pages offer readers a taste of country charm with some characters that feel like family.  You may not want to have a couple of them as actual relatives, but you will feel closely connected to them!


A Day in Mossy Creek is a southern soap opera with heart.  Each chapter features a different character and is written by a different author.  Surprisingly, all of these individual units come together to form an overall look at this small town and its people.  This unique style of writing actually makes the stories more realistic, as readers seem to go from house to house collecting tantalizing tidbits of gossip.


The events in this small town are both fun and fascinating.  From yard sales to years-old yearnings, there is something in these pages that touch a chord of familiarity.  The mundane appears more meaningful when the characters are loved.  And that's where this book shines.  The people that walk through these pages are similar to those we know in real life, only better.  There is a wonderful emotional connection to them, causing the pages to turn with a steady rhythm.


I loved this book!

“The Christmas Train”    
          by David Baldacci

Review #136

(I know it's not Christmas time, but, I thought this might cool us off a little!)

Tom Langdon is a former war reporter who now writes feature articles for various magazines. His plan is to link up with his long-distance girlfriend, a Hollywood star, in L.A, for Christmas. Banned from flying for a year because of an air rage incident, he decides to take the train and to write about riding the rails over the Christmas holidays.

Aboard the Capitol Limited, running from D.C. to Chicago, Tom meets a host of unusual fellow travelers, including rambunctious train personnel, lonely wanderers and an eloping couple. He also runs into Eleanor, the former love of his life also on her way to LA. Sparks fly between them, bringing up old feelings along with unresolved issues from their former relationship. Tom realizes this might be his second chance with Eleanor, but a series of unexpected events may derail his plans…like Tom's Tinseltown girlfriend joining the train in Chicago and proposing marriage; a sneak thief nabbing valuables; and an avalanche trapping the train in the mountains in the midst of an historic blizzard.

The narrative is loaded with train lore. (Baldacci dedicates the book to "everyone who loves trains and holidays".)

This is the first non-mystery book of Baldacci’s I have read…loved it!
Made me want to get on a train and ride!

"South of Broad”  by Pat Conroy

Review #63

This is Conroy’s first book in 14 years. I’m sure you will remember “Prince of Tides” if nothing else he has written.

The narrator of this book is Charleston, S.C., gossip columnist, Leopold (Leo) Bloom King, a likable but troubled kid who goes from having one best friend, his brother, to having no friends, to suddenly having a gang of friends.

In the late '60s, then 18-year-old Leo befriends a cross-section of the city's inhabitants: members of Charleston aristocracy, Molly Huger, Chad Rutledge and his sister, Fraser; Appalachian orphans, Niles and Starla Whitehead; the black football coach's son, Ike; and a beautiful pair of twins, Sheba and Trevor Poe, who are evading their psychotic father. The story alternates between 1969, the glorious year Leo's friends stormed Charleston's social, sexual and racial barriers, and 1989, when Sheba, now a movie star, enlists them to find her missing gay brother in AIDS-ravaged San Francisco.

This is a complicated story about these friends, their families, their interactions with and support of one another in a changing world.

Note: Leo’s mother is an ex-nun and is also his high school's principal. His loving father is a science teacher at the same school. Leo spends some time in a mental institution after his older brother, Steve, commits suicide at the age of 10, and takes a drug bust rap for a friend of that same brother. In the beginning, he’s on probation and must serve 100 community service hours with an old antique store owner in need of personal attention. It turns out to be one of the best things that ever happened to him.

I enjoyed this book and think you will too.

“The Up and Comer”    by  Howard Roughan

Review #54

The strain of living an excessive, brazen, lavishly upper-tier Manhattan life in an "incredibly self-centered, every-man-for-himself world" takes a disastrous toll on the married 30-something cutthroat attorney, Philip Randall. He shamelessly admits to enjoying an extramarital affair with Jessica, his best friend Connor's girlfriend. He's definitely not a likable guy, especially when spewing smug commentary on just about every aspect of city life, and when socializing with wife Tracy's haughty, very wealthy, Greenwich, Conn., family. But… enter penniless "stoner" Tyler Mills, a prep school buddy of Philip's, who has unexpectedly blown into town, and this time Philip's arsenal of designer labels and street-smart manipulation fails him.

Tyler, flashing his "Manson Family grin", has been busy spying on his school chum's secret rendezvous with Jessica and predictably proceeds to blackmail him. Outraged at his friend's audacity and escalating threats, Philip hatches a double-crossing scheme.

Auxiliary characters, particularly Philip's robust boss, Jack Devine, and Jack's kind, innocuous wife, Sally, add the depth and humanity necessary to counteract Philip's almost robotic duplicity.

Good book...it’s rumored that this book plot is going to become a movie plot!

"JUST AS I AM"    By Virginia Smith

Review #41

I apologize for stealing some of other people’s words to describe this book because I can’t think of any better way to describe it.

“When purple-haired Mayla Strong struts down the center aisle of Salliesburg Independent Christian Church, the bug-eyed congregation strains to get a peek at her pierced nose and lip.” She has come to be baptized. “Determined to make her heavenly Father proud, Mayla's sincere and often hilarious attempts to let Him change her from the inside out takes her into some difficult and sometimes, painful places.”

While dealing with the older folks who disapprove of her hair color and piercings, her long time friends who can’t believe she has become ‘religious’ and a new friend who is in a hospital dying of AIDS, Mayla manages to grow in faith and wisdom and always in a way that is distinctly Mayla.

I…Love…This...Book! I…Love…Mayla! I laughed with and at her. I cried a river with her! I saw members of my family in this book and I couldn’t put it down!
AND…guess what…there is another Mayla book out (Sincerely Mayla) and another one on it’s way in May!

AGE BEFORE BEAUTY”                                        by Virginia Smith

Review #39 

Allie Harrod has always been an independent woman and insists on working to pay “her share” of the bills. She considers herself a career woman and she's determined not to let having a husband or a baby change that, no matter how much she wants to be at home with her 8-week old daughter. When Allie sees an opportunity to work at home, she takes it.

She signs on with a home party company and dives in, head first. But the pressures of launching a business (and the expense), her mother-in-law's unexpected extended visit, her husband's moodiness and personal attention to a coworker, and her inability to control her eating habits take their toll. Before long, things start falling apart and her marriage is in peril. If she’s not careful, she’ll lose the very things she's been trying to hold on to.

Although light and humorous in tone, the issues Allie faces are real and they are dealt with in a real way, as are the subplots in the novel.

This is the second book in Ginny’s “Sister to Sister” series.
I have already read and reviewed the first and third books of the trilogy.

I like this one too!

Sidney Sheldon's
MISTRESS OF THE GAME                                                                by  Tilly Bagshawe

Review #36
The sequel to the late Sidney Sheldon's No. 1 New York Times best seller, The Master of the Game (1982)

This book continues the sticky power struggles of the Maxwells, America's richest family. A new generation of Maxwells includes Eve, an evil temptress brutally scarred by her controlling cosmetic surgeon husband,and her identical twin sister, Alexandra, an angel in comparison.

Alexandra dies giving birth to a daughter, Lexi, while Eve survives the birth of her son, Max. Eve plots to take back the family's business empire, rearing Max to hate and, at age 10, kill his father.

Lexi's father, Peter, and her big brother, Robbie, surround Lexi with love, but she's traumatized at age eight when she's kidnapped and raped. Years pass as Lexi and Max square off, while across the ocean "the most famous barrister in London" embarks on a quest that will eventually lead him to Lexi, but not without many shocking twists.

I barely made it through this book. Most of the surviving characters are a mess with the exception of Lexi’s gay brother, Robbie, who has the good sense to renounce his inheritance and to leave the country. Robbie embarks on an adventure that leads him to happiness as a famous pianist who is able to make his own way in the world.

I love Sidney Sheldon’s books, but this one made me glad I am not rich and a member of this miserable family! I'm glad this was the last of the Maxwell Family stories.

THIRD TIME'S A CHARM"                                 By Virginia Smith 
Review #32

Main Characters:
Tori Sanderson,
Tori's 2 sisters, Allie and Joan
Ryan Adams, hardware salesman
Mitch Jackson, co-worker and competitor

“Third Time's a Charm” is the last novel in Virginia Smith's SISTER-TO-SISTER series. The first two being, “Stuck in the Middle” and “Age Before Beauty”.

Tori Sanderson has been given an opportunity to become an Account Executive and replace her present workaholic boss as she moves up the ladder. But her co-worker, Mitch Jackson, has been given the same opportunity. They have a limited time to complete an assignment that will determine which one of them gets the position. Besides the job, Mitch may also have his eye on Tori! Meanwhile, her matchmaking sisters are coaching Ryan Adams, a handsome hardware man, in how to woo Tori!

In the middle of having her sister Joan getting married, her plans to get that Account Executive position by presenting the very best campaign in a very short period of time, Mitch's and Ryan’s attentions and her boss's constant demands, Tori decides to search out the father who deserted her and her sisters fifteen years ago. The time has come for answers. How can she love and trust any man with the rest of her life when she couldn’t trust her own father to stay around?

This a heartwarming story of sisters, retail therapy, and love that endures.

I’m sorry this is the last in the Sister to Sister series. I am not a big fan of romance novels, but I loved this series and the sisters! I know you will enjoy it too!

NOTE: "Stuck in the Middle" was my Review #22

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE   By  Virginia Smith
                                    
Review #22
Main Characters: Joan Sanderson, sisters, Allie and Tori, Dr. Ken Fletcher
This is Book 1 of the 3-book “Sister-to-Sister” series written by Smith.

As the title suggests, Joan is the middle daughter and feels dwarfed by her older sister's happy family and her younger sister's beauty and success while she manages a furniture store and lives at home with her mother and grandmother.

She struggles with feeling abandoned by her father and angry that her mother forced him to leave when she was young. She tries hard to keep peace with her mother and to take care of her elderly grandmother to prevent her from being sent to an
assisted living home...by her mother!

AND…Joan has been dumped by her long-time boyfriend (now known as Roger the Rat) and can't quite figure out what to do with her life. Then a single doctor, who is terribly good-looking and very serious about his faith, moves in next door. Dr. Ken Fletcher sparks her interest and the feeling seems to be mutual until younger sister, Tori, begins her relentless flirting routine.
*******************************
I haven’t been a fan of romance novels for 25 years now, but I found this one very well written, funny in places, with an interesting story line… a “couldn’t put it down” sort of book. It is a fun story of romance, family, and faith, with a picture of sibling rivalry that will keep you engaged and smiling.

Age Before Beauty is Book 2 of the “Sister-to-Sister” series.

Third Time's a Charm, the third book in this series was just recently released. I found it on Amazon.com and in the Public Library!

NOTE: Virginia Smith also writes inspirational, suspense, romance novels.
I like these too! Check them out.