Pam's Review: Love Always by Harriet Evans

Love Always~Harriet Evans 

• Paperback: 480 pages

• Publisher: Gallery

• Publish Date: June 21, 2011

• ISBN-10: 1451639627

• ISBN-13: 978-1451639629

• ASIN: B004G8QTMU

From the author's website:

"This family's poisoned.  They won't tell you, but they are."


From a hot, tense Cornwall summer in 1963 to present day London, LOVE ALWAYS is the story of one girl's life fallling apart and what she finds out along the way as she tries to put it back together again.  Things have gone badly wrong for Natasha Kapoor, somewhere - she should be a successful jeweller in East London and everything should be perfect, but it's not.  And when her grandmother dies and she travels back to Summercove, the family home by the Cornish sea,  she is given an old, scribbled page by her grandfather.  It's the fragment of the diary of her Aunt Cecily, who died in a tragic accident many years ago, leaving behind a broken family and a terrible secret.  What happened that summer in 1963 and is Natasha's family irrevocably poisoned by it?  Will Natasha ever be able to make a fresh start and find love for herself and if so, how? 

Natasha’s world is falling apart around her. Her jewelry business is having some serious financial problems, her marriage is on the rocks, and her grandmother, who she used to spend many summers with, just passed away. She travels to meet her family at Summercove, her grandparent’s house where she used to go for the summer, for the funeral. At the gathering afterwards Cecily’s name gets brought up briefly a few times. The family doesn’t talk about Cecily, Natasha’s aunt who died at Summercove when she was only fifteen. However, in private, Natasha’s grandfather gives her Cecily’s diary. This diary is Natasha’s chance to get to know what happened that summer, find out why her family holds so much animosity towards her mother, Cecily’s sister, and figure out once and for all why no one wants to talk about the past.





My thoughts:

Review: Georgia's Kitchen by Jenny Nelson

From the author's website:
Getting burned—in and out of the kitchen—might be the best thing that ever happened to Georgia Gray.

At 33, talented chef Georgia Gray has everything a woman could want—the top job at one of Manhattan’s best restaurants, a posse of smart and savvy gal pals who never let her down, and a platinum-set, cushion-cut diamond engagement ring courtesy of Glenn, the handsome entertainment lawyer who Georgia’s overbearing mother can’t wait for her to marry. The table is set for the ambitious bride-to-be until a scathing restaurant review destroys her reputation. To add salt to her wounds, Glenn suddenly calls off the wedding.

Brokenhearted, Georgia escapes to the Italian countryside, where she sharpens her skills at a trattoria run by a world-class chef who seems to have it all—a devoted lover, a magnificent villa, and most importantly, a kitchen of her own. Georgia quells her longings with Italy’s delectable offerings: fine wine, luscious cheeses, cerulean blue skies, and irresistible Gianni, an expert in the vineyard and the bedroom. So when Gianni tempts Georgia to stay in Italy with an offer no sane top chef could refuse, why can’t she say yes?

An appetite for something more looms large in Georgia’s heart – the desire to run her own restaurant in the city she loves. But having left New York with her career in flames, she’ll need to stir up more than just courage if she’s to realize her dreams and find her way home.

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The author blurb prett much nailed the story, so I'm just going to go straigh into my thoughts:

I enjoyed this book. For as much as I hate to cook, I apparenty like stories about cooks - go figure. It sort of reminded me (very loosely) of the movie, Under the Tuscan Sun...(yes, I know it's a book and no, I never read it *gasp!*)

Georgia is the type of character that starts off thinking she knows what she wants, but what she's got isn't it. Then, she loses her job and her fiance on the same day - and realizes she has a perfect opportunity to start over. Her dream job turns out not to be her dream job, but she makes a conscious decision to learn from it, making new friends and using the lessons she learns in Italy as the foundation to pursue her dream of opening her own restaurant.

I like how she was honest with herself that she wanted to be in a relationship; she missed the sharing and intimacy (and sex) that goes along with all that being a couple entails. For whatever reason, while her girlfriends were sympathetic, I didn't really care for their characters - they felt materialistic and shallow.

I did like the fact that Georgia's business partner was her friend and not a lover. It seems that frequently a female heroine has to rely on the romantic interest in all aspects of her life; that was not the case in Georgia's Kitchen. The way the partnership came around felt full circle to me - a relationship built on respect for each other's talents.

The ending is not what I would call a typical HEA, more like an open-ended HEA if you will. Don't get me wrong, it was good and I as the reader was happy - I'd love to see Georgia again in a small cameo in a future book, you know, just to check in and see how she's doing :)

My rating:


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Come back tomorrow for a guest post by Jenny Nelson and a chance to win a copy of Georgia's Kitchen!



This book was provided to me free of charge by the Publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner

From the back cover:

For twenty-eight years, things have been tripping along nicely for Cannie Shapiro. Sure, her mother has come charging out of the closet, and her father has long since dropped out of her world. But she loves her friends, her rat terrier, Nifkin, and her job as a pop culture reporter for The Philadelphia Examiner. She's even made a tenuous peace with her plus-size body.

But the day she opens up a national women's magazine and sees the words "Loving a Larger Woman" above her ex-boyfriend's byline, Cannie is plunged into misery...and the most amazing year of her life. From Philadelphia to Hollywood and back home again, she charts a new course for herself: mourning her losses, facing her past, and figuring out who she is and who she can become.
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I picked up this book on a whim, I saw it at B&N in the sale aisle but didn't buy it. I went back later and it was already gone - then I saw it on Paperback Swap and said "what the heck".

I think this book falls under the category "Women's Fiction", because it's not exactly a romance and not exactly "chick lit". What it is, is a very good read. I wasn't going to review this book, I read it just to read, but days later it's stuck with me.

The storyline is that Cannie is a plus-sized woman who's recently "taken a break" from her boyfriend of 3 years, Bruce. He gets a job at a Cosmo-type magazine, and writes a relationship column. His first column, titled "Loving a Larger Woman" causes Cannie to see red. (Honestly, where I can see how she might be a bit insulted, I thought it was a very insightful article. But I digress.) Soon after, his father dies, and they end up together after the funeral. Cannie has joined a weight-loss study, and during one of her appointments she finds out she's pregnant. Bruce doesn't exactly step up to the plate, and Cannie's story is one of perseverance and love of friends and family.

This story never got boring - I was constantly intersted in what was going to happen next. Between her lesbian mother's constant suggestions that maybe she "try the other team" and Cannie's snarky rants at her weight-loss doctor and her brush with Hollywood, her heartache at her father's rejection, and her pathetic ex-boyfriend. The storyline has highs and lows, but Cannie's wit and humor temper the sadness (okay, one scene had me crying...if you've read this book you know which one). But it does deliver a very satisfying HEA.

Here's the thing: I don't know what Jennifer Weiner looks like, but she "gets" what it's like to be an overweight woman, and how it affects every aspect of your life. I'm really, really impressed. Except for the "Daddy issues" she could have been pulling straight from my brain. As I skimmed the book looking for quotes, I realized it wasn't just one or two things, it's the nuances and the way Cannie communicates and views the people around her.

I really enjoyed this book for different reasons than I thought I would. My rating:

Review and Giveaway: Pieces of Happily Ever After by Irene Zutell

From the author's website:
Alice, a former New Yorker, struggles to feel at home in the bizarre world of the San Fernando Valley -- all while holding a job and caring for her young daughter and senile mother. When her attorney husband lands a trophy client - box office queen Rose Maris - things begin to look up.

Then Alex starts working late - a lot. He crunches his paunch into a six pack and trades his Gap ensembles for Armani everything.

Soon, Alex and Rose's affair blazes in the tabloids and Alice is plunged into trash-gossip hell. Her life crumbles around her as she navigates her newly single life through suburban L.A. -- a place rife with porn stars, psycho soccer moms and nutty neighbors obsessed with creating a winter wonderland despite the scorching desert heat.

Is there a chance to wrest Alex from the Sexiest Woman Alive? And if so, would Alice want him back? And what about George, her college sweetheart? Or Johnny, a walking charm-bomb paparazzo? As Alice inventories the rubble of her life, she desperately searches for her bearings and is forced to ask herself what she really wants from life, love and herself.
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Irene Zutell really has a gift for words. If anyone else had told this story I probably would have put it down and walked away. The storyline itself is sad: Woman is married and has a young child, husband leaves her for a younger/richer/famous client. As if that wasn't enough, her mother has Alzheimer's and is thrown out of her elder care home. Depressing, right? In Ms. Zutell's hands, not so much.

Don't get me wrong, this book was not a barrel of laughs, but Ms. Zutell found humor in almost every part of the story. Okay, the husband is an ass, I'll give you that. But all the craziness made this book a you-can't-cry-because-you're-too-busy-laughing story:

Alice Hirsh's husband has left her for a client - a famous movie-star client - right after Alice almost died. She's left in the house they just bought, hiding with her five-year-old daughter, Gabby, from the paparazzi camped out in her front yard.

Right from the get-go the humor in this book is evident. She's staying inside the house hiding from the paparazzi, running out of food in the house and then the elder care home calls to tell her she's got to bring adult diapers for her mother:

I've got to get it together.
One person's needs depend on me. Another person needs Depends.

The cast of characters in this book is eclectic: A former pron star turned doctor's wife, a psychic, a Winnie-the-Pooh sweatshirt-wearing soccer mom/bar owner, the wacky neighborhood association president, the movie star and the ex-husband(I said they were eclectic, not that I liked them all!), her mother's nurse, and Gabby.

The house on the hill next door is used for filming pron. And Alice's five-year-old daughter thinks all the moaning and groaning they can hear coming from the house is a princess in need of rescue.

The elder care home refuses to keep her mother because she keeps swearing, even though they know she has Alzheimers. After she brings her mother home, at one point she thinks her mother is dying and her mother is trying to speak:

Please mom, please don't say cocksucker, I pray. Please don't let that be your last word. Please, please, please.

Alice's internal monologue was great. This book actually made me feel less paranoid about my own internal monologue :)

This was not a typical hero/heroine story; I don't think there really was a hero. Yes, there was a love interest, but it stayed kind of vague as far as HEA. I didn't like the fact that all the men in this book were less-than-honorable.

I think if you enjoy Women's Fiction you will really enjoy this book. Ms. Zutell addresses real issues women face today - divorce, parenthood/pregnancy, and caring for elderly parents - with a touch of humor; this story was touchingly funny.

I give Pieces of Happily Ever After 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.


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Giveaway:
Thanks to BookSparks PR, I have one copy of Pieces of Happily Ever After to give away. Leave a comment telling me you'd like to read this book - ends July 12. Must be a follower, US only.


This book was provided to me free of charge by BookSparks PR in exchange for an honest review.