Second Nature

Written by Alice Hoffman
© 1994 Published by Berkley
ISBN: 0-425-14681-2
290 pp.

From the book cover: "He was beautiful. He was innocent. And in the locked room where the psychiatrists kept him, he was treated more like an animal than a human being. Robin Moore, coping with a divorce-in-progress and a troubled teenaged son, surprised even herself when she impulsively rescued this man, who'd been raised in the wilderness and had no more sophistication than a child. She spirited him home to her suburban town where she could keep him safe. But with the strange, uncivilized man's arrival came a streak of wild, uncontrollable events that disturbed the peace in this perfectly ordered neighborhood - and changed all of Robin's ideas about love and humanity...."

Hmmm, what would you do? The person referred to as 'Wolfman' who has been locked up for months in a mental hospital and who had never spoken to anyone before, quietly asks you to help him. Without even thinking, Robin Moore takes him home and hides him. She slowly learns some of his background and how he came to live in the wild. She also, of course, falls in love with him. She has plenty to deal with - her estranged, cheating husband who's also a local cop, her love-sick 16-year-old son, her contankerous, ailing grandfather, her very limited income as a landscaper, and now the strange man in her guest room. Adding to that, some sicko is killing the town's pets, including Robin's much-loved cat, Homer.

This book was an easy read and I read it in one day. There weren't too many surprises in it but it was a good story. A little bit romance and a little bit mystery, the ending was kind of sad but there wasn't really any other way to write it.

 

I picked this book up at a flea market. (I apologize for the poor photo.  I'm having camera problems and didn't find a good photo on line.)

In Her Shoes

Written by Jennifer Weiner

© 2002, Published by Pocket Books

ISBN: 0-4165-0334-X

521 pp. followed by questions with the author

From the book cover – “Rose is a thirty-year-old attorney with a secret passion for romance novels. She’s going to start exercising next week, and she dreams of a man who will slide off her glasses and tell her she’s beautiful. Maggie is twenty-eight and drop-dead gorgeous. Although her stardom hasn’t progressed past her hip’s appearance in a music video, she dreams of fame and fortune. These two sisters claim to have nothing in common but DNA, a childhood tragedy, and a shoe size, but when they’re forced into cohabitation, they may just learn that they’re more alike than they thought.”

I love Jennifer Weiner’s books. She doesn’t hesitate to tell it like it is and In Her Shoes is no exception. Rose and Maggie lost their mother at a young age and Rose has always tried to look out for her sister. That’s hard to do when Maggie has such a different lifestyle. She’s dyslexic and to make up for poor performance in school, she uses her looks to get what she wants. When she does have money, she spends it on partying, makeup and clothes. She can’t hold a job or keep an apartment, has a bad habit of snooping whenever she can and doesn’t hesitate to ‘borrow’ money or clothes without asking. She ends up on Rose’s doorstep at a very inopportune time. On the other hand, Rose is somewhat of a stick-in-the-mud. She packs a few extra pounds, dresses very conservatively, and only splurges on great shoes and romance novels. The last thing she wants is her unreliable sister intruding in her life again just as she’s finally found a boyfriend.

I couldn’t live with someone like Maggie without wanting to throttle her daily. I was surprised Rose put up with her as long as she did. When something happens that blows their relationship apart, you have to wonder if they’ll ever speak again. Throw in a ‘wicked’ stepmother, a long-lost grandmother and her retirement community buddies, an unlikely suitor, and a few dogs and you have a great story.

I bought this book at a flea market. Jennifer Weiner is also the author of Good in Bed and Little Earthquakes.

Dark Road Home

Written by Karen Harper

©1996 Signet
Published by the Penguin Group
442 pp.

From the book cover: “Attorney Brooke Benton comes to the Maplecreek Amish community to escape the stalker who terrorized her after her last murder case. She feels safe running a friend’s quilt shop, but the homespun Amish frown on her worldly ways. Daniel Brand, returning to his Amish people after years in the outside world, knows he should have a good Amish wife, but it is the wildly attractive and accomplished Brooke who catches his eye.

When a mysterious hit-and-run driver kills four Amish teenagers, Brooke fears the isolated Amish community may also be in jeopardy, and she plunges into an investigation. When Dan joins her chase to pin down the killers, the trail takes them to Las Vegas, where they find more than they bargained for: Brooke and Dan find love – and its power to break through all barriers. This compelling novel of romantic passions, clashing values, and riveting suspense brims with verve and authenticity.”

This book has such a sad beginning – four young Amish people on their way home at night in a buggy, are victims of a hit-and-run driver. Three are killed outright and the fourth dies at the hospital. The Amish believe it’s the will of God but Brooke is determined to find who did it. She’s in Maplecreek hiding from a stalker and doesn’t want any publicity that may give away her location but she feels very strongly about the loss of the young Amish people. Daniel Brand had returned to Maplecreek just that day and along with Brooke, is the one who hears and finds the accident. One of the victims is his niece and the daughter of one of Brooke’s Amish friends.

I found this book to be very interesting and I learned a lot about the Amish community. We have much smaller groups that live in areas of southern Iowa but they pretty much keep to themselves. It would be quite an experience to live and work with them. The author did a good job intertwining the romance of Brooke and Daniel, her quest for the killers, and the everyday lives of the Amish. I enjoyed reading about their ways and the bits about the quilt store was interesting, too.

I bought this book at a flea market. Most of my books are then recycled by donating them to a local resale shop that serves the community food bank.

That Certain Summer by Mary Verdick

©2011, Published by AuthorHouse 
ISBN 978-1-4520-4744-7
164 pp.

From the book cover: “That Certain Summer” tells the story of Sally Grimes, a feisty girl from Iowa, who gets a dream job writing the life story of famous actress, Diane Fenwick. She moves to a Gatsby-esque community in Connecticut and meets the actress’s adorable twins, Megan and Alec, and Rufus, a special dog, who is more intuitive than a lot of humans. She also falls in love with Ricardo, the handsome hunk next door, who is an honest-to-god count and a Princeton graduate, but is working as a handyman for the reclusive millionaire Morley-Watts, who suspects Diane is hiding something he desperately wants. What is Ricardo’s connection to Diane, and why is Sally suddenly plunged into danger by a situation she has no control over?"

This book is good for a summer read. It’s not too long, has romance, intrigue and a goofy dog who likes to stick his nose in where it’s not wanted. Sally falls for Ricardo but is he too good to be true? If he’s a count and a Princeton grad, why is he wasting his time as a handyman? Something suspicious is going on at the millionaire’s home next door and Sally hopes Ricardo isn’t involved. Then someone turns up dead……is Sally in danger, too?

This is the second book I’ve read and reviewed by Mary Verdick. My first review was for “As Long as He Needs Me” and you can read it here .  Mary is also the author of the young adult series, Pal Paperbacks, several children's stories and 3 other novels.

I received my copy of That Certain Summer directly from the author to read and give my unbiased review.

H.E.A.V.E.N.

H.E.A.V.E.N.
© 2009 by Nan Becklean

ISBN: 978-1-60145-747-9
Publisher: Nanbooks
181 pp.

About the book: “Sarah, a gorgeous, older woman, Lionel, a handsome, older man, Zack, a shy free-lance pilot madly in love with Melody, a luscious wanna-be songwriter-singer, Huxley, a cool, womanizing band leader whose mother, Harriet, thinks is gay and Ben, a lovable robot who observes and tries to understand all, interact in this wild eschatological caper/murder on an idyllic island in August 2073 as the day of reckoning for one of them approaches.”

(Word for the day is eschatological.  I had to look it up as I had NO idea what it meant.  Here's the definition - of or relating to or dealing with or regarding the ultimate destiny of mankind and the world.)

In the year 2056 with all the new medicine, healthy habits and scientific breakthroughs, people are living a lot longer. The country is going broke paying Social Security benefits. The governent decides to offer people the chance to live the last 10 years of their life in complete relaxation with rejuvenated bodies in resort-like compounds in return for agreeing to voluntarily die a peaceful death at age 95. These ‘resorts’ are called H.E.A.V.E.N. – Homeland Equitable Alliance for a Victimless Economy and Nation. Now in 2073, Sarah’s turn is coming in about 2 weeks and she’s decided she isn’t ready to die yet. It was all her husband’s idea in the first place and he’s already gone. As she’s searching for a way out of her predicament, she gets into a fight with an employee who later ends up dead. Sarah is one of many suspects.

Ms. Becklean does a wonderful job with her characters and storyline, and the addition of a thinking, 12-foot-long robotic crocodile guard adds just the right touch to the story. Even though the book touches on some very serious matters, it has humor, romance, science fiction, mystery, and gives you something to think about, too …enjoyable all-around.

Author Marketing Experts, Inc sent me a copy of this book for review.

Fireworks Over Toccoa

Fireworks Over Toccoa
© 2010 by Jeffrey Stepakoff

ISBN: 978-0-312-58158-9
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
SRP: $ 22.99
272 pp.

About the book: “Every so often that story comes along that reminds us of what it’s like to experience love for the first time—against the odds, when you least expect it, and with such passion that it completely changes you forever.

An unexpected discovery takes eighty-four-year-old Lily Davis Woodward to 1945, and the five days that forever changed her life. Married for only a few days before her husband was sent to fight in WWII, Lily is anxious for his return, and the chance to begin their life together. In honor of the soldiers' homecoming, the small Georgia town of Toccoa plans a big celebration. And Jake Russo, a handsome Italian immigrant, also back from war, is responsible for the elaborate fireworks display the town commissioned. But after a chance encounter in a star-lit field, he steals Lily's heart and soul--and fulfills her in ways her socially-minded, upper-class family cannot. Now, torn by duty to society and her husband--and the poor, passionate man who might be her only true love--Lily must choose between a commitment she's already made and a love she’s never known before.

Fireworks Over Toccoa takes us to a moment in time that will resonate with readers long after the book’s unforgettable conclusion. A devastating and poignant story, this debut novel will resonate with anyone who believes in love.”

Oh, my….. I don’t read romances too often because I find most of them are cookie-cutter stories and you always know how they’re going to end. This book was different. It really got my emotions stirred up. Lily is the daughter of a wealthy southern family who marries Paul just days before he goes off to war. She’s only seventeen and he’s gone for almost 3 ½ years. Days before Paul is to return home, she meets and falls in love with Jake who’s in town to put on a big fireworks display. Although Lily loves Paul, she realizes that what she feels for Jake is much, much more. What’s Lily to do… stay with Paul out of a sense of duty knowing that the passion she shares with Jake will always be missing from her life, or abandon her husband and family for her one true love? I was almost crying along with Lily as she struggled to make a decision. The author does a fantastic job reminding us that not all love stories have perfect endings. I love the cover, too.

My copy of this book was an ARC but I actually have no idea where it came from.

Books I've read this week - The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder

The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder © 2009 by Rebecca Wells, author of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. I won this from Bookin’ with Bingo. Thanks Karen!

About the book: “ The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder is the sweet, sexy, funny journey of Calla Lily’s life set in Wells’ expanding fictional Louisiana landscape. In the small river town of La Luna, Calla bursts into being, a force of nature as luminous as the flower she is named for. Under the loving light of the Moon Lady, the feminine force that will guide and protect her throughout her life, Calla enjoys a blissful childhood – until it is cut short. Her mother, M’Dear, a woman of rapture and love, teaches Calla compassion, and passes on to her the art of healing through the humble womanly art of “fixing hair.” At her mother’s side, Calla further learns that this same touch of hands on the human body can quiet her own soul. It is also on the banks of La Luna River that Calla encounters sweet, succulent first love, with a boy named Tuck.

But when Tuck leaves Calla with a broken heart, she transforms hurt into inspiration and heads for the wild and colorful city of New Orleans to study at L’Academie de Beaute’ de Crescent. In that extravagant big river city, she finds her destiny – and comes to understand fully the power of her “healing hands” to change lives and soothe pain, including her own. When Tuck reappears years later, he presents her with an offer that is colored by the memories of lost love. But who knows how Calla Lily, a “daughter of the Moon Lady’, will respond?

A tale of family and friendship, tragedy and triumph, loss and love, The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder features the warmth, humor, soul, and wonder that have made Wells one of today’s most cherished writers, and gives us an unforgettable new heroine to treasure.”

I felt Ms. Wells did an excellent job capturing the feel of the 1950s and ‘60s south in a small town. This book has a lot of emotion running through it and the author made the most of it, especially the sad parts. There were a lot of those but the book is ultimately about Calla’s ability to overcome the obstacles thrown in her way. I'm not sure Calla's 'healing hands' were any more magical than any good hairdressers. (Don't you just love it when they wash your hair and massage your scalp?) It was a good summer reading book.

Books I've read this week - On the Bluffs

On the Bluffs by Steven Schindler © 2009

About the book: “Sometimes the biggest lies are the ones we live.

Finding and reuniting with lost loves is growing in popularity with the ease and accessibility provided from sites like Facebook, Google, and Linkedin. It is this search for a love from the past that is at the heart of On the Bluffs.

While Brian DeLouise was working the graveyard shift at a conspiracy theory-crazed radio station his wife was alley-catting around Washington, D. C. But a cheating spouse and a dead-end job no longer made him angry or depressed. He was just numb. It took a daring brush with death to awaken his senses and a few clicks on Google to begin a journey to recapture a love he believed was gone forever. Brian finds his lost lover in a rundown mansion on the windswept cliffs of Cape Cod, where he must confront a fast approaching evil while he risks destroying his own life and that of everything he now cherishes.”

It took me a few chapters to really get interested in this book. I found the parts about fantasy baseball and Brian’s job at the radio station to be boring. I was beginning to think this was a ‘man’s romance novel’ if there is such a thing.

Brian is going nowhere. He’s middle-aged, slightly overweight and losing his hair, obsessed with fantasy baseball, his job sucks, and he hasn’t had sex with his wife in two years. Then something happens and he’s reminded of the wonderful summer he spent working on Cape Cod where he met and fell in love with Portia Smart. One thing leads to another and he decides to see if he can find her again. Once Portia and her family were brought into the story, it became more interesting and I really enjoyed it. Some of the characters in the book were truly that – characters! The story follows Portia and Brian in their struggle to find what they’d had 20 years ago with many ups and downs along the way.

Books I've read this week - Sugar Time

Sugar Time by Jane Adams ©2009

About the book: “Charlotte “Sugar’ Kane hasn’t brought in a hit TV show for 20 years. She’s about to prove she still can, even if she’s an old broad in a youth-obsessed business, when she’s blind-sided by a medical malady that could cost her the pilot if anyone knew about it as well as ruin her chance to turn it into a winning series. She manages to keep her secret from the conniving young assistant who wants her show, and even from her grown kids and closest friends. And when she falls in love with Alex Carroll, she can’t tell him either: “What man who’s still got what it takes wants a woman with a condition?” But Alex has a secret of his own, and by the time Sugar learns it, she’ll have to face the hardest decision of all for a woman of a certain age who gets her last chance at both love and success - and knows that getting one means giving up the other.”

I almost put this down after reading a few pages. Why would I be interested in reading about a Jewish career woman ‘of a certain age’, (my age!), divorced and single, with grown kids and health problems? Don’t I have enough problems of my own? But as I read and got to know Sugar better, I begin to get interested in her life. She’s a television producer/writer who needs her latest show to be a success even if working all hours ends up killing her. She has an angina attack and is told to slow down and to try and eliminate stress in her life before she has a real heart attack. She meets a wonderful man and they hit it off immediately. She never tells him or her family about her medical condition because she doesn’t want the kids to worry and she thinks the man wouldn’t want anything to do with her. She has to decide what matters to her most and how she arrives at that decision is the basis for the book. It’s a good chick-lit book even if the heroine is a little older than most in today’s stories.

Books I've read this week - Benny & Shrimp

Benny & Shrimp by Katarina Mazetti, © 1998, English translation © 2008

About the book: "A man and a woman, both of them lonely, meet and fall in love. Both of them crave companship and family; both are intelligent and good-humored. As Benny and Desiree’ (a.k.a. Shrimp) are about to discover, all that can stand between them and happiness is – everything.

Benny is a dairy farmer struggling to keep his late parents’ farm alive in a modern world. Desiree’ is a small-town librarian who has retreated even further into her shell after the death of her young husband. They live in Sweden, and their love story begins surprisingly enough in a cemetery: it is there, visiting their loved ones’ graves, that they first spot each other. Their differences are obvious immediately – she’s appalled by the tacky decorations he so carefully arranges around his mother’s grave and he’s turned off by her peaked bookworm looks – but lust and longing drive them into each other’s arms. Just when it looks like love could conquer all, reality rears its ugly head with a vengeance. How can Desiree’ (whom Benny promptly nicknames “Shrimp”), with her love of high culture, independence, and postmodern theory, be happy in a creaking old farmhouse that stuck in the 1950s? And how can a man like Benny, who sings to his cows on Christmas Eve and longs for a buxom woman to come along and help run the farm, reconcile himself to store-bought meatballs and evenings at the opera?

In Benny & Shrimp, Katarina Mazetti allows her two characters to speak for themselves in alternating chapters, giving readers an intimate look inside the minds of two people as they struggle to bridge the gap between their separate worlds for the sake of true love. The farmer and librarian could be two figures in a pastoral fable, but here they spring to life in all their sexy, infuriating, confounding messiness. Will modern-day practicality keep them apart, or will the unlikely couple live the fairy-tale ending? Either way, their path is a universal one of love, heartbreak, and hope.”

I had heard good things about this book and it was even recommended in Entertainment Weekly this week, so when it arrived yesterday, I couldn’t wait to read it. I wasn’t disappointed. Even though the story takes place in Sweden, it could have been anywhere. Two very different people meet and for some reason, they’re just drawn to each other. Benny is a dairy farmer who inherited the family farm and works very long hours. He doesn’t know about housework, laundry, or cooking since his mother always did that.. He’s looking for a wife to cook, clean, and help around the farm and provide him with a family. Desiree’ grew up with money, went to college, and lives in an apartment while working as a librarian. She’s very neat and organized and wants a man to share her love of books and opera and she never learned how to cook much - she's basically a vegetarian. Her husband and Benny's parents are buried next to each other. They see each other at the cemetery where they share a bench and when they smile at each other one day, something just clicks. Neither knew what to do about it at the time but eventually they do get together. Now they just need to figure out how to make their lifestyles meld harmoniously since neither wants to compromise and they’re both terrible at putting their feelings into words.

There was a lot of humor in the book but also places where I wanted to cry or give both of them a swift kick. I really enjoyed this book but was kind of disappointed when it was done because I didn’t want it to end. The author did write a sequel, Familjegraven, that was published in Sweden in 2005. I hope it’s translated soon.