4 Star
On New Year’s Eve, Fran and Will Parrish host a dinner party, serving their friends a gourmet feast. The night is such a success that the group decides to form a monthly dinner party club. But what starts as an excuse to enjoy the company of fellow foodies ends up having lasting repercussions on each member of the Table for Seven Dinner Party Club.
Fran and Will face the possibility that their comfortable marriage may not be as infallible as they once thought. Audrey has to figure out how to move on and start a new life after the untimely death of her young husband. Perfectionist Jaime suspects that her husband, Mark, might be having an affair. Coop, a flirtatious bachelor who never commits to a third date, is blindsided when he falls in love for the first time. Leland, a widower, is a wise counselor and firm believer that bacon makes everything taste better.
Over the course of a year, against a backdrop of mouthwatering meals, relationships are forged, marriages are tested, and the members of the Table for Seven Dinner Party Club find their lives forever changed.
Kaley - 4 Star
Table for Seven is one of those books that leaves you feeling happy as you turn the last page. Does that mean everything ends with a perfect happily ever after? Not necessarily. Whitney Gaskell has written a lovely novel about friendships and relationships and how important those things are in life.
This was a really good ensemble novel. I got to take a peek into several different lives and I felt like I really got to know the characters. I think the alternating perspectives helped me enjoy the novel more than I would have had the story only focused on one person or couple. That being said, as is the case with most ensemble books, there were characters that seemed to be at the centre of the novel. In this book that couple was Fran and Will. Unfortunately, Fran drove me a little crazy. She seems to think Will doesn’t care about her or their marriage anymore so she embarks on an emotional affair. It was frustrating because she didn’t have any reason to doubt Will’s feelings for her. This was one of those cases of a couple being too comfortable and not bothering to communicate. Even though I liked getting the insight into all of the couples’ lives, I wanted more focus to be put on Audrey and Coop. Also, Leland was such a fun character but he didn’t play a huge part in the novel. The only time I really got to read about him was when he was at one of the dinners and I felt like he had more to offer to the story.
The monthly dinner parties provided a unique element to the novel. It was a fun way to get all the characters together and allowed personalities to be exposed a little more. For example, we can tell how important the dinner is to Jaime and she wants to make sure everything is perfect. Her husband, on the other hand, can’t usually be bothered to show up on time. It’s telling and gives a hint to the others, and the reader, that everything is not always as it seems.
I finished Table for Seven with a smile on my face. I was really happy with the journey that all the characters went through and how they dealt with the issues they faced and how they changed because of those issues. If you’re looking for a feel good novel with heart, pick up Whitney Gaskell’s latest novel. As for me, I’m going to keep an eye out for her next novel as well as taking a look at her previous books.
Thank you to Bantam for our review copy! All opinions are our own.
Connect with Whitney Gaskell:
Website
Facebook
Twitter
3 Star
Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom.
Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle—and people in general—has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.
To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence—creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world.
Lydia - 3 Star
Where'd You Go Bernadette has received wonderful reviews since its release and has been on my want-to-read list for a while. So, when I knew I was going on vacation, I decided to take a break from my ever-expanding, must-review pile and picked up a few novels I’ve been wanting to read for a while. Sadly though, Where Did You Go Bernadette disappointed me and I found myself speed reading through it so I could finish and move on. I suspect this in part is due to the fact that I had no idea I was going to be reading a satire, so my expectation of a serious read left me confused and by the time I figured it out, I wasn’t as interested as I might have been.
When I first read the description of Where'd You Go Bernadette, I thought the novel was about a girl searching for her mother who disappeared. This is true, but I became confused when I found myself reading Bernadette’s emails without an explanation about why we were privy to them. Narrative was sparse in this novel, and the majority of the book was correspondence via emails, letters and even articles, interviews and reports. It took me some time to figure out what was going on, and by the time I was told that this was what Bee pieced together after her mother disappeared, I was kind of over it. Once I clued in that I was reading a satire I could sit back and enjoy it a little more, but I still remained disappointed.
There were a few surprises and some character growth, but I never really warmed to any of the characters and found Bernadette to be really whiny and very negative. The intense dislike of Canadians the author portrayed, satirical or not was disheartening. Again, this is all probably because I wasn’t expecting the novel to be humourous. Sometimes Bee seemed much younger than her age to me, but I’ve seen some less mature fifteen year olds, so it didn’t surprise me, but at times I wondered about it and it then her real age would confuse me. The few scenes I really enjoyed were the actual scenes, the ones between Bee and her parents.
Pick this one up if you're looking for something a little different.
Connect with Maria Semple:
Website
Facebook
5 Star
An unsettling, emotional and suspenseful novel of the unshakable bonds of motherhood, in which Michelle Mason not only loses her memory after a deadly car crash, but can't find her 16-year-old daughter, the one person who may know what happened that day. But the deeper Michelle digs, the more she questions the innocence of everyone, even herself. A dramatic portrayal of the fragile skin of memory, What a Mother Knows is about finding the truth that can set love free.
Sabrina-Kate - 5 Star
I really enjoyed What a Mother Knows for it's unpredictability. The story flowed very well, yet I couldn't figure out what was going to happen next especially the ending which really came from out of nowhere but tied a lot of things together very nicely.
The main character definitely had a lot of struggles following her car accident and what I found to be probably very realistic yet very sad was the fact that people around her felt it alright to hide truths from her or to change details about what had happened in her past. Easy to do with someone whose has lost part of their memory and I wonder if it is a natural reaction for others to do that if given the opportunity.
The novel was full of suspense, very emotional and well thought out. It really held my interest very deeply and made me long to keep going to find out if Michelle would ever find out what really happened and find her daughter, two things that may or may not be connected and if so, how.
I loved the cover of What a Mother Knows, finding it absolutely gorgeous and I also loved the title, however I don't find that either one represented the contents very well, which seemed a bit darker and nefarious. Despite that little hiccup, I would absolutely recommend this to anyone who likes a good suspenseful plot twisting read.
Thank you to Sourcebooks for our review copy. All opinions are our own.
Connect with Leslie Lehr:
Website
Facebook
Twitter
5 Star
Three girls unite in their realisation that keeping themselves nice has got them nowhere. It’s time to take action. It’s time to rebel. It’s time to become Bad Girls.
Imogen wants to get laid but how can she be a bad girl until she loses a few kilos and gets her body into order? Beth is happy to be a bad girl - so long as no one else finds out and so long as she is in control. Juliette’s not really sure what she’s doing there, but it sure beats another Saturday night gaming with her geek boyfriend.
They band together to form the Bad Girls Club, a support group for recovering nice girls, and through a series of brazen dares, push the limits of their sexuality.
But are the girls ready to finally take the final leap that will have them branded as bad girls for real? To save the club, and each other, they each have to publicly acknowledge their darkest secrets.
The Bad Girls’ Club – it’s about sex, it’s about dares but most of all, it’s about friendship.
Sabrina-Kate - 5 Star
The Bad Girls' Club by Kathryn O'Halloran is exactly the type of chick lit book I adore when I want a fun and uncomplicated fully enjoyable read. From the first page, I found myself devouring the book though it did get a bit racy at times. But let's be honest, most of us have thought about this stuff if not having done it.
The three friends involved were so realistic to real life that it was easy to relate to them, their hang ups, issues and problems. I enjoy books like this where the characters have problems and make mistakes. A lot of times I found myself groaning out loud, thinking something like "I have done that before". The story did get a little farfetched at times but I think it was more due to the author exaggerating the circumstances a bit so it still remained plausible if not likely.
All in all, I did really like The Bad Girls' Club a lot for the easy read that it was, and I really enjoyed that it alternated chapters between different characters' viewpoints. I always find that enjoyable versus one person relating the entire tale. It's nice to have the different perspective and reactions of different characters in my opinion as it helps to make a more rounded story.
Thank you to Kathryn O’Halloran for our review copy. All opinions are our own.
Connect with Kathryn:
Website
Facebook
Twitter
5 Star
Kacey Cleary’s whole life imploded four years ago in a drunk-driving accident. Now she’s working hard to bury the pieces left behind—all but one. Her little sister, Livie. Kacey can swallow the constant disapproval from her born-again aunt Darla over her self-destructive lifestyle; she can stop herself from going kick-boxer crazy on Uncle Raymond when he loses the girls’ college funds at a blackjack table. She just needs to keep it together until Livie is no longer a minor, and then they can get the hell out of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
But when Uncle Raymond slides into bed next to Livie one night, Kacey decides it’s time to run. Armed with two bus tickets and dreams of living near the coast, Kacey and Livie start their new lives in a Miami apartment complex, complete with a grumpy landlord, a pervert upstairs, and a neighbor with a stage name perfectly matched to her chosen “profession.” But Kacey’s not worried. She can handle all of them. What she can’t handle is Trent Emerson in apartment 1D.
Kacey doesn’t want to feel. She doesn’t. It’s safer that way. For everyone. But sexy Trent finds a way into her numb heart, reigniting her ability to love again. She starts to believe that maybe she can leave the past where it belongs and start over. Maybe she’s not beyond repair.
But Kacey isn’t the only one who’s broken. Seemingly perfect Trent has an unforgiveable past of his own; one that, when discovered, will shatter Kacey’s newly constructed life and send her back into suffocating darkness.
Lydia - 5 Star
I loved this book and read it in a day at the beach. Ten Tiny Breaths is a fabulous novel that falls under the ‘new adult’ genre that has recently emerged and I’ve found now, after a couple of these, that I appreciate this new genre more than Young Adult novels. Unpredictable and shocking, yet uplifting and heartfelt, Ten Tiny Breaths is a compelling, compulsive read.
Kacey and her younger sister, Livvie, have run across the country to escape their aunt and dodgy uncle who had been raising them since the car accident that took not only their parents but Kacey’s boyfriend and best friend. The same car accident Kacey survived-physically. Emotionally though is another story. She is plagued with nightmares and guilt and has walled off her heart forever-with one exception, her little sisiter, Livie.
Unable to let anyone but Livie in, Kacey is left to cope with raising her younger sister and starting a new life with a just handful of cash. Determined to remain distant, she eventually consents to Livie’s pleading to be nice to their new neighbours, to at least try. Kacey reluctantly agrees and finds her life shifting, not only by Storm and her adorable daughter, but by another, much sexier neighbor-one that Livie didn’t even ask her to be nice to. Both change her life in ways she never imagined possible.
I love how Tucker blasts away the stereotypes of dodgy apartment complexes, strippers and strip clubs and I loved the support and friendship Kacey finds in that world. I loved watching Kacey come into her own and find her place in the world. There are some unforgettable, quirky characters in this novel, and I enjoyed reading about them all, particularly Livie and Storm.
I really felt for Kacey. I felt awful for what she had to go through, what she was still going through. I was desperate for her to work through the emotional trauma she carried with her, to heal, and to turn her life around. I loved watching her let down her guard and banish the barriers she’d built around herself. I thought the past was portrayed perfectly as we are not overburdened with it, but it is always there, lurking.
I think Ten Tiny Breaths would make a fabulous movie and I can’t wait for the sequel, One Tiny Lie, which is Livie’s story when she goes off to college!
Thank you to Atria Books for our review copy. All opinions are our own.
Connect with K.A. Tucker:
Website
Facebook
Twitter
5 Star
Helen Walsh doesn’t believe in fear – it’s just a thing invented by men to get all the money and good job – and yet she’s sinking. Her work as a Private Investigator has dried up, her flat has been repossessed and now some old demons have resurfaced.
Not least in the form of her charming but dodgy ex-boyfriend Jay Parker, who shows up with a missing persons case. Money is tight – so tight Helen’s had to move back in with her elderly parents – and Jay is awash with cash. The missing person is Wayne Diffney, the ‘Wacky One’ from boyband Laddz. He’s vanished from his house in Mercy Close and it’s vital that he’s found – Laddz have a sell-out comeback gig in five days’ time.
Things ended messily with Jay. And she’s never going back there. Besides she has a new boyfriend now, the very sexy detective Artie Devlin and it’s all going well, even though his ex-wife isn’t quite ‘ex’ enough and his teenage son hates her. But the reappearance of Jay is stirring up all kinds of stuff she thought she’d left behind.
Playing by her own rules, Helen is drawn into a dark and glamorous world, where her worst enemy is her own head and where increasingly the only person she feels connected to is Wayne, a man she’s never even met.
Kathryn - 5 Star
This installment about the Walsh Sisters has been long- awaited (not that I haven’t enjoyed every novel Keyes has put out since the last Walsh Sister novel!) but I’ve been hoping we were going to get another in-depth peek into one of the siblings. The last one I read personally was Rachel’s Holiday which looked at Rachel’s substance abuse issues. Keyes is a wonderful story teller and can weave heart breaking issues into a novel with compassion and laughter so I was intrigued instantly about The Mystery of Mercy Close being focussed on Helen, a little bit of a dark horse from the previous books.
The plot surrounding Helen’s personal struggle is light and slightly off-the-wall and so the voice of Helen is a stark contrast to the quirky storyline. I was a teeny- tiny bit bored by the plot itself unfortunately as I found it took a long time to get going (although the characters were in themselves interesting). The fact that I found Helen intriguing was certainly the crux of the book. At this point in her life she appears to be so in control in many respects but suffering financially sends her into a state of depression that she’d struggled to put behind her once before. The fact that she’d already experienced depression made it much more interesting for the reader as we got her thoughts from a place of knowledge rather than of abject fear of what was happening to her. I loved that Keyes clearly spelled out that no one person can just pull someone back out of depression- that sometimes it takes someone unknown or unlikely to help a person who is suffering and that sometimes in can even take years of trying different things to reach a solution.
I’ve got be honest that this book does indeed read differently from other Keyes’ novels- not at first, but definitely once I got into the story, and I think I appreciated Helen’s thought processes more because it truly felt like they were being fuelled by someone real. I have no basis of comparison personally for depression and of course I don’t know if Keyes own biography slipped occasionally into Helen’s but I truly felt the honesty in her writing. I know some people may feel that the writing seemed detached but that to me was Helen’s voice and not a reflection of Keyes’ own skill.
While the subject matter is difficult, I think Keyes once again has made education in a difficult subject seem natural, and the Walsh Sisters will always be favourites of mine.
Thank you to Viking for our review copy. All opinions are our own.
Connect with Marian Keyes here:
Website
Facebook
Twitter
3 Star
Clearfield, Virginia, is a sleepy, idyllic hamlet where residents welcome its comfortable, familiar routines. But when a newcomer arrives in town, long-buried secrets threaten to surface and destroy their haven . . .
Answering a call that summons her to a stranger's deathbed, a reluctant Sophie Shepard is too late to hear what he was so anxious to tell her. What was so important that a dying man would think of her in his final moments? With the help of Dr. Drew McCarren, Sophie begins to dig into her past, setting off a chain of events that chills the quiet town of Clearfield, Virginia, to its roots.
With part of her wanting nothing more than to put Clearfield behind her and run back home, Sophie knows she won't rest until she discovers the truth. But growing closer to the residents also means uncovering their dark secrets--secrets about the woman who gave Sophie up for adoption, the mysterious part these strangers played, and the life she never knew she nearly had.
Jen - 3 Star
The general idea of Something About Sophie by Mary Kay McComas is promising. Stories about adoption are always endearing to me. I understand Sophie’s curiosity about where her story began. The first half of Something About Sophie was great; it really grabbed my attention.
Sophie is a great protagonist, plus she has red hair, so everything is a little more interesting with her around. There’s just something about brave redheads that makes for a great story. And what is more brave than leaving your home to search for answers about your birth parents, especially when the answers seem to be coming from a man on his deathbed?
When Sophie hears that a man she doesn’t know has left something to her in his will, she assumes he holds the key to her unknown past, including her birth parents. So she makes the trip alone to find out why, who and what is behind this man’s story.
With any great story, the main character gets much more than she was expecting, including a handsome doctor, an endearing caretaker and mysterious murders that seem to be anything but coincidental. The questions Sophie must answer pile up faster than the chapters can answer but I liked the fast pace element of the story.
Where Something About Sophie lost some of its steam for me was in the second half of the book, where many of the characters and connections to Sophie’s story got confusing to me. Keeping track of names is sometimes a struggle for me, especially if I am trying to connect those names to their parts in a mystery. There are also some loose ends that didn’t seem to get tied up at the end.
Sophie’s story and character stays strong though, and her blooming relationship with Dr. Drew McCarren kept me interested in the book for the most part. My only criticism in that area would be the steamy factor, but maybe passionate scenes are just my taste and the lack of them didn’t take away from the story.
Something About Sophie is worth a read if you like action and mystery and a brave, likeable red head.
Thank you to William Morrow for our review copy. All opinions are our own.
Connect with Mary Kay McComas:
Website
Facebook
