Book Review: Chocolatherapy by Karen Scalf Linamen

Chaos. Change. Crisis. In the grand recipe of life, these are common ingredients. All I know is that I find them in my personal mixing bowl far more than I’d like. They’re in my life now. Probably yours too. My initial response is to reach for the chocolate. This might be why my closet contains a variety of clothes from size 12 to 24. Okay, I lied. Sometimes I also reach for chips. Or doughnuts. Or-like last week’s binge-Bit-O-Honey. You know what I’m talking about, right? Those chewy bite-sized candies that taste like honey even as they extract all your fillings? Except I couldn’t stop with just a bit. What I really ate was more like Bag-O-Honey. My dentist sent me a thank-you card. From the Caribbean. I think this all means something, besides the fact that I should have pursued dentistry as a career. I think that when I’m consuming chocolate, I’m really craving something else. Something healthier. Something deeper. Why I get fixated on comfort foods is anybody’s guess. Chocolate, after all, is just a quick fix. A tasty substitute. A delectable melt-in-my-mouth imposter. What if, in those all-too-frequent seasons of chaos, change, or crisis, I could somehow stop settling for second best and give my soul whatever it’s really seeking?

This was a pretty good book. It offers some helpful thoughts and advice, and it had some great humor too. Not much else to say, but I did enjoy it.

Book Review: Mount Vernon Love Story: A love story of George and Martha Washington by Marry Higgins Clark

Charming, insightful and immensely entertaining in its unique presentation of one of America’s legendary figures, Mount Vernon Love Story, by famed suspense writer Mary Higgins Clark, shows the reader the man behind the legend, a man of flesh, blood and passion, and in the author’s skilled hands, the story and the man come fully and dramatically alive.
Mary Higgins Clark’s interest in George Washington was first sparked by a radio series she was writing in the 1960s, called “Portrait of a Patriot,” vignettes of American presidents.
Always a lover of history, she wrote this biographical novel — her first book — and titled it Aspire to the Heavens, which was the family motto of George Washington’s mother. With all events, dates, scenes and characters based on historical research, the book was published in 1969.
Its recent discovery by a Washington family descendent led to its reissue under its new title, Mount Vernon Love Story.
In researching George Washington’s life, Mary Higgins Clark was surprised to find the engaging man behind the pious legend. He was a giant of a man in every way, starting with his physical height. In an era when men averaged five foot seven inches, he towered over everyone at six foot three. He was the best dancer in the colony of Virginia. He was also a master horseman, which was why the Indians gave him their highest compliment: “He rides his horse like an Indian.”
She dispels the widespread belief that although George Washington married an older woman, a widow, his true love was Sally Carey Fairfax, his best friend’s wife. Martha Dandridge Custis was older, but only by three months — she was twenty-seven to his twenty-six when they met. Mary Higgins Clark describes their relationship from their first meeting, their closeness and his tenderness toward her two children. Martha shared his life in every way, crossing the British lines to join him in Boston and enduring with him the bitter hardship of the winter in Valley Forge. As Lady Bird Johnson was never called Claudia, Martha Washington was never known as Martha. Her family and friends called her Patsy. George always called her “my dearest Patsy” and wore a locket with her picture around his neck.

This book, I am not sure if I can find the right words. It is beautiful, a beautiful telling of the love between George Washington and his beautiful wife Martha. It is a charming romp through his memories, his life from child hood and on through. We find him remembering these things from his minds eye as he is giving over the reigns of his government to John Adams. It’s witty, and shows some funny jests about Thomas Jefferson (my all time favorite) and John Adams. This book was simply not long enough for me, I wanted more. I wanted to have more memories from George’s point of view. A wonderful book, that is making me wish to dig out my rev war books right now.

Book Review: Two Women: A novel of friendship by Marianne Fredriksson

With her acclaimed novels Hanna’s Daughters and Simon’s Family, international bestselling author Marianne Fredriksson captivated readers with the extraordinary power of her emotional landscapes. Now Fredriksson gives us Two Women, the unforgettable story of a remarkable friendship–and the secrets that threaten to tear it apart.They meet on a spring day in the local garden center: Inge, a native Swede, lovely and refined, a woman ruled by reason and her own deeply held moral beliefs; and Mira, a Chilean immigrant who still feels out of place in the cold Scandinavian north. Through many shared afternoons in Inge’s garden, Mira slowly reveals the horrors of a shadowed past and the heartbreak involving her beloved daughter. As Mira and her family begin a wrenching journey of discovery, Inge unwittingly uncovers secrets in her own life that make her question the very order of her world. An elegant novel of time and memory, love and distance, and the wounds they create and conceal, Two Women is Marianne Fredriksson’s most affecting work of fiction to date.

For me the writing style of this book was a little bit hard to read. But the content was good. This is a good story about the love and friendship between two women. It really does show that no matter how different your lives are you can always find common ground. There is always a way to move around differences, and find friendship.

Book Review: Testimony of an Irish Slave Girl by Kate McCafferty

Kidnapped from Galway, Ireland, as a young girl, shipped to Barbados, and forced to work the land alongside African slaves, Cot Daley’s life has been shaped by injustice. In this stunning debut novel, Kate McCafferty re-creates, through Cot’s story, the history of the more than fifty thousand Irish who were sold as indentured servants to Caribbean plantation owners during the seventeenth century. As Cot tells her story-the brutal journey to Barbados, the harrowing years of fieldwork on the sugarcane plantations, her marriage to an African slave and rebel leader, and the fate of her children–her testimony reveals an exceptional woman’s astonishing life.

A very touching book. A heart felt story about a woman who was taken as a child and turned into a slave.An Irish slave. I enjoyed this book. It flowed a little different than most books I read but over all I did enjoy it very much. It is a good story, touching, and it will surely make you feel for the conditions and the situation that All Slaves have been in.

Book Review: Six Reasons to Stay a Virgin by Louise Harwood

Emily, London’s famous twenty-four-year-old virgin, has to wonder if it’s really so crazy to wait for Mr. Right. To enjoy the anticipation. To make sure she’s totally, truly, no-turning-back in love. Especially when her friends fall in and out of lust on a daily basis. But Emily gets the surprise of her life when Oliver Mills comes back to town after a year in America. When they were sixteen, she and Oliver made out behind some sand dunes at the beach, and deep down, he’s the one she’s been waiting for all this time. Already, Emily can feel her defenses crumbling. She’s got six good reasons to stay a virgin. But six might not be enough.

Not really a great book to me. I didnt think it was that funny, and over all the main character was just a bit to odd. Her friends were all a bit overwhelming with the either, deep need to take care of her. Or completely not careing about her. Overall I wouldnt reccomend this one unless you have nothing else to read.

Book Review: Virgin: Prelude to the Throne by Robin Maxwell

…a riveting portrait of Elizabeth I as a romantic andvulnerable teenager, dangerously awakening to a perilousliaison with the wrong man.
England, 1547: King Henry is dead. Elizabeth’s half-brother, nine-year-old Edward, is king in name only. Thomas Seymour, brother to the ambitious duke who has seized power in this time of crisis, calculatingly works his way into Elizabeth’s home in genteel Chelsea House. He marries Henry’s widow, Catherine Parr, and uses his venerable charms and sexual magnetism to indulge his infatuation for young Elizabeth. Caught hopelessly under Thomas Seymour’s spell, surrounded by kind friends and hidden enemies, Elizabeth can only follow her heart to ensure survival.

Wonderful book! Great writing. And wonderful story telling. It wasn’t until I was almost done with this one that I found out it had two books before it.But that was still okay. This book stands alone perfect well for a Tudor fan.A wonderful story of the turmoil of young Elizabeth’s life. I highly recommend this one.

Book Review: Serpent Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt

Lucy Craddock-Hayes thought the man lying in the ditch was dead, but he survived the assault. With the help of her servant, Lucy brings the gentleman home, and learns that he is Viscount Simon Iddesleigh. As Simon slowly recuperates, he finds himself falling in love with sharp-witted and surprisingly sharp-tongued Lucy, but he also knows that the longer he stays, the more likely it is that his quest for vengeance will endanger Lucy and her family.

This was the final book in the “Prince” series. By Hoyt. And it certainly was the steamiest! Wow. This book is very hot. Simon, and Lucy a very mismatched couple who take deep desire in each others company and touches. But Simon has a dark side as well. Its a very good story, about a mans flaws, and his love of a woman. And the woman’s love of him. A story that asks, can True love really conquer all?

Book Review: The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif ShaFak

From one of Turkey’s most acclaimed and outspoken writers, a novel about the tangled histories of two families In her second novel written in English, Elif Shafak confronts her country’s violent past in a vivid and colorful tale set in both Turkey and the United States. At its center is the “bastard” of the title, Asya, a nineteen-year-old woman who loves Johnny Cash and the French Existentialists, and the four sisters of the Kazanci family who all live together in an extended household in Istanbul: Zehila, the zestful, headstrong youngest sister who runs a tattoo parlor and is Asya’s mother; Banu, who has newly discovered herself as a clairvoyant; Cevriye, a widowed high school teacher; and Feride, a hypochondriac obsessed with impending disaster. Their one estranged brother lives in Arizona with his wife and her Armenian daughter, Armanoush. When Armanoush secretly flies to Istanbul in search of her identity, she finds the Kazanci sisters and becomes fast friends with Asya. A secret is uncovered that links the two families and ties them to the 1915 Armenian deportations and massacres. Full of vigorous, unforgettable female characters, The Bastard of Istanbul is a bold, powerful tale that will confirm Shafak as a rising star of international fiction.
This book wasnt really my cup of tea. It was not a bad book. I just didn’t connect with it much like I thought I would. I did honestly almost give up on the book, but I didn’t and I am glad that I read it. Although, I really cant say much more than that. The characters, are human, you follow their struggles, and their life.

Book Review: Shoot the Moon by Billie Letts

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Where the Heart Is comes this eagerly anticipated tale of a small Oklahoma town and the mystery that has haunted its residents for years. In 1972, the tiny windswept town of DeClare, Oklahoma, was consumed by the terrifying disappearance of Nicky Jack Harjo. When he was no more than a baby, his pajama bottoms were found on the banks of Willow Creek. Nearly 30 years later, Nicky mysteriously returns in this intriguing and delightfully hypnotic tale, full of the authentic heartland characters that Billie Letts writes about so beautifully. Billie Letts first novel, Where the Heart Is (Warner, 1996), was a #1 New York Times bestseller, a selection of Oprah Winfreys Book Club, and was made into a motion picture starring Ashley Judd and Natalie Portman. It has sold more than 3.2 million hardcover and mass market copies combined. The Honk and Holler Opening Soon (Warner, 1998) has more than 397,000 hardcover and paperback copies in print. Trade paperback sales remain strong, with an 85% sell-through. Billie Letts won the Walker Percy Award at the 1994 New Orleans Writers Conference and the Oklahoma Book Award for Where the Heart Is. It was also named one of the best books of the year by the American Library Association. Until recently, she worked as a professor at Southeastern Oklahoma State University

This book has to be the best book I have read all year.The writing is positively breath taking. Following the the journey of Dr Mark Albright to discover his past. This story has a little bit of everything and it will pull at your heart strings. Mystery, Romance, and most of all a coming to terms with who you are. I highly recommend this one. Don’t miss it!

Book Review: Harry Potter : Goblet of Fire by J.K Rowling

Harry Potter is midway through his training as a wizard and his coming of age. Harry wants to get away from the pernicious Dursleys and go to the International Quidditch Cup. He wants to find out about the mysterious event that’s supposed to take place at Hogwarts this year, an event involving two other rival schools of magic, and a competition that hasn’t happened for a hundred years. He wants to be a normal, fourteen-year-old wizard. But unfortunately for Harry Potter, he’s not normal – even by wizarding standards. And in his case, different can be deadly.

I started reading the Harry Potter Series because a friend of mine said I should. So far I have found it enjoyable. Goblet of Fire was not my favorite. I didn’t like the start, but overall I did like the book and it did get better. This one does get darker, and has its moments of deep sadness. But over all its another year at Hogwars. And now that I have read the book I can watch the movie. I do look forward to reading the next one.
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