Friday, March 30, 2018

Someday, Someday, Maybe by Lauren Graham

It’s January 1995, and Franny Banks has just six months left of the three-year deadline she set for herself when she came to New York, dreaming of Broadway and doing “important” work. But all she has to show for her efforts so far is a part in an ad for ugly Christmas sweaters, and a gig waiting tables at a comedy club. Her roommates―her best friend Jane, and Dan, an aspiring sci-fi writer―are supportive, yet Franny knows a two-person fan club doesn’t exactly count as success. Everyone tells her she needs a backup plan, and though she can almost picture moving back home and settling down with her perfectly nice ex-boyfriend, she’s not ready to give up on her goal of having a career like her idols Diane Keaton and Meryl Streep. Not just yet. But while she dreams of filling their shoes, in the meantime, she’d happily settle for a speaking part in almost anything—and finding a hair product combination that works.

Everything is riding on the upcoming showcase for her acting class, where she’ll finally have a chance to perform for people who could actually hire her. And she can’t let herself be distracted by James Franklin, a notorious flirt and the most successful actor in her class, even though he’s suddenly started paying attention. Meanwhile, her bank account is rapidly dwindling, her father wants her to come home, and her agent doesn’t return her calls. But for some reason, she keeps believing that she just might get what she came for.

My Thoughts
Where do I begin...hands down I LOVE Lauren Graham.  I love Gilmore Girls.  I can't get enough.
I could hear so much of Lauren's character Lorelai Gilmore in so many of the statement's that Franny made, that made my day.
I will say the story seemed to drag on a little and I LOVED the beginning and I LOVED the end but the middle I'm 50/50.
Franny truly depicts the struggle that young actors go through when they are trying to make it in NYC.  The ups and downs, the possible compromising of morals, and relationships with friends , family and others.
In the back of my mind, I feel like Franny may be Lauren when she was first starting out and learning the hard ropes of showbiz. 
The storyline was great but parts could have been a little shorter and others not long enough.
Good read for all Lauren Graham fans!

Image result for The Brooklyn
Drink Selection
I'm pairing this fun book with The Brooklyn!

 3 dashes cherry liquer
1.0 oz rye/whiskey
0.75 oz Vermouth
Mix together with crushed ice in a glass and garnish with mint leaves

Image result for The Brooklyn Cocktail
Rating
Really good read, 4 wine glasses for sure!


Lauren Graham
About the Author
Lauren Graham is an actor, writer, and producer best known for her roles on the critically acclaimed series Gilmore Girls and Parenthood.

She is also the New York Times bestselling author of Someday, Someday, Maybe, and Talking as Fast as I Can.

Graham has performed on Broadway and appeared in such films as Bad Santa, Because I Said So, and Max. She holds a BA in English from Barnard College and an MFA in acting from Southern Methodist University.

She lives in New York and Los Angeles.

Link to Purchase


Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Hello, Sunshine by Laura Dave

Sunshine Mackenzie has it all…until her secrets come to light.
Sunshine Mackenzie is living the dream—she’s a culinary star with millions of fans, a line of #1 bestselling cookbooks, and a devoted husband happy to support her every endeavor.

And then she gets hacked.

When Sunshine’s secrets are revealed, her fall from grace is catastrophic. She loses the husband, her show, the fans, and her apartment. She’s forced to return to the childhood home—and the estranged sister—she’s tried hard to forget. But what Sunshine does amid the ashes of her own destruction may well save her life.

In a world where celebrity is a careful construct, Hello, Sunshine is a compelling, funny, and evocative novel about what it means to live an authentic life in an inauthentic age.

My Thoughts
This is the first book I have read from Laura and I LOVE it!  She has a way words, they flow from character to character, event to event seamlessly. 
Can I just say - I would love to have Sunshine's job, um amazing?  But like Sunshine, I can honestly say I'm not much of a cooker - unless you count chicken tenders and fries oh and maybe steak HAHA.
I would die of embarrassment if my world was turned upside down in such a CRAZY way!  I mean naked photos, cheating scandal and jeez the fact that she can't really cook?  She looses her husband, her job, the roof over her head or oh yea her dignity at the snap of a finger!  (Not going to lie, living in the Hamptons, not so terrible though!)
Will she survive or has sunshine set for good?

Drink Selection
Um, Pirate Fashion looks to die for!


Rating
5 wine glasses, hands down!

Laura Dave

About the Author
Laura Dave is the author of the critically acclaimed novels The First Husband, The Divorce Party and London Is The Best City In America. Her novels have been published in fifteen countries, and three of her novels, including Eight Hundred Grapes, have been optioned as major motion pictures. She resides in Santa Monica, California.

Link to Purchase




Monday, March 19, 2018

Three Days Missing by Kimberly Belle

It’s every parent’s worst nightmare: the call that comes in the middle of the night.
 
When Kat Jenkins awakens to the police on her doorstep, her greatest fear is realized. Her nine-year-old son, Ethan, is missing—vanished from the cabin where he’d been on an overnight field trip with his class. Shocked and distraught, Kat rushes to the campground where he was last seen. But she’s too late; the authorities have returned from their search empty-handed after losing Ethan’s trail in the mountain forest.
 
Another mother from the school, Stef Huntington, seems like she has it all: money, prominence in the community, a popular son and a loving husband. She hardly knows Kat, except for the vicious gossip that swirls around Kat’s traumatic past. But as the police investigation unfolds, Ethan’s disappearance will have earth-shattering consequences in Stef’s own life—and the paths of these two mothers are about to cross in ways no one could have anticipated.
 
Racing against the clock, their desperate search for answers begins—one where the greatest danger could lie behind the everyday smiles of those they trust the most.

 
My Thoughts
What a roller coaster ride!  And let me just say, I will never let my youngest son go to a sleep away camp without me, EVER! 
This is legitimately my WORST nightmare come to fiction.  Way to scare the heck out me Kim!
Kat goes to bed after just dropping her son off at school to head out on a sleep away trip with his class.
Then there is pounding on her door...her son is missing somewhere in the woods.
Kat rushes to the mountain hoping to find her little boy.

 
On the other side of town, Stef Huntington, the Mayor's wife, seems to have the perfect fairy tale life. 
Her son is also on the same camping trip.  Then she gets the scare of her life!
She also rushes to the mountain to find her son.
Two mothers, two different lives - converging on one mountain in a panic to find their sons.  How will it all end?

 
Drink Selection
Perfect tale to go with a Whiskey Sour, a little strong drink then normal
 2 oz. bourbon
 2/3 oz. lemon juice
 1 tsp. superfine sugar


Rating
5 wine glasses all the way, no doubt about it!


 
Kimberly Belle

 

 About the Author
Kimberly Belle is the internationally bestselling author of four novels: The Last Breath, The Ones We Trust, The Marriage Lie, and Little Boy Lost (June 2018). Her third novel, The Marriage Lie, has been translated into a dozen languages and was a semifinalist in the 2017 Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Mystery & Thriller. A graduate of Agnes Scott College, Kimberly worked in marketing and nonprofit fundraising before turning to writing fiction. She divides her time between Atlanta and Amsterdam.

Link to Purchase


 

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

French Vanilla & Felonies Release Day!

Happy Release Day to Erin Huss! FRENCH VANILLA & FELONIES, book one in the Cambria Clyne Mystery series, is available now!


Promo Signup || Erin Huss – French Vanilla & Felonies (3/13)French Vanilla & Felonies by Erin Huss
Series: Cambria Clyne Mysteries #1
Published by Gemma Halliday Publishing on March 13, 2018
Genres: Cozy Mystery


From author Erin Huss comes an "uproariously funny" (InD'Tale Magazine) new mystery... 
When Cambria Clyne—klutzy, twenty-something single mom—takes the job of an apartment manager at an LA complex, she hopes her run of bad luck is finally coming to an end. She's got a nice home for her daughter, a steady source of income, and the cute maintenance guy is certainly a nice perk! But her luck takes a bad turn again when a dead body turns up, a crime spree takes over the community, and Cambria finds her complex squarely at the center of it all! 
With her dream job suddenly on the line, Cambria dons her detective hat to get to the truth—after all, she's watched enough crime shows on TV to know how to catch a perp! Or so she hopes as she wades through a streaker in apartment 40, an ex-con with a shady agenda, an overly frisky retired couple, and the suspiciously sneaky dealings of the dentist in apa​rtment 36. But will Cambria be able to catch a killer... or will she get caught up in his game and lose it all?


About Erin Huss


Erin Huss is a blogger and best selling author. She can change a diaper in fifteen seconds flat, is a master overanalyzer, has a gift for making any social situation awkward and yet, somehow, she still has friends. Erin shares hilarious property management horror stories at The Apartment Manager’s Blog and her own daily horror stories at erinhuss.com. She currently resides in Southern California with her husband and five children, where she complains daily about the cost of living but will never do anything about it.




Release Blitz Organized By:

Monday, March 12, 2018

Review - The French Girl by Lexie Elliott

They were six university students from Oxford--friends and sometimes more than friends--spending an idyllic week together in a French farmhouse. It was supposed to be the perfect summer getaway--until they met Severine, the girl next door.

For Kate Channing, Severine was an unwelcome presence, her inscrutable beauty undermining the close-knit group's loyalties amid the already simmering tensions. And after a huge altercation on the last night of the holiday, Kate knew nothing would ever be the same. There are some things you can't forgive, and there are some people you can't forget, like Severine, who was never seen again.

Now, a decade later, the case is reopened when Severine's body is found in the well behind the farmhouse. Questioned along with her friends, Kate stands to lose everything she's worked so hard to achieve as suspicion mounts around her. Desperate to resolve her own shifting memories and fearful she will be forever bound to the woman whose presence still haunts her, Kate finds herself buried under layers of deception with no one to set her free.
  

My Thoughts
What an awesome read!  I was hooked from the very beginning.  Lexie has an amazing writing style that keeps you intrigued and wanting more.
6 college students take a trip to France and more than a decade later the case has now reopened due to a body being found.  The French authorities are now coming back around to question everyone as to their involvement with Severine at that time.
If the questioning isn't enough, Severine has taken up residence with Kate and she can't seem to shake her.
There are so many plot twists and turns that you really won't know who did it till the very end. 
Great read!  Kept my attention! Get your copy today, I highly recommend it!

Lillet liquor is used in a 1789| © Richard Moross/Flickr
Drink Selection
I'm going with the 1789.  It's a French go to dating back to the French Revolution!
This is the perfect cocktail for those who enjoy drinks on the sweeter side, as the recipe calls for white wine, whiskey, and Lillet; a sweet and citrus flavored French aperitif.


Rating
5 wine glasses of course!  LOVED it!

Lexie Elliott
About the Author
Lexie Elliott has been writing for as long as she can remember, but she began to focus on it more seriously after she lost her banking job in 2009 due to the Global Financial Crisis. After some success in short story competitions, she began planning a novel. With two kids and a (new) job, it took some time for that novel to move from her head to the page, but the result was "The French Girl", which will be published by Berkley in February 2018 - available to pre-order now!

When she's not writing, Lexie can be found running, swimming or cycling whilst thinking about writing. In 2007 she swam the English Channel solo. She won't be doing that again. In 2015 she ran 100km, raising money for Alzheimer Scotland. She won't be doing that again either. But the odd triathlon or marathon isn't out of the question.
  

Link to Purchase


Thursday, March 8, 2018

Made for Me by Kathryn R. Biel

Michele's lack of focus in life hasn't bothered her, until the day she finds herself with mounting credit card debt, unable to afford her rent, and without a job. While her meddling family questions how she can end up in this predicament, at the age of 29, and single to boot, Michele doesn't want to admit the truth. All she wants to do is sew.
Faced with the prospect of moving back into her parents' house, Michele throws a Hail Mary pass and applies for a TV design contest, Made for Me. In order to win the contest, Michele will have to compete with nine other contestants to design the new wardrobe for Duchess Maryn Medrovovich, who's about to marry Prince Stephan of the United Republic of Montabago.
While in the seclusion of the show, Michele starts to realize where her focus in life should be, and what's truly important to her. However, a dashing competitor might just cause her to lose her focus once and for all. Can Michele keep her eye on the prize while being true to herself?

My Thoughts
Such a  fun read! For those of you who love Project Runway, Made for Me would be right up your alley!
Michele has no focus but is an amazing designer and has a talent for sewing. But a good job seemed hard to come by and living with her parents was the end of the road.  She needed to do better and then she saw the ad for a TV design contest.  What did she have to lose?
Not only is she winning challenges but she is also creating friendships and a possible love interest?
The final challenge is designing the wedding attire for the soon to be princess of Montabago and if she wins she would design her wardrobe for a year!  WOW!
Can Michele make it to the end?  Can she be the designer she's always wanted to be and pursue dreams beyond Etsy?

Image result for cosmopolitan drink

Drink Selection
I'm going to pair this read with a delish Cosmopolitan, yum!
Jigger of Gordon's Gin (​1 12 oz Beefeater)
2 dash Cointreau (​12 oz Cointreau)
Juice of 1 Lemon (1 oz Lemon Juice)
1 tsp Raspberry Syrup (1 tsp homemade)

Rating
What a fun read! 5 wines for sure!
Kathryn R. Biel
About the Author
Telling stories of resilient women, Kathryn R. Biel hails from Upstate New York where her most important role is being mom and wife to an incredibly understanding family who don't mind fetching coffee and living in a dusty house. In addition to being Chief Home Officer and Director of Child Development of the Biel household, she works as a school-based physical therapist. She attended Boston University and received her Doctorate in Physical Therapy from The Sage Colleges. After years of writing countless letters of medical necessity for wheelchairs, finding increasingly creative ways to encourage insurance companies to fund her client's needs, and writing entertaining annual Christmas letters, she decided to take a shot at writing the kind of novel that she likes to read. Kathryn is the author of ten women's fiction, romantic comedy, contemporary romance, and chick lit works, including Live for This and Made for Me. Please follow Kathryn on her website, www.kathrynrbiel.com and sign up for her newsletter at bit.ly/KRBNews.  

Link to Purchase



Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Standing Strong by Teresa Giucice

The Real Housewives of New Jersey star and New York Times bestselling author Teresa Giudice opens up about her tumultuous past year in her emotional new memoir Standing Strong.

In her second memoir, Teresa chronicles her life since her release from prison and what it’s been like to weather difficult times as a single mother. Though she recounts the happy memories she has experienced over the past year, she also touches upon some of the darkest times of her life, including her parents' hospitalizations for severe medical issues in late 2016, which led to the tragic passing of her mother in March of 2017. With unparalleled honesty and courage, Teresa opens up in Standing Strong in ways she never has before, showing her fans what it truly means to be a survivor.

My Thoughts
I have always thought Teresa seemed like such a fun loving person!
  To be honest I have only seen bits and pieces of Real Housewives of NJ, but the parts I did see were great!  She has such a great personality and seems pretty down to earth for the most part.
This second memoir touched on her life after prison and wow, it has not been a walk in the park for her.  Between her husband going away from 4 years, her mother's passing and the hectic life of a single mom of 4 girls,she has her hands full.
This book tells about her raw innermost feelings.  She doesn't hold back and that's another thing I love about her.  She tells it like it is!
If you are a fan or have been in the past I highly recommend this book, you will really enjoy it. 

Image result for vermouth from turin
Drink Selection
I am going to pair this book with Turin Vermouth, a big hit with Italians!

Rating
5 wine glasses for sure, real and raw emotion make it a great selection!

Image result for Teresa Giudice
About the Author
Teresa Giudice is an American reality television cast-member, known for starring in The Real Housewives of New Jersey. She is the daughter of Italian immigrants, grew up speaking Italian, attended Catholic school and is a graduate Berkeley College. Teresa is married to businessman Joe Giudice and they have four daughters together. In 2014, Teresa and Joe entered a guilty plea to several counts of financial fraud. Teresa was sentenced to 15-months in a federal prison.

Link to Purchase