Chicken Soup for the Soul: Inspiration for the Young at Heart: 101 Stories of Inspiration, Humor, and Wisdom about Life at a Certain Age by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Amy Newmark

Read my latest Chicken Soup for the Soul review at A Goddess of Frugality.

America Pacifica by Anna North

     My review for America Pacifica was published on Oh My Gosh Beck! today. I found it to be an interesting read and a great choice for book groups. Please visit Oh My Gosh Beck! to read the full review.

Enchantment - Review

Enchantment by Charlotte Abel

This week I reviewed Enchantment for A Goddess of Frugality. Enchantment is a story of a young witch dealing with high school, trying to control her own powerful abilities, a curse inflicted on her by her own misguided parents, and a boyfriend. Please visit A Goddess of Frugality for the full review.

Real Life Strikes Again

     Sometimes I find it annoying when real life gets in the way of my reading. I think a lot of it has to do with what I'm reading too. I'm just not connecting with Little Women at all. I find it confusing, as the dialogue is not always clear as to whom is speaking. I also find it difficult to stay awake. Little Women has actually been a chore to read. It actually took me a full week to read the scheduled chapters for the week before I was ready to move on to another book.

     I did finish Moonstone for my goodreads group, and also Enchantment which will be reviewed on our sister site, A Goddess of Frugality, this Tuesday. I enjoyed both of those at least for their own different merits which I will go into further detail in their reviews.

First Impressions of Moonstone

     This classic whodunnit by Wilkie Collins revolves around the Yellow Diamond, also known as the Moonstone, and its current disappearance. The story is told in first person narrative through the eyes of Gabriel Betteredge, an aging servant. I'm still not really familiar with the whole servant hierarchy thing, but he seems to be kind of like the butler as he is in charge of all the other servants. Which means he must of done it right? The butler always does it!

     Gabriel is a huge fan of the Robinson Crusoe book and mentions it often. I may have to read it sooner than I had originally intended after reading all of his praise of it. I'm usually very intuitive when it comes to plots but the police inspector in this book is way ahead of me. It seems like he already knows what happened to the Moonstone. As I'm only about 25% of the way through the book, I have to assume there is more to this story than just this initial crime.

     I'm really enjoying this book so far, but haven't gotten to the point yet where I just cannot put it down.

Little Women - First Impressions

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott Genre: Classic, Young Adult, Children

     I know that I have read this before. My grandmother had given me a beautifully bound book with the entire trilogy in it when I was just knee high to a grasshopper. She had given me the book after Little Women had been read by my class in grade school. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I hadn't really cared for the story and I doubt that I bothered to read the other stories. I remember nothing about this book, not even why I hadn't liked it before.

     Four sisters are encouraged by their father, through letters while he is off to war, to conduct themselves as little women. Each girl takes a personal inventory of their defects of character and chooses one to work on. A very mature undertaking I must say, as the youngest is not quite school age, I think.

     I haven't really bonded with this book yet as, in the tradition of my facebook group reads, I have only read the first 5 chapters. I'm trying to keep an open mind and disregard any prejudices that I may have had the first time that I read it.

Easter's Lilly - Book Tour Excerpt

Easter's Lilly First Book of series by Judy Serrano

EXCERPT

     I opened my eyes to unfamiliar surroundings. The air had a stench of old cigarettes and stale beer. My eyes caught notice of my skirt draped over my purse on a chair, by the door. This startled me as I reached down to feel what I was wearing. I had on a pair of sweatpants, which fit me rather well, and I was grateful I was still wearing the same shirt from last night. I pulled myself up a bit; just to notice the three half smoked cigarettes in the ashtray beside me on the nightstand and a bong in desperate need of cleaning next to it. There were four beer cans by the ashtray, empty and crushed in the middle. I had discovered the source of the smell. Just then I heard the door crack open and a head popped into the doorway. I was startled and jumped a little as he said, "Good, you're awake."

The Prophet - Book Tour Review

The Prophet by K.J. Dahlen Genres: Mystery, Suspense

     Two FBI agents are assisted by the local police and are hot on the trail of a grifter/serial killer who calls himself The Prophet. As they investigate further, they find that there is a lot more going on than meets the eye.

     This book has a great storyline, with several unanticipated twists. I can't help but feel that this needs to be thrown back into the oven because it's not quite done yet. With a little more research and development this could be a high caliber story.

     The FBI agents are the heroes of the story, so I assume they aren't supposed to be incompetent. Yet they make glaring errors in police procedures that even the most casual viewer of CSI or Law & Order would catch.

     I know that I am overly critical of editing errors in my reviews. It is my pet peeve that when I'm reading along and I hit a word in a sentence that just obviously does not belong there. It's like hitting a brick wall while driving 60 miles per hour, and my Kindle is not equipped with an air bag. There were a couple of occasions where I couldn't even tell from the context of the sentence what word had been intended. My grammar is not perfect, so I don't often nit pick about it, but there were a few instances of poor grammar that even I noticed.

     Overall I would have to say this book was very disappointing because the story itself has such huge potential. I would strongly urge the author to consider firing the editor that did her such a great disservice, have it re-edited, and publish the great novel that this plot aspires to be.

I give it 3 stars.

This post is brought you by Ever After PR.

My Adventures in Beta Reading

     I cannot describe how honored I am that David Estes had invited me to beta read his newest book. I had originally "met" David when I had the opportunity to review Angel Evolution. He had also been the person who had suggested I join goodreads, which I am eternally grateful for, as I love the goodreads site. I'm not going to go into details. I'm not even going to give away the book title or synopsis. All that I will say is this : David Estes' fans, hold onto your socks because he has another wonderful trilogy in the making!

If you missed my review for Angel Evolution you can read it here.

Group Reads for February

     My goodreads book group picks both a classic book for children and one for adults. This month I hope to read both, as the children's pick is Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne. They have also selected Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. I must admit that I'm completely ignorant about this second book, never having heard of the book or the author. The synopsis sounds pretty good though and the group members who have read it give it glowing recommendations.

     My book group on facebook will be reading Little Women by Louise May Alcott this month. This group is geared more towards people with busy schedules as we only read 5 chapters a week. However, we're also some serious book worms who find it hard to read only 5 chapters and then put the book down. We haven't yet taken longer than a month to finish a book.

     These are some of the books you can look forward to me discussing this month, along with a couple of virtual book tours that I have scheduled next week, as well as two other reviews to be featured on our sister site, A Goddess of Frugality. Plus hopefully, the four modern books that I downloaded yesterday.

February's Picks

     Welcome to February! January has been a busy month for me reading wise. I didn't manage to read all of the books that I downloaded last month yet. But I'm still glad that I took the time to download them as only one of them is still free, and I will read them ... eventually.

Historical Romance My review

Paranormal My review

Mystery My review

Science Fiction My review

     Normally I don't play games on my Kindle, but my daughter does, so every now and then I will grab a new free game when I see one that I think she will enjoy. This month I downloaded the following games:

Please remember to double check the price before buying as amazon prices fluctuate.