Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons

Lorna Landvik

Holy guacamole, this book was wonderful. It was my favorite book of the year. It is the story of 5 women who become friends while living on the same street and the book club that they form. The novel covers from the 1960s to current time and tells of their friendships, their feuds, their joys and tragedies. It was so heartwarming that the characters are still vivid in my mind and I feel like they are 5 old friends who I could just pick up the phone and ring up to chat with. If you like novels of friendships and families then this is the book for you. It reminded me a lot of the Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood. I give it 5 stars.

Book Review ~ Table for Five by Susan Wiggs

This was a great quick read. It is the story Lily Robinson, an elementary school teacher whose best friend is killed along with her ex husband leaving three young children. Lily thinks that she will be appointed guardian to the children because her friend had told her that she wanted her to take the children if something happened to her, unfortunately, she dies before she discusses it with her ex husband and no official papers are ever filed. Sean MacGuire, the brother of the children's father is given custody of the children. He is a bachelor who has never had children but is willing to put his career as a PGA golfer on hold in order to concentrate on raising the children. Lily and Sean are drawn to each other through the tragedy and by the fact that each wants what is best for the children. Over the course of a summer vacation spent together, they find that they have grown to love and respect each other and that they are truly a family in need of a table for five.

I give this story a 3.5 star rating.

Why I love living in the country

This was the view out of my front door one evening last week. It was right at dusk and the beautiful full moon was peeking it's way up to light the night. I love living in the country where I can sit on the porch in the evenings with a cup of coffee or glass of iced tea and read a good book while the coyotes are howling in the far pasture and cottontails are running around the pasture in front of our home. I love watching them and they have all figured out that our dogs are in no way a threat to them since they are both on the other side of the fence so they will run around while the dogs are out chasing grasshoppers in the front yard. These are the kinds of things that make me appreciate my home and to not mind the 25 miles I have to drive to go work or to just about any kind of civilization.

2008 Fall into Reading Challenge

I am so excited to be starting my first reading challenge. Thanks Katrina for giving us such a great challenge!

My lists of TBRs for fall are

1. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett Completed *** stars

2. The Navigator by Clive Cussler

3. Nighttime Is My Time by Mary Higgins Clark Completed ****

4. Body Double by Tess Gerritsen

5. Life Support by Tess Gerritsen

6. Deep Storm by Lincoln Child Completed ****

7. The Memory Keepers Daughter by Kim Edwards Completed ***

8. Map of Bones by James Rollins

9. Midwives by Chris Bohjalian Completed ***

10. The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve

11. Table For Five by Susan Wiggs Completed ***

Book Review~ Edgewise by Graham Masterton

I liked this book. It is in the horror genre and while it did not make me want to sleep with the lights on, it was creepy.

It is the story of Lily Blake who is a real estate agent and single mother. She awakens one night to a sound from the downstairs area of her home. She goes downstairs to investigate and is attacked by 2 crazed lunatics from a father's rights group, they try to burn her alive and then kidnap her 2 children. She amazingly survives the fire with little damage to her body or her home, unfortunately she is unable to locate her children even with the help of the FBI. She learns of an American Indian tracker who may be able to help her locate them but he requires a heavy price that she agrees to but is unable to deliver. In return for the price of a small piece of land that he wants he calls the Wendingo, an Indian forest spirit who tracks down those who were involved in harming her and kidnapping her children. They die in a gruesome and violent way, this is one of the horror aspects of the book. Her children are returned to her and she has to admit to the tracker that she is unable to meet his price. He is not happy about that and in turn sends the Wendingo to kill those close to her in the hopes that she will come through with the deed to the land. It is a suspenseful ending to a thrill ride of a book. I will not give the ending away her but I will recommend this book to those who like a good scare and a quick read.

I give this book a solid 4 stars out of 5.

Book Review ~ Shock by Robin Cook

What an incredible waste of time! I am normally a Robin Cook fan but this book was a complete waste of my time. I don't know what I am more irritated by, that the book was so terrible or that I continued to read hoping to find a point that it became better.

The plot of the story was promising. Two Harvard coeds answer an ad in the college newspaper for egg donors at a local infertility clinic. The pay is outstanding, $45,000 per donation. They decide to spend part of it on a trip to Italy to complete their doctorate thesis and use the rest of the money as a down payment for the purchase of an apartment in Boston. (That should have been a clue that the book was going downhill- $90,000 before taxes and they were going to be able to support themselves for over a year and to put a down payment on a pricey apartment in Boston, they must have some great accounting skills). They return from their trip after 1 1/2 years and decide to find out what happened to their donated eggs. Even though they had been at the clinic less than 2 years earlier they both decide to go undercover and break into the computer system to get the information on their eggs. With amazing ease they are able to find the names of 2 recently deceased woman close to their age and they waltz into the hall of records and get copies of the death certificates for a whopping $6.00 each, using the death certificates for the social security numbers of the dead women, they go to a local bank, with NO identification (granted this was written before 9-11 but banks still requested ID for an account) to open a savings account with a total of $20 each. The bank clerk asked for ID and then tells them when they don't have it, not to worry about it, just bring it in tomorrow. They then apply for jobs at the infertility clinic, under the new aliases with disguised appearances and of course they tell the personnel dept that they are Harvard grads but once again never have to show ID or proof of their degrees.

They soon discover that the clinic is doing all sorts of cloning experiments on both humans and animals and that they are using a group of South American women as human incubators for fetuses to be aborted at 20 weeks and used for the ovaries of the female fetuses. The story gets so far fetched that it is hard to even paraphrase it. The women are discovered and a chase through the building and the grounds that houses the clinic ensues. The building was also a TB sanitarium and an insane asylum at different times in it's history so the chase is throughout the building that includes autopsy suites and iron lungs along with a spooky sub basement. It felt as though the author got tired of the story at the end because the ending was even worse than the rest of the book. It was rushed and left the reader with no resolved endings.

My advise is to skip this book, your time is more valuable than this book. :)

On a scale of 5 stars, I would only give this 1/2 star.

Coffee and rainy mornings

I love rainy days, especially rainy mornings. I have my lovely cup of French Vanilla roast coffee and since I have not baked any scones I am enjoying a Double Stuffed Chocolate Oreo cookie. I gazillion calories per cookie but wowsa wowsa they are sooooooo good. You know you just can't go wrong when you start your day with coffee and chocolate.

Woo Hoo! I am going to be a Grammy again!

My sweet one and only daughter called me over the weekend to tell me the good news that she and her boyfriend are expecting their first child. They have been together for about three years and had planned on waiting to have children but this was a wonderful surprise for all of us. She had taken a home pregnancy test on Saturday which came up positive and she went to the Dr today for an official test and of course it was positive also. She is guestemating a due date of the first part of April as of now. She will be going for her first actual prenatal appointment soon. She is so excited as am I. Grandchildren are such a blessing. I have 3 other granddaughters from my 2 sons, my oldest has 2 daughters and my youngest has 1 daughter. Maybe this time we will get a grandson but if not, well granddaughters are absolutely wonderful too :D .

I can't hardly wait to start purchasing books for the wee one's library. :)

Book Review: Hard Truth by Nevada Barr

This was a great book. I am a huge fan of Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon books. Anna is a national park ranger and each book takes place in a national park. Hard Truth is set in Rocky Mountain National Park. It is the story of three young girls who go missing in the park. After a massive search turns up no clues to the girls disappearance the search is closed. A month later two traumatized girls turn up at the camp site of a parapalegic woman and her aunt. The girls are too traumatized to be able to help find the third missing girl. One of the girls form a connection to Heath Jarrod, the paraplegic woman, and looks to her as her saviour. Heath feels responsible to help the young girl that affectionetly calls limpet.

Anna has newly transfered to the park as a district ranger and gets involved in trying to find out any information from the girls. She discovers that the girls are from a religious polygomous sect and that there are things that are amiss at the compound they live in. The "parents" are of no help and even in the initial searches the parents chose not to help search but instead had prayer vigils for the girls. The more Anna discovers the more the questions about what happened grow. Anna and Heath discover horrors and terror in the form of commune leader and a serial killer that Anna has dealt with before.

This book is a full of suspense and pschological twists and turns. I recommend it to anyone who likes a good suspense thriller.

Review: A Place Called Here

A Place Called Here by Cecelia Ahern

Cecelia Ahern is an Irish author that writes truly wonderful novels. A Place Called Here is the story of Sandy Shortt, she has been obsessed with finding things since she was 10 years old and her childhood rival who lived across the street vanished without a trace. Sandy can't concentrate on anything else when something goes missing, she turns her entire home upside down looking for the item. Her parents help her search but they become more and more concerned and arrange for Sandy to begin seeing a councilor when she is a teenager. As Sandy gets older she continues to search for the missing. She joins the "Guard", (which appears to be the Irish police) and begins to work for the missing persons division. She continues to work for them for a few years and then opens her own missing persons agency. She is hired by Jack Ruttle to search for his missing younger brother. While searching for Jack's brother Sandy goes for a run in the forest and finds herself in a mystical land where anyone and anything that goes missing ends up. She finds people that she has searched for in the the past, items that she has lost and a society that has developed by those who also ended up in the place called Here.

I really enjoyed this book. Ahern blends the mystical magic so seamlessly into the story that it does not feel like a fairy tale even though after finishing the story, I felt that I had read a fairy tale. The characters are endearing and linger in your thoughts afterwards. I rate this story a solid 4 stars out of 5.

Tote Bag Mania

I am in the midst of trying to decide which tote bags or purses to make. I picked out fabric and bought really cool buttons for them but now I can't for the life of me figure out which one that I want to make. I have been searching the net for 2 days now and still can't figure it out. I am so indecisive.

Blow Wind Blow

I am so tired of the wind. It has blown nonstop for weeks here, not a soft little breeze that stirs the curtains on the windows or gently sways the trees, this is a 30 miles an hour wind, it blows the curtains off of the windows and the leaves off of the trees. It would be less irritating if it was even a little cooling but no it is a hot straight out of hell wind. I guess I should stop complaining, this is North Texas and you always get wind but like any good whiner, I am not going to stop complaining :D .

I have been reading this summer, (OK, I know it is not officially summer but when the temps get to 100 and up, that makes it summer in my book ) . I have read Shoot the Moon by Billie Letts and Black Order by James Rollins. Both books were really good, I liked Shoot the Moon because it was a nice little mystery that did not require a lot of brain power and I loved Black Order because well...I LOVE everything that James Rollins writes. He gets you to use your critical thinking skills while you are reading and then in the last few pages he wraps up everything nice and tightly and does not leave you hanging wondering what happened.

I am a horrible blogger

Wow, it has been months since I have blogged on here. I am going to try to keep up better from now on.

I spent 3 1/2 weeks on the Atkin's diet and lost about 12 pounds but after feeling like crap for the entire last week, I am off of it now. DH and I are going to work at eating healthier and smarter and I am going to try to find some exercise that I can do without causing lots of hip pain.

Let's see...reading...I have read several great books lately. I finished The Codex by Douglas Preston last week. It was a great book, lots of action and adventure in the South American rain forest. It is the story of 3 brothers who return home at their father's summons to discover him and his half billion dollar treasure gone and a cryptic video left for them from him telling the brothers that he is dying from pancreatic cancer and has taken their inheritance and has hidden it in a tomb along with himself and that in order for them to claim it they must figure out where he is. They all begin their search separately but they do ultimately reunite to find him. There are twists and turns in the story and lots of action and adventure. I really loved it.

I read an old novel from the 1980's over the weekend, it was called Morning Glory and was written by 2 publishing house editors who collaberated on it and used the pen name Julia Cleaver Smith. It was the only novel they wrote together. It was lot's of fluff and chick lit, reminded me a lot of the old Dallas and Dynasty primetime soaps. It was about a wealthy Texas family which was presided over by a matriarch who ran a media empire and her families lives also. It spans over 70 years in the lives of the family. It was a fun read, not much to exercise the intellect but lots of gossip and gratuitious sex :) .

I started She Walks These Hills by Sharyn McCrumb last night. I love her books, she is a wonderful storyteller. I will report on how the book was as soon as I finish it.

Well, I guess I better blog off for now and go catch a quick nap before I have to get ready for work tonight.

Here is wishing you a glorious and blessed day.

Saturday

I have had 4 days off and tonight I have to go back to work. The days off are wonderful but having to go back after so many off really stinks. I used to really love my job but with my hip hurting all the time, it has quickly became a job I hate. I spend my entire last day off dreading go back the next day. I am looking for something else in the hospital, that will involve less physical lifting and walking. I have put so many years into the place that I don't want to have to go anywhere else. I don't think that there is anywhere else that I could go in my area that I could make as much money as I make now. I guess I will just keep sucking it up and eating NSAIDS and keep on keeping on.

Jinkies, how did it get to be 2008 already

Wowsa, talk about time flying. It has been almost a month since I blogged. A holiday, a birthday and a death ago.

Christmas was quite, my hip was hurting so I did not go the big celebration at my sisters. I just stayed home and watched movies. I did not decorate this year so there was nothing to undecorate and that was nice. :)

My 45th birthday was yesterday. I am amazed that I am that old, how did that happen, just yesterday, or maybe last week ;) I was 29 and my kids were all still young. Now I am older than dirt, full of arthritis and bursitis and basically falling apart. It really stinks getting older.

My grandmother passed away on the 6th and she was buried on my birthday. She was 87 and in poor health so it was actually a blessing, she is not suffering any longer. She and my grandfather were married for 67 years on Christmas eve. Both news stations in my local area did really nice stories on them and my grandfather told his secrets for being happily married that long, they were "you have to love each other", and "I stayed out of her hair mostly" . It was funny because he worked as a policeman on the 3-11 shift for years and in the mornings from 8am to 11:30am he worked in his own auto upholstery shop. They had breakfast and lunch together everyday and he came home for his supper break and drank a carnation instant breakfast every night at 7 when he was working. So he was really out of her hair most of the time. They were a very special couple.