The Secret Bride: in the court of Henry VIII

I really enjoyed this book. It was very informative for me. While I have read quite a bit about Henry VIII, I knew nothing about his sister. I had focused my attention on his life, as it relates to his many wives. I had totally neglected his early life and his family relations other than just his children and wives.

I so enjoyed learning about Mary from the point of view of this author. This book also has made me interested in learning more about her and her story. I found the "details of 3 month marriage to the ailing King of France to be totally interesting and believable as written.

This book was so well written that I was totally immersed in the story. I was so worried about her and what would become of her. I would recomend this book to anyone, history buff or not.

The Convenient Groom Denise Hunter pps 314

Good but requires you to suspend belief, especially toward the end of the book. I know that sometimes one must suspend belief to read a novel but this requires great leaps of imagination and while I loved Lucas, this does not feel real at all. It is a total fantasy and so, if that is what you are looking for, this is the book to read. I like that Kate was not shrewish or hateful regardless of what had happened to her, she is a woman that we can admire as we see her try to struggle with the situation that in which she finds herself.

My Heart Remembers by Kimberly Vogel Sawyer

This novel made me cry so much! I would not expect to get so drawn in to the story from the beginning of the book. The three children are orphaned right away. We see the oldest daughter, Maelle, allows herself to be mistaken for a boy so that she could stay with her brother, Matttie. From the moment that we meet these children, they seem lost and feel lost until the almost the very end of the book. There were some story lines that were not really finished, I am wondering if this book will be followed by another in the series. I would like to see some things have more closer, such as, if anything will be done about a murder that we learn about in this book. This was one of my first reads of this summer and it was really a wonderful book the characters feel multidimensional and one wants to see how their lives will play out. There is one conflict that is resolved a little easier than we might have expected but it does not detract from the story too much. Maelle, Mattie, and Molly are worth reading about Ms. Sawyer did a great job, this book does not disappoint.

A Good Indian Wife by Anne Cherian

I really enjoy reading books about other cultures and reading about arranged marriages is also a favorite of mine. This book includes both themes really well.

Neel Sarath, a fully assimilated Indian-American doctor had absolutely no intention of allowing his family to arrange a marriage for him. However, through a series of errors and manipulations, he finds himself in India and bound for a marriage with the only possible way to escape the marriage would be to ruin his family's honor in India.

We find our bride in the unenviable position of needing to marry in order to save her family from certain dishonor and to ensure her younger siblings will have some chance at marriage.She is no demure shrinking violet though and I enjoyed getting to know her as a person.

This book gives what feels like an authentic look into the lives of these characters and I could not help but to feel drawn to them. There are times when I wanted to strangle Neel but overall, I they both worked well in the context of this story. The people felt real and I loved that the story did not end with a neat tied up resolution. This book is definitely a keeper. I borrowed it from the library but I must get my own copy. I imagine that if you read it, you will feel the same.

It's been a long time!

I am basically restarting this blog. I don't think I will delete the old posts but I am looking forward to maintaining my blog more than I did in the past. I would love for others to read what I have written but even if they don't, I want to post information about the books that I have loved and hated.

It's great to have a way to look back at what has been learned or discovered while reading a book. It is also fun to have a place to be a little snarky when a book has felt like a total and complete waste of time.

I am sooo glad to be back blogging at this site again! I hope to be more diligent in maintaining fresh ideas heres.
Maybe, in future people will come along and share what they loved or hated about the books I talk about.

Lost and Found by Carolyn Parkhurst

This was very interesting.

I did feel, at times, that the author clearly had a real agenda. I generally don't like novels where authors are trying to preach to me, as opposed to allowing me to learn what I feel I need from their work.

However, this book was compelling. I found that I hated to see any of the contestants eliminated. I was interested in most of their stories. I wanted to know who these people were going to be. The contestants came to the show to supposedly, to try to win a million dollars. However, it seems that many of them are really here because the universe needs for them to come to grips with issues in their life. Watching the contestants lives unfold or unravel, is better than I can really describe let me just say, that while I was impatient to see how the book would end, I also hated to come to the end of my time with these characters. I liked them, no matter how flawed they were.

The Paid Companion by Amanda Quick

I sometimes enjoy historical romance, mysteries. I generally love Amanda Quick. I have read a number of her novels and I guess it is just time that I move on to someone else.

There are some scenes in this book that are very familiar but I enjoy the sameness of the writing. It's like a comfortable old chair. Unfortunately, when I came to one of the few "love scenes" in the book, I was amused to realize that the scene was exactly like scenes that I have read in her books before. While the scene is unique for first or second time readers of Quick, it is too familiar for someone who has read several books by the same author.
When I got to the scene, I stopped reading wrote down what I thought would happen, and then picked up the book and read exactly what I predicted. SMH

Anyway, the book was pretty good, if you have never read a Quick novel this is a nice one to start with. If you have read her before, don't expect anything new and you won't be disappointed.