A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

The Matchmaker is the fifth book by Elin Hilderbrand that I've read and reviewed here on the blog.  I enjoy her books--they have a tendency to grab hold of the reader fairly quickly, and this one is no different.  If you click here , here , here , and here , you can read the previous Hilderbrand book reviews posted to this blog.  I could tell where this story was headed pretty much from the first complaints of "not feeling right" by one of the characters.  But when I tell characters to do something, they never listen to me, so this one kept putting off going to the doctor, which was really annoying.  Like there were several days when she couldn't get out of bed because that's how much pain she was in, and she still wouldn't go!  Then after three straight days in bed, her (grown) daughter says to her father, should we take mommy to the hospital?  And the father's all, oh, give it another day.  Dude.  This is why your wife stepped out on you...

Silence For The Dead is the third novel by Simone St. James.  It was released in April, and since my reading habits have been hit or miss and otherwise sporadic when it comes to reading books, I've only now gotten around to reading it.  This was the other book I was reading when I started Without Warning .  I've previously read and reviewed St. James's two previous novels, The Haunting of Maddy Clare and An Inquiry Into Love and Deat h, here on the blog.  AND St. James will release her next book, The Other Side of Midnight , next April.  This book was rather terrifying, not unlike her others; however, the supernatural aspect was much more subtle, but no less scary and insidious. Set in 1919 in rural England, Kitty is a young woman on the run from a bad childhood, an abusive father, and only God knows what else.  Thus, she holds herself out as a properly trained, credentialed, and experienced nurse in order to land a position at Portis House, a very is...

I had already started reading another book when I started  Without Warning by David Rosenfelt.  The other book isn't a library book, but Without Warning is, so I decided to read that one.  When I first started reading this book, I wasn't sure I'd stick with it.  Then after several chapters, the story sucked me in, and it was hard to put down.  I mostly wanted to see how the story ended and who the mastermind was behind the big crime and why the perpetrator was doing what he was doing.  I feel as if the whole motive behind the crimes was one of misplaced blame and rage.  It's clear the perpetrator is local, that he/she has spent years meticulously planning their revenge and that both protagonists know this person. Ultimately this person is hiding in plain sight under an alias.  And I kind of wondered why Jake didn't recognize the person sooner. In the wake of a hurricane that has devastated a small, Maine town, the local newspaper publisher, ...

Delicious! is Ruth Reichl's debut fiction.  Although Reichl is a well known food writer who has published several non-fiction books, I hadn't heard of her before nor read any of her books.  I first read the excerpted first chapter of this book in a magazine.  I forget which one.   Good Housekeeping , maybe?  I enjoyed reading this book, and all aspects of food permeate throughout the novel--really food is almost another character.  One thing that bothered me was that we find out that Billie's given name is Wilhelmina, but we only know Genie as Genie.  What was Genie a nickname for? Billie is used to living in the shadow of her older sister, Genie.  She looks up to her, she idolizes her, she adores her older sister, and Billie is more than happy for Genie to take up all the attention of everyone they meet everywhere.  Genie is smart, beautiful, popular, and perfect in every way.  As young girls, the two sisters started a bakery that ...

Most people who know me know that I love British TV, and I watch a lot of British period dramas and British dramas in general.  I've watched Downton Abbey since the beginning, and I must admit that season 3 was losing me.  Then season 4 pretty much sucked me right back in.  Rebecca Eaton has served as the producer of PBS's successful and long running Masterpiece series that airs British period, contemporary, and mystery dramas each year.  I thought maybe the memoir about her experiences in this position would be an interesting read. I actually finished this book a while ago, and I'm only now getting around to posting the review.  I don't normally read non-fiction.  For example, after this book I tried reading The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel, and I got about 60 to 100 pages in before I skipped to the epilogue and then ditched the book because I lost interest.  I'll just watch the movie. Eaton intentionally writes in a conversational tone; d...