Many years ago I read my first Carole Matthews book. It was called Let's Meet On Platform 8, and frankly, I didn't really enjoy it. I was bored by the characters and the storyline didn't grip me. Mind you, I was still in high school at the time so I think I might have been too young to understand the characters and their love affair. Over the years as I have been on my quest to read all the chick-lit there is out there (or so it seems!), I avoided Carole Matthews like the plague because I didn't want to waste my time again.
Then last year, I picked up The Sweetest Taboo from the cheap rack at Chapters, and decided to give her a go again because I thought the story sounded cute. AND I LOVED IT.
So, Carole Matthews has been added to my "want to read" book list, and I started with With or Without You.
Without any real spoilers, let me give a brief synopsis:
This story is about Lyssa, who wants nothing more than to have a baby with long-term boyfriend, Jake. But Jake has other plans for himself, which he quickly realises are the wrong plans. As Lyssa tries to cope in a life without Jake at her side, while he figures a few things out for himself, she heads off on an out-of-character adventure trek in Nepal. By the end of the story Jake and Lyssa have learned a lot about themselves and each other, and they see that in just a month people can really change.
This book was pretty good. I like the characters, they were pretty witty. Jake's best friend Pip and Lyssa's sister Edie provide good comic relief as well. It was a fast read for me, and was pretty enjoyable.
My next Carole Matthew's adventures will be reading The Chocolate Lover's Club and its sequel, The Chocolate Lover's Diet; I bought these books a little while back but I'm saving them for my big trip to Poland this July.
I'm quite glad I've given Carole Matthews another shot, and look forward to reading more.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Murder Unleashed: A Dead-End Job Mystery - Elaine Viets
Thanks to GoodReads.com I am discovering so many book series' that I had never heard about before! Also thanks to GoodReads.com I've started up a "want to read" list that's nearly 100 books long.
It's a good thing I read at least two novels a week, three when I'm really in my prime.
A book series I wanted to check out was the "Dead-End Job Mystery" series by Elaine Viets. At my local library, where I've been trying to take out some books in an effort to conserve my precious few dollars, they did not have the first book in the series. I decided to go ahead and take out a later book, because I read on Elaine's website that you didn't necessarily need to read the books in order.
The series follows a woman named Helen Hawthorne who is on the run from her ex-husband and St. Louis police. She's forced to take dead-end jobs that pay her cash under the table so that she can pay her living expenses. Each book follows Helen working in a different dead-end job, and includes some sort of mystery that she gets wrapped up in. The book I took out was called Murder Unleashed, in which Helen was working at a dog grooming/pampered pet boutique, and gets involved in a murder investigation.
I thoroughly enjoyed this story. Helen is a great character. I agree, judging by this book (which is the fifth book in the dead-end job series, I believe) I don't think they have to necessarily be read in order. I do hope to go back though and read the first four in order, just to get the full effect of Helen's backstory... but each novel has it's unique case in it, and I didn't truly feel "lost" while reading this book having not read the others.
This was a fun change to my typical chick-lit romance fare (although Helen does have a love interest, so it's still there), and I definitely can't wait to read the others. Now if only my local library would have the whole set!
It's a good thing I read at least two novels a week, three when I'm really in my prime.
A book series I wanted to check out was the "Dead-End Job Mystery" series by Elaine Viets. At my local library, where I've been trying to take out some books in an effort to conserve my precious few dollars, they did not have the first book in the series. I decided to go ahead and take out a later book, because I read on Elaine's website that you didn't necessarily need to read the books in order.
The series follows a woman named Helen Hawthorne who is on the run from her ex-husband and St. Louis police. She's forced to take dead-end jobs that pay her cash under the table so that she can pay her living expenses. Each book follows Helen working in a different dead-end job, and includes some sort of mystery that she gets wrapped up in. The book I took out was called Murder Unleashed, in which Helen was working at a dog grooming/pampered pet boutique, and gets involved in a murder investigation.
I thoroughly enjoyed this story. Helen is a great character. I agree, judging by this book (which is the fifth book in the dead-end job series, I believe) I don't think they have to necessarily be read in order. I do hope to go back though and read the first four in order, just to get the full effect of Helen's backstory... but each novel has it's unique case in it, and I didn't truly feel "lost" while reading this book having not read the others.
This was a fun change to my typical chick-lit romance fare (although Helen does have a love interest, so it's still there), and I definitely can't wait to read the others. Now if only my local library would have the whole set!
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Glamour - Louise Bagshawe
Apologies for the hiatus in posting; I have been reading, but I've started a new job and have been quite busy tutoring in the evenings, so my blogging had fallen to the wayside for a little while. However, I am back!
I took a copy of Glamour by Louise Bagshawe out from my local library a few weeks ago, as it was one of the Books of the Month on Goodreads.com, and I'd read another Louise Bagshawe book last summer and quite enjoyed it.
With Glamour, however, I had quite the experience.
I must have had an original copy of this book, because it was RIPE with ERRORS! There were characters with different last names on different pages (or sometimes, a character had a different last name in two spots on the SAME PAGE of the book). There were missing capitals, poor punctuation, and overall confusion with the names of characters. It was really difficult to read around the mistakes.
The story itself was pretty good, but by the end of the book I had grown pretty tired of the characters and started to get bored. At one point I told my boyfriend that I just wanted to finish the damn book; I had lost a lot of interest. I did not feel like this when I was reading Sparkles, but I think that's because Sparkles had a mystery element to it, and when you reached the end you were itching for the exciting conclusion. This story felt like it went on for a bit too long, with much of the same conversations happening over and over.
I know that in updated versions of the book, the errors were fixed, as other readers on Goodreads.com did not encounter what I did with this story.
The most surreal thing that happened when I was reading this book? I had twittered about all the errors in the story... and then the next day, Louise Bagshawe herself started "following" me on Twitter.
How much do you want to bet she's the type who Googles her own name too?
I'm torn about recommending this one. I'll just recommend Sparkles, the other Louise Bagshawe book I've read, and then I'll say you might enjoy this one (I did for a good majority of the book), but just be prepared that the ending sort of drags in my very humble opinion. I'll file this one under "library it".
I took a copy of Glamour by Louise Bagshawe out from my local library a few weeks ago, as it was one of the Books of the Month on Goodreads.com, and I'd read another Louise Bagshawe book last summer and quite enjoyed it.
With Glamour, however, I had quite the experience.
I must have had an original copy of this book, because it was RIPE with ERRORS! There were characters with different last names on different pages (or sometimes, a character had a different last name in two spots on the SAME PAGE of the book). There were missing capitals, poor punctuation, and overall confusion with the names of characters. It was really difficult to read around the mistakes.
The story itself was pretty good, but by the end of the book I had grown pretty tired of the characters and started to get bored. At one point I told my boyfriend that I just wanted to finish the damn book; I had lost a lot of interest. I did not feel like this when I was reading Sparkles, but I think that's because Sparkles had a mystery element to it, and when you reached the end you were itching for the exciting conclusion. This story felt like it went on for a bit too long, with much of the same conversations happening over and over.
I know that in updated versions of the book, the errors were fixed, as other readers on Goodreads.com did not encounter what I did with this story.
The most surreal thing that happened when I was reading this book? I had twittered about all the errors in the story... and then the next day, Louise Bagshawe herself started "following" me on Twitter.
How much do you want to bet she's the type who Googles her own name too?
I'm torn about recommending this one. I'll just recommend Sparkles, the other Louise Bagshawe book I've read, and then I'll say you might enjoy this one (I did for a good majority of the book), but just be prepared that the ending sort of drags in my very humble opinion. I'll file this one under "library it".
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