King Arthur Movie Tristan

My Mailbox Mondays post is up a bit early this week because I have a review I'll be posting tomorrow for a great book called The Secret Keeper.

Anyway, I received some great books in the mail this past week!



Some of my readers may remember my raving about Laurie Viera Rigler's Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict.


Well, Laurie was kind enough to send me a copy of the sequel to her book, Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict.

Laurie Viera Rigler’s debut novel, Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, was a hit with fans and critics, and a BookSense and Los Angeles Times bestseller. Its open-to-interpretation ending left readers begging for more—and Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict delivers. While Confessions took twenty-first-century free spirit Courtney Stone into the social confines of Jane Austen’s era, Rude Awakenings tells the parallel story of Jane Mansfield, a gentleman’s daughter from Regency England who inexplicably awakens in Courtney’s overly wired and morally confused L.A. life.

Also in the mail this week:



Charlene Ann Baumbich - Don't Miss Your Life!: An Uncommon Guide to Living With Freedom, Laughter, and Grace

Along comes a book by a storyteller who holds the power, in true stories well told, to offer a motivating and healing balm for those thirsting and eager for somebody to remind them to "say YES to life, slow down, wake up, let go, hold on and LIVE!" As readers listen to Baumbich's stories, laugh and cry, and then revisit their own stories, they will discover the sovereign hand of God not only loving them in the midst of adversity but wooing them to live life to the fullest.

Viva Cisco by Patrick Shannon

"Viva Cisco" is a trilogy of funny stories for kids at the Age 10-13 reading level. All three tales unfold in a land called Topopootl, which lies in a hidden valley deep in the heart of Mexico. Because of its seclusion, the inhabitants have created a society without the benefit of human contact, and they don't seem to have missed out on anything important in the absence of that dubious blessing. In fact, they probably have more pure merriment and boisterous excitement than any human community could ever conceive. Much of the credit for that, though, must be laid at the feet of Topopootl's most..uh.. stimulating citizen, one Cisco las Verde Arara del Gucigalpa. Aka, Cisco the Parrot.

What books arrived at your home this week?

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about reading time…



Do you have a set reading time (before bed, perhaps)? Do you read more at night or during the day? Is there a day of the week, perhaps, that you set aside to catch up on reading?

I tend to read more in the evenings, once we've all eaten dinner and the children have taken their baths and finished thier homework. I read and just wind down for the day.

As far as catching up on reading time, I tend to use Saturday/Sunday mornings to catch up. I usually curl up on my sofa with a cup of tea or glass of juice and read for about one hour. It also helps that my family are late risers on the weekend so the house is nice and quiet.



What about you? When do you read?

A room without books is like a body without a soul.

-Cicero

Booking Through Thursday:

This can be a quick one. Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

Here's the first 15 titles that pop into my head:

1. The Poisonwood Bible

2. Shattered Dreams

3. A New Earth

4. The Ice Queen

5. Interview With the Vampire

6. She's Come Undone

7. Pride & Prejudice

8. Persuasion

9. The Taking

10. The Shining

11. Harry Potter series

12. Twilight

13. Snowflower and the Secret Fan

14. Gone With the Wind

15. The Lord of the Rings




What about you? What are some of the books that stick with you?

Veronica Veronese by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Teaser Tuesdays asks:

Grab your current read.

Let the book fall open to a random page.

Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.

He put his arms round Elizabeth, and laid his cheek against her curls while her tears fell on his gay scarlet coat.

After a little while she drew herself away. "I am making you unhappy too," she said.

The Convenient Marriage

title: The Spare Wife

author: Alex Witchel

genre: fiction

pages: 286

published: 2009

first line: Jacqueline Posner stood at the edge of her dining room and aimed a blow- dryer at the center of a pale peach rose.


rated: 3 1/2 stars








In The Spare Wife , socialite and widow Ponce Morris lives in the City, hosts dinner parties for the rich as well as playing 'Spare Wife' to married couples. She earned the nickname because she manages to befriend married couples and talk sports with the husbands, while being a friend to the wives.


The beautiful Ponce ended up in New York after finishing high school in North Carolina. She started a modeling career and in her twenties wound up marrying a wealthy man in his sixties. Now that she is widowed, she is having an affair with well-known married fertility Doctor Neil Grossman.




One day during one of their weekend trysts, an ambitious and young editorial assistant named Babette Steele spots Ponce kissing Neil in a hotel lobby. Babette, who herself is having an affair with her boss's husband,
decides that exposing these two would be her ticket to making it big in the business.





This book was interesting with some good drama. I enjoyed The Spare Wife , if you're looking for a quick, light read, this is it. However, I didn't give it a higher rating because I didn't feel like I could relate to any of the characters.

'...The two women had been each other's dependable allies, both subject to the whims of older, powerful husbands who had come from nothing and designated thier young, beautiful wives their personal emmisaries to the big time. And make no mistake, those endless parties had constituted work as crucial as any corporate board meeting. The dresses and the jewelry and the flowers aside, you could stand in a Park Avenue apartment and see the values of social power rise and fall above each coiffed head as clearly as if you were looking at the board at the Stock Exchange.'

Special thanks to MotherTalk.com for sending me a copy of this book to read and review. Check out their book reviews here