Book Review: Secrets by Freya North

I love British Chick Lit and I don’t know why I’ve never run across Freya North before but I can tell you that Secrets won’t be the last of her books that I read. For me this novel was a great escape from my everyday life as it was a nice and fluffy kind of read and I needed that.

Tess is in trouble – big trouble. We find her hiding with her daughter at the beginning of the novel although we have no idea why. Tess is looking for a way out so when she finds an ad in the paper about a job as a house sitter she jumps at the chance. She phones up the owner and doesn’t really give him a chance to say much before he finds that she’s telling him that she’s driving up to his place right away. He’s thinking he’s got a real nut on his hands until he opens his door to Tess and baby Em.

Joe doesn’t know why but he ends up letting Tess stay. She’s nutty and a little odd and she just seems to take over. Even stranger is she has showed up with nothing. Most house sitters he’s had come with almost everything except the kitchen sink. Tess keeps asking if she can use his stuff. He has to admit though that she seems to make a house come alive. On his first trip away Tess starts her overhaul of his place and when he comes back he has to secretly admit to himself that he kind of likes it. She’s made this house of his into a home again.

I liked Tess. She was funny and I enjoyed the exchanges between her and Joe and especially all the new British words I learned. Joe on the other hand irritated me with his playboy ways but by the end of the book I warmed up to him. He was a man who had no intentions of becoming serious with anyone and especially someone like Tess but hey, who has any power over love most of the time? To be truthful, this is a slow book. Will you find anything earth shattering in its pages – no, but you will find a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon curled up in your favorite chair. It’s like taking a look into the everyday life of two people and it worked for me. I loved that slow pace and the eventual revealing of the all important secrets that both Tess and Joe kept. I also loved the setting of Secrets- a seaside town that I would love to live in!

You can pick up your own copy of Secrets by Freya North here in the US and here in Canada.

Source:  Review copy provided by Sourcebooks via NetGalley.  No compensation was received for this review and all opinions are my own.

Book Review: The Ruins of Us by Keija Parssinen

The Ruins of Us by Keija Parssinen is a novel of many things – family, love, and discontent. Rosalie is American born but spent her childhood in Saudi Arabia. Even at a young age she developed a love for the country and always knew she wanted to go back after going to college in America. Meeting Abdullah in America and then falling in love, marrying, and building a life in Saudi Arabia was exactly what she had always wanted and for more than twenty years she was happy and fulfilled. That is until she discovered that her husband had taken a second wife and even more than that, he had been hiding it for two years.

This discovery totally uproots her life in so many ways. Everything she knew and believed in when it came to her life and love with Abdullah now seemed so wrong and she couldn’t fathom ever feeling and knowing that love again. For the most part Abdullah believes in living more of a modern life. He doesn’t hold his wife or children strictly to the customs that had once plagued the country. They have the freedom to live their lives quite normally. None of the rest of his family – his brothers – believe in taking second wives. Abdullah is the first to do so and in this he refuses to change his mind. He is entitled, according to the law, to have another wife and that is how he goes about justifying what he’s done to Rosalie. Rosalie refuses to have much to do with him and tells him he has ruined their family forever.

On the sidelines are their children Mariam and Faisal. Mariam is pretty level headed although, even at fourteen, she believes strongly in equality for women. Faisal though is a young boy about to take a path that can lead him nowhere good. Faisal is growing ever resentful of his family’s lifestyle. He believes they don’t spend the amount of time in prayer that they should and that the women in the family are allowed more freedom than they should have. In short, they do not follow the customs in which he is becoming more and more obsessed with. This is what will ultimately lead Faisal to do the unthinkable to his family. Will they survive? Will love ever again blossom where it has died?

I enjoyed The Ruins of Us. I am always interested in novels that deal in any way with other cultures. The culture in a country like Saudi Arabia fascinates me simply because of the customs they live by. Granted many live much freer lives now than in the past but the old customs are still alive. I do know I wouldn’t want to be a woman living there. To not even be able to look at a man without someone thinking something was going on or always having to watch what I say would likely kill me. I liked the characters well enough although I can’t really say I connected to any of them on any great level and that’s probably because this lifestyle – even the freer one that Rosalie led – is still too constrictive to me. Ultimately this novel really shows us what happens when one takes the commitment to a certain way of life a little too far and breaks the bonds of family and love.

I read The Ruins of Us by Keija Parssinen for her book tour with TLC Book Tours. You can find the author on her website, Facebook, and Twitter. Be sure to pop in and see what others thought of the book here. You can purchase your own copy of The Ruins of Us by Keija Parssinen here in the US and here in Canada.

Source: Review copy provided by TLC Book Tours and the Publisher via NetGalley.  No compensation was received for this review and all opinions are solely my own.

Book Review: Silver Girl by Elin Hilderbrand

Meredith Delinn was used to living on top of the world. She had everything she could want – a husband, two kids, and more money than she could ever know what to do with. Normal for Meredith was country clubs, parties, and shopping trips where dropping thousands of dollars was like a dip in the ocean. So when her husband Freddy is arrested for stealing money from investors Meredith is devastated. She has lost everything she held important: her friends, her home, her money, and even more her social standing. Meredtih is no longer welcome even in her hair salon or favorite restaurant where previously she had been treated like royalty.

Meredith simply can’t show her face anywhere. Everyone is furious with her and want her thrown in jail as well. They think she knew what her husband was doing but she didn’t. Meredith had loved her life but never in a million years would she steal from people. So Meredith does the only thing she can think of to do … she calls her best friend from childhood who she hasn’t spoken to in a few years. Thankfully for Meredith, Connie agrees to come and get her and take her to her summer home in Nantucket. Connie has to wonder what she’s getting herself into when she sees the press in front of Meredith’s building but Meredith was always her closest friend; she feels she must try to help her since Meredith has absolutely nobody else.

Connie had lost her husband a few years ago to cancer and her daughter Ashlyn to anger so Connie has been feeling awfully lonely herself. Truth be told she’s looking forward to the company of Meredtith and maybe the mending of their friendship. At first the two women are uncomfortable; neither knowing what to say but soon enough over time they begin to talk and share again. In the meantime Connie finds what may be a new love if she can just let go of the past and her greatest hope is that one day Ashlyn will answer the phone when she calls. As for Meredith, she can’t show her face in Nantucket either. She was recognized and it was a nightmare for her, not to mention the terror of the vandalism that has occurred on Connie’s property because of her. As the story unfolds things happen with Freddy’s case that change things for Meredith and over their time in Nantucket the two women learn how to let go of the past and find that special bond of friendship that they’ve always shared.

I really liked both Meredith and Connie; both were women I could see myself being friends with. I felt awful for Meredith having her life torn apart like it was because of her husband but ultimately I think she learned a great lesson from it. Having all the money and material possessions in the world doesn’t take the place of love or a good friendship. Those things will be there long after the money is gone. I love how both women not only opened themselves back up to their friendship but also to life and love. I’ve read a few of Elin Hilderbrand’s novels but I have to say that Silver Girl is one of my favorites. I finished this one quite quickly and I felt a loss as I turned the last page because I realized I was going to miss these women and Nantucket!

Source:  Personal copy.

Sunday Ramblings

HAPPY SUNDAY EVERYONE!

Happy Sunday all!  Has everyone had a good weekend?  What did you all do?  I hope something more exciting than what I did which is staying inside and staying warm.  So much for no snow – we have lots now!  It’s been bitterly cold too which makes it worse.  I can tell you my walks with Sammy haven’t been a lot of fun.  I’m so bundled up I can barely move.  I really should get you all a picture of what Sam and I look like when we  head out for our walks.  I will for next week.  It is supposed to be warming up for next week and I’m glad because it’s been a constant battle getting Sammy’s booties on him to go outside.  I ended up making some fleecy liners for his booties because his feet were getting cold.  They’re working great thank goodness.

Let’s see on the reading front there isn’t much going on.  I’m trying to get caught up on review copies and read what I’ve committed to in the next few months too.  After that I’d really like to focus on NetGalley books because they have a whole ton of really great up and coming books to read.  Right now I’m reading a book called Ru by Kim Thuy which I’m really liking.  It’s a short book so I’ll probably have a review up quickly.  As for next week I don’t have a lot going on – I left January as a slow month.  I was hoping that would give me a chance to get more reading done but it hasn’t seemed to work out that way.

As for Sammy – well he’s enjoying the snow or at least he is now that it warmed up a bit.  It was so cold last week that even he wasn’t enjoying it much and would go out and run back in.  To me it’s still really cold but obviously for the fluff ball it isn’t so bad with his clothes on.  When we come home from a walk he rubs his face back and forth in the snow or sticks his nose right under it.  I wish I had pictures for you guys but in this cold if I take my mittens off even for a minute my hands freeze so no pictures.  Sorry.  This coming week is warming up so I’ll try to get some pictures of him playing out in the backyard in the snow.  For now I’m just posting a bit of an older picture for you because I still haven’t gotten my computer fixed which also means I haven’t downloaded the pictures from my new camera.  Sorry again.

I’m hoping to get Sam groomed this week – he looks just like a baby bear cub right now.  You can’t even find his eyeballs right now.  I’m also hoping to get a lot of reading done but we’ll see.  Whenever I plan those kinds of things they never seem to happen.  What do all of you have planned for the week?  What are you reading – anything good?  Well that’s it for me this week.  Have a great day everyone!