Book Club Pick: Dating By the Book

Dating By the Book
by Mary Ann Marlowe
Kensington Books
2019
336 pages with Book Club Discussion Questions
ISBN: 9781496718211


Available June 2019

Maddie Hanson is nursing a broken heart since being left at the altar by Peter, her almost husband. Pouring her heart, money and time into acquaint indie bookstore, The Mossy Stone, Maddie struggles to keep the business afloat.

When old friend Max stops by every day, almost all day, offering to help and a partnership, Maddie is fierce to keep her store her own. Daily visitor Charlie is a local English professor, but not really love interest material. Enter old flame Dylan, the one who got away and left town to seek fame and fortune in the music industry. Dylan exudes hotness and all the ladies notice.

Maddie has no shortage of bachelors to choose from, but her writing keeps her busy. Her first book is due out soon, and when a reviewer slams it on a blog, Maddie is stunned. The writer, known as Silver Fox, claims the romance in her novel feels stilted and fell flat for him. At first Maddie is mad and sad, then she responds to the reviewer against her friend Layla's advice to ignore the guy.

Friday nights are book club night at the shop where Maddie and MEN read Pride and Prejudice, Gone With the Wind and Jane Eyre. As Maddie continues to respond to Silver Fox online under her pen name Claire, she thinks about meeting him.

Ex-Peter is warning Maddie that he wants to sell the shop, her shop! Maddie had better figure out her tangled finances and her equally tangled online "love life."

Clever cover design screams at romance readers to buy this book. This cover is my favorite of the year so far. Marlowe continues to offer readers spunky heroines, small town "feels," quirky love interests, and fun plots. You'll want to move to Orion after meeting this cast of characters.

Recommended for adult book clubs and all romance readers.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received the ARC from the publisher.  I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

Sweet Romance Pick: Frosted Kisses

Frosted Kisses
by Heather Hepler
Point
2015
272 pages
ISBN: 9780545792598

Available October 27, 2015

A sweet surprise just in time for Halloween!

Heather Hepler has done it again! Following the wildly successful and entertaining The Cupcake Queen, Hepler takes readers back to Hog's Hollow, a teensy town where Penny Lane's (her mother loves the Beatles, obviously)  newly divorced mother has opened The Cupcake Queen, the sweetest bakery the town has ever seen. Penny helps at the bakery, spends time with BFF Tally working odd jobs to help the animal shelter buy a new generator and pitches in with boyfriend Marcus to build a  scale model of the solar system to honor  his mother's  memory.

Penny faces hard times: this is the first year her dad won't be around for the holidays. Mean girl Charity is still a pain, but now Penny faces competing for Marcus's time with super model lookalike Esmerelda.  Penny's mom is being secretive about something and Penny plans to find out what is going on.

Penny juggles  work, school, her fractured friendship with Tally, her mother/father divorce issues, Gram's secret, volunteering, raising money and hoping/praying/dreaming that Marcus likes her. And she does it all with aplomb and humor and a few tears.

The girls are in crisis in Frosted Kisses. So many life changes are happening it's hard for Penny to take in. Thank goodness she can always depend on her true friends. Sometimes though, true friends have problems of their own. Penny may have to navigate treacherous waters on her own.

Someone is out to get Penny, leaving her cryptic messages, damaging her property and undermining her relationship with Marcus. Penny needs to get to the bottom of the mystery before something more serious occurs.

My favorite character besides Penny is Tally's "almost boyfriend" Brandon. He has a great sense of humor and always appears just in the nick of time. Readers will fall in love with him, too. Every girl should have a Brandon as a BFF,

Recommended grade 7-up. No language. A couple of sweet kisses.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received the ARC from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

Action Thriller Pick: Cold Fury

View the book trailer here

Cold Fury
By T.M. Goeglein
Putnam
2012
312 pages

Unstoppable, fierce, feisty Sara Jane Rispoli is an uber-cool teen heroine with an in-your-face attitude and she won’t cower down from bullies, bullets, or baddies. Girls will admire her and want to be her; guys will want to meet her and if they’re brave, date her. From the first words in the “prelude,” I was reading with breathless anticipation of what would happen next. This book is a suspenseful thrill-ride that will have teens reading into the wee hours of the morning.
The day of her sixteenth birthday, Sara returns home to an empty and darkened house. It’s unusual—where is her family? She enters and can’t believe her eyes. The living room is tossed—someone was looking for something—and whoever it was didn’t appear to find it. She investigates and finds blood on the wall and their family dog has been badly beaten. Just then, a man jumps on her in the dark basement. Sara is a fighter—she’s been training at a local boxing gym for years, and she gets in a few well-aimed licks and jumps into her dad’s old Lincoln along with Harry the dog who helps her escape. Sara’s on the lam and running out of time to find answers.

She goes to the gym where she thinks she can find a safehouse until she can figure out what happened and who is after her. She knows not to trust the cops because they are now looking for her, too. The one thing she carried out of the house is a cheap plaster bust of Frank Sinatra that always sat on their mantle. It has a camera in it, and Sara Jane replays the tape and sees her father’s last message to her. He is in a panic and tells her to go to the God of Fire. It’s code for the Vulcan oven in her family’s bakery.

Sara Jane follows the clues and finds a hidden room, a coded notebook, a Sig Sauer .45 (gun), $96,000 in cash and an American Express Black card in her name. What did her father intend when he left all this behind? Sara Jane deciphers what’s in the notebook—much of it is yellowed and very old and some of it is in Italian.

She reads the history of her family and realizes that their very being is a sham. Her grandfather was a powerful man in Chicago and her whole family is “mobbed up.” The notebook holds the ultimate key, and whoever wants it will stop at nothing to get that notebook away from Sara Jane.

Her pudgy but helpful friend Doug steps in as “Robin” to her “Batman” and they take the fight to the criminals. This books sets up the sequel nicely. I can’t wait to find out what happens next!

I predict this is going to be a huge title. The cover with the picture of a tough looking girl holding a steel briefcase is edgy and screams, “BUY ME! “ The back cover and inner cover hooked me, and I had to purchase this book for myself. Teens are going to love this one.

Highly, highly recommended grades 7-up. Some violence, mob references to crimes, Doug mentions he doesn’t know if he likes boys or not—but he doesn’t go into detail and he’s never acted on it. No other sexual references.


FTC Required Disclaimer: I bought this book for myself. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.