Sunday Post: Bookish Best of 2017

 

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog…

Good morning blogland. It is very cliché but where did this past year go? It went by so quickly. I feel like the older you get the faster time goes. We had a nice White Christmas last week and now the temps are really dropping. Single digits this week especially at night and early mornings.

I wanted to take a minute to thank you all for taking the time to stop by my blog and read my posts and leave thoughtful comments. I have known several of you for many years and I appreciate our online friendships. I have also met some new blog friends this past year and it has been awesome chatting books and finding new blogs to visit. To all my blogging friends, Happy, Healthy New Year. May 2018 be full of good books, good health and joyful moments. xo

Well, I rounded up a few of my favorite bookish things from 2017 to share with today’s Sunday Post. It is always fun to reflect on the past reading/blogging year.

Here are my Bookish Favorites of 2017 in no particular order alongside my Christmas cookies. This is the recipe that I’ve been using for years and it never fails. The key is to line the cookie trays with parchment paper when baking so they don’t burn.

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A Christmas Promise by Mary Balogh

source: purchased
title: A Christmas Promise
author: Mary Balogh
pages: 272
published: December 1, 1992
first lines: The Earl of Falloden glanced at the visiting card resting on the salver his butler held extended toward him. He frowned.
rated: 3 out of 5

blurb:
A love that cannot be bought or sold proves to be the greatest gift of all, in this heartwarming classic that demonstrates once again why New York Times bestselling author Mary Balogh is among the most celebrated authors of historical romance.

Weddings are supposed to be joyous occasions—especially when a couple seems as well matched as Randolph Pierce, Earl of Falloden, and his bride-to-be, Eleanor Transome. Ellie brings to the marriage a vast dowry, while Falloden, though distant, is handsome, tremendously desirable, and possessed of a title most young ladies can only dream of sharing.

Yet Ellie is not most young ladies. She knows that she must honor her dear father’s dying wish for her to wed the proud earl, but she dreads a lifetime in a union without love—and how can Falloden claim to love her when he married her only for her fortune? As Christmas descends upon the Falloden manor, the warmth of the season may yet melt away the trappings of duty and wealth, leaving behind only a man and a woman destined for each other’s arms.

my thoughts:
Christmas is almost here! It’s a rainy Saturday morning and I thought I’d post my thoughts about my latest read and get some blog hopping in too. We’ll be visiting my parents tomorrow for gift exchanging and dinner and then Christmas day will be spent home cooking, baking and relaxing. I plan on wearing my pajamas all day.

Onto my review, I picked this one apart a little bit because it was just that kind of read. I both liked and I disliked it.

Here we have Eleanor Transome who is a single child and her father is wealthy from having made his fortune as a coal merchant. Ellie and her family are considered working class or cits and although they have money they are looked down upon by the ton who are born into their wealth and status.

Sunday Post: It’s beginning to look alot like Christmas

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog…

Merry Merry everyone. I hope you are all enjoying your weekend. Otis says Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all. That little holiday hat looks like I photo-shopped it on him, but he’s actually wearing it. He stays perfectly still when I put it on..lol. Like he knows mom is a little crazy but that’s life. 🙂

It has been a hectic week here, next year I will save some vacation time for this time of the year, it is so needed. We had snow this week and although it is pretty to look at, the timing was impeccable. It both snowed during my morning work commute and during my drive home this week bumping my 45 minute drive to about one hour.

Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter

source: free review copy via the publisher
title: Pretty Girls
author: Karin Slaughter/ Twitter
pages: 573
genre: crime fiction/mystery/thriller/suspense
published: 2015
first line: When you first disappeared, your mother warned me that finding out exactly what happened to you would be worse than never knowing.
rated: 5 out of 5 for a thrill ride with twists and turns that had me on the edge of my seat

blurb:
Sisters. Strangers. Survivors.

More than twenty years ago, Claire and Lydia’s teenaged sister Julia vanished without a trace. The two women have not spoken since, and now their lives could not be more different. Claire is the glamorous trophy wife of an Atlanta millionaire. Lydia, a single mother, dates an ex-con and struggles to make ends meet. But neither has recovered from the horror and heartbreak of their shared loss—a devastating wound that’s cruelly ripped open when Claire’s husband is killed.

The disappearance of a teenage girl and the murder of a middle-aged man, almost a quarter-century apart: what could connect them? Forming a wary truce, the surviving sisters look to the past to find the truth, unearthing the secrets that destroyed their family all those years ago . . . and uncovering the possibility of redemption, and revenge, where they least expect it.

my thoughts:
Oh my goodness, this book! It has had me on the edge of my seat since last week. I could not read it fast enough, and when I did read it, I didn’t want to stop.

If there is a book that might make you faint while reading, it’s Pretty Girls. It was a thrill ride of emotions, truly. I finished reading it last night and at 573 pages there was not a dull moment.

Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover

source: purchased
title: Ugly Love
author: Colleen Hoover/ Twitter
published: Atria Books (August 5, 2014)
pages: 324
first line: “Somebody stabbed you in the neck, young lady.”
genre: new adult contemporary romance
rated: 4 out of 5 stars for angsty romance and second chances because love bites but it is worth it

blurb:
When Tate Collins meets airline pilot Miles Archer, she doesn’t think it’s love at first sight. They wouldn’t even go so far as to consider themselves friends. The only thing Tate and Miles have in common is an undeniable mutual attraction. Once their desires are out in the open, they realize they have the perfect set-up. He doesn’t want love, she doesn’t have time for love, so that just leaves the sex. Their arrangement could be surprisingly seamless, as long as Tate can stick to the only two rules Miles has for her.

Never ask about the past.
Don’t expect a future.

They think they can handle it, but realize almost immediately they can’t handle it at all.

Hearts get infiltrated.
Promises get broken.
Rules get shattered.
Love gets ugly.

my thoughts:

Ugly Love had me feeling a few different emotions while reading it, I laughed, I teared up a little and I got irritated with some of the characters actions. This was a quick read, and a sad one too.