Review: Things Remembered by Georgia Bockoven

Things Remembered by Georgia Bockoven 

Publisher: William Morrow 

Pages: 384 

Format: book 

Buy the Book: Amazon  

Goodreads:  To face the future, Returning to her childhood home in the golden hills of Northern California means regret and pain for Karla Esterbrook. Yet she can't refuse when her ailing grandmother, Anna, asks her to help settle her affairs. After all, Anna raised Karla and her younger sisters after their parents' death twenty years before. But from the beginning a powerful clash of wills separated Karla and her grandmother, leaving them both bitter and angry.

A woman must let go of the past

Little does Karla know that a very determined Anna will do everything in her power to bridge the chasm between them--including helping a charismatic veterinarian out to win her granddaughter for himself. But can the past he healed? For Karla, opening her heart could lead to more hurt...or to love and reconciliation--and a passion of which she'd only dreamed.


Kritters Thoughts:  Three sisters lose their parents at a young age and after being shuttled around they end up at their maternal grandmother's house to be raised.  Each react to this trying time in different ways and it was so interesting to read how one moment can affect each of the three sisters.  

Although the story is told mostly through the eyes of Karla, the oldest sister, the reader still gets to know each sister individually and the grandmother that raised all three.  Each sister is dealing with a struggle and if they harness the help of their sisters then they may overcome the struggle easier, it just takes a little trust and vulnerability.  I loved how the central point was that there will be many people in your life to influence your thoughts and decisions, but sometimes all it takes is a family member who knows your whole story to help you through a moment.

I am always a fan of a book that centers around families and sisters with a hint of birth order at the same time.  I would recommend this book to a reader who enjoys a family drama with a heart and soul - there were some moments that just took my breath away.  I want another book, so I can find out what happens with these three sisters.

Rating: absolutely loved it and want a sequel

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from TLC Book Tours.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Tour schedule: 

Wednesday, October 17th: The Crazy Life of a Bookaholic Mom

Thursday, October 18th: Iwriteinbooks’s blog

Friday, October 19th: As I turn the pages

Monday, October 22nd: Peppermint PhD

Tuesday, October 23rd: Kritters Ramblings

Wednesday, October 24th: StephTheBookworm

Thursday, October 25th: Seaside Book Nook

Friday, October 26th: WV Sticher

Tuesday, October 30th: Library of Clean Reads

Wednesday, October 31st: A Patchwork of Books

Thursday, November 1st: Me, My Book and the Couch

Tuesday, November 6th: Kahakai Kitchen

Wednesday, November 7th: Peeking Between the Pages

It's Monday, What are you Reading?

With the boy working quite a few hours this past week, Charlotte and I had a lot of time to curl up with a blanket and a book!  Thank goodness for some quiet time, it has been lacking in our household.  I am getting a little more excited about the cold weather outside and the warm blanket, soup and fireplace.

A meme hosted by Sheila at BookJourney. 

Finished this past week:
Falling Together by Marisa de los Santos
Cold Light by Jenn Ashworth
Let's Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell
Grace Unexpected by Gale Martin
Return to Willow Lake by Susan Wiggs
Things Remembered by Georgia Bockoven
Runaway Mind by Maggie Reese

Currently Reading:
There Goes the Bride by Holly McQueen

Next on the TBR pile:
Blood Line by Lynda La Plante

Review: Grace Unexpected by Gale Martin

Grace Unexpected by Gale Martin

Publisher: BookTrope Editions 

Pages: 276 

Format: book

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  Thirty-something Grace Savage has slogged through crummy jobs and dead-end relationships with men who would rather go bald than say “I do”. In search of respite from her current job, she visits Shaker Village in New Hampshire. Instead of renewal, she’s unnerved to learn that Shaker men and women lived and worked side by side in complete celibacy. When her longtime boyfriend dumps her instead of proposing, Grace avows the sexless Shaker ways. Resolved to stick to her new plan – dubbed the Shaker Plan – despite ovaries ticking like time bombs, she returns to her life in Pennsylvania. Almost immediately, she's juggling two eligible bachelors: Addison, a young beat reporter; and True, a venerable anthropology professor. Both men have ample charms and soul mate potential to test her newfound Shaker-style self-control, and Grace appears to be on the fast track to a marriage proposal… until secrets revealed deliver a death rattle to the Shaker Plan.


Kritters Thoughts:  Grace, the main character, starts the book in a Shaker Village with her very pregnant sister in law; shortly after her trip she finds herself single again and decides that maybe the Shakers do it right with the celibacy.  Unfortunately for her, right after she makes this pledge to follow the Shaker Plan, she meets two great guys.  

For me, both of the guys in contention were all that great.  One was quite a bit older and the other younger, they were a little to the extreme side of things.  I wasn't rooting for either, I was hoping for a third option.  

On the other hand, I loved her work situation and it was so fun to have a book where the work life takes center stage to what is going on in the character's personal life.  Her co workers were entertaining but honest and their quirks made me appreciate my own work situation a bit more!     

For a book in the chick lit genre, this one was a little on the bland side.  No matter that I knew what was coming next, the book just didn't have the excitement that I was hoping for when I come to read a chick lit.  I wanted a little more of the Shaker involvement in the book - it could have added a little more quirk.

Rating: definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from BookTrope.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Review: Death by Jade Varden

Death by Jade Varden

Pages: 222 

Format: ebook

Buy the Book: Amazon 

Goodreads:  All In

I never wanted to get in this deep, but I did go looking for the truth before I was prepared to handle it. But how do you close the lid on Pandora’s box? You can’t unlearn something, or forget a dark secret once it’s been revealed. 

I have no choice but to do my part to bury the truth again -- this time, someplace no one will ever be able to find it. But that’s the problem with lies. Once you start pulling threads, everything unravels. 

No one is who they seem to be...not even me.

Kritters Thoughts:  The third in a series of YA reads that kept me reading from book to book.  Chloe/Rain is still learning more about her family in this book, I couldn't even fathom that there was more to learn about this quirky von Shelton family, but there was and probably is!  

This book continues as Chloe/Rain tries to continue unfolding the mystery that popped up in the first book and started unraveling in the second book.  The third book keeps the story going, but still leaves the reader on a cliff ready for the fourth book.  The reader can't help to want to know more about what will happen with Chloe/Rain as she learns more about her family and the people that surround her.

There is one more to read, so I am just waiting for it to come my way, so I can find out what will happen with Chloe/Rain and the trial that will put quite a few people on the stand to own up for their lies. 


Rating: the perfect YA read

Ebook 2012 Challenge: 59 out of 25

Review: The Tower by Jade Varden

The Tower by Jade Varden

Pages: 195

Format: ebook

Buy the Book: Amazon 

Goodreads:  Death brings some families closer, but it’s ripped mine apart. I wanted to convince the police that they had the wrong suspect...but I never expected them to start suspecting me. Now, I have no choice but to keep searching for the truth, even if all my relationships fall to pieces around me.

Someone is trying to make me look guilty. I never thought my mission to prove my own innocence would lead me to more family secrets. I thought I had already discovered the truth about myself. But every answer raises more questions, and everything I think I know is about to change...again.

I have to find the truth, no matter how much it hurts -- before I get charged with murder.



Kritters Thoughts:  A little darker than the first book as it centers on the murder of one of the students as they all try to help solve it by pointing fingers at each other.  Chloe/Rain is still the main character as she tries to maneuver through this new world of money and lies and mystery.  

The first book deals with her transition to a new family, this book takes her into the inner workings of the elitist community as she tries to solve a major mystery.  Along the way she learns more truths about the family that is now hers.  I loved continuing her story and learning more about her adventure.  Again the characters were dynamic and so entertaining - I was excited to know that I had one more book to read with this team of characters.

As this is the second book of the series, I can't share too much, because you have to start at the beginning to read it all.  This ebook series is perfect for the adult fan of YA and the YA audience at the same time.


Rating: perfect YA read

Ebook 2012 Challenge: 58 out of 25

Wordless Wednesday

Me and Charity Shumway, author of Ten Girls to Watch 

at her reading about a month ago at One More Page Book Store.

(sorry for the blur)

Review: Falling Together by Marisa de los Santos

Falling Together by Marisa de los Santos

Publisher: William Morrow

Pages: 384 

Format: book

Buy the Book: Amazon 

Goodreads:  From their first day of college orientation, Pen, Cat and Will seemed born to be close friends. Eventually though, Cat's decision to marry an unpleasant mate had loosened their magical bond and without its center, the group had drifted away from each other. 

Now, six years later, when Cat emails her former cronies, asking them to join her at their college reunion, they cannot resist. Whatever nostalgic dreams the pair nurtured, however, dissolve when they are forced to confront a dangerous situation in which everything they believed about themselves and each other is brought into question. 


Kritters Thoughts:  From the description of this book, I wasn't quite sure what I was getting into and this was my first trip with Marisa de los Santos, after reading this book I will definitely be reading her collection and looking forward to more!  Told from Pen's point of view, I didn't realize until the end how she saw life and their tri-friendship through rose colored glasses and avoided seeing some of the negative moments in their friendship.  

Although the reader only learns of Cat in the past tense through the years of the friendship in moments of reflection, each character was distinct, but I could still see the ties that bind these three together.  The characters that surrounded these three had lives of their own and helped fill the story, at times I loved them more then the central three.  

The other small point that I loved about this book is that the years where the characters were apart - they had experienced some similar life experiences: deaths in the family, loves lost or found and change in what mattered most to each - these things helped to see how they would be when they reunited.

Throughout the book I kept thinking about my friends from my past and how different we are no as we were in high school and college - I am still friends with a few, but we have grown with each other, while others have drifted as we grew apart.  I am glad this book made me take a moment and reflect on those friendships that are still very close and in my heart.   


Rating: definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from TLC Book Tours.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Other Tour Stops:

Tuesday, October 2nd: Reflections of a Bookaholic

Wednesday, October 3rd: Reading Lark

Thursday, October 4th: girilichef

Friday, October 5th: The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader

Monday, October 8th: A Reader of Fictions

Tuesday, October 9th: A Patchwork of Books

Wednesday, October 10th: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Thursday, October 11th: The Feminist Texican [Reads]

Friday, October 12th: Book Spark

Monday, October 15th: Books and Movies

Tuesday, October 16th: Kritters Ramblings

Thursday, October 18th: Between the Covers

Friday, October 19th: Book Journey

Monday, October 22nd: Silver & Grace

Tuesday, October 23rd: Raging Bibliomania

Wednesday, October 24th: Book Hooked Blog

Thursday, October 25th: My Bookshelf

Friday, October 26th: Iwriteinbooks’s blog

Monday, October 29th: Lit and Life

Tuesday, October 30th: The Book Bag

Review: Justice by Jade Varden

Justice by Jade Varden

Publisher: CreateSpace 

Pages: 190 

Format: ebook

Buy the Book: Amazon 

Goodreads:  A House of Cards...

When you build an entire life on a foundation of lies, it only takes one truth for the whole thing to come crashing down. I never invited the truth in. I never went searching for it. I never had any reason to suspect that the two people I loved most were dishonest with me every second of every day. 

I made one bad decision, and in a single day my entire world changed. If I'm ever going to discover the truth about myself and my parents, I have to trace all the lies back to their source. I have to try to find the truth that they're hiding. 

The more I discover about myself, and my past, the more I realize that lies really are better than the truth. But now that I know the lies are all around me, I can't stop until I've discovered them all. I'll pull each lie away, one by one, and examine it to see what's underneath…until this house of cards crumbles into dust at my feet. 

I just hope I can survive the crash.


Kritters Thoughts:  A book that starts with a high schooler heading to a new private school ends up in a twisted mess of high school queens and outsiders mixing and mingling with bad results.  The reader meets at the beginning Rain Ramey who comes for a loving home with one brother and great parents; she is heading to a private school on a tuition and on the very first day gets tricked by the popular girls and the story goes to a whole different place than what I expected.

Her entire world is flipped upside down due to one small incident and the reader is taken along with Rain on her journey.  As I am usually not a spoiler, I just can't share what the outcome is - you must read this one to find out what really happens to Rain.  This is a great YA book for the young adult in the house.

I fell in love with Rain immediately and could not wait to hear where her story would go. She was likeable, but not in the overly cheesy way.  I adore a YA book when as an adult I can read it and not feel like the language is too young or hip, these books can be quickly outdated by their language choice.  The characters in her school were right on pitch - entertaining and hilariously mean.  

The final chapters took the book to a place that I wasn't expecting and there are quite a few unanswered questions that I expected to have answered by the ending.  I am excited to read the second and third books in this series on October 18th here at Kritters Ramblings.

Rating:  the perfect YA read

Ebook 2012 Challenge: 57 out of 25

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from the author.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.