After Amanda Howell saw Danielle’s lovely review of her debut novel The Summer of Skinny Dipping she emailed Danielle offering us the chance to give away two copies of her book. There will be two winners picked: one entrant from the UK and one entrant from the US. All you have to do to win a copy of the book is send us an email to [email protected] with the subject line of ‘The Summer of Skinny Dipping Giveaway (UK/US)’ and please include your postal address. You MUST include your country, UK or US, otherwise you will not be entered into the draw. The competition ends in July so good luck!
Sometimes I still wake up shivering in the early hours of the morning, drowning in dreams of being out there in the ocean that summer, of looking up at the moon and feeling as invisible and free as a fish. But I’m jumping ahead, and to tell the story right I have to go back to the very beginning. To a place called Indigo Beach. To a boy with pale skin that glowed against the dark waves. To the start of something neither of us could have predicted, and which would mark us forever, making everything that came after and before seem like it belonged to another life.
My name is Mia Gordon: I was sixteen years old, and I remember everything.
I had the opportunity to hear Aimee speak at the LA Times Festival of Books and everything about the way she writes makes you want to pick up her books. I’m truly looking forward to reading this novel very soon, the description alone is enough to make your mouth water.
On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents’ attention, bites into her mother’s homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother’s emotions in the cake. She discovers this gift to her horror, for her mother—her cheerful, good-with-crafts, can-do mother—tastes of despair and desperation. Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes a peril and a threat to Rose.
The curse her gift has bestowed is the secret knowledge all families keep hidden—her mother’s life outside the home, her father’s detachment, her brother’s clash with the world. Yet as Rose grows up she learns to harness her gift and becomes aware that there are secrets even her taste buds cannot discern.
Maddie Lawson isn’t having a great time - her new boss Colette has humiliated her live on air with her new feature “Making Brum Beautiful” and has enlisted Maddie to join a Fatbusters club. Added to that, Maddie will also have to go live on air to discuss her ongoing weight loss. Maddie’s mum and children also get involved and after a disastrous Spots Day Race, Maddie realises something has to change. Colette may not have her best interests at heart but it could end up helping Maddie after all.
At the first Fatbusters meeting, Maddie meets two other new girls: Lauren, who runs a dating website but has given up on love herself, and Jess, a beautician desperate to fit into a size 10 wedding dress for her wedding day. Can Maddie get her own back on Colette and use the Fatbusters class to her advantage? And what about the other two girls, can they make their own dreams come true, too?
Today we (along with a whole host of other blogs) are hosting the premiere of Gemma Burgess’s book trailer for The Dating Detox! I absolutely loved the book and we’re so happy to host the trailer so we hope you enjoy it, I did and I’m not even a real fan of book trailers!
Jennifer Weiner’s next book Fly Away Home is due out on 5th August 2010 and I have to say it sounds incredibly interesting. I also think the cover is really nice, it looks so much more modern than her previous designs and it’s incredibly eye-catching! Here’s the synopsis:
Sylvie Woodruff has spent the last 30 or so years being the ideal politician’s wife and raising two daughters. When her world crashes down around her after a painful, public betrayal, she retreats to her grandmother’s rambling seaside home to wait for the scandal to blow over. Sylvie’s eldest daughter, Kate, married out of friendship and respect, not love…then years later, finds herself falling for a most unsuitable man. When the affair ends badly, she sets off in search of a new beginning. Lizzie, Kate’s younger sister, who caused her parents such heartache as a teenager, is finally getting her life together. When a summer fling leaves her pregnant, and her charming boyfriend turns violent, she too heads out of town.
Chick Lit Classics is a new feature on Chick Lit Reviews where we highlight the books we feel are classics of the chick lit genre. Feel free to discuss our choices in the comments section!
This week I’ve picked one of Katie Fforde’s book for our Classic choice this week. I’m a huge fan of Katie’s work and have read - and enjoyed - the majority of her books and I’m eagerly awaiting her new one. One of my absolute favourite’s of Katie’s though is Paradise Fields. It’s one of the first I read of Katie’s and since reading it the first time, I’ve since re-read it and I enjoyed it just as much. It has humour and has life and most importantly it has romance!
It’s not as if Nel hadn’t enough on her plate already: organising a farmers’ market in the picturesque Paradise Fields and keeping track of her unnervingly beautiful teenage daughter - plus sorting out a houseful of animals - are quite enough to keep her busy. The last thing she needs is another complication in her life, but when her old friend Sir Gerald dies and his son, Pierce - accompanied by his glamorous American wife - takes possession of The Big House, it seems that preserving the Fields is not on his list of priorities.
Nel takes up arms, determined to fight for the meadow and the market she loves. But whom can she trust? She’s pretty sure her friends Sacha and Vivian are on her side, but her sensible boyfriend Simon, an estate agent, is less encouraging. And then there’s Jake, the exasperating yet attractive stranger who kissed her under the mistletoe. Maybe she’s been a not-so-merry widow for far too long…
Author Talli Roland has her debut novel out in early 2011 called The Hating Game. The purple front cover is quite eye catching, and it sounds like a great read. Here’s the synopsis:
“When man-eater Mattie Johns agrees to star on a dating game show to save her ailing recruitment business, she’s confident she’ll sail through to the end without letting down the perma-guard she’s perfected from years of her love ‘em and leave ‘em dating strategy.
After all, what can go wrong with dating a few losers and hanging out long enough to pick up a juicy £50,000 prize? Plenty, Mattie discovers, when it’s revealed that the contestants are four of her very unhappy exes.
Can Mattie confront her past to get the prize money she so desperately needs, or will her exes finally wreak their long-awaited revenge? And what about the ambitious TV producer whose career depends on stopping her from making it to the end?
A couple of months ago we interviewed Carole Matthews and one thing I wanted to ask was what it was like to have been with the same publisher, Headline, since her first ever book. It’s unique for an author to be with a publisher so long, and very few authors seem to live out their career with the same one! However, there was a surprising nugget of information in Carole’s latest newsletter telling us that after 14 happy years at Headline, she will be moving to Little, Brown after the release of The Only Way Is Up (out in September)!
There’s no details about the deal and there’s been no official announcement yet! It also appears that Carole’s book after The Only Way Is Up, Could This Be Love? has now disappeared from Amazon, it was due out in February 2011 but I assume with Carole changing publishers, that may now change. We will of course keep you all updated about that, and I do look forward to seeing the new look Little, Brown are planning for Carole’s books as I am a HUGE fan of her newest batch of covers! It will also be interesting to see if Carole sticks with her two books a year schedule, I’ll be sorely disappointed if not, I love two Carole Matthews’s books a year!
After Amanda Howell saw Danielle’s lovely review of her debut novel The Summer of Skinny Dipping she emailed Danielle offering us the chance to give away two copies of her book. There will be two winners picked: one entrant from the UK and one entrant from the US. All you have to do to win a copy of the book is send us an email to [email protected] with the subject line of ‘The Summer of Skinny Dipping Giveaway (UK/US)’ and please include your postal address. You MUST include your country, UK or US, otherwise you will not be entered into the draw. The competition ends in July so good luck!
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Author Talli Roland has her debut novel out in early 2011 called The Hating Game. The purple front cover is quite eye catching, and it sounds like a great read. Here’s the synopsis:
