As the song goes, "It's mad, it's gay, the lusty month of May!" Spring's prettiest month has arrived at last. While there have been more than a few days of chilly rain, there's also been days like today, Mother's Day, which are sunny, full of blue skies and warmth. The Puget Sound area is in it's glory at this time of year, with everything blooming and green. For the aforementioned Mum's Day, my lovely son and husband have spoiled me with a dozen new books and lots of treats. My own mother is also enjoying her day, after having dinner out with my brother and calling to let me know she's in need of some more cozy cat mysteries, plus a book by the wonderful Senator Elizabeth Warren. So on that note, I'm going to update my blog with some delicious tidbits and three book reviews. Enjoy!
This sounds like a wonderful series, and I've been a fan of Christian Slater's since he did his fantastic Jack Nicholson impression in the movie "Heathers" which is a classic of the teen 80s movie genre.
TV: Fleishman Is in Trouble
Christian Slater (Dr. Death, Dirty John) has joined the cast of FX's limited series Fleishman Is in Trouble https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscADZkukI6apgdR9zSA~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jHC5OhpoMLg-gVdw, based on Taffy Brodesser-Akner's debut novel, Deadline reported. He will star opposite Jesse Eisenberg, Lizzy Caplan and Claire Danes. The cast also includes Adam Brody, Joy Supruno, Ralph Adriel Johnson, Brian Miskell, Michael Gaston, Maxim Jasper Swinton and Meara Mahoney Gross.
Brodesser-Akner serves as a writer of the limited series and executive produces along with Sarah Timberman, Carl Beverly, Susannah Grant as well as Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris who will also direct the first block of the series. Fleishman Is in Trouble is produced by ABC Signature.
This review makes me really want to read this book, and I've read a couple of Ashely P's other books, so I will be keeping an eye out for an ebook of the Dead Romantics.
Book Review: The Dead Romantics
Ashley Poston's fun, lighthearted novels for young adults (Geekerella; Heart of Iron) offer a blend of the fantastical infused with wit and romance.
The Dead Romantics, Poston's first book for adults, is a romantic comedy about Florence Minerva Day, a smart, snarky millennial who is nursing a broken heart and suffering from writer's block. Florence is emotionally on the skids; after publishing a romance novel that received a less-than-stellar reception, downcast Florence became an assistant-turned-ghostwriter for Ann Nichols, one of "romance's greats."
Nichols is a well-established, popular author who hasn't left her home in Maine for the five years that Florence has been the secret source behind her writing success. But Florence is floundering, too depressed and turned off by love to write about it and meet a looming deadline--already extended three times--to finish and deliver Nichols's next book to the new editor at her publishing house, Benji Andor. The hottie is cold and no-nonsense. He totally unnerves Florence by threatening legal action if the new Nichols book isn't turned in asap.
She's intent on finishing the manuscript, but then Florence runs into her ex, who stole the story of Florence's life--personal secrets she shared with him about her family and their funeral home business and how Florence interacts with ghosts--and turned it into a book that sold at auction for $1 million. Weary after seeing her successful, user-ex again and faced with the impending writing deadline, Florence's life further tailspins when she is summoned from her home in Hoboken, N.J., back to Mairmont, S.C., to deal with the devastating sudden death of a family member. Being back in a place she longed to escape suddenly resurrects the past and elicits the presence of a handsome ghost who wrenches Florence from her rut and upends her beliefs about love.
Romance, chaos and complications are central components in Poston's refreshingly fun, spirited rom-coms, and The Dead Romantics is no exception. The beauty and charm of Poston's storytelling continues to make miraculous happy endings out of the messes in which ordinary people often find themselves entangled. --Kathleen Gerard
Awwww, what a good boy!
Bookseller Dog: Bobo at Elliott Bay Book Company
"Bobo applied to be a bookseller at Elliott Bay Book Company https://www.shelfawareness.com/ct/x/pjJscADaw74I6apvJB0kGg~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jHCML2poMLg-gVdw, Seattle, Wash., posted on Facebook. "Even though he's clearly not tall enough to see over the counter and lacks opposable thumbs, we couldn't say no to that face. So here we are. Please welcome Bobo the bookseller our newest #dogsofebbco."
I watched the movie The Prince of Tides, and I loved it enough that I then read the book, which sent me on a Pat Conroy reading spree, because I found his prose and characters so compelling.
TV:The Prince of Tides
Director Tate Taylor (The Help, The Girl on the Train) is developing a TV adaptation for Apple of Pat Conroy's novel The Prince of Tides https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscADblbkI6apvJBF-TA~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jHCZTxpoMLg-gVdw, which was previously adapted into the 1991 film that was directed by Barbra Streisand, co-written by Conroy and Becky Johnston, and starred Streisand and Nick Nolte. Deadline reported that "the project is believed to be in the very early stages of development."
The series project comes from Sony Pictures Television, whose sister movie arm Columbia Pictures released the film, with Taylor writing and exec producing, Deadline noted, adding that it "is Taylor's latest project for Apple; he is exec producing Mrs. American Pie, which stars Kristen Wiig and Allison Janney, for the streamer."
Heroic Hearts, edited by Jim Butcher and Kerrie L Hughes is an exciting collection of science fiction/fantasy short stories starring heroes and heroines of every stripe, from the wee fae hopelessly addicted to pizza in Butcher's Dresden Files story entitled "Little Things" to Kevin Hearne's "Fire Hazard" and Charlaine Harris' "The Return of the Mage" though the latter was somewhat of a confusing and dense tale in need of more context for those of us who are unfamiliar with the world it was written in. Here's the blurb: An all-star urban fantasy collection featuring short stories from #1 New York Times bestselling authors Jim Butcher, Patricia Briggs, Charlaine Harris, Kelley Armstrong, and more . . .
In
this short story collection of courage, adventure, and magic,
heroes—ordinary people who do the right thing—bravely step forward.
But running toward danger might cost them everything. . . .
In Jim Butcher’s “Little Things,” the pixie Toot-Toot
discovers an invader unbeknownst to the wizard Harry Dresden . . . and
in order to defeat it, he’ll have to team up with the dread cat Mister.
In Patricia Briggs’s “Dating Terrors,” the werewolf
Asil finds an online date might just turn into something more—if she can
escape the dark magic binding her.
In Charlaine Harris’s “The Return of the Mage,” the
Britlingen mercenaries will discover more than they’ve bargained for
when they answer the call of a distress beacon on a strange and remote
world. And in Kelley Armstrong’s “Comfort Zone,” the necromancer
Chloe Saunders and the werewolf Derek Souza are just trying to get
through college. But they can’t refuse a ghost pleading for help.
Unsurprisingly, I found the stories by the "big name" (and more experienced) authors to be my favorites, while the authors I have never heard of had works that I didn't read all the way through because they didn't hold my interest. Though I don't normally read Patricia Brigg's works, I found her "Dating Terrors" story to be quite engaging and fun, and Kelly Armstrong's "Comfort Zone" was a delight. I'd say that this collection was worth the price for all the fun stories by master storytellers (like Kevin Hearne, I adore his Iron Druid series), so I'd give it an A and recommend it to anyone who enjoys short works of fantasy fiction set in well established worlds.
Savage Lover by Sophie Lark was a free ebook that I get every month for being an Amazon Prime subscriber. While I normally have few books that I haven't already read to choose from, this time I saw this book and felt that it might be an exciting contemporary romance that would hold my interest. I should have known that with a subtitle like "A Dark Mafia Romance" that I was in for some very unsavory characters and scenes that weren't in the least bit sexy. While I understand the concept and reality of very beautiful people, male or female, I do not understand people who lose control of themselves and become blathering thirsty idiots at the sight of such people. Because, like a work of art, beautiful people are nice to look at, but what is on the surface isn't the whole story...and realistically, what a person looks like is mostly determined by genetics, something very few people have any control over. What's inside a person's soul or character is a whole different story. The two main characters in this book aren't really good people on the inside, and that makes them unattractive to me. Here's the blurb: There’s A Reason I Never Go To Parties…
I saw him in a cloud of smoke, like sin made flesh. Even bruised and battered, I’d never seen anything more beautiful...
Unless I hate myself, I should stay far away from Nero.
He’s a heartbreaker.
A mess-maker.
A walking disaster.
Here’s
the problem: I’m in deep trouble with a dirty cop. The only person who
can save me is Nero. We’re not friends. If he saw me drowning, he’d
throw me an anchor.
But he’s the only chance I’ve got.
He’s no hero, he’s a Savage Lover.
The Lark Notes:
I
like to call Savage Lover my “James Dean meets Fast and the Furious”
novel. Nero is the ultimate Lothario. But Camille is so genuine and
down-to-earth that she finds the soul inside the sinner. As my favorite
review said, it’s “two people who believed they were unworthy of love,
until they met each other”. – Sophie
Camille is a poor woman who makes even poorer choices that lead her to having to rely on this scumbag mafia scion, who has murdered people (and gotten away with it) and who uses his sexuality like a weapon, treating the women he finds as disposable. Until he meets Camille, who he can't get enough of, so he ends up solving all her problems for her in the most brutal fashion, so that he can basically own her for the rest of her life. Ugh. Macho BS is so 1970s! Anyway, the prose here is fast-paced and slick, as is the plot. The characters definitely need work, though. So I'd give this book a C, and recommend it to those whose morality is loose enough to forgive good looking guys anything, even murder.
Listening Still by Anne Griffin is a magical realism novel that takes place in Ireland and England (with a small detour to Oslo, Norway). It's a rather melancholy novel about a young woman who can "hear" the dead speak for a short time after their demise, and, as she works in the family funeral parlor with her father, also a "listener" of the dead, she's able to help give the bereaved closure, while constantly wondering if she should "soften the rough edges" of what the dead have to say (ie LIE to family) so as to not hurt anyone's feelings among the living. Jeanie is burdened with this task in addition to helping run the family funeral home, and deal with her parent's wishes to retire and turn the whole thing over to her, whether she's ready for it or not. Her Aunt Harry is also a member of the business, as is her husband Niall, who really only became an embalmer so he could be close to Jeanie. Here's the blurb:
The prose is lyrical, but the plot of this novel is slower than molasses in January for most of the book...it only starts picking up in the last 1/3rd of the novel, when Jeanie finally grows a spine and decides to head out on her own to France and try to lead a life that she chooses, instead of one that has been chosen for her by her crappy parents. She also finally comes to understand that honesty is the best policy, especially when her Auntie and her parents tell her about the lie they've been living for her entire life! I thought she was way too kind in her reception of this secret, when I would have disowned them all. I also don't understand her desire to piece back together her relationship with Niall, who seems like a weak and besotted fool...and neither of them had, by the end of the book, solved their main conundrum of whether or not Jeanie was willing to have children that she obviously doesn't want for Niall's sake. Something like that can build a lifetime of resentment in a woman who is forced to have babies she doesn't want, especially if she is concerned about "passing along" the "gift" of hearing the dead speak. Though Jeanie was too much of a coward to be with the love of her life (and she regrets this when he dies young of cancer) settling for a man she doesn't love as much as he loves her is a stupid idea at best. I did enjoy the cast of secondary characters, who were colorful and often fascinating, but I found the character of Mikey to be bizarre and two dimensional...he was almost perfunctory, like you can't have a novel about a women trying to find herself without her having a handicapped family member, in this case, a brother who is autistic. At any rate, I'd give this book a B-, and recommend it to anyone who finds ghosts and mediums interesting, and who isn't squeamish about the funeral industry or corpses.
No comments:
Post a Comment