Treadmill Reads: The Housewife Assassin’s Handbook by Josie Brown

Synopsis (Goodreads):  Every desperate housewife would love an alias. Donna Stone has one, and it’s government sanctioned. Oh sure, you need to be ruthless to take on Russian mafia bosses, rogue dictators, and terrorists set on destroying the world. But it takes real killer instincts to survive suburbia. Try juggling the fifth grade phone tree during a shootout with skinhead arms dealers, or driving carpool while being chased by Chinese double agents.

Donna’s life wasn’t always this complicated. Five years earlier she was just another woman with two preschoolers, a baby bump, and an adoring husband, Carl, with whom she lived happily ever after in a McMansion in the Orange County, California community of Hilldale. But Donna’s life was changed forever the night she delivered her baby: 

Carl’s car blew up on the way to the hospital.

Turns out Carl was a “hard man” – an assassin – for the black ops organization known as Acme Corporation. The hit on Alex was carried out by the Quorum, a terrorist cell he was tracking. The Quorum’s motto: “Show me the money.” Governments and corporations do as they’re told-or suffer bloody consequences.

Carl left something behind that the Quorum wants badly. To protect herself and avenge Carl’s death, Donna joined Acme. Whereas her hostessing skills rival Martha Stewart’s, her marksmanship is second to none.

A good thing, too, because the Quorum has planted a sleeper cell in Hilldale. For Donna, that’s too close for comfort. Will she be able to save her family before the Quorum blows up Los Angeles?

Acme’s way of flushing out the Quorum is by “bringing Carl back from the dead.” But terrorism makes strange bedfellows. Jack Craig, the wild card Acme operative paired with Donna brings, new meaning to that old adage “Honey, I’m home…”

My take:  So this was fun! Think Desperate Housewives meets a more savvy Stephanie Plum* – but Donna is a reluctant spy/hitwoman for Acme, a Black Ops organization. She wants to avenge her husband’s death so she takes every assignment given to her and is quite successful. Her most challenging assignment walks into her life in the form of her husband – now being played by Jack Craig, a cocky and incredibly handsome Acme operative. Can Donna make her kids and neighbors believe Carl is really  himself and home to stay? Will she hang on to her sanity and see the assignment through? You’ll just have to read to find out!

Brown had me laughing out loud as I walked my 45 minutes on the treadmill each morning. She gets huge kudos because I actually looked forward to exercise. Really! I loved that the main character has the same name as Donna Reed’s perfect housewife character in The Donna Reed show – a tv sitcom from the 50s and 60s. 

The Housewife Assassin’s Handbook is entertaining, over the top and maybe even predictable – and I liked it that way! Any book that makes me want to exercise is a winner. I can’t wait to see what predicament sassy Donna and sexy Jack find themselves in next.

* I gave up on Stephanie after book 8 because nothing ever changed and didn’t look like it would. I’m cautiously optimistic about Donna.

• Title:  The Housewife Assassin’s Handbook (Housewife Assassin #1)
• Author:  Josie Brown
• Genre:  Romantic Suspense; Humor
• Published:  May 2011 – Signal Press
• Source:  I bought it.

The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society by Darien Gee

Title:  The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society
Author:  Darien Gee
Genre:  Contemporary Fiction
Published: (expected) January 29, 2012 – Ballantine Books
Source:  Publisher via Edelweiss

Synopsis (publisher): Welcome to Avalon, Illinois, Pop. 4,243

At Madeline’s Tea Salon, the cozy hub of the Avalon community, local residents scrapbook their memories and make new ones. But across town, other Avalonians are struggling to free themselves of the past: Isabel Kidd is fixing up her ramshackle house while sorting through the complications of her late husband’s affair. Ava Catalina is mourning the love of her life and helping her young son grow up without his father. Local plumber Yvonne Tate is smart, beautiful, and new to Avalon, but finds that despite a decade of living life on her own terms, the past has a way of catching up—no matter where she goes. And Frances Latham, mother to a boisterous brood of boys, eagerly anticipates the arrival of a little girl from China—unprepared for the emotional roller coaster of foreign adoption.

Enter Bettie Shelton, the irascible founder of the Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society. Under Bettie’s guidance, even the most reluctant of Avalon’s residents come to terms with their past and make bold decisions about their future. But when the group receives unexpected news about their steadfast leader, they must pull together to create something truly memorable.

My take:  Darien Gee’s novel is filled with interesting characters dealing with heartache, loss, and regrets – yet they keep going. That’s due in part to encouragement from friends and acquaintances. The main characters have some tough issues to work through. I thought Gee handled all of the story lines in an even and believable way.

It’s hard for me to name one character as my favorite but, if pressed, I’d say it was Bettie. She was so “in your face”  and unapologetic that it made me laugh more than once. There are reasons for her behavior that made her even more endearing to me. I loved that she was the owner of the scrapbooking business – the person encouraging everyone to preserve their memories.

My only quibble with the novel is that I thought there were too many story lines. I enjoyed each story but thought there were enough for two books.  That issue aside, I really liked the book and it’s message that things are not important. What matters most are the people in our lives and the times shared with them. 

Fans of novels with recipes won’t be disappointed. There are several at the end of the book.

Sunday Post

Book Arrivals:

• And Then I Found You by Patti Callahan Henry

Books reviewed last week:

• The Underside of Joy by Seré Prince Halverson
• The Next Always by Nora Roberts

Books I’m in the middle of:

• Arc:   A Bride by Moonlight by Liz Carlyle
• Audio:   The Richest Season by Maryann McFadden
• Treadmill book:   Waking up Married by Mira Lyn Kelly

Our granddaughter Grace – bundled up to go out in the cold

 

Happy reading!

 

The Next Always (audio) by Nora Roberts

 

My take:  The Next Always is the first book in the Inn BoonsBoro trilogy. Nora Roberts’ descriptions of the inn left me wanting to make a reservation asap! The three Montgomery brothers are making their mother’s dream a reality – turning the vacant old hotel on the town square into a beautiful inn. Beckett is the architect, Owen is the accountant/expediter (I think), and Ryder is in charge of construction.

This is Beckett’s story. He’s a great character. Growing up he had a huge crush on Clare. She ended up marrying one of his good friends and they moved away because he was in the military. Years later, after her husband was killed in war, she moved back home with her young sons. A single mother, Clare has her hands full with parenting as well as running the bookstore. She barely has time to breathe much less date and Beckett has his hands full with overseeing the inn project. Timing and circumstances eventually present Clare and Beckett with a chance to get reacquainted and for Beckett to get to know her boys. That’s enough for one book but there’s some drama too (no spoilers here). Oh, the inn appears to be haunted!

I liked The Next Always. It’s a romance filled with good characters, humor, and I loved the setting of the small town inn. I’m sure I’ll read the second book at some point.

Narrator:  MacLeod Andrews did a great job voicing the male characters. I thought he did ok with the female voices but I wasn’t a fan of the little boys’ voices. It must be hard for men to do children’s voices. I’ve listened to a couple of books with child characters but they were narrated by women – and I wasn’t bothered by those performances. But, since the main characters of the series are the Montgomery brothers, I can see why the Inn BoonsBoro books are narrated by a man.

• Title:  The Next Always (Inn BoonsBoro trilogy, Book 1)
• Author:  Nora Roberts
• Genre:  Romance
• Narrator:  MacLeod Andrews
• Published:  2011 – Brilliance Audio

Source:  I bought it

The Underside of Joy (audio) by Seré Prince Halverson

Synopsis (publisher): To Ella Beene, happiness means living in the Northern California river town of Elbow with her husband, Joe, and his two young children. Yet one summer day, Joe breaks his own rule – never turn your back on the ocean – and a sleeper wave strikes him down, drowning not only the man but his many secrets.

For three years, Ella has been the only mother the kids have known and has believed that their biological mother, Paige, abandoned them. But when Paige shows up at the funeral, intent on reclaiming the children, Ella soon realizes there may be more to Paige and Joe’s story. “Ella’s the best thing that’s happened to this family,” say her close-knit Italian-American in-laws, for generations the proprietors of a local market. But their devotion quickly falters when the custody fight between mother and stepmother urgently and powerfully collides with Ella’s quest for truth.

The Underside of Joy is not a fairy-tale version of stepmotherhood pitting good Ella against evil Paige, but an exploration of the complex relationship of two mothers. Their conflict uncovers a map of scars-both physical and emotional-to the families’ deeply buried tragedies, including Italian internment camps during World War II and postpartum psychosis.

Weaving a rich fictional tapestry abundantly alive with the glorious natural beauty of the novel’s setting, Halverson is a captivating guide through the flora and fauna of human emotion-grief and anger, shame and forgiveness, happiness and its shadow complement . . . the underside of joy.

My take:  I listened to The Underside of Joy in three days. Halverson’s characters, story, and setting pulled me in and kept me listening for long stretches of time. I knit while I listen and I’m much further along on my current project than I expected to be because of this book!

The story is told from Ella’s point of view so it was easy to understand her perspective. What I didn’t expect was to be able to sympathize with Paige. Halverson reveals backstory of the two women (as well as supporting characters) throughout the novel. Little by little I realized my impressions of several characters had shifted. I don’t want to risk a spoiler so I won’t say more – except that I ended up wondering if I could resolve things as Ella and Paige had. For that reason I think this would be a good book club selection.

I really enjoyed Halverson’s descriptions of the various locations in and around the small California town. I could easily visualize the forest of towering Redwoods, for example, and wished I could experience it in person. I thought her writing was beautiful and look forward to her next book.

Geneva Carr did a fine job with the narration. Honestly, along with the compelling story, she’s one of the reasons I found it so difficult to stop listening. She became Ella. I’ll be looking for more of her audiobooks.

• Title:  The Underside of Joy
• Author:  Seré Prince Halverson
• Genre:  Contemporary Fiction
• Published:  January 2012 – Penguin Audio – 9hrs. 29min.
• Narrator:  Geneva Carr

Source:  I bought it.

Sunday Post

Book arrivals:

      

• The Wanderer by Robyn Carr
• The Lost Art of Mixing by Erica Bauermeister
• What She Wants by Sheila Roberts
• The Fault in Our Stars (audio) by John Green

Books reviewed last week:

• Three Good Things by Wendy Francis
• Wallflower in Bloom by Claire Cook; The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro

Books I’m reading this week:

• Audio: The Next Always by Nora Roberts
• Book:  The Housewife Assassin’s Handbook by Josie Brown

Happy Reading

Audio Briefs

Synopsis (publisher):  Deirdre Griffin has a great life; it’s just not her own. She’s the around-the-clock personal assistant to her charismatic, high-maintenance, New Age guru brother, Tag. As the family wallflower, her only worth seems to be as gatekeeper to Tag at his New England seaside compound. Then Deirdre’s sometime boyfriend informs her that he is marrying another woman, who just happens to be having the baby he told Deirdre he never wanted. While drowning her sorrows in Tag’s expensive vodka, Deirdre decides to use his massive online following to get herself voted on as a last-minute Dancing with the Stars replacement. It’ll get her back in shape, mentally and physically. It might even get her a life of her own. Deirdre’s fifteen minutes of fame have begun.

My take:  This was an entertaining novel about a rather odd family. The parents are former Dead-heads.  The only son is as described in the synopsis: a New Age guru. He’s the family moneymaker. There are assorted other family members who only make Deirdre feel move inadequate. In fact, Deirdre’s entire family makes her feel that way. 

When the proverbial straw appears in the form of her loser boyfriend’s announcement Deirdre gets drunk and the rest, as they say, is history. One must suspend belief at this point because, as an occasional viewer of Dancing With the Stars, I don’t think this scenario would ever happen. That said, Claire Cook delivers a story that made me laugh. The point is obvious but that’s ok.

I liked the audiobook. Cassandra Campbell’s performance was enjoyable.

♦

Synopsis (publisher):  On March 18, 1990, thirteen works of art today worth over $500 million were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It remains the largest unsolved art heist in history, and Claire Roth, a struggling young artist, is about to discover that there’s more to this crime than meets the eye. Making a living reproducing famous artworks for a popular online retailer and desperate to improve her situation, Claire is lured into a Faustian bargain with Aiden Markel, a powerful gallery owner. She agrees to forge a painting–a Degas masterpiece stolen from the Gardner Museum–in exchange for a one-woman show in his renowned gallery. But when that very same long-missing Degas painting is delivered to Claire’s studio, she begins to suspect that it may itself be a forgery. Her desperate search for the truth leads Claire into a labyrinth of deceit where secrets hidden since the late nineteenth century may be the only evidence that can now save her life.

My take:  I’m an art lover in the most basic sense. Art Appreciation 101 aside, I have no formal art education or talent – just an eye for what I like. I remember hearing about the Gardener Museum heist when it occurred but quickly forgot about it – I was up to my ears in raising three young children at the time. I liked that it was the basis for Shapiro’s novel.

Claire Roth has a notorious reputation in the art world and has tried to live under the radar for the past few years as a legitimate reproduction artist. When given the chance to reproduce one of the stolen Degas paintings she just can’t say no. She makes her deal with the devil for the chance to show her own work.

I figured out the mystery early on so it’s safe to say most readers will (I’m not a mystery fan). Still, I had my doubts about who was behind it – who in Claire’s world knew what, etc.

I liked the descriptions of the Degas paintings –  I googled a few times to see them.

Xe Sands did a fine job with the narration. Her performance definitely increased my overall enjoyment of the book.

Source:  I bought both audiobooks.

Three Good Things by Wendy Francis

• Title:  Three Good Things
• Author:  Wendy Francis
• Genre:  Contemporary Fiction
• Published:  January 2013 – Simon & Schuster – 256 pages
• Source:  Review copy from the publisher via Edelweiss

Synopsis (publisher): Ellen McClarety, a recent divorcée, has opened a new bake shop in her small Midwestern town, hoping to turn her life around by dedicating herself to the traditional Danish pastry called kringle. She is no longer saddled by her ne’er-do-well husband, but the past still haunts her—sometimes by showing up on her doorstep. Her younger sister, Lanie, is a successful divorce attorney with a baby at home. But Lanie is beginning to feel that her perfect life is not as perfect as it seems. Both women long for the guidance of their mother, who died years ago but left them with lasting memories of her love and a wonderful piece of advice: “At the end of every day, you can always think of three good things that happened.”

Ellen and Lanie are as close as two sisters can be, until one begins keeping a secret that could forever change both their lives. Wearing her big Midwestern heart proudly on her sleeve, Wendy Francis skillfully illuminates the emotional lives of two women with humor and compassion, weaving a story destined to be shared with a friend, a mother, or a sister.

My take:  I found Three Good Things to be a quiet novel about finding out and remembering what’s most important in life.

I think many readers will be able to relate to Ellen and Lanie and their circumstances but, that said, I wish each sister would have been even more fleshed out. At 256 pages it seemed there was room to do so.

There’s a little drama toward the end of the book that wrapped up a bit too conveniently but I still enjoyed the book. I liked the Midwest setting and I’m now craving some of Ellen’s kringle. There’s even a recipe at the end of the novel.

Sunday Post

Book arrivals:

Thanks to Sourcebooks for the generous 12 Days After Christmas eBook sale!

   

Shadowy Horses by Susanna Kearsley

To the Moon and Back by Jill Mansell

Take a Chance on Me by Jill Mansell

Rumor Has It by Jill Mansell

 

Congratulations to Jodi Thomas!

Chance of a Lifetime hit #20 on the NYTimes Bestseller List (Paperback Mass-Market Fiction).

You can read my review here if you missed it.

Reviewed last week:

Saving Each Other: A Mother-Daughter Love Story

News From Heaven – The Bakerton Stories

This week I’m reading:

Three Good Things by Wendy Francis

The Underside of Joy (audio) by Seré Prince Halverson

Happy reading!

News From Heaven – The Bakerton Stories by Jennifer Haigh

• Title:  News From Heaven – The Bakerton Stories
• Author:  Jennifer Haigh
• Genre:  Short Stories
• Published:  (expected) January 29, 2013 – Harper
• Source:  Review copy from Harper

Synopsis: Set in Bakerton, Pennsylvania— the company town that was the setting of Jennifer Haigh’s award-winning bestseller Baker Towers—News from Heaven explores how our roots, the families and places in which we are raised, shape the people we eventually become. Through a series of connected stories, Haigh brilliantly portrays this close-knit community from its heyday during two world wars to its decline in the final years of the twentieth century. Exploring themes of restlessness, regret, redemption and acceptance, she depicts men and women of different generations shaped by dreams and haunted by disappointments.  A young woman glimpses a world both strange and familiar when she becomes a live-in maid for a Jewish family in New York City. A long-lost brother makes an unexpected and tragic homecoming. A woman must come to terms with a heartbreaking loss when she discovers a shocking family secret. A solitary middle-aged woman tastes unexpected love when a young man returns to town. And characters familiar to fans of Baker Towers—indomitable Joyce Novak, her eccentric sister Dorothy, and their mysterious younger brother Sandy—return for an encore performance. Written with poignant realism, News from Heaven deftly captures our desire for escape and our need for connection, and reveals the enduring hold of a past that remains ever present in the lives of ordinary people struggling to understand themselves and define their place in the world. 

My take:  I shouldn’t be surprised that Jennifer Haigh’s collection of short stories made me rethink my automatic response to the format. Normally I don’t care for them at all. I find them bleak, depressing, and a chore to read. Not so with News From Heaven. Reading each story was like paging through a scrapbook. There’s history, relationships, celebrations, heartbreak, regrets, and even a bit of optimism. 

Bakerton, Pennsylvania was home to the coal mine that employed most of the men from town. Once the mine was mined out the jobs were gone and the town was thrown into hard times. Haigh’s connected stories cover the ups and downs of the townspeople – from the  mine owners to the workers and everyone in between.

I grew up in a small town so I could identify with the aspect that Joyce in “Desiderata” acknowledged of everyone knowing your story – or at least thinking they know. I don’t live there anymore so they don’t know the rest of my story. That’s not the case with the older residents in Bakerton. More than likely they were born there, raised families, and will eventually die there. Their complete stories known to all.

My favorite story (if I must choose one) was Broken Star. It’s about Regina, a girl in her early teens, and the summer her young aunt and cousin came to visit.  I also liked the final story in the collection: Desiderata. The high school principal died a few months earlier and his wife is sorting through his things. Poignant, relatable, uplifting. Really, though, I enjoyed each story.

Jennifer Haigh is one of my favorite authors. I know it’s only January but I expect News From Heaven to be on my 2013 Favorite Books list. It was a pleasure to read.

Note:  I read Baker Towers several years ago (the month it was published) and although I remembered the general story there was a lot I forgot. If you haven’t read Baker Towers I recommend doing so before News From Heaven. It’s not imperative but it could help in your overall enjoyment of these connected stories.

Saving Each Other: A Mother-Daughter Love Story by Victoria Jackson and Ali Guthy

• Title:  Saving Each Other: A Mother-Daughter Love Story
• Authors:  Victoria Jackson & Ali Guthy
• Genre:  Memoir
• Published:  October 2012 – Vanguard Press
• Source:  Review copy from FSB Associates

(Book flap synopsis) On the surface, Victoria Jackson is the American Dream personified: from a troubled childhood and unfinished high school education she overcame immeasurable odds to create a cosmetics empire valued at more than half a billion dollars. Married to Bill Guthy—self-made principal of infomercial marketing giant Guthy-Renker—Victoria’s most treasured role was mother to three beautiful, beloved children, Evan, Ali, and Jackson.

Suddenly, Victoria’s dream life is broken as she begins to battle a mother’s greatest fear. In 2008, her daughter, Ali, began experiencing unusual symptoms of blurred vision and an ache in her eye. Her test results led to the diagnosis of a disease so rare, the chance that she had it was only 2%. Neuromyeltis Optica (NMO) is a little understood, incurable, and often fatal autoimmune disease that can cause blindness, paralysis, and life-threatening seizures, and afflicts as few as 20,000 people in the world. At the age of 14, Ali was given a terrifying prognosis of between four to six years to live.

Saving Each Other begins just as Victoria and Bill learn of Ali’s disease, starting them on a powerful journey to save Ali, their only daughter, including bringing together a team of more than fifty of the world’s leading experts in autoimmune and
NMO-related diseases to create the Guthy-Jackson Charitable Foundation.

Told in alternating viewpoints, Victoria and Ali narrate their very different journeys of coming to terms with the lack of control that neither mother nor daughter have over NMO, and their pioneering efforts and courage to take their fight to a global level.

Bringing their story to light with raw emotion, humor, warmth, and refreshing candor, Saving Each Other is the extraordinary journey of a mother and daughter who demonstrate how the power of love can transcend our greatest fears, while at the same time battling to find a cure for the incurable.

My take:  As a parent of a child who has an autoimmune disease I was very interested in reading Saving Each Other. I’d never heard of NMO before but now feel I have a general understanding of it. That’s mostly due to the format used by Jackson and Guthy. Written in diary form it was easy to understand their feelings as they were introduced to the disease at the time of Ali’s initial attack. I could relate to their search for medical help that would actually help. I was in awe of how quickly the family started a foundation that would make a cure for NMO it’s focus.

Victoria Jackson was the major force behind making things happen even while fighting anxiety and other issues. Bill Guthy was “the funder”.  And Ali just wanted to be a normal high school kid – play tennis, be with friends, anything but be a poster child for NMO.

As memoirs go I found Saving Each Other fascinating. Yes, the family had means to seek the best treatment for their child but they also shared the knowledge gained through their search. The GJCF (Guthy Jackson Charitable Foundation) continues to work for a cure of NMO.

Website:  www.guthyjacksonfoundation.org

 

Mailbox Monday

January host:  Lori’s Reading Corner

For Review:

Three Good Things by Wendy Francis

Kindle deals:

   

The Scarlet Lion by Elizabeth Chadwick

A Place Beyond Courage by Elizabeth Chadwick

Snow Soldiers by Carrie Crafton

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan

What was in your mailbox?

Sunday Post

Blog news:

In these days of Debt Ceilings, Fiscal Cliffs, Underwater Mortgages I find myself feeling anxious – not about those phrases as they apply to my personal life. No, I feel anxious because I can delete a word from each phrase and substitute Book:

Book Ceiling

Book Cliff

Underwater Books

See where I’m going with this?

I have a few more review requests to honor and then 2013 will become

The Year I Read My Own Books (did you hear the echo?)

I really mean it this time 😀

I have bookcases of unread books that I’ve bought over the years and they weigh on my mind. A lot. I won’t even tell you how many books are on my reader.

I’ll still blog about the books I read so I hope you’ll continue to visit.

Last week:

Review of Chance of a Lifetime by Jodi Thomas

Chance of a Lifetime by Jodi Thomas

• Title:  Chance of a Lifetime (Harmony series #5)
• Author:  Jodi Thomas
• Genre:  Contemporary Romance
• Published:  December 2012 – Berkley Books
• Source:  I received a review copy from the publisher

Synopsis:  [Jodi Thomas, the] New York Times bestselling author takes us back to Harmony, Texas, where big dreams are brewing—and anything and everything is possible… 

Emily, the local librarian, has started a writing group, but as the group stumbles through both the fiction and reality of their lives, they’re learning much more than how to write. But Emily suddenly has other things on her mind when a friend from her past shows up in Harmony’s library. Now she must deal with a secret she’s kept for fifteen years—a secret that changed her life and threatens to shatter her future.

Meanwhile, new lawyer Rick Matheson thinks he’s in charge of his world until accidents start happening all around him. Just when he realizes someone is trying to kill him, he meets a beautiful U.S. Marshal named Trace Adams. Now that the marshal has given him an even stronger reason to go on living, he must learn to take a chance on life to dream bigger—and love better—than he ever has before…

My take:  If you’ve followed my reviews of the Harmony series you probably think they all sound similar. But that’s because they are consistently good! I love the small town setting and characters. I love the stories Jodi Thomas writes for her characters.

Main characters from previous books make appearances in Chance of a Lifetime but in this book the spotlight shines on Emily and Tannon, Rick and Trace, and Beau and his mystery girl. In typical fashion, Jodi Thomas kept me guessing to the end about how things would wrap up for them all. I enjoyed their stories and can’t wait for the next book in the Harmony series. Write fast, Jodi 🙂

This is a series and I suggest starting from the beginning:

1. Welcome to Harmony
2. Somewhere Along the Way
3. The Comforts of Home
4. Just Down the Road