BOOK REVIEW: The Cupcake Queen, by Heather Hepler

RELEASE DATE: September 17, 2009
AUTHOR LINKS: WEB / GOODREADS
PUBLISHER: Dutton Juvenile
FORMAT: Hardcover
SOURCE: Library
BUY NOW FROM: Amazon

A confection of a novel, combining big city sophistication with small town charm. When her mother moves them from the city to a small town to open up a cupcake bakery, Penny’s life isn’t what she expected. Her father has stayed behind, and Mom isn’t talking about what the future holds for their family. And then there’s Charity, the girl who plays mean pranks almost daily. There are also bright spots in Hog’s Hollow–like Tally, an expert in Rock Paper Scissors, and Marcus, the boy who is always running on the beach. But just when it looks as though Penny is settling in, her parents ask her to make a choice that will turn everything upside down again. A sweet novel about love, creativity, and accepting life’s unexpected turns.

MY REVIEW

I have to admit that I’m a sucker for any book that might have something to do with food. I absolutely love books that involve cooking or baking, even if they always give me the urge to cook or bake!

I noticed Heather Hepler’s book, The Cupcake Queen, while wandering through the teen section of my public library. I had already picked out a few books to take out, but when I saw the beautiful cupcakes on the cover, I couldn’t resist!

BOOK REVIEW: Arranged, by Catherine McKenzie

RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2012
AUTHOR LINKS: WEB / TWITTER / GOODREADS / FACEBOOK
PUBLISHER: HarperCollins Canada
FORMAT: Paperback
SOURCE: Purchased
BUY NOW FROM: Amazon

Anne Blythe has a great life: a good job, good friends, and a potential book deal for her first novel. When it comes to finding someone to share it with, however, she just can’t seem to get it right.

After yet another relationship ends, Anne comes across a business card for what she thinks is a dating service, and she pockets it just in case. When her best friend, Sarah, announces she’s engaged, Anne can’t help feeling envious. On an impulse, she decides to give the service a try because maybe she could use a little assistance in finding the right man. But Anne soon discovers the company isn’t a dating service; it’s an exclusive, and pricey, arranged marriage service. She initially rejects the idea, but the more she thinks about it-and the company’s success rate-the more it appeals to her. After all, arranged marriages are the norm for millions of women around the world, so why wouldn’t it work for her?

A few months later, Anne is travelling to a Mexican resort, where in one short weekend she will meet and marry Jack. And against all odds, it seems to be working out-until Anne learns that Jack, and the company that arranged their marriage, are not what they seem at all.

MY REVIEW

Ever since I finished reading Catherine McKenzie’s wonderful novel, Spin, I was itching to get my hands on some more of her books. It’s always so great to find a gem of a Canadian writer that I felt I had to snatch up everything she had to offer! When I was wandering through the bookstore the other day, waiting for the longest mechanic appointment ever, I picked up a copy of Arranged, which was just released in Canada at the beginning of this month. 

BOOK REVIEW: Touch of Power (Healer, #1), by Maria V. Snyder

RELEASE DATE: December 20, 2011
AUTHOR LINKS: WEB / GOODREADS / FACEBOOK
PUBLISHER: Mira (an imprint of Harlequin)
FORMAT: Paperback
SOURCE: Library
BUY NOW FROM: Amazon

Laying hands upon the injured and dying, Avry of Kazan absorbs their wounds and diseases into herself. But rather than being honored for her skills, she is hunted. Healers like Avry are accused of spreading the plague that has decimated the Fifteen Realms, leaving the survivors in a state of chaos.

Stressed and tired from hiding, Avry is abducted by a band of rogues who, shockingly, value her gift above the golden bounty offered for her capture. Their leader, an enigmatic captor-protector with powers of his own, is unequivocal in his demands: Avry must heal a plague-stricken prince—leader of a campaign against her people. As they traverse the daunting Nine Mountains, beset by mercenaries and magical dangers, Avry must decide who is worth healing and what is worth dying for. Because the price of peace may well be her life…

MY REVIEW 

We all have those books. You know what I’m talking about. Those books that everyone is raving about, those books that make you want to desperately see what all the fuss is about, those books that make you come *this close* to caving on your book-buying ban when the library wait list bodes to be a little too long. 

AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: Happy Accidents, by Jane Lynch

RELEASE DATE: September 13, 2011
AUTHOR LINKS: TWITTER / GOODREADS
PUBLISHER: Hyperion
FORMAT: Audiobook
SOURCE: Library
BUY NOW FROM: Amazon

NARRATOR: Jane Lynch

In the summer of 1974, a fourteen-year-old girl in Dolton, Illinois, had a dream. A dream to become an actress, like her idols Ron Howard and Vicki Lawrence. But it was a long way from the South Side of Chicago to Hollywood, and it didn’t help that she’d recently dropped out of the school play, The Ugly Duckling. Or that the Hollywood casting directors she wrote to replied that “professional training was a requirement.”

But the funny thing is, it all came true. Through a series of Happy Accidents, Jane Lynch created an improbable and hilarious path to success. In those early years, despite her dreams, she was also consumed with anxiety, feeling out of place in both her body and her family. To deal with her worries about her sexuality, she escaped in positive ways such as joining a high school chorus not unlike the one in Glee but also found destructive outlets. She started drinking almost every night her freshman year of high school and developed a mean and judgmental streak that turned her into a real- life Sue Sylvester.

Then, at thirty-one, she started to get her life together. She was finally able to embrace her sexuality, come out to her parents, and quit drinking for good. Soon after, a Frosted Flakes commercial and a chance meeting in a coffee shop led to a role in the Christopher Guest movie Best in Show, which helped her get cast in The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Similar coincidences and chance meetings led to roles in movies starring Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd, and even Meryl Streep in 2009′s Julie & Julia. Then, of course, came the two lucky accidents that truly changed her life. Getting lost in a hotel led to an introduction to her future wife, Lara. Then, a series she’d signed up for abruptly got canceled, making it possible for her to take the role of Sue Sylvester in Glee, which made her a megastar.

Today, Jane Lynch has finally found the contentment she thought she’d never have. Part comic memoir and part inspirational narrative, this is a book equally for the rabid Glee fan and for anyone who needs a new perspective on life, love, and success.

MY REVIEW

This was a wonderful, wonderful listen! I’ve seen Jane Lynch on so many TV shows over the years and have been one of the many TV-watchers addicted to Glee in the past few years. Jane’s character, Sue Sylvester, is just great — as are all the characters I’ve seen her play. They’re all sarcastic and funny! 

Sunday Reads: Volume 27

Welcome to this week’s Sunday Reads!

LIFE UPDATE: Well, it’s been 5 weeks since I posted my last Sunday Reads — it feels like it was an eternity ago! I had been having some real issues with this blog and with reading that I felt I needed a break. I really got swept up in reading review books — namely, boring review books — and accepting too many of them, that I didn’t have the same excitement I used to have when I was reading. There were also so many books that I wanted to read, but felt that I couldn’t because of review books. 

BOOK REVIEW: The Keep, by Jennifer Egan

RELEASE DATE: July 10, 2007
AUTHOR LINKS: WEB / TWITTER / GOODREADS / FACEBOOK
PUBLISHER: Anchor Canada (an imprint of Random House)
FORMAT: Paperback
SOURCE: Library (Book Club Pick)
BUY NOW FROM: Amazon

From National Book Award finalist Jennifer Egan, author of “Look at Me” (“Brilliantly unnerving . . . A haunting, sharp, splendidly articulate novel” –”The New York Times”), a spellbinding work of literary suspense enacted in a chilling psychological landscape–a dazzling tour de force. 

Two cousins, irreversibly damaged by a childhood prank whose devastating consequences changed both their lives, reunite twenty years later to renovate a medieval castle in Eastern Europe, a castle steeped in blood lore and family pride. Built over a secret system of caves and tunnels, the castle and its violent history invoke and subvert all the elements of a gothic past: twins, a pool, an old baroness, a fearsome tower. In an environment of extreme paranoia, cut off from the outside world, the men reenact the signal event of their youth, with even more catastrophic results. And as the full horror of their predicament unfolds, a prisoner, in jail for an unnamed crime, recounts an unforgettable story–a story about two cousins who unite to renovate a castle–that brings the crimes of the past and present into piercing relation. 

Egan’s relentlessly gripping page-turner plays with rich forms–ghost story, love story, gothic–and transfixing themes: the undertow of history, the fate of imagination in the cacophony of modern life, the uncanny likeness between communications technology and the supernatural. In a narrative that shifts seamlessly from an ancient European castle to a maximum security prison, Egan conjures a world from which escape is impossible and where the keep–the last stand, the final holdout, the place you run to when the walls are breached–is both everything worth protecting and the very thing that must be surrendered in order to survive.

 A novel of fierce intelligence and velocity; a bravura performance from a writer of consummate skill and style.

MY REVIEW

Jennifer Egan’s book, The Keep, is an intriguing story-within-a-story-within-a-story; it’s not something that I would normally pick up (as of late, I seem to be attached to Children’s and Young Adult Literature), but was happy for a change when my book club decided to read it. I was partway through Egan’s book, Look At Me, when I started to read this one. While Look At Me is a slower-paced read, taking days to get through, The Keep only took an afternoon. It was a quick, enjoyable, interesting read that I didn’t expect to like, but was quite surprised to find out that I actually did.

Waiting on Wednesday: Masque of the Red Death, by Bethany Griffin

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming books whose releases are being eagerly awaited. Bloggers are encouraged to join in and post about the book they’re looking forward to reading.

I have been seeing this book on blog after blog and it just keeps looking better and better! The reviews are nothing short of amazing and it’s like I can’t turn a corner in internet-land without seeing it somewhere, or without seeing a gushing review. Naturally, I NEED IT.

Here’s the synopsis (from Goodreads):

Everything is in ruins.

A devastating plague has decimated the population. And those who are left live in fear of catching it as the city crumbles to pieces around them.

So what does Araby Worth have to live for?

Nights in the Debauchery Club, beautiful dresses, glittery make-up . . . and tantalizing ways to forget it all.

But in the depths of the club—in the depths of her own despair—Araby will find more than oblivion. She will find Will, the terribly handsome proprietor of the club. And Elliott, the wickedly smart aristocrat. Neither boy is what he seems. Both have secrets. Everyone does.

And Araby may find something not just to live for, but to fight for—no matter what it costs her.

Doesn’t it sound absolutely AMAZING? Gah! I can’t wait!

Masque of the Red Death has already been released by HarperCollins on April 24, 2012. You should read it!