This book started slow but, in the end, it made me cry. I wanted to read it because it’s set in Fiji, my favorite place in the world.
After her husband’s death, Kat invites four of her high school friends to come join her in Fiji and make a new life as a group. For one reason or another, their lives were worth casting aside and taking Kat up on her invitation and they all came.
Kat owns and operates a cocoa farm and, eventually and with great excitement, the ladies decide they should produce chocolate. They are all able to contribute to the enterprise including Maya who is spiraling deeper into Alzheimer’s.
Secrets are shared, bonds are strengthened, and there is plenty of love to go around. Including my love of these characters and this book. 🙂
I loved this book so much. Calliope Crown has just learned that her father will lose everything in a malpractice case. She can’t continue going to college for summer school and, instead, will go to work at her aunt’s cupcake bakery. The only problem with this is that Calliope, formerly known as Callie Cow, has been on a weight loss journey and is incredibly attracted to buttercream frosting.
The story talks about the summer, the relationship with her aunt, and Callie’s growth through her experience. Through the use of her YouTube channel and the love of a certain handyman, she realizes that she’s more than the name Callie Cow that was bestowed upon her in high school.
Awesome story, great characters, highly recommend. 🙂
These girls are seriously dysfunctional. Ronni Sunshine, the mom, is a movie actress. She spends her life making everything about her alienating her three daughters. Nell, the strong one, Merideth, the chubby one, and Lizzy the baby. The three girls can’t wait to get old enough to move out of the house and once they do, they rarely return or have much to do with their mom or each other.
Now Ronni seems to be really sick and calls them all home. Her idea is to connect the three girls again so that she can have them around her when she takes her own life.
There’s a LOT of drama in this book but it’s a great story and I loved to see how it ended. Highly recommend!
I am very interested in Holocaust history as Jordana is. I didn’t realize until the end of the book that this is a true account and not fictional. While I was reading, I thought it was fiction based on true events.
Jordana becomes interested in the Holocaust when she participates in the March of the Living when she is in high school. There she meets a Holocaust survivor, Hedy. As a college student, she learns that Hedy will be giving her testimony at the trial of Oskar Groening, one of the Nazi’s who worked at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Jordana is compelled to be at the trial and manages to arrange the trip and a place in the courtroom in a short time.
The book is an account of her experience there and the changes she goes through in the process. I think it’s a good book and happy it’s written with the YA audience in mind. This is a topic I worry will be forgotten and was happy to know of this book and to read it.
Might I just start this review by saying I want to eat at Mamma’s house! I love this series and I loved this book. I’m pretty sure, if Mamma were a real person, I’d love her the most. 😀
Liz and Nate have another death to investigate when Tammy Sue’s husband is found, dead, in the trunk of his Mustang she has set on fire. While it would seem she should be the first person suspected, there are just too many other variables to consider.
Zeke, Tammy Sue’s husband, was a popular former high school baseball standout who liked to tell tall tales. He had left small town, Stella Maris, to join the Army after high school and the 20 intervening years are an additional mystery to solve.
The story is full of good food and an exciting investigation. I loved it and can’t wait for the next!
This book was so much fun that immediately after I finished it, I went to get her first book Knockoffs. I loved this book!
Janey is in the wedding dress business with her bestfriend, Beau. He’s always called her his muse from the times they were kids. One day, she appeared in a gossip column eating a “bruffin”. This put Beau, who was very weight consious (she didn’t think he ate any food anymore) over the edge. He told her that she needed to take 3 months off work to concentrate on losing weight because her being overweight was bad for business.
Janey is absolutely shocked because she didn’t really feel like she was overweight, she never really thought about it at all. Her best friend CJ helps to get her signed up to some exercise classes and her cousin, Ivy, gives her VIP status at her spin club.
Going through a divorce and with time on her hands, Janey meets two men that she dates at the same time. She also meets a shaman at the juice bar and goes on an exercise retreat that the shaman recommends but the retreat doesn’t have much to do with exercise at all.
This is a great book. I couldn’t put it down. I laughed out loud. Highly recommend! 🙂
I honestly did not think I was going to like this book. The first couple of chapters about Sanna, who seemed like an unhappy spinster content only to work with her apples, just wasn’t intriguing.
Until the story broadened with a company who wanted to buy the orchard and turn the land into a waterpark. Then lots of shenanigans begin to occur. Also, Issac and his son Bass come to work at the orchard and it’s clear that Issac and Sanna are made for each other.
I loved how Sanna’s character grew throughout the story. I loved the story, itself and felt really happy for Eva. Eva, the woman from WWW who was in charge of the purchase of the orchard, worked for her father along with her brother. They were unkind to her and always treated her as if she was less than. I loved that Sanna saw her business sense and hired her to market the orchard.
This is a good book. If you don’t like Sanna to start with, you will by the end! 🙂
This book was so compelling and I couldn’t put it down.
Jamey comes from a rich family and Elise comes from a low-income neighborhood with all its attendant issues. They live next door to each other while Jamey is going to Yale. They are drawn to each other and eventually decide to be together no matter what.
They move to New York. When Jamey’s family find out about Elise, they try and get him to give her up. He doesn’t have much to do with them anyway and decides he’d rather give up his inheritance to keep Elise in his life.
They eventually get married and are happy until one night when they run into Jamey’s friend Matt and they go to dinner at his girlfriend’s house. They lace Jamey’s drink with LSD and it causes him to have a psychotic break.
This book was so good. In the last couple of chapters I was totally on the edge of my seat wondering how the story would end. Highly recommend!
The Jha’s are moving up in the world after Mr. Jha sells his website for big money. He’s decided that they need to move from the neighborhood they’ve always lived in to a better one with wealthier neighbors. As they move, he meets the neighbor and seeks to prove that he’s wealthier than Mr. Chopra all the while taking note of what Mr. Chopra has and does. They compete with each other to prove who is the wealthiest.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Jha is having a hard time in her new life. She misses her old neighborhood and friends. Their son, Rupack, is in America studying and trying to figure out his life. He’s in love with an American girl but feels his parents won’t accept her. He gets tossed out of school and comes back to India to live.
This is a cute story that’s fun to read. I highly recommend it!
I loved this book! Just like his previous two books, Rich People Problems is funny and highly readable. Kevin Kwan is one of my favorite authors!
All the players are back in this third story of Asia’s most privileged families. The grand dame of the family, Su Yi, is starting to fail and the family starts wondering what who will be the heir to Tyersall Park, the families grand estate which is the largest private property in Singapore.
Nicholas is the person everyone suspects will be the chosen one to inherit but he had a falling out with Su Yi over his marriage to Rachel and hasn’t seen her in five years. Eddie is hell bent on making sure that he is the one to inherit by blocking any and all comers who might show themselves to be a preferable choice.
Kitty, now married to Jack Bing, continues to be obsessed with being esteemed in the highest social circles but finds herself continually bumping against his daughter, Collette, who has married into English royalty.
Astrid, hoping to finally become divorced from Michael so she and her long time love, Charlie can be together have to fight against his unbalanced first wife, her family, and Michael.
It’s a crazy time, a great read. I hope there’s a Crazy Rich Asians #4 in the works!
Pieces of Happiness: A Novel of Friendship, Hope and Chocolate by Anne Ostby
