A Life With Books

The Christmas Pearl by Dorothea Benton Frank
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is about ninety-three year old Theodora inviting her dysfunctioanl family to her home in South Carolina for Christmas. The matriach is melancholy about Christmases past and wishes her family could show a little more respect for one another and realize how important the precious time spent with family is.

A cook is hired for the family's Christmas meal and a substitute is called in to fill in for the original cook when there is an emergency in her family. The replacement is none other than Theodora's family's cook of her childhood, Pearl. Pearl has come to earn her wings and whip Theodora's family into shape.

There are many wonderful lessons within this book, but somehow the book felt 'flat' to me. There are a lot of characters to keep straight with a lot of intricacies within their relationships. I spread this book out over a long period of time, so maybe that is why I felt a bit 'disconnected' from the characters.

I appreciate the book's idea of a loved one coming back to help set a family straight and be appreciative of one another, but it just felt very forced to me.



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I read this book because it is the selection for the book club at my church. It is not the usual genre I would read, but I did truly enjoy this story.

The book is very different in that the entire story is told through the correspondence of letters or telegram.

The setting is England, 1946 and Juliet Ashton is a British journalist who has lost everything (including her book collection) and is looking to start anew. She receives a letter from a resident from the island of Guernsey that has a second-hand book that has her name and address written in it. The correspondence with the many islanders of Guernsey begins with members of the literary society writing about the books they enjoy and why. However, Juliet begins to want to meet the people she's corresponding with and has an idea that she could write a book about these people. She decides to go to the island to interview them and becomes involved in her new friends lives.

It was a bit confusing at first getting to know all the characters in the book and keeping who was who straight through the correspondence of the letters. Also, sometimes the way the letters were written the tone fell flat for me and a lot of the characters started to blend together. Maybe this shows that it is difficult to develop a character's personality just through letters? It was definitely a different kind of book and one that book lovers may enjoy. Below are a few of my favorite quotes from the book.

"I would like to write a book, but I am having trouble thinking of a subject I could live happily with for several years." ---Juliet Ashton before she knows what she's going to write about

"Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books." -quote from Isola Pribby

"I did not want to spend my time reading about people who never were, doing things they never did." -quote from Clovis Fossey, one of the book club members and why he didn't initially want to be a part of the society.  This quote reminds me of my husband and how he justifies not reading books!

" 'Women like poetry. A soft word in their ears and they melt a grease spot on the grass.' That's no way to talk about a lady, and I knew right then he didn't want the Widow Hubert for her own self, the way I did. He wanted only her grazing land for his cows. So I thought, if it's rhymes the Widow Hubert wants, I will find me some." -quote from Clovis Fossey on how he started reading poetry, started going to the society meetings and discovered the works of Wadsworth.

This is the third book in Sheryl Woods Ocean Breeze series.

I definitely enjoyed this book more than the first two. As usual, Cora Jane is meddling in one of her grand daughter's love lives, but this time the other two sisters are involved as well. The target this time is Samantha and they're trying to hook her up with her high school crush, Ethan Cole. Ethan is a local doctor who is not interested in getting involved in a relationship. He is a veteran with a prosthetic leg and focused on protecting his heart due to a bad break-up with his fiance.

Samantha is open to getting involved with Ethan, but not the way her grandmother and sisters keep 'conveniently' throwing them together in different situations.

I didn't like Emily's bridezilla-esque personality in this book at all. What I think I did enjoy the most is that Samantha is a very strong, independent person and tried not to let anything get her down. Ethan could've been a little more open to getting involved with Samantha and less skittish about women in general.

This is the second book in the Ocean Breeze seeries. For some reason I enjoyed this book more than the first.

The focus is on Gabriela, where as the first book focused on Emily.
Gabi finds herself unemployed, broken up with her boyfriend and pregnant. She returns to Sand Castle Bay to figure out her next steps and finds herself becoming friends with the local cabinetmaker, Wade Johnson. Their friendship grows and she resists the fact that she may be falling for him. Of course her grandmother, Cora Jane, is right there trying to nudge their relationship along.

The story also continues with the planning of Gabi and Samantha's sister Emily's wedding. Samantha is still feeling down in the dumps because she's not landing any acting jobs and Gabi steps up to try to help her with public realtions. The last book in this series will be Samantha's story and I'm hoping that book is even better than this one.

This series is a very relaxed and mellow. It's not heavy on the romance, but more so focused on the mentality of falling in love and making life choices

This is the first book in the Ocean Breeze series by Sherryl Woods. The Castle family consists of Emily, Gabi, Samantha and their meddling grandmother, Cora Jane. The women have returned to the small North Carolina town due to a hurricane that has torn apart their grandmother's restaurant and they're all there to help her.

The story focuses on Emily who hasn't returned to Sand Castle Bay since breaking up with her high school sweetheart, Boone Dorsett. Emily decided to leave behind her boyfriend and the place she grew up in order to pursue a career elsewhere as an interior designer. Boone does not wait for Emily and marries, has a son and then becomes a widow after his wife passes away from an illness. So when Emily returns ten years later both Emily and Boone are a little worried about old feelings being stirred up.

For some reason this book took me longer to read than normal. It seemed slow, a bit predictable and the wishy-washiness of Boone and Emily was a bit annoying. That said I will read the next two books in this series to see what's in store for Gabi and Samantha.

This was a very short story and the first book I've ever read by Maeve Binchy.

The story was about marriage, dedication to work and family, late-in-life parenting, and the lack of vacationing in this family's life.

Kathleen decides that since her husband has been let go of his teaching job, they have a week in summer that they can schedule a vacation; something they've never done before. Kathleen's husband Brian is depressed and really isn't interested in going anywhere, but they make an agreement that if he goes on this vacation she will give him some time to figure himself out.

Kathleen heads to a senior citizens travel agency (this part was quite funny being this is what my Associates degree is in) and can't seem to choose a destination that her husband would be happy with. Finally the agent asks to consider what she'd like to do, not her husband. She points out that she would like to trace her ancestry, which brings her to the decision of Ireland as the destination for their vacation.

Nice storyline, but a bit depressing at parts.



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• The Tumble Inn by William Loizeaux My rating: 4 of 5 stars

for an honest review from NetGalley.

 

The Tumble Inn follows the life of Mark and Fran Finley,  two high school teachers from New Jersey.   Mark and Fran feel they've become stuck in their teaching jobs but don't quite know what to do about how they're feeling.   They'd been trying to conceive a child for five years with no success. Their lives are not what they envisioned.  

 

Fran replies to an ad in the newspaper  for an innkeepers position in the Adirondack Mountains.   She embellishes quite a bit about her and Mark's qualifications. Mark isn't as fascinated as Fran is about the possibility of this new vocation,  especially because he knows they don't have the experience the innkeepers job entails.   

 

When Fran receives a call that the Board of Directors of The Tumble Inn  want to meet with them, they head up North and so begins the journey of a new adventure for the Finleys.   Although they don't have the experience, they learn  through trial  and error about the operations of running the inn.  

 

They become proficient innkeepers and continue  operating the inn for the next twenty years. There are many ups and downs, new experiences, life-changing and tragic happenings throughout the book.

 

This heartwarming story is an encouragment to those  looking to make a lifestyle change and to gain the courage to try something outside their comfort zone.

 

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Marietta Muir is celebrating her 80th birthday and wants her three grandaughters to celebrate with her at Sea Breeze, the beloved family beach house located on Sullivan's Island in South Carolina. The three women haven't been back to the beach house together for a very long time and their Mamaw Marietta would like to see the girls become close again as they were when they were young. 

Dora, Carson and Harper are the daughters of Marietta's late son, Parker. Each of the girls have a different mother, making them half-sisters. 

This is the first book in Mary Alice Monroe's LowCountry Summer trilogy. This book focuses on Carson, however, Monroe does a great job keeping the other two sisters heavily invovled in the storyline. The back story of Carson's upbringing with her irresponsible and immature father was not my favorite part of this book. I also found myself being disgusted at the grandparents for allowing their son Parker, to be so self indulgent and for their part in supporting him all his life. At some points in the book I greatly disliked Marietta because of things she could've prevented from happening had she not been such and enabler to her son. This is mainly the reason I gave this book three stars. 

Just as in Monroe's Beach House and Swimming Lesson books, we learn a bit about marine life. In those two books sea turtles were the main focus, while in this book, bottle nosed dolphins are the environmental lesson for readers. I love the fact that you always seem to learn something new in her books! It is also a given that you will be transported to the beaches of South Carolina and feel like you are on vacation there.

I'm looking forward to reading the second book in this series, The Summer Wind, which will focus on Dora. Although I did not like her character much in this book, I'm looking forward to learning more about these half-sisters and where the continuation of this series leads.