review: the best of us by sarah pekkanen

After attending the University of Virginia where he met Tina (and her now husband), Allie (and her now husband), and Savannah, Dwight made a bunch of money when he smartly cashed out before the dot com crash. For his 35th birthday, Dwight’s wife Pauline (an outsider to the group) decides to use some of that money to take his college friends and their spouses on an all-expenses paid trip to Jamaica. It was supposed to be all couples, but Savannah and her cheating husband (another outsider) have recently split unbeknownst to the group. Having a newly single woman with the group immediately throws things off-balance with both Pauline and Tina showing their insecurities. Tensions run high as they spend time together for the first time since college and matters get worse when first Pauline must briefly leave to deal with a crisis back home and then Hurricane Betty hits right after Savannah’s estranged husband arrives.

The Best of Us was unfortunately not Sarah Pekkanen’s best. I struggled to find a likable character in the group. The women were pretty wretched and the men weren’t much better. The only character I could muster any sympathy for was Allie’s milquetoast husband Ryan. There’s also not much going on plot-wise which was ok since the insights into these relationships seemed enough until Pekkanen tried to force some high drama by introducing a hurricane.
3/5
Review copy provided by the publisher, Washington Square Press.

giveaway: down and out in beverly heels

I loved Kathryn Leigh Scott's novel Down and Out in Beverly Heels, so I'm thrilled to announce that Scott's publicist has offered a copy for a giveaway! If the winner is in the US or Canada, he or she may choose either a paperback copy or an eBook. If the winner lives in another country, he or she will receive an eBook copy.

About the novel:
"From brunch in Bel Air to homeless in Hollywood…

Former actress Meg Barnes used to have it all: tony Beverly Hills address, Amex Black card, Manolos for every day of the month. Not to mention a career as a popular TV detective that made her glittering life possible. But her lifestyle of the rich and famous has turned into a reality show for d-listed starlets. Lost in her Louboutins, she has one man to thank: her con man of a husband.

Handsome FBI agent Jack Mitchell knows a suspect when he sees one—even if she’s as beautiful and gutsy as Meg. Meg’s ex “made off” with half of Hollywood’s wealth in an epic real estate scam. And Jack thinks Meg may have been involved.

Determined to prove her innocence Meg teams up with her quirky, movie-mad best friend to track down her fugitive husband and exact justice. But getting her life, and her career, back on track is harder than auditioning for Spielberg. Especially when her life is threatened. Meg has to trust Jack, the man who may want her behind bars…or as his leading lady for life."

The rules: Enter by leaving a comment to this post with your email (if I can't contact you, you can't win). You can gain additional entries by leaving separate comments letting me know that you're a follower (one extra each for the blog and Twitter) or have posted a link to the giveaway on your site. The deadline to enter is 11:59pm Pacific on May 25. Winner will be selected at random.  Open internationally for an eBook; if a resident of the US or Canada, the winner may choose either an eBook or a paperback copy.

review: the tao of martha by jen lancaster

When I read Jen Lancaster’s first memoir, I laughed heartily throughout. The same was true for her second memoir. I also enjoyed her foray into fiction. I went to her book signings and discovered Lancaster was just as funny in person. So when she shared some great stories from her forthcoming memoir on trying to live like Martha Stewart during her tour for Jeneration X, I knew it was one I was going to have to read. Despite the hilarity of the Martha debacles Lancaster shared in person, The Tao of Martha just wasn’t that funny. Lancaster admits early on in the book that in trying to act more like an adult, she’d forgotten how to have fun; furthermore, one of her beloved dogs was gravely ill which creates a sad undertone for the year she documents. While The Tao of Martha still has the easy narrative flow typical of a Lancaster memoir, it lacks that extra something special that causes the reader to bond with the author.
3/5
Review copy from Amazon Vine.

review: down and out in beverly heels by kathryn leigh scott

After falling prey to a scam, Meg Barnes is hard up but still prideful. Although her remaining friends (many of her associates dumped her since they believe she’s in on her husband’s scam) would surely help, Meg sleeps in her car instead of accepting their charity. Just as things are starting to look up when the out-of-work actress lands a pilot, Meg starts getting harassing notes and suspects someone’s following her. Despite the FBI’s continued investigation into Paul’s disappearance, Meg decides to hunt down her husband and finally prove her innocence.

The pacing of this comedic mystery is fantastic. Kathryn Leigh Scott of Dark Shadows fame beautifully incorporates elements of Meg’s acting life with her daily struggles of maintaining the façade that she’s not homeless. Down and Out in Beverly Heels has perfectly timed twists and reveals to keep the excitement going throughout the novel.
5/5
Review copy from Amazon Vine.

review: pulse by patrick carman

Because I enjoyed Patrick Carman’s Dark Eden, I was excited to read his latest book. Unfortunately, I just didn’t really get Pulse. I kept turning to the vague back cover copy as I read because I couldn’t figure out what the book was supposed to be about other than teens living in what’s left of the United States after some unnamed event created two States that some people live in, but others live outside of. Some of these teens are supposed to have a “pulse” (hence the title), but who has a pulse and what exactly it is isn’t revealed until very late in the book. Pulse really picks up toward the end, but the front half dragged and was a little confusing. There’s a lot of Faith sleeping while things move around the room and Tablets mysteriously disappearing and reappearing. I did like the commentary Carman was making with the Tablets (the teens are super-attached to their issued from birth Tablets that have GPS trackers and have replaced the need for school teachers), but that was the only thing to hold my interest in first few sections. One of my pet peeves is for a book to force a sequel; Pulse seems like it was written entirely as a prequel to whatever book the start of the series should actually be.
2/5
Review copy from Amazon Vine.

review: pretty girl-13 by liz coley

During a Girl Scout camping trip when Angie was 13, she was kidnapped. Pretty Girl-13 starts with Angie’s inexplicable return home three years later. She has no memory of the last three years or how she ended up back in her neighborhood, but there are scars around her wrists and ankles indicating she’s suffered traumas. The story of what happened to Angie unfolds as she visits a psychiatrist and begins to interact with the people she once knew.

Despite a few quibbles (the doctor missed something he really should have been able to tell), I was thoroughly engrossed by Pretty Girl-13. Liz Coley’s debut was a tough one to read (I kept thinking, “Oh no, not that too”), but I could not put it down as each detail revealed what Angie would have to endure next. The story of Angie and the alters her mind created to survive is incredibly haunting, but it is also triumphant. At the end of the book, the detective tells Angie it was an honor to meet her; I felt the same way.
5/5
Review copy from Amazon Vine.

review: secrets from the past by barbara taylor bradford

After losing both of her parents to natural causes, 30 year old Serena Stone gives up her dangerous career as a war photographer to write a biography of her beloved father who was also a war photographer. While writing in New York, Serena realizes that some of the family albums are at their other home in France, so she makes a trip to where her sisters live. She’s soon distracted from writing the biography because her ex-boyfriend has been traumatized while working as a war photographer and Serena believes only another war photographer can help.

When a book is titled “Secrets from the Past,” it stands to reason the plot will center on a secret from the past; however, the novel is more than halfway over before Serena even realizes there might be a secret to uncover. There were a few little hints dropped for the reader, but by the time the secret came about, I was already bored. Initially it seemed like there’d be some great secret surrounding the year 1999 as that’s the album Serena goes to Europe to look for, but that storyline went nowhere. Furthermore, the writing is very passive (lots of “I was” and “they had”) which contributes to its excruciatingly slow pace.
2/5
Review copy provided by Get Red PR.