Glass Shatters

Glass Shatters by Michelle Meyers. Berkeley: She Writes Press, 2016. 209 pages. *****

Charles Lang wakes up injured with a horrific headache in an unfamiliar house, not remembering how he got there and who he is. Through a conversation with a neighbor, he finds out that he is a famous scientist who has been gone for 6 months and has a wife and daughter who disappeared several years ago. Through a series of flashbacks and inconsistent dreamlike memories, Charles begins to piece together his present and his past. Filling in the gaps does nothing to ease his fears. 

A fast-paced and compelling read. Once started, I found it difficult to stop until I finished it. Every time, I thought I had a glimpse of what was happening, another twist appeared in this unusual plot. Meyers has captured the horror of losing those we love with the added dimension of the scientific experimentation world. This is her debut novel and what a suspenseful, thrilling ride it is. Meyers' sister is Stephanie Meyers author of the Twilight series, both highly creative and inventive writers. 

I received an Advance Reader Copy from BookSparks for a review.

Michelle Meyers is a fiction writer and playwright born and raised in Los Angeles. Her writing has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Juked. Grey Sparrow Journal, DOGZPLOT, and jmww, and her plays have been developed and/or produced all across the United States. She was a 2015 PEN Center Emerging Voices Fellow in Fiction and received her bachelor's degree in Literary Arts and Writing for Performance at Brown University. Meyers is currently an MFA candidate in Fiction at the University if Alabama's Creative Writing program. Michelle Meyer's website

@BookSparks @michemeyers #glassshatters

The Goodbye Year

The Goodbye Year: a novel by Kaira Rouda. Tempe: Spark Press, 2016.  279 pages ****

Five families are preparing to send their senior to college next year, this is their story. Starting in Sept and ending on December 24th, it is told from the point of view of the student and their parents. It is a universal story of acceptance, love, peer pressure, and conformity. The fallacy of a perfect life as seen through the eyes of their friends demonstrates the basic truth that no one has it all. Each couple has a crisis in their marriage and a vested interest in where their child goes to college. Looking ahead and anticipating an "empty nest" brings previously ignored or hidden issues in the marriage out in the open.

Rouda has captured the high school senior angst and the "empty nest" anxiety that plagues many parents. Telling the story from many points of view is engaging and allows for the various reactions to the impending changes. Parents will be able to identify with the conflicting feelings of pride and frustration. An excellent novel for discussion and will be a favorite for Book Clubs. 

I received an Advance Reader Copy from BookSparks for a review.

Kaira Rouda is a USA Today bestselling, multiple award-winning author of contemporary fiction and sexy modern romance novels that sparkle with humor and heart. Previous contemporary fiction novels include Here, Home, Hope, All the Difference, and In The Mirror. A magna cum laude graduate of Vanderbilt University, before turning to fiction she worked in journalism, pubic relations, advertising, and created a national real estate brand, the inspiration for her nonfiction title, Real You Incorporated: 8 Essentials for Women Entrepreneurs. She lives in Southern California with her husband and four almost-grown kids, and is at work on her next novel.

#itsrainingbooks @BookSparks

The Full Catastrophe

The Full Catastrophe: a memoir.  by Karen Elizabeth Lee. Berkeley: She Writes Press, 2016. 259 pages. ***

In this memoir about domestic abuse, it's 1998 and Karen Lee decides she wants out of her second marriage to bigger than life Duncan. When Duncan is diagnosed with cancer, Karen stays to help him through his operations and treatments. Duncan's death does not bring the freedom and self-actualization that Karen so desperately seeks.  Working as a consultant and successful business woman did not bring satisfaction to her life and she escapes into wine, denial, and disastrous relationships.

A courageous glimpse into the life of a strong woman who cannot resist the lure of "Prince Charming" saving her from the life she created for herself. It's not until she realizes what she doesn't want, is Lee able to discover what she does want and need in a man. Written in retrospect, Lee's plight may help other women in similar marriages find the strength to leave a toxic relationship.

I received an Advance Reader copy from BookSparks for a review.

Karen E. Lee grew up in rural Southern Ontario, Canada, and is a retired clinical psychologist and management consultant. She has lived in Canada, England, and Hawaii. She received an undergraduate degree in 1970 in anthropology, worked in exploration geology in Toronto and Calgary, and in 1991 became a chartered psychologist in Alberta. She moved to England in 1995, where she lived and worked as an independent management consultant for ten years. Her consulting work and general interest have taken her to many different countries. Today, she helps her husband, Bill, in his jewelry business, volunteers for political concerns, and is on the board of Peter Support Services for Abused Women (PSSAW). She and her husband live in Calgary, Alberta.

#itsrainingbooks @BookSparks

Parting Gifts

Parting Gifts by Katrina Anne Willis. Berkeley: She Writes Press, 2016. 263 pages. ****

Three sisters, Catherine, Anne and Jessica Mathers, united by their Midwestern childhood and distant parents, try to find meaning and love in their relationships and with each other. Catherine, the oldest, is an English professor and undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer. She does the unthinkable and falls in love with one of her students. Anne, the middle child, is struggling to keep up in suburban America while caring for two children and shielding her husband from the truth. Jessica, the youngest and estranged by choice from her sisters and mother, finds acceptance and distance by becoming an exotic dancer. Eva, their mother is rapidly withdrawing into her Alzheimer's altered world and calls out daily for her youngest daughter and rarely recognizes the other two girls. A horrible accident causes all three sisters to re-evaluate what's really important in life and to look for answers in their childhood memories.

Willis has developed three strong female characters and their voices are heard clearly. While dealing with their own problems, the sisters feel isolated and alone, but lack the skills necessary to reach out and support one another. For an author's first novel, Willis has captured the emotions that can exist between sisters and the unbreakable bond that is formed from having the same parents. Well done!

I received an Advanced Reader Copy from BookSparks for a review.

Katrina Anne Willis was named the 2011 Midwest Writers Fellow, a 2013 Listen to Your Mother participant and a 2015 BlogHer Voice of the Year. She has been anthologized in My Other Ex: Women's True Story of Losing and Leaving Friends (2014) and Nothing but the Truth So Help Me God: 73 Women on Life's Transitions (2014). Her work has appeared on a variety of sites, including the Manifest-Station, Marmalode, Indy's Child, BlogHer, Hands Free Mama, and Momastery. A Hoosier at heart, Katrina currently lives in Northwest Ohio with her husband and four teenagers, and she writes semi-regularly at www.katrinaannewillis.com. This is her first novel.

#itsrainingbooks @Booksparks

Meternity

Meternity by Meghann Foye. Canada, MIRA books, 2016. 352 pages. Reader's Guide. ***

Thirty-one-year-old baby magazine editor, Liz Buckley, is surrounded by Moms, the newest and latest baby products, parenting, and pregnancy-related information. She's feeling resentful that as a single woman she is expected to pick up the slack for co-workers who have children and Mom related responsibilities. When a misunderstanding causes her boss to believe she is pregnant, Liz and her friends decide to continue the charade to allow Liz time during her maternity leave to find her dream job. Keeping up appearances by wearing a foam-rubber belly and mimicking the symptoms of pregnancy proves challenging when she meets a new guy who could turn out to be the man of her dreams. Her deceit takes a new turn when a picture of her pregnancy appears on social media and her Mother is thrilled that she is going to be a Grandmother. 

It is very easy to see how Liz gets caught up in her pregnancy drama when she is treated differently at work and is taken seriously now that she has joined the "Mommy Club." Some very funny scenes when Liz is doing a photo shoot and the foam-rubber belly fills with water and drags her down. Fun, poignant story which will be relatable to single women working in a baby product driven field or any work environment. When a woman is single, it seems as if all the other women are pregnant or mothers.

I received a copy of this book from BookSparks for a review.

Meghann Foye is the senior web editor at redbookmag.com, where she covers topics such as parenting, relationships and infertility. She has previously been the deputy editor of Seventeen magazine and senior editor at Woman's Day, For Me and elle.com, where she got her first taste of good, strong coffee while covering fashion shows as an assistant in the Paris office. Meghann took her own#Meternity from 2010 to 2012 when she quit her job to travel to China, Japan, India, Southeast Asia and Australia to pen freelance travel articles and begin this book. Originally from Marblehead, Massachusetts, she currently lives in Jersey City. This is her first novel.

#itsrainingbooks @BookSparks #mustreadsApril2016

Most Wanted

Most Wanted by Lisa Scottoline. New York: St. Marin's Press, 2016. 438 pages. Reading Group Guide. Excerpt from Damaged. *****

Christine and Marcus Nilsson have a wonderful life, great careers, stable marriage, everything except a baby. Unable to conceive, they make the difficult and private decision to use a sperm donor. Searching the candidates, they carefully choose Donor 3319. Christine is thrilled to be pregnant and is looking forward to her first sonogram when she sees a man bearing a likeness to their donor's picture being arrested on tv as a serial killer. If the accused killer is the father of her baby, will the baby have a predisposition to violence? Nature vs nurture? Christine is determined to have the baby and prove Donor 3319 is innocent. 

Scottoline is a master manipulator and storyteller! Who else would have the reader sympathetic to an accused serial killer with a mountain of evidence against him? Carefully researched, packed with conflicting emotions and an inside view into the world of infertility, innocent parents are drawn into a world of scandal and murder. This is a book once you start it, you won't be able to put it down or stop thinking about Christine and Marcus. Just when you think you have it figured out, you realize you don't! Not only are there legal issues to consider about the confidentiality of sperm donors but the bigger issue of raising a child with an infamous violent biological father. I had the pleasure of hearing Lisa Scottoline speak at my local Barnes and Noble about her research for this book and how intrigued she is by the Donor process. It seems that the recipient has more stringent guidelines than those for donors. Scottoline is an entertaining speaker and has a gift for sucking me right into the story and keeping me in her grip until the very last page. A must read and an excellent Book Club choice. Update: since reviewing this book, there is an article in The New York Times on this very subject. Fiction meets fact..."Sperm Donor's Profile Hid Mental Illness"

Lisa Scottoline is a New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author of twenty-four novels. She has 30 million copies of her books in print in the United States, and she has been published in thirty-five countries. She has served as the president of Mystery Writers of America, and her thrillers have been optioned for television and film. She also writes a weekly humor column with her daughter, Francesca Serritella, for The Philadelphia Inquirer, and those critically acclaimed stories have been adapted into a series of memoirs, the first of which is entitled Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog. She lives in the Philadelphia area with an array of disobedient pets. Visit www.scottoline.com of follow Lisa on Twitter @LisaScottoline.

#TheSplendidSampler

 










Block #11 Crocheted Thoughts

This is my version of this block. I did not include the crocheting hook. I didn't have any metallic floss and it looked okay without it.

Block #12 Checkerboard Designed by Pat Sloan and the finished Block #11.

Just for You and the Block Station Bonus Blocks designed by Pat Sloan.

Block #14 Flying High by Janet Clare, Block #16 Pieces of Friendship designed by Lindsay Maryland and Block#17 Family Stars designed by Kimberly Jolly. My Flying High block has the birds diving for the ocean waves. It helps to have the pattern right side up when positioning the birds and looking at the original pattern. Oops! It still seems to work.

#TheSplendidSampler @patsloan