Month: October 2017

In No Place Like You, can Zach find a way to convince Leah that they can make more than just great music together—and that she’s the one that he wants for all time?

About No Place Like You

In Cloud Bay, home is where the heart is.

Leah Santelli always knew that Zach Harper, son of a rock legend and her best friend’s brother, was painfully out of reach. Then, on the night of her eighteenth birthday, Leah shocked herself by asking for—and receiving—the gift she wanted: one night of passion with Zach before he left town to pursue his rock star dreams. Now, years later, Zach is back in Cloud Bay to record his first solo album. His return could also be Leah’s big chance to step up her own music career. But getting the producing credit she needs means spending long hours with Zach in the recording studio…and falling back into the habit of longing for him, for better or worse.

Zach used to believe that a man must put his past behind him. But coming back home for Cloud Bay’s famed music festival has allowed him to finally make amends with his family and, much to his surprise, reunite with Leah. He might have left her once but now it seems he can’t stay away. Trouble is, even though the heat between them burns hotter than ever, Leah has old wounds in need of healing before she can give Zach a real chance. Can he find a way to convince her that they can make more than just great music together—and that she’s the one that he wants for all time?

My Thoughts

I fell in love with this crazy, loving and very real family – the Harper’s. They are children of a legendary rock star and this has shaped the way they think, feel and act. This is very much true for Zach Harper. He is an emotional person but is not very good at showing those emotions. While he has tried his hardest to run from his Dad’s legacy and not be like his Father, he is finding himself more and more like him. This tends to scare him and sometimes cause him to ignore his actions out of fear. He does not want to be anything like his Father (and when you read the story you understand fully why!). He loved his children but wasn’t there for them in the way a child needs.

Leah is a kind, strong, independent young woman who has just recovered from a divorce. Although it was a divorce they both agreed on, it still caused her pain that she hasn’t quite worked through. She works in the music industry as a producer and is trying to make a name for herself. She not only wants to use Zach for breaking out in the industry but she also has strong feelings for him – something that she continually tries to deny to him, herself and her best friend Faith. It was very interesting to find out about their secret past that they kept hidden from everyone!

As Zach works on his relationship with his family, his relationship steams up with Leah. You can see the two falling in love but holding so much of themselves back from each other. They both seem too afraid to just let go. You are constantly on the edge of your seat guessing if they will take that leap of faith or continue to hold back.

No Place Like You is a well written story of hope, finding oneself, taking that second chance and trust. Our main characters have to work past their own fears and past history in order to move into the future – one that may just hold a lifetime of happiness and love. It is in their hands to have a happy future but they struggle with putting the past where it belongs – in the past.

I loved every moment of this novel and could not put it down! While it is book three in the Cloud Bay series, you don’t have to read the other ones first but I highly recommend you do (look out for another review of a book in this series, A Season of You, coming October 17th). This book is set to release December 5th, 2017.

You can purchase a copy of this book on Amazon.

Rating: 5/5

About the Author

Emma Douglas has read like a wild thing since she was small. She discovered romance novels at an age that way probably way too young but she survived unscathed. When she realized you could make up stories as well as read them, she started taking notes about what the characters wandering through her head were telling her and then, eventually, books happened. Before the books happened she did the usual things (was a band geek (and a geek generally), had crushes on rock stars and fictional characters, spent chunks of her summers on an island beach, got a degree in something sensible that doesn’t involve writing about kissing, became a black belt in internet procrastination, fell down the rabbit-hole of craft, traveled a bit, indulged her love of baked goods, got bossed around by cats, began a quest for the perfect margarita, and napped to recover from all of the above. She still does most of that plus the writing thing from a tiny house in Melbourne Australia which her feline overlords have kindly agreed to share with her.

Disclosure: I received a digital copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Preparing and eating healthy meals and snacks for the family doesn’t have to be hard! Scrumptious Sandwiches, Salads and Snacks helps take the stress and worry out of the planning and making healthy meals for the whole family.

About Scrumptious Sandwiches, Salads and Snacks

Whether you are a working parent, a teenager, a busy professional, single parent, young couple, or caretaker, this collection of scrumptious, simple, and healthy recipes will help you learn to cook foods that taste good and are good for you. They work for on the go, as well as at home, made with readily available ingredients that are simple to prepare. As a team, a working wife and mother and a busy teen, we wrote this cookbook for you.

Today’s technology has opened our tastes to an abundance of foods from all over the globe, giving us unlimited access to the latest nutrition information, and has dramatically improved the conveniences of the modern kitchen. Yet, it is increasingly more challenging to keep ourselves and our families connected and to sit down and enjoy a healthy meal together. Work has become all-consuming, just to make ends meet. Two income households make it harder for families to have daily recreation, and the fear of leaving our children alone to explore, play, and learn life’s lessons, has made it more difficult for kids to be fit. Schools are more demanding than ever, physical education and recess time are shrinking. Children are less independent and rarely rely on their own judgment. This translates heavily into bad health habits, especially eating. Children should run and play when the mood strikes them, eat when they are hungry, and rest when they are tired. Living life should be driven by instinct, and our natural surroundings, but now, being outside has become a thing of the past. Over time, it has become more difficult to enjoy nature, and by default, more difficult to pay attention to the bodily signals that indicate hunger, satiety and preferences for taste.

Looking out for the health and well-being of our families is a given, and enjoying good, healthy food as a family and a community leaves an indelible mark on young people who will improve their desire for a higher standard of living in every aspect of their lives. Many people categorize food as adult food or kid food. “Kid food” is just another marketing ploy to get you to buy more gimmicky items that you do not need.

The recipes in this book are designed for you to have an easy way to ensure that kids eat well, alongside adults, and learn how to prepare quality meals that taste good.

My Thoughts

When we think of barriers to healthy eating, some of the top barriers that come up are not knowing what to make, worry over whether the whole family will eat the meal, time and money. These are all valid reasons but easy to fix with simple recipes, learning how to balance meals and lots of organization!

Scrumptious Sandwiches, Salads and Snacks is an excellent tool to help you prepare as a family prepare easy meals with most ingredients you will have already in your home. This recipe book starts out discussing healthy habits for life (because lets face it – you need a life balance of healthy eating, exercise and commitment to this lifestyle), how to read a nutrition label and how to get started.

The recipe book is into the three sections of sandwiches, salads and snacks, which is further broken down into breakfast and lunch sandwiches, appetizers and side salads, main dish salads, savoury snacks and sweet snacks. Each section is colour coded making it easier to identify the section you need in that moment.

One of my favourite features of this recipe book is how simple the recipes are – each one has a limited number of ingredients, anywhere from three to ten ingredients. This is a huge bonus for working families who need something quick and simple but still want to prepare something healthy. Many of these ingredients you will have in your pantry already, so there is no need to have to stock up on special ingredients. This made it that much easier to dive right into the recipe book and allowed me to get started on the recipes as soon as I received the book (there is nothing worse than getting excited for a recipe book and realizing most of the recipes require special ingredients!).

Each recipe is easy to follow with exact directions. Patricia also includes cooking notes for many of the recipes with tips on how to increase the recipe size, add more variety or garnish the recipe. Many of the recipes also include fun facts about the ingredients themselves and the nutrients they contain. I also loved that each recipe has its own nutrition label so you can easily see how many calories per serving, how much protein, fat, carbohydrates each recipe contains.

We tried out several dishes, including the black bean, corn and red bell pepper recipe for Thanksgiving meal this weekend and they were a huge hit! This recipe book is perfect for the busy, working family that wants to add some healthy (but simple) variety into their lives. A definite must have addition in the family recipe book collection.

You can purchase a copy of this book on Amazon.

About the Author

Ushering in an era of bite size health, nutrition and fitness solutions, Patricia Greenberg definitely practices what she preaches! A working wife and mother, she has thirty years of experience as a nutritionist, Chef and Wellness educator. She continues to live a healthy lifestyle in an often chaotic world through good food and attainable fitness. She runs The Fitness Gourmet, a wellness consulting firm that specializes in teaching seminars nationwide. She has a special interest in enhancing the education of the general public, providing accurate nutrition and health information to today’s consumer.

Disclosure: I received a copy of the above book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

When an unusual love letter arrives nearly 22 years late, in the form of a book, the man who receives it discovers a memoir filled with passion, wit and sensitivity. He also discovers that the book is about him.

About A Love Letter to Jay

May Le’s debut novel, A Love Letter to Jay: A Memoir, is a unique and compelling love story that chronicles the life of a Chinese immigrant— one of six children from Vietnam—who faces one obstacle, one tragedy after another. One Amazon reviewer describes the memoir as “an Amy Tan novel with Horatio Alger undertones. An engrossing story filled with life at its bittersweet best.”

A memoir arrives in the mail one day, and the man to whom it’s addressed tears it open and begins to read. He quickly realizes the book is about him. It is about her. It is an astounding history of things he never knew. Deeply felt letters of devotion he’d never received fill the pages of the book, containing passionate remembrances of their lovemaking, confessions of secrets never shared, and painful details about the chasm that developed between her and her mother as they clashed over archaic cultural traditions from the old country. And now, reading her words, he begins to piece together the last 22 years.

Jay devours the book, especially the details about a son he still believes is his. When he reads about how she was raped and abused by her husband, his heart breaks, and he begins to understand why he and she were always like two ships passing in a dense foggy night, experiencing only occasional trysts punctuated by long periods of silence. He had always known of her success in business and how she’d overcome so much. After all, he had been her mentor and confidant before he was her lover. He was always proud of her. And he has always been in love with her. Putting the book down on the desk, Jay covers his eyes and begins to cry for what could have been.

May Le’s story jumps off the pages with a direct, raw, insightful wit as she recounts her life beginning as a Chinese immigrant to America from Vietnam in 1985. From the death of her father and brother while her mother struggled to support the family of five, to two decades of poverty followed by a brutal rape and coerced marriage to the rapist, a series of misfortunes propels May Le to rise above her circumstances. Ultimately she becomes a successful restaurateur and philanthropist, eventually rediscovering her long-lost love.

My Thoughts

When I finished reading this powerful story, my first thought was wow. I couldn’t get over this amazing story of resilience, struggle, hope, faith and family. It was raw, honest but full of understanding and acceptance.

May Le tells a story that so many first and second generation immigrants to North America can more than likely relate to. Family tends to stick to tradition when they find themselves in a new and unknown situation. This was true for May Le. She was stuck in the middle of old traditions and trying to find her way in America. It was these old traditions that forces her to marry a man who raped her and then continues to physically, mentally and emotionally abuse her. We are with her as she struggles for hope and love, as she finds love in Jay but remains in her marriage to appease her Mother and save the family reputation.

The story is written in such a manner that you feel as though you are a part of her story. That you are there with her during her struggles, you want to just reach out to her and give her the confidence and strength she needs to leave her husband. I felt close to May Le and wanted to just reach out and give her a hug. I found myself crying at times and other times my heart was so happy with her.

A Love Letter to Jay is a beautiful, powerful story of rising above all of the negative in our lives to embrace love, hope and happiness. It is a story that you will not want to put down.

You can purchase a copy of this book on Amazon.

Rating: 5/5

Disclosure: I received a digital copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.