The BookFetish Blog

Marie Astor’s Lucky Charm is one of those books that once I started it, I just wanted to know what happend next. I really enjoyed Lucky Charm and it is this month’s selection for the ChickLitPlus reading challenge I’ve been doing this year.

Annabel Green catches her fiance cheating on her. In the wake of this betrayal, Annabel is lost, uncertain of how to move forward and reclaim her life. Her best friend, an up and coming designer called Lilly Collins, tries to help. She treats Annabel to a fabulous makeover and makes sure she meets new men. However, Annabel still uses any and every excuse to delay jumping back in the dating pool.  Worried about her friend, Lilly takes Annabel to visit a fortune teller, where Annabel acquires a special charm that is supposed to bring her luck in love…. but will it?  I don’t want to say a lot more about the summary because I want you to read it and discover it for yourself. You’ll see a few more tidbits below, but only because they pertain to things I really liked about the story.

The first thing that drew me into Lucky Charm was Annabel herself. She’s  not perfect, but she’s also not a simpering idiot. It always helps to have a heroine that you feel like you could be friends with.  Annabel’s reaction to Jeremy’s betrayal is authentic. It doesn’t feel contrived or desperate.  Nor do Lilly’s plans to get Annabel back in the dating game.  And if you like the idea of a lucky charm, then the fortune teller gifting Annabel with a talisman is endearing.  I think most of us, whether or not  we admit it out loud, would welcome any charm that would bring more love into our lives.

I also enjoyed Annabel’s foray into Paris.  I love reading about places I’ve visited and saying to myself “Yes, that’s spot on”. I did just that reading about Annabel’s dinner at Cafe Marly at The Louvre. The Cafe at night, and the surrounding area, is one of the most romantic places I’ve been- just something in the air.

When Annabel learns that Lilly’s been hiding a secret that could mean Annabel’s not been as lucky in love as she thought, I found myself rooting for Annabel, and for her friendship with Lilly. In fact, my only real criticism of the story is that I thought Annabel overreacted and immediately jumped to the worst possible conclusion when she learned Lilly’s secret. That may be me projecting my own practicality into Annabel’s character, but even though I felt like Annabel’s reaction wasn’t completely warranted, I still really wanted everything to work out in the end.

This was a quick read for me. It was easy for me to keep turning the pages to find out what happened next. If you’re a chick lit fan, I think you’ll enjoy  Lucky Charm and I for one am excited to read more from Marie Astor.  You can learn more about Marie here.

Note: In the interest of full disclosure, Marie did ask me to review Lucky Charm.  As I state in my review policy, a request for a review does not guarantee a positive review. I did genuinely enjoy this story and provided an honest review.

I’m pleased to be a blog tour stop today for Monique Domovitch’s debut novel, Scorpio Rising.

Set in the 1950’s, Scorpio Rising tells the story of two ambitious people: Brooklyn born Alexander Ivanov and the French Brigitte Dartois. Desperate to escape his impoverished upbringing, Alex sets out to take the New York architecture world by storm. Equally desperate to escape abuse, Brigitte discovers her artistic talents and becomes the talk of Paris.  Their paths cross unexpectedly, and under unlikely circumstances, love begins to bloom.

I was drawn to this blog tour because of the book title. I am a true Scorpio, so once I saw the title, how could I resist?

I wasn’t expecting the retro aspect of Scorpio Rising, and it was a nice surprise.  It is easy to tell a tale of reckless ambition in our present day. But to do it well in a pre-Mad Men era takes some skill. The devices we have at the ready today to make it oh-so-easy weren’t available in the 1950’s, after all.

Alex and Brigitte are, as I mentioned earlier, desperate to escape the trappings of their youth.  Neither has a good support system and must rely on themselves. Each handles it differently, Alex with a single-minded intent and determination and Brigitte with an earnest effort to grow from naive schoolgirl to an independent woman.

Monique weaves their independent stories into a plausible encounter, setting our heroine and hero up for their inevitable meeting and the ensuing drama. I will say that the cynical part of me felt that Alex and Brigitte falling in love happened too quickly, but the romantic part of me shouted back, quite loudly, “why not?!” The book ends with a bit of a cliffhanger, the perfect set up to the next installment.

Scorpio Rising wasn’t what I expected when I started reading it, but in a good way, and I want to know what happens to Brigitte and Alex next. If you’re a fan of chick lit, this is one you won’t want to miss.

This is also a giveaway tour so you’ll want to check out a few other sites:

You’ll want to comment here for a chance to win a $10 gift card from amazon.com

Happy Reading!

This review contains spoilers for all three books.

Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy has taken the world by storm. I read them for two reasons. Most of my Harry Potter friends loved the books, and I am intrigued by the casting for the first film. Most friends assured me I would love the books. A few who know me well said I’d likely want to throw the third book across the room. Fortunately, I ended up somewhere in between. I say fortunately because I read ebooks of the trilogy, and throwing the iPad across the room would certainly cause significant damage.

But, and here’s where I might be inviting haters, I didn’t love the books. Sure, they entertained me. But I didn’t have to go from one immediately into the next. In fact, it took me months to read all three books. Thanks to an on-the-fritz satellite dish and a bit of much needed downtime over the Thanksgiving holiday, I was finally able to finish Mockingjay. And because I am apparently in a small minority who had not already read the books, I’m actually going to give some specifics here about what I did and didn’t like in the series. So if you don’t want spoilers, STOP READING NOW.

OK, here we go.  In The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen had a lot of promise as a heroine. From her breaking the rules to hunt to help her family to her willingness to enter The Hunger Games to save her sister Prim from having to compete, Katniss shows courage, gumption, and a healthy disrespect for the rules. As much as she loves Gale, she plays a good game in pretending to be in love with Peeta. And while there are the beginnings of a love triangle here, it does not dominate the story. Katniss’ effort to survive the  Games and save Peeta are what drives the story. We’re all united in cheering for Katniss and hating President Snow, because what kind of sadistic bastard sends off children to fight to the death?  I liked this book, and sort of got the appeal of the series even though I didn’t love it like I do some others.

Catching Fire I didn’t enjoy quite as much.  It re-hashed a lot of The Hunger Games but it introduced some interesting new characters, and  I definitely didn’t see the ending coming. That was actually a pleasant surprise, to learn about the resistance that was growing throughout Panem.  The story was entertaining enough that it kept me distracted while I was trying to keep my mind off some things going on around me. I thought this book did just what the middle book of a trilogy should do: advance the story and set up the reader for the ending of the saga.

Mockingjay, though, disappointed me.  I thought Katniss spent too much time worrying about if she loved Gale or Peeta. In the midst of a war, this didn’t feel authentic to me. I thought Katniss’ focus would again be on survival.  And I thought Katniss started to change, at least a little bit,  into the very people she despised.  I couldn’t believe that she voted to send the children of people from the Capitol into their own Hunger Games, especially after having survived two Games herself.  The killing of the children at the end bothered me. And so did Prim’s dying.  The whole story started by Katniss volunteering for the Games to spare Prim. To have Prim die in the end anyway sort of made the whole thing seem pointless. And in my perfect ending, Katniss would have chosen neither Gale nor Peeta. Instead, she would have chosen herself, chosen to figure out who she was after all she had been through, all she had survived, and all the killing she had done. And that would have been OK. I don’t feel like ending up with either Gale or Peeta was integral to the resolution of the story.  I think choosing herself would have been almost more interesting.

I’ll go see at least the first movie. Donald Sutherland and Lenny Kravitz seem to be excellent casting choices, and I want to see how the book is adapted.  I don’t hate the books. I just don’t love them like so many others do.

Debora Geary is back with the third installment in her Witch series, A Reckless Witch. If you follow me at all, you know that I absolutely adore this series and this latest book is no exception.

A Reckless Witch follows the story of Sierra, and eighteen year old witch who discovers her connection to the witching community.  Our favorite characters are back, along with some exciting new ones. As Sierra learns to balance her powers, the witching community prepares to welcome its newest member.

Like the other Witch books, what continued to strike me as I read A Reckless Witch is the love and acceptance of the witching community. Sure, the spell casting is cool, and who wouldn’t want a bit of that ability if it were possible? And I loved the Harry Potter references in this particular book.  But it is still the love and friendship and genuine caring for each other that I really love about these stories.  Every time I read one, I think how wonderful it would be if we all had that much love in our lives.  Truthfully,  reading these books makes me want to be a better person, to throw away some of my cynicism and look for more opportunities to be a loving person.

So, if you’re still resisting these Witch books, do yourself a favor and check them out.  I read A Reckless Witch on the Kindle for iPad app. Nook and iBook versions will be available soon, if you can’t find them right away.  But start with A Modern Witch. 

I’ve been invited to participate in a challenge for 2012 that sounds like a lot of fun.  Butterfly-o-Meter Books is sponsoring MB2012NYRC, in which all participants will set bookish resolutions and cheer each other on as we work to meet our goals.

So, the first resolution I’m posting is to read one book each month of 2012 from my book backlog. I’ve bought so many books over the years that I haven’t read and it is time to start remedying that.  At first, I thought my resolution would be to read all the books in my backlog before I bought ANY new books in 2012. I knew that was setting myself up for failure- sometimes you HAVE to read something right away. But I do think choosing one book from the backlog each month to read is doable, and will let me read new stuff as well.

Some of the books in my backlog to read include: The Tudors, Anarchy Evolution, Decoded, Wizards First Rule, and Anthropology of an American Girl.  There are plenty more around the house (and on my iPad) to round out that list of twelve.

I haven’t decided on any other bookish resolutions yet.  I love to read so much that I want to choose my resolutions carefully. I don’t ever want reading to feel like work to me.

If you’re interested in checking out the bookish resolution challenge, you can check it out here or via the button on TheBookFetishBlog homepage. And if you know of any other good challenges out there for 2012, by all means let me know.