Friday Finds -- 7/8

This meme is hosted by Should Be Reading.

Happy Friday! My Friday Find this week is So Much to Say by Nikki Van Noy. Here is the Barnes and Noble description:

DAVE MATTHEWS BAND has one of the largest and most loyal followings of any band today—after twenty years of constant touring and several acclaimed, multiplatinum albums, the members enjoy a connection with their fans that few other acts can match. Ask DMB devotees and they’ll happily tell you tales of amazing sold-out summer shows, the stunning venues they’ve seen the band play all around the world, classic live show recordings . . . and memories of good times with great friends, old and new. For hundreds of thousands of people, affection for DMB goes far beyond simple fan adulation—it’s a way of life. Journalist (and fan) Nikki Van Noy bridges the gap between the band and their followers, looking at the DMB phenomenon from all perspectives—including interviews with the band, Charlottesville insiders who knew them in the early days, and, of course, the DMB fans who witnessed it all.

Sounds great, right? What did you find this Friday?

Friday Finds -- 5/20

Happy Friday! My find this week is Home to Woefield by Susan Juby. This book peaked my interest because I have always wanted to try living on a farm! Here is the Barnes and Noble description:

Prudence Burns, a well-intentioned New Yorker full of back-to-the-land ideals, just inherited Woefield Farm—thirty acres of scrubland, dilapidated buildings, and one half-sheared sheep. But the bank is about to foreclose, so Prudence must turn things around fast! Fortunately she'll have help from Earl, her banjo-playing foreman with a family secret; Seth, the neighbor who hasn't left the house since a high school scandal; and Sara Spratt, an eleven-year-old who's looking for a home for her prize-winning chickens. Home to Woefield is about learning how to take on a challenge, face your fears, and find friendship in the most unlikely of places.

What did you find this week?

Friday Finds -- 5/13

This meme is hosted by Should Be Reading.

Happy Friday! My find for this week is Heads You Lose by Lisa Lutz and David Hayward. The premise is very interesting. The authors took turns writing chapters with no outline or ending in mind. Here is the Barnes and Noble description:

Meet Paul and Lacey Hansen: orphaned, pot-growing twentysomething siblings eking out a living in rural Northern California. When a headless corpse appears on their property, they can't exactly dial 911, so they move the body and wait for the police to find it. Instead, the corpse reappears, a few days riper . . . and an amateur sleuth is born. Make that two. When collaborators Lutz and Hayward (former romantic partners) start to disagree about how the story should unfold, the body count rises, victims and suspects alike develop surprising characteristics (meet Brandy Chester, the stripper with the Mensa IQ), and sibling rivalry reaches homicidal intensity. Think Adaptation crossed with Weeds. Will the authors solve the mystery without killing each other first?

I am really looking forward to reading this. What did you find?

Friday Finds -- 5/6

Happy Friday! My find this week is My Jane Austen Summer by Cindy Jones. I absolutely love this kind of modern day take on Jane Austen and am looking forward to reading it. Here is the Barnes and Noble description:

Lily has squeezed herself into undersized relationships all her life, hoping one might grow as large as those found in the Jane Austen novels she loves. But lately her world is running out of places for her to fit. So when her bookish friend invites her to spend the summer at a Jane Austen literary festival in England, she jumps at the chance to reinvent herself. There, among the rich, promising world of Mansfield Park reenactments, Lily finds people whose longing to live in a novel equals her own. But real-life problems have a way of following you wherever you go, and Lily's accompany her to England. Unless she can change her ways, she could face the fate of so many of Miss Austen's characters, destined to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. My Jane Austen Summer explores how we fall in love, how we come to know ourselves better, and how it might be possible to change and be happier in the real world.

Sounds good, right? What did you find this week?

Friday Finds -- 4/8

This meme is hosted by Should Be Reading.

Happy Friday! This week my find is The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley. Here is the publisher's description from their website:

In the spring of 1708, an invading Jacobite fleet of French and Scottish soldiers nearly succeeded in landing the exiled James Stewart in Scotland to reclaim his crown.

Now, Carrie McClelland hopes to turn that story into her next bestselling novel. Settling herself in the shadow of Slains Castle, she creates a heroine named for one of her own ancestors and starts to write.

But when she discovers her novel is more fact than fiction, Carrie wonders if she might be dealing with ancestral memory, making her the only living person who knows the truth—the ultimate betrayal—that happened all those years ago, and that knowledge comes very close to destroying her...

What did you find this week?

Friday Finds -- 4/1

This meme is hosted by Should Be Reading.

Happy Friday! My find this week is The Sherlockian by Graham Moore. Here is the Barnes and Noble description:

In December 1893, Sherlock Holmes-adoring Londoners eagerly opened their Strand magazines, anticipating the detective's next adventure, only to find the unthinkable: his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, had killed their hero off. London spiraled into mourning — crowds sported black armbands in grief — and railed against Conan Doyle as his assassin. Then in 1901, just as abruptly as Conan Doyle had "murdered" Holmes in "The Final Problem," he resurrected him. Though the writer kept detailed diaries of his days and work, Conan Doyle never explained this sudden change of heart. After his death, one of his journals from the interim period was discovered to be missing, and in the decades since, has never been found. Or has it?

When literary researcher Harold White is inducted into the preeminent Sherlock Holmes enthusiast society, The Baker Street Irregulars, he never imagines he's about to be thrust onto the hunt for the holy grail of Holmes-ophiles: the missing diary. But when the world's leading Doylean scholar is found murdered in his hotel room, it is Harold - using wisdom and methods gleaned from countless detective stories - who takes up the search, both for the diary and for the killer.

What did you find this week?

Friday Finds -- 3/25

This meme is hosted by Should Be Reading.

Happy Friday! My find this week is Tales from the Yoga Studio by Rain Mitchell. Here is the Barnes and Noble description:

The yoga studio is where daily cares are set aside, mats are unfurled, and physical exertion leads to well-being, renewal, and friendship. An aggressively expanding chain of Los Angeles yoga "experience centers," has Lee and her extraordinary teaching abilities in its sights. They woo her with a lucrative contract, a trademarked name for her classes, and a place for her handsome musician husband. But accepting the contract means abandoning the students at the homey studio Lee runs in L.A.'s Silver Lake district- and leaving behind four women whose friendships are suddenly more important to her than retirement benefits and a salary increase.

What did you find this week?

Friday Finds -- 3/18

This meme is hosted by Should Be Reading.

Happy Friday! My find for this week is The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown. Here is the Barnes and Noble description:

The Andreas family is one of readers. Their father, a renowned Shakespeare professor who speaks almost entirely in verse, has named his three daughters after famous Shakespearean women. When the sisters return to their childhood home, ostensibly to care for their ailing mother, but really to lick their wounds and bury their secrets, they are horrified to find the others there. See, we love each other. We just don't happen to like each other very much. But the sisters soon discover that everything they've been running from-one another, their small hometown, and themselves-might offer more than they ever expected.

This sounds fantastic. What did you find this week?

Friday Finds -- 3/11

This meme is hosted by Should Be Reading.

Happy Friday! My find for this week is Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levitan. Here is the Barnes and Noble description:

One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, two teens—both named Will Grayson—are about to cross paths. As their worlds collide and intertwine, the Will Graysons find their lives going in new and unexpected directions, building toward romantic turns-of-heart and the epic production of history’s most fabulous high school musical. Hilarious, poignant, and deeply insightful, John Green and David Levithan’s collaborative novel is brimming with a double helping of the heart and humor that have won both them legions of faithful fans.

Doesn't this sound fantastic? What did you find this week?

Friday Finds -- 3/4

This meme is hosted by Should Be Reading.

Happy Friday! My find this week is How to Bake a Perfect Life by Barbara O'Neal. Here is the Barnes and Noble description:

Professional baker Ramona Gallagher is a master of an art that has sustained her through the most turbulent times, including a baby at fifteen and an endless family feud. But now Ramona’s bakery threatens to crumble around her. Literally. She’s one water-heater disaster away from losing her grandmother’s rambling Victorian and everything she’s worked so hard to build. When Ramona’s soldier son-in-law is wounded in Afghanistan, her daughter, Sophia, races overseas to be at his side, leaving Ramona as the only suitable guardian for Sophia’s thirteen-year-old stepdaughter, Katie. Heartbroken, Katie feels that she’s being dumped again—this time on the doorstep of a woman out of practice with mothering. Ramona relies upon a special set of tools—patience, persistence, and the reliability of a good recipe—when rebellious Katie arrives. And as she relives her own history of difficult choices, Ramona shares her love of baking with the troubled girl. Slowly, Katie begins to find self-acceptance and a place to call home. And when a man from her past returns to offer a second chance at love, Ramona discovers that even the best recipe tastes better when you add time, care, and a few secret ingredients of your own.

Sounds good, right? What did you find this week?

Friday Finds -- 2/25

This meme is hosted by Should Be Reading.

Happy Friday! My find this week is A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. Here is the Barnes and Noble description:

Bennie Salazar, an aging punk rocker and record executive, and the beautiful Sasha, the troubled young woman he employs, never discover each other's pasts, but the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other people whose paths intersect with theirs in the course of nearly fifty years. A Visit from the Goon Squad is about time, about survival, about our private terrors, and what happens when we fail to rebound.

What did you find this week?

Friday Finds -- 2/18

This meme is hosted by Should Be Reading.

Happy Friday! My find this week is The Secret of Everything by Barbara O'Neal. Here is the Barnes and Noble description:

At thirty-seven, Tessa Harlow is still working her way down her list of goals to “fall in love and have a family.” A self-described rolling stone, Tessa leads hiking tours for adventurous vacationers–it’s a job that’s taken her around the world but never a step closer to home. Then a freak injury during a trip already marred by tragedy forces her to begin her greatest adventure of all. Located high in the New Mexico mountains, Las Ladronas has become a magnet for the very wealthy and very hip, but once upon a time it was the setting of a childhood trauma Tessa can only half remember. Now, as she rediscovers both her old hometown and her past, Tessa is drawn to search-and-rescue worker Vince Grasso. The handsome widower isn’t her type. No more inclined to settle down than Tessa, Vince is the father of three, including an eight-year-old girl as lost as Tessa herself. But Tessa and Vince are both drawn to the town’s most beloved eatery–100 Breakfasts–and to each other. For Tessa, the restaurant is not only the key to the mystery that has haunted her life but a chance to find the home and the family she’s never known.

I read The Lost Recipe of Happiness by Barbara O'Neal and really enjoyed it (click to read my review). Can't wait to read this one! What did you find this week?

Friday Finds -- 2/11

This meme is hosted by Should Be Reading.

Happy Friday! My find this week is After You by Julie Buxbaum. Here is the Barnes and Noble description:

The complexities of a friendship. The unexplored doubts of a marriage. And the redemptive power of literature...Julie Buxbaum, the acclaimed author of The Opposite of Love, delivers a haunting, gloriously written novel about love, family, and the secrets we hide from each other-and ourselves. It happened on a tree-lined street in Notting Hill to a woman who seemed to have the perfect life. Ellie Lerner's best friend, Lucy, was murdered in front of her young daughter. And, as best friends do, Ellie dropped everything-her marriage, her job, her life in the Boston suburbs-to travel to London and pick up the pieces of Lucy's life. While Lucy's husband, Greg, copes with his grief by retreating into himself, eight-year-old Sophie has simply stopped speaking.

The book club I belong to read Julie Baxbaum's first novel The Opposite of Love (click to read my review), so I am looking forward to reading this. What did you find?

Friday Finds -- 2/4

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Happy Friday! My Friday Find for this week is The Silent Land by Graham Joyce. Here is the Barnes and Noble description:

In the French Pyrenees, a young married couple is buried under a flash avalanche while skiing. Miraculously, Jake and Zoe dig their way out from under the snow—only to discover the world they knew has been overtaken by an eerie and absolute silence. Their hotel is devoid of another living soul. Cell phones and land lines are cut off. An evacuation as sudden and thorough as this leaves Jake and Zoe to face a terrifying situation alone. They are trapped by the storm, completely isolated, with another catastrophic avalanche threatening to bury them alive . . . again. And as the couple begin to witness unset­tling events neither one can ignore, they are forced to con­front a frightening truth about the silent land they now inhabit.

Sounds creepy good! What did you find?

Friday Finds -- 1/28

This meme is hosted by Should Be Reading.

Happy Friday! My Friday Find for this week is Girl, Stolen by April Henry. Here is the Barnes and Noble description:

Sixteen year-old Cheyenne Wilder is sleeping in the back of a car while her mom fills her prescription at the pharmacy. Before Cheyenne realizes what's happening, their car is being stolen—with her inside! Griffin hadn’t meant to kidnap Cheyenne, all he needed to do was steal a car for the others. But once Griffin's dad finds out that Cheyenne’s father is the president of a powerful corporation, everything changes—now there’s a reason to keep her. What Griffin doesn’t know is that Cheyenne is not only sick with pneumonia, she is blind. How will Cheyenne survive this nightmare, and if she does, at what price?

Doesn't this sound intense? What was your Friday Find?

Friday Finds -- 1/21

This meme is hosted by Should Be Reading.

Happy Friday!! My Friday Find this week is Deep Down True by Juliette Fay. My book club read Fay's Shelter Me and absolutely loved it, so I am really looking forward to reading this book. Here is the Barnes and Noble description:

Newly divorced Dana Stellgarten has always been unfailingly nice- even to telemarketers-but now her temper is wearing thin. Money is tight, her kids are reeling from their dad's departure, and her Goth teenage niece has just landed on her doorstep. As she enters the slipstream of post-divorce romance and is befriended by the town queen bee, Dana finds that the tension between being true to yourself and being liked doesn't end in middle school... and that sometimes it takes a real friend to help you embrace adulthood in all its flawed complexity.

What is your Friday Find?

Friday Find -- 1/14

This meme is hosted by Should Be Reading.

Happy Friday! My Friday Find for this week is Mathilda Savitch by Victor Lodato. Here is the Barnes and Noble description:

Fear doesn’t come naturally to Mathilda Savitch. She prefers to look right at the things nobody else can bring themselves to mention: for example, the fact that her beloved older sister is dead, pushed in front of a train by a man still on the loose. Her grief-stricken parents have basically been sleepwalking ever since, and it is Mathilda’s sworn mission to shock them back to life. Her strategy? Being bad. Mathilda decides she’s going to figure out what lies behind the catastrophe. She starts sleuthing through her sister’s most secret possessions—e-mails, clothes, notebooks, whatever her determination and craftiness can ferret out. More troubling, she begins to apply some of her older sister’s magical charisma and powers of seduction to the unraveling situations around her. In a storyline that thrums with hints of ancient myth, Mathilda has to risk a great deal—in fact, has to leave behind everything she loves—in order to discover the truth.

What is your Friday Find?

Friday Finds -- 1/7

This meme is hosted by Should Be Reading.

Happy Friday! My Friday Find this week is Our Lady of Immaculate Deception by Nancy Martin. I love Nancy Martin's series The Blackbird Sisters Mysteries and am looking forward to reading this new series! Here is the Barnes and Noble description:

Roxy Abruzzo, bestseller Nancy Martin’s latest creation, is a loud-mouthed, sexy, independent-minded niece of a Pittsburgh Mafia boss trying to go (mostly) straight. She’d like to stay completely out of her uncle Carmine’s shady business dealings, though he's trying to reel her in. She'd like to concentrate on the architectural salvage business she runs mostly on the up and up for a tidy profit. She'd like to keep her rebellious teenage daughter on the straight and narrow. But Roxy knows where all the good intentions in the world usually lead, and when she can’t help herself from tucking away an ancient Greek statue that's not really hers, she pays for it by getting caught up in the chaos surrounding the sordid murder of the statue’s former owner, heir to a billion-dollar Pittsburgh steel fortune.

Sound like a ton of fun! What is your Friday Find?

Friday Finds -- 12/31

Happy Friday! My Friday Find is Riding with the Queen by Jennie Shortridge. Here is the Barnes and Noble description:

Full of big dreams of the fast life, Tallie Beck hit the road at the age of seventeen to become a rock 'n roll star-and vowed never to look back. Now, at thirty-four, she's little more than a down-and-out singer who smokes and drinks too much and knows better than to make promises she can't keep. Dumped by her latest band and low on cash, Tallie has no choice but to go back to Denver. Back to her crazy mother, and her resentful younger sister, Jane, who's never forgiven her for leaving. But seeing her family again after all these years stirs something unexpected in Tallie. And after so many miles on that long, exhilarating, scary-and often lonely-road, she's looking back to trace some wrong turns, and figure out the way to where she really wants to go...

What is your Friday Find?

Friday Finds -- 10/1

Happy Friday! My Friday Find for this week is Star Island by Carl Hiaasen. Here is the Barnes and Noble description:

Twenty-two-year-old pop star Cherry Pye is attempting a comeback from her latest drug and alcohol disaster. Ann DeLusia is Cherry's "undercover stunt double," portraying Cherry whenever the singer is too wasted to go out in public. But, one night, Ann-as-Cherry is mistakenly kidnapped from a South Beach hotel by an obsessed paparazzo named Bang Abbott. Now the challenge for Cherry's handlers (über--stage mother; horndog record producer; nipped-and-tucked twin publicists; weed-whacker-wielding bodyguard) is to rescue Ann while keeping her existence secret from the public--and from Cherry herself.

This sounds like a really funny read. What did you find this week?