Bloody Mary by Ricki ThomasMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
Mary Miller was a woman scorned. Fifteen-year-old Mary was in love with her University professor, Harry --a married man. Mary and Harry had a clandestine affair which ended with the pregnancy of Mary Miller. All Mary wanted was to wreck Harry's marriage to Beryl and become Harry's wife. But Mary bore Harry's illegitimate twins, Ana and Andrew only to see both her children taken into adoption. Mary swore that if it took all her life, she would spend it finding her children and destroying the lives of those who tore her dreams to shred. Many years later, Mary swore to destroy the man who ripped her life and the woman who was her rival. Buying a psychic book from a charity shop, Mary posed as a physic, opening her home to desperate women who wanted to know about their loved ones who had passed on. To Mary's delight, Beryl walked into Mary's basement wanting to consult the spiritualist about the fate of her daughter, Sophie. This is where the story really begins and Mary finds out about Sophie. Mary now begins her plans for revenge.
Little did she know it, but her daughter Ana was adopted by Harry and Beryl who renamed the baby Sophie. Sophie married a man who abused her physically as well as mentally. When Mary learned she was her daughter, she put a plan in motion to bring her back into her life. As the story unfolds, Mary uncovers that her son is a police officer who happens to be the officer in charge of Sophie's husband's insurance fraud. It was Alan who first discovered that Sophie was a battered woman. Alan fell in love with Sophie unbeknownst that she was his twin sister. There are a lot of twists and turns in the story, making the story interesting in places. The book touches the theme of vengeance and violence and what it can do to people.
I thought that this was the worst book I had ever read. I did enjoy the story line and the twists up to the first half of the book; but the book was written so badly with lots of grammatical errors. Almost every page was full of grammatical errors. It seemed as if the author took the first draft of the book and published it. The Spanish in the book was taken literally from Google Translations; it did not sound right nor translated right. I am fluent in Spanish and know how to read and write it. Even in the passages where broken Spanish was spoken between English and Spanish characters, the Spanish used didn't translate right. I also didn't like the ending. I felt it was rushed. Also, I didn't think it was believable that Juan Murrilla, the Spanish doctor who attended the battered Sophie in Spain would fall so in love with Sophie so quickly that he decided to marry her in the space of a few days, move to England in the space of a month and leave his doctorate and family behind so swiftly.
A Collection of Cats Tales: A Cat-Lover's Anthology by DitzMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
A Collection of Cats Tales is an anthology of cat stories, extracts from varied authors such as William Blake, Emily Dickenson and Lewis Carol; and poems and quotations about cats. This is a beautiful book for any library and a must-have for cat lovers everywhere. The book is beautifully illustrated and hard-bound. I received this book a gift and I truly love it. This is a wonderful addition to my home library!
Recipes For A Perfect Marriage by Morag PruntyMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I truly enjoyed this book! I couldn't put it down as I wanted to find out what happened to the main character's grandmother's romance and the secret behind her arranged marriage.
Young food writer Tressa Nolan wakes up one morning after her honeymoon and realizes that she may have married the gorgeous Dan, a maintenance man in her building out of panic than love. Then Tressa unwraps one of her wedding gifts, her grandmother Bernadine's cook book and diaries. In her grandmother's diaries and cook book, Tressa finds not only her grandmother's recipes but advice on marriage and a secret that her grandmother has been carrying around for years.
Tressa has always idolized her grandmother's cooking and marriage to her grandfather; but Tressa soon discovers that her grandmother wasn't at all happy in her marriage as she led on... until she discovered the truth about why James, the man that she had everyone believe was the ONE she loved except herself, truly married her. The story traverses from 2004 in Manhattan to 1932 in Ireland where young Bernadine first met the man she really loved.
I truly enjoyed this book. I first read it when I first got married and was delighted by this unique and well-written book. Throughout the book there are recipes you can make from Irish Stew to Bernadine's honey cake. In the end there's space to write your own recipes.
Welcome To Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop Of Dreams by Jenny ColganMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Auxiliary Nurse Rosemary Hopkins is asked to give up her London apartment which she shares with her partner, Gerard, to care for her aging great-aunt, Lillian. Lillian Hopkins lives in a quaint little town called Lipton where everyone knows each other's business. At first Rosie was adamant about moving into a strange town to take care of an old lady with a bad hip and try to sell the Sweetshop that her great aunt --a family run old-fashioned sweetshop that Lillian and her father owned in the Town of Lipton. Then Rosie began to meet Lillian's neighbours and little by little she fell in love with the town and it's locals with all their childhood secrets, scandals and family feuds. Soon Rosemary discovered that her London life wasn't all that glamorous; her partner Gerard a Mamma's boy, and there was more to life outside of London than she thought. In Lipton Rosie discovered the true lesson of love; she discovers the real reason her great- aunt never married and in the end finds true love herself and her life's true calling. The book gives you a glimpse into Lillian Hopkins's past when she was a girl in the 1940's, the love she found and lost; and her life as the daughter of the Town's sweetshop owner.
The book is very well-written, descriptive, and each chapter begins with a recipe or rhetoric about classic sweets. I enjoyed the book but I have to admit that I enjoyed the author's previous book better, Meet me at the Cupcake Cafe. I found parts of the book a bit like Meet me at the Cupcake Cafe--a bit familiar and predictable, but over-all a nice story. I expected more recipes for confectionary sweets as the author included in her previous book; but instead there were only two to three recipes in this book; the other chapters began with rhetoric on conventional confections. The characters come to life and it is hard not to identify with them. I cannot wait to read Colgan's new book, Christmas at the Cupcake Cafe.
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