An Island Romance and Two Mystery Novels: Sunday Salon

 Now Reading

Romancing on Jeju by Hyun-Joo Park, translated from Korean by Paige Morris, publication August 20, 2024; Amazon Crossing, NetGalley

Genre: romance

Romi, a young illustrator from Seoul, meets an enchanting beekeeper from the island of Jeju in South Korea, but he disappears from her life after a chance meeting at the airport. She is determined to find him, and goes searching for him among the 100 beekeepers on the beautiful and lush island of Jeju.

I was attracted to the book by the setting on Jeju island that featured on several contemporary Korean dramas on tv. The romance novel might be just so-so but learning more about the island was a plus for me. Bee keeping? Who would have guessed. (Jeju also is the setting for Lisa See's historical novel, The Island of Sea Women.)

A Farewell to Arfs: Chet and Bernie Mystery #15 by Spencer Quinn, publication August 6, 2023, Forge Books, NetGalley

I was chuffed (pleased to bits) to be approved for Spencer Quinn's most recent dog mystery, A Farewell to Arfs. For those who are not familiar with the series, Chet the dog is the artful narrator in the mystery series set in Arizona; he is an amusing and clever partner in crime solving with his human, PI Bernie Little. And he gives us a dog's eye view/point of view of what's going on.

In this book, Bernie's next door neighbor, Mr. Parsons, is scammed of his life savings by his son Billie. Billie has disappeared and Mr. Parsons is in the hospital. Enter Bernie and Chet to find Billie and find out just what the score is. 

I've read all 15 books in the series and find them very entertaining. This is the 15th book in the series, and Spencer Quinn is already working on the next one! 

 

You Know What You Did by K.T. Nguyen, April 2024; Dutton, NG

Genre: thriller, OCD disorder

I'm eager to start reading this one, just to see what OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) is all about! I throw that term around, but what do I really know? 

Description: In this thriller, a first-generation Vietnamese American artist must confront nightmares past and present…
 
Annie “Anh Le” Shaw grew up poor but seems to have it all now: a dream career, a stunning home, and a devoted husband and daughter. When Annie’s mother, a Vietnam War refugee, dies suddenly one night, Annie’s carefully curated life begins to unravel. Her obsessive-compulsive disorder, which she thought she’d vanquished years ago, comes roaring back—but this time, the disturbing fixations swirling in Annie’s brain might actually be coming true.

A prominent art patron disappears, and the investigation zeroes in on Annie. She distances herself from family and friends, only to wake up naked in a hotel room next to a lifeless body. The police have more questions, but Annie doesn’t have answers. All she knows is she will do anything to protect her daughter—even if it means losing herself. (publisher)

To learn more about OCD symptoms, treatments, and resources, visit the website of the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF dot org). —K.T. Nguyen K. T. Nguyen is a former magazine editor now settled just outside Washington, D.C. 

What are you reading/watching this week? 

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday

Romance and Rivalry in Graduate School : The Make-Up Test by Jenny L. Howe

Romance and Rivalry

The Make-Up Test by Jenny L. Howe

Published September 13, 2022; St. Martin's Griffin

Genre: romance, contemporary fiction
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As a lit major myself, I enjoyed reading about the graduate students of medieval literature discussing and competing for awards and recognition in their work. The romance between Colin and Allison was also interesting as they were rivals in academics as well as former lovers. This provided the tension in the novel, in addition to Allison's estranged father always reviling her for being overweight.

I only wished the descriptions of Allison's physical attraction to Colin, her former college boyfriend, were not so detailed and frequent. They became repetitive after a while. About one-eighth of the book could have been cut if edited in this way.

An unusual plot and characters in an academic setting, however, that made this a four star rom com.

Book Beginning:

Chapter I

If one more person used the word hegemonic, Allison Avery was going to scream. 

After almost two full week of classes at Claremore University, she should be more adjusted to the quirks of graduate-level literature courses, but it still felt like ...a lot.

Visit Book Beginnings at Rose City Reader.

Well, That Was Unexpected by Jesse Q. Sutanto, Book Review

      

Well, That Was Unexpected

by 

Jesse Q. Sutanto 

September 27, 2022, Delacorte Press

Genre: YA romance, rom com, multicultural

My goodreads/NetGalley review:

The author describes the book as a "love letter to Indonesia," the country of her birth and current residence. This is a YA romance novel, with an Indonesian-American teen meeting family in Indonesia for the first time, and falling for a handsome young Chinese-Indonesian from a wealthy family.

I like that the two teens discover feelings and attitudes in common which are too modern for their traditional Chinese=Indo families. I also learned a lot about Indonesian culture, cities, geography, and food from following young Sharlot as she discovers her mother's homeland and is shown around by her new friend, George Clooney Tanuwijaya.

This indeed a love letter to Indonesia, and I came away with a new appreciation for its food, its cities, and a new understanding of its traditions. The budding romance between Sharlot and George is a plus to this YA novel, with its ups and downs along the way to their full understanding of each other.

Book Review: The Lost Ticket by Freya Sampson

The Lost Ticket by Freya Sampson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Genre: contemporary fiction, romance, women's fiction 

Publication: August 30, 2022, Berkley 

When Libby, newly arrived in London, decides to help elderly Frank find the girl he met and lost on the number 88 bus years ago, in 1962, she didn't realize her search would help not only Frank, but herself as well. Libby is estranged from her parents who disapprove of her wanting to be an artist, and she is on her own, but meets Frank and other people who enter her life for the better.

The relationship that develops between young Libby and the aged Frank is heartwarming, as is her determination to paste posters all over the city in order to find the girl Frank lost so many years ago when Frank misplaced her phone number written on that lost bus ticket.

The ending is not as we expected, but refreshing nevertheless, to finally have resolved the question of who the lost girl was and where life takes her. There is new meaning in life for Frank and new friends for Libby, as well as a new romance.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing this ARC.  


View all my reviews

Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan: Book Beginning

 

Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan, June 2, 2020, Ecco

Genre: contemporary fiction, romance 

Setting: Hong Kong

An intimate, bracingly intelligent debut novel about a millennial Irish expat who becomes entangled in a love triangle with a male banker and a female lawyer (publisher)

Book beginning:

My banker friend Julian first took me for lunch in July, the month I arrived in Hong Kong. I'd forgotten which exit of the station we were meeting at, but he called saying he saw me outside Kee Wah Bakery and to wait there. It was humid. Briefcase-bearers clopped out of turnstiles like breeding jennets. The Tannoy blared out first Cantonese, then Mandarin, and finally a British woman saying please mind the gap. 

Page 56:

You were ironical with him, also with yourself. It was wild. 

Would you read on?

The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice.
Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

Top Ten Tuesday: Valentine's Day

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. 

Each Tuesday she assigns a topic and then posts a top ten list that fits that topic. Freebie days: you may choose your own topic.

February 9: Valentine’s Day/Love 

Title: A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger by Lucy Robinson

Lucky Suit by Lauren Blakely

Falling by Jane Green

Wedding Girl by Stacey Ballis

Timeless Desire by Gwyn Cready

A Groovy Kind of Love

A Groovy Kind of Love (The Bibliophiles #3) by Karen Wojcik Berner

 Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella

Title: The Great Escape by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

The Tapestry of Love by Rosy Thornton

The Dark Rose:A Novel by Erin Kelly

These are my Top Ten books for Valentine's Day! What are yours? 

Library Finds: March 2019

My new library books

Our new library has bright indoor lights and windows from floor to ceiling. It's wide, long, and spacious, and there are comfortable sofas and chairs with a living room setting in this corner and that. When I go there to just browse, or so I think, I often come away with not one or two, but three and four books I never intended to borrow. 

But a favorite author's new book grabbed my attention, then another, then a book that I saw on social media being touted by the publisher, then a book suggested by a friend I met in the stacks. Here are three of the books I got.  

The Golden Tresses of the Dead is the latest in the Flavia de Luce mystery series

The Sun is Also a Star is a teen romance that will be released as a movie this May. I am enjoying its dissection of love into the scientific and romantic.

I have also borrowed:

The Plotters by Un-Su Kim is described as a crime novel set in an alternate Seoul, Korea. I am not normally a fantasy or sci-fi fan, but we'll see....

Did you find anything you liked at the library recently?

Book Review: In Dog We Trust by Beth Kendrick

Review of romance novel featuring show dogs!

In Dog We Trust

In Dog We Trust by Beth Kendrick
Publication: January 8, 2019, Berkley
Genre; fiction
Setting: Black Dog Bay, Delaware
About: "When Jocelyn Hillier is named legal guardian for the late Mr. Allardyce's pack of pedigreed Labrador retrievers, her world is flipped upside down."

How does a dog walker come to live in a mansion and be co-trustee of three show dogs who have inherited their owner's fortune? Jocelyn finds herself in this enviable position, but there are challenges to her good fortune by the dogs' trainer and by the owner's son. 

What will come of this and how will or can solutions and compromises be made? And is romance also in Jocelyn's future?

A romance of the doggy kind that is easy to read and enjoyable. It's also not a totally predictable plot, which I appreciated.

Four stars.  

Thanks to Berkley which provided a copy for review.  

My Oxford Year by Julia Whelan

Each week, Vicki at I’d Rather Be At The Beach hosts First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros where readers share the beginning paragraph(s) of a book they are reading or plan to read.  



My Oxford Year by Julia Whelan, April 24, 2018, William Morrow
Genre: contemporary fiction, romance

First chapter, first paragraph:

"Next!"
The customs agent beckons the person in front of me and I approach the big red line, absently toeing the curling tape, resting my hand on the gleaming pipe railing. No adjustable ropes at Heathrow, apparently; these lines must always be long if they require permanent demarcation.
My phone, which I've been tapping against my leg, rings. I glance at the screen. I don't know the number. 
"Hello?" I answer.
"Is this Eleanor Durran?"
"Yes?"
"This is Gavin Brookdale."
My first thought is that this is a prank call. Gavin Brookdale just stepped down as White House chief of staff....

My thoughts:
I enjoyed the first part of the novel about a new graduate student at Oxford, the atmosphere and culture of the school new to her and different from an American university's. Ella makes a group of new friends, fellow students, and begins to fit into the system. However, here comes attraction, love, and romantic entanglement. 

The second part of the novel, a romance in crisis, reminded me a bit of Me Before You by JoJo Moyes and Love Story by Erich Segal, with similar ethical dilemmas involving serious illness and questions of commitment. The ending of this story may be unique in its own way, however. 

I liked the banter between Ella and her friends about poetry and was disappointed when the book left Oxford behind and concentrated on a love story that was not half as unique. Overall, a very good read, however, that covers several themes. 

Do you like the writing in the first chaper? Would you continue reading?

Book Beginning: The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang, June 5, 2018, Berkley:
"Stella Lane has Asperger's and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice--with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan."

Book beginning:

"I know you hate surprises, Stella. In the interest of communicating our expectations and providing you a reasonable timeline, you should know we're ready for grandchildren."
Stella Lane'e eyes jumped from her breakfast up to her mother's gracefully aging face. A subtle application of makeup drew attention to battle-ready, coffee-colored eyes. That boded ill for Stella... 

Page 56:

"Actually, I think it's a good thing. Now that she thinks I have a boyfriend, she should stop trying to arrange blind dates for me."

Memes: The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader

Book Review: The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman

The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman, May 2, 2017, Berkley

Lil, widowed for three years with two young children, is a school text illustrator in Southern California. Her boss signs her up for a vegetable growing class at the Los Angeles Botanical Garden, to prep for the next project - illustrating a series of vegetable guides the company is planning.

Lil attends the six-week class, held on Saturdays and led by gardening professor Ed Bloem. She not only benefits from gardening and meeting new people, but sees the benefits to her sister and Lil's two young children who also participate in the class. 

Lil's sister-in-law Maggie arrives broken hearted by a cheating hubby and somehow the setting and the new arrangement in Lil's life help everyone around her. In the end, Lil finds a new occupation and new love, and a new acceptance of her widowhood.

I liked the story, as I love gardening, and found the vegetable growing tips in the book interesting and useful. Though parts of the plot are predictable, the reading is easy and pleasant, not only for readers who garden but anyone who like a good romance.

My rating: 4 stars

The Blue Bath by Mary Waters-Sayers: Book Beginning

Moving between the London art world and the days of a love affair in a dusty Paris studio, life and art bleed together for now married Kat Lind and her former artist lover, David. 

The Blue Bath by Mary Waters-Sayer, May 3, 2016, St. Martin's Press

Book beginning:
Prologue

Entering the front hall, Kat saw it coming, but could not stop it. The swift and silent arc of the sledgehammer came to its own abrupt end as it smashed through the smooth plaster wall. She squeezed her eyes shut, momentarily stunned by the force and the sound of the impact ....

Chapter I: 
Sometime after the arrival of the second builder and the ensuing chorus of intermittent hammering, Kat left the house and made her way through Holland Park, glad for the relative peace of its wooded paths. The tops of the trees strained to catch the low, rose-colored sun....

Page 56:
Jorie spoke French to anyone who was not immediately identifiable as English.

Comments: Half-way through this library book and really liking it so far. 

Memes: The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

Book Beginning: The Fortress by Danielle Trussoni

The Fortress: A Love Story by Danielle Trussoni, published September 20, 2016 by Dey Street Books. A memoir of love and transformation in France.

Book beginning:

Before the club in Paris, and before the Frenchman, I was a woman in a fortress.
Or, more precisely, I lived with my husband and two children in La Commanderie, a medieval fortification at the center of the French village of Aubais, pronounced :obey," as in "love, honor and ...Aubais." Built by the Knights Templar in the thirteenth century, the fortress stood high on a hilltop and could withstand attack from every angle. 

Page 56: 

Love for Nicolai had brought me so far from home, so far from my family and friends and culture, that I didn't recognize myself anymore. I had always believed love to be transformative, but this wasn't what I'd expected at all.

THE FORTRESS is  a memoir about the disintegration of the author's marriage in the South of France.

Memes: The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

Love Her Madly by M. Elizabeth Lee: Waiting on Wednesday

A new thriller for summer reading:

Love Her Madly by M. Elizabeth Lee, to be published August 16, 2016 by Atria Books
A debut novel about an intense best friendship between two college girls which leads to the abrupt disappearance—and presumed death—of one and the survival of the other, who reveals the twists and turns of their relationship seven years later. (publisher)

Setting: New York City, Costa Rica, secluded island
Characters: Glo, Cyn, Raj in a romance triangle 

What book release are you waiting on?
Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine. It spotlights upcoming releases that we are eagerly anticipating.

Mailbox Monday: Romance and Fantasy

A new romance novel and a children's fantasy novel are among my new reads this week.

Combining a captivating romance with a cast of all too human characters, “It Ends with Us” will be published August 2, 2016. It is an unforgettable tale of love that comes at the ultimate price. (publisher)

When the Sea Turned to Silver is a children's fantasy written and illustrated by Newbery Honor author Grace Lin. It will be published October 16, 2016. A breathtaking, full-color illustrated fantasy inspired by Chinese folklore, a companion to the Newbery Honor winner Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (publisher)

What is new in your mailbox this week?
Visit Mailbox Monday to see what new books other bloggers have received the past week. 

First Chapter: Iris and Ruby by Rosie Thomas

The winner of the Romantic Novel of the Year Award (2007), Iris and Ruby, is about a grandmother-granddaughter relationship, with flashbacks to the grandmother's early history in Egypt. The novel was reprinted April 2016. I started it several weeks ago but then got sidetracked by new arrivals! It's one I'm looking forward to reading in its entirety.

Iris and Ruby: A Novel by Rosie Thomas, published April 5, 2016 by The Overlook Press
Setting: Cairo
Genre: romance, part historical fiction

First chapter, first paragraph:

I remember.
And even as I say the words aloud in the silent room and hear the whisper dying away in the shadows of the house, I realize that it's not true. 
Because I don't, I can't remember. 
I am old and am beginning to forget things.
Sometimes I'm aware that great tracts of memory have gone, slipping and melting away out of my reach. When I try to recall a particular day, or an entire year, even a damned decade, if I'm lucky there are the bare facts unadorned with color. More often than otherwise there's nothing at all. A blank. 

Book description: 
Iris Black's Cairo house is disturbed by the unexpected arrival of willful granddaughter Ruby from England. Ruby helps Iris document deteriorating memories of glittering, cosmopolitan Cairo and her WWII one true love, enigmatic Captain Xan Molyneux, who was lost to war. Iris’ early devastation shaped her daughter, granddaughter, and leads them into terrible danger in the Egyptian desert.

Teaser from Chapter 5:

"Ruby, do you remember we talked about you helping me to collect some of my old memories?"

Memes: Every Tuesday Bibliophile By the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros where readers share the first paragraph sometimes two, of a book that they are reading or plan to read soon. 

Do the book description and first paragraph of the first chapter above appeal to you? Would you read on?

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB at Books and a Beat, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Book Review: Wedding Girl by Stacey Ballis

About WEDDING GIRL by Stacey Ballis, published May 3, 2016 by Berkley
Genre: romance, contemporary fiction

Top pastry chef Sophie Bernstein and her sommelier fiancé were set to have Chicago’s culinary wedding of the year…until the groom eloped with someone else, leaving Sophie splashed across the tabloids—fifty grand in debt on her dream wedding. The icing on the cake was when she lost her job and her home…
 
Sophie moves in with her grandmother, Bubbles. Sophie gets a part-time job at the old-fashioned neighborhood bakery and finds herself reluctantly giving a wedding cake customer advice on everything from gift bags to guest accommodations. Before she knows it, she’s an online wedding planner. It pays the bills, but Sophie wonders if she’s really moving forward—or starting over from scratch. (publisher)

My comments: 

I enjoyed reading this light romance with the entertaining twists in plot - a successful and well-known chef is left at the altar by her fiance, and she disappears from society by hiding out with her grandmother Bubbles, making ends meet by working at a local bakery. Sophie soon uses her baking skills to improve the bakery's failing business  and meets a woman whom she gives advice to re wedding planning. Sophie soon becomes a wedding advisor online, incognito, and develops a whopping online business, with no one knowing her real identity. Romance comes into the picture later on, and a chance for Sophie to redeem her baking career. 

Add to the plot the amusing personalities of Sophie's grandmother and her bakery boss, and an online confidante whom she might just be interested in romantically.

Romance and foodie readers, this might be a book for you!

Thanks to the publisher for a review copy of Wedding Girl.

Book Tour: The Rain Sparrow by Linda Goodnight

The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice.
Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

The Rain Sparrow by Linda Goodnight
Series: A Honey Ridge Novel, published February 23, 2016
Genre: romance, contemporary novel

Book beginning:

Brody hated Fridays. He knew what would happen if he went home. So he didn't. He hung out at the library until it closed, and then, wishing he had money for a hamburger, he wandered down to his spot on Magnolia Creek. It was a pretty good hike, a couple of miles out of town past the Griffinsisters' peach orchard and through a hundred yards of tangled weeds, but at eleven, he was up for it. He could have run that far and not been out of breath. 

Page 56: 

She'd had coffee, in her pajamas no less, with Hayden Winters. Laughing at herself a little, she focused on work. The man had probably put her out of his mind the moment she'd driven away.

Book description: In Honey Ridge, Tennessee, thriller writer Hayden Winters lives a life colored by lies. He can trust no one with his secrets. But the charming old Peach Orchard Inn and a woman whose presence is as gentle as a sparrow’s song stops him in his tracks.

Carrie Riley is afraid of everything, but meeting the enigmatic writer at the inn emboldens her. When they discover a vulnerable boy hiding at the inn, Hayden is compelled to help Carrie protect him. A centuries-old mystery and secrets of the past and present cause their lives to become entwined, and all that’s left to come to light is love—if the grim truth doesn’t tear them apart first. (publisher)

My comments:
The plight of young Brody, who was abandoned by his mother and now living with an abusive and alcoholic father, can't be ignored by two people staying at Peach Orchard Inn. Hayden and Carrie take the boy who appears at the door of the inn one stormy night, they feed him and dry him off, and put him to bed in one of the rooms. They uncover the secrets of Brody's past over time and as expected, Hayden and Carrie also fall in love.

This is a romance in a charming inn, with a mystery thrown in, and the heart-tugging case of a lonely boy, needing help, who is too afraid to go home most nights. It is also the story of the writer Hayden whose dreams of past events come to haunt and puzzle him.

Romance lovers, this is the book for you!

About Author Linda Goodnight

New York Times and USA Today Bestseller, Linda Goodnight is the winner of the RITA and other highly acclaimed awards for her emotional fiction. Active in orphan ministry, this former nurse and teacher enjoys writing fiction that carries a message of hope and light in a sometimes dark world. A country girl, she lives in Oklahoma.

Connect with Linda

Website | Facebook | Twitter

Thanks to TLC BOOK TOURS and the publisher for a review copy of the novel. For other reviews of the book, visit the Tour Schedule