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#BlogTour: For Butter Or Worse by Erin La Rosa

For this blog tour we’re looking at a romantic comedy that deals with more serious topics than most of its genre do. For this blog tour we’re looking at For Butter Or Worse by Erin La Rosa.

Here’s what I had to say on Goodreads:

Deeper Than Usual Rom-Com. This is one of those rom-coms that starts out light and fluffy and fun – even in an “I’m gonna kill you for that!” way – and then hits on several more substantive issues along the way. And yet, it never feels overly weighed down by any of them, though as with the comedy itself it is very likely that your mileage will vary there. For me, I loved the “behind the scenes” look at the “real-life” stresses of being a TV food show host/ judge… while also running your own restaurant empire off camera. And the constant twitter / google/ other social media feeds were an interesting spin as well, particularly used how they were. Great for foodies or really anyone just looking for a good time – though on *that* note… maybe not so much for the “clean” / “sweet” romance crowd. Very much recommended.

After the jump, an excerpt from the book followed by the “publisher details” – book description, author bio, and social media and buy links.
Continue reading “#BlogTour: For Butter Or Worse by Erin La Rosa”

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#BlogTour: Home To Brambleberry Creek by Elizabeth Bromke

For this blog tour we’re looking at a book that is a more serious approach than its author’s normal tales and is also a series starter – though this isn’t always obvious in the tale. For this blog tour, we’re looking at Home To Brambleberry Creek by Elizabeth Bromke.

Here’s what I had to say on Goodreads:

Serious (And Not Always Obvious) Series Starter. In this first book with a new publisher, Bromke does something she’d rarely done in my experience reading her books over the past year or so – approached 300 pages. Most of her other books I’d read hit between 150 and 200 or so pages, and here the extra length works to allow fair amount of extra drama and detail that Bromke normally manages to tell a strong tale while excluding. Yet she adds it in such a way that it is never obvious, and that is evidence of solid storytelling abilities. While the witty comedy that she normally brings is noticeably absent here, there are still some fun times to be had – but the overall tone of this particular tale is truly much more serious than previous efforts I’ve read from her. Still, in the end it does in fact become clear that there are at least two more tales to tell in this world, and this reader for one is looking forward to coming back to this world and seeing where Bromke takes us. Very much recommended.

After the jump, the “publisher details” – book description, author bio, and social media and buy links.
Continue reading “#BlogTour: Home To Brambleberry Creek by Elizabeth Bromke”

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#BlogTour: The Lost And Found Girl by Maisey Yates

For this blog tour, we’re looking at a remarkable tale ostensibly about how four adult sister get along with each other that becomes so much more. For this blog tour, we’re looking at The Lost And Found Girl by Maisey Yates.

Here’s what I had to say about it on Goodreads:

Slow Start That All Comes Together For A Dramatic Finish. This is a story of how four sisters – three biological + one adopted – interact as adults when the adopted sister comes back to the town that saw her as their “miracle” from the moment she was found 22 yrs ago. It features romance angles for each of the sisters, though some of the guys are more well fleshed out than others – but each has at least a moment or two to shine. In particular there is the town pariah, accused of a murder a year before the adopted sister was found but for which he has maintained his innocence all along. Can an angel and a devil coexist? What if they may be more linked than anyone – except the two people in town harboring a deep, dark secret that *no one* is aware of – may realize? And what if the town *needs* that secret to be unearthed, whether they realize it or not? Truly an utterly fascinating book, one that no matter how slow you feel the start is you absolutely need to hang in there through the finish. Very much recommended.

After the jump, an excerpt followed by the “publisher details” – book description, author bio, and social media and buy links.
Continue reading “#BlogTour: The Lost And Found Girl by Maisey Yates”

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Featured New Release Of The Week: This Place Of Wonder by Barbara O’Neal

For the fifth straight year, Barbara O’Neal‘s annual release is the Featured New Release on this blog. This tradition began in 2018 with The Art Of Inheriting Secrets, which was the very *first* FNR post, and continues this week with This Place Of Wonder.

Here’s what I had to say on Goodreads:

O’Neal Delivers Yet Another Solid Family Drama. O’Neal’s solid 2018 book The Art of Inheriting Secrets was the very first Featured New Release on my blog, and I have kept up that tradition every year since – and 2022 is no exception there. Her 2019 book When We Believed In Mermaids continues to be one of my most “liked” reviews on Goodreads to this day, and continues to garner attention seemingly every few days.

All that to note that I have a rich if recent history with O’Neal’s work, and this is yet another truly solid and sensual tale of family secrets and drama. In this particular work, we get four women struggling with the sudden death of one man that all were connected to – his ex-wife and mom of his step-daughter and step-mother to his daughter, his most recent girlfriend, and both of the daughters in question, though we only “hear” from the two elder ladies + his biological daughter.

While this tale “hits” a few solid blows emotionally, it doesn’t really land the haymakers that Mermaids did – this is more in line with most of her other books, including Secrets, on that level. This noted, it is ultimately a very satisfying tale that has several great moments not always seen in novels, including the daughter’s actions in the prologue and the elder ladies’ blend of pragmatism and romanticism. Several issues from alcoholism to rape to child abuse are touched on, so be prepared for that if one needs to be. Overall truly an excellent tale, and yet another wonderful read from O’Neal. Very much recommended.

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#BookReview: Nation Of Victims by Vivek Ramaswamy

Stacey Abrams == Donald Trump. And The Way Back Is To Ignore Both. Ok, so the title here was a bit intentionally inflammatory – but Ramaswamy *does* essentially make this very point late in the book, pointing to how both Abrams and Trump see themselves as victims of election fraud rather than candidates who lost elections because more voters legitimately sided with their opponents. But to get there, and to get from there to how we can truly come back, Ramaswamy dives through American history, legal theory, and even his Hindu religion to show how both progressives and conservatives have largely adopted a victimhood mentality. Interestingly, he never once cites Ayn Rand’s examinations of this same idea in Atlas Shrugged. Overall an interesting book worthy of consideration, and with a fairly normal bibliography at about 21% of the overall text here. Very much recommended.

This review of Nation of Victims by Vivek Ramaswamy was originally written on July 17, 2022.

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#BookReview: Escape From Model Land by Erica Thompson

Astrology == Mathematics. For Sufficiently Large Values Of 2 While Imagining Spherical Cows. Thompson does a truly excellent job here of showing how and where mathematical models of real-world systems can be useful, and where they can lead us astray – perhaps a bit *too* good, as at times she has to jump through a few mental hoops to excuse the inadequacies of preferred models such as those related to climate change and the spread of COVID. On climate models in particular, she actually raises one of the several points Steven Koonin did in 2021’s Unsettled – namely, just how wide each cell of the model is by necessity and how much variation there is within these cells in reality yet models must – again by necessity – use simply an average value throughout the cell. But she discusses a wide variety of models in addition to climate, and again, she truly does an excellent job of showing their benefits and how they can harm us. One star is lost due to the extremely short “future reading” section in place of a more standard bibliography (20% or so is fairly standard in similar nonfiction titles). The other star is lost because this book does have a robust discussion of the numerous COVID models and *I DO NOT WANT TO READ ABOUT COVID*. I am waging a one-man war on any book that references this for any reason at all, and the single star deduction is truly the only tool I have in that war. Still, again, this book really is quite good – as a narrative alone, indeed better than the three star ranking would seem to indicate. Very much recommended.

This review of Escape From Model Land by Erica Thompson was originally written on July 15, 2022.

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#BlogTour: The Edge of Summer by Viola Shipman

For this blog tour we’re looking at a phenomenal book that really draws the reader into its scenery. For this blog tour we’re looking at The Edge of Summer by Viola Shipman.

Here’s what I had to say on Goodreads:

Solid Look At Family And Secrets. This is a book that instantly transports the reader into its setting, particularly once it gets to the small town Michigan shores of Lake Michigan. But here, things are not always exactly as they seem, and there is a dark family secret lying just beneath the surface. Shipman – a pseudonym using the actual person’s own grandmother’s name – does a phenomenal job here of showing how small town secrets can fester through generations, and that even when not actually knowing one’s own history… history has a way of coming back around. Truly an excellent work, and the only reason for the star deduction is that this book deals pretty heavily with COVID – the reason our main character even travels to the small town is directly due to the insanities of COVID and that idiotic and chaotic period of living in the 21st Century. And, well, I have a personal war going on against any book that mentions COVID because *I DO NOT WANT TO READ ABOUT COVID*. Period. My only weapon in that one man war is a star deduction in my review of the book, and so I deploy it automatically no matter how strong the book may otherwise be. Still, truly a great book that Shipman’s long time fans will enjoy and a great example of “her” (his) style of writing for anyone who may not be familiar with it. Very much recommended.

After the jump, an excerpt from the book followed by the “publisher details” – book description, author bio, and social media and buy links.
Continue reading “#BlogTour: The Edge of Summer by Viola Shipman”

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#BookReview: Things We Do In The Dark by Jennifer Hillier

I Refuse To Be My [Parent]. Yes, a version of the title line of this review is said in the book. And that was the moment the book hit particularly hard for me. Because I’ve lived it. Not directly, but as the child of a person that did. To be clear, it was not the same kind of abuse that my parent endured, but it *was* abuse and it *did* shape that parent in ways that have played out over the course of my own life. So at that moment, this book became very, very real for me and I could see that character’s actions as clear as day and understand them on levels I don’t often get to even in fiction.

The rest of the book, with a present day murder and blackmailing, a secret identity, a true crime podcast looking at a murder years ago and how it all ties together… was all excellently done. Other reviews complain about the backstory, but for me that was the actual story – because it shows everything that caused the person to utter the line I titled the review with. Overall a strong tale that survivors of domestic abuse may struggle with, but which ultimately should prove cathartic indeed even for them. Very much recommended.

This review of Things We Do In The Dark by Jennifer Hillier was originally written on July 10, 2022.

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#BookReview: The Poet’s House by Jean Thompson

Imagine The Outsiders. Now Set It In A Poetry Commune. That’s largely how I wound up seeing this book. Our main character is a great fish out of water that gets sucked into this world she really has no clue about and finds herself navigating new friendships and controversies along the way, all while trying to understand the enigmatic leader of the group and uncover what this leader is hiding. There is quite a bit of meta commentary here, both generally and in the final reveal of exactly what had been happening for all these years, but even that didn’t really ascend to “preachy” levels, more just spice to the overall story. Yes, there was quite a bit of humor in this book too, but for me the humor made it more readable without taking away from the overall serious tone I was getting for some reason. But perhaps I’m just weird. (I know I am, but maybe my reactions to this book were particularly weird?) Very much recommended.

This review of The Poet’s House by Jean Thompson was originally written on July 10, 2022.

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#BookReview: Free Market by Jacob Soll

Deep And Fascinating Exposition Of The History Of An Idea. Soll is a Professor of History and Accounting, and I’m just a college grad who had ECON 101 as an 18 yo HS Senior / college freshman who then went on to discuss the Austrian/ Chicago schools of economics (Friedman, Hayak, von Mises (who actually does *not* get mentioned in this book, unlike the first two), etc) with various libertarian (of both “l” and “L” levels) fellow activists and Party officials, back in the former life where I did those things.

So I’m not going to debate the specifics of Soll’s commentaries here, though I do think that there is room for those more dedicated to true pure free markets to do so – I’m just blatantly nowhere near qualified to do it. 🙂

What I *can* say about this book is that it truly is a deep and fascinating exposition of the history of economic thought regarding what a market is and how it does/ should operate. With von Mises being the only notable exception (discounting also economists who are still alive), Soll takes us on a journey from pre-history through Cicero and the beginning of the Roman Empire (and fall of the Roman Republic) to St Augustine to Machiavelli and the Italians into the rise of the Dutch and then England and France (where we eventually get… who else… Adam Smith… 😉 ) and the other Enlightenment philosophers and from there to America and eventually through the post WWII era and into Keynes, Friedman, and Hayak. Entire libraries have been filled over the centuries talking about the lives and theories of many of these men, and Soll does a good job of showing their thoughts and how at times they were shaped by the world around these men while never delving so deep as to become a treatise specifically on any one person or their contributions to the field. He also manages to avoid most academic and professional economist terms and instead writes in a manner that is more easily accessible to most any reader with so much as a middle school/ high school level of historical knowledge.

Ultimately this is a book that seems destined to become required reading for many ECON 102/ 103 ish classes, and really should be read by anyone seeking to have a general understanding of one of the most discussed foundational issues in modern economics. Very much recommended.

This review of Free Market by Jacob Soll was originally written on July 9, 2022.