Can’t Wait Wednesday – TWICE SHY by Sarah Hogle
/30 Comments/by Suzanne
“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted at Breaking the Spine, which encourages fellow bloggers to spotlight upcoming releases that we’re excited about. It is a meme that I have loved participating in for over a year now, but as Jill is no longer actively posting, from now on I’ll be linking to Can’t Wait Wednesday, hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings, which is a spinoff of the original WoW meme.
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My selection for this week is TWICE SHY by Sarah Hogle. I have to admit that I was first drawn to this book by the intriguing cover with the guy sitting in a tree flying paper airplanes. I was sold on it as soon as I read the synopsis and can’t wait to meet this cute but crotchety groundskeeper, lol.
TWICE SHY by Sarah Hogle
Publication Date: April 6, 2021 by Penguin Group Putnam, G.P. Putnam’s Sons
From Netgalley:
From the author of You Deserve Each Other comes a charming and unconventional romantic comedy about a woman who inherits a sprawling estate with a groundskeeper whose stoic exterior masks a surprising vulnerability.
Maybell Parrish has always been a dreamer and hopeless romantic. But living with her head in the clouds has long been preferable to dealing with reality, whether it’s navigating the wild world of dating apps or getting her coworkers to show her a little respect. So when Maybell inherits a stately old Tennessee manor from her Great Aunt Violet, she seizes the opportunity to make a fresh start.
But when she arrives at her new home, it seems her troubles have only just begun. Not only is the manor practically falling apart around her, but she isn’t the only inheritor: she has to share everything with Wesley Koehler, the groundskeeper who’s just as grouchy as he is gorgeous–and it turns out he has a very different vision for the property’s future.
Convincing the taciturn Wesley to stop avoiding her and compromise is a task more formidable than any of the many other dying wishes Great Aunt Violet left behind. But when Maybell uncovers something unexpectedly sweet beneath Wesley’s scowls and silences, she realizes they might have more in common than she ever dreamed. And as the two slowly begin to let their guards down, they just might learn that sometimes the smallest steps outside one’s comfort zone can lead to the greatest rewards.
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I’d love to hear what upcoming book releases you’re waiting on this Wednesday? Leave me your link in the comments below and I’ll stop by and check out your CWW selection for this week. 🙂
Top Ten Tuesday – Most Anticipated Releases for the First Half of 2021
/43 Comments/by Suzanne
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Top Ten Tuesday has been one of my favorite memes ever since I started blogging, so huge thanks to Jana for taking over the hosting duties!
This week’s TTT topic is Most Anticipated Releases for the First Half of 2021. There are lots of new releases I’m excited about coming out the first half of the year, so the only challenge here was to narrow my list down to just ten. It seems like almost all of my favorite authors have books coming out this spring. As you’ll see from my list, contemporaries and particularly rom-coms are still factoring very high on my priority list, although historical fiction and a little fantasy squeaked in there with Chanel Cleeton, Kristin Hannah and Nicole Glover.
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Most Anticipated Releases for the First Half of 2021
1. THE CONDUCTORS by Nicole Glover
2. CONCRETE ROSE by Angie Thomas
3. THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL IN CUBA by Chanel Cleeton
4. THE FOUR WINDS by Kristin Hannah
5. THE EX TALK by Rachel Lynn Solomon
6. ACT YOUR AGE, EVE BROWN by Talia Hibbert
7. THE INTIMACY EXPERIMENT by Rosie Danan
8. PEOPLE WE MEET ON VACATION by Emily Henry
9. MALIBU RISING by Taylor Jenkins Reid
10. THE SOULMATE EQUATION by Christina Lauren
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What new releases are you excited about for the first half of the year?
Reviews: GLIMPSED and JOINT CUSTODY
/16 Comments/by Suzanne
Happy New Year, everyone! Hard to believe it’s 2021 already but here we are. I had a lovely break, quiet and relaxing, and was able to get a lot of reading done. Today I’m sharing my thoughts on two rom-coms that are coming out this month, Glimpsed and Joint Custody.
Glimpsed GoodreadsAuthor: G. F. Miller
Publication Date: January 5, 2021
Publisher: Simon and Schuster for Young Readers
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
If you follow my blog, you know that I love a good fairytale retelling. When I read that G.F. Miller’s new novel Glimpsed is a modern-day Cinderella retelling from the perspective of the Fairy Godmother, I knew I had to read it. Charity is a high school student with an unusual and magical gift – she can glimpse a person’s deepest desires and can make their dreams come true. Making people’s wishes come true fills Charity with a sense of joy and purpose, that is, until one of her wish fulfillments ends in disaster. This causes Charity to question everything she has ever done – Is she really helping people or is she setting them up for failure and unhappiness in the long-term? Her feelings of self-doubt aren’t helped at all when she is confronted by Noah, a boy in her class, who says he knows what Charity does and threatens to expose her to her classmates because she ruined his life by making the girl he liked fall in love with someone else.
I really enjoyed this modern spin on the Cinderella story and especially that it focused on the Fairy Godmother who is so firmly in the background of the original tale. I also loved the exploration of whether or not granting a person’s wishes actually leads to a happily ever after. It adds so much more depth to this beloved character who never once questions that granting a wish could have ramifications that she hasn’t considered. I also really liked that even though it’s technically a retelling, Glimpsed still has a unique and fresh feel to it. It’s not just a rehashing of the story we already know.
Charity and Noah are also a huge draw for me. Their relationship starts out in such an antagonistic yet entertaining way. Even though Noah is blackmailing Charity, it soon becomes clear that he’s really just a softie and a sci-fi geek to boot. In short, he’s adorable and even though she kind of wants to strangle him, Charity soon finds herself thinking of him as a friend and then wonders if they could be more than friends. Is a Fairy Godmother allowed to have a happy ending of her own? If you want to know the answer to that question, you’ll definitely want to check out Glimpsed! 4 STARS
Joint Custody Goodreads
Author: Lauren Baratz-Logsted and Jackie Logsted
Publication Date: January 5, 2021
Publisher: Berkley Books
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
If you’re a dog lover, you’re going to want to check out Joint Custody, the new novel from Lauren Baratz-Logsted and Jackie Logsted. It follows Gatz, a mischievous border collie who is none too pleased when his owners break up. Gatz knows they’re perfect for each other, and of course, the perfect owners for him so he decides to take matters into his own paws and get them back together.
And when I say it follows Gatz, the story really follows Gatz. We see everything from his perspective and we are fully in his head as he plots and schemes to get his owners back together. It’s a really fun read too as we get Gatz’s inner thoughts as he orchestrates ways to bring his owners in proximity to one another, to remind them that they belong together. It gets downright hilarious at times too as Gatz seeks to sabotage any dates his owners go on with other people. He’s just not having it, haha.
Because we are getting the story from the perspective of a dog, we don’t get a lot of in depth information about the humans in the book. The owners are The Man and The Woman, and when one of them goes on a date, the date is New Man, New Woman, etc. That took a little getting used to at first, but once I settled in, I thoroughly enjoyed the overall story.
If you love dogs and/or enjoy books like A Dog’s Purpose, Joint Custody is a book that will warm your heart and put a smile on your face. 3.5 STARS