Can’t Wait Wednesday – YOU LUCKY DOG by Julia London
/32 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 YOU LUCKY DOG by Julia London. My mood reader settings are still firmly in “I need books that will make me smile” mode and I fell in love with the idea of this book as soon as I saw that adorable cover. Then I read the synopsis and I’m already rooting for Carly and Max, as well as for Baxter and Hazel, lol.
YOU LUCKY DOG by Julia London
Publication Date: August 25, 2020
From Goodreads:
An accidental dog swap unleashes an unexpected love match in this new romantic comedy from New York Times bestselling author Julia London.
Carly Kennedy’s life is in a spiral. She is drowning in work, her divorced parents are going through their midlife crises, and somehow Carly’s sister convinces her to foster Baxter–a basset hound rescue with a bad case of the blues. When Carly comes home late from work one day to discover that the dog walker has accidentally switched out Baxter for another perkier, friendlier basset hound, she has reached the end of her leash.
When Max Sheffington finds a depressed male basset hound in place of his cheerful Hazel, he is bewildered. But when cute, fiery Carly arrives on his doorstep, he is intrigued. He was expecting the dog walker, not a pretty woman with firm ideas about dog discipline. And Carly was not expecting a handsome, bespectacled man to be feeding her dog mac and cheese. Baxter is besotted with Hazel, and Carly realizes she may have found the key to her puppy’s happiness. For his sake, she starts to spend more time with Hazel and Max, until she begins to understand the appeal of falling for your polar opposite.
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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: 10 Must-Haves For My Bookish Party
/48 Comments/by SuzanneTop 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 Things I’d Have at My Bookish Party (Choose 10 things: items, accessories, foods, people (real or fictional), decorations, activities, etc. You can also choose a party if you’d like: book launch, book club, book-themed wedding reception/birthday party/bridal or baby shower/Anniversary, book event, etc.).
Wow, this was such a hard topic for me. 1) I’m a major introvert and rarely even attend parties, much less host them, and 2) I tend to like cheesy, dorky things so even if I were to throw a party and people actually showed up, I think they’d probably take a look around and run for the nearest exit.
If I were to throw a bookish party though, it would be a one-time only thing. My introverted little heart couldn’t take the stress of it becoming a regular thing, lol. And because it would be a one-time only event, it would have to include a hodge podge of all of my bookish favorites, the dorkier the better.
10 Must-Haves For My Bookish Party
1. BOOKISH DECOR
I would go all Martha Stewart, bookish style, when it came to decorating. Here are just a couple of decorating ideas I saw while motoring around on Pinterest. Even though the first one is in a child’s room, I love the idea of hanging books overhead as decorations. It’s budget-friendly too since I already own tons of books, lol. I also love the whimsical signs on the right. They reference so many of my favorite books.
2. BOOK-THEMED BEVERAGES
Even though my decorations could possibly be considered childish, I promise this would be a party for adults and that there would be plenty of alcohol. In keeping with my love of all things dorky, I’d definitely give them book-themed names like these.
3. THEMED APPETIZERS BASED ON A POPULAR BOOK SERIES
I would make use of the many book-themed cookbooks out there to put together an assortment of appetizers based on books that hopefully everyone would recognize. This Happy Potter book is more geared towards kids, but there were also some more “grown up” selections in there.
4. MAIN FOOD DISHES INSPIRED BY POPULAR BOOKS
I’m all about feeding people so I would definitely have a full meal as well, also based on some favorite and/or popular books. Comfort foods seemed to call to me as I was considering a menu. Perhaps my anxiety kicking up at the thought of having a party, haha!
5. BOOKISH GAMES
It might be the lockdown/quarantine talking, but I think bookish board games would be a must-have as well.
6. BOOK-THEMED DESSERTS
And because I clearly haven’t stuffed my party guests enough, we would need bookish themed desserts as well. Maybe a giant book-themed cake of my favorite books or some bookish themed cookies that are almost too cute to eat.
7. A BOOK ARCH FOR BOOKISH PHOTO OPS
I keep thinking of The Last Bookstore in L.A. and the circle of books that people pose for pics in.
I think something like that or an arch would be fun for party pics.
8. BOOK-THEMED PLAYLISTS
I would probably cheat on this one and use movie soundtracks
but I think it would be fun to have playlists based on favorite books playing in the background.
9. A BOOK SWAP
If people have made it this far into my party, I think the least that should happen is they should walk away with some new books. Book swap!
10. BOOKISH PARTY FAVORS
How fun are these?!
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Question: What would you consider a must-have if you were throwing a bookish party?
Review: MASTER CLASS by Christina Dalcher
/18 Comments/by SuzanneAlso by this author: Vox
Published by BERKLEY on April 21, 2020
Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Dystopian
Pages: 336
Source: Netgalley
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository
Goodreads
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
Christina Dalcher’s latest novel, Master Class, is a terrifying exploration of what can happen when those in power choose to implement radical policy changes, but at such a slow and gradual pace, that the citizens don’t realize what a radical and dangerous path they’re being led down until it’s too late.
What makes Dalcher’s novel particularly frightening is that although it’s technically set in a dystopian world, the world is not that far removed from where we as a society actually are. The whole time I was reading, I kept thinking. “Huh. I could see the current administration here trying to pull this kind of sneaky stunt.” It’s that realness, that plausibility of something that should be totally implausible, that makes Master Class such a gripping read. I found myself hardcore cheering on the protagonist, not just because I love to cheer on those scrappy underdog characters, but also because I just needed that reassurance, with such a realistic plot, that someone would in fact stand up to fight back against dangerous and radical policies.
I have to admit that it did take me a while to warm up to the protagonist, Elena Fairchild, though. Her actions and choices early on in the story, combined with some flashbacks of her young adult year, paint a pretty ugly picture and I had some real issues relating to her. The radical policy changes that are the subject matter of Master Class revolve around education, specifically segregating lower performing students and sending them off to out-of-state boarding schools/institutions. Elena is a teacher at one of the elite schools where top-performing students attend, and she is also the wife of one of those in power who is specifically pushing forward this agenda. Elena’s eldest child is excelling in the elite level school system and so Elena is very complacent about the way things are, even as she watches other children shamed if they drop in performances and end up packed up and sent away to these other schools.
It is when Elena’s youngest child, who struggles in school, fails a test and gets shipped off to a school hundreds of miles away from home that Elena finally opens her eyes and we see a different side of her. She starts to notice some of her own students getting shipped off and she can’t understand why. They were performing so well that even a failed test or two shouldn’t have dropped their scores low enough to take them to the lowest tier. Elena starts to suspect something more sinister is afoot and makes it her mission to get to the bottom of it and to save her daughter, even if it means taking down her own husband in the process. That was the moment when I really started to cheer on Elena, this redemption arc of sorts. She’s smart, resourceful, and she is a Momma Bear to her core. Do not mess with her babies. Or anyone else’s babies for that matter.
I don’t want to go into anymore details for fear of spoilers, so I’m just going to say that it’s a wild and, at times, frightening, ride as Elena digs deeper to find out what has been going on right under her own nose. Dalcher does a wonderful job of gradually ratcheting up the tension and suspense until everything just boils over.
Master Class is a compelling read that really took me on an emotional roller coaster. I felt such rage at those who were coming up with these horrid educational policies, frustration at the parents who just sat by and accepted the way things were, sympathy for those who didn’t, and finally, heartbroken for the children themselves who were being hurt by them. When I read the author’s note and learned that Dalcher based her novel on real-life events that actually happened here in America, I got angry all over again. If you’re looking for an eye opening read about what can happen when people let their guard down and blindly accept that those in power have their best interests at heart, Master Class is the book you’re looking for.
About Christina Dalcher
Christina Dalcher earned her doctorate in theoretical linguistics from Georgetown University. She specializes in the phonetics of sound change in Italian and British dialects and has taught at universities in the United States, England, and the United Arab Emirates.
Her short stories and flash fiction appear in over one hundred journals worldwide. Recognitions include the Bath Flash Award’s Short List; nominations for The Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions; and multiple other awards. She teaches flash fiction as a member of the faculty at The Muse Writers Center in Norfolk, Virginia. Laura Bradford of Bradford Literary Agency represents Dalcher’s novels.
After spending several years abroad, most recently in Sri Lanka, Dalcher and her husband now split their time between the American South and Naples, Italy.
Her debut novel, VOX, will be published in August 2018 by Berkley (an imprint of Penguin Random House).