Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Authors I’d Love to Invite Over for Thanksgiving Dinner
/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 a Thanksgiving freebie so I decided to go with 10 Authors I’d Love to Invite Over for Thanksgiving Dinner. I just think this would be such an entertaining group to hang out with and eat, drink, and be merry. Not only would it be fun to chat with each of them while we chow down on our Thanksgiving feast, but it would also be a hoot to watch them interact with each other. Unless my usual holiday meal, I don’t think any topics of conversation would be off limits. This is also a good mix of my favorites, as well as some of my mom and sister’s favorites so I think it would be a fabulous evening for us all.
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10 Authors I’d Love to Invite Over for Thanksgiving Dinner
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What authors would you love to invite over for Thanksgiving dinner?
Review: THE CHRISTMAS SISTERS by Sarah Morgan
/22 Comments/by SuzanneAlso by this author: One Summer in Paris
Published by Hqn on September 25, 2018
Genres: Fiction, Holiday
Pages: 407
Source: Netgalley
Amazon
Goodreads
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
MY REVIEW:
Sarah Morgan’s The Christmas Sisters follows the story of Suzanne McBride and her three adopted daughters Hannah, Beth, and Posy. Suzanne and Posy live in the Scottish Highlands, while Hannah and Beth have made their homes in New York City. This year Suzanne is ecstatic because all three of her girls are coming home for Christmas and she has made it her mission in life to put together the perfect cozy Christmas for them all. But all doesn’t go according to plan, however, because each of her daughters seem to be going through some personal drama that is weighing them down and creating tension.
When Suzanne falls ill and her plans for the perfect family Christmas start to fall apart, can her daughters set aside their own personal drama, embrace the holiday spirit, and come together to spread some Christmas cheer of their own?
The Christmas Sisters was just such an easy book to fall in love with and that’s mainly because of the complex, well drawn characters that Morgan has created with the McBride daughters.
Hannah, the eldest, is the workaholic of the group and she’s hesitant to come home because she has a life-altering secret that she has been hiding from her family.
Beth, the middle daughter, is also dealing with issues of her own. She’s a stay-at-home mom who no longer wants to stay at home and is trying to figure out how to make that happen.
Posy, the youngest daughter, is pretty content living near her parents. She is, however, starting to get the itch to spread her wings and travel. She’s conflicted though because her parents really do depend on her for so much. She doesn’t want to take off and abandon them.
I really loved these characters. Each daughter’s personality is so well-developed and realistically drawn that I felt like they could be my own family members. I also found the personal issues they were each dealing with to be so relatable that it was just easy to connect with each of them and become invested in their journeys. They’ve also each been burdened for years by the family tragedy that took their birth parents’ lives, a tragedy that they all refuse to talk about, even though it still clearly weighs on them. I was just really rooting for them to come together, share their secrets and problems with one another because that’s what sisters are for, and just really push through all the tension and awkwardness and just bond.
In addition to these marvelous characters, I also adored the setting of the book. Morgan captures the beauty and the remote atmosphere of the Scottish Highlands perfectly. I could practically feel the chill in the air every time she described the setting and it made me want to grab a cup of cocoa and sit in front of a warm fire. Those descriptions and the feelings they conveyed made The Christmas Sisters a perfect holiday read.
The only real issue I had with the book was that I found myself frustrated with Beth, not because of her choice to go back to work, but rather because of who she chose to go to work for, a toxic boss from her past. I won’t give away anymore details than that, but I’ll just say she had me shaking my head so much. Even though Beth’s story frustrated and annoyed me at times, I give major props to Morgan for creating such a realistic scenario here. I could totally see a stay-at-home mom trying to go back to work ending up in a similar situation.
With her new novel The Christmas Sisters, Sarah Morgan has crafted a heartwarming family tale that is sure to put you in the holiday spirit. This was my first time reading a novel from Sarah Morgan, but it definitely won’t be my last!
GOODREADS SYNOPSIS:
In the snowy Highlands of Scotland, Suzanne McBride is dreaming of the perfect cozy Christmas. Her three adopted daughters are coming home for the holidays and she can’t wait to see them. But tensions are running high…
Workaholic Hannah knows she can’t avoid spending the holidays with her family two years in a row. But it’s not the weight of their expectations that’s panicking her—it’s the life-changing secret she’s hiding. Stay-at-home mom Beth is having a personal crisis. All she wants for Christmas is time to decide if she’s ready to return to work—seeing everyone was supposed to help her stress levels, not increase them! Posy isn’t sure she’s living her best life, but with her parents depending on her, making a change seems risky. But not as risky as falling for gorgeous new neighbor Luke…
As Suzanne’s dreams of the perfect McBride Christmas unravel, she must rely on the magic of the season to bring her daughters together. But will this new togetherness teach the sisters that their close-knit bond is strong enough to withstand anything—including a family Christmas?
About Sarah Morgan
USA Today and Sunday Times bestselling author Sarah Morgan writes romance and contemporary women’s fiction and her trademark humour and sensuality have gained her fans across the globe. She is a 3 time winner of the prestigious RITA® Award from the Romance Writers of America and has been nominated five times. Sarah lives near London, England, and when she isn’t reading or writing she loves being outdoors.
Weekly Recap #78: Week of 11/11 -11/17
/34 Comments/by Suzanne
It’s time for another weekly recap post of all things happening on and off the blog. This week I’ll be linking to the Sunday Post, which is hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer and to Stacking the Shelves, which is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.
I don’t know if anyone noticed or not but I pulled a little disappearing act midweek. The reason for my disappearance was that I was busy with a million other things, the most important of which being that I completely forgot that we had scheduled our end of season soccer party for this weekend and had done absolutely nothing to plan for it. We usually have our party in early October when the season is supposed to end, but our schedule was so out of whack because of the weather that everything got pushed way back. Thankfully I was able to recover from my memory lapse and pull together something decent for the kids, but something had to go to make time for it and that something was the blog, lol.
Even though I failed a bit with the blogging last week, I still managed to keep up with my reading pretty well. I actually got in a few extra hours of reading this week by reading while waiting for my son to complete his soccer lessons. With that extra time, I was able to make it through 3 out of the 4 HoHoHoRAT reads I had selected for the readathon and I started on the fourth one last night. I don’t know if I’ll finish it before the end of the readathon, but I’m glad I was able to make it through as many as I did considering how many other commitments I ended up having this past week.
Reading all of those Christmas books also has me thinking about Christmas weeks earlier than I normally do. I’m ready to start decorating, which has never happened this early before. Normally December 1 is when I start, but I’m ready to put up the tree this week. The only catch to that is that my husband and I have finally decided to make the switch from a fresh cut tree to an artificial one so now we have to go out and find one that we both like and that is the right size for our living room. We really need a 7′, which seems to be the most popular size AND seems to be sold out everywhere. I didn’t realize I needed to shop for a tree months in advance to actually get one, lol. We’re going out again later today so hopefully we’ll get lucky. May the Christmas force be with us!
I think that’s it for me. I hope everyone has a great week!
WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK
- [11 Nov] Weekly Recap #77: Week of 11/4 -11/10
- [12 Nov] Sadie by Courtney Summers ★★★★★
- [13 Nov] Top Ten Tuesday: 10 BOOKISH ITEMS I’D LOVE TO OWN
- [14 Nov] Can’t Wait Wednesday – ONCE & FUTURE by Amy Rose Capetta and Cori McCarthy
WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK
UPCOMING REVIEWS
STACKING THE SHELVES
TOTALLY RANDOM