Reviewed by Alysia George

If you’ve ever watched one of those reality shows about hoarding or about interventions, you probably have quite a bit of insight into both of these situations. And you’ve probably thanked your lucky stars that you haven’t had to deal with either of them. But even though reality television is undoubtedly sensationalized, there  is some truth behind it which forms its basis, at least in these cases. Jill Smolinski takes us on a fictional journey involving both hoarding and addiction and intervention in her novel, Objects of My Affection.

The main character, Lucy, is on a bad luck streak. First she loses her job, then her boyfriend leaves her, and finally she is compelled to arrange an intervention for her teenage, drug addicted son. To pay for his rehab, she has to sell her house and most of her belongings. Feeling completely desperate to start a new life, Lucy takes a job helping a hoarder clean out her house.

The job is more challenging than she imagined, and so is helping her son overcome his addiction. But nonetheless, Lucy is determined. Unlikely friendships form, and Lucy comes to understand that she has a lot of self-growth to do along the way as well.

I love that Objects of My Affection touches on current issues in a fresh and interesting way. Smolinski writes real, likeable characters, just as she did in her last book, The Next Thing on My List. This is a quick and fun read that I would definitely recommend.

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Alysia lives in Metro Detroit with her husband and four children. She writes about family life, parenting issues, and other things of interest to her on her blog, Michigal.

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Touchstone. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

Reviewed by Grace Soledad

Anna has been seeing them all her life: colorful outlines reflecting a person’s emotions surrounding their bodies. Nobody knows about her special gift and she doesn’t plan to relinquish that secret anytime soon. Everything changes when she meets Kaidan Rowe.

Kaidan Rowe is the complete opposite of anybody that Anna ever thought that she would be attracted to, but Anna can’t help herself. His alluring nature and dark personality draw her in, but when she turns sixteen, she finds out the real reason behind her attraction, as well as the reasons behind her father’s absence and her special gift.

Demons and angels control the balance of the world. Anna is the daughter of a guardian angel and a fallen one, splitting her nature and forcing her to choose which side to embrace at any given time. Turning sixteen is hard enough, and having an impossible choice thrust in front of her makes it even worse. So when she falls for Kaidan – the son of the demon of Lust – will she end up in the darkness too?

Hiding her past and trying to unearth her nature turn out to be more difficult than she ever could have expected, especially when she and Kaidan embark on a road trip to find out exactly what secrets lay hidden within her.

Sweet Evil is my favorite book of the year. No other book that I have read has even come close to toppling it from its throne. The character development was one of the most intriguing parts of this book, especially when Wendy Higgins threw in the struggle between good and evil and different shades of grey within the two. Anna was an engaging character and one that I instantly fell in love.

Everything about Sweet Evil – characters, writing, plot – was spot on and it has been one of the most put-together and balanced books that I’ve ever read. It’s hard to even find the words to describe the affection and addiction that I have for this book. The battling forces of dark and light and the sizzling chemistry between seemingly wicked Kaidan and tenderhearted Anna kept my eyes glued to the page.

Rating: ★★★★★ 

Grace Soledad is a teenage bibliophile who runs the blog Words Like Silver. She is described as “antisocial” because she constantly has her nose buried in a book or a notebook. When not reading, she can be found dancing, writing, or at the beach.

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by HarperTeen. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

Reviewed by Alyssa Katanic

I was given the treat of reviewing two gorgeous fairytales retold and illustrated by Ruth Sanderson.

The first is The Twelve Dancing Princesses, which is the story of a king who promises the choice of one of his daughters to the prince who can discover why it is that the princesses’ new shoes are worn through every morning. In the end, it is a commoner who not only discovers the secret, but also wins the affection of one of the princesses and inspires them all to confess to their father themselves. Now that I have spoiled the ending for you you don’t want to miss the journey there! Sanderson’s princesses are absolutely lovely, and the enchanted woods are beyond fantastic with their oil paint illustrations.

Goldilocks is just as beautiful and artfully done. I do have to admit that this particular fairytale has never been a favorite of mine. I do not like the selfish, thoughtless girl who breaks into the Bear Family’s house and leaves it a mess. Sanderson, however, gives the story a little twist that shows Goldilocks helping to clean up the messes she has made and replacing the breakfast she has eaten up by sharing the berries that she picked along the way. Sanderson’s Goldilocks ends with a recipe for Papa Bear’s Blueberry Muffins, and an ending that is (finally) truly “happily ever after.”

Don’t miss the amazing artwork in these fairytale retellings. These are definitely books to treasure.

Rating: ★★★★★ 

Alyssa is a wife and stay at home, homeschooling mother of five, with two boxers, two cats, a soft shelled turtle named after Bob the Builder, and 7 frogs (admittedly a homeschooling project gone froggy). In all her spare time, she loves to read and believes that there is no such thing as having too many books!

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Ruth Sanderson. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

Please welcome Anita Hughes, author of the new novel, Monarch Beach!

Have I Always Been a Writer? by Anita Hughes

I grew up in a family of writers. My father was a journalist at the United Nations in Paris after World War II. My mother was a copy writer at a large advertising agency before her marriage. She went on to write a nonfiction book and regular newspaper columns after my brother and I went off to college.

The written word was close to God in our house, and so was the book. I read everything from an early age – some things like GO ASK ALICE and THE SUMMER of ‘42 under the covers when I was supposed to be asleep. I still remember discovering Herman Wouk’s THE CITY BOY and Jacqueline Susann’s VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. Literature was a way of entering countless worlds, studying emotions, feeling grief, joy and pain.

I banged out a couple of novels in high school and brashly sent them off to a New York editor. I received a handwritten note with suggestions for revisions but by that time my immediate world claimed my attention. The word was still holy – I was a columnist on the school newspaper and assistant editor of the literary magazine, but I was also a cheerleader and interested in normal teenage things like clothes and boys.

If I had only known what a coveted piece of paper I had! A New York editor had taken the time to give me notes on my novel. But youth is ignorance as well as bliss and I put the novel and note aside and immersed myself in high school.

During college I again became firmly attached to reading and writing. I studied British literature, took creative writing classes, collected rejection slips from Elle, The New Yorker and Vogue. I attended UC Berkeley’s Masters in English Program and made stabs at writing a new novel.

Then, like my parents before me, real life got in the way. My father gave up journalism in favor of starting a textile mill to support his family. My mother focused her attention on her children and her mother who came to live with us.

I too put writing aside when I got married. I became a mother and did the sales for my husband’s wedding film company. My days were busy and my nights mostly sleepless – spent changing and nursing a succession of babies.

Then one day, my children were old enough to take care of themselves. My husband hired a new sales person and I had hours in the day to fill. The first paragraph of a novel popped into my head while I was in the shower, and I couldn’t wait to get it down.

I wrote the whole novel without telling anyone, after all, my main job was being a wife and mother. So it was the greatest thrill when an agent responded to my query with the words: “You made me laugh, please send the full manuscript.” I had to read her reply twice, and then I eagerly attached and sent.

Since then I have been writing nonstop. I have a three book deal with St. Martin’s Press – two more books will be released next year. I can’t imagine life without my characters and love opening my laptop and immersing myself in their world.

Have I always been a writer? Yes, but this is the first time I will be a published author. Living can get in the way of your dreams, but if they burn within you bright enough eventually they will come to light.

I have 3 copies of The Cottage at Glass Beach by Heather Barbieri to give away!

About the book

Is it possible to navigate life’s uncharted waters and find your own happiness? Acclaimed novelist Heather Barbieri, author of The Lace Makers of Glenmara and Snow in July, explores this question and more in her terrifically smart and engaging new work of women’s fiction The Cottage at Glass Beach.

40-year-old Nora Cunningham has it all: a handsome husband, Malcolm, the youngest attorney general in Massachusetts’ state history, and daughters, Annie, 7, and Ella, 11. That is, until she learns of Malcolm’s affair—and his refusal to give up his lover, turning their lives upside down.

At the height of the scandal, Nora receives an invitation to visit her maternal aunt, Maire. To escape the growing political storm and gain perspective on her marriage and complicated past, Nora packs up her daughters and heads to Burke’s Island, a remote island off the coast of Maine, originally settled by Irish immigrants. Nora hadn’t been there since age five, the summer her mother disappeared and she and her father moved to Boston, never speaking of the matter again.

One night, while sitting alone on Glass Beach, below the cottage where she spent her childhood, Nora lets down at last. Her tears flow into the sea, where, according to local legend, they might call a selkie, to console her. Not long afterward, Owen Kavanagh, a fisherman with a mysterious past, is shipwrecked on the rocks.

As the weeks pass, Nora finds more questions than answers on Burke’s Island, regarding her relationships, her mother’s fate, and her own identity. And, as she deals with her headstrong daughters and their needs, and her own wants and desires, Nora finds the courage to chart her own course, and that the secrets surrounding that long ago summer finally come to light.

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Please join Saima Wahab, author of In My Father’s Country, as she tours the blogosphere with TLC Book Tours.

Don’t forget to enter to win a copy below!

Reviewed by Vera Pereskokova 

Saima Wahab was just a child when her father was taken away in broad daylight – likely sold out to the Soviets by his neighbors – never to return again. Although Saima and her two siblings had an amazing father figure in their Baba (grandfather), they grew up among flying bullets and mortar shells, in constant danger.

When Saima was fifteen, two uncles from Portland, Oregon sponsored her, her brother and sister, and three other cousins to come to the United States. Saima’s father, and later her grandfather, always told her that she was destined for something greater than the typical life of an Afghani woman, and she saw the move to the U.S. as a step towards that destiny.

In 2004, with a bachelor’s degree under her belt, Saima decided to return to Afghanistan as an interpreter, and to try and fulfill the destiny her father had in mind for her. He knew the risks but openly spoke out against the Soviet invasion and Saima thought that if she could help her people in some way, she could also understand his devotion to the country.

At the time of her arrival, Saima was the only college-educated female Pashto interpreter. She was also one of the very few females, American or Afghani, allowed into meetings with high ranking officials on both sides. Many interpreters claimed to know Pashto, but really spoke Farsi, only contributing to the misunderstandings between the U.S. soldiers and the Pashtun, who make up 40% of the population.

As a native of Afghanistan, Saima had the unique opportunity to bridge the gaps between the proud Pashtun and the soldiers who were often bewildered by their new surroundings. For example, few Americans on the ground knew of Pashtunwali, a way of life that extends to how Afghans treat their guests, their women and each other. Saima believed that winning the hearts of Afghans was just as important as military power, and worked tirelessly to improve the relations between the two groups.

Even as an interpreter, Saima was always risking her life and I applaud her courage, and her willingness to share her experiences in In My Father’s Country. I think she started her journey hoping to learn more about her own roots but the resulting book will bring a greater understanding of Afghanistan to many readers.

Rating: ★★★★½ 

Review and giveaway copies were provided free of any obligation by Crown. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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Reviewed by Meg Massey

Libby Sawyer and her father are stunned when a Romanian man named Michael Dobrescu overtakes their home, claiming that he owns it. Libby soon learns that Michael claims to be a descendant of the previous owner, and that he and his family were never notified of his uncle’s death.

Libby finds herself in a predicament as the novel continues, and not just because she’s no longer living in her own home. She soon finds herself growing more and more attracted to Michael, and the more she learns about him, the more she disagrees with her father that Michael and his family are imposters. As the court case to decide the fate of the house looms closer, Libby must decide if she sides with Michael and his family, or the father she’s never really understood.

The Rose of Winslow Street is a delightful historical, Christian fiction novel by librarian Elizabeth Camden. In the beginning of the novel, Libby is a young woman living with a shameful secret, and by the novel’s close, she had matured into a woman who knows what she wants, with the gumption to get it. And Michael is a man who often makes mistakes with his words, but always knows how to encourage and show love to those he cares for. My only complaint is that it ended too quickly!

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Meg lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, Ryan. Library professional by day, freelance writer by night, Meg writes about life, entertainment and everything in between on her blog.

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Bethany House. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

Reviewed by Sophia Chiu

Could you have seen Hitler coming? That is essentially the question Andrew Nagorski puts to Americans living in post-WWI Germany in Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power.

Hitlerland chronicles their impressions on Hitler, his party, and ‘the German people’ from the aftermath of WWI up to the United States entry into WWII, relying mainly on written testimonials of American diplomats and journalists. Some actually met Hitler before and after he came to power. Although not strictly necessary to read Hitlerland, some familiarity with the conditions in Germany between the World Wars will help make sense of the story.

Nagorski focuses on the American reaction to the events they witness, not necessarily detailing the broader context. For example, the Americans knew that Jews were becoming Nazi targets, but this figures mostly as eyewitness accounts of the Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass), not a detailed account of what German Jews endured in Nazi Germany. Indeed, one theme is that Americans were somewhat privileged foreigners and only the most astute could foresee the threat that Hitler represented.

Hitlerland is immensely readable. Nagorski gently provides reminders about who the core characters are throughout the text. However, as much as the author wanted to focus on “telling their stories—and whenever possible, letting those stories speak for themselves,” there was a hint of judgment on those who foresaw what was to come and those who could or would not, and those who saw that America needed to become involved and those who wanted to remain isolationists. Perhaps that is unavoidable with the luxury of hindsight.

Nonetheless, Hitlerland gave me a more nuanced view of this moment in history. Although it inspired me to learn more about 1920s Berlin as a vibrant cultural capital, Hitlerland is an enjoyable read more about Americans living and passing through there than about Germany per se.

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Simon & Schuster. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.