Novelas Romanticas Gratis

  I cannot resist reading about women who move to the country and live a farming life. I guess it's because I think they're very brave. And they're so darn handy at creating something out of nothing, or using very little to create that something. Hilarie Burton Morgan joins my list of women I admire, who roll up their sleeves and jump in with a brave heart.  The Rural Diaries  is about Hilarie and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (you know, that heartthrob of a guy from Grey's Anatomy, and the nasty Negan from The Walking Dead), and their decision to move to Rhinebeck, New York and live on a farm.  After meeting in L.A. through mutual friends, their connection was pretty quick and deep. Driving through Rhinebeck, they immediately felt at home and wanted to put down roots away from the craziness of Hollywood. And so they did.  But this story is not all fairy tale and happy ending; at least not for a few years. Hilarie recounts their beginnings, with their young son Gus, ...

  I needed to escape from my October reading for a bit and found the perfect book to do just that. This novel will be out in January, 2021 so if you're a fan of Julia Kelly you'll have a few months to wait.  I'm one of those people who love all things gardening-especially flower gardens. I am, however, not one to be out in a garden working on it every chance I get. I love the results, but not so much all the work to get there. I used to have a lot of flowers in my yard, but I've scaled back massively the past few years because I don't have the time, and I've realized that whomever follows me in my house may not want a lot of flower beds around. I still have perennials, but I've gone to simple, easy to care for summer flowers and plants in pots. I still have a wish for a forever home with a field of wildflowers somewhere on the property. My partner has agreed on this, so hopefully in the future I'll have that gardening wish come true.  This novel has quit...

This book has been so patient with me. I bought it in 2017, and it has had a place of prominence on my bookcase. The bookcase that I walk past multiple times a day; the one just outside my kitchen. The bright cover always catches my eye, and I think "I've got to read that someday".  It took a pandemic, but here we are--it's read, and I'm so glad I waited until now to dive into it.  I read Abbi's novel The Bookish Life of Nina Hill    last August (click on the title for my review) and loved Abbi's style of writing: a bit of snark, a bit of humor, and a whole lot of heart. Contemporary women's fiction that I really enjoy, and sometimes have a hard time finding just the right fit. Abbi's writing fits me perfectly. So when I realized this was the same author, I really wanted to read it--and I needed something a bit lighter, and something that had to do with gardening.  Lilian Girvan is a single mother of two young girls: Annabel and Clare. Her hu...

I zipped through this novel in a day--my first of 2020. It read very quickly, and I had a hard time putting it down.  Why was it so compelling? I'm not sure. It's a dual storyline, between two women: Nellie in 1956, and Alice in 2018. Both are living in the same home, and married. Nellie is married to a man who swept her off her feet, and she quickly realizes he's not a nice man. Not nice at all. He wants a wife who is pretty, looks perfect all the time, cooks, cleans, and has babies. He's not afraid to use some physical force to keep her in line.  Alice is a modern woman, who recently left her job in New York City under a cloud--although she's kept that bit of information from her husband Nate. He thinks she quit. Nate wants to move out of the city and start a family in a home set in the suburbs. Alice, very reluctantly, agrees. She's a big city lady, and used to working a lot. Nate makes enough money that she can stay home and write her novel. Alice and Nate b...

The theme for January's book club is Mystery.  We can read any mystery we want, and when you think about it, there's an overwhelming amount of mysteries to choose from, and it can be hard to decide. Do you go classic, with Agatha Christie, or Sherlock Holmes? Do you go with historical, or contemporary? Cozy, noir, or police procedural? What if you just want to read a stand alone mystery? Do they even exist anymore, in a genre that is mostly built on series?  Phew. A lot to think about. I started reading the second in Louise Penny's series, after reading Still Life last year and falling in deep like with everything about her writing and storyline. Then I was perusing through my stacks of books, and found a few cozy mysteries that I had received from a publisher last year and hadn't read yet. So I read Bad Neighbors by Maia Chance and it got me on the cozy mystery bandwagon. I've read them before, but mysteries have never been a huge part of my reading life. ...

I was looking over my post from 2015 on Ellen Herrick's first novel The Sparrow Sisters ,   and saw that I ended my review with a wish that Sorrel's story was told in a future book. My wish was granted.  I'll start out by saying you should read The Sparrow Sisters  first before you read The Forbidden Garden .  Having Sorrel's background, and understanding where she comes from and the talents of the Sparrow sisters will give this novel more clarity.  Granted, you could read this without reading the first novel, but then I imagine you'd spend a lot of time wondering about Nettie and Patience, and just what the heck happened in The Sparrow Sisters.  Save yourself some frustration! So.  Sorrel Sparrow is asked to travel to England by Sir Graham Kirkwood to re-create a Shakespeare garden on his family's estate, Kirkwood Hall.  This garden has been lying dormant for hundreds of years, thanks to a curse placed on it by Graham's ancestor (and complete nas...

Ahhhhh!!  Alice Hoffman returns to the world we first discovered in Practical Magic , the first Alice Hoffman book I ever read. I was so excited to read this and it met my expectations in every way.  This is a prequel to Practical Magic.   It begins in the 1960's, in New York with the Owens family:  mother Susanna, her husband, and their three children:  Frances, a beautiful young lady with red hair and fair skin; Bridget (Jet), stunningly beautiful with long black hair and grey eyes, and Vincent, the youngest and the first male child to be born to the Owens line. Owens is the name descended from their first ancestor, who arrived in America way back when.  She was  witch. Susanna tried to run away from her gifts, and forbade her children to do anything that might be construed as magic.  They weren't quite sure why, but as they grew into their teens, it was impossible to deny they each had abilities.  Along with those abilities came a curse: n...

I'm continuing my quest to read more mysteries, and thanks to Penguin Books, I was able to try a mystery series that took me to Aix-en-Provence, France.   There are five previous mysteries in this series, but I didn't have any problems starting this far into the series.  I may go back and read from the beginning, if only to see the backdrop to Verlaque and Bonnet's romance.   Antoine Verlaque is a French judge; Marine Bonnet is a law professor.  They are enjoying life as newlyweds and have the pressing problem of deciding what to do with two apartments.  An appreciation of good food and wine adds a lot of charm to these characters and I felt immediately at ease with them.   In this mystery, a new restaurant has opened in town called La Fontaine, run by Siegbert "Bear" Valets.  It's a hit, but Bear has created a stir by getting approval to have outdoor seating that nestles up against a private courtyard shared by the surrounding apartment buil...

This was a book that I'd looked at a few times--purely due to the cover, which I just love.  I finally got it from the library and jumped into an English version of magical realism that was perfect for the Easter weekend. Anthony Peardew is a elderly gentlemen of secure financial means who lives in a wonderful home called Padua with a glorious flower garden and a quiet housekeeper named Laura who keeps everything in tip top shape.  Laura has grown to love Padua as much as Anthony has, and finds refuge from a horrible marriage and divorce within its peaceful environment.   Anthony has a study that is full of objects he's found on his daily walks.  He takes them home, labels them with the date and where he found them, and keeps them all locked up in his study.  He is the "keeper of lost things" and writes stories imagining the people and the stories behind the objects.  They range from a puzzle piece, to a single blue glove, to a chil...