Novelas Romanticas Gratis

  To order, click here   This delightful mystery has been getting all the buzz lately, and I couldn't wait to read it.  Molly Gray is a maid at the Regency Grand Hotel, and she takes her job very, very seriously. She will not leave a hotel room less than perfect for a hotel guest. Her tag line: "I am here to restore your room to a state of perfection".  Molly is a character that is certainly memorable. She has trouble reading social cues and takes everything people say literally. She's painfully honest, too. Sadly, she's a loner amongst the hotel employees, and of course they make fun of her. Yet she is the sweetest, most honest person around.  One day, Molly returns to the hotel suite of the Blacks, a rich couple who frequent the hotel. Molly doesn't care for Mr. Black, as he's rude, crude, and treats his young second wife badly. He's been known to be mean to hotel staff, too. Molly had already been in the suite once that morning, but had to leave bef...

  My bestie Candace and I share a love of Katie Fforde novels. We've been reading them for--oh gosh, about 20 years? Maybe more. First discovered her when B&N featured her novel Wild Designs way back in the 1990's. I bought the hardcover (still have it) read it super fast, and decided I would always read Katie Fforde novels whenever I could.  Unfortunately, they can be hard to get in the U.S. I told Candace we needed to visit the UK just to stock up on novels we can't easily get here. She's up for it.  I bought a used copy of A Country Escape and I'll confess I stayed up way past my bedtime Monday night so I could finish it. There is something comforting about Katie's novels--almost like having a cozy blanket wrapped around me. Her novels usually involve a female main character who is a bit older (not in her early 20's) and has an interesting career or finds herself doing something completely out of her normal life. In A Country Escape, Fran finds ...

  Click here to buy from Amazon I picked this book up not knowing a whole lot about the subject matter and under a deadline to read it in ten days before returning it to the library. Add in a very busy  July 4th weekend and I only had a few days to read it.  I wasn't sure I'd make it, but happily the story grabbed my attention and I've spent the last few nights reading about an amazing librarian: Belle da Costa Greene.   Belle became the personal librarian of JP Morgan in 1906. JP Morgan had built an impressive private library to house his already impressive collection of manuscripts and rare books. Belle was hired to organize and develop his collection. What JP and everyone around Belle didn't know was that Belle was an African American woman who passed as white. Her secret would drive her career and personal choices for the rest of her life.  Belle's family history was definitely one that kept her conflicted about her choice to follow her...

  Click here to buy from Amazon Well, i spent some time this weekend creating an impromptu video where I talked about a whole lot (no shelf control, folks) of books I wanted to read for the summer. However, it was too darn long to load into a post and I finally gave up posting it on Facebook after what felt like a zillion tries.  So, I'm a bit late posting and I'm going to try another, shorter video and get that up Friday.  Meanwhile, I have been reading a few books, and I finally finished this novel that's a bit romance, a bit screwball comedy, and well, a slight murder mystery.  Meddelin Chan has three aunts and a mom who run a successful wedding company. They do it all: flowers, cake, makeup & hair, and Meddy is the photographer. Their biggest wedding is coming up: two wealthy families joining together on a posh island hotel resort. It's huge for Meddy and her family, and they can't screw it up.  Meddy's mother sets her up on a blind date, ...

  Click here to buy from Amazon Well this book took me a bit to get through to the end. Mostly because it broke my heart over and over and I had to read it in bits and pieces.  I've heard so much about this book--tons of rave reviews, and even a few friends telling me about it. So I bought it last month and have been reading it since May 1st. Some books I can sail through; others take me a bit. This was a "take me a bit" kind of book. It's heavy. It's not a happy ever after. And even for the first 100 pages, I was wondering if I'd made a mistake and it wasn't a book for me.  But I kept with it, and wow, what a powerful, haunting novel. It's a bit of a thriller, murder mystery, and a family drama all rolled into one. It reminded me of Jane Harper's novels-the desolate feeling I get when I read them.  In a nutshell: Duchess and Robin Radley are two young kids who live with their mother, Star, in the small town of Cape Haven, California. They are dirt...

  I spent the New Year's weekend starting four different books and waiting for one (or more) to grab me and not let go. The Wife Upstairs was the winner! It's a quick read, and the plot loosely based on Jane Eyre gave me some idea of what to expect, although there was a twist ending to this thriller.  I'll start out by saying I didn't like one person in this whole novel. Not one. Jane is new to Alabama, and all you really know about her is that she was in foster homes for most of her life, and now she's landed a job as a dog walker in the expensive gated community of Thornfield Estates. Jane steals bits and bobbles from the people she works for-after all, she's barely making a living, and they have so much they don't miss what she takes and pawns for extra money.  One day, she meets Eddie, the enigmatic and handsome man who lives in Thornfield Estates and recently lost his wife in a boating incident. Bea and her friend Blanche were on a boat together ...

  In my quest to read holiday novels, I picked up Christmas at the Restaurant at my library a week ago. As I started to read it, I realized I had The Restaurant sitting on my bookcase. I had picked it up a few months ago and never got around to reading it. So...I had to read it first before I read the follow up Christmas novel. You're getting two reviews in one post today, Christmas Eve.  This was a quick read, and I'd recommend Pamela Kelley's novels to anyone who likes a gentle read with likable characters and a uncomplicated plot. That is not to say this was a dull book at all! As a matter of fact, it felt like a good visit with friends I hadn't seen in awhile. Three sisters: Emma, Mandy, and Jill, all have busy lives. Mandy lives in Nantucket with her husband and kids; Jill leads a busy life in corporate Manhattan, and Emma lives in Arizona with her professor husband. Their beloved  grandmother passes away, and leaves them a surprise: they, along with Chef P...

  Christmas cozy mysteries are a fairly new addition to my December reading, but they have quickly become favorites. This mystery, the third in the Salem B&B   M ystery series, can be read on its own. I haven't read the first two, but I will probably go back and read them; mostly because I enjoyed this mystery and the characters. If you're interested in the first two in the series, they are Mrs. Morris and the Ghost , and Mrs. Morris and the Witch. What drew me to this mystery: it takes place in Salem, MA, and there's a ghost involved. Mrs. Morris is Charlene, a recent transplant from Chicago. She's bought an old mansion and turned it into a B&B. That mansion has a ghost named Jack: a handsome ghost who only Charlene can see and talk to. There's a bit of flirty behavior going on between Charlene and Jack, but, well...kind of hard to see a future with a ghostly guy. Charlene moved to Salem to start fresh after her husband's untimely death. Now it's t...

The history geek in me saw this come through the library and I just had to check it out. It was a very interesting look at history through the lens of written documents--some hidden for hundreds of years.  Nathan Raab, along with his wife, father, and mother, runs a very successful business buying and selling historical documents. What started out as a hobby of his father turned into a home business, and eventually became a career. Nathan spends time talking about how he learned everything he needed to know to authenticate, research, and obtain historical documents from private owners and auctions. As with most skills, his developed over time, and he began to pay attention to his gut feelings. If something, at first glance, just didn't seem right, he was usually correct when he investigated later and found the document to be a forgery. With a combination of innate skills and years of honing his research skills, Nathan has been witness to many amazing documents. Docum...

I was eager to revisit Kristin Kimball's life on her farm after reading her first memoir, The Dirty Life way back before I started this blog. I absolutely fell in love with her story about making the big leap from living in New York City as a writer, to owning a 500 acre farm near Lake Champlain, New York with her soon to be husband, Mark. How does one change their life so drastically? Well, falling in love had something to do with it. That, and recognizing what makes your heart happy, even through all of the ups and downs that farm life delivers.  Now, 8 years later, Kristin is back with a follow up. Hey, guess what? Farming is still incredibly difficult work. Heck, i live in Iowa; farms are everywhere. My partner's cousins are all farmers. You can drive just a few miles out of town and yep, there's a farm. Even children who grow up in our few bigger cities know what a cow looks like; know what corn and soybeans look like from very early on. They're all around us. And...

Ruth Reichl saved me this month. She got me out of a reading funk. When my life is a bit hectic, and I'm feeling stressed and just blah, I like to read something light and fun. If it includes food, even better.  Ruth's memoir centers on her time as Editor in Chief of Gourmet magazine for ten years, up until the day it suddenly folded. Known as the New York Times food critic, she ate out 14 times a week, was rarely home at night, and conscious that her son was growing up and she wasn't spending time at home with her family. Approached to take the job at Gourmet, she was a bit flabbergasted. She had no experience with magazines; she'd been a journalist, writer, and food critic for years-but no magazine experience. Gourmet magazine held a special place in Ruth's heart. She had begun reading the magazine as a young girl and yes, even tried some of the recipes for her family. Now she had the chance to be the editor of the magazine! Still uncertain, she finally listened t...

Anyone who scoffs at the notion of reading a graphic novel simply hasn't read one. They are just as powerful and impactful as a book that's full of words, page after page. Roz Chast had me reliving some painful parental moments in her graphic novel, Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? We all hope our parents live long lives, and that we have time to get to know them as people when we grow up and become adults ourselves. But as our parents age, and live longer than their parents and grandparents did, we're faced with increasing angst as parents who always were strong, independent, sharp, and ruled the household become frail and forgetful.  Roz Chast outlines that very situation. For her, it's even more difficult, as she's an only child who doesn't live near her parents. And her parents are a handful. Elizabeth and George have been married for decades; her mother is a force, while her father is quiet. They do everything together. They've lived in ...

A friend of mine talked about this book in last month's book group, and I gladly accepted his offer to read the book this month.  It had been on my radar for a few months, and after Kirk's review of it, I couldn't wait to dig in--and this was the perfect introduction to my favorite holiday, Halloween.   Lizzie Borden, as we know, is infamous for the murders of her father, Andrew Borden, and her step-mother, Abby Borden, on August 4, 1892 in Fall River, Massachusetts.  They were both bludgeoned to death by an ax in their home:  Abby upstairs in the guest bedroom; Andrew lying on the couch in a downstairs parlor.  Lizzie was charged with their murders, brought to trial, and found not guilty.  She lived the rest of her life in Fall River, a bit of a pariah, and died in 1927 of pneumonia.  She never married.   Lizzie Borden These are the basic facts.  What Sarah Schmidt has done is to recreate the days leading up to the murders, and the few days ...