Novelas Romanticas Gratis

  This book came out of nowhere thanks to an invite to read and review it (thank you Dutton/Penguin/Random House).  I just got back from vacation and found it in a pile of books while I was unpacking and immediately started reading it. I'm not exaggerating when I say I couldn't put it down. I spent quite a bit of Sunday on the couch reading this historical novel that bounced between 1920's New York ad 1945 San Francisco.  Ellie Morgan is a secretary at the San Francisco Chronicle and has recently become engaged to a handsome officer stationed in San Francisco as World War 2 rages on. She chafes against societal rules that keep her career limited to housewife or secretary--when all she wants to do is write for the newspaper and wear trousers like Katherine Hepburn.  However this all falls to the wayside with a telegram stating that her father, a pilot, is missing and presumed dead over the Adriatic Sea near Italy in December, 1944. Devastated, she refus...

  Well it feels kind of fitting to finish a book about a  natural disaster on the one year anniversary of a natural disaster that hit my hometown on August 10, 2020: the Derecho. An inland hurricane in Iowa. One year later we are still dealing with recovery. And wouldn't you know, we've had one severe storm today, and I can hear rumblings of another getting ready to break tonight. To say folks around here are a bit jumpy wouldn't be an exaggeration.  The Nature of Fragile Things is about two natural disasters: the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, and the natural disaster of one horrible man causing heartache and havoc (with a side of murder) in the lives of three different women.  Sophie Whalen arrives in San Francisco ready to marry Martin Hocking and become mother to his young daughter. She's been living in New York after arriving from Ireland, and was miserable living in a tenement and working at a factory. Answering a mail order bride ad in the newspaper b...

I'm pretty sure I haven't ever read a Susan Wiggs novel before this one. I was pleasantly surprised. Of course, this novel had me at bookshop (as they all do!) and even though I've had an ARC of this book for months, I finally decided to finish it today, after stopping and starting a few times a few months ago.  I'll confess I was cruising along with my books, and suddenly this past week I hit a wall again. Just couldn't get through anything. So I am glad I picked this back up again, because I hit that magical place in the book that had me focusing in and forgetting about anything for awhile. Even though I didn't do anything for July 4th but stay home and cook out, I was still feeling a bit of a holiday hangover today. After watering my flowers outside and getting laundry started, I was happy to just stay inside and read.  This novel really is a nod to booklovers everywhere. Natalie Harper grew up in a bookstore; her mother Blythe operates a famil...

Blame it on the time crunch for reading library books. When they're available, you just have to check them out and get them read. I've been waiting for this novel for a few months and my turn finally popped up. It was just what I needed this weekend before Thanksgiving.  Jasmine Guillory has written a series of novels, and rapidly become quite popular. This is the fourth in the "series" ( I say that loosely because they all have characters that appear in each novel) which includes The Wedding Date, The Proposal, and The Wedding Party. I plan on reading all of them, too.  This was a breath of fresh air for me, mostly because the two main characters are in their 50's. I know when I was much younger, I couldn't even think about romance and middle age. Yet here I am, firmly in middle age, and hot dang, guess what? Romance is alive and well, and not just for the younger crowd. I was delighted to read a romance about two people who have some history, have been there...

I was pretty excited to read one of my favorite genres of books: magical realism, with a dash of foodie thrown into the mix. This delightful novel didn't disappoint and I loved everything about it.  Natalie returns to her mother's apartment in San Francisco's Chinatown after learning her mother has died. Guilt-ridden at leaving home in anger years before, she's grieving over her lost relationship with her agoraphobic mother and isn't sure what her next move will be. A failure at cooking school, her desire is to open a restaurant just like her grandmother, Qiao. Her grandmother's restaurant was a pillar of the community, and when she died, Natalie's mother refused to keep the restaurant going. Over the years, a part of the Chinatown community started to die off, and now a greedy real estate agent wants to buy out the remaining families and turn it into a new hipster community.  Natalie learns that she has inherited the apartment and restaurant below; her tas...

Maya Angelou was an amazing poet. That's about the extent of what I knew about her; that and Oprah Winfrey pretty much worshipped this woman. I can see why.  An upcoming book group theme:reading a memoir, spurred me to finally read the first of Maya Angelou's many memoirs. Long considered a classic, I was ready to dive in and discover just what shaped such an extraordinary woman.  Marguerite Johnson started life in California, but at a very young age was sent, with her brother Bailey, on a train to Stamps, Arkansas to live with their Grandmother, whom they called Momma. This was in the early 1930's, as the nation struggled with the Great Depression. Marguerite and Bailey settled in with their Momma and Uncle Willy. Momma ran a general store for their community and the children were expected to work there, go to school, do chores, and attend church. Momma ran a tight ship and was a respected member of the community. She kept her store open and thriving during the Depressio...

I had high hopes for this beginning to a new series, and I have mixed feelings. I'm not sure if I really enjoyed this, or was just underwhelmed, but not so underwhelmed that I loathed it.  I was caught up pretty quickly in the opening chapter, when Teddy Cannon, a young woman with a gift for gambling, enters the Bellagio in disguise to try her big chance at poker. She's been banned from all the casinos in Las Vegas, because she's got a pretty interesting gift: she can tell when people are bluffing. No cheating, just very good at it. But casinos don't like to lose big bucks, so she's on the outs. Unfortunately, she owes a lot of money to a local mobster, who will hurt her and her parents if she doesn't pay him back.  Teddy's run at the table ends in disaster, and resigned to what will probably be a painful meet up with the mobster, she instead is stopped by a man who claims to have the answer for her troubles. Clint, a former police officer, claims that Teddy...

Sourdough is a strange little novel that could be looked at from a few different angles.  One angle is just an enjoyable, slightly odd tale about Lois, who moves to San Francisco to write code for a robotics company, and discovers a love of baking bread.   Or, it could be about a young woman, Lois, who moves to San Francisco to write code for a robotics company, and discovers that life without creativity is pretty dull; creativity is what fuels our souls. Sourdough is her creative muse.  Or, it could be a funky mix of magical realism with a twist of technology that can make your head spin, all the while wishing you had a freshly baked loaf of sourdough bread on hand, and wondering if gee, maybe you should try making bread this weekend? Honestly, it was all three angles for me.  This sourdough starter, the stuff that changes Lois' life, is magical.  Gifted to her by a man who operates a small take-out restaurant specializing in  spicy soup and sourdough brea...

This novel caught my eye a few months back for two reasons:  it is set in Iran, and it's about food.  It's also about coming home after a very long absence.   Flipping between present day Iran and San Francisco, and Iran before and during the revolution in the late 1970's and early 1980's, The Last Days of Cafe Leila tells the story of the Yadegar family; Russian immigrants who moved to Iran in the mid-twentieth century to escape persecution and settled in Tehran, opening a popular cafe.  Yanik and Nina have three sons:  Davoud, Zod, and Morad.  Zod is the son who works alongside his parents, cooking delicious meals for friends and family.  The Cafe Leila becomes very well known, and a hotel is built to accomodate guests, along with nightly music, dances, and a beautiful garden full of delightul scents and exotic plants.  It's a happy life, until tragedy suddenly takes a family member.  Zod marries Pari, and they quickly fall in love, r...

I wasn't sure what to expect from this quirky novel.  I have a few things that struck me as I read the book; ideas about love and the idea of wandering through life with purpose.   Henry Quantum is a 40 year old man who lives in San Francisco with his wife Margaret.  It's December 23rd, and Henry realizes he hasn't purchased a gift for his wife for Christmas.  He decides he wants to buy her Chanel No. 5, and after a meeting at his advertising job, he takes a long lunch, determined to walk to Macy's and buy the perfume.   Except Henry's simple task takes him on a journey that has him thinking about physics, the stars, buddhism, the meaning of life, and Christmas songs.  He's a bit absent minded, what with all the ruminations that continually fill Henry's mind.  His marriage to Margaret is stale; she's always busy as a successful realtor, and disappointed in Henry's unfulfilled potential.   But on Henry's wanderings, he runs into Daisy.  T...