Sunday, January 10, 2010

Every Month is a Holiday Perpetual Reading Challenge


*For details about this challenge, please click on the above text.

February


Of course, for February, my "notable" had to be Valentine's Day! I'm a huge fan of the whole Valentine's Day concept, even though I don't have a valentine of my own... although, I will be honest... I'm working on that one!

I've had this book laying around for about two years now... bought it right after Valentine's Day in 2008. However, being that it was after Valentine's Day, I opted to save it for "next year." "Next year" passed and the book remained on my shelf, but upon signing up for this challenge, I just had to pull it from the shelf!

Two short novels, My Funny Valentine and My Hero are wrapped up in this one book. In My Funny Valentine, single mother Dianne Williams has a tremendous amount of pressure put on her to find a date to the community center's annual Valentine's Day dinner. Determined not to let her mother and children arrange a date, Dianne asks a random gentlemen she meets after locking her keys in the car one evening. As luck would have it... she winds up with more than just a date for the Valentine's Day dinner! In My Hero, Bailey York portrays the character of a romance novelist. However, romance seems to be falling short in her novel. After a friend suggests that she needs a "hero," or real-life model for her character, Bailey gets more than she bargained for... gaining not only a model for her character, but ultimately a real-life hero of her own.

This was definitely the mushy, too-good-to-be-true type of Valentine's Day read I needed to get through the holiday without a valentine!

January

The January "notable" that I chose to work from was "snow." For those of you not living in coastal areas, a Nor'Easter is a huge coastal snowstorm... Living in NY, I've experienced my share of them, so I knew this book would definitely cover the "snow" notable!

I've been wanting to read this book after a friend's recommendation and happened to find it on the shelf of a bookstore that was going out business, reduced 30%. With a gift card, I couldn't resist the purchase, knowing that its January 2010 release date meant it'd be months before I could snag it from the library!

33-year old Leelee Satterfield is emotionally devastated when her husband announces he's moving the family from their life-long home of Memphis, Tennessee, north to Willingham, Vermont to run a quaint inn. However, loving her husband as she does, Leelee goes along, asking far too few questions (something she will deeply pay for)! As Leelee, her husband and their two young daughters set up home in Vermont, they quickly learn that it couldn't be farther from "home." Nor'easters, mud season, stick season and Skin-So-Soft quickly become some of their most familiar vocabulary in their new home. Just when Leelee feels as though she's beginning to adapt to her new home, she suffers a near-devastating blow, that quickly turns her into a stronger, more self-sufficient woman than she ever dreamed of.

Let's just leave it this way... I love the book so much, I've personally contacted the author via e-mail requesting a sequel!



If you're interested in finding out more information about any of the books reviewed or if you'd like to purchase the books, click the cover image for a link to Amazon.com. I am an Amazon Affiliate, so any purchases you make after clicking these images will result in my receiving a small percentage of the sale price!

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