Results May Vary - Pub Week Review

Review by Darcie Czajkowski

Caroline Hammond believes she knows everything about her husband, Adam. They have been together since they were in high school and married for ten years. They are both in the art world, Caroline an art curator, and Adam a writer. They share everything with each other and do so happily.

Until Caroline learns that her husband is having an affair…with a man. This revelation is mind-boggling for Caroline—she never once questioned her husband faithfulness, let alone his sexuality. Immediately, she banishes him from their home to allow herself time to think. After some time apart, she decides that she can’t let go of everything they’ve built together and agrees to work on their relationship.

But their progress hits a snag when Adam can’t answer the question of why he did it. He seems defensive about his behavior, urging Caroline to stop punishing him and just forgive him already.

And so Caroline decides to divorce him, but must wait six months before filing, per the laws of New York which state that couples must try to work things out and think through their actions before committing to divorce.

During those six months, Caroline reignites her relationship with her young sister, Ruby, a girl to whom she was never very close, partially because of the five years that separate them in age, but mostly because Ruby and Adam never clicked. But now Caroline realizes what she’s been missing, how much fun the two of them have together despite their differences, and just how much of herself had been tamped down while she’d been part of a twosome with Adam.

Caroline is also dealing with a sudden attraction to her co-worker Neil, a father of two girls who lost his wife suddenly and tragically. He has his own issues with heartbreak, but he has expressed an interest in getting to know Caroline romantically and she has a hard time saying no, given that the only man she’s ever dated was her husband.

As the six month waiting period comes to a close, Caroline has a decision to make: divorce Adam or try again to make it work. She’d been so set on divorcing him in the far distant future, in the abstract, but when the time comes to get an attorney and file, she begins to wonder if it’s the right decision. Will Caroline actually be able to let go of their long and mostly loving history, or will she change her mind and decide that their past means still something to her in the present, enough to forgive Adam for his indiscretions and do whatever it takes to make their marriage work?

Bethany Chase in “Results May Vary” tells an honest and raw story about love, loss, and heartbreak. Loving someone else is one of the hardest things we will ever do. Chase does a tremendous job of capturing sincere reactions to this situation and weaves thoughtful and interesting characters to accompany Caroline on her journey to making a decision about her future. I read this book quickly and with interest in knowing what decision Caroline would make in the end and what lessons she would learn about life along the way. For a compassionate and thought-provoking take on the question of “do you ever really know someone?” spend some time with Bethany’s Chase’s “Results May Vary.”

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About the author:

After growing up in the foothills of the Northern Virginia Blue Ridge, I headed to Williams College for a degree in English. Only in the spring of my senior year did I begin to consider how exactly I might earn money with a degree in English. And this gave rise to the logical answer: interior design!

I've been working in the architecture & design industry for over eight years now, but when I'm not hanging out with mess-makers and paint-slingers, I'm writing. And when I'm not writing, I enjoy photography, karaoke, and complaining about being flat-chested.

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Slightly South of Simple - Cover Reveal & Giveaway

From the next “major voice in Southern fiction” (New York Times bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand) comes the first in an all-new series chronicling the journeys of three sisters and their mother—and a secret from their past that has the potential to tear them apart and reshape their very definition of what it means to be a family.

Caroline Murphy swore she’d never set foot back in the small Southern town of Peachtree Bluff; she was a New York girl born and bred and the worst day of her life was when, in the wake of her father’s death, her mother selfishly forced her to move—during her senior year of high school, no less—back to that hick-infested rat trap where she'd spent her childhood summers. But now that her marriage to a New York high society heir has fallen apart in a very public, very embarrassing fashion, a pregnant Caroline decides to escape the gossipmongers with her nine-year-old daughter and head home to her mother, Ansley.

Ansley has always put her three daughters first, especially when she found out that her late husband, despite what he had always promised, left her with next to nothing. Now the proud owner of a charming waterfront design business and finally standing on her own two feet, Ansley welcomes Caroline and her brood back with open arms. But when her second daughter Sloane, whose military husband is overseas, and youngest daughter and successful actress Emerson join the fray, Ansley begins to feel like the piece of herself she had finally found might be slipping from her grasp. Even more discomfiting, when someone from her past reappears in Ansley's life, the secret she’s harbored from her daughters their entire lives might finally be forced into the open.

Exploring the powerful bonds between sisters and mothers and daughters, this engaging novel is filled with Southern charm, emotional drama, and plenty of heart.

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About the author:

Kristy Woodson Harvey is a born-and-bred North Carolina girl who loves all four seasons—especially fall in Chapel Hill, where she attended college, and summer in Beaufort, where she and her family spend every free moment. The author of Dear Carolina and Lies and Other Acts of Love, Kristy is also the founder of the popular interior design blog Design Chic.

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Head over to Kristy’s website and enter to win a $100 Amazon gift card or one of several book bundles.  Click HERE to get redirected.

A House for Happy Mothers - Spotlight #SRC2016 #BestSummerEver

A stunning new novel—full of wit and warmth—from the bestselling author of The Mango Season.

In trendy Silicon Valley, Priya has everything she needs—a loving husband, a career, and a home—but the one thing she wants most is the child she’s unable to have. In a Southern Indian village, Asha doesn’t have much—raising two children in a tiny hut, she and her husband can barely keep a tin roof over their heads—but she wants a better education for her gifted son. Pressured by her family, Asha reluctantly checks into the Happy Mothers House: a baby farm where she can rent her only asset—her womb—to a childless couple overseas. To the dismay of friends and family, Priya places her faith in a woman she’s never met to make her dreams of motherhood come true.

Together, the two women discover the best and the worst that India’s rising surrogacy industry has to offer, bridging continents and cultures to bring a new life into the world—and renewed hope to each other.

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About the author:

Amulya Malladi is the author of six novels, including The Sound of Language and The Mango Season. Her books have been translated into several languages, including Dutch, German, Spanish, Danish, Romanian, Serbian, and Tamil. She has a bachelor’s degree in engineering and a master’s degree in journalism. When she’s not writing, she works as a marketing executive for a global medical device company. She lives in Copenhagen with her husband and two children.

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Learn more about BookSparks Summer Reading Challenge HERE.

The Last Treasure - Pub Day Giveaway

From the author of It Comes in Waves and The Guest House comes a novel of three lives entangled in the secrets of the sea and the enduring bonds of love.

As students with a shared passion for shipwrecks, Liv, Sam, and Whit formed a close bond searching for the mysterious Patriot, a schooner that disappeared off the Carolina Coast in 1812 with Aaron Burr’s daughter Theodosia aboard. But as the elusive ship drew them together, love would bring them even closer—and ultimately tear them apart.

It’s been nine years since Liv left Sam to be with Whit, and the once close-knit triowent their separate ways. Liv has given up her obsession with Theodosia Burr to focus on her career as a salvage diver and her passionate but troubled marriage to the reckless and hedonistic Whit. But when a diary of Theodosia’s is discovered in a collector’s estate, she is pulled back to the world of the Patriot, this time with startling new clues to what might have really happened. 

Diving back into the lost history of the Patriot could be just what Liv needs to find closure to a mystery that still haunts her. But when she and Whit reunite with Sam for one last salvage in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, buried romantic tensions begin to resurface, and once again Liv must choose between two men with very different hearts.

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About the author:

I am a native New Englander, raised in Maine, who went to New Orleans to study architectural preservation and promptly fell in love with a man named Ian when we were each walking our dogs on the levee in the rain. We now live in North Carolina with our two children. I have worked as a carpenter, an illustrator, an art director for a woodworking magazine, and a cake decorator, and after many years of marriage to a native New Orleanian I am proud to say that I can make a mean gumbo and a praline that peels cleanly off a sheet of waxed paper.

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NAL is giving one lucky winner

A print copy of Erika’s new book

The Last Treasure

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The Choices We Make - Spotlight #SRC2016 #BestSummerEver

Following her bestselling debut novel Come Away with Me, Karma Brown returns with an unforgettable story that explores the intricate dynamics of friendship and parenthood 

Hannah and Kate became friends in the fifth grade, when Hannah hit a boy for looking up Kate's skirt with a mirror. While they've been close as sisters ever since, Hannah can't help but feel envious of the little family Kate and her husband, David, have created—complete with two perfect little girls. 

She and Ben have been trying for years to have a baby, so when they receive the news that she will likely never get pregnant, Hannah's heartbreak is overwhelming. But just as they begin to tentatively explore the other options, it's Kate's turn to do the rescuing. Not only does she offer to be Hannah's surrogate, but Kate is willing to use her own eggs to do so. 

Full of renewed hope, excitement and gratitude, these two families embark on an incredible journey toward parenthood…until a devastating tragedy puts everything these women have worked toward at risk of falling apart. Poignant and refreshingly honest, The Choices We Make is a powerful tale of an incredible friendship and the risks we take to make our dreams come true.

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About the author:

KARMA BROWN is an award-winning journalist and freelance writer, who probably spends too much time on her laptop in coffee shops. When not writing, she can be found running with her husband, coloring (outside the lines) with her daughter, or baking yet another batch of banana muffins. Karma lives just outside Toronto with her family. She's the author of two novels: COME AWAY WITH ME (September 2015) & THE CHOICES WE MAKE (July 2016).

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Learn more about BookSparks Summer Reading Challenge HERE.

Firefly Summer - Pub Week Giveaway

The close-knit Quinn siblings enjoyed the kind of idyllic childhood that seems made for greeting cards, spending each summer at Whit’s End, the family’s home on Cape Cod. Then comes the summer of 1964, warm and lush after a rainy spring—perfect firefly weather. Sisters Birdie, Remy, Sailor, Piper, and their brother, Easton, delight in catching the insects in mason jars to make blinking lanterns. Until, one terrible night, tragedy strikes.

Decades later, the sisters have carved out separate lives on the Cape. Through love and heartbreak, health issues, raising children, and caring for their aging parents, they have supported each other, rarely mentioning their deep childhood loss. But one evening, as they sit together at Whit’s End to watch the sun set, the gathering fireflies elicit memories of that long-ago night, and a tumult of regrets, guilt, and secrets tumble out.

Poignant yet hopeful, Firefly Summer is an uplifting story of the resilience of sisterhood and the bright glimpses of joy and solace that, like fireflies after rain, can follow even the deepest heartaches.

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About the author:

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Nan Rossiter's adult fiction is often compared to the work of Nicholas Sparks - especially her first novel, THE GIN & CHOWDER CLUB. Nan's second novel, WORDS GET IN THE WAY, is an uplifting story about a single mom whose young son has autism. Her third novel, MORE THAN YOU KNOW, touches on the bonds of sisterhood and the tragedy and despair of Alzheimer's. UNDER A SUMMER SKY ties the first three books together in an unexpected way, and NANTUCKET touches on the difference time can make, the truths that never alter, and the bittersweet second chances that arrive just in time to steer a heart back home. Her new novel FIREFLY SUMMER is an uplifting story of the resilience of sisterhood and the bright glimpses of joy and solace that, like fireflies after rain, can follow the deepest heartaches.

Nan is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and is also the author-illustrator of several books for children including, most recently, THE FO'C'SLE: HENRY BESTON'S OUTERMOST HOUSE, called "a lovely vision of one man's communion with nature" by Publisher's Weekly.

Nan lives in rural Connecticut with her husband, two handsome sons and a black Lab named Finnegan. 

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Kensington Books is giving one

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Firefly Summer by Nan Rossiter

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Once Upon A Wine - Pub Day Promo & Giveaway

From the “sharp, sassy, [and] surprisingly emotional”* author of Put a Ring on It, New Uses for Old Boyfriends, and The Week Before the Wedding, a new novel set in the charming seaside town of Black Dog Bay, Delaware...
 
Cammie Breyer needs a big glass of cabernet—her restaurant failed and her chef boyfriend left for a hotter kitchen. Just when she thinks she’s hit rock bottom, her Aunt Ginger calls with a surprise. She’s bought a vineyard—in Delaware. At Ginger’s command, Cammie returns to Black Dog Bay, the seaside town where she spent her childhood summers with her aunt and her cousin, Kat.
 
The three women reunite, determined to succeed. There’s only one little problem: None of them knows the first thing about wine making. And it turns out, owning a vineyard isn’t all wine and roses. It’s dirt, sweat, and desperation. Every day brings financial pitfalls, unruly tourists, romantic dilemmas, and second thoughts.  But even as they struggle, they cultivate hidden talents and new passions. While the grapes ripen under the summer sun, Cammie discovers that love, like wine, is layered, complex, delicious, and worth waiting for…

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About the author:

Beth Kendrick is the author of twelve women’s fiction novels, including Put a Ring On It, New Uses for Old Boyfriends, Cure for the Common Breakup, The Week Before the Wedding, The Lucky Dog Matchmaking Service, and Nearlyweds, which was turned into a Hallmark Channel original movie. She lives in Arizona with two big rescue mutts and vacations at the Delaware beach, where she devotes a great deal of time to eating local strawberries and drinking wine. You know, for research.

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NAL is giving one lucky winner a print

Copy of Beth Kendrick’s new release

Once Upon A Wine

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