Monday, August 28, 2017

No Place I'd Rather Be - Pub Week Review & Giveaway

After being gone for two years, Olivia returns to Montana.  But she’s not alone.  She brings with her two girls that she is hoping to adopt.  The girls had been living with their grandmother, a neighbor of Olivia’s, while their drug addicted parents were serving time in jail.  Olivia had become close to them, so it only made sense that when their grandmother passed that she took them in.  However, their mother is due to be released from jail soon and she plans on reclaiming the children she feels rightfully belongs with her.

While home, Olivia finds an old cookbook in the attic.  Being a chef, she’s intrigued.  But more than that, she’s surprised when it causes her grandmother, a person who has kept her past hidden from the family, starts opening up about life-long secrets.  It doesn’t take long to put some of the puzzle pieces together.  After all, we know that her grandmother is Jewish and from Germany.  But it isn’t necessarily just about the secrets.  It’s the strength that the family has to keep moving forward despite the obstacles in their way.

Throughout the book, I found myself laughing and crying.  But an aspect that I really enjoyed was all of the baking.  There didn’t have to be a reason to bake, it was more of an excuse to get together and have what they called Martindale cake therapy.

No Place I’d Rather Be was a deliciously written book with an eccentric group of characters.  And one I would recommend to all.

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About the author:
Cathy Lamb was born in Newport Beach, California. As a child, she mastered the art of skateboarding, catching butterflies in bottles, and riding her bike with no hands. When she was 10, her parents moved her, two sisters, a brother, and two poorly behaved dogs to Oregon before she could fulfill her lifelong dream of becoming a surfer bum.

She then embarked on her notable academic career where she earned good grades now and then, spent a great deal of time daydreaming, ran wild with a number of friends, and landed on the newspaper staff in high school. When she saw her byline above an article about people making out in the hallways of the high school, she knew she had found her true calling. 

Cathy suffers from, “I Would Rather Play Than Work Disease” which prevents her from getting much work done unless she has a threatening deadline. She likes to hang with family and friends, walk, eat chocolate, camp, travel, and is slightly obsessive about the types of books she reads. She also likes to be left alone a lot so she can hear all the odd characters in her head talk to each other and then transfer that oddness to paper. The characters usually don’t start to talk until 10:00 at night, however, so she is often up ‘til 2:00 in the morning with them. That is her excuse for being cranky.

She adores her children and husband, except when he refuses to take his dirty shoes off and walks on the carpet. She will ski because her children insist, but she secretly doesn’t like it at all. Too cold and she falls all the time.

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Kensington Publishing is giving one lucky winner
A print copy of No Place I’d Rather Be by Cathy Lamb

a Rafflecopter giveaway