Book Mama Blog

About the Author:

As a shy teenager, Ella Harper found a way to escape by learning foreign languages, and imagined she might eventually get a glamorous job speaking French. After completing a BA in French and Russian Studies, she found herself following in her father’s footsteps into banking instead, seduced by the excitement and glamour of that world. But after climbing her way to Assistant Vice President, Ella started idly mapping out the beginnings of a novel on an old laptop. When she realised her characters were more real to her than dividends and corporate actions ever could be, she left her job to become a writer. Eight years later, and Ella has published four hugely popular novels under the name Sasha Wagstaff.

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Friday, October 2, 2015

Recipe For Disaster - Review & Giveaway

Review by Deb Czajkowski

“Be careful what you wish for.” Why? Because you just might get it! You’ve heard this quote. Sometimes we wish for something in the moment and then, when it comes to fruition, we realize we really hadn’t thought it through.

Anneke Stroudt, a successful architect and home builder, often wishes she didn’t have to deal with difficult ─and, using her word, stupid─ people. And she also wishes she had more time to spend working on the restoration of the beautiful historic property that she had speculatively purchased. But her job demands many hours of her day, and the rest of her day she gladly shares with her chef fiancé.

Until one fateful day when Anneke both loses her job and her fiancé, and she is forced to move into the gutted house. Now what? Anneke no longer has a source of income. And the century old house will take both many months of intense labor and megabucks to restore before she can put it on the market. Hence, she is now property rich but cash poor. What was she thinking?

Thinking before speaking has never been Anneke’s strong suit. But doing is ─ beginning with demolishing the basement, which leads to the discovery of a mysterious and very old leather-bound book. The book belonged to Gemma, the cook for the house’s original owners, and is filled with intriguing and tempting recipes as well as sage commentary and advice. For someone in desperate need of both, can Gemma provide Anneke with the right ingredients for sustenance and life lessons?

If you value historic homes, or if the thought of renovating one is fascinating or enticing to you, you’ll love Stacey Ballis’ Recipe for Disaster. It is filled with significant detail on, well, the details involved in the step-by-step renovating process. As someone whose carpentry skills are pretty much limited to using a hammer to hang a picture on the wall, I’m just going to take her word for its accuracy! I love the idea of a turn-of-the-century (the twentieth century!) home, of the family that lived there a hundred years ago, what their lives were like, and what foods they ate. I loved Gemma’s book, her diary; her thoughts and her recipes. I’m definitely going to try some of them!

Reading Gemma’s words of wisdom and experience often made me think of another familiar quote: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Still true today, good recipes and good advice are always in fashion.

Purchase the book at:

Amazon* Barnes&Noble

About the Author:

Stacey Ballis is the author of several novels, incuding Inappropriate Men, Sleeping Over, Room for Improvement, The Spinster Sisters, Good Enough to Eat, Off the Menu and Out to Lunch, and the upcoming Recipe for Disaster currently available for pre-order, being released March 3, 2013. Her first cookbook, Big Delicious Life is out now in a digital edition, and she is at work co-authoring a new cookbook called Cooking for You: Wellness in the Kitchen with Dr. Francis Ardito, which will be released in 2015. She is also a contributing author to the anthologies Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys, and Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned From Judy Blume, and Living Jewishly. She is currently at work on a new work of full-length fiction called for Berkeley/Penguin, which will be out in 2016.

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Berkley Books is giving one lucky winner a print copy of

Recipe For Disaster by Stacey Ballis

US only

Thursday, October 1, 2015

The Gratitude Diaries - Review

Review by Darcie Czajkowski

When was the last time you stopped to smell a rose?

When was the last time you expressed gratitude to your spouse for taking out the trash or making dinner?

When was the last time you gave thanks for the good things in your life when everything around you was falling apart?

When was the last time you were grateful that you are healthy and can walk or run a mile?

When was the last time you took a minute to think about what you were about to eat instead of devouring three slices of pizza in less than five minutes?

In the Gratitude Diaries, journalist Janice Kaplan spends a year living gratefully. Instead of feeling upset or annoyed when things don’t go her way, she makes a conscious effort to put that incident in perspective. The particulars of the events don’t change, but her attitude does.

Utilizing progressive research from doctors, psychologists, philosophers, and academics, Kaplan uses gratitude to transform her entire life, including her marriage, children, health, finances, career, and fitness. When she focuses on the good things and expressing gratitude for the positive aspects of her life, she finds that she is consistently happier, healthier, no longer plagued by migraines, and feels improvements in her relationships with her husband, children, and friends.

This book was indubitably the best book I’ve read this year. It’s truly a book for everyone. What if bad days could become okay days, and okay days could become good days? What if we got along better with our significant other and felt more connected to him or her just by showing a little appreciation? Would you do it?

Challenge yourself to make today the day that you start living gratefully. Be kind to others. Send a card to a friend who’s going through a hard time. Thank your parents for taking you on adventures when you were a kid. Send an email to a friend overseas. It doesn’t take much to thank others for the impact they make on our lives. You don’t know if today will be your last, so why would you want to spend it being negative or focusing on the things that didn’t go right?

As Kaplan wrote, “I’d learned this year that gratitude didn’t depend on the right events or even the right decisions, but how I processed them. Gratitude gave you back control. I didn’t have to pick the perfect restaurant (or hotel or flight home) to appreciate the vacation and be grateful I was here.”

Life isn’t going to be perfect. It’s wrought with difficult times, bad news, hard choices, and tragic moments. But it’s also filled with love, joy, friendship, and family. Everyone has something to be grateful for, and we all have a minute (or more) each day to reflect on what made that day special. Even on the bad days, look for it, something good is there. It can be as simple as being thankful to be alive, because really, in the end, being alive means that tomorrow is a new day. And that is something to be grateful for.

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About the Author:

Janice Kaplan is widely known for her achievements as a writer, television producer and magazine editor. As the Editor-in-Chief of Parade, the most widely read publication in America, she brought new energy and excitement to the magazine, increasing readership to over 74 million every Sunday. She attracted some of America’s best writers and biggest-name celebrities.

Author and co-author of eleven books, her bestselling novels include The Botox Diaries, Mine Are Spectacular! and The Men I Didn’t Marry. Her popular Lacy Fields mysteries include Looks To Die For and A Job To Kill For, and her books have been translated and published in more than a dozen countries. A former columnist at Seventeen magazine, she was a contributing editor at Vogue and has written hundreds of articles for national magazines.

Janice appears frequently on television shows including Today, Good Morning America, Entertainment Tonight and CBS Early Show, and is a popular speaker around the country. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale University and won Yale’s Murray Fellowship for writing. Kaplan lives in New York City and Kent, Connecticut with her husband and has two wonderful sons who graduated Yale.

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Website

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Night Blindness - Promo & Giveaway

A future as bright as the stars above the Connecticut shore lay before Jensen Reilly and her high school sweetheart, Ryder, until the terrible events of an October night left Jensen running from her family and her first love. Over the years that followed, Jensen buried her painful past, and now, married to a charismatic artist, she has created a new life far away from the unbearable secret of that night.

When Jensen's father, Sterling, is diagnosed with a brain tumor, she returns to her childhood home for the first time in thirteen years, and the memories of her old life come flooding back along with the people she's tried to escape. Torn between her life in Santa Fe with her free-spirited husband, Nic, and the realization that it is time to face her past, Jensen must make a terrifying decision that threatens to change her life again--this time forever.

An emotionally thrilling debut set during a New England summer, Susan Strecker's Night Blindness is a compelling novel about the choices we make, the sanctity of friendship, and the power of love.

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About the Author:

SUSAN STRECKER resides in Essex, Connecticut, with her husband and two children. Her first novel, Night Blindness, was an Indie Next pick.

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Thomas Dunne Books is giving 1 lucky winner a print copy of

Night Blindness by Susan Strecker

US only

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Christmas Chocolat - Review & Giveaway

Review by Marlene Engel

The Christmas season used to mean festive meals and holiday traditions for the Arnaud children. But when their mother passed, so did those events. And with that came the distance that their father put between them. Now, all grown up, they are surprised when they are summoned by their father to gather as a family under one roof. None desires to return to Philadelphia, but even as adults, and after all the time that’s passed, they still know not to deny their father.

Each sibling is dealing with their own set of issues. And to call the family dysfunctional is putting it lightly. But as they come together, they reconnect on events of the past and fill each other in on the happenings of each of their lives. Emotions will be high during this reunion, but when their father drops a bomb on them, the true reason behind this reunion, this difficult situation gets a million times tougher. Just at the siblings start to mend their past, will their father’s secret be the final nail in the coffin to push them away for good?

I really enjoyed this book. With a cast of flawed characters, a story that will move you and delicious recipes, this is the perfect book to get you into the holiday spirit.

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About the author:

Kate Defrise grew up in the United States but spent summers with her family in Belgium, where she learned that great food was a catalyst to a great life. She earned her degree in translation in French and Italian from the Ecole d’Interprètes Internationaux in Mons. She worked as a translator and teacher in Belgium before moving to France, where she did a stint in radio and television. She lives and cooks in San Diego with her husband, two daughters, and a cat.Christmas Chocolat is her first novel.

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Kensington Books is giving 2 lucky winners a print copy of

Christmas Chocolat by Kate Defrise

US/Canada only

Monday, September 28, 2015

Shadow Play - Promo & Giveaway

Eve Duncan: the most sought-after artist in the field of forensic sculpting. Dedicated to her work ever since her daughter Bonnie was taken and killed at the age of seven, Eve feels a sense of duty to those whose lives were lost and whose bones are now in her hands.

When a sheriff in California contacts her with a request for help on the reconstruction of the skull of a girl whose body has been buried for eight years, his fierce investment in the case puzzles her. But when Eve finds herself experiencing an unusual connection with the girl she calls Jenny, she becomes entangled in the case more intensely than she could have ever imagined. Not since Bonnie has Eve had such an experience, and suddenly she finds herself determined to solve the murder and bring closure to the crime.

When the killer discovers that Eve Duncan is on the case, he begins to move in. First, eliminating those most remotely involved. Then, targeting those more closely tied to Jenny. And he won't rest until anything and anyone that could reveal his identity is eliminated-but even that won't satisfy him. He wants something more. He wants something more. One girl escaped from him. And she is his ultimate prize...

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About the Author:

IRIS JOHANSEN is The New York Times bestselling author of Your Next Breath, The Perfect Witness, Live to See Tomorrow, Silencing Eve, Hunting Eve, Taking Eve, Sleep No More, What Doesn't Kill You, Bonnie, Quinn, Eve, Chasing The Night, Eight Days to Live, Blood Game, Deadlock, Dark Summer, Pandora's Daughter, Quicksand, Killer Dreams, On The Run, Countdown, Firestorm, Fatal Tide, Dead Aim, and more. And with her son Roy Johansen, she has coauthored The Naked Eye, Sight Unseen, Close Your Eyes, Shadow Zone, Storm Cycle, and Silent Thunder.

Johansen began writing after her children left home for college. She first achieved success in the early 1980s writing category romances. In 1991, Johansen began writing suspense historical romance novels, starting with the publication of The Wind Dancer. In 1996 Johansen switched genres, turning to crime fiction, with which she has had great success. She had seventeen consecutive New York Times bestsellers as of November 2006.

Johansen lives near Atlanta, Georgia and is married. Her son, Roy Johansen, is an Edgar Award-winning screenwriter and novelist. Her daughter, Tamara, serves as her research assistant.

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Website* Facebook * Twitter

St. Martin’s Press is giving one lucky winner a print copy of

Shadow Play by Iris Johansen

Thursday, September 24, 2015

The Sweet Spot - Book Tour & Giveaway

The Sweet Spot
By: Stephanie Evanovich

Releasing Sept 29^th, 2015

Mass Market Paperback

Blurb

The amazing Stephanie Evanovich returns with The Sweet Spot, the sizzling story of everyone’s favorite couple from her New York Times bestseller Big Girl Panties: hunky professional baseball player Chase Walker and his sassy wife Amanda

When pro baseball player Chase Walker first meets Amanda at her restaurant, it’s love at first sight. While Amanda can’t help noticing the superstar with the Greek-god-build, he doesn’t have a chance of getting to first—or any other—base with her. A successful entrepreneur who’s built her business from scratch, Amanda doesn’t need a Prince Charming to sweep her off her feet. And a curvy girl who likes to cook and eat isn’t interested in being around the catty, stick-thin herd of females chasing Chase and his teammates.

But Chase isn’t about to strike out. A man who isn’t interested in playing the field, he’s a monogamist who wants an independent woman like Amanda. His hopes rally when she discovers that squeaky-clean Chase has a few sexy and very secret pre-game rituals that turn the smart, headstrong businesswoman on—and into his number one fan.

Then a tabloid discovers the truth and turns their spanking good fun into a late- night punch-line. Is Amanda ready to let loose and swing for the fences? Or will the pressure of Chase’s stardom force them to call it quits?

Buy Ebook: Amazon | B & N | iTunes | Kobo

Buy Paperback: Amazon | B & N | BAM

About the Author:

Stephanie Evanovich is a full-fledged Jersey girl from Asbury Park who began writing fiction while waiting for her cues during countless community theater projects. She attended New York’s School of Film and Television and acted in several improvisational troupes and a few small-budget movies, all in preparation for the greatest job she ever had, raising her two sons. Now a full-time writer, she’s an avid sports fan who holds a black belt in tae kwon do.

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Website | Facebook | Twitter | GoodReads

Enter to win one of three print copies of

BIG GIRL PANTIES by Stephanie Evanovich