Sunday, November 30, 2014

#REVIEW - A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens


I like to always have the TV on in the background for noise in the house, even when I am reading. I even sleep with the TV on very low, and when it shuts down to update, I 'POP UP' awake! LOL! I do! Noise comforts me, as ODD as that may sound!
The Hallmark Channel has been playing Christmas movies 24/7 since November 1st! Yes, it is very early this year for Christmas movies to start on Halloween night, at midnight this year, although I LOVE these movies and I don't mind the change of pace! 
I have noticed and have grown tired of the MANY remakes of the movie "Scrooge", or I should use the proper name, "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens because the characters' behavior are always the same. They are so mean, egotistical, and have the "me, me, complex". That is what I'm tired of watching and seeing in real people, too. So since it has been driving me a little crazy and I have not wanted to watch these movies. 
Instead, I pulled the book up on my Kindle to reread the actual story again. because the movies got me thinking about people and businesses (since Scrooge was a business owner with just one dedicated employee) and not only through the holiday season, but all through the year just how little time our employers do NOT give us for time off from work. Heck, most all companies don't give but ONE day off from New Year's day off until the end of May for Memorial Day! This needs to change! 5 MONTHS is a LONG HAUL for '1' day off! Can't Scrooge teach companies this ONE thing?
The lessons the ghosts teach Scrooge, all about his own behavior, the way he treated people, never trusted anyone and the way he ran his business and  most of all how terribly he treat his one employee, Bob Cratchit, is timeless and still holds true to today, yet the lessons learned in this story have long been forgotten, which is why this book is a classic. It never changes! Companies are the old Scrooge never giving ONE day off! Have they not read Scrooge? Scrooge did not like the way he acted in the past, nor did he like the way he acted in the current day when he was called out about it. Poor Bob Cratchit worked his behind off, never seeing his family very often at all. It was overtime which he was not paid for, and today overtime is paid for, but is it worth it to never have one day off from New Year's Day until Memorial Day? I know most employers act this way, and it's a shame! It's hard on the employee, especially! That is a full five months of straight working! No one can do that without needing at least one personal day! What do we do about our families and friends during that time? Ignore them? That IS what we HAVE to do. We don't have the time to spend with them except the weekends, but our weekends are spent doing the things we don't have time to do during the week. Grocery shopping, banking, bill paying, trying to spend more time with our own children. The list goes on! 
This book has ended up becoming an excellent one to model movies after, but is the true meaning of this story ever really thought about and acted on by regular people and our employers? My answer is a big, fat, NO. What a sad society we live in that we can't have a little more time than just work.
Sure, time right now during the holidays is wonderful! Most of us just had a four day weekend, but not everyone. A LOT of people DID have to work Friday. I remember my mother cooking the huge meal for Thanksgiving, but feeling dead on Friday morning when she had to go into work the next day. The funny part about that was she worked in the health care industry! You would think they would be the first ones to realize their employees broke their necks to cook for family the day before, but they don't.
Sure, we do charity, but it is after work and on the weekends, and do we 'really' do and give it all our heart, IF we do it at all? Imagine more people doing charity work! Oh, excuse me, we need TIME to do that! So most likely we do not do charity work because we just don't have the time. Most businesses don't allow us to participate in charity work during business hours, not even just a few hours, which I think is wrong. It is called giving back, right? Doesn't the same thing hold true for businesses as it does for people like us? Everything to a business comes down to the bottom dollar and how much higher they have increased it over the last 3 quarters, and then now, being the end of the year in the 4th quarter, and making sure they make the most money over the previous year. What does that get Scrooge and most businesses? Greediness and sadness. 
Sure, companies give money to charity, but it's a tax write-off. Do businesses allow their own employees to do charity work away from their place of employment during business hours? Heck no! That takes away time from their jobs when they should be working at their desks or stations and making or saving them money! 
Bob Cratchit's family had nothing. Despite how many hours he worked every week, they still barely had enough money to put food on their table or money to buy fabric to clothe themselves. I often wonder if they had had more money if there could have been anything done for his son's leg? (At the end of the story we find out they DID fix his leg. Why couldn't that have been done much sooner in this little boy's life and prior to Scrooge's renewed spirit?) Poor Bob's family didn't see him much, either due to Scrooge's demands he work late without extra pay. 
So what opened Scrooge's eyes? Marley's ghost who came to him to tell him he would be visited by three ghosts. Past, present and the future. All three of these ghosts did have an impact on Scrooge, and when he wakes up Christmas morning, Scrooge is a changed man for the better because he did not want to be the person he is in the future from what the ghost showed him would happen. Scrooge did not like what he saw of himself in past and present, and when the future came, same thing. He didn't like what he saw, but he did have the power to change things, so he did!
I don't want to get preachy in the rest of this review, but I am kind of going to.
There are many people around us who don't look to the future, and I hate to say this, but a lot of them seem to be our businesses and our youth of today. 
I am happy to admit when I was young I thought about this very thing. I knew, my grandparents would not be around forever. I did realize that I needed to spend time with my grandparents especially when I was in my early twenties because I knew they would not be here forever, and today they are all gone. What I wouldn't GIVE to have ONE MORE DAY with them! I am SO grateful I had the foresight to realize this very thing and I did spend time with all of them. While growing up I was so lucky in that I had all four of my original grandparents. None of them had divorced or been widowed 'yet', either! Not many people have that! If any youth are reading this, go visit them! Don't forget your extended family, either! (Great aunts and uncles, too!) 
I remember sitting down with my grandparents on both sides, and I have chicken scratched our "family tree" out. Had I not talked to them about it, I would not know about my previous family. I do need to make it nicer and better to understand, unfortunately, and I am waiting on my father for that side of the family, and have been waiting for OVER 30 YEARS! I don't expect I will ever get the family tree for that side of the family from him! Grrrr! (That will be a job I will be working on that this coming year with family tree online companies! There is more than one way to skin a cat! LOL!) 
I also realized I would not always have my parents around, either, so I made sure to spend time with them, too, and I did lose my mother in September 2010. I miss her dearly.
Some of those times I spent with family were the BEST I have ever had! Heck, the first four years of my daughters life I spent almost one day each weekend at both of their homes. Sometimes we would even spend the night quite a bit until my son was born, and it became very difficult to lug, pack and carry ALL of the 'baby stuff' I needed to care for him! You all know what babies need! LOL! By that point, both sides of our family came over to my house to visit to help make it easier on me. I again thank God for those times because today my mother has been gone now for what will be our fifth christmas. She passed away from pancreatic cancer in September of 2010. The one regret I have about her as she was dying is she would never talk about it. It was as if she was knew she was going to die, but felt if she talked about it it would come sooner rather than later? I'm guessing on that one. The unfortunate thing is there were so many things left unsaid and not worked out between my brother and I. I have since learned when you hear people say that mother's are the glue of the family and keep everyone together, they are correct. We have no longer had ONE family get-together since, other than my father's remarriage that I could not attend due to my husband having to work. He never did believe me. Heck, I haven't seen my father in two years now. He won't drive to my house because I live 'one' hour away from him. I live 41 miles away, which he has made into 51 miles, but Google it, and it IS 41 miles. We drove it many a time without a vehicle even made in this century! Who is the Scrooge here? Think of ALL the families that have heartache because they have thousands of miles between them and cannot spend special holidays together! I cannot drive due to having a very rare neurological muscle disease which causes severe muscle spasms, and there is no way I can sit behind that wheel without getting them, or even riding as a passenger, too.
When I see our youth of today NEVER spending time with their family, it hurts me to see that. I think of my kids, too, and I wish they would spend more time with their family and extended family knowing what I know now.
Next we have businesses who don't seem to hook the two together. Their employees have family and friends, too, and they would like the chance to spend time with them as well, especially during the holidays. Is it that we are such a society that ONLY puts value on "work" that people who run companies cannot see that beyond the end of their noses? Has anyone working in the top of the company ever read Scrooge? None of them seem to have learned that it is VITAL that employees get to have time off to spend with their families.
Why is it today people and businesses cannot learn from A Christmas Carol to give people more time off to be with their family and friends? This CLASSIC written by Charles Dickens, just ONE of the classics that almost everyone has read or seen a movie about, has NOT made an impact on ALMOST ALL BUSINESSES besides the schools? People included, too. I have a person in my family who won't give me the time of day. I hate to admit it's a person very close to me. Will that person regret it after I am gone? I believe they will. A Christmas Carol is on of their favorite movies, but they haven't learned from it. Heck, most of us were forced to read it in High School. (I often wonder if when the boss is sitting at home if they EVER feel guilty that their employees have not been granted enough time over the holidays? That family and other people besides our coworkers have very important people in our lives, so shouldn't we be allotted a little more time with them instead of only two days over the holidays which happen only to be Christmas Day and New Year's Day?
It goes without saying we did NOT learn from this story after all, or else many things would be different today. People would be able to spend time with both family and friends through all of the different holidays starting with Thanksgiving. People would ALL have that Friday after Thanksgiving off. 
Granted, there are some jobs that must be worked, but the majority of jobs do not have to be.
Our society today, with the aid of computers, has become one capable of working around the clock 24/7, around the world, NEVER stopping. I know back in Dicken's day that thought was unfathomable! Think about time as it goes forward from today and ALL of the things that will happen that we can't even guess the world will be like! Will we look back at today and wish we were granted this luxury? Or am I one of the very 'few' who feels this is important?
What I want to voice, and I hope some people and businesses today can hear this is to ask them to slow down and allow people who work for them to give them time, for their employees to be able to have more than the national holidays off to spend with their family and friends at least during SOME time of the year. 
Still, today, there are too many companies who the first year you are employed for them give you NO time off, and others who only allow ONE week of vacation the entire first year, or even one week off for the first five years at that employees job until they get another five days off making a total of two weeks of vacation!
I feel some people need to wake up, too, and realize the importance of family and friends and realize they should spend time with them, just like Scrooge did. Usually it takes something severe for them to realize that friends and family are everything in life. There are too many people who don't visit their family, or their extended family and friends because they do not have the time. Time. Is this what it comes down to? Time, but time for employers, not the employees. Family and friendships lost or forgotten. People who are alone. People who have no friends left. So sad. If only . . . 
This is why we continue to see the movie Scrooge, or, officially, "A Christmas Carol", over and over and over, again, and again, and again. It needs to be replayed over and over. The next time I see this movie/book around or being played all of the time on TV or at community theaters, or knock-offs of this movie/book, I will NEVER TIRE OF IT! I now have a newfound respect for this classic! 
Food for thought:
This book would make one heck of a great Book Club book to discuss!
Did Dickens know that this would continue to happen if he didn't tell this story? Did he have the foresight to know that most of the time people do not change, and places of employment do not, either? I think he did, or else this story never would have been written. Dickens had a reason for writing this story, and I truly believe people and businesses he knew had a lot to do with it. 
I did a Google search to find out the 'real' publishing date for this novel, and found it was December 19th, 1843. Was this type of thing already going on back then, or was it just starting? Did Dickens feel not enough people treated each other as kindly as they should have been, especially families and businesses? Did Dickens think employees were not paid enough money for the amount of work they produced for other people, the 'higher-ups'?
I will no longer be moaning and groaning that 'here is another one' because rereading this book has changed my life, again, but in a different way. Maybe it did this because I am much older than the first time I read it? 
It just feels like people and businesses STILL have not realized the importance to allow, or I should say the 'ability' to give their employees time off from work to be able to do this. In fact, most of America's businesses don't give people ample time for their employees to have any time with their families around holidays, at least not like they do in Canada, the UK and Europe. What is wrong with America, I ask? Some countries allow new mothers who have babies an entire YEAR to stay home and raise that child, and they get to return to the 'same' position. They even get PAID to stay home and raise that brand new baby! In Europe, some countries shut down for an entire month every summer so their employees can enjoy time spent with their families and friends in the nice weather. Other countries (and I'm not talking about 3rd world countries) know of this importance! They have happy employees! Heck, I would be! I just think it's wrong, in my opinion, to ONLY allow 2 days off during the holidays. After all, isn't that what this book addresses, to spend time that time with them?
The classics. They hold true to today. This is their beauty!
What I don't understand is with this story being a classic, and everyone knows this story and what the underlying message is, WHY do people continue to treat other people just as nasty as Scrooge did? (Yes, I know. Some people don't realize how they act. Shameful!) It never does seem to end, does it? Here we have a classic book that gives us the recipe of how not to act, yet certain people (and companies) still act this way! I'll never understand why because we are reminded every year.
I can hope that one day we will pay more attention to the classics, and understand their good meanings, especially in the United States, and act upon them.
From the end of the book are these words:
"God Bless Us, Every One!"

Saturday, November 29, 2014

The #NYTimes Top 15 (20) #Bestsellers for the week ending 11-30-14 PLUS BLOG UPDATES!


Welcome! This post is always up by NOON every Sunday and sometimes earlier! 
Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! I did, so much so, I tired myself out terribly! I wanted to cook my turkey 'my way' (it's been a few years) and I did, but I also insisted on cooking the side dishes, too, but those took me 6 HOURS! I bit off more than I could handle with this neuro-muscle disease I have. Seriously, I can't do that anymore, and I should have known better, even if it was only for the two of us. Doing that cost me participating in the Black Friday Hop, unfortunately, but, on a good note, my son and his girlfriend came over the next day! Sorry to say I kept falling asleep on them! They understood, and I learned I can't cook a meal like that again, or I must allow my husband do half or more of it! It was just a thing I needed to try to do 'on my own'! The food was good, but I fell asleep halfway through eating it! My husband kept trying to take my plate, and I yelled at him, "No! I'm not done yet!" LOL! Guess where the food ended up? Yep! All over my recliner! I told him it was a figment of his imagination! It cleaned up nicely and you would never know it was there!
Okay, let's get on to seeing what's going on with the blog!

Monday starts the Best of 2014 Giveaway Hop!
Reviews both Christmas and non-Christmas!

Right now - check the LEFT side column of the blog! Enter ALL the Giveaways there by clicking on the photos! The FALL INTO CASH ENDS TONIGHT, 11-30, at midnight!

On to the books!

FICTION - COMBINED EBOOK AND PRINT
All links go to the ebook. If you are interested in a different version of the book, such as the hardcover, paperback (if there is one) or even the Audible version, just click on the type you want! You'll find it in a grey box a little bit under the book! For those of you with ereaders, there are some AMAZING prices on these bestsellers you can't afford to pass up! (I can't believe some of the prices! Wow!) Happy Holiday shopping now!!! Enjoy! 
                                                                                                                                                                       
1.  Captivated by You by Sylvia Day
ebook: $7.99
print:   $9.60



2. The Escape by David Baldacci
ebook: $10.99
print:   $12.86



3. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
ebook: $2.99
print:   $9.00



4. Gray Mountain by John Grisham
ebook: $   3.25
print:   $14.48



5. The Burning Room by Michael Connelly
ebook: $  3.99
print:   $12.24



6. The Cinderella Murder by Mary Higgins Clark
ebook: $10.99
print:   $16.06



7. Revival by Stephen King
ebook: $12.74
print:   $17.04



8. The Job by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg
ebook: $11.84
print:   $14.00



9. The Mistletoe Promise by Richard Paul Evans
ebook: $  9.78
print:   $11.99



10. Flesh and Blood by Patricia Cornwell
ebook: $12.99
print:   $14.50



11. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
ebook: $  6.99
print:   $13.60



12. Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult
ebook: $10.99
print:   $14.00



13. Blood Magick by Nora Roberts
ebook: $  2.50
print:   $10.07



14. Blue Labyrinth by Douglas Preston
ebook: $  9.99
print:   $15.99



15. His Secretary by Melanie Marchande
ebook: $    .99
print:   $11.69


As always, thanks for coming by! And the rest of the books are: 


  • DARK PLACES, by Gillian Flynn (Broadway)
  • FIFTY SHADES OF GREY, by E. L. James (Vintage)
  • BIG LITTLE LIES, by Liane Moriarty (Amy Einhorn/Putnam)
  • ORPHAN TRAIN, by Christina Baker Kline (Morrow/HarperCollins)
  • JACI BURTON THE KENT BROTHERS TRILOGY, by Jaci Burton (Carina Press)
  • Tuesday, November 25, 2014

    #REVIEW with a #GIVEAWAY too! #AHomeForChristmasBlogTour #Historical #ShortStory #Western #SweetRomance #Christmas @hfvbt @MKMcClintock



    Publication Date: November 5, 2014
    Trappers Peak Publishing
    eBook; 74 pages
    ASIN: B00NE43C0O
    Settings: 19th Century Montana, Wyoming, & Colorado
    Genre: Christmas Short Stories/Western/Sweet Romance

    Add to GR Button

    Includes three historical fiction short stories to delight and entertain this holiday season.
    CHRISTMAS MOUNTAIN
    In search of family she barely knows and adventure she’s always wanted, Katherine Donahue is saved from freezing on a winter night in the mountains of Montana by August Hollister. Neither of them expected that what one woman had in mind was a new beginning for them both.
    TETON CHRISTMAS
    Heartache and a thirst for adventure lead McKensie Stewart and her sister to Wyoming after the death of their parents. With the help of a widowed aunt and a charming horse breeder, McKensie discovers that hope is a cherished promise, and there is no greater gift than love.
    LILY’S CHRISTMAS WISH
    Lily Malone has never had a real family or a real Christmas. This holiday season, she might get both. From an orphanage in New York City to the rugged mountains of Colorado, Lily sends out only one wish. But when the time comes, can she give it up so someone else’s wish can come true?

    Watch the Book Trailer!




    Praise for A Home for Christmas

    “5 stars! I have just finished reading three short stories written by M.K. McClintock, part of her collection A HOME FOR CHRISTMAS. I really enjoyed these charming historical fictions CHRISTMAS MOUNTAIN, TETON CHRISTMAS and LILY’S CHRISTMAS WISH!” – Nicole Laverdure
    “Heart-warming and inspiring.” – Kat Cambron
    “A delightful collection of stories sure to warm any reader’s heart.” – Elizabeth Loftus

    Pre-Order the eBook

    About the Author


    MK McClintock is the author bestselling historical western romance and award-nominated historical romantic mystery. She spins tales of romance and adventure inspired by the heather-covered hills of Scotland and the majestic mountains of home. With her heart deeply rooted in the past and her mind always on adventure, she lives and writes in Montana.
    Learn more about MK by visiting her website and blog. You can also find her on FacebookTwitter, and Goodreads.




    MY TAKE:
    5 Stars!
    All three of these books take place during the 19th century, and the author gives us an Author's Note in the beginning showing her excitement for Christmas during this time period. She said, "it not only delighted and entertained, but also gave me pause." What a statement, huh!
    Each story really focuses on the people, and they make you truly feel the love and warmth everyone truly has for each other. Back then there was not television, the internet, or cell phones like we have today, and people focused much more on 'people' and their relationships to one another than what I feel we do today. With that being said, this is why these stories do really 'need' to be read. They truly warm our hearts in ways some books today cannot.
    From the book, it states: This is a collection of 3 different historical western short stories to inspire love and warm the heart.
    1. Christmas Mountain
    2. Teton Christmas
    3. Lily's Christmas Wish
    There is a recipe at the end call The Wycliffe Hotel's Famous Coffee Cake Recipe - which sounds SO yummy!
    I enjoyed ALL 3 stories very much. They really did make your heart feel warmth for the characters, and you really felt as if you were in the 19th century! I LOVED that part of the stories! 
    If I had to choose which story was my favorite, I would say Lily's Christmas Wish. That one touched my heart the most! It's about a little girl named Lily who has lived in an orphanage, and all she wants is to find a loving family to live with. She was on a train, an Orphan Train, where they try to adopt children out anywhere orphanages can. When they got to their location, up went a poster that said, 'WANTED: HOMES FOR CHILDREN". SO sad!!! You really felt for Lily! As I said she wanted a loving family so badly, that is all she wanted as she worried no one would want her because she was older and not a little kid that so many people preferred.
    I don't know if you ever saw a specific movie where they adopt children out, but it is SO sad as to how they do it! The kids stand in a line while people look at them and pretty much inspected them. It was horrible!
    Well, I'm not going to tell you anymore about that short story so I don't ruin it for you! I loved the other two stories JUST as MUCH! ALL of these short stories are the perfect read for the holiday season and will uplift your spirits!! This author, MK McClintock, knows just how to write a story that pull at your heart strings! You end up wanting more and more from her! She really knows how to make characters and make them come alive! I want to read MORE from this author! Next time I would love to read a full length novel of hers, that is how excellent this what I call a 'sampling' of her writing did for me! They really much these 3 stories affected my heart!
    Grab your copy for this season and take some time to read these Christmas stories! I dare you not to fall in love with these stories, and you'll be so glad you read them! I promise!
    I received a copy of this ebook from the author for free, but only for review purposes.


    GIVEAWAY TIME!!!

    NOW TO SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29th a midnight!
    You can win '1' (one) $5 Amazon Gift Card AND '1' (one) ebook copy of THIS BOOK! Just leave your name and email address in the comments below!
    YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS: Please be creative with it since it will be public, but not so much that I can't read it! LOL! For example, when I publicly write my email I write it like this: laurieisreading at g mail dot com. Good LUCK!!!
                            

    Saturday, November 22, 2014

    The #NYTimes Top 15 (20) #Bestsellers for the week ending 11-22-14 PLUS #BLOG UPDATES!


    Welcome to another week of GREAT books! This is a weekly post that is always posted by NOON every Sunday, and sometimes a little earlier! Thanks for stopping by!

    Remember last week when I wished you ALL a Happy Thanksgiving? I was ONE WHOLE WEEK EARLY! LOL!!! NONE of you caught it! Listen to this hilarious part! I took the turkey OUT of the freezer!! LOL!!! My husband wondered, "WHY did she do that????", but he didn't ask me why! I had to reinstruct him again that when I do something DUMB to ask me about it! LOL!!!! I figured it out early Monday morning that last week was NOT Thanksgiving! WHERE was my head??? Any of you ever do something SO funny like that? LOL!!! Turns out I didn't feel well all week, so I was WAY OFF! (The turkey was STILL hard as a rock!)
    Anyway, THIS WEEK IS THANKSGIVING!!! I want to wish you ALL a VERY HAPPY THANKSGIVING! I am SO THANKFUL FOR ALL OF YOU!

    THIS IS WHAT'S GOING ON AT THE BLOG!

    REVIEWS AND GIVEAWAYS - ALL IN THE LEFT SIDE COLUMN!
    *All I Want for Christmas is You by Jessica Scott with and I-PAD Giveaway, BUT IT ENDS AT MIDNIGHT ON THE 23rd! HERE! 

    *Thankful for Cash Giveaway - $250! HERE! 

    *Fall Into Cash Giveaway Hop! - $250 HERE!

    More Christmas book reviews to come this week! I am not going to list the books because they have changed, and I have not written up a list yet of what I'm going to write about, except for:

    *A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (which is more of a commentary about life and the way people treat each other, plus I talk about possible reasons Dickens might have written that story because too much of what he had to say holds true to today!) and,

    *Christmas in July by Debbie Mason (which is NOTHING about Christmas! I was very disappointed! This has NOTHING to do with Christmas! You'll see in the review.)
    More to come, too, but Christmas books!

    *Black Friday Book Bonanza (Giveaway Hop!) starts Friday, November 29th to November 30th! This is a short one ONLY meant for deals and steals instead of shopping and standing in line in the stores!

    *Possibly Silver Bells (A Timeless Romance Anthology by many authors)  - we'll see about this one. It's a Victorian/Regency Romance, so I'll see if this is for me or not.

    The rest we'll see!

    HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

    Let's hit the books!


    FICTION: COMBINED EBOOK AND PRINT
    All books link to the ebook. If you would like a different version, just click on it when you are on the page. There will be a box with all the different versions available! All proceeds from the sale of these books do go towards Giveaways at this blog! 

    1.  Revival by Stephen King
    ebook: $12.74
    print:   $17.04



    2. Flesh and Blood by Patricia Cornwell
    ebook: $12.99
    print:   $17.87



    3. Gray Mountain by John Grisham
    ebook: $10.99
    print:   $17.37



    4. The Burning Room by Michael Connelly
    ebook: $  3.99
    print:   $12.58



    5. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
    ebook: $2.99
    print:   $8.49



    6. Blue Labyrinth by Douglas Preston
    ebook: $9.99
    print:   $9.00



    7. A Will and A Way by Nora Roberts
    ebook: $4.89
    No print version available yet



    8. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
    ebook: $6.99
    print: $13.60



    9. Blood Magick by Nora Roberts
    ebook: $  3.99
    print:   $10.07



    10. Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult
    ebook: $10.99
    print:   $16.80



    11. Ice Cold by Tess Gerritsen
    ebook: $1.99
    print:   $7.19



    12. Kiss of Christmas Magic by Eve Langlais, Aubrey Rose and many others
    ebook: $ .99
    print: no print edition at this time



    13. Prince Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles) by Anne Rice
    ebook: $10.99
    print:   $17.37



    14. His Secretary Undone by Melanie Marchande
    ebook: $    .99
    print:   $11.68



    15. Private India: City on Fire by James Patterson and Ashwin Sanghi
    ebook: $  9.99
    print:   $13.08



    Thanks for stopping by! Again, Happy Thanksgiving! The rest of the books are:  


  • ONE NIGHT: DENIED, by Jodi Ellen Malpas (Grand Central)
  • ORPHAN TRAIN, by Christina Baker Kline (Morrow/HarperCollins)
  • HAVANA STORM, by Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler (Putnam)
  • FIFTY SHADES OF GREY, by E. L. James (Vintage)
  • DARK PLACES, by Gillian Flynn (Broadway)
  • Tuesday, November 18, 2014

    #GIVEAWAY #REVIEW #BOOKBLAST "All I Want for Christmas is You" (Coming Home novel 5.5) by Jessica Scott


    DESCRIPTION:
    All Major Patrick MacLean wanted was Christmas with the woman and child who were his family in everything but name. But Captain Samantha Egan has come back from the war a different woman than the one who left - and she doesn't know if she can love him anymore.

    But neither of them counted on the determination of a little girl they both call daughter and if Natalie has her wish, her parents may have no idea what's coming for them. It's going to take Christmas miracle to bring these two wounded warriors back from the edge of a broken heart.


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    My Take:
    4 Stars!
    I really enjoyed this Novella of 95 pages, it really packs a bunch of Christmas joy! This book is part of a series, but can be read alone for the season.
    In this novella, it is Samantha who comes back home from fighting in the war, and not a man. This was definitely different because we are so used to it always being a man in this type of a situation. Not this time.
    Samantha thought she could handle her demons from the war alone, but she quickly learns she cannot. These two have a daughter, and even though their daughter is not Patrick’s biological daughter, he feels as if she is. He feels such a loss without his wife and daughter as Samantha is trying to readjust to being back home now, but they are far away from Patrick, and being far away, and separate, is not quite working.
    They come back together, and they find sparks still fly between them.
    This was a very enjoyable romance novella, the first one I’ve read by Jessica Scott, and I would like to read more by her.

    I received this book from the author for review purposes.

    About the Author, Jessica Scott


    Jessica Scott is a career army officer, mother of two daughters, three cats and three dogs, wife to a career NCO and wrangler of all things stuffed and fluffy. She is a terrible cook and even worse housekeeper, but she's a pretty good shot with her assigned weapon and someone liked some of the stuff she wrote. Somehow, her children are pretty well adjusted and her husband still loves her, despite burned water and a messy house.
    She's written for the New York Times At War Blog, PBS Point of View Regarding War, and IAVA. She deployed to Iraq in 2009 as part of OIF/New Dawn and has served as a company commander at Fort Hood, Texas.
    She's pursuing a PhD in Sociology in her spare time  and most recently, she's been featured as one of Esquire Magazine's Americans of the Year for 2012.


    Not only does Jessica Scott has this Christmas novel, but she released another with author Joann Ross, called, "Home for Christmas, A Holiday Duet". This book is also available NOW! Enjoy!



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