Book Review: Quilts Presidential and Patriotic

Katie February 19, 2016 0 Comments

Quilts: Presidential and Patriotic is a look at several quilts that were made related to american history over the years. It features lots of information and photos of the quilts.  I always love to look at books about quilts simply because I am not sure I have the patience or the talent to make them but there are so many people that do and come up with such wonderful things.  The quilts in this book do not disappoint, gorgeous creations of red, white and blue honoring our great nation.  All of the fabric that has been created featuring the presidents and campaign buttons and other historical items are pretty cool to see too.  Some of the detail put into embroidered faces of the presidents is amazing, even their signatures!

A must see for any American!  I don’t think you need to be a history buff or even a quilter to see that there is some real talent in these pages!

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

Throughout our country’s history, quiltmakers have honored America’s presidents in their quiltmaking. Featuring more than 330 images with insightful explanations, this book looks at the presidential quilts and patriotic quilts that have been made by American quilters. From the presidencies of George Washington through Barack Obama, the quilts—along with intriguing quilt-related comments from newspapers of the times—help us enjoy American history, and reflect on how quilt history has chosen to remember the US presidents. Also highlighted are 43 gorgeous newly-made quilts representing each of the United States presidents to date. Each measures twenty-four inches square, and is constructed in a pattern and fabric historically accurate to the leader’s presidential term of office; their makers are quilt historians and enthusiasts affiliated with the American Quilt Study Group.

Book Review: Middle Eight

Katie February 19, 2016 0 Comments

When I first started reading this book I was a bit confused because I thought it was going to be music related.  We first meet Ray and her husband is going after her with a knife, and cuts her.  She had been planning on leaving him anyway and had already been packed.  The plan that she had in her head of getting away from Joe and getting to her mother’s house seemed perfect in her head, but not so perfect as she is trying to actually put it in place.

Ray ends up at a bar and she meets a woman in the bathroom who helps give her a “makeover” so she won’t have to pay for any drinks all night.  She ends up getting really, really drunk and when she gets back to her car, it won’t start.  The drummer of the band that was playing in the club ends up letting her crash at his place for the night and subsequently several nights while she tries to figure out what she is going to do next and avoid her crazy husband who may be coming after her with a knife.

I need to mention that this book takes place in 1997 through the early 2000s – mostly insignificant aside from the fact that the whole rest of the story hinges on the fact that Ray and the drummer, Van, can’t get in contact with each other because Ray doesn’t have a cellphone and there’s no such thing as social media for them to reconnect on.  Van ends up driving Ray to her mother’s farm and leaves her there even though he wants her to come back with him.  He has to go to a gig and ends up joining the band Wanderlust because their drummer is sick and he is filling in.  Wanderlust ends up getting bigger and bigger, their biggest single being a song about Ray.  When the label wants them to move more Pop, Van tries to find his muse again (Ray) but when he goes to the farm she’s not there and his note for her with his number goes undelivered.

When Ray ends up figuring out that 4 of the songs on the band’s new CD must be about her, she finds a way to get to a show and tries to get backstage.  She sends a message to Van with a couple of roadies and hopes that it will get to him.  Once Van find out Ray is there, he comes running to her and they end up heading to the bus… Paparazzi catch them and Van has seemed to have forgot that he is currently dating America’s Sweetheart & Disney Starlet. Things go out of control and Ray worries that she may have just pulled a Yoko Ono…

Throughout it all Ray ends up with a few realizations about her life and now Van and Ray need to figure out how to smooth things over as there are shows being canceled because of picketers outside the venues!

I really liked this book and how Ray and Van figured out that they were each others “middle eight” which is describes as the “point in a song where things change up, usually after the first couple of verses.” I really loved that and I liked how they worked it into the story in several different relationships.  I’m really bummed that this is appearing to be a standalone book and there won’t be more.  The ending of the book while complete still left me wanting to find out more and what happened next!

I received a free e-copy in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

He’s sex, drugs, and rock and roll. She’s spray bleach, spreadsheets, and check lists. Will their relationship hit the charts, or break hearts?

When the normal life Ray has always dreamed of unravels, she falls for a drummer, comes to terms with her unconventional childhood, and inevitably discovers that normal was never really in her best interest.

Book Review: Baseball’s Game Changers

Katie February 19, 2016 0 Comments

Baseball’s Game Changers focuses on 50 items that changed the game of baseball whether it be players, rules, breaking of rules, etc.  The author has ranked them by how they have altered the game.  Some of the people featured are Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson.  Other game changers is Television contracts and of course the book wouldn’t be complete without talking about all the steroid scandals as well.  Some of the changes were for the better of the game and others were not.  I think that any baseball fan would enjoy reading this book and seeing how the authors list matches up with their own!

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

The first book in the new Lyons Press GAME CHANGERS sports series answers the questions: What were the 50 most revolutionary personalities, rules, pieces of equipment, controversies, organizational changes, radio and television advancements, and more in the history National Pastime? And how, exactly, did they forever change the game? Baseball’s Game Changers offers fascinating, detailed explanations along with a ranking system from 1 to 50 that is sure to inspire debate among baseball aficionados. Ranging from each sport’s beginnings to today and tackling on-the-field and off-the-field developments, the Game Changers series offers a history of each sport through their turning-points and innovations. Full-color, and including 30 photos plus pull-outs and sidebars, books within the Game Changers series are important and entertaining additions to every sports fan’s library.

George Castle has covered Major League Baseball, the Chicago Cubs, and the Chicago White Sox since 1980 for a variety of newspapers and magazines, including the Times of Northwest Indiana. An author of eleven books, he hosted and produced a weekly syndicated baseball show, Diamond Gems, for 17 years and is now historian for the Chicago Baseball Museum. Castle has become a multimedia purveyor of baseball inside information and analysis, using a network of close clubhouse and front-office relationships to continually produce scoops and informative pieces that outflank other media. Castle has also appeared on a wide variety of network radio—including ESPN, Sporting News, and Sirius—and local sports-talk radio programs.He lives in Chicago.

Book Review: Weird Sh!t

Katie February 19, 2016 0 Comments

Weird Sh!t is a book full of really weird facts on all sorts of topics.  This is a quick read and you’ll be full of quirky facts that you will want to throw into conversation as often as you can.  I know that I mentioned 3 of the facts in the first evening after finishing the book that afternoon.  There are all sorts of topics and I’m sure more than a few will have you laughing or confused or just plain weirded out.  The book is called Weird Shit after all.

It’s kind of hard to review this book since it is basically just a bunch of facts, but if you are into useless and weird trivia or are just bored and want a quick read, be sure to check this one out.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

Did you know? Salvador Dali sometimes wore a perfume of fish glue and cow dung to attract his then girlfriend, Gala. Have you heard, seen, or read about something so bizarre and incredible that it leaves you bamboozled for the rest of the day? No? Then you haven’t read Weird Sh!t.  This eclectic and eccentric mix of news stories, events, concepts, and conceits reveals a world removed from reality as you know it. Prepare to depart from this seemingly conventional life and arrive at a destination full of downright weird and wonderful shit.

Book Review: Team Chemistry

Katie February 12, 2016 0 Comments

Team Chemistry talks all about the abuse of drugs and alcohol in baseball, from the past and the present.  It touches a bit on other sports as well, such as the NFL and bike racing.  Drinking has always been a problem, but it was not often written about by reporters. Tobacco is also an issue.  The book also talks about the evolution of drug use throughout the sport.  Certainly an interesting deeper look into the lives of some baseball players and their addictions as well as talk about the more recent steroid era and the Mitchell Report and its fall out throughout the sport.

I received a free e-copy in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

In 2007, the Mitchell Report shocked traditionalists who were appalled that drugs had corrupted the “pure” game of baseball. Nathan Corzine rescues the story of baseball’s relationship with drugs from the sepia-toned tyranny of such myths. In Team Chemistry , he reveals a game splashed with spilled whiskey and tobacco stains from the day the first pitch was thrown. Indeed, throughout the game’s history, stars and scrubs alike partook of a pharmacopeia that helped them stay on the field and cope off of it: In 1889, Pud Galvin tried a testosterone-derived “elixir” to help him pile up some of his 646 complete games.Sandy Koufax needed Codeine and an anti-inflammatory used on horses to pitch through his late-career elbow woes.Players returning from World War II mainstreamed the use of the amphetamines they had used as servicemen.Vida Blue invited teammates to cocaine parties, Tim Raines used it to stay awake on the bench, and Will McEnaney snorted it between innings. Corzine also ventures outside the lines to show how authorities handled–or failed to handle–drug and alcohol problems, and how those problems both shaped and scarred the game. The result is an eye-opening look at what baseball’s relationship with substances legal and otherwise tells us about culture, society, and masculinity in America.

Nathan Michael Corzine is an instructor in history at Coastal Carolina Community College.

Book Review: Every Anxious Wave

Katie February 12, 2016 0 Comments

This book started out really fun.  Karl finds a wormhole in his closet and with his tech saavy friend Wayne, they figure out a way to send you back to any rock concert you want to go to, for a fee, of course.  The rules are you can only travel backwards and you can’t take any photos or audio, don’t talk to anyone, don’t touch anyone, don’t do any drinking or drugs and don’t leave the venue.  Things are going well, the two are making a lot of money…

Then Wayne decides that he wants to go back to December 1980 and save John Lennon from being killed. Karl doesn’t want to send him because he doesn’t want to mess with the past and therefore affect the future, but Wayne has him send him anyway.  Except that Karl makes a typo and ends up sending Wayne to the year 980 and can’t figure out how to get him back.

He has to find an astrophysicist to help, and that is when we meet Lena.  Lena and Karl hit it off and although she is technically Karl’s employee they begin a relationship.  But then time travel becomes more than just traveling back to see rock shows.  And things become more and more complicated as the future is being changed more and more.  Lena goes back to a defining moment in her life and changes it – and makes it so she and Karl never ended up meeting.

But the universe and time travel moves in mysterious ways and maybe they will be back together in some alternate reality… or the future.

I really liked this book. It was fun in the beginning to see what concerts everyone wanted to go to (my first thought was to see The Beatles at Shea Stadium, and of course, a ton of Hanson concerts!) But I knew that once they started altering their pasts things would get a bit crazy.  It was also interesting to see how Wayne’s life in 980 kind of paralleled where Karl ended up (I won’t give too much more than that away)  A really fun sci-fi book with a hint of rock n roll.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

Good guy Karl Bender is a thirty-something bar owner whose life lacks love and meaning. When he stumbles upon a time-travelling worm hole in his closet, Karl and his best friend Wayne develop a side business selling access to people who want to travel back in time to listen to their favorite bands. It’s a pretty ingenious plan, until Karl, intending to send Wayne to 1980, transports him back to 980 instead. Though Wayne sends texts extolling the quality of life in tenth century “Mannahatta,” Karl is distraught that he can’t bring his friend back.

Enter brilliant, prickly, overweight astrophysicist, Lena Geduldig. Karl and Lena’s connection is immediate. While they work on getting Wayne back, Karl and Lena fall in love — with time travel, and each other. Unable to resist meddling with the past, Karl and Lena bounce around time. When Lena ultimately prevents her own long-ago rape, she alters the course of her life and threatens her future with Karl.

A high-spirited and engaging novel, EVERY ANXIOUS WAVE plays ball with the big questions of where we would go and who we would become if we could rewrite our pasts, as well as how to hold on to love across time.

Book Review: The Millionaire Makeover

Katie February 12, 2016 0 Comments

It has been a while since I read a romance novel and when I saw that The Millionaire Makeover was about a computer programming female, I knew I had to check it out! It was a bummer that there was really almost no mention of any computer programming stuff in the book though 🙁

The book is about Khloe who is trying to find a date to make the guy at work she is crushing on jealous.  Her best friend bids $20,000 on a mystery bachelor at a charity auction and Khloe is crushed when she realizes it is Niall Hunter.  He was her brother’s best friend and took her virginity 3 years ago after her brother Michael died and disappeared from her life.

At first, she does not want anything to do with Niall, but Niall is willing to help her out because he feels bad about what he had done – he only left because he found a letter from Michael saying that he should stay away from Khloe.

Of course, the two have all sorts of chemistry and Khloe begins falling for Niall again, even though she figures that he will break her heart again.  The two were very frustrating to me because both are in love with each other but it seemed to take so long for either of them to finally come out and say it!!

Will Khloe find her forever guy in the guy at work? Or was he right next to her all along?

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

Plain-Jane computer programmer Khloe Richardson needs a date—one to make the prince of her dreams jealous. Maybe then he’ll finally see her as a desirable swan and not the ugly duckling in the second office from the left.

But when she bids on a bachelor at a charity auction, the man she wins is millionaire Niall Hunter—who once made intense, passionate love to her and then left without a word. She’s determined not to let her guard down again—among other things—around the infamous Irish lothario.

Niall never imagined his penance for one hot-as-hell night with his best friend’s little sister would be transforming her from a shy wallflower to a sultry siren. Helping her attract another man is torture…especially when he promised his friend he’d stay away. Plus, she wants forever, and he’s not a forever kind of guy. But Niall can’t stop wanting her. Can’t stop touching her. Can’t stop, period. And damn if he can remember why he has to…

Book Review: Love Struck

Katie February 12, 2016 0 Comments

Love Struck was one of those books that I got so into, I couldn’t quite get back into reality after I finished it.  This book had no write up on NetGalley when I chose to review it, I simply picked it because the cover had a guy holding a guitar on it and you all know I like to read and review music related books.  This was a case where judging the book by its cover worked out for me.

Love Struck starts out where we meet Lacy.  She works in a recording studio and is trying to record a new album but has not been able to write a song in over a year.  Still haunted by her fiance’s death, she is trying to find anything that can help her get out of this funk and she seems to find it in a group called Song Writers Anonymous or SoWriAn.  To keep thinks anonymous, everyone on the site knows her only as LoveCoda.  She has been chatting with a guy named FolxNotDead## (I think it was either 27 or 24 or perhaps both were mentioned in the book) and he has been sharing songs with her and she has been helping him improve them.  Folx’s band gets booked to go on a tour so they think that their time together will be few and far between, but they decide to meet on December 24th and Lacy’s sister’s wedding where Folx will be her date.

Meanwhile, one of Lacy’s coworkers books Lacy on a tour with The Blue Hills.  Love tells Folx that she is also going on tour but they agree to keep in touch.  Since things on the site are supposed to be anonymous, neither one of them tells each other where the tour is going, what the bands are, etc.

So it is no surprise when it turns out that Folx is one of the members of the band that Lacy is touring with.  She immediately hits if off with one of the guys in the band – Eli.  I mean, they really hit it off.  And Lacy is able to write a song for the first time in a year!  Then she over hears the band singing a song that she knows the lyrics to – but they had never performed it on tour yet.  It is one of Folx’s songs and she becomes convinced that the lead singer, Jax, has to be Folx and is torn because she is really starting to like Eli.

Of course, it seems like the two are never going to figure out that they are in love with each other in real life AND online because Jax lies and says that he writes all the bands songs, when it really is Eli.

A rather unfortunate accident near the end of the book makes it seem like Eli and Lacy won’t end up with their happily ever after.  They say if you love someone, let them go… but will these two be able to find a way back to each other in the end?

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

Welcome to a seductive world where two solo artists combine their talents-and their hearts-to make beautiful music together…

SHE’S GETTING INTO THE GROOVE
Lacy Dawson is a young singer-songwriter with a record deal, a studio gig, and a serious case of writer’s block. After looking for love songs in all the wrong places, she finds inspiration at an online support group called Song Writers Anonymous. Thanks to one mysterious member who motivates her and inspires her, Lacy’s career is back on track. But is she ready to meet her sexy musical muse…face to face?

HE MAKES HER HEART SKIP A BEAT
Eli is definitely interested in hooking up with Lacy, aka “LoveCoda.” But between writing her new album and his band’s success, they can’t find the time to face the music-or each other-about their burgeoning online romance. All that changes when Eli and Lucy get booked on tour together. In person, the attraction is all too real and explosive. They both should walk away, but once they are in each other’s arms, there is no turning back…

“A fun, fresh, and sassy hit.”-RT Book Reviews on Miss Match

Book Review: Call Me, Maybe

Katie February 9, 2016 0 Comments

When I pick books to read based on song titles, it is usually hit or miss. Call Me, Maybe was definitely a hit. The story starts with Clementine Daly and her brother Honor flying to California from Chicago.  Clementine has her phone charging and Honor grabs it for her before they board the plane, assures her he turned it on airplane mode and tossed it in the bottom of her bag.  When she lands, she finds all sorts of frantic texts on the phone – from herself!?  It turns out that Honor had grabbed someone else’s phone instead of Clemetine’s.  Worried about revealing who she is to this mystery man, Justin, she doesn’t tell him that she is from the wealthy and powerful Daly family and doesn’t offer to buy them both new phones even though Honor suggests that she should, trying to keep the fact that she has some wealthy people’s numbers in her phone secret.

Justin and Clementine first agree to let each other know of any messages that they receive and plan to meet up later in the week once they are both back in Chicago.  Meanwhile, the two seem to form a close relationship over the phone.  But when they meet up, Clemetine still continues to keep her identity secret, and you know that it has got to be only a matter of time before Justin figures it out.  When Justin invites Clementine to be his date to a fancy party and walks in to see her Grandparents also in attendance, she knows it is only a matter of time.

The two seemed to have formed a pretty solid relationship in the short amount of time they have known each other, but will it be able to sustain the news that Clementine has been lying to Justin the whole time she has known him?

As I mentioned before, I found this book to be a hit for me.  I really liked the first half more than the second half but that may have more to do with the fact that I had to stop reading for a bit and once I have to stop reading when I am gaining momentum I never can seem to get back to the “place” where I once was with a book.  Frustrating, and also why I try to read books all in one sitting! I definitely recommend this one though if you are a romance reader.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

“Ellie Cahill is definitely one to watch!” raves bestselling author Cora Carmack, and this steamy, upbeat modern romance about connecting in all the best ways proves it once again.

Clementine Daly knows she’s the black sheep. Her wealthy, powerful family has watched her very closely since she almost got caught in an embarrassing scandal a few years ago. So when Clementine’s sent on a mission to live up to the Daly name, politely declining isn’t an option. Of course, the last thing she does before boarding the plane is to grab a stranger’s phone by mistake—leaving the hunky journalist with her phone. Soon his sexy voice is on the line, but he doesn’t know her real name, or her famous pedigree—which is just the way Clementine likes it.

Despite all the hassles, Justin Mueller is intrigued to realize that the beautiful brown-eyed girl he met at the airport is suddenly at his fingertips. They agree to exchange phones when they’re both back in town, but after a week of flirty texts and wonderfully intimate conversations, Justin doesn’t want to let her go. The only problem? It turns out that Clemetine has been lying to him about, well, everything. Except for the one thing two people can’t fake, the only thing that matters: The heat between them is for real.

Link to Follow Tour:  http://www.tastybooktours.com/2015/12/call-me-maybe-by-ellie-cahill.html

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25894369-call-me-maybe

Buy Links:  Amazon | B & N |Google Play|  iTunes | Kobo

Author Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | GoodReads

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Book Review: We Just Clicked

Katie February 5, 2016 0 Comments

We Just Clicked is about Erin Cochrane. When we first meet her, she is planning her wedding to Tyson and lending an ear to her best friend Bex and hearing all about her adventures in online dating.  But then Tyson decides that he doesn’t want to marry Erin and he doesn’t even want to be with her anymore so she is forced to move out of his house and back in with her Mom.  Bex convinces Erin to make an online dating profile.

Erin goes on a few bad dates and a few really bad ones – like the one with the guy who took her to Pizza Hut and told her she could only drink tap water because he was treating and couldn’t afford drinks… and just when she decides that it is time to delete her account, she gets a message from a guy named Joe.

Joe is a photographer and Erin doesn’t realize he is a celebrity photographer at first and thinks he is just joking around when he mentions having worked with celebrities. The two really seem to hit it off, but with Joe away all the time for work and Erin reading gossip magazines she thinks that something may be going on with his ex and calls things off. But Erin’s Mom is convinced that they are meant to be and meddles a bit…

Definitely a fun read and I always like reading about others dating site horror stories (and I have a few of my own as well!)  This was my travel read and I don’t think I could have picked anything better.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

Erin Cochrane loves the gossip and the countless bizarre stories about her best friend Bex’ adventures with online dating. Not that she’d ever sign up for the site herself. Erin’s far too busy planning her dream wedding to her gorgeous fiancé, Tyson.

But when Tyson decides that he is not ready for marriage, Erin’s world is turned upside down. Forced to move back in with her eccentric mother, things couldn’t get any worse. Thrust back into the singles’ scene, could online dating be the escape Erin needs from it all? Or will it be just another disaster?

From stalkers to cheapskates, Erin feels as though she’s become a magnet for every loser around, until she opens one message that changes everything.

An intriguing novel about modern dating and unexpected encounters that will keep you entertained right up to the very last page.