Rambling About.. The Bookshop on the Corner by Rebecca Raisin

Title: The Bookshop on the Corner Author: Rebecca Raisin Publication: 17 June 2014 -- Carina UK Amazon Description: Who said that only real heroes could be found in fiction? Sarah Smith had an addiction – she was addicted to romance novels. The meet-cute, the passion, the drama and the gorgeous men! Now this wouldn’t have been such an issue if she hadn’t been the owner of the only bookshop in Ashford, Connecticut. Ever since her close friend Lil, from The Gingerbread Café, had become engaged she had been yearning for a little love to turn up in her life. Except Sarah knew a good man was hard to find – especially in a tiny town like Ashford. That was until New York journalist, Ridge Warner stepped into her bookshop… Love could be just around the corner for Sarah, but will she be able to truly believe that happy-ever-after can happen in real-life too!

First Lines: Snuggled in the cozy bay window of the bookshop, I looked up from my novel as the first golden rays of sunshine brightened the sky. Resting my head against the cool glass, I watched the light spill, as though it had leaked, like the yellows of a watercolor painting.

Ramble:

Ashford was buzzing with good news recently, love affairs, weddings, babies, but I was still the same old Sarah, nose pressed in a book, living out fictional relationships as if they were my own. (4%)

Sarah first appeared in the second book of the Gingerbread Cafe series. She's the one who organized the chocolate festival that Lil and CeeCee were so wrapped up in. She's the one who owns The Bookshop on the Corner that I so desperately wish was real so I could go visit. Sarah feels like a kindred spirit from the very beginning. She's a woman who gets completely lost in books and cherishes them. When an elderly gentleman who had been to the shop years ago calls to tell her that he would like to send her his departed wife's collection, she immediately knows that she won't sell the books but, instead, place them in the shop's reading room for others to enjoy at their leisure. She's just my kind of person.

In spite of being the only bookshop in town and being memorable enough to visitors years later, the shop is still struggling. She knows that something has to change for her business life and, hopefully, her love life. Her best friend, Missy, tries to tell her that she's perfect just the way that she is but Sarah still feels like a change needs to happen somehow.

She decides to start a book blog for the store (Heh. See? Told you she's my kind of person!) and it's an immediate success.  It gives her a business boost, a new sense of confidence, and a new group of online friends who understand her and her love affair with books in a way that most people couldn't. She even uses my favorite (non-pirate-related) book quote: Ernest Hemingway's 'There is no friend as loyal as a book."

Just as this part of her life is taking off, in walks the cover of one of her beloved romance novels. Well, he wasn't really from the cover of one of her books but is Ridge Warner, a journalist from New York in town do a "feel-good piece" about Ashford and its specialty shops -- like The Bookshop on the Corner. He also knows all about Sarah and her blog already -- and, therefore, her love of romance novels. They do some flirtatious bantering (and I regret wearing a white shirt to work because I spurt coffee out of my nose) before she realizes that he had researched all about her. This doesn't sit too well with Sarah and things get real tense real fast. And then they don't.

(24%)

And then, of course, they do because the confidence that Sarah has garnered from the blog only apparently applies to her business life and not any potential love life -- which is all that she can think about when she sees him. She turns him down for an interview which baffles and intrigues him and thus begins the woo-ing.

I loved the Gingerbread Cafe books immensely and you'll be able to read all about those here, but my heart belongs in The Bookshop on the Corner. It was wonderful (and oftentimes hilarious) seeing CeeCee and Lily support Sarah and attempt to break her out of her shell and right into Ridge's arms. Of course, Missy is also on-board with the whole idea ... as is the vast majority of Ashford. As is Ridge himself.

I sighed. I swooned. I hugged myself tight. I laughed until I cried. I thanked the heavens that cardigans can double as protective coverings over white shirts (seriously -- they're like huge stylish bibs).

And then .... then came the twist and I &^%&%^* #$#%$% $#%$^%& #@$%$#@ ^%$&^%&                        and I almost DIED when FGS EHY^^  REG                                                     BYYHY!!!

Right .... like I would actually tell you. Get the book and read it yourself. Just remember to wear a protective covering in case you're prone to spurting, too.

I leave you with more gems of bookishness to tide you over:

"There's a certain pull books have on a person if they listen hard enough." (9%)

*** 

 "You look more like a romance reader to me."

I squared my shoulder. "And what exactly does a romance reader look like?"

"Let's see." He scratched his chin as if he was contemplating. "She's tiny, like a doll. Has perfectly cut black bangs, which highlight her mesmerizing doe eyes. Nervous around strangers, unaware that her hands flutter like the wings of a butterfly when she's thinking things she doesn't want anyone to know..." (20%)

*** 

 I imagined the books exhaling, stretching their bindings, as they relaxed, not on show anymore. And once I left for the night, I pictured them moving around the shop, their pages fluttering, as if they'd come to life. (40%)

*** 

I wasn't a neat person; I subscribed more to disorganized chaos. Time cleaning was less time reading, so I usually just did the minimal amount, and left it for another day, a day that would never come. (68%)

***

The books seemed to swell with pride as they sat solemnly on the old wooden shelves. They knew they were going to be well loved here, and read again, maybe a few times, in the years to follow. (75%)

***

It was so much easier to hide behind the covers of my books because there was no chance of being hurt that way. Books were my sanctuary, my escape and a place to dream without judgement or criticism. (88%)

Rambling About.. Rebecca Raisin's Gingerbread Cafe Series

I've always had a tendency to stay away from short stories and novellas (which, really, is just a fancy name for a short story, right?). I like my stories to have more substance than most shorts seem to have. I don't even really fancy the mid-series shorts that seem to pop up so often nowadays. If you don't have enough of a story to make a full-length book out of it, wait until you do and insert this morsel into that, you know? Of course, then I read Milkshakes & Heartbreaks at The Sunset Diner and, as soon as I was done, immediately jumped onto Helen Cox's website and downloaded the short story collection that ties in with the book. It's a collection, after all. If I wanted to I could read them all together in one sitting like a potentially disjointed novel.

And then I remembered that the only reason why I haven't plunged into the lovely-sounding world of Rebecca Raisin's Gingerbread Cafe yet is because of the length of the first two out of three installments. If I read them all together (they're even sold all together), well, then, my "I don't do shorts" is kind of voided. Right? Right.

So, taking the page counts from Amazon for each book we get

Yeah. I have no idea where the 110 pages went to since 64+94+304=462. I call it Magic Gingerbread Math. Doesn't matter, though. The reader that I'm using for the three individual books uses percentages instead of pages anyway. I'm even tossing in The Bookshop on the Corner (which sort of stands alone but is also sort of Gingerbread Cafe 2.5).

Christmas at the Gingerbread Cafe

The Gingerbread Cafe is located in Ashford, Connecticut, and run by Lily and her assistant CeeCee (who acts more like a mother than an employee). A new "small goods" shop opens across the street owned by the ruggedly handsome Damon and as Lily's customers all seem to be flocking over there she panics and feels as though war has been declared.

For two days Lily and Damon do their best to one-up the other and finally CeeCee suggests that they work together as both shops are similar but with enough differences that a partnership could prove advantageous. Of course, CeeCee is also thinking of another kind of partnership since Lily's ex-husband, Joel, has been gone for almost two years and she's still pining away hoping for him to come back. Of course, a little romance starts to blossom (no real spoiler here ... it's a holiday chick lit ... these things have to happen), but not without some speed bumps.

Even though it's not a long read, it's a great beginning and I can't for what happens next! (And, luckily, I won't have to!)

Chocolate Dreams at the Gingerbread Cafe

The next installment sees Lily, Damon, CeeCee and the rest of Ashford just before Easter preparing for a village-wide chocolate festival. Everything is blissful and happy and Damon's seven-year-old daughter, Charlie, is staying with Lily and Damon for the week. She could have been a speed bump, but she adores Lily and her mom is perfectly okay with her spending time there. Their split and divorce was amicable -- unlike Lily and Joel's.

Speaking of Joel, he suddenly reappears and threatens to ruin Lily's happiness.

Twat.

When she was first starting to get the Gingerbread Cafe up and running, they were married and his family had given her money for the kitchen upgrades. Now Joel is back and broke and insisting to be paid back... or else. Never mind that she supported him financially throughout their marriage and then lost everything but the shop because of him. He's a horrid wretch and won't be happy until she's as miserable as he has been, apparently.

Luckily, Lily has Ashford.

The entire village is behind her and willing to help out from the retired lawyer to the bookshop owner Sarah and even the town gossip -- but most of all Damon and CeeCee. Joel should have probably second-guessed his decision to try and wreak havoc. I certainly would never want to get on CeeCee's bad side for anything!

Another fast read and another truly delightful one. I keep thinking about how nice it would be to visit Ashford one day -- especially since the real town is only a 4 hour drive from here and about 15 miles away from my friend Sarah! Of course, I would be horribly disappointed if I showed up and there wasn't any delectable chocolate eggs or gingerbread milkshakes to be had. I guess I'll just keep reading, instead.

(Oh, and apparently 18 or so of those Magic Gingerbread Math pages come from a book preview at the end! It's totally starting to make sense now. At least, a little bit.)

The Bookshop on the Corner
This is #2.5 in the series as it falls between Gingerbread Cafe 2 & 3 and is also set in Ashford with some character overlaps ... but it's not "officially" a Gingerbread Cafe story so isn't included in A Gingerbread Cafe Christmas. 

Pshaw.

Because I flew through 1 & 2 in under 24 hours, and because of my "must read things in order" fixation, I'm reading it as 2.5 but it gets its own rambley post. Click HERE to read it!

Christmas Wedding at the Gingerbread Cafe

A year has passed since Christmas at the Gingerbread Cafe and wedding plans are underway for Lily and Damon. (Don't dare get on my case over spoilers since you knew it was going to happen as soon as you knew the titles of the books.) All of our favorite Ashford friends and neighbors are here, including CeeCee, Charlie, Sarah and Missy. We also get to meet Guillaume, the French chef with a crush on CeeCee, and the parents of our beloved bride and groom.

Future in-laws can be tricky. (Current in-laws can be tricky, too, of course ... but ... never mind!)

Lily's parents are delightful and beyond enthusiastic over the wedding. Damon's parents? Well, his dad is pleasant but his mom is not exactly Lily's biggest fan. This, of course, causes turmoil after turmoil and more than once you would wonder if the wedding would happen without someone having a total nervous breakdown first!

There's love, laughter, some tears (big tissue alert for the second half) and all of the delectable treats from the Cafe that leave your mouthwatering and your tummy grumbling.

No, I'm not saying a whole lot about this installment because it is, after all, the end and one must not completely give away the end. (I'm trying to convince Rebecca Raisin that it can't be the actual end. She owes me, after all.) Do yourself a favor, though, and read them all -- in order -- including The Bookshop on the Corner. And be prepared to lose yourself in the pages.

I've fallen in love over and over again with Lily and Damon ... and Ashford!

Tuesday Intros/Teaser Tuesday - Rosie Blake's How To Stuff Up Christmas

I'm 65% into book 15 of my 20 (or so) Books of Summer and I'm absolutely loving it and can already say that I highly recommend it. It's Rosie Blake's How To Stuff Up Christmas which may seem an odd choice for July but since there never seems enough time between Thanksgiving and New Years to read all of the holiday books I want to, I'm doing a Christmas in July this year. I'm also linking up for the first time to Bibliophile By The Sea's "First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros" along with my usual "Teaser Tuesday" at Books and a Beat. This book is good enough to be teased twice! Actually, it's good enough to be teased a lot more than that but I'm trying to behave and not go too over-the-top.

The Amazon Description does a decent job of giving the basic gist of the tale:

Christmas and cooking collide in this hilarious romantic comedy from Rosie Blake. 'Tis the season to be jolly. Unless you've found an intimate picture of another woman on your fiance's phone . . . Eve is heartbroken after discovering her fiance is cheating on her. Being surrounded by the joys of Christmas is more than Eve can bear, so she chooses to avoid the festivities by spending Christmas alone on a houseboat in Pangbourne. Eve gets gets an unexpected seasonal surprise when handsome local vet Greg comes to her rescue one day, and continues to visit Eve's boat on a mission to transform her from Kitchen Disaster Zone to Culinary Queen. But where does Greg keep disappearing to? What does Eve's best friend Daisy know that she isn't telling? And why is there an angry goose stalking Eve's boat? A hilarious and heart-warming novel about Christmas, catastrophes, and cooking, containing exclusive Christmas recipes, from the talented Rosie Blake.

I love that it mentions the angry goose ... but it left out Eve's whacktastic family, the crazy dog that her ex-fiance is trying to reclaim, Greg's brother, and a whole slew of other delightful characters I've loved getting to know. Ah well. Guess a description can't really cover everything, huh?

So, on with the teases. They might not really tell you more of the story, but maybe you'll find your interest piqued enough to want to give the book a try!

"First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros" is supposed to be the first paragraph (or two) of a book being read now or in the future. Of course, the beginning of this book isn't your standard paragraph so I just went with the first screen shot. I know. My first time linking up and I'm already bending the rules. Whoops.

"Teaser Tuesday" asks for a random line or two from anywhere in the book currently being read. Again, I tend to be a bit flexible with the "line or two." I've bookmarked and highlighted a ton of selections that all seem more than worthy of a good share and tease, but have had a hard time narrowing it down so I'm just going with the most recent highlight from the 63% mark.

If you enjoy the Christmas season, good recipes, belly laughs, "awwww" moments, and the occasional desire to smack a character in the face with a muddy boot, then How To Stuff Up Christmas might very well be right up your tinsle-covered alley.

What do you think?

Rambling About.. Show Time by Suzanne Trauth

Title: Show Time
Author: Suzanne Trauth
Publication: 19 July 2016 -- Lyrical Underground (Kensington Books)
Amazon Description: 
The tide has turned for Dodie O’Dell since a hurricane upended her life on the Jersey Shore. Now she’s further up the coast in sleepy Etonville, managing a restaurant that dishes dinners themed around the community theater’s latest productions. But Dodie just never imagined she’d land the starring role in a case of bloody homicide . . .

Intrigued by rumors of vanishing box office money, Dodie has agreed to help oversee the casting of Romeo and Juliet at the modest Etonville Little Theater. If nothing else, it’s a welcome escape from the thirty-something’s usual going-to-bed-with-a-mystery-novel routine. But when Jerome Angleton, a well-respected member of the theater company, is inexplicably found murdered on the loading dock, deadly drama transcends the stage—and the page. As a crime wave crashes over the small town, the spotlight is on Dodie to orchestrate her own investigation behind the scenes . . . before someone has a chance at a killer encore.

First Lines: There is no such thing as a Jersey girl. For example, if you lived below the Driscoll Bridge and were a citizen of the Jersey Show, as I had been  for more of my life, you were not necessarily defined by certain hairstyles and a particular accent. You were more likely to have a six-month tan and a strong penchant for boardwalk fries and fresh oysters. So I was a Jersey Shore girl.

Ramble (with Faves on 4s): After Hurricane Sandy had devastated the Jersey Shore, Dodie O'Dell headed north to Etonville to help manage a restaurant as a fund-raising pitstop of sorts before heading on to New York. 18 months later she's not only still at the Windjammer, but she has close friends and is involved with the local community theater thanks to a dinner-and-show event that she's helped to establish between the two.

By the time the ELT produced Dames at Sea and I had devised a seafood buffet, patrons were getting used to dining early and darting next door to the show. I was a marriage made in culinary heaven. (4%)

Dodie gets roped into helping with the upcoming production of  Romeo and Juliet and on the night of the auditions her friend Jerome is murdered. Jerome was a retired English teacher, a fixture at the theater box office (and stage), and shared Dodie's love of mystery novels. She ends up following the lead of so many fictional amateur detectives before her and starts to investigate the crime herself -- often to the chagrin of the handsome new police chief, Bill. Sometimes she shared with him what she was doing. Sometimes, well, she put it off.

Still, I was feeling some guilt at holding back this information and remembered my great aunt Maureen's favorite saying, that she had crocheted on a wall hanging: In life's wardrobe of emotions, guilt is the itchy wool turtleneck that's three sizes too small. I'd been scratching for several days now. (44%)

The mystery gets more complicated than just "who killed Jerome?" His apartment, the theater and the library are all broken into and tossed about, and there's a strange black SUV that appears to be stalking Dodie. These additional events mean that Dodie gets even further involved with the investigation and with Bill -- at least, in a professional manner.

"I hope this isn't too early?"

So this was what Bill sounded like in the morning, slightly hoarse, slightly sexy. (54%)

It's not just Dodie and Bill, of course. Etonville is small-town living at its finest and most gossip-mongering. Between the theater crowd, the restaurant crowd, and the crowd at her friend Carol's hair salon, everyone knows at least a version of everything almost as soon as it happens. Often times these versions are hilarious -- especially if the elderly Banger sisters are involved in the telling -- but even Bill finds out that small-town gossip can be helpful.

Bill opened his mouth, the closed it. "How did you--?"

"Snippets." I grinned. "Don't underestimate the power of the hair salon. Gossip central."

"Well, I'll be..." (64%)

It's a splendid little cozy and, even though I had a guesstimate as to whodunnit, I wasn't able to piece it all together until Dodie could herself. I loved getting to know her, Bill, and the residents of Etonville and I'm incredibly happy that this is the first in the series. I'm hoping that the tie-in of the theater productions continue because those gave a good bit of light-heartedness to the stress surrounding the mystery at hand.

Juliet lay back down.

Abby went back to work. "Alas alas! Help help! My lady's dead."

Thwap. She slapped Juliet across the face and caught her unawares. "Stop it!" Juliet screamed. (94%)

Show Time  is being released on July 19th by Lyrical Underground/Kensington Books. I'm very thankful to the publishers and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read it in advance. It was absolutely a pleasure and I highly recommend it to cozy mystery fans!

Rambling About.. Charlie N. Holmberg's Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet

I had requested Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet from NetGalley as soon as it became available since I've heard so many great things about Holmberg's other books. When I read the description and saw that the main character, Maire, is an amnesiac who can infuse feelings into her baked goods I was beyond intrigued. 
Unfortunately, after the first 30 percent or so of the book I found that it didn't intrigue me nearly as much as the description did. I wasn't sure that I would finish it. Maybe if it had been a paranormal mystery/comedy/chick lit I would have plowed through it with glee... but it doesn't fit any of those genres. It's more of a young adult fantasy, I would say. I don't have anything against fantasy, of course, and didn't want to leave a requested book unread so I plowed ahead.
Almost.
To be completely honest, I jumped over a handful of pages here and there. Not for the steamy reasons I normally have for skimming, but because it got to the point where not much seemed to be happening and I was curious as to whether I would feel like I missed anything if I jumped. I only had to backtrack a couple of pages once or twice. Bummer.
Now, the last 15% or so of the book I absolutely ate up like one of Maire's cakes. I would like an entire book just about the ending. Holmberg is definitely a talented writer but the vast majority of this story just wasn't for me.