Rambling About.. Liz Tipping's Don't You Forget About Me (with Book Beginnings & Friday 56)

Two books done and I'm already adding new titles to my 20 (or so) Books of Summer ... but I can't help it! I totally and completely blame Twitter. You see, during my long and often boring nights at work (11pm-7am New York time -- in case you forgot or didn't know to begin with) I'm glued to electronics at work. Often the computer, my tablet and my phone are all amusing me in one way or another. I'll be watching something on Hulu or some other streaming site on my tablet, putzing around with Instagram and/or Sims FreePlay on my phone, and then the computer typically has multiple tabs open (Facebook, Twitter, the blogs, the great search for the next great coconut flour recipe to try, etc). For much of the night things stay pretty quiet aside from a couple of friends who also work overnights and the random insomniac.

But there's this wonderful little thing called Greenwich Mean Time (and British Summer Time, of course, depending on when we're talking about). Because of this wonderful little thing the last handful of hours of my work shift sees the wonderful folks across the pond getting up and at 'em and starting their days. And, really, who in their right mind doesn't start the day on Twitter? SOOOO I've gotten to "know" quite a handful of absolutely smashing chatty people who just happen to be authors or editors or publishers. Once in a while (actually, it happens quite often) one will mention or retweet another smashing person I wasn't previously aware of and I'll go snooping about and wham bam I've got more titles added to my wishlist or, if I'm really lucky, my NetGalley shelf.

About  a month ago one of my favorite publishing houses, Carina UK, retweeted someone named Liz Tipping about her upcoming book, Don't You Forget About Me, being available to pre-order.

I immediately sang (semi-silently, at least) "Hey hey hey HEY" and the song was imbedded into my brain.


And I told her so.

And I told her not to apologize because it's always a happy earworm to have.

And then we chatted about John Hughes and our mutual love of Some Kind of Wonderful until it was time for me to at least pretend to work again and I added her book to my wishlist.

FINALLY the book was released on June 6th and I received my copy from NetGalley right before it got archived ... and right after I had started to read something else. Luckily that was a fast read because I was so tempted to say to it "eh - you can wait" and carry on with the John Hughes lovefest.

Now, lately I've been doing my Book Beginnings & Friday 56 images together but this deserves a little bit more than that so I'm splitting them up. As always, Friday 56 (share a blurb from the 56th page or 56% mark) is hosted at Freda's Voice & Book Beginnings (share the first few sentences) is at Rose City Reader.

First, though, the Amazon Description:

An athlete, a princess, a brain, a criminal, a basket case…

Cara Dunham is definitely one of them. But stuck in her small hometown, with no prospects of escape, she's struggling to find her thing. Her life is more book club than Breakfast Club and there is no Judd Nelson in sight!

So when Cara is invited to a school reunion she knows this is her chance to channel her inner Molly Ringwald and grab her John Hughes moment, once and for all. Because her teenage love, Daniel Rose will be there, the coolest boy at school and the one that got away.

But transforming into an 80's icon isn't easy and Cara enlists the help of her oldest friend, Stubbs, to teach her all she needs to know about being cool and quirky – a la Ringwald.

Except Stubbs thinks she’s perfect, just as she is and takes it upon himself to show Cara that her life might not be ‘movie perfect’, but there is always another take to get things right. And maybe the hero she's dreamed of has been under her nose the whole time…

Of course, after seeing the description I knew that Stubbs would be The One to cheer for. I didn't have the book in my possession yet I was obsessing over Stubbs just like Duckie and Watts and every other Hughes underdog who didn't always get the happy ending. (I'm fairly certain that Watts was Hughes' way of making up for Duckie. Duckie was supposed to get the girl, dangit!)

A video rental store still open in 2016?!? Isn't everything done online or via vending machines now? (Do dvd vending machines even exist outside of the US?)

Then we fast forward to the 56% mark with Cara and Stubbs. (He even has the perfect Hughes-Underdog-But-Still-The-One name, doesn't he???) I love her slip at the end of the blurb.

Everything in between the beginning and the 56% is absolutely delightful. -- especially for those of us who can more or less recite the lines to multiple Hughes films like Cara and her best friend Verity can. I haven't made it much further than that at this point thanks to work and sleep and coconut flour, but I already know that Cara had better end up with Duckie .... I mean Stubbs ....

(a bonus tease from the 8% mark ... because it's perfect)

Rambling About.. Jenn McKinlay's Book, Line & Sinker

Title: Book, Line, and Sinker
Author: Jenn McKinlay
Publication: 4 December 2012 -- Berkley
First Lines: "Daisy Buchanan was an insipid, shallow, soulless woman," Violet LaRue declared. "Jay should have found someone else."
Favorites on 4s:
14% - "Cranky of us, isn't it?" Beth asked. "I mean just because she's pushy, rude, loud, selfish and a complete narcissist, that's no reason to dislike the poor girl."
34% - The news had brought treasure seekers, the media and the merely curious into Briar Creek much like a horde of locusts on a field of crops.
54% - "Librarians are like vampires; we don't sleep," Lindsey said.
84% - "We need to lure him with something he can't resist." They both looked at her and she said, "The map."
Ramble: This is the third book in the Library Lover's Mystery series set in Briar Creek, Connecticut and starring public librarian Lindsey Norris. I loved the first two in the series (the first one read pre-blog, the second I teased about here). This one I loved even more and it may or may not have anything to do with pirates.
Trudi Hargrave, head of the tourism department, is opening up some of the uninhabited islands surrounding Briar Creek to treasure hunters -- specifically Preston Riordan who purchased a treasure map of Captain Kidd's indicating that he had buried there while on the run. Trudi, of course, ends up dead at the dig site and Lindsey butts her nose in with the support of her library craft group, friends and boyfriend to help solve the case and clear the good name of one of their own. As if this wasn't enough, her ex-fiancee has arrived in town to try and win her back.
I'm thinking simple pirates would have been a lot easier to deal with!
I really love how Jenn McKinlay infuses just the perfect amount of humor, suspense and romance into her tales without going overboard with any of them. Sometimes it seems as though a mystery plot is lost to the characters attempting to be too lighthearted or too lovey-dovey. Here we get just enough of everything with some twists and turns tossed in to keep you on your toes.

Teaser Tuesday - Jenn McKinlay's Book, Line & Sinker

(20%)

Amazon Description

Lindsey is enjoying her second year in Briar Creek as the library director, meeting with the crafternoon club, and happily dating tour boat captain Mike Sullivan. But when a salvage company arrives in town to dig up treasure buried on Pirate Island over three hundred years ago, the locals are torn between protecting the island and welcoming the publicity. 

In spite of the squabbling, Charlie Peyton, Lindsey’s downstairs neighbor, takes a job with the salvage company. But when Trudi Hargrave, the local tourism director who hired the company, is found murdered at the excavation site, Charlie becomes the chief suspect. To help him, Lindsey must do some digging of her own before the real killer buries the truth for good…

Book Beginnings & Friday56 - Piers Anthony's Centaur Aisle (Xanth # 4)

And it's back to Xanth we go!
Centaur Aisle takes place four years after Castle Roogna and Dor is now 16 years old and standing in for King Trent while he and the Queen are on a working vacation to Mundania. Since Dor is currently next in line to reign, King Trent thought it would be good practice for him. Dor isn't so sure about this and neither is the princess, Irene ... especially when the royal couple don't return when they're supposed to. 

As always, Friday 56 (share a blurb from the 56th page or 56% mark) is hosted at Freda's Voice & Book Beginnings (share the first few sentences) is at Rose City Reader. 

Rambling About.. Jenny Colgan's Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe

Title: Meet Me At The Cupcake Cafe Author: Jenny Colgan Amazon Description: Issy Randall can bake. No, Issy can create stunning, mouthwateringly divine cakes. So when she loses her desk job, she starts her own café and finds life can be tougher, and sweeter, than she ever dreamed. After a childhood spent in her beloved Grampa Joe's bakery, Issy has undoubtedly inherited his talent. She's much better at baking than she is at filing so when she's laid off from her desk job, Issy decides to open her own little café. But she soon learns that her piece-of-cake plan will take all of her courage and confectionary talent to avert disaster. Funny and sharp, Meet Me at the Cupcake Café is about how life might not always taste like you expect, but there's always room for dessert!

First Lines:

Faves on 4s:
(format: epub on Windows tablet - Book Bazaar Reader App - 416 pages - 2 page layout landscape)
pg 14 - By the time she was ready to start work, Gramps's bakeries were all sold: victims of getting older and the changing times. And she had an education, he had pointed out (sadly, she sometimes thought); she didn't want to be getting up at sparrow's fart and doing hard manual labor for the rest of her life. She was set for better things.
pg 54 - 'You mean to say you were just tolerating me because of my delicious cakes?' said Issy, stung.
            'No,' said François. 'Also because you were shagging the boss.'
pg 114 - If she would put the hours in, devote her entire life to cakes and nothing but, then it was just ... just about possible. Maybe.
pg 184 - '...So don't think they're all going to gang up against you, they can't even manage to gang up to clean their own toilet, as I noticed when I had to take Darny in there one day in an emergency. Does dreadful things to the digestion, too much vegan food.'
pg 224 - 'Did you know my granddaughter uses an electric whisk on meringues? After everything I've taught her!'
pg 284 - He was sure there was something in the banking manual about not getting too close to your clients. Of course he'd never read the manual.
pg 314 - 'You asked him to spy!'
              'You use a microwave! What next, margarine?'
              'Never,' said Issy vehemently.
pg 384 - 'You have to realize, Issy,' she said, speaking kindly but firmly. It was a voice Issy had heard Helena using when she had to pass on bad news. 'This is normal. This is part of the process.'
pg 404 - Use good-quality ingredients. If you put butter on your bread, why would you put margarine in a cake? If you eat nice chocolate, why would you use cooking chocolate in a cake? A cake can only be as nice as the ingredients going into it.

Ramble:
You know how you pretty much figure out how a book is going to work out when you've read so many in any given genre? Well, a "chick lit" typically has a happy ending after some sort of close call and life altering events. There's almost always at least one good friend who tells it like it is and at least one character who is surprisingly not as hideous as you think they are when they first appear.

Yep. This ticked all the criteria ... but it did so while also making my laugh and cry and swoon and shake my fist in rage. It's not often that all of the emotional boxes are ticked!

I love Issy and her friends and customers, but the part of the story that got to me the most at every turn is that of Grampa Joe.

Issy asked him to provide her with recipes from when she was growing up and almost every chapter begins with one of his recipes. There are others scattered in (including one that I will never ever EVER try since even the two-year-old in the story spit it out), but Grampa Joe's entries are the funniest and most heartbreaking. My grampa was a farmer, not a baker .... but my mom? She was my go-to for all things food related. Eons ago my aunt was given a set of index cards of old family recipes as a wedding present (I believe) by my mom that she has since gifted me. If I had had any warning that my mom was going to pass away as early as she did I would have made sure she had written down more.

Anyway, Grampa Joe is in an assisted living facility and suffering from dementia. The love the two have for each other, as well as the frustrating heartbreak associated with his disease, reminded me of my own grandfather who passed almost exactly 5 years before my mom. Colgan wrote it with such accuracy right to the very end that tears flowed easily. I got a couple of concerned looks from fellow-commuters on the bus but I'm getting used to that.

I've got the sequel already lined up as part of  my Christmas in July so I won't have to wait long to find out what's happening with everyone. Maybe by then I'll even have this as a tablet cover so people just leave me alone: