Book Club

[dmod nj]

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@highmaintenancejan wrote:

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@dmod nj wrote:

The Hope Chest, by Viola Shipman.  

I just started this book and read late into the night.  She is a new author for  me. 

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"She" is a "He".  Have you read his first book "The Charm Bracelet" ?  Very Good and a quick read.  Was The Hope Chest good? 

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Hi @highmaintenancejan  

Thank you for sharing that fact with me. As I said, he is a new author. I didn't even look him up before getting the book.  My gf recommended the book.  

I have not read The Charm Bracelet, but I will when I am done with The Hope Chest. 

So far, The Hope Chest is VERY GOOD!  It is hopeful, sad, funny, but always holds my attention.  I am a slow reader and I recently moved. So, I am super busy cleaning, unpacking, etc.  

Now, I am off to look up Viola Shipman and find out more about him.  

[SWEET]

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@dmod nj wrote:

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@highmaintenancejan wrote:

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@dmod nj wrote:

The Hope Chest, by Viola Shipman.  

I just started this book and read late into the night.  She is a new author for  me. 

---

"She" is a "He".  Have you read his first book "The Charm Bracelet" ?  Very Good and a quick read.  Was The Hope Chest good? 

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Hi @highmaintenancejan  

Thank you for sharing that fact with me. As I said, he is a new author. I didn't even look him up before getting the book.  My gf recommended the book.  

I have not read The Charm Bracelet, but I will when I am done with The Hope Chest. 

So far, The Hope Chest is VERY GOOD!  It is hopeful, sad, funny, but always holds my attention.  I am a slow reader and I recently moved. So, I am super busy cleaning, unpacking, etc.  

Now, I am off to look up Viola Shipman and find out more about him.  

I have read 1 Viola Shipman's books -- The Hope Chest and loved it.  I hope to read his others too.  His real name is Wade Rouse and I knew about his books before he revealed that he was Viola Shipman.  I think it was his grandmother's name.  He writes nf under his real name.

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[SXMGirl]

I just finished A. J. McCarthy's Cold Betrayal and really enjoyed it.  I was not sure about it at first, but it got to the point that I did not want to put it down.

The book is about Tori, who lives in Florida, and she travels to Quebec to search for Danny.  She is not prepared for the brutal winter, wrecks her car, and then events start to snowball.

The ending was unexpected but welcome.

[Sapphiregal]

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@judy0330 wrote:

I just finished The Flight Attendant and am now reading The Silent Patient.  Very good so far.  I have to hurry up and finish because I have Where the Crawdads Sing waiting in the wings.

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Lately I have heard a lot of talk about The Silent Patient, so I decided I would read it myself to see what all the hype was about. I could just not get into that book. Only read a few chapters and gave up on it.

[Catty2]

I just finished The View From Alameda Island by Robyn Carr.  It's about family, relationships and second chances.  An excellent book.  She is one of my favorite authors. 

[Judaline]

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@dawg lover wrote:

I saw that Robert Crais' new book, "A DANGEROUS MAN", which was supposed to be out this week, has been postponed until August 8th.

Thanks for this. He seems to have a bit of trouble with his deadlines. Maybe they are rushing him-I didn't like his last book at all. But I'll never stop reading them, either.

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[SXMGirl]

I just finished Sins of the Fathers by A. J. McCarthy.  The main character, Charlie (Charlene), is a bar owner in Montreal, who starts getting weird letters in the mail, so weird and then sounding dangerous, that her employee, Frank, contacted a private investigator named Simm.

The books takes you from Montreal to Ireland, and the subject is adoption, baby abductions in the name of adoption, and in some instances, abortion.  Not the best topics to read, but the book was a fast read.

[LoriLori]

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@Alter Ego wrote:

@LoriLori It’s been a while since I read Eleanor, but I think The Cactus is more straightforward. There was just something a little “extra” with Eleanor; just richer in the storyline.  But The Cactus was harmless.  I’ll still say is similar, so I hope anyone who reads it agrees with me!  I hate to be responsible for giving bad info.

I was surprised to see Eleanor came out a year before Cactus, but Eleanor didn’t explode until Reese picked it one month.

”Ove” is another buzzword that is rarely true!  What’s annoying is that reviewers use it - “real” reviewers and not just people like you or me on Amazon.   You would think they would know better!

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@abbalulu  @smoky22   @Judaline  @Yahooey   (sorry if I left anyone out)

Alter Ego, I couldn't agree more.  It's a cheap marketing trick.

The name of the book is Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss (and the author's name is so long I'm not even going to try and type it).  It's not a bad book but has nothing in common with Eleanor or Ove. 

Cranky 69-year-old Oxford professor with a feuding family gets hit by a bicycle and goes on a journey of self-discovery which leads him to Esalen and meditation, etc.  It's not an easy read and flawed so I can't recommend it but point being immensely more complicated than Ove or Eleanor (or I'm sure Cactus).

Want you to know, I've been looking for a way to tell some people but don't want to crow so this seems like a good place to insert it, and Alter Ego it's all good with your comment about Amazon reviewers LOL:

Two weeks ago I received an invitation to be an Amazon Vine Voice reviewer.  Some people have been reviewing books there for twenty years.  Me, less than nine.  Vine Voice is like fight club:  first rule of Vine Voice is don't talk about Vine Voice!  I always hoped my reviews, which I work hard on, would be recognized and I love every "helpful" vote and have loved watching my rank go from 12-million-something to 6-thousand-something in just nine years...

But it's still unreal.  Everyone can request advance review copies from netgalley and edelweiss and publishers.  I never have.  This is by invitation and not limited to books...Since I'm new I chose six books and just finished Professor Chandra so my first Vine Voice review will be a not-great one.  I'm told that's okay (there's two members-only Vine group on Goodreads).  

Sorry this is long.  Like I said I've wanted to share with some people and hopefully those who don't root for me (two, maybe three people who for some reason I don't care about don't like me or my posts, years ago figured out who I was on Amazon via Gardenman's book and in those days there were "unhelpful" votes and these one or two people went through every single one of my reviews and gave them "unhelpful" votes.  How awful.  They caused my rank to sink.   Amazon got rid of those, it's only "helpful" now.

Anyway:  I know you're happy for me.  My huge stack of TBR books I own can't be neglected so I only requested six books two weeks ago, this is the first I'm finishing.  I'm going to mix in "my" books with it.  And hope sometime a 4k television shows up in my queue (haha, never will; though they did offer me an air fryer already, too bad I don't cook). 

The longer you do this the more they tailor your choices so right now I'm choosing from books available to all.  No pre-publication.  But that's fine.  I'm excited.  I'm over the moon in fact.  And although this one was a mismarketed one (I chose it because there's a quote on the cover comparing it to Major Pettigrew and -- yes! -- Eleanor Oliphant) the others look better.  I couldn't be happier.  Thanks for caring, which I know you do.

[Judaline]

Wow@LoriLori!! 

Looks like you're moving on up. So happy for you and that you pass on those good books to us. Of course we care, silly wabbit. Don't ever doubt it. And if someone here doesn't care, well, I guess they'll have to deal with me. I'm in a bad mood today, anyway.

[SWEET]

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@LoriLori wrote:

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@Alter Ego wrote:

@LoriLori It’s been a while since I read Eleanor, but I think The Cactus is more straightforward. There was just something a little “extra” with Eleanor; just richer in the storyline.  But The Cactus was harmless.  I’ll still say is similar, so I hope anyone who reads it agrees with me!  I hate to be responsible for giving bad info.

I was surprised to see Eleanor came out a year before Cactus, but Eleanor didn’t explode until Reese picked it one month.

”Ove” is another buzzword that is rarely true!  What’s annoying is that reviewers use it - “real” reviewers and not just people like you or me on Amazon.   You would think they would know better!

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@abbalulu  @smoky22   @Judaline  @Yahooey   (sorry if I left anyone out)

Alter Ego, I couldn't agree more.  It's a cheap marketing trick.

The name of the book is Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss (and the author's name is so long I'm not even going to try and type it).  It's not a bad book but has nothing in common with Eleanor or Ove. 

Cranky 69-year-old Oxford professor with a feuding family gets hit by a bicycle and goes on a journey of self-discovery which leads him to Esalen and meditation, etc.  It's not an easy read and flawed so I can't recommend it but point being immensely more complicated than Ove or Eleanor (or I'm sure Cactus).

Want you to know, I've been looking for a way to tell some people but don't want to crow so this seems like a good place to insert it, and Alter Ego it's all good with your comment about Amazon reviewers LOL:

Two weeks ago I received an invitation to be an Amazon Vine Voice reviewer.  Some people have been reviewing books there for twenty years.  Me, less than nine.  Vine Voice is like fight club:  first rule of Vine Voice is don't talk about Vine Voice!  I always hoped my reviews, which I work hard on, would be recognized and I love every "helpful" vote and have loved watching my rank go from 12-million-something to 6-thousand-something in just nine years...

But it's still unreal.  Everyone can request advance review copies from netgalley and edelweiss and publishers.  I never have.  This is by invitation and not limited to books...Since I'm new I chose six books and just finished Professor Chandra so my first Vine Voice review will be a not-great one.  I'm told that's okay (there's two members-only Vine group on Goodreads).  

Sorry this is long.  Like I said I've wanted to share with some people and hopefully those who don't root for me (two, maybe three people who for some reason I don't care about don't like me or my posts, years ago figured out who I was on Amazon via Gardenman's book and in those days there were "unhelpful" votes and these one or two people went through every single one of my reviews and gave them "unhelpful" votes.  How awful.  They caused my rank to sink.   Amazon got rid of those, it's only "helpful" now.

Anyway:  I know you're happy for me.  My huge stack of TBR books I own can't be neglected so I only requested six books two weeks ago, this is the first I'm finishing.  I'm going to mix in "my" books with it.  And hope sometime a 4k television shows up in my queue (haha, never will; though they did offer me an air fryer already, too bad I don't cook). 

The longer you do this the more they tailor your choices so right now I'm choosing from books available to all.  No pre-publication.  But that's fine.  I'm excited.  I'm over the moon in fact.  And although this one was a mismarketed one (I chose it because there's a quote on the cover comparing it to Major Pettigrew and -- yes! -- Eleanor Oliphant) the others look better.  I couldn't be happier.  Thanks for caring, which I know you do.

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I really disliked Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss.  I won it on LibraryThing and I gave it 2 stars.  I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that.