The Blonde Diaries

I am a sucker for a book with a hot pink cover. If you put a book in a pink cover, 95% of the time I will buy it or read it. I have found though that not all books in a hot pink cover are very good. Nevertheless, when I was walking past the library book shelf, Accidentally Engaged caught my eyes and I had to check it out. Boy am I glad I picked it up and brought it home. This was a hilarious book. It was so good that I am going to start looking for my own copy soon.

Accidentally Engaged is the story of Clair Ivars, a tarot card reader who gets caught in the middle of family drama when a bride and her future sister in law (sil) come in for a reading 2 weeks before the wedding. The SIL tries bribing Clair for a good reading and the bride wants a bad reading so she can bail on the entire thing. Clair decides the bride needs the help more so she give the bad reading and is left to straighten things out when the bride leaves the 3 carat diamond engagement ring behind as well as her fiance’s name and address.

So rather than go on her much needed vacation, Clair heads to the wine estate to return the ring. Along the way we meet the evil future mother in law, the hot gardener with a surprising twist at the end, the jilted groom, and the grandma pulling the wool over the families eyes. We also learn why the bride wants to run away from the wedding – because she is being haunted by a ghost (but not any ghost it is Clair’s grandmother’s ghost!). There is something tugging on Clair though which draws her into the estate and keeps her much longer than she was expecting to stay. You definitely want to find out what all of the twists and turns in this book are as they will really get you laughing and bring a smile to your face. As I said earlier, I absolutely loved this book and can’t wait to read it again and again.

This review is just my opinion. I was not paid for this review nor did I receive this book for free or at a reduced price other than what bookcloseouts.com was selling it for when I happened to place my last order.

So here is the premise behind Teaser Tuesday:

Good morning! It is a beautiful day here in Houston. Unfortunately, I will be inside at work all day long so I won’t get to enjoy it. That’s alright because I will just wrap myself up in a book when I get home and let my imagination carry me off to a fun, far away place. Right now I am reading Ransom My Heart which is technically by Meg Cabot but she attributes the story to Princess Mia from the Princess Diaries. It is really good so far.

I finished Accidentally Engaged by Mary Carter yesterday night and loved it. I wanted to share my teaser from that book today.

“This couldn’t get any worse, Rachel,” I said, standing up. “Do not,” I said in my most menacing voice, “marry Jack Heron. If you do, you will regret it the rest of your life. What little will be left of it,” I said, holding up the Death card and turning it to face her.
~p22

So here is the premise behind Teaser Tuesday:

Happy last Tuesday of October! Can you believe it is November already? The new year will be here before we know it. I still have quite a ways to go on my challenges for 2009 but I’m slowly ticking the books off the list. I moved on to The Gatecrasher by Madeleine Wickham (aka Sophie Kinsella) last night to give me a book to look forward to when I get home late this week and next week due to quarter filings. I’ve made it through one chapter and it looks like this one is going to be a hoot. Without giving too much away it seems as if this book has the same premise as that Jennifer Love Hewitt movie from the 1990s -> Heartbreakers.  I’ll try to review it properly if work can die down a little. I know I owe a few people comments for stopping by last week so I’ll try and make it by today and leave a couple to make up for my tardiness.

‘Sssh.’ She put a finger against his lips and he fell silent. He lay against her, listening to her heartbeat, and felt like a child, naked and vulnerable and accepting.
‘I will give you anything,’ he whispered at last. ‘Anything you want.’

~p 162 The Gatecrasher

So earlier this spring I was shopping at Target with my friend and came across Jane Green’s book The Other Woman. The cover of the book seemed intriguing as it alluded to a story about a girl trying to plan her wedding without killing her future mother-in-law.  That sounds familiar to many people I’m sure. I’m not a huge Jane Green fan, in fact, I’ve only read one other book, Mr. Maybe, many years ago.  But, I’m a sucker for chick lit and was in the middle of planning my own wedding at the time so I thought I’d give this one a try.

This book took about one week to finish reading a few chapters here and there.  I have to admit that I was disappointed in this book.  I thought the book was going to focus on planning a wedding with an overbearing future mother-in-law. Well that was over within the first 4 chapters. The rest of the book focused on the passive-aggressive relationship between Ellie and Linda (the mother-in-law) and Dan (Ellie’s husband) once Ellie and Dan were already married.  The book title held true that the book was about the “other woman” in their married life but I felt the “quotes” about the book and the summary on the back cover were misleading.

In any case the thing I disliked the most about this book was that there was no real character development or plot development.  Everything moved so quickly in this book that you couldn’t pause to really reflect on what was going on or really get a mental picture of the events in the book. As I mentioned before, within 4 chapters the wedding was planned and over.  Another two or three chapters and Ellie and Dan already had the baby – where did those 9 months go?!?!  There are a few other things that went the same way but I don’t want to ruin anything in the book.

Overall, the book was ok.  I’d borrow it from the library or a friend but I wouldn’t spend any money buying the book (new or used) as it just was not great.

So here is the premise behind Teaser Tuesday:

Good morning all! How are you handling this weather change? Me – not so well. One minute we are cold and rainy and the next we have this nasty mugginess all over. I am very much looking forward to spring.

So this week I am finishing up The Other Woman by Jane Green. I’m hoping to have my review up later today or tomorrow.

I suppose that if anyone had warned me, warned of the exhaustion, the loneliness, the loss of identity, I would either have thought they were lying or assumed that it may happen to other women, to other couples, but wouldn’t happen to us.

But of course it does happen to me, does happen to us.

~p163