![]() ![]() When he finds out that Agnes isn’t so little, his uncle has forgotten to mention a missing five million bucks he might have lost in Agnes’s house, and his last hit was a miss, Shane’s life isn’t looking so good, either. His name is Shane, no last name, just Shane, and he has his own problems: he’s got a big hit scheduled, a rival trying to take him out, and an ex-mobster uncle asking him to protect some little kid named Agnes. Then a hero climbs through her bedroom window. Take one food writer named Cranky Agnes, add a hitman named Shane, mix them together with a Southern mob wedding, a missing necklace, two annoyed flamingos, and a dog named Rhett and you’ve got a recipe for a sexy, hilarious novel about the disastrous side of true love – Agnes Crandall’s life goes awry when a dognapper invades her kitchen one night, seriously hampering her attempts to put on a wedding that she’s staked her entire net worth on. ![]()
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![]() ![]() In listing what I don't like about this series, I'll start with EVERYTHING from the characters to the plot to the worldview that I imagine would inspire a story of this kind of depth and breadth of ambivalence. If you read this book there is the danger that you may want to continue with the series, but trust me, you really don't. I'm posting this review on the link for the first book in the hopes that it will inspire people to put this book on their list of books never to read. In all fairness, as you see, I coughed up three stars for this book, so I will clarify that my empty threatening is really directed toward Pretties and Specials (books two and three in this series). My deep desire not to be arrested for murder would have an epic battle with my need to reach for a weapon when I see his stupid face. ![]() ![]() I need to never run into Scott Westerfeld down a dark alley, or during a Civil War reenactment, or at Charlton Heston's house, or wherever. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Walsh, whose 2018 debut thriller, "Ghosted," was a bestseller, splits the first-person narration of this story chiefly between Leo and Emma. Walsh just may have written the first domestic suspense novel in which the deceitful spouse is also a genuinely nice person. (That Maxim de Winter guy is too aloof, too insistent on having his own way to be without a tangled past.) But Emma Merry Bigelow, the enigmatic heroine of Rosie Walsh's "The Love of My Life," seems so funny, warm, compassionate and kind that we readers root for her - even though we learn fairly quickly that she's living under an assumed name and harbors a host of other secrets, something her adoring husband, Leo, doesn't know about. Usually, the partner with a secret triggers suspicion in us canny readers early on. "The Love of My Life" is a classic example of the "I married a stranger" domestic suspense plot - with a twist. In stories with these marriages, such as Daphne du Maurier's "Rebecca" and Gillian Flynn's "Gone Girl," at least one partner (and sometimes both) has silently vowed to "love, honor, and deceive, till death do us part." That's the central premise of just about every domestic suspense novel ever written. ![]() Everybody who is married is married to a stranger. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() A dragon with eyes of gold and scales as black as night. But King Luceran has a new toy he parades at court. ![]() ![]() Working as a bodyguard in Bayston should have been quick coin in his pocket before moving on. Better than the rest of his kin, living under the rule and whims of King Luceran. But he doesn't do dragons and he definitely doesn’t do love. But some things do change.ĭrifter, mercenary, lover - Zane is all those things. He’s ready for death, craves it even, like he craves the elf with flame-red hair and a sly smile, the damn elf whose stolen kiss lit Akiem up in ways he didn’t know were possible.Īkiem doesn’t do males and he definitely doesn’t do elves. He knows he’ll die today, tomorrow, whenever Luceran’s executioner brings down his axe, and maybe it’s all he deserves. In the war-torn rubble of the human world, can a rebel elf and a lost dragon prince find love, or will a dark threat tear them and their world apart forever?Ī new land, a new court, a new king, but some things never change.īroken in all ways, Akiem fled his life as the amethyst prince only to land at the mercy of the beautiful but deadly diamond king, Luceran.Īkiem knows dragons. ![]() ![]() ![]() We hope you enjoy reading them we’re curious to see if your reading experience was similar to ours, and whether you agree or disagree with our feelings about the book. ![]() Wench Donna and I have written our own mini-reviews of the book, and they just go to show how different our reading perspectives can be. I wanted to be surprised by what was to come. I was pretty envious, but restrained myself from trying to dig for spoilers. I looked on jealously at some of my Goodreads friends who managed to get ARCs for the book. This was a new-to-me series last year, and I pretty much read all the books one after the other, so I was waiting with much anticipation for the release of The Undead Pool. ![]() The Undead Pool is the next-to-last installment in Kim Harrison’s The Hollows series, featuring Rachel Morgan. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Gibbons considered herself more of a serious poet than a comic writer, but it’s Cold Comfort Farm that took a foremost place in her legacy. Conference at Cold Comfort Farm (1949) was a proper sequel it received reviews that were more mixed than the original novel. In 1933, the novel won the prestigious French literary prize, the Prix Femina, which angered fellow British author Virginia Woolf, who felt that her friend, Elizabeth Bowen, was more deserving of that year’s prize.Ĭhristmas at Cold Comfort Farm (1940), a collection of short stories, was actually more of a prequel. The book was an immediate critical and popular success. It was said to be a send-up of what was called the “loam and lovechild” genre, poking fun at purple prose by deliberately including passages even more purple. Cold Comfort Farm by British author Stella Gibbons (1902– 1989) is a comic novel that satirized the over-romanticized rural novel of the 19th and early 20th centuries. ![]() ![]() Alone in life-a life that’s dangerous and cruel-her will to keep going is an ever-losing battle. Every day is a fight for survival on the cold streets of Seattle, everyday a struggle to find food and keep warm. until he saves the life of a troubled pretty blonde, a troubled pretty blonde that might just be the exception to his rule. Too timid to talk to girls, Levi stays as far away as possible and completely on his own. Haunted by a crippling shyness and the tragic events of his past, Levi spends his days with his head buried in his books, or training hard for his college football team. ![]() He isn’t dark in looks or intimidating to everyone he meets. The youngest of the Carillo boys, Levi is nothing like his older brothers. ![]() Life has never been easy for twenty-year-old Levi Carillo. From the USA Today bestselling Sweet Home Series, comes Sweet Soul, a heart-wrenching story of love in its purest form. ![]() ![]() ![]() She is a retired professor with the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and is the former director of the university's Feminist Studies department. Prisoner rights have been among her continuing interests she is the founder of Critical Resistance, an organization working to abolish the prison-industrial complex. She emerged as a nationally prominent activist and radical in the 1960s, as a leader of the Communist Party USA, and had close relations with the Black Panther Party through her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement despite never being an official member of the party. Angela Yvonne Davis is an American political activist, scholar, and author. ![]() ![]() In the pages of Alex and Eliza, #1 New York Times bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz brings to life the romance of the young Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler. And when Alex and Eliza meet that fateful night, so begins an epic love story that would forever change the course of American history. Praise for Alex & Eliza: A Love Story: A New York Times Bestseller A Seventeen Magazine Best YA Book of 2017 This charming historical romance is a must-read. Though Alex has arrived as the bearer of bad news for the Schuylers, he can’t believe his luck - as an orphan, and a bastard one at that - to be in such esteemed company. ![]() Still, Eliza can barely contain her excitement when she hears of the arrival of one Alexander Hamilton, a mysterious, rakish young colonel and General George Washington’s right-hand man. Descended from two of the oldest and most distinguished bloodlines in New York, the Schuylers are proud to be one of their fledgling country’s founding families, and even prouder still of their three daughters - Angelica, with her razor-sharp wit Peggy, with her dazzling looks, and Eliza, whose beauty and charm rival those of both her sisters, though she’d rather be aiding the colonists’ cause than dressing up for some silly ball. The love story of Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler - based on the story that inspired the bestselling musical Hamilton.Īs battle cries of the American Revolution echo in the distance, servants flutter about preparing for one of New York society’s biggest events: the Schuylers’ grand ball. ![]() ![]() ![]() Importantly, it provides hard evidence from original research to show that the quality of classroom talk improves the quality of children’s thinking and educational attainment. The book draws on extensive research to provide a ground-breaking new account of this relationship, and closely relates the research findings to real-life classrooms, so that it is of practical value to teachers and parents concerned that their children are offered the best possible learning opportunities. Dialogue and the Development of Children’s Thinking provides a clear, accessible and well-illustrated case for the importance of spoken dialogue for children’s intellectual development during the school years. ![]() Even casual observations of children's everyday lives reveal that they are constantly engaged in talk and other forms of social interaction. ![]() |