The Girl Next Door - Elizabeth Noble

Eve and Ed are two Brits who come to New York City when Ed gets a job offer he simply can't refuse.  They find a lovely apartment in a co-op on upper east side.  The story takes us into the lives of all of the residents in the building.  It tells us about their lives, the stories of their past, and their plans and prospects for the future, as their lives intertwine in the big city.  

I enjoyed The Girl Next Door for two reasons.  First and foremost, Noble is excellent at exploring relationships.  Even though I found the characters somewhat stereotypical, the depth of our journey into their lives, thoughts, and emotions is unique to Noble.  Secondly, Elizabeth Noble is a good writer.  There were no slow parts that I needed to skip.  And more importantly, there were no loose ends to the story.  

I enjoy books and movies that explore the inner workings of relationships, people, lives, and choices.  I love to think about the events, motivations and feelings that lead people and/or relationships to change.  This is the strength of Elizabeth Noble's writing. So pick up The Girl Next Door if you like to explore the inner workings of people and relationships, and/or are a fan of Noble. 

The Wedding Girl - Madeleine Wickham

When she was eighteen, Milly was quite adventurous and free spirited.  One of her adventures led her down the altar, when she married Allan, a gay friend that needed her help to stay in the country.  After that whirlwind summer, Milly and Allan went their separate ways and didn't keep in touch.  Ten  years later, Milly is engaged to the wealthy and conservative Simon Pinnacle.  Simon believes Milly to be just as conservative and serious.  With her free spirit put safely away in the back of her closet with her more daring and eccentric wardrobe, Milly is ready to marry Simon in a ceremony fit for royalty.  However, days before the wedding Milly meets the photographer, who started taking pictures of brides ten years ago, outside of city hall.  Will Millie's past catch up with her just before her wedding and spoil her present and her future?

I enjoyed The Wedding Girl.  It was a sweet girly story worthy of a beach blanket.  However, I would have enjoyed the book more if I didn't know that Sophie Kinsella wrote it.  Wedding Girl, lacked the quickness, wit and charm of the Kinsella novels.  The story was a little sloppier and a little slower than I expected.  Madeleine Wickhham writing as herself was still developing a style and exploring the art of story telling.  Madeleine Wickham as Sophie Kinsella has it figured out and tells stories that are impossible to put down.  So I think that if you're a die hard Kinsella fan, you will be disappointed with Wedding Girl.  However, this does not mean that it was a bad book.  I did enjoy it.  Wedding Girl was, for lack of a better word, cute.  It's lives up to its cover.  And yes, I do choose books based on their covers - and lately I've been enjoying the cartoony cover genre.  So, if you are looking for an easy breezy summer read, then Wedding Girl is for you.  

Hot Rocks - Nora Roberts

Laine Tavish has set up a nice life for herself in a small town where everybody knows her name.  She opened up an antique shop called 'Remember When', which is flourishing.  Life is smooth until a strange man appears out of nowhere with cryptic requests, and proceeds to be run down by right in front of Laine's shop. Next thing she knows, Laine finds herself in the run for her life, and in a treasure hunt a girl can only dream about.  To get out of the mess, Laine must rely on Max Gannon, a complete stranger with his own agenda.

This is a quick read that has it all - suspense, murder, drama, and romance.  It is best described as a great piece of fluff.  I enjoyed reading this one while lounging one weekend in the yard afte some heavy duty weeding of the garden.  Nora Roberts is a great story teller, and this one is vintage Nora.  If you're after somethng deep and profound, then this book is not for you.  But if you want some light entertainment, give Hot Rocks a try.

Keep in mind this book is a release of one of the stories of Roberts' previously published Remember When. 

Read anything good lately?

Lipstick Jungle - Candace Bushnell

 

I have wanted to read something by Candace Bushnell for ages.  This was the  first one of her books I grabbed off the bookshelf.  And boy am I glad I did.

Lipstick Jungle is about three strong and powerful New York women.  Nico is a magazine executive who is in the process for lining herself up to be CEO.  Victory is fashion designer at the helm of a globally successful design house.  And Wendy is the president of a top movie production company.  Lipstick Jungle takes you inside the personal and professional lives of these three self-made moguls as they navigate through some of the most pivotal and life changing events of their entire careers. 

I read Lipstick Jungle in two days.  I could not put it down.  I lost sleep, but it was worth it.  This fast-paced novel was much fun to read.  These women came alive on the pages, and watching them persevere with strength and grace was not just entertaining, but also empowering. 

Hands down one of the better books I've read in a while.  Read this one.

Note: As naturalnchicmakeup pointed out there was also a show.  The show stunk.  I think I watched one episode.  So bad I erased it from my memory.  But I'm glad I forgot about that show or I would not have picked up the book.  The book was better.  For sure.

Tout Sweet - Karen Wheeler

This book is about the successful Karen Wheeler, who has a great job in fashion, a chic life, a posh flat in London, and a hot boyfriend.  But when the hot boyfriend dumps her, Karen sets out to search for a simpler life in France.  She buys a cottage in a remote French village, and befriends a group of eccentric and outspoken friends.  She learns how to be more self sufficient and enjoy the simpler things in life, while she navigates throug a dating minefield.

This book sounded good so I piced it up.  And though I enjoyed the story line and the characters, I found Tout Sweet quite slow.  This is a great book to take with you while you're traveling, and will be reading bits at a time.  But it is certainly a book I had no problem putting down.  So overall I would pass on this one.

Furthermore, the story was very reminicent of Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes. Lead character goes to a new country, buys a house in desperate need of repair, makes some friends and learns to be self sufficient.  Unfortunately Tout Sweet was the cheaper immitation of Tuscan Sun.  So if you haven't read either book, then by all means get Under the Tuscan Sun, which was a much better book.  And no, having seen the movie does not count!

The Undomestic Goddess - Sophie Kinsella

After liking Twenties Girl so much, I had to get more Kinsella books.  So of course I picked up The Undomestic Goddess.

This book is about Samantha, a successful London lawyer whose idea of house work is picking up her clothes at the dry cleaners and ordering take-out for dinner.  Samantha is on the fast track to making partner, until she makes a major mistake.  The kind of mistake that may cost Samantha everything she's been working for her whole life - her career.  In shock from the realization, Samantha walks out of the office, boards a train, and finds herself in the middle of nowhere.  She stops at a fancy house to ask to use the phone, but is mistakenly interviewed for a housekeeper position.  She is offered the job, and accepts it.  Unfortunately, she has no idea how to run a household.  She can't cook and she can't clean.  But as she learns how to work a stove, and a washing machine, and an iron, and a vaccuum cleaner, she also learns that there is more to life than 16 hour days at the office.  She begins to embrace the daily life of her new domestic self, and finds unexpected happiness.  Unfortunately, you can't just run away from your life and disappear.  At some point your past catches up with you...

Kinsella is an excellent story teller and her characters are compelling.  The Undomestic Goddess is no exception.  I could not put this book down.  I could identify with Samantha, and her struggles and her instinct to just walk away and start a new life.  I could also appreciate that you can't really start fresh without accepting where you came from and what you've done.  And most importantly, this book reminded me to appreciate the simple things in life, no matter how small and 'insignificant' by society's standards.  Life is too short to take anything for granted.

I loved this book and recommend it.  If you love 'chick lit' and romantic comedies, then put The Undomestic Goddess on your reading list.  You won't be disappointed.

The Friendship Test - Elizabeth Noble

They say to never judge a book by its cover.  But that's exactly what I did when I picked up a copy of Elizabeth Noble's The Friendship Test.  It's cute cartoony cover stood out amongst the sea bland looking covers in a display of 'beach reads' or some other such nonsense concocted by my local book store.  And I am glad to report to you that the book was just as enjoyable as it's cute cover.

According to the summary, this book is about four women.  We meet them at the dawn of their camaraderie in the 1980s and already each woman is distinguished from the other: Tamsin, the compassionate mother hen; Reagan, the brazen and clever overachiever; Sarah, the seemingly perfect beauty; and Freddie, who despite being far from her U.S. home, finds strength in her friends. We forward to today, and as promised they are still firm friends… that is until a crisis occurs and the principles that define their friendship test are challenged. 

In her subtly english manner, Noble tells a seamless story of four compelling women and their ever evolving friendship.  She guides us through a journey of love, loss, betrayal, family, and adventure.  Through all the curves in their life roads, the friendship between these four incredible women was often tested, yet always constant. 

This is the kind of book I love to relax with after a long and stressful day, in a bubble bath with a glass of wine.  It is a light and enjoyable read that allows you to immerse yourself in this very human story.  The Friendship Test is chick lit at it's finest, and I recommend it to you.  Definitely a good beach read - the folks at my local book store were right after all.

Note that if you're in the UK, this book is titled The Tenko Club.  I'm not quite sure why the two titles.  Annoying.

I will definitely be seeking out more books by Elizabeth Noble next time I'm in a book store.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver

This book is about eating locally.  In the case of Barbara Kingsolver, very locally.  In Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Kingsolver journals her first year of farm living.  Together, the Kingsolver family sustains themselves by living off of what they can grow and raise on their farm. 

I was skeptical about this book when I plucked it from my friend's book shelf.  I thought it would be another judgemental book attempting to guilt its readers into becoming vegetarian farmers.  Now, I have absolutely nothing against vegetarian farmers, I just am not one of them.  I am a city girl, I eat meat, and I rarely ate locally (note the past tense).  So I picked up this book, read the title, rolled my eyes and was about to shove it right back on the shelf, when my friend started to go on and on about how good it was.  I was interested, but not interested enough to actually read it.

Then one day I was at Costco, and they had NOTHING that I wanted to read or hadn't read already.  And there was Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, staring at me.  Taunting me.  So I picked it up.  And I was pleasantly surprised.  It was an honest book journaling one family's experience.  The stories were wonderful, and it was a much easier read than I expected.  There was no judgement.  There were a lot of facts, many that I ddn't know.  For example, did you know that eggs from free range chickens who are allowed to forrage for their own food are not the cholesterol bombs that you get at the supermarket?  There are also some delicious recipes.

The bottom line message I got from this book is that we should eat locally.  Local ensures freshness (and hence better nutritional contents), supports the local farming community, and is fantastic for the environment.  Now does that mean that I'm going to be moving to a farm and living off the land?  Not likely - though my dogs would love it.  However, I do try to buy my produce locally as much as possible.  The first thing I did was find a family close to my aunt's house (about 1 hour away) who raises chickens and sells AMAZING eggs.  The yolks are orange and not yellow!  Right now it's winter here in Canada, and there is not much growing out there, but when things pick up, I'll be out there checking out the farms. 

Overall, a good book that's worth reading, and maybe even thinking about next time you're at the grocery store.

Twenties Girl - Sophie Kinsella

Chick lit is a secret vice for me.  I am hopeless (or, as I'd like to say, hopeful) romantic.  Of all the chick book I've read, this one stands out among the most enjoyable, and will definitely be a re-read.

Be sure to pick up Twenties Girl if you have been loving the twenties trend - flapper dresses, sleek short hair, winged eyeliner and a bold red lip.  It is an easy and fun read about a girl named Lara, whose great-aunt Sadie passes away, only to reappear as a spirit.  Lara is the only one who can see Sadie, who is looking for her lost necklace.  Sadie is a bona fide Twenties Girl, and has strong opinions about style, life, and love.  Lara somewhat reluctantly helps Sadie find her necklace, In return, Sadie gives Lara a head to toe twentie makeover, and teaches her how to live, love and dance with confidence. 

This is a definite winner from Kinsella, who brought you the now famous Confessions of a Shopaholic.

I absolutely LOVED this book!