TBR Tuesday - The Wedding Gift by Marlen Suyapa Bodden

I won, I won I won I won! I won a Goodreads first reads give away today - I tend to get overly excited about these! So today's TBR Tuesday will highlight The Wedding Gift by Marlen Suyapa Bodden - a Goodreads first reads giveaway! I will read this right after receiving it so watch for a review soon!

When prestigious plantation owner Cornelius Allen gives his daughter Clarissa’s hand in marriage, she takes with her a gift: Sarah—her slave and her half-sister. Raised by an educated mother, Clarissa is not a proper southern belle she appears to be with ambitions of loving who she chooses and Sarah equally hides behind the façade of being a docile house slave as she plots to escape. Both women bring these tumultuous secrets and desires with them to their new home, igniting events that spiral into a tale beyond what you ever imagined possible and it will leave you enraptured until the very end. Told through alternating viewpoints of Sarah and Theodora Allen, Cornelius’ wife, Marlen Suyapa Bodden's The Wedding Gift is an intimate portrait that will leave readers breathless. (taken from Goodreads)

Friday Feature & Follow - Favorite Childrens Books

I had lots of favorite books as a child - I remember my dad reading one to us at night, but have no idea what it even was any more but I loved it! I also had an Adventures of Black Beauty set that I read over and over and over - I have always loved horsey books! Berenstein Bears were a staple! I got excited every time the Troll Book Order form was handed out at school and still have many of the books I got from them - two of my favorites were The Ordinary Princess and The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle.

Review Keeping Score by Jami Deise

Keeping Score by Jami Deise
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sports brings out the best and the worst in people and Shannon Stevens sees it all as her son Sam plays his first season on a travel baseball team. This book isn't something I would typically pick up, however, I found it to be an entertaining and decently written novel. Even if you don't know baseball this novel, explains plays and how the game works in way that is not to technical or to dumbed down, it was just right. The conflicts between the women were realistic without being over the top or to cliche. Obviously, the author has spent time following traveling teams! Towards the middle and end the novel began to lag and the author gave too much detail about individual games and plays, I found myself quickly skimming the play by plays to get to the real action between Shannon, her friends, family and potential boyfriends - I found that to be the real story. Overall I enjoyed this book and think if you are a parent with children on traveling teams you would really enjoy Keeping Score.
I received a copy of this book from Chick Lit Central in exchange for a fair review.

View all my reviews

To Be Read Tuesday Help for the Haunted By John Searles

Today you can get to your local bookseller, library or get on your Kindle or Nook and purchase this to be read feature.  Today is Help for the Haunted's release date and I wish I was running out to buy it but it is going to have to wait.....no sure how long I can hold out though!
Help for the Haunted has been highly recommended by Wally Lamb and Gillian Flynn, two of my favorite authors, so it has to be good, right!  Hailed as a creepy, unique, suspenseful and compelling read, I can't wait to get my hands on it!

It begins with a call in the middle of snowy February evening. Lying in her bed, young Sylvie Mason overhears her parents on the phone across the hall. This is not the first late-night call they have received, since her mother and father have an uncommon occupation, helping "haunted souls" find peace. And yet, something in Sylvie senses that this call is different than the rest, especially when they are lured to the old church on the outskirts of town. Once there, her parents disappear, one after the other, behind the church's red door, leaving Sylvie alone in the car. Not long after, she drifts off to sleep only to wake to the sound of gunfire.

Nearly a year later, we meet Sylvie again struggling with the loss of her parents, and living in the care of her older sister, who may be to blame for what happened the previous winter.

As the story moves back and forth in time, through the years leading up to the crime and the months following, the ever inquisitive and tender-hearted Sylvie pursues the mystery, moving closer to the knowledge of what occurred that night, as she comes to terms with her family's past and uncovers secrets that have haunted them for years. (taken from Goodreads)