Never Knowing

Is ignorance really bliss???

Sara Gallagher is headstrong and passionate. Once an idea enters her head it’s difficult for her to let it go, so when she decides to find her birth parents she attacks the task with her usual gusto. Sara’s birth mother is less than enthusiastic about meeting her, in fact when Sara shows up on her doorstep wanting answers she seems rattled. Unsatisfied with her birth mother’s reaction and unwillingness to talk Sara continues to dig and what she finds out is horrifying. Sara’s father is a serial killer/rapist and her mother is his one victim who got away. As if this news wasn’t devastating enough, Sara’s “father” was never captured. He soon learns of Sara’s existence and wants a reunion.

Through a series of sessions with her therapist, Nadine, we follow Sara as she tries to figure out how to keep herself safe and decide if she was better off never knowing the truth.

Never Knowing was a great read, but I found myself a bit conflicted because I did not like Sara very much. I understood her desire to know more about where she came from especially when she always felt like she wasn’t truly a part of her adoptive family. Simply put, Sara was like a pitbull. She wouldn’t listen to reason, she insisted upon throwing herself head first into dangerous situations and she was extremely defensive when challenged. Despite wanting to strangle Sara, most of the time, I really enjoyed this book. I could not wait to see how the story would unfold and I was not disappointed.

This is definitely a must read!!!

The First Husband

Annie Adams is finally living a somewhat stable life. She is living in Los Angeles with her boyfriend Nick and their dog Mila. She writes for a travel column Checking Out and Nick is an up and coming film director. Everything is just as it should be… until Annie watches Roman Holiday. Annie has an interesting history with her favorite movie, every time she watches it something bad happens the first time she saw it her parents got divorced and since then any time she dares to watch it something terrible happens and this time is no exception. As soon as the credits roll Nick comes home and tells Annie that his therapist thinks he needs a break from their five year relationship.

After a few days of mourning her relationship and at the advice of her best friend Jordan, Annie decides to be “the opposite of herself” and she goes out. While out Annie meets a charming Chef named Griffin and this begins their whirlwind romance. Griffin is everything Nick is not.

Fast forward three months Annie and Griffin are married and living in a small Massachusetts town. Shortly after the move and a series of events Annie begins to question everything her marriage, career, and life in general.

The First Husband is not only a romance, but also a story about finding yourself and discovering the true meaning of home.

13 Little Blue Envelopes

So this book was featured as a Free Nook Friday book. I very much enjoyed it! It was a great adventure to follow although in some spots I wondered how realistic it was. There is just something about scavenger hunts that just get my blood pumping and adrenalin flowing! I have never traveled anywhere without a plan A, B, and C, so perhaps I've learned through this what living in the moment is all about. 

Keith was by far my favorite character. He is hilarious with his sarcasm. I'm glad Ginny made some long term friends on this trip and that she wasn't harmed. This definitely had the potential to go wrong at so many turns.

This book makes me want to take a similar jaunt across Europe. I think it would make a great movie and I'm looking forward to reading the next one!

How To Marry a Millionaire Vampire

I came across this book because it was featured as a Free Nook Friday book.


I LOVED this book. It was a bit predictable in places but the characters were extremely likable. The character development was very good and not very much was left to the imagination. While it really doesn't use profanity, there are 2.5 really steamy (and thoroughly detailed) sex scenes. Some components parallel the Twilight series. I like that the story switched from different character's point of view through out. The author pulled that off well. When authors do that, sometimes it makes a story disjointed and hard to follow, but she changed vantage points always at the right time would you find yourself thinking "i wonder what such in such feels about this".

The title is a bit misleading. I don't think the title in any way reflects what the book is about. Also, male lead's constant use of the phrase "God's blood" was so annoying! I get it was suppose to lead credence to his archaicness but it was overkill by the middle of the story.

It seems as if this will be a series. I will definitely catch the next one and I might try another one of her books as well to get more of a feel for her writing style.

Little Earthquakes

Finished reading this story on my flight to Honolulu from Atlanta. Took me a little longer than my usual time to read this one. It was a bit thick.


This is a great story of friendship! It is written in first person of one character then in 3rd person from the other three.


The added bonus of the pregnancy of each character will tug at your motherhood heart string or biological clock. I loved each character. They were very realistic and easy to identify with because they all came from so many different walks of life. 


It was not a predictable story in a lot of parts. My favorite character was Becky. I love the story of her and Andrew.  I don't see how she didn't see he was a mama's boy from much earlier on in their relationship.


I don't think their acceptance of Lia was realistic however. The way the story is set up with keeping the story of Lia a mystery until the middle definitely helps the reader feel more understanding of how she left California. 

2nds Challenge

As I've mentioned before, I LOVE series!! If I like an author, I always try to find another book of theirs to read to find out if I like them as a author, or did they just get lucky.

That being saying, the lovelies over at A Few More Pages are hosting a 2nds Challenge and it would only be a challenge if I signed up to participate for "A Full Plate". This coincides nicely with my own 50 Books in 2011 Challenge and commits 24% of my books to be by an author I've read before.

I'll update my progress as I go through the Challenge and hopefully I can remember to put reviews and not just list the books.

1. Undead and Unemployed
2. Bling
3. Would I lie to you?: A Novel
4. Real Vampires Live Large
5. Spells
6. Charmed & Ready
7. The Mysterious Benedict Society and The Perilous Journey
8. Such a Pretty Fat
9. The Last Little Blue Envelope
10. Seeing Me Naked
11. Living Dead In Dallas
12. Something Blue
13. A Nicholas Sparks book (open to suggestions)

1st in a Series Challenge 2011

I LOVE SERIES!!

If they started a cult for those people who love to read series, I'm afraid my kool-aid cup would have to be a 40 ounce. To me, its the best way to keep a reading "to do" list especially if the story line is creative and intriguing.  

Well 2011 is sure to guarantee I get to delve into the lives of a cast of characters repetitively because A Few More Pages is throwing down the gauntlet to get book readers engaged in reading series.

I am a self-proclaimed Series Fanatic, so it is only fitting for me to rise to the challenge to earn my title by reading at least 20 books that are the 1st in a series. Between this challenge and the 2nds Challenge, I've already accounted for more than half of the books needed to complete my 50 Books in 2011 Challenge.

How amazing would it be for me to go from failing one challange in 2010, to successfully completing THREE in 2011. I'm so STOKED!

I'll chronicle my progress and feel free to give me some suggestions because I can't think of 20 Series all by myself!!

1. Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
2. Wings
3. Undead and Unwed
4. Nappily Ever After
5. Real Vampires Have Curves
6. Bitter is the New Black
7. The Ivy
8. Sloppy First
9. The Alchemyst
10. 13 Little Blue Envelopes
11. Marked
12. 50 Ways to Hex Your Lover
13. Pandora Gets Jealous
14. Dead Until Dark
15. The Clique
16. I Am Number Four
17. The Hunger Games

Teaser Tuesdays: 1st Edition

Well, what better way to kick off our entrance to the BlogWorld than by participating in Teasers Tuesdays which is hosted by one of The Pretty Awesome Bloggers we follow: Should Be Reading

Here is how it works:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author in our comment section so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! 

Our Teaser Tuesday contribution is:
"I've been called worse by better." 
"He's an impotent cross-dresser, and he wears a smaller size than I do"
~pg. 105, Little Earthquakess by Jennifer Weiner

We love books!

The blog world of avid book readers in so expansive and diverse, we thought we would throw our name in the pot!

Mainly we are all about book recommendations and reviews. Maybe we will end up throwing a contest or two once we get things rolling!

Happy Reading!

~PBVG

Top Ten Tuesdays: Top Ten Jerks In Literature

So I thought it might be fun for us to participate in The Broke and The Bookish's Top Ten Tuesday.

Anyway, over at What She Read there was a distinction made that I like: the term "jerk" is a person with who's rude or mean to others OR who's unthinkingly self-absorbed & obtuse in a way that may even cause harm, but who's not truly evil.

Therefore, don't suggest typical villains. Just people that got into your craw and there were times when you thought you couldn't suffer through them one more page. Feel free to include ten or less. It seems they picked men in their listing but women can be jerks too so don't feel confined by gender.

For me it goes: (i numbered them, but they aren't ranked)

#1 REBECCA BLOOMWOOD ---> Shopaholic series. She goes beyond being innocently dumb and ditzy. She easily tosses the feelings of other's aside for her interest and deludes herself into thinking its for their own good, not hers.

#2 Edward Cullen ----> Twilight. yeah i love him, but i like jerks. he is rather obsessive, arrogant, and he has a very smart mouth which is exacerbated by the whole mind reading thing.

#3 Dudley Dursley ----> Harry Potter. Even when Harry saved his life, he was still an ass to him. Who treats their orphaned first cousin like that!?! Even after you find out he has magical powers!?

#4 Jenn Lancaster ---> Bitter is the new Black. I like her too. She is a self proclaimed jerk. But the way she talks to people...OMG. She could never be my friend

#5 Tip ---> Wench. He was Mawu's owner. just the thought of him makes my skin crawl.

#6 Hilly Holbrook ---> The Help.  if you read the book, you know why. words can't capture how much of a jerk she is...lol.

Nappily Ever After

I've been wanting to get into this series since 2008. I don't know why it took me so long because I knew I would enjoy it. It has come highly recommended by many.

I'm not big into African-American fiction and beginning in 2010, I've tried to make a concerted effort to change that and step out of my typical reading comfort zones.

To me, this was a very good read. I think I wanted the end to be different. I related so much to Venus and her hair struggles. Also, her work struggles as a black woman climbing the corporate ladder spoke directly to me because so many things were highlighted by the author in terms of emotions and interactions that only some one with the same struggle would even pick up on.  I think Venus was very brave throughout the book and that astonishes me because the entire book seem to focus on her vulnerabilities and insecurities.

Going through the story not knowing whether she was marrying Clint or not really urged me to hurry through this one. I think I read it in under 24hours.

I look forward to reading more of the series this year. The next in the series, Would I Lie to You is on my TBR list in 2011.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

As promised by pretty much every person I know that read this before me, this starts out VERRRRY slow, but around page 99 it picks up. Then after about another 100 pages it picks up faster. The crux of the story is in the last 100 pages and its a rollercoaster that you will have you on the edge of your seat wishing you knew how to speed read.

I'm not big into mysterys, but I had to know why this series stays on the best seller list. I haven't seen the film and I prefer to read all three books before I check them out.

Lisbeth is so intriguing. I see why so many people are drawn to her. I will say the way her relationship with Mikael Blomkvist evolved totally caught me off guard. She is hard to read even when you have privy to so many of her thoughts as a reader.

The relationship between Blomkvist and Erika Berger is so uncomplicated that is causes confusion. Do people really function like this? Her having an open marriage because of him, and him having no marriage because of her, but yet they won't marry each other!? Baffling....

Anyway, I do plan to read the next in the series, but it isn't high on my priority list so I may not get to it until 2012.

50 Books in 2011

So last year some friends and I decided to participate in a reading challenge: 40 Books in 2010. Well, I wasn't successful in reading 40, however I did accomplish reading 29 books. That was about a book every two weeks. Well this year, rather than aim for last year's goal in hopes of accomplishing this go round, I decided to aim even higher. Even worse case scenario, I will reach last year's goal which will still make me smile.  


Below is the list of books I plan to read. Some reflect titles that help me complete the 1st in A Series Challenge and 2nds Challenge

1. Wings
2. Spells
3. Illusions
4. Undead and Unwed
5. Undead and Unemployed
6. Real Vampires Have Curves
7. Real Vampires Live Large
8. Bitter is the New Black
9. Such a Pretty Fat
10. The Ivy
11. The Ivy: Secrets
12. Sloppy First
13. The Alchemyst
14. 13 Little Blue Envelopes
15. The Last Little Blue Envelope
16. Marked
17. 50 Ways to Hex Your Lover
18. Hex Appeal
19. Pandora Gets Jealous
20. Dead Until Dark
21. Living Dead In Dallas
22. The Clique
23. I Am Number Four
24. The Hunger Games
25. Big Girl
26. Let Me In
27. Mating Rituals of the North American WASP
28. Perfect Peace
29. Little Bee
30. Models Don't Eat Chocolate
31. Bling
32. How To Marry A Millionaire Vampire
33. A Shifters Novel: Interlopers
34. Room
35. Bumped
36. The Baby Planner
37. The Five Love Languages
38. Charmed & Deadly
39. Charmed & Ready
40. The Mysterious Benedict Society and The Perilous Journey
41. Seeing Me Naked
42. Something Blue
43. A Nicholas Sparks book (open to suggestions)
44. Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
45. Nappily Ever After
46. Would I lie to you?: A Novel
47. Little Earthquakes