Book Review: The Here and Now by Ann Brashares

From the author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants comes a story of time travel, romance, and saving the future.

With a plague overtaking their time, Prenna James and her family join a group of people who travel back in time to 2012.  On this travel, her father didn't make it and as her brother was a victim of the plague, it left only Prenna and her mom among the others.

The time travelers have many rules to follow, two of them being not telling anyone who they are and not allowing them to get close (especially physically) with anyone of the current time.  Unfortunately for Prenna she becomes close with one Ethan Jarves.

The story isn't about romance.  That's a side plot to what's really going on.  A supposedly homeless man wants Prenna to change the course of the future.  Something bad happens on a certain date and he knows if it can be stopped the dystopian future that awaits them will not be so messed up.

This story is technically science fiction but it feels like it goes along with the realistic fiction I liked to read and I think that's what helped me enjoy it more.  I have read The Traveling Pants series and this book is the first thing outside that of Brashares that I have read.  It shows me she is able to write successfully about other characters.  I'm going to have to check out other stuff by her.

I read this as a review request from Netgalley.com using the Kindle app on my phone.  All opinions are my own.  I was not compensated for this review in any way.

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.  Anyone can playing along!  Just do the following

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 and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers.

"Anita slapped Teri's leg, and Teri bit her lip.  'I don't mean, going out with the whales, I mean going out to sea to see the whales.'  She rolled her eyes at Anita.  This was not going well."
P.75 Whispers (Glenbrooke #2) by Robin Jones Gunn

Secrets (Glenbrooke #1) by Robin Jones Gunn

Not only the first book in the Glenbrooke series but the first adult book Gunn wrote as her previous work had been with Christy Miller, Sierra Jensen, and the like.

Jessica Morgan is running away.  From what?  She won't tell anyone.  She's running to Glenbrooke where an old friend has a job as a teacher waiting for her.  On her way to her new home she gets in a bad car accident which leaves her with no car, barely any money, and stitches on her upper lip.  The accident causes her to meet her hero, Kyle, a firefighter who rescued her.  She has a hard time dealing with her relationship with Kyle because she does not want him to get close to her.  If anyone finds out about her secret they could treat her differently, but more importantly it could get back to the thing she's running away from.

Robin Jones Gunn is a master at writing Christian romance.  I haven't read her teenage works, though that's what she's most famous for.  I've pretty much enjoyed everything of hers that I have read and this was no exception.  It's simple, sweet, and easy to read.

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.  Anyone can playing along!  Just do the following

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 and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers.

"The scar was easily seen.  The whitish, half-moon shape perched half on her lip and half on her face, about a quarter of an inch from the corner of her mouth."
P. 56 Secrets (Glenbrooke #1) by Robin Jones Gunn

Book Review: Wildflowers from Winter by Katie Ganshert

I was pleasantly surprised by this book.  I thought when I picked it up it would be an okay read, but I did enjoy it more than I thought I would.

Bethany Quinn's life is falling apart.  She finds out from her mom that her childhood best friend, whom she hadn't spoken to in ten years, is losing her husband to the clutches of death.  Then her favorite person in the whole world, her grandfather, dies of old age.  Add to that losing her precious job with an architectural firm and her boyfriend being transferred halfway across the country.

Bethany's grandfather left her his farm, a farm she loved and cherished as a child but wouldn't give a second or even a first glance to now.  She had left behind her old life in Peaks when she went away to college and she didn't want to go back.  For her, she felt, there was no turning back.

The joy in the story is not in the ending, but in the journey.  Bethany had a tragedy upset her life as a child and it caused her to turn her back on God.  The journey between the pages of this book, will they lead her back to the Father?

I got this book from Waterbrook Multnomah, but it's been a while so I don't remember exactly how I received it. I don't think it was a review request.  All opinions are my own.  I was not compensated for this review in any way.

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.  Anyone can playing along!  Just do the following

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 and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers.

"Bethany didn't strike him as the type who'd venture out in the cold to brush a horse.  Come to think of it, Bethany didn't strike him as the type who'd venture out in any weather to brush a horse."
P. 33 Wildflowers from Winter by Katie Ganshert

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.  Anyone can playing along!  Just do the following:

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 and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers.

"When she'd left Atlanta for New York, she had such high hopes of making a name for herself as a designer.  Marginal successes along the way had not contributed much toward soaring, only toward staying afloat.  And even that was in jeopardy now."
4% Kindle, Always the Designer, Never the Bride by Sandra D. Bricker

Book Review: Sweet Nothings by Janis Thomas

Caveat emptor.  OK, what's the saying for let the reader beware?

This is not a clean romance.  It's not a smutty, trashy romance novel, but it does contain one sex scene, which my innocent mind would not allow me to read, and a few cuss words here and there.

This book reminded me of a cheesy Christmas movie.  I guess that's appropriate with most of my reading having taken place during the Christmas season.  This is not a Christmas story.  I'm not saying that.  It's like a cheesy Christmas romance movie where you roll your eyes and know what's going to happen next but you simply cannot look away until it's over.

Ruby's husband, Walter, runs away from their life, their marriage, their house with a co-worker he deems his soul mate named Colleen.  This leaves Ruby in quite the mess as she has to deal with her two teenage kids, the mortgage on the house which she finds has not been paid in some time, the fact that Walter has stripped their bank account bare, and her not so successful cake shop named The Muffin Top (you can probably guess now why the title is Sweet Nothings).  The story revolves around Ruby putting her life back together and finding out who she is and what she wants out of a romance.  I did say there is a sex scene so a guy shows up, obviously, but I'm not going to spoil anything else in case you do want to read this for yourself.

I won this book in a giveaway at booktrib.com.  All opinions are my own.  I was not compensated for this review in any way.