Top Ten Tuesday: Back to the beginning

 

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's theme is a Thankful/Thanksgiving Freebie

I recently celebrated my 18th anniversary of blogging. 18!! Happy Blogiversary to me!

To celebrate, I finally decided what I am going to do about Instagram and now I have an Insta account specifically for bookish goodness. Yes, I am committing to Bookstagram. I am always very late for any trends but better late than never!

You can find me @intrepidreaderandbaker and I would love it if you added it, and I will follow back!

For this week's TTT post, I thought I would go back and share the first 10 books I reviewed here on my blog. Best not to look at the reviews themselves because let's just say those early reviews would look very different if I was to write them today.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant - I had been thinking about starting to write book reviews, but this was the book that I had to write something about and, in effect, started it all. (link)

Sugar Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke - Apparently this was my first review of a book I didn't love! I stopped reading this series soon after because the love triangle annoyed me. If I heard correctly it is still unresolved although I could be wrong. (link)

Chronicals of Narnia by C S Lewis - Not really reviews as such, but this kind of covers the first two books in this series (link)

Dreamland by Kevin Baker - I was trying to recall the book I first read about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Maybe it was this one. (link)

The Dragon and the Jewel by Virginia Henley - I do not remember this book at all!! And I am pretty sure it is a book I wouldn't pick up these days as I can't remember the last time I read a medieval romance. (link)

Bread and Chocolate by Philippa Gregory - At the time, I really loved Phillipa Gregory's books. Wouldn't read them now, but still. (link)

Bubbles Unbound by Sarah Strohmeyer - This was a fun series that I haven't thought about for a long time. Think Stephanie Plum but with an author who knows when it is time to end the series. This was the first book in the Bubbles Yablonsky series.

Last Chance Saloon by Marian Keyes - I would still read Marian Keyes, if I could fit it in my reading schedule. (link)

Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C S Lewis - I was reading this series with my son who was 8 at the time! (link)

A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg - The first second Christmas book I read for this blog, but definitely not the last. (link)

We recently had a topic where we talked about how our reading habits have changed. This post showed that again for me!

The Sleeping Beauty Proposal by Sarah Strohmeyer

Given that I am exactly the same age as Genie and not married, I thought I might do my review a little differently this time, and intersperse my comments (which could be a little sarcastic - just warning you!) through the back cover blurb. The back cover blurb is in blue and my comments are in black.

Though Genie Michaels would like a husband (To be honest, I'd be happy with a boyfriend), at age thirty-six (what...when did that happen?) and jaded from years of dating fiascoes (in my case jaded from years of not dating fiasco), she's just too tired to make the effort (Abso-freaking-lutely). Lucky for Genie, Prince Charming comes to her in the form of Hugh Spencer (so could not get past thinking about Princess Di's family when I read this name, and especially when they kept on referring to the Spencer family ring), a bestselling author and ideal boyfriend (and where exactly is my Prince Charming?). But when Hugh proposes to the "love of his life" on national television - and it's not Genie (what a jerk)- she's so humiliated that she continues the pretense that she is his fiancee. (Errr...not sure that this is quite the route that I would have taken, but each girl for herself. I would be more likely to drown my sorrows in food, most specifically chocolate)

In no time at all, Genie's parents are booking a reception hall (Trust me, my mother would never book a reception hall for me....and even if she would I so would not want her to. Her idea of a good time and my idea of a good time are veeeerrrryyyy different)! She feels bad about the deception, (and so she should) but her best friend advises her to sit back and enjoy the ride. And just as Genie finally begins to realize that she doesn't need a man to start her life (no, that's totally true, but it would be nice to have one around occasionally)...to buy a home (did that!)...to go after a better job (really should do that)...her real prince shows up. (I could do with a sexy carpenter. The last workman that came to my house to do anything was the very epitome of not sexy).

Readers can count on Sarah Strohmeyer to deliver funny, sexy, big-hearted stories.

I have read all of Sarah Strohmeyer's books and think this is definitely one of her best. It is funny, and romantic, and gave lots of enjoyment as long as you are willing to suspend disbelief about a number of crucial things - like that someone would continue to accept gifts of $1000 cake platters as wedding gifts for a wedding that isn't actually going to happen, and that you could get a really, really big promotion for simply doing two things a bit differently than you normally do.

Whether this book falls into Women's Fiction or Chick Lit, I'm not really sure. The heroine undergoes a fairly typical chick-lit kind of journey from somewhat frumpy to fabulous , there's a love triangle...sort of...and there is a too die for true love. Having said that in the Author note she says that she is writing women's fiction...so I could well be wrong.

It is a lot of fun to read. I have read all of this author's books so far, and I can definitely see her writing getting stronger. I look forward to her next book which is out in June.

Bubbles All the Way by Sarah Strohmeyer

Deirdre Shatsky is the kind of woman that other women love to hate....or at least she was that kind of woman. Right now Deirdre is laid out at the local morgue. The verdict - homicide by hair product.

When journalist Bubbles Yablonsky's best friend - and owner of the The House of Beauty hair salon - Sandy, is accused of murdering Pennsylvania's biggest bragger, Bubbles is determined to prove her innocence. But this isn't going to be a simple case of sleuthing and solving.

Whilst trying to clear Sandy's name, Bubbles must track down the mysterious 'Marguerite', defend her job from an annoying fresh-faced college graduate, re-marry her slimy, blackmailing, son of a gun ex-husband and avoid the psycho Santa Clause with the sniper rifle. And as if that wasn't enough, just who the hell is that glamorous actress hanging off the arm of HER, seriously sexy, Steve Stiletto?

Ballsy, brilliant and bursting with wise-ass humour, Bubbles All the Way is the fabulous new mystery from Agatha Award-winning Sarah Strohmeyer.

This is the sixth instalment in the Bubbles Yablonsky series, following on from Bubbles Betrothed, but it is the first time that I have actually read one of these books - I listened to all the other books on audiobook.

When I was actually reading the book, I very much enjoyed it - until the ending, but I will come back to that. The story was fast paced, funny and not simply the same story rehashed from previous books, but as I started thinking about things I realised that not everything was as rosy as it seemed. It was only after I closed the book that I wondered about a few things - for example a character that had been introduced, and had quite a lot of page time, and yet her character didn't really form any part of the solution to the mystery. There were other things that were in the book that, only when I looked back on it, I was left wondering why on earth was that in there! And that is before we start talking about some of the things like the fact that Bubbles was supposed to be remarrying her slimy ex husband Dan the Man, and numerous other things.

And about that ending! Having read all the books in the series, there are a few things that we know. Bubbles is a hairdresser turned journalist of Lithuanian stock, and sexy Steve Stiletto is a photo journalist for Reuters. In the last few pages of this book, we end up with a very strange ending, when the author attempts to convince us that what we have always thought, is actually not at all how things were, with the bizarrest plot twist - you couldn't actually imagine it yourself I think. I would imagine what was being attempted was to be able to take the series in a new direction, but to be honest it came so far out of left field, I was flabbergasted! So, if there is a new Bubbles book will I read it? Probably, but it will be a degree of scepticism!

So how do you rate a book that you really enjoyed reading, but when you actually thought about, realised that it had plot holes all through it, and then the strange ending! Well, until the ending I was going to give this the best grade of all the Bubbles book I have read, but I did have to deduct at least half a grade for the ending, so I decided on a rating of 4/5. Now that I have given it some more thought I am tempted to further downgrade, but I could second guess nearly every grading I give, so I will leave it as it is. Besides, even though it doesn't necessarily sound like it from this post, I did enjoy it, at least while I was reading it!

The Cinderella Pact by Sarah Strohmeyer

In this funny and big-hearted story by the author of The Secret Lives of Fortunate Wives, three best friends make a pact to transform themselves into the glamorous women they've always wanted to be.

Nola Devlin has a secret identity. By day she is an overweight, frumpy, and overlooked editor, but by night she slips behind her keyboard and into her alter ego: Belinda Apple. Belinda is thin, gorgeous, and the author of a glamorous advice column, "OnBeing Fab!" Not even Nola's two best friends or her jealous sister (who worships Belinda as the "sister she never had") know her secret.

Nola is shocked when Belinda receives a desperate letter from Deb, her best friend and former cheerleading captain, now also overweight and depressed. Nola resolves to help her friend, and together with their pal Nancy, the trio form the "Cinderella Pact"-a promise to be their own fairy-godmothers and help change one another for good.

But things don't turn out the way the three friends expect. Deb's formerly devoted husband drifts further away with every pound she loses, while Nola finds herself caught between a crush on her dreamy boss and the attentions of a charming British reporter. But which of them loves the real Nola? Only when her secret identity is revealed will she find out which man is right for her, and if her two best friends can forgive her deception.

So it might surprise you to know that in some ways this is a retelling of the Cinderella story. In this case our poor Cinders is Nola Devlin, editor at a women's magazine. When the publisher decides that they need an Ethics Columnist (aka Agony Aunt) Nola submits her piece, but her boss doesn't even look at it. Nola is convinced that it is because she is overweight and frumpy, and so in order to prove her theory, she decides to create a fab new persona and Voila! Fiona Apple is born! With her sassy responses to leaders letter she becomes an instant sensation, but her duplicity starts to catch up with Nola when her friends decide to change their lives by losing weight when Fiona Apple says that it is easy to lose weight.

The three friends form The Cinderella Pact - they will lose weight within 6 weeks. The three women choose vastly different paths to weight loss. Deb has already investigated the possibility of surgical intervention and Nancy hires a personal trainer, whilst Nola takes to sensible eating and regular exercise.

At the same time as losing weight, Nola meets Chip and she begins to fall in love, but things are not as they seem. We see Nola go through her personal journey of losing weight and finding herself, whilst at the same time undergoing an investigation at work as they try to work out if their Ethics columnist is who she says she is, or has herself broken ethics!

There were a lot of things to like in this book. The author for the most part tried to avoid the cliche of saying "If you lose weight you will be happy!", and it was an entertaining enough read.

One thing I didn't like was a couple of the cameos. Bubbles made a cameo appearance in this book, and whilst it was okay, it was possibly a bit over the top, as was the over the top gushy reaction to Nola meeting Harley Jane Kozak, who is one of the author's blogging buddies over at The Lipstick Chronicles. Other than that, this was for the most part an enjoyable read!

I have read all of Sarah Strohmeyer's books now, and one of the things that I am still waiting for is the book that really blows me away.

Rating 4/5

Bubbles Betrothed by Sarah Strohmeyer

This is the fifth book in the Bubbles series by Sarah Strohmeyer, and for me was again a good read.

When a murder suspect dies mid-interview, reporter Bubbles Yablonsky's notes become a hot commodity for a romance-obsessed detective, a Polish Mafioso, and a foot fetishist on the lam. If that's not enough, Bubbles' ex-husband and her studly boyfriend are making unexpected demands of the blonde sleuth. One comes with a dazzling Harry Winston rock. The other is downright dangerous. Lucky for Bubbles she's equipped to handle both.

On her first day in a real job with the Lehigh News-Times, Bubbles is thrown into a holding cell after a mix up with the security system at the local courthouse, all because she forgot to snip the threads on her new hot pink $30 dollar suit. She finds herself in a cell with Crazy Popeye, a woman who is accused of the murder of the legendary school principle Rudy Schmidt. Whilst Bubbles is taking notes during an impromptu interview with Popeye, the interviewee suddenly dies. Before long, everyone wants to get hold of her notes to see exactly what was said in the interview, including Popeye's lawyer, the police, and it appears, the Polish Mafioso. Sensing a story, Bubbles tries to interview the podatrist who owned the office where Rudy Schmidt was found dead. After getting the cold shoulder over the phone, Bubbles goes to the office, to find that it has been burgled and the good doctor, Cerisse May, is nowhere to be found. The notes become such wanted property that Bubbles is even found guilty of contempt of court by a judge and ordered to pay $100 a minute, until such time as she produced the notes, up to a maximum of $50000, a plot point that was inspired by a similar real life order.

To make her day worse, she finds out that her boyfriend, Steve Stiletto, has become engaged while he was out of town for three days! After leaving a less than pleasant message on his answer phone, Bubbles is determined to carry on her life without Steve, and so goes off to investigate an alleged sighting of the Virgin Mary in a car window each morning, from where she is abducted by the Polish Mafioso. Steve rescues her, although not before she stabs him with a letter opener that she found in the doctor's office. To be fair, she actually thought it was one of the bad guys that she stabbed, thinking that she was going to try to get away before he dumped her lifeless body into the Lehigh river! Once they calm down, Steve explains that the person who he supposedly got engaged to was actually Bubbles, as this was the only way he could stall going to work in London for six months. He therefore asks her if they could pretend to be engaged for a while.

This begins a frantic series of events where Bubbles needs to get back to Steve's mansion to erase the message on the tape before he hears it. When she arrives there, she finds Steve's cousin Rosa has come to visit for Thanksgiving, and that she has invited Steve's arch enemy from the AP News where Steve works to join them.

As Thanksgiving approaches, and the investigation continues, there are threats against Bubbles, and her daughter Jane, even her ex-husband Dan seems to have been getting threats. What is the common thread? Is there a common thread? And will pulling that common thread make the whole fabric of Bubbles' families existence come apart? It certainly seems so, with Dan's cheeseball heiress wife getting sick of him, Dan declaring his love and intention to remarry Bubbles, even though she is sporting a beautiful Harry Winston engagement ring from Harry Winston.

Whilst there are a lot of storylines converging at the end of the book, Strohmeyer manages to hold it together, whilst still poking fun at her characters and their lives, and at the end of the day, Bubbles emerges with her head held high, and her front page story intact!

I am now all caught up with the Bubbles books and will have to wait until later in the year for the next book. Hopefully the library will get this one on audiobook as well. This is the only series where I haven't read any of them, but have listened to them all!

The series in order is:

Bubbles Unbound
Bubbles in Trouble
Bubbles Ablaze
Bubbles A Broad
Bubbles Betrothed

Rating 4/5

Bubbles A Broad by Sarah Strohmeyer

The fourth book in the Bubbles Yablonsky series by Sarah Strohmeyer, this instalment finds Bubbles looking forward to a week's try out with the Lehigh News Time. If she is successful she will end up with a permanent job, so she is keen to do well.

However before she has even started at work, she finds prison escapee and convicted murderer Carol Weaver at her house, asking Bubbles to investigate to see what link there was between Lehigh Steel and her husband's death thereby clearing Carol of involvement. That night after Carol's visit, someone breaks into Bubbles' house and shoots at her bed, so Bubbles has to work out who is trying to kill her this time!

Luckily Steve Stiletto offers Bubbles a place to stay with him at his mansion despite the fact that they still haven't slept together even though they have been seeing each other for months!

So on only a couple of hours sleep Bubbles goes off to her first assignment, covering a meeting of the Lehigh Historical Society. When she gets there she runs into a very unhappy former client from the House of Beauty and quicker than you can say "oh my goodness your hair is falling out and it's your wedding day" Bubbles finds herself in a fight with her photographer who is also on one weeks trial. Needless to say that they both have their try outs terminated, although Bubbles manages to talk her bosses into reinstating her for the rest of the week at least.

As the investigation into Hal Weaver's death continues Bubbles goes through a variety of different scenarios including lesbian love trianges and drug related murder, and meets the usual crew of odd ball characters along the way.

What wasn't usual in this installment was the reduced amount of page time for Mama and Genevieve, and Bubbles' daughter Jane and her clueless hairdressing prodigy boyfriend G, and the book is better for it. That doesn't mean to say that they aren't there, just that they aren't as involved in the whole book!

One thing that definitely moved forward in this book was the romance between Steve and Bubbles, with the relationship finally going to the next step, in very well written and quite steamy scenes without being at all explicit.

There was a lot going on in this book in relation to the mystery, and at the end of the day we did find out who it was thought killed Hal Weaver but I'm not quite sure that everything was resolved completely.

Overall, a much better read than the last books, Bubbles Ablaze. I'll be going to the library to see if I can get the audiobook for Bubbles Betrothed either today or tomorrow!

Rating 3.5/5

The Secret Lives of Fortunate Wives by Sarah Strohmeyer

I've made a bit of a mistake with this review before I even started it. Normally I at least start it as soon as I finished the book so that I can give my initial thoughts. I didn't do that, and now I have returned the book to the library and I can't really think of what I was going to say! And that probably tells you a lot right there!

NEWS BULLETIN: Gone is HBO's Sex and the City. Sex has moved to the suburbs. Here is where you'll find ABC's #1 TV show Desperate Housewives. Here too is The Secret Lives of Fortunate Wives, a hilarious but poignant and spot-on novel about love and betrayal inside the world of the gated community.

Pampered Hunting Hills, Ohio, socialite Marti Denton never realized she was madly in love with John Harding until he impulsively married Claire Stark, a beautiful but socially awkward newspaper reporter to whom a "coming-out" party is a controversy, not a tradition. It's not until the Hunting Hills wives are plunged into a series of explosive scandals that the two women reach a new understanding of each other and what it means to be a fortunate wife in the twenty-first century. In The Secret Lives of Fortunate Wives, Sarah Strohmeyer has written a Stepford Wives for our time — funny, wise, and eye-opening.

Forget that the above blurb tells you very little about the storyline of the book, this really does tell you what the author was aiming for. We are introduced to a series of glimpses into the lives of the perfect women of Hunting Hills, a perfect gated community, unfortunately set just outside of imperfect Cleveland, Ohio. Into this perfect world comes Claire, who has spent time working in refugee camps in the Balkans and who finds it difficult to connect with women who think a tragedy is not being able to get their hair coloured when they need it done. Claire has just married John, who Marti believes she is in love with, whilst worrying that her own husband might be having an affair. Of course, he is, with her best friend Lisa, but he is also stealing money from all of their friends.

Whilst there are amusing incidents throughout this book, I didn't think that there was much of a plot, the characterisations were cliched and the ending trite!

Rating: 3.5/5

Bubbles Ablaze by Sarah Strohmeyer

The third book in the Bubbles Yablonsky series, Bubbles full time hairdresser, part time journalist) and her Mel Gibson lookalike boyfriend Steve Stilletto (press photographer) are finally going to consumate their relationship. Bubbles is in the very comfortable hotel room at the Passion Peak romantic getaway when she gets a fax from her editor Mr Salvo saying that a prominent businessman has been murdered at a nearby mine and she should get over there to get the story.

When Bubbles arrives at the mine not only does she find the businessman with a bullet hole in his chest, she also finds Stilletto knocked unconscious in the bottom of a coal car. Before too long they are both caught up in a mine explosion. It appears that someone wants them out of the way. The hunt is on for the person who set them up, but also for the story. This time, however, instead of working together, they are working for competing news bureaus, so not only are they dealing with whoever wants them dead, but also trying to race against each other.

Bubbles is still pretty entertaining, however the books are certainly not as fresh as the first one, Bubbles Unbound was. Whilst there were plenty of twists and turns in this story about coal mining magnates, casinos, and small time American towns that are stuck in a 1950's timewarp, at the end of the book I was left thinking, but what about Steve's reporter, and what about their competition. Maybe these will be recurring themes so I just have to read the next book, but there were just a few too many loose threads for my liking!!

You can read previous entries for Bubble's adventures here.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Bubbles in Trouble by Sarah Strohmeyer

Ah Bubbles!!

The premise for this sounded so good. A couple of months after her adventures in Bubbles Unbound, Bubbles Yablonsky is pressed into service to investigate the death of her friend Janice's Uncle Elwood. He had been killed the night that Janice left town (and then vanished completely) rather than marry Mickey Zinkler. Bubbles' search for Janice, who was suspect numero uno takes her to Amish country, and Bubbles goes undercover, alternating between being Amish woman Sally Hansen, and herself while also investigating a case involving two young Amish boys who had been arrested for driving a stolen car.

Basically, it turns out that Amish country is actually a hot bed of criminal activity - murder, drugs, blackmail, dodgy property deals and more.

Whilst there were still some entertaining moments, they were patchy...and felt almost as though the author was trying too hard. A lot of the characters that we met in Bubbles Unbound were here - sexy Steve Stiletto, Bubbles' daughter Jane (who has a new boyfriend whose name is G), her mother Lulu and her friend Genevieve and lots of fun new characters. Overall this book was okay, but may have suffered from trying to maintain a frantic momentum from the first book. It wasn't however terrible, and I still will read more Bubbles Yablonsky books.

You can read my entry regarding Bubbles Unbound here.

Rating 3/5

Bubbles Unbound by Sarah Strohmeyer

Take one less than successful hairdresser who has been trying for years to find another career until she decided that journalism was the way to go, add a bit of murder, a bit a mayhem, some crazy supporting characters, a sexy man and what have you got....Bubbles Yablonsky in Bubbles Unbound!

You could have been forgiven for thinking that I may have been talking about Stephanie Plum. It would have been understandable, especially seeing as the character of Bubbles was apparently thought up at Janet Evanovich's kitchen table and on the front cover of the version I had from the library was a blurb "in the fabulous tradition of Janet Evanovich". However, having now finished this book, I would say that Bubbles is a strong enough character to stand up on her own and hold her head high.

Bubbles has had quite an exciting day...she has just helped talk a former teacher out of jumping of the top of a bridge and is on her way to bail her mother out after she has been arrested for walking too far away from a shop wearing a $3000 dress. Accompanied by gorgeous hunk cameraman Steve Stilletto, they are taking a short cut across the park when they come across a body. Not far away, one of the most influential women in Lehigh is sitting in the drivers seat of a Range Rover. What is the woman's connection to the body, and what is her connection to a 10 year old murder that was called a suicide by the town police? Bubbles faces all sorts of danger as she tries to uncover the facts surrounding one of the most influential families in town, making enemies of them along the way.

Some of the other colourful characters include Bubbles daughter Jane who changes her hair colour every day, her ex husband Dan...I mean Chip, her mother LuLu and her friend Genevieve who team up to provide Bubbles with security, her offsider Doris and lots of others.

There are also several little beauty tips that Bubbles shares with us along the way!

There are currently four more books in this series and I will definitely be reading through them in due course!

Rating 4/5