My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry

It is a book review kind of day.



A few weeks ago I checked this book out at my local library.  This book is totally out of my "oridnary" genre.  It took me just over one hundred pages to actually begin to enjoy it.  However, once I got past that "hump" I could not put this piece of work down.

Elsa is seven, almost eight, years old.  Her young life is a bit difficult as she is referred to by the headmaster at her school as "different" and needing to "assimilate" to fit in.  Her grandmother, is seventy-seven years old and is peculiar and eccentric and is sickened by the idea that anyone should change.

Elsa and her grandmother are extremely close and to escape the world that can see them as odd balls they go into the made up lands of fairy tales of Elsa's granny.

Spoiler alert;  Elsa loses her grandmother to cancer early in this book.  That is the catalyst for the purpose of this work.  Elsa will spend the remainder of this story delivering letters her grandmother has written to people all around Elsa.  Through the delivery Elsa will unknowingly change lives and get a new incite to her granny's made up fairy tales.

I do recommend this read!

800 Grapes & Black Friday in July

Every now and then you get a book that you just fall in love with.  It draws you in and holds your shoulders and looks you square in the eyes and tells you a story that is exceptionally easy to sit down and read from cover to cover without a break.

I found that book.



Eight Hundred Grapes by Laura Dave (2015)

I had briefly seen the book mentioned in a couple magazines in May.  I thought after reading the 50 word write ups, "hey I should read that when it is released."

Well, I did.

Well, I coudn't get enough.

Here is the review via Amazon.com

There are secrets you share, and secrets you hide….

Growing up on her family’s Sonoma vineyard, Georgia Ford learned some important secrets. The secret number of grapes it takes to make a bottle of wine: eight hundred. The secret ingredient in her mother’s lasagna: chocolate. The secret behind ending a fight: hold hands.

But just a week before her wedding, thirty-year-old Georgia discovers her beloved fiancé has been keeping a secret so explosive, it will change their lives forever.

Georgia does what she’s always done: she returns to the family vineyard, expecting the comfort of her long-married parents, and her brothers, and everything familiar. But it turns out her fiancé is not the only one who’s been keeping secrets….


The story is great, you'll learn a little more about wine making and viticulture than you expect, but the way Dave moves the story along is what I appreciate.

You cannot get bored with this book because the chapters each have their own focus and aren't terribly long. She weaves a fabulous story through the way she has built the chapters of this book in the same way a quilter tells many stories within one section of a quilt that will relate to what you read 25 pages later.

Read this book.  It won't take you long and I think you'll enjoy it too.


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Book Review: One Mississippi

Meet Daniel Musgrove.

It is the early 1970's and Daniel's dad is uprooted from Indiana to Mississippi with his job.  He's an ag chemical salesman.  Daniel leaves a pretty vanilla world for the South in an age of change - desegregation, the end of the 60's, and the end of his childhood.

Disaster hits on the drive to his new home in Minor, Mississippi and from there the story is a whirlwind.  His new best friend hold a secret together that is unimaginable.  More secrets come out after a church drama troop trip to perform a blasphemous play about Jesus.  His brother joins the military to get away from this new town when Vietnam is still going on.  He falls in love with the prom queen who also happens to be black.  His mother gets her fill after his father does the unthinkable after a shake up at his job.

Look I could go on and on about this book, its full of twists and turns.  It was a good read and a read that I would suggest you check out if you like a story line that is constantly throwing some curve balls.

You won't believe the ending.

I hope this insane book review gets your interest peeked.

Oh and I failed to mention the uncle....oh my the uncle.

Book Review: Kids These Days

I walked in, purposefully, to my local library with a list of books and authors I wanted to check out.  I walked out with this book.  No, Drew Perry wasn't on my list and Kids These Days sure as fire wasn't on my list.

The book was sitting on the "new arrivals" section and the title caught my eye.  Working with teens the majority of the time and Kids These Days  just seem to go together hand in hand.

Well, the book isn't really about teenagers, though one important character is a teenage girl who is really filling that whole teenager role.  This book is about a thirty-something couple who had a nice little life and thanks to the economic strife of 2000-somehting they find themselves unemployed (one by choice one not by choice) and in Florida.

From Amazon:

Walter and Alice are expecting their first baby, but their timing is a bit off: Walter, once a successful loan officer, has been unexpectedly downsized. They’ve had to relocate to Florida so that they can live rent-free--in Alice’s deceased aunt’s condo. When Alice’s brother-in-law Mid offers Walter a job, he literally can’t refuse. But what he doesn’t know--about the nature of the job, about the depth of Mid’s shady dealings, about what he’s really supposed to be doing--far outweighs what he does know. And soon enough, things escalate so out of control that Walter is riding shotgun with Mid in a bright yellow Camaro--chased by the police.

Though I cannot directly relate to this story; it does have some pings and pangs of events I think (many of us) early 30 somethings can relate to.  There is the fear of becoming a parent, pregnancy issues, family strife, and economic struggles.

The one thing this book throws in hot and heavy....humor.  You will appreciate Perry's comedy as you turn these pages.

Check this book out and enjoy.

Share what you are reading here in the comments or on my Facebook wall (search ABW).

Book Review: Bound South

Good Lord I read another book.

Its not a Mary Kay Andrews book this time.  Nope, I changed it up a tiny bit!  Instead, I read Bound South by Susan Rebecca White.

Read about this book by clicking here: Barnes & Noble

Yes, its another Southern Lit book.

This book is good...a couple chapters in.  It didn't captivate me until things got crazy and I met the character, Missy.

We have three "main characters" in this book and they are all entwined.

1.  Louise - Old South
2.  Caroline - Louise's daughter, Southern girl on rebel mode
3.  Missy - the epitome of Southern Bible Thumping stereotypes

Louise is a woman who I didn't connect with but I did like to see her take on all the things that occurred around her during the story.

Caroline is a chick I could semi relate to with her yearning to rebel from the corn up the backside family she was reared in.

Missy I could not relate to one bit but she made for an interesting story (that you won't see coming).

Read it one weekend this summer.  You'll enjoy it.

Books: Spring Fever

I'm on a Mary Kay Andrews book kick.  Today I'm briefly sharing with you my latest read by said author:  Spring Fever.

This is such a light book.  I really loved reading it.  It would be a good beach read, should you find yourself in the sand this spring.


The book is set in a fictitious town in North Carolina.  You'll see some NC references that we natives know pretty well (locations, companies, etc).  I, personally, enjoy a book that I can relate to because of setting.

I cannot write much more or I'll just give away the whole dang book.  But I can share a review with you:

"Annajane Hudgens truly believes she is over her ex-husband, Mason Bayless.  They’ve been divorced for four years, she’s engaged to a new, terrific guy, and she’s ready to leave the small town where she and Mason had so much history.  She is so over Mason that she has absolutely no problem attending his wedding to the beautiful, intelligent, delightful Celia.  But when fate intervenes and the wedding is called to a halt as the bride is literally walking down the aisle, Annajane begins to realize that maybe she’s been given a second chance.  Maybe everything happens for a reason.  And maybe, just maybe, she wants Mason back.  But there are secrets afoot in this small southern town.  On the peaceful surface of Hideaway Lake, Annajane discovers that the past is never really gone.  Even if there are people determined to keep Annajane from getting what she wants, happiness might be hers for the taking, and the life she once had with Mason in this sleepy lake town might be in her future."  (From Google Books)

Anyhoo...check it out, buy it, borrow it, whatever.  I liked this book.  You will too if you like Southern reads that aren't heavy.