Jeep Tour by Gail Ward Olmsted

Blurb:

Jackie Sullivan was drawn to the red rocks of Sedona, Arizona after a failed marriage and an out-of-the-blue job loss. But did she move cross country to chase a dream or a dreamy tour guide? She had it all—the husband, the house, the job…but that’s in the past. A chance encounter with Rick, a handsome tour guide, gets her dreaming of a new life in Sedona. Jackie’s efforts to re-invent herself in the tight-knit desert community are, well…complicated. Sedona is terrific, but as the locals note, “it’s not for everyone.” Does Rick want a relationship or just a friend with benefits? And in the case of her ex-husband, absence definitely makes the heart grow fonder! Is it her imagination, or is Rob more amazing than ever? With her fortieth birthday looming, Jackie challenges herself to navigate a new path fueled by an unflagging sense of humor and lots of caffeine. Jackie has already had her happy; now she wants her ever after!

Review:

Jeep Tour is told in first person with lots of humor. Jackie sounds so real, I had to go back to the front to be sure the book was a novel and not an autobiography. Sedona was on my “bucket list” before I read this book, and now it’s there even moreso. I don’t recall if Ms. Olmsted mentioned the fact that Sedona is built on a vortex of ley lines, energy lines that criss-cross the Earth, or the spiritual importance of those vortices, but that’s one reason I want to go. She did describe the red rocks, and the incredible sunsets, and… She managed to make me homesick for a place I’ve not yet been to.

Oh, and again, Jackie’s story is funny and warm and witty, too.

If Sedona is on your bucket list, but you don’t have the money to get there, and you want a great read along the way, I suggest you take a Jeep Tour.

Length:  246 Pages

Prices:

Print:  $8.99

Digital:  $2.99

Buy Link:  http://www.amazon.com/Jeep-Tour-Gail-Ward-Olmsted-ebook/dp/B00JSGCXU2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1404371125&sr=8-2&keywords=Jeep+Tour+%2B+Gail+Ward+Olmsted

Thanks for visiting. Rose, Julie & Rochelle

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

Blurb:

A modern classic, Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, their eccentric and remote aunt. The family house is in the small Far West town of Fingerbone set on a glacial lake, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck, and their mother drove off a cliff to her death. It is a town "chastened by an outsized landscape and extravagant weather, and chastened again by an awareness that the whole of human history had occurred elsewhere." Ruth and Lucille's struggle toward adulthood beautifully illuminates the price of loss and survival, and the dangerous and deep undertow of transience.

Review:

Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson, is a powerful novel for its look inside the emotions, thoughts and dreams of young Ruth, in whose voice the story is told. It is a solemn tale, yet whimsical in its details. It is uniquely descriptive with unusual depth into the outer surroundings as well as the inner facets of its characters. It is fiction; however, in my own assessment, much of it must have been truthfully experienced in order to have been written because it contains an on-going element of incipiency totally unnatural to novels, which for the most part rise and fall with a smoothness of waves in creation. Robinson’s scenes are vivid—mostly depictions of winter and dimness, with every minute component seen and unseen in these conditions. Somewhat down-played in the plot is the magnitude of sacrifice Ruth’s aunt is willing to make to change the very fiber of her own being in order keep Ruth with her, but this makes sense because the story is told from Ruth’s perspective, whose awareness was muted to some extent by her internal struggles.

I did not closely identify with Robinson’s characters, but found them to be extremely interesting in their differences from myself. I consider this a well-written and remarkable book, and I highly recommend it.

Length:  219 Pages

Prices:

Print:  $15.00

Digital:  $9.99

Buy Link:  http://us.macmillan.com/housekeeping/MarilynneRobinson

Thanks for visiting. Rose & Rochelle

The Pink Institution by Selah Saterstrom

Blurb:

Beautiful and violent, spare and ominous, this wholly original novel explodes mythologies of Southern femininity.  In a multigenerational family saga that captures the rich beauty and passionate despair of the land and its inhabitants, The Pink Institution is a riveting, visceral novel written in a style that elegantly unites poetic prose with historic photographs and texts. It is also a testament to the legacy that war, violence, abuse, and poverty have wrought upon the Deep South. As we follow four generations of determined and relentless Mississippi women from their run-down, post-Civil War plantations to their modern-day trailer parks, the impoverished decay of the Deep South expresses itself through their bloodlines in a haunting reenactment of the past.

Review:

The Pink Institution by Selah Saterstrom is a modern novel about the peculiarities of the men and women in a southern family, beginning in the Deep South of Civil War Mississippi and journeying through to modern times. It has an unusual cover and unconventional layout, and that is actually the most positive aspect I found about this book. Saterstrom writes as if she has a bad taste in her mouth, so to speak; one from past experiences she has not yet swallowed. The story seems deliberately strained with an overload of sensory incertitude and mental confusion. Saterstrom has essentially no character development and her story lacks cohesiveness. The most valuable sentence in the entire book for me was her description of her grandfather after he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head: “What is difficult about looking at something like that is not that the mind resists fragmentation in general, but that it is confounded by textures which refuse the tensions one desires through edges.” Although not well-stated, I understood what she was trying to say, and at least it was somewhat thought-provoking. I cannot recommend this book as a good read—it just did not work for me.

Length:  140 Pages

Price:

Print:  $15.00

Buy Link:  http://coffeehousepress.org/shop/the-pink-institution-2/

Thanks for visiting. Rose & Rochelle

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home By Rhoda Janzen

Blurb:

An hilarious and moving memoir—in the spirit of Anne Lamott and Nora Ephron—about a woman who returns home to her close-knit Mennonite family after a personal crisis.

Not long after Rhoda Janzen turned forty, her world turned upside down. It was bad enough that her brilliant husband of fifteen years left her for Bob, a guy he met on Gay.com, but that same week a car accident left her with serious injuries. What was a gal to do? Rhoda packed her bags and went home. This wasn’t just any home, though. This was a Mennonite home. While Rhoda had long ventured out on her own spiritual path, the conservative community welcomed her back with open arms and offbeat advice. (Rhoda’s good-natured mother suggested she date her first cousin—he owned a tractor, see.) It is in this safe place that Rhoda can come to terms with her failed marriage; her desire, as a young woman, to leave her sheltered world behind; and the choices that both freed and entrapped her.

Written with wry humor and huge personality—and tackling faith, love, family, and aging—Mennonite in a Little Black Dress is an immensely moving memoir of healing, certain to touch anyone who has ever had to look homeward in order to move ahead.

Review:

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress is a delightful, heartfelt, and revealing personal account by the woman who lived it, inside and out. It gives immense and detailed insight into the interesting history and environment that formed her. The author, Rhoda Janzen, writes in first person and uses prolific humor that cleverly pokes fun at herself, and her Mennonite culture with warm sincerity and without being disrespectful in any way. She obviously appreciates and adores her quirky family, even if she disagrees with many of their ways. She grows into the understanding and enjoyment of their good qualities. Although I was not able to identify closely with any particular character, I was able to treasure her family for all their differences.

Janzen is hilariously descriptive in sharing her personal journey; a difficult journey that she chooses to ponder on the light side. Her story is set in contemporary America and not only recounts her own emerging selfhood, but also considers the evolving Mennonite society. She is an excellent writer, and a pleasure to read. This author made me laugh on almost every single page through Chapter Nine; not with flippant jest, but rather with the humor of real life. The tone begins to change with Chapter Ten becoming more serious and almost preachy in a sudden odd and deliberate, yet not unwelcome, way. She needed to evaluate her chosen path beyond her own raw experiences and she relates her thinking and conclusions adroitly to her readers. Her unique humor begins to ease in again in Chapter Ten, and she attains a rich balance. Writing this book seems to be a cathartic release for this author as she comes full circle. Reading it might also be helpful for some readers.

I highly recommend this book, especially to women who may be on their own rocky road with undesirable relationships and unpleasant life events. If nothing else, read it for the laughs; I did!

Length:  272 Pages

Prices:

Print:  $14.00

Digital:  $9.99

Buy Link: http://us.macmillan.com/mennoniteinalittleblackdress/RhodaJanzen

You’ll notice we always include the publisher’s buy link. That’s because authors usually receive 40% of the book price from the publisher. Editors and cover artists usually receive about 5%. When you buy a book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or another third-party vendor, they take a hefty cut and the author, editors and cover artists receive their cuts from what is left. So, if a book costs $5.99 at E-Book Publisher.com and you buy from there, the author will receive about $2.40. If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about $0.83.

Downloading the file from your computer to your Kindle is as easy as transferring any file from your computer to a USB flash drive. Plug the larger USB end of your chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from your “Downloads” box to your Kindle/Documents/Books directory. You can download your books onto your computer using “Save As” to a “Books” file you create and sort them into sub-folders by genre, author, or however you wish before transferring them to your Kindle. That way, if there’s a glitch with your Kindle, the books are on your computer. Your author will be happy you did when he/she sees his/her royalty statement.

Thanks for visiting. Rose & Rochelle

Miss Dreamsville and the Collier County Women’s Literary Society By Amy Hill Hearth

Blurb:

Eighty-year-old Dora, the narrator of a story that began a half century earlier, is bonding with an unlikely set of friends, including Jackie Hart, a restless middle-aged wife and mother from Boston, who gets into all sorts of trouble when her family moves to a small, sleepy town in Collier County, Florida, circa 1962.

With humor and insight the novel chronicles the awkward North-South cultural divide as Jackie, this hapless but charming “Yankee,” looks for some excitement in her life by accepting an opportunity to host a local radio show where she creates a mysterious, late-night persona, “Miss Dreamsville,” and by launching a reading group—the Collier County Women’s Literary Society—thus sending the conservative and racially segregated town into uproar. The only townspeople who venture to join are regarded as outsiders at best—a young gay man, a divorced woman, a poet, and a young black woman who dreams of going to college.

Review:

Miss Dreamsville and the Collier County Women’s Literary Society is my favorite kind of novel. It combines wit and wisdom in a lively and credible tale of friendship and bonding with the perfect touch of humor. I could identify with every single character in this book in one way or another. This was a first for me. The story is narrated in first person and set in South Florida in the ‘60s, a time of great social and political challenge in America.  The author, Amy Hill Hearth, uses her special literary technique to bring her characters to life both individually and collectively. “There’s an old southern saying that if you’re worried about your weight, your clothes, or getting old, then you don’t have any real problems,” is just one of many gems shared with the reader through the main character, a common-sense, kind and simple woman searching for her own individuality. Each character is portrayed as multi-dimensional as every live human being is in reality. Unique analogies are effectively used with humor throughout the book, as in, “There was a miserable silence, like when you’re at the dentist and you’re waiting for the novocaine to work.”

Miss Dreamsville and the Collier County Women’s Literary Society is a delightful and smooth read. I highly recommend it, and think it would appeal most to women, especially those who enjoy an escape from routine through good fiction.

Length: 272 Pages

Prices:

Print: $15.00

Digital: $10.93

Buy Link:

http://books.simonandschuster.com/Miss-Dreamsville-and-the-Collier-County-Womens/Amy-Hill-Hearth/9781451675238

You’ll notice we always include the publisher’s buy link. That’s because authors usually receive 40% of the book price from the publisher. Editors and cover artists usually receive about 5%. When you buy a book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or another third-party vendor, they take a hefty cut and the author, editors and cover artists receive their cuts from what is left. So, if a book costs $5.99 at E-Book Publisher.com and you buy from there, the author will receive about $2.40. If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about $0.83.

Downloading the file from your computer to your Kindle is as easy as transferring any file from your computer to a USB flash drive. Plug the larger USB end of your chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from your “Downloads” box to your Kindle/Documents/Books directory. You can download your books onto your computer using “Save As” to a “Books” file you create and sort them into sub-folders by genre, author, or however you wish before transferring them to your Kindle. That way, if there’s a glitch with your Kindle, the books are on your computer. Your author will be happy you did when he/she sees his/her royalty statement.

Thanks for visiting. Rose & Rochelle