The Flight of Gemma Hardy

I finished this book a couple of weeks ago but forgot to write a post on it. Better late than never!
I really enjoyed this book it was much better than the last one I read. This book was a little bit of everything rolled in to one romance, mystery, suspense. I highly recommend it!

source

Here is the summary: (source)

A captivating tale, set in Scotland in the early 1960s, that is both an homage to and a modern variation on the enduring classic Jane Eyre.

Fate has not been kind to Gemma Hardy. Orphaned by the age of ten, neglected by a bitter and cruel aunt, sent to a boarding school where she is both servant and student, young Gemma seems destined for a life of hardship and loneliness. Yet her bright spirit burns strong. Fiercely intelligent, singularly determined, Gemma overcomes each challenge and setback, growing stronger and more certain of her path. Now an independent young woman with dreams of the future, she accepts a position as an au pair on the remote and beautiful Orkney Islands.

 

The Cookbook Collector

I just finished reading another book called The Cookbook Collector, I was disappointed. I was in the bookstore at MIT near my work when I came across this book on the top sellers table. I thought I remembered the summary sounding interesting when I picked it up so I went home and downloaded it on my kindle. Total fail..

Here's the summary:

Emily and Jessamine Bach are opposites in every way: Twenty-eight-year-old Emily is the CEO of Veritech, twenty-three-year-old Jess is an environmental activist and graduate student in philosophy. Pragmatic Emily is making a fortune in Silicon Valley, romantic Jess works in an antiquarian bookstore. Emily is rational and driven, while Jess is dreamy and whimsical. Emily’s boyfriend, Jonathan, is fantastically successful. Jess’s boyfriends, not so much—as her employer George points out in what he hopes is a completely disinterested way.

Bicoastal, surprising, rich in ideas and characters, The Cookbook Collector is a novel about getting and spending, and about the substitutions we make when we can’t find what we’re looking for: reading cookbooks instead of cooking, speculating instead of creating, collecting instead of living. But above all it is about holding on to what is real in a virtual world: love that stays.

I would say that the last 20% of the book was the best part, the first 80% was slow and a little hard to get through.  But I finished it, I have a hard time giving up on a book when I start reading it needless to say not one I would really recommend.

How to Love an American Man

While in AZ I finished the book How to Love an American Man I believe it was one of those $1 deals on kindle.  

The book is about a 28 year old women who Grandfather dies and moves back to PA to help her Grandmother. Over the course of living at home she discovers new stories and learns about love from her grandmothers point of view. Here's the summary:


Kristine Gasbarre made a New York career of dating driven, inaccessible men. When she realizes her love life will never result in happiness if she continues on the same path, she makes a big decision—relocating to Italy to discover her roots and find out what defines her adoring grandpa. But upon receiving the news of his sudden passing, she is lured away.
With nowhere left to go, Krissy returns to her small hometown for the first time in a decade to help care for her grandmother—a refined, private matriarch suffering from early dementia along with the loss of her husband. In her reluctant agreement to share the nearly lost love stories and transformative lessons from her rich sixty-year marriage, Krissy’s grandma becomes the one offering comfort as she coaches her granddaughter through the fear of loving. Grandma’s unapologetic femininity and secret giving spirit opens Krissy’s eyes about relationships, teaching her the single most important requisite for loving a man: first a woman has to learn the power of her own inner beauty.

I didn't love the book but I didn't hate it either, from the summary I thought it was going to be a good family book type of read. I enjoyed reading the sections of the book where the grandmother talked about conducting yourself as a lady to catch a man (these sections were both humorous and just good to hear or in this case read). 


 

Pearl of China

I decided to start a book section on my blog, I love to read I would read a book a day if I had the time. I also added a widget on the side bar with a list of books in my reading queue.

This year I made the switch and bought a kindle after much debate. It was a very hard decision because I love books, holding them while reading them, the smell and looking at them on my bookshelf. (I know I'm a little weird). So after much probing from John I made the purchase, and I love it!! The books are cheaper and they have a great dollar a day book deal. Recently I have been purchasing a lot of the $1 books amazon has been offering. I just finished reading one called Pearl of China.

picture of amazon

 If you enjoy reading books based on true stories I highly recommend this one, I think I went through every emotion possible while reading it. (I love those type of books!)

Here is the description from Amazon:

It is the end of the nineteenth century and China is riding on the crest of great change, but for nine-year-old Willow, the only child of a destitute family in the small southern town of Chin-kiang, nothing ever seems to change. Until the day she meets Pearl, the eldest daughter of a zealous American missionary.

Pearl is head-strong, independent and fiercely intelligent, and will grow up to be Pearl S Buck, the Pulitzer- and Nobel Prize-winning writer and humanitarian activist, but for now all Willow knows is that she has never met anyone like her in all her life. From the start the two are thick as thieves, but when the Boxer Rebellion rocks the nation, Pearl's family is forced to leave China to flee religious persecution. As the twentieth century unfolds in all its turmoil, through right-wing military coups and Mao's Red Revolution, through bad marriages and broken dreams, the two girls cling to their lifelong friendship across the sea.

In this ambitious and moving new novel, Anchee Min, acclaimed author of Empress Orchid and Red Azalea, brings to life a courageous and passionate woman who loved the country of her childhood and who has been hailed in China as a modern heroine.

The Kitchen House

I bought a book for my kindle today called The Kitchen House I started reading it on the T ride to work and on the way home, when I got home I couldn't put it down!

I didn't put the book down until John came home at 10:30pm!! I forgot to eat dinner I was so wrapped up in the book I didn't even think about it. So when John got home it was late and I didn't want to eat anything heavy so I just had a small bowl of cinnamon chex.

 

I'm spending the rest of the evening catching up with my boyfriend since he's been gone all week.