May: The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen

From the author's website: www.sarahaddisonallen.com/the_girl_who_chased_the_moon.html

Emily Benedict came to Mullaby, North Carolina, hoping to solve at least some of the riddles surrounding her mother’s life. But the moment Emily enters the house where her mother grew up and meets the grandfather she never knew, she realizes that mysteries aren’t solved in Mullaby, they’re a way of life: Here are rooms where the wallpaper changes to suit your mood. Unexplained lights skip across the yard at midnight. And a neighbor, Julia Winterson, bakes hope in the form of cakes, offering them to satisfy the town’s sweet tooth—but also in the hope of rekindling a love she fears might be lost forever. Can a hummingbird cake really bring back a lost love? Is there really a ghost dancing in Emily’s backyard? The answers are never what you expect. But in this town of lovable misfits, the unexpected fits right in.

I chose this book because I've enjoyed the author's other novels. *noi*

January: The Help

Hi Ladies!! I know it's not my turn just yet, but I'm so inLOVE with this book. I love it with passion and I'm hoping they'll make a movie someday. I can see MoniQue playing one of the character (Minny). lol. The story grabs you and I swear,it will be hard to put it down. I hope you guys will enjoy reading it ♥

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. What perfect timing for this optimistic, uplifting debut novel (and maiden publication of Amy Einhorn's new imprint) set during the nascent civil rights movement in Jackson, Miss., where black women were trusted to raise white children but not to polish the household silver. Eugenia Skeeter Phelan is just home from college in 1962, and, anxious to become a writer, is advised to hone her chops by writing about what disturbs you. The budding social activist begins to collect the stories of the black women on whom the country club sets relies and mistrusts enlisting the help of Aibileen, a maid who's raised 17 children, and Aibileen's best friend Minny, who's found herself unemployed more than a few times after mouthing off to her white employers. The book Skeeter puts together based on their stories is scathing and shocking, bringing pride and hope to the black community, while giving Skeeter the courage to break down her personal boundaries and pursue her dreams. Assured and layered, full of heart and history, this one has bestseller written all over it. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Publisher's weekly from www.amazon.com

October: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Hey ladies: I'm posting this on Sheila's behalf. Sheils hasn't set herself up as an author for the blog yet. She apologizes for the tardiness. Work and her two girls keep her busy.

SYNOPSIS:
Sue Monk Kidd's ravishing debut novel has stolen the hearts of reviewers and readers alike with its strong, assured voice. Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the town's fiercest racists, Lily decides they should both escape to Tiburon, South Carolina--a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. There they are taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters who introduce Lily to a mesmerizing world of bees, honey, and the Black Madonna who presides over their household. This is a remarkable story about divine female power and the transforming power of love--a story that women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.

Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah

Synopsis

The New York Times bestselling author of ON MYSTIC LAKE delivers her most emotionally powerful novel yet—the story of two best friends who make a promise to one another as teenagers.

Publishers Weekly

Hannah (On Mystic Lake) goes a little too far into Lifetime movie territory in her latest, an epic exploration of the complicated terrain between best friends-one who chooses marriage and motherhood while the other opts for career and celebrity. The adventures of poor, ambitious Tully Hart and middle-class romantic Kate Mularkey begin in the 1970s, but don't really get moving until about halfway into the book, when Tully, who claws her way to the heights of broadcast journalism, discovers it's lonely at the top, and Katie, a stay-at-home Seattle housewife, forgets what it's like to be a rebellious teen. What holds the overlong narrative together is the appealing nature of Tully and Katie's devotion to one another even as they are repeatedly tested by jealousy and ambition. Katie's husband, Johnny, is smitten with Tully, and Tully, who is abandoned by her own booze-and-drug-addled mother, relishes the adoration from Katie's daughter, Marah. Hannah takes the easy way out with an over-the-top tear-jerker ending, though her upbeat message of the power of friendship and family will, for some readers, trump even the most contrived plot twists. (Feb.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Best Friends Forever

Synopsis from Examiner.com

Some bonds can never be broken... Addie Downs and Valerie Adler will be best friends forever. That's what Addie believes after Valerie moves across the street when they're both nine years old. But in the wake of betrayal during their teenage years, Val is swept into the popular crowd, while mousy, sullen Addie becomes her school's scapegoat.
Flash-forward fifteen years. Valerie Adler has found a measure of fame and fortune working as the weathergirl at the local TV station. Addie Downs lives alone in her parents' house in their small hometown of Pleasant Ridge, Illinois, caring for a troubled brother and trying to meet Prince Charming on the Internet. She's just returned from Bad Date #6 when she opens her door to find her long-gone best friend standing there, a terrified look on her face and blood on the sleeve of her coat. "Something horrible has happened," Val tells Addie, "and you're the only one who can help."
Best Friends Forever is a grand, hilarious, edge-of-your-seat adventure; a story about betrayal and loyalty, family history and small-town secrets. It's about living through tragedy, finding love where you least expect it, and the ties that keep best friends together.

Still Alice

by: Lisa Genova

Synopsis from www.stillalice.com:

Still Alice is a compelling debut novel about a 50-year-old woman's sudden descent into early onset Alzheimer's disease, written by first-time author Lisa Genova, who holds a Ph. D in neuroscience from Harvard University.

Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children and a house on the Cape, is a celebrated Harvard professor at the height of her career when she notices a forgetfulness creeping into her life. As confusion starts to cloud her thinking and her memory begins to fail her, she receives a devastating diagnosis: early onset Alzheimer's disease. Fiercely independent, Alice struggles to maintain her lifestyle and live in the moment, even as her sense of self is being stripped away. In turns heartbreaking, inspiring and terrifying,Still Alice captures in remarkable detail what's it's like to literally lose your mind...

Reminiscent of A Beautiful Mind, Ordinary People and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Still Alice packs a powerful emotional punch and marks the arrival of a strong new voice in fiction.

“The book is about a young woman’s descent into dementia. And of course, we see her struggle against this horrifying and inevitable descent. But interestingly, as her cognitive capabilities diminish, we also get to see her grow. As her symptoms worsen, Alice loses her cerebral life at Harvard, where she’d placed her worth and identity, where she’d been valued and respected. Without it, she embarks on a desperate search for answers to questions like ‘Who am I now?’ and ‘How do I matter?” and is forced to search for meaning and intimacy beyond career success in her relationships with her husband and children, relationships previously neglected or on autopilot. But has too much time and distance passed in those relationships, and has Alice already lost too much of herself to reconnect before she dies?”

--Lisa Genova

June book: Milkrun by Sarah Mlynowski

I thought this book was entertaining. It's something I own and have been meaning to read for quite some time. I think we can all identify the douches Jackie dates in this book. Enjoy!

Synopsis from Publishers Weekly

For readers who have not yet tired of the Bridget Jones genre, this entertaining debut represents it with both humor and substance. Twenty-five-year-old Jackie Norris lives in Boston and has been on her own since receiving a breakup e-mail from her boyfriend, Jeremy, who traveled to Thailand to "find himself." Adhering to the first of her five steps of breakup recovery, Jackie slips on a new pair of knee-high black leather boots and jumps back into the dating scene. The men she encounters are, much to the dismay of any female reader, utterly recognizable: the hunk with groping hands, the sensitive poet who can't afford to move out of his ex-girlfriend's apartment and the guy whose sexual performance is practically over before it begins ("Four minutes is a music video. Four minutes should not be sex"). But in spite of it all, Jackie maintains a refreshing level of optimism. Mlynowski is acutely aware of the plight of the 20-something single woman she offers funny dialogue and several slices of reality, including a chapter of e-mails sent by Jackie's circle of friends as they attempt to decipher the male psyche. Any woman who's ever been bored by an unfulfilling job (Jackie copyedits romance novels), jealous of a roommate who has it all together (Jackie's roommate has a full-time boyfriend and regularly cleans her bathroom) or thoroughly perplexed by boy-speak will find something to enjoy here. Mlynowski may not be able to provide all the solutions, but she certainly makes the problems fun.

(Dec.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.