Curled Up With a Good Book and a Cup of Tea

When another relationship comes to an end Anne Blythe begins to wonder if she will ever find Mr. Right. She has a great job, good friends and has just been given a book deal. But she is missing someone to share it with. When she comes across a business card for a dating service, she decides to try it on impulse. Only this isn't a dating service, it's an arranged marriage service. A very pricey arranged marriage service which boasts an incredible success rate. At first she rejects the idea, but when she considers the millions of people around the world for whom arranged marriages are the norm, she decides to give it a go. Anne travels to a Mexican resort and within days is married to Jack, and to her surprise things seem to be working out. Until Anne arrives home early from a trip to discover a secret about Jack and realizes that her arranged marriage isn't what it seems at all. Arranged by Catherine McKenzie brings a new twist to the marriage and relationship no...

Happy Friday! I was up very early this morning to watch the Royal Wedding, how about you? My husband thinks I'm crazy, but my grandmother had a great love for the Royals and she passed that on to me. This weeks question for the hop is: Summer is coming quickly - what 2011 summer release are you most looking forward to? First of all, I'm so happy to hear summer is coming quickly. It doesn't feel like it outside, but I know it's just around the corner. And so the summer reading anticipation has begun for me. There are so many great chick lit books coming out this summer that I can't wait to read, but the one book I'm really waiting on is The Kid by Sapphire. It's going to be released on 5 July and it is the sequel to Push . This book is going to follow Precious' son as he is now becoming an adult. Hope you all have a great weekend. Please check out my new blog Faith Filled Reading for reviews of Christian books. A few of my friends will be cont...

Rose and her daughter Hazel are homeless in a big city. They spend their nights searching for food in garbage bins and their days in a shack in the bushes, hiding from anyone who could notice them. As summer turns into fall and into winter, the days and nights are becoming long and cold and Hazel is starting to miss her friends and her school. Rose wants to do right by her daughter but it's becoming increasingly hard. Will she be able to care for Hazel while living this way, or will Hazel try to return to her old life? In From the Cold is a short story by Deborah Ellis, that shows a side of city life that most people don't know about. While it is a quick read, it is an emotional one as well. One can't begin to imagine what life is like on the streets, especially for a young girl. This book will give readers a view of the heartache and turmoil that is faced by those who live on the street, and the troubles that many people face in this world. It is a wonderful sto...

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine for book bloggers to share which upcoming releases they are eagerly anticipating. My selection this week is: If You Ask Me (And Of Course You Won't) by Betty White Release date: 3 May 2011 Drawing from a lifetime of lessons learned, seven-time Emmy winner Betty White's wit and wisdom take centre stage as she tackles topics like friendship, romantic love, aging, television, fans, love for animals, and the brave new world of celebrity. "If You Ask Me" mixes her thoughtful observations with humorous stories from a seven-decade career in Hollywood. Because who doesn't love Betty White?

As a Christian, are you living in the pink? You know, your sins aren't red like scarlet, but you aren't doing what's necessary to make them white as snow. You are satisfied living in the middle, in the pink. Sharon Tubbs' new book, Living in the Pink , will have you thinking about where you are living and how you can move out of it and into the light of truth. ABOUT THE BOOK Living in the Pink is a series of humorous and insightful short stories with Christian underpinnings. Through the eyes of the wise “Sister Pinky” and Believers Ministries International Church, these stories highlight issues that women grapple with but that often remain unspoken in religious circles. The characters are everyday wives, mothers, and singles. They develop and gain a spiritual perspective in dealing with romantic relationships, wayward children, jealousy, church traditions, Christian hypocrisy, and self-righteous judgment, among other themes. Discussion questions help readers con...

Congratulations to the winner of the There's Lead in Your Lipstick prize pack....Jonnie (momtodc)!!! I will be contacting you via email to give you all the details!

It's Monday! And it's Easter Monday which means no school so the whole family is home together, for the 4th day in a row! It's been lovely, but it's also been loud! I look forward to when things quiet down a bit. What I Read Last Week Arranged by Catherine McKenzie The Picture of Nobody by Rabindranath Maharaj One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp Living In the Pink by Sharon Tubbs What I'm Reading Now A Tiny Bit Marvellous by Dawn French What I'm Reading Next Anatomy of a Disappearance by Hisham Matar

We know what the Word of God teaches us, but what does it mean to really put it into action? The Take Action Bible , part of Thomas Nelson Bible's God's Word in Action campaign to empower people to change the world, will show you people who are doing just that and help you to take action in your own life. It includes 15 real-life stories, 52 Take Action Ideas, and Personal Take Action note pages in addition to the NKJV UltraSlim Bible text, words of Jesus in red, concordance, colour maps and Bible reading plan. The colour pages in this Bible are beautiful and stunning. The real life stories will show you ways in which people have answered God's call to go, serve, give, heal, and touch. I really enjoyed the colour maps in this Bible and the Concordance is one of the better ones I have seen. My only criticism of this Bible is that I wish the real life stories were a bit more in depth, though I understand that space is limited. The personal reflection pages are a grea...

Happy Good Friday!!! I am definitely looking forward to this long, long weekend! It's time for the Book Blogger Hop hosted by Jennifer at Crazy For Books . It's a weekly gathering of book bloggers, and each week there are over 200 participants. It's a great way to get to know other book bloggers and find some great blogs and books to read. This weeks question: If you find a book you love, do you hunt down other books by the same author? Definitely!!! One day at the library I randomly picked up a book by ReShonda Tate Billingsley. I loved the book so much that I went out and read every other book she wrote and now she is one of my favourite authors. There is nothing I love more than finding a new author and reading everything they've written! Some bits of news In celebration of Earth Day I'm hosting a giveaway for Canadian residents. You can enter to win a copy of Gillian Deacon's There's Lead in Your Lipstick and an Eco-Kiss gift set from Saffro...

A Special Earth Day message from Gillian Deacon: Earth day shouldn't just be an annual tip of the hat to greener living. This year, make it the day you recalibrate your everyday patterns to be more earth-friendly all year long. You don't have to be a treehugger to care about avoiding toxins in your everyday bodycare. Synthetic chemicals in personal care products contaminating groundwater and wildlife is alarming enough - but they're also contaminating us. Those hard-to-read ingredients you squint at on the back of a product label? They're building up inside your body and in your children's bodies - on Earth Day and everyday. Make today the day you start paying attention to that fineprint. Turn a product over and read the ingredients label before you are seduced by the "green" imaging on the package. The good news is, there are lots of safer products on the market. Good luck and I hope you'll check out There's Lead in Your Lipstick fo...

Shayne Moore was your typical full-time suburban mom, living in an insular world of soccer practices, bake sales, and carpools. Until one day she attended a talk by Bono of U2 and learned about the devastation of poverty and HIV/AIDS around the world. With her eyes opened she knew she couldn't stay silent about this global epidemic and she became involved in the local fight. Before she knew it she was travelling the world with the organization ONE, meeting rock stars and world leaders, and doing her part to change the world. Global Soccer Mom is the story of Shayne's journey but moreso is a call to action for women and men of all walks of life to find a cause they are passionate about and to go out and make a difference in the world. Her story shows that no person is too small to make a difference and no matter how busy your life, there is always room for getting involved in a worthy cause. As Shayne chronicles her journey from full time soccer mom to world-travelling ...

It's Monday, What Are You Reading? is a weekly meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey . My reading has been thrown off quite a bit over the last few weeks but I think I'm getting back into my groove. I hope.... What I Read Last Week: Global Soccer Mom by Shayne Moore There's Lead In Your Lipstick by Gillian Deacon What I'm Reading Now: Arranged by Catherine McKenzie One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp What I Plan to Read Next: A Tiny Bit Marvellous by Dawn French In Other News: I recently started another book blog called Faith Filled Reading . There you will find reviews of Christian books. There will be fiction and non-fiction of all sorts of topics surrounding Christian Life. If this is something that interests you I hope you will check it out by clicking on the blog name above!

Ok, well I haven't expanded personally (I'll thank my Bikram yoga practice for that) but my blog has expanded! As my readers know, I read a wide variety of books and one of those genres is Christians books, both fiction and non-fiction. Lately, I've been reading some more theological type books (personal growth, etc.) that I feel don't really fit in with this blog, but that I want to share with fellow readers. So I have created a blog for Christian books called Faith Filled Reading. I hope you will check it out and follow. For a short while some of the reviews may be ones I have posted here before but you will see new reviews shortly! And of course, I will still be posting regular reviews here! Come check it out - Faith Filled Reading

Happy Friday!!! It's a very sunny day (though a little chilly but I'll still take it) and they're forecasting rain for the entire weekend and into next week. I hate when Friday teases us with the sun. The Book Blogger Hop is hosted by Jennifer at Crazy For Books . It's a weekly gathering of over 200 book bloggers, a great place to visit and check out. This weeks question is: Pick a character from a book you are currently reading or have just finished and tell us about him/her. Well, I just finished reading Give The Lady a Ride by Linda W. Yezak (you can see my review below.) The main character, Patricia Talbert, is a New York City social co-ordinator who has just inherited a ranch in Texas from her Uncle. So she goes to check out the ranch, decide what to do with it and falls for man who runs the ranch. So to buy herself some time, she asks him to teach her how to ride bulls! I loved the character of Patricia and I so related to her because I'm a city girl at ...

Patricia Talbert is a high class social co-ordinator from New York and a city girl at heart. Talon Carlson is a ranch foreman and champion bull rider from Texas, your typical Western guy. Will opposites attract when their worlds collide? Give the Lady a Ride by Linda W. Yezak is a modern Western romance and a fun culture clash. Patricia Talbert has just inherited the ranch that Talon Carlson runs. But her mission to sell the ranch is derailed when she discovers not only a few family secrets on the ranch, but that she has a deep attraction to Talon. Knowing that the attraction may be mutual, she decides to buy herself some extra time on the ranch by issuing Talon a challenge - she wants him to teach her how to ride bulls. I am a city girl at heart so I can definitely relate to Patricia's hesitation regarding the ranch at first. That sort of stuff is not on my radar. But Linda W. Yezak's writing pulled me right in from the start and never let me go. I quickly found ...

Mickey Bauermann is an average teenager growing up in Riviere-du-Loup, Quebec in the 1980's and 1990's when Hope Randall walks into his life. Hope and her mother Ann descend from a long line apocalypse predictors, all of whom when wrong, go crazy. Hope and Ann flee Nova Scotia to escape Ann's prediction, only to have their car break down in Riviere-du-Loup which they decide is a good place to start over. Mickey and Hope spend their days either at school, working or holed up in his basement watching television. Until Hope receives her apocalyptic vision and soon finds herself on a journey around the world to discover the reason behind the date she has been given. Apocalypse for Beginners by Nicolas Dickner (winner of Canada Reads for Nikolski ) is a quirky and thought-provoking novel that challenges readers to take a look at themselves and the world around them. Hope's obsession with the forthcoming apocalypse is, in some way, in all of us. Set in a recent per...

Sometime in the near future Nigeria's Kainji Dam, a 10-kilometre-long engineering marvel, suddenly collapses. Hundreds of thousands of villagers drown and many more are left in danger. Water becomes known as "blue gold," a commodity hotter than oil and up for grabs. Cue the opportunists. A colourful cast of characters is swept up into the frenzy that erupts following the dams collapse. Nigeria's minister for natural resources, Chief Ogbe Kolo, sees this as an opportunity to become president and turn himself into a national hero. Mary Glass and her colleagues at TransAqua in Santa Fe, New Mexico see this as an opportunity to buy the rights to the Niger River and then move throughout the world exploiting other traumatized nations for personal gain. Mary's sister Barbara, a flighty conflict manager decides to become a water activist so she can take revenge on her sister and thwart her plans. Femi Jegede is a Nigerian activist whose family was swept away in t...

As a young girl, Jessie Woods fell in love with the story of Cinderella and dreamed that her life would turn out the same way. So when she was 18, she left her stepmother and stepsisters behind for a dream life as a television host, complete with a million dollar mansion and the dream boyfriend. But then Jessie makes a split-second mistake on-air and her life falls to pieces. With no job, boyfriend or money, Jessie is forced to move back home with her stepmum and evil stepsisters. Will Jessie be forced into a new life in which she works around the home to earn her keep, or will she get a second chance at the Cinderella life? Personally, I Blame My Fairy Godmother by Claudia Carroll is a fun update on a well-known story. When I first picked up the book I didn't realize that there would be the many Cinderella references, and when I read about them I thought this was going to be a cookie cutter modern update on the story. But Carroll's great twist on the story made this ...

Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine , is a weekly meme for book bloggers to share with upcoming releases they are eagerly anticipating. This week I have chosen two fun chick lit novels! Kate's Wedding by Chrissie Manby Release Date: 12 April 2011 Thirty-nine-year old Kate had almost given up on love when she met her fiance. Now she's planning for the wedding she never dreamed she'd have. But things seem to be slipping out of her control. Diana, born on the day of the 1981 Royal Wedding, never doubted that one day she would find her prince. Newly engaged and with daddy's credit card in her grasp, she's in full Bridezilla mode. Against the backdrop of the other couple getting married in April 2011, both women prepare for the most important day of their lives. But will each bride get her perfect day? Or will it all become a right royal fiasco? Girl on the Run by Jane Costello Release Date: 14 April 2011 He's a real catch...if only s...

It's Monday, What Are You Reading? is a weekly meme (and one of my faves) hosted by Sheila at Book Journey . It helps me get organized and makes deciding what to read next easy for me! This week was a rough week for reading. I feel like I should be apologizing to my bookshelf. But sometimes life gets busy and books get put aside for a while. What I Read Last Week Apocalypse For Beginners - Nicolas Dickner What I'm Reading Now This Cake Is For the Party - Sarah Selecky What I Plan To Read Next Give the Lady a Ride - Linda W. Yezak Global Soccer Mom - Shayne Moore How does your week look? Here's to a better reading week!

Happy Friday! Brought to you by Jennifer at Crazy For Books the Book Blogger Hop is a weekly gathering of over 200 book bloggers! This weeks question is: Since today is April Fool's Day in the USA, what is the best prank you have ever played on someone OR that someone has played on you? Sorry guys but I'm boring! I'm not a big prank person. I don't like them being played on me, and I'm really not creative enough to come up with any myself, and besides I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face anyway! Thanks for stopping by!