ARC Review: Eight Days A Week by Amber L. Johnson

Author: Amber L. Johnson
Publisher: The Writer's Coffee Shop
Release Date: November 6th 2014
Pages: -
Add on Goodreads, Leafmarks
Buy on: Amazon

Rating: 3 stars

Gwen Stone has secrets she’s not ready to reveal. After a recent promotion at work, she needs a caretaker for her children. She’s frenzied and in a lurch and pretty much ready to hire the first person who comes along. So she does.

Andrew Lyons needs to get out of his sister’s apartment, and a Craigslist posting may be the answer to his prayers. But what he thought was an ad for a room rental turns into a job offer he can’t refuse. Accepting the nanny position could change his life, if only he had a clue how to be a grownup.

A working mother, a shirtless manny who looks good in a towel, two children who need more than than a babysitter, and hours of kids’ TV can only spell disaster for everyone involved.

Because a manny should always mind his own business.

And he definitely shouldn’t fall in love with his boss. 

My Thoughts:

This eARC was provided by the publisher in an exchange for an honest review.

Eight Days A Week is an amazing fast read packed with lots of humor, sarcasm, sadness and change. Lots of change.

Meet Andrew an arrogant 25 year old teenager. He is selfish, arrogant, a poser and worst of all immature...left alone to babysit two kids. Not the best combination for most but he ends up doing one hell of a job.

Meet Gwen, a ''mother'' of two (you will understand the quotation when you read the book), career woman with lots of stress for her two little kids and job, until Andrew comes in the picture.

The plot takes flight from there and everything evolve into a beautiful love story and a man that changes himself, he becomes someone better because he needs to and wants to, and he wants it a lot. The background story of Gwen and the kids its truly amazing delivered in a way that made my heart swell from sadness and love at the same time.

The characters are so well developed that I actually cared about what would happen and how things would progress for them. It is, of course, visible that all of the characters in the book reach their personal growth and get what they were looking for, so for me that is simply amazing. It is not easy for an author to do that,but when it happens and better yet,when the reader understands it I love it.

The book was delivered in a writing so beautiful and livid, that had me turn the pages on an impossible speed. The plot was well crafted and I felt that I had all the time in the world with them. A little turn off was the fact that for me Gwen and Andrew grew into each other fairly quickly, kinda like a insta lovish, thus the 3 stars.

I totally recommend this book, because it is a page turner, fun and amazingly pleasant.

Waiting On Wednesday #10

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by the Accidental Reader and it features upcoming book releases that we are eagerly anticipating.

We can't wait to put our hands on:

After The Rain by Renee Carlino

expected publication: November 11th 2014

pages: 320

From the USA TODAY bestselling author of Sweet Thing and Nowhere But Here comes a deeply emotional contemporary romance about the second chances waiting beyond the shattered dreams of youth.

Under the bright arena lights of a rodeo show, young Avelina Belo falls for a handsome cowboy with a larger-than-life personality. After a whirlwind courtship, she happily moves away from her family in northern California and settles into married life with her cowboy on a seven-thousand-acre cattle ranch in Montana. One freak accident later, Avelina’s hopes for the future come to an end.

Nate Myers graduated from UCLA medical school at the top of his class, ready to follow in the footsteps of his father, a superstar cardiothoracic surgeon. Six years later, Nate’s career is being ruined by a malpractice suit. Questioning himself for the first time, he retreats to a Montana cattle ranch to visit his uncle and gain perspective. There, he meets a beautiful young woman named Avelina who teaches him more than he ever knew about matters of the heart.

Teaser Tuesday #10

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by The Accidental Reader. Anyone can play along just do the following:

• Grab your current read.
• Open at a random page.
• Share 2 teaser sentences from the page.
• MAKE SURE THAT YOU DO NOT INCLUDE ANY SPOILERS ON YOUR TEASER.
• Share the title, page and author too so other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers.

My Teaser:
   ”Love doesn’t have an end, or a time frame. It’s not nine to five – not just a few days a week. Love works overtime. Every day. Even on weekends. And one extra day to prove it’s real.” 
   -Eight Days A Week by Amber L. Johnson
Please leave a comment with either the link to your own Teaser Tuesday post, or share your teasers in a comment here ,if you dont have a blog. 
Thanx.

Book Talk: When Book Blogging Changed The Way I Read

I used to read books just to read and get lost in their magical world. I didn;t care about the way books where written and most of all I didnt pay attention to the characters personality, if I did not like the way a book was written I just dropped it and then started a new one (I could do that from page 1). That continued until recently until last year I started reading reviews and pay a little more attention to the rating of books.

Once I started reading reviews about books that I had already read, I started looking at them differently. Twilight and Vampire Academy weren;t that awesome and ''unique'' anymore and some characters from a loved from a lot of books weren't appealing anymore.

When I started reviewing books I changed completely the way I read, I became more strict with authors and the ways they wrote and developed their characters and plots, sometimes I became mean because simply I was paying for a good book and secondly in my opinion and in my head you have to meet a certain level of professionalism in order to write and publish a book.

I don;t know if thats a good or a bad thing since I notice every little bad detail in the book but sometimes, noticing everything stops me from completing or enjoying some books.

You can comment below with your own opinion or experience whether you are a blogger or not.

Book Review + Blog Tour: Beautiful Girl by Lida James

Author:  Lida James
Number of pages: 251
Publisher: The Studio, A paper Lantern Lit Imprint
Date published: 28 October 2014
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Buy on: Amazon, Amazon UK

Darkness has a way of catching up...

Sophomore year at Dutchess College has just begun, and Nicole is still haunted by memories of her first love, Zach. As the changing leaves fall on the stately Hudson Valley campus, she takes solace in running—pushing herself to go harder, faster, to be the best. With the wind blowing through her hair, she can almost convince herself that she is beautiful, that she will find love again.

So when Nico runs, quite literally, into the maddeningly elusive Justin, she’s convinced she’s found the guy to make her forget her ex—despite the warnings of her friends and her straight-edged running partner, Luke.
But when Nico is attacked in the woods after a wild night of partying, everything changes. Suddenly, Nico begins receiving anonymous threats, and she no longer knows where to turn for help—or whether even her close friends can be trusted.

All she wants is to be one of the beautiful girls—the ones who never have to chase perfection. But in order to uncover the truth, she’ll have to face a past she had hoped to leave behind forever. She thought she could outrun the darkness, but darkness has a way of catching up…and only one boy can save her. 


Review:

So, this was an interesting read. I shall simplify:

Why you should read the book

First of all, the writing. While I would not claim it to be the most beautiful writing I had ever encountered (Not even close), it is beautiful. Every few sentences or paragraphs there will be a description that will cut into me like a sharp knife. Something that had me thinking- "yeah, I know that. That's how I think of that". 

Secondly, this book has many issues from drugs and anorexia to stalking and death threats. Really, this book covers many subjects and it takes them all seriously. Self insecurity in a major level as well. 

Thridly, the characters in this book are somewhat complicated. Some of them are flawed more than the others. Others are simply lost. Some of them are admirable and some are just jerks. However you look at that they are varied and tehre is plenty to love, hate or connect to in one degree or the other.

Fourth, there are all kinds of relationships in this book- from true friendships to healthy romantic relationships to abusive relationships and fake friendships. I really loved how the author showed the various relationships there are in a person's life, and while showing how some of them are wrong  and one should not stay in them she did not once judge them. Rather, she let us watch, she let us know how the character felt and she let us come to our own conclusion. 

Fifth, this is a a story of hope. I'll explain in a bit.

Why you shouldn't read the book

first of all, this seems like a thriller from the cover to the name to the synopsis. When I requested for it I thought I was in for a New-Adult thriller. Something serious and edgy. I did get something serious and edgy, but the thriller aspect of it was not the main one and it wasn't that unpredictable.

Also, as I said there are various characters and they are quite varied. One thing they have in common is that they are very likeable and a little hard to relate. Yes, they have human problems. Yes, I can understand them. However, connecting on a deeper level- for more than just scene or a feeling is a lot harder. 

As I already mentioned this book deals with many issues and while it deals with all of them seriously, I have to admit the book was quite ambitious touching so many subjects. It is like when someone is trying to throw those 10 balls in the air and catch them all at the same time. What I mean is that at the end of the day with so many issues and subjects to cover you are left with nothing. It's like when you can't see the forest because of all the trees.

My thoughts 

This was a nice read, an intriguing one, Fact is some of the issues are grandeur, but some I think most people deal with in their life- like the need to be beautiful, to connect, to belong, to be loved. Those are things that many of us experience at different points in life. 

Nicole also dealt with them and she became stronger, yes, she was far from perfect (in teh start and in the end) and she still has a lot to work on by the end of the book but her story is a hopeful one. She learns. Which says something considering how annoying I found her at first when she tried to act like this "Big Girl" who can handle things and ignored the warning of teh people around her- but aren't we all like that sometimes? Despite the darkness the story keeps on reminding us there is hope- you learn, you keep in going, you grow stronger, There is always hope.

An ARC was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Blog Tour: Eight Days A Week by Amber L. Johnson

Eight Days a Week

by Amber L. Johnson

A "manny" should always mind his own business. And he definitely shouldn’t fall in love with his boss.  

Release Date: November 6 , 2014

Published by The Writers Coffee Shop

Genre: Romance / Contemporary

ISBN e-book: 978-1-61213-329-4

Available from: Amazon, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, and TWCS PH

 

~~SUMMARY~~

Gwen Stone has secrets she’s not ready to reveal. After a recent promotion at work, she needs a caretaker for her children. She’s frenzied and in a lurch and pretty much ready to hire the first person who comes along. So she does. Andrew Lyons needs to get out of his sister’s apartment, and a Craigslist posting may be the answer to his prayers. But what he thought was an ad for a room rental turns into a job offer he can’t refuse. Accepting the nanny position could change his life, if only he had a clue how to be a grownup. A working mother, a shirtless “manny” who looks good in a towel, two children who need more than a babysitter, and hours of kids’ TV can only spell disaster for everyone involved. Because a manny should always mind his own business. And he definitely shouldn’t fall in love with his boss.    

Add On Goodreads

~~ABOUT THE AUTHOR~~

Amber is a full-time mom and a full-time wife who is employed full time and writes when she can. She believes in Happily Ever Afters that occur every day—despite the obstacles real life serves up on a regular basis. Or perhaps they’re sweeter simply because of them. She always has two rubber bands on her wrist, a song in her head, and too much creamer in her coffee cup that reads ‘Cocoa,’ because she’s a rebel. If she’s not at her desk, with her boys, or behind the computer, she’s supporting live music with her arms raised above her head and her eyes closed, waiting for the drop.    

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~~CONNECT WITH THE AUTHOR~~

Twitter * Facebook * Website

 

Praise for Eight Days a Week

"Laugh-out-loud story about a guy who goes to look at a room to rent and discovers it comes with a job - that of live-in nanny to two damaged kids. So Andrew Lyons accidentally becomes the "manny". Written in his POV, this book chronicles his hilarious escapades as he looks after and grows to love Bree and Brady, and his employer, Gwen. His pranks and spot-on observations about kids' TV shows had me giggling, but there were a few serious moments worthy of a sniffle as well. The star of the show may be Don, though - you'll just have to read this book to find out about him! Highly recommended." 

 - Andrea Goodreads Review

List Land #5: 10 Authors We Want to Read Part 2

So. This is the second part of the list. My part. And while we were thinking of the topic of this list I didn't realize how hard it was going to be. True, new books come out almost every single day. If you ask me I'm starting to suspect someday there will be more authors than lawyers. Which says something considering the amount of people who go to law school. 

Still. Coming up with a list of authors I want to read is harder than coming up with a list of books I want to read. Because in the end of the day thge meaning is that this, IMO, that this is an author that has more than one published book. preferably, thay are not all one series. 

But I found some! yup, I did. And how am I proud on myself like a lion that just learned how to roar!

Shall we?

1. Brandon Sanderson

I've known about him for a couple of years now. I own most of his books- the Mistborn series, Warbreaker, Elantris, Steelheart. 

yes, I admit, I read one book by him written for teens. It was a book somewhat different from all his other books that mix sience and magic in a system of rules. Which is why, perhaps, I do not consider it as me reading him ever. Do not make that mistake to think the book I read wasn't great. It was really good. It's just different from his other works. 

2. Sarah Fine

Among my friends Sarah had made quite the commotion. First with her Guards of the Shadowlands series and then with her Of Metal and Wishes book it became clear the woman's got the talent. So yeah, she's on my reading list. In the VIP list.

3. Nichole Chase

This might be a little cheating on my part as I am reading one of her books right now but damn her Royal series sounds great (and from what I read so far it is promising). She also has more books, one of her upcoming books is one I'm waiting for eagerly- The Accidental Assassin. 

4. Leah Raeder

This is one author who made it with a big bang into the world of indie authors. I have yet to read her book Unteachable but I really do want to read her. However, she would not have made it to this list if it wasn't for the interesting premise of her upcoming book Black Iris. 

5. Noelle August

Last but not least is this writing duo of Veronica Rossi and Lorin Oberweger. I am not sure why but their first book Boomerang gave me the impression of a fun NA book and I JUST have to read it. Their second book also seems promising. Which is why I do want to read this author. That's without considering the fact the Veronica Rossi herself had been on my TBR for quite sometime becuase of her Under The Never Sky series. 

Authors that should have been on the list (but I was limited with space): Amelia Hutchins, Courtney Summers, Amy Spalding, Kelly Oram, Huntely Fitzpatrick & etc.