About the Book: 
This book documents the strong ties that bind generations together. When the author poses the question to her Irish Granny, "If you were so poor why did you have ten children?" Says she, "To be certain, there was no poverty between the sheets!" 

This sassy saga of a large family that is half Irish and half French Canadian captures hilarious voices and comical antics of a vibrant family that is cloaked in love. A horse theme and song lyrics are neatly knitted throughout the layers of generations.

Where to buy the book:    Amazon


Review: 
This is a memoir of a very large French-Canadian family written by Pauline Kiely.  With the title "No Poverty Between the Sheets," I figured this would provide a humorous view of growing up in such a family.  Kiely provides this looking back from when her parents first came to Canada from Ireland and France to the day she was born to her time as an adult.  

This memoir is filled with amusing anecdotes, comedy and raw emotion.  I loved reading about this family's experience through time, especially the 60's and 70's.  It was very interesting to see how music, the mix of cultures, drugs and the changing decades affected the family.  I really loved all of the stories about animals and the song lyrics from her family.  The story and some of the  anecdotes did seem a little disjointed at times, I never really felt a good flow.  However, it was a good book to pick up put down over the day.  Overall, this was a different type of memoir, one about family ties and bonds with the unique outlook of a French and Irish Canadian point of view. 

This book was received for free in return for an honest review. 
​

About the Author: 
Pauline Kiely has been an avid student of Creative Writing her entire life. This author has consistently taken various courses and workshops offered at University of Toronto and Trent Universities. A year long memoir course with Susan Reynolds brought out this witty honest voice that shoots straight from the hip aiming for the heart.  

Connect with the author:   Website  ~  Twitter  ~  Facebook

About The Invisibles
• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (August 4, 2015)

"We'll choose to remain invisible. To everyone except each other . . . "

Brought together by chance as teenagers at Turning Winds, a home for girls, Nora, Ozzie, Monica, and Grace quickly bond over their troubled pasts and form their own family, which they dub The Invisibles. With a fierce loyalty to each other, the girls feel that they can overcome any obstacle thrown their way. Though the walls they've built around themselves to keep out the rest of the world are thick, they discover one night, when tragedy strikes, that there are cracks in their tight-knit circle.

While Ozzie, Monica, and Grace leave after graduation to forge a fresh start, Nora decides to stay behind in Willow Grove. Now, fifteen years later, she's content living a quiet, single life working in the local library and collecting "first lines"—her favorite opening lines from novels. But when Ozzie calls out of the blue to let her know Grace has attempted suicide and is desperate for them to reconvene, Nora is torn between elation at seeing the women who were once her most cherished, trusted friends and anxiety over the unresolved conflicts that will most certainly surface.

As the women gather and reminisce, the truth about their lives comes to light. And when The Invisibles decide to take the road trip they always dreamed of, they will be forced to reveal their deepest secrets and confront the night that changed them forever.

Review: 


Turning Winds Home for Girls takes in troubled and orphaned girls.  This is where four teenage friends meet and form a strong bond over their unique status of having no parents present in their lives, no visits, no contact, and no phone calls.  Nora, Ozzie, Monica and Grace form The Invisibles, a family of their own, at least until graduation.  Self-proclaimed ring leader of the group, Ozzie, decides that they should all forget and move on after tragic events after graduation.  Ozzie, Monica and Grace move out of town and on to bigger and better, or so it seems; meanwhile Nora stays in town with the Shadow of the Turning Winds Home.  Nora has a job at the library, her dog Alice Walker, her collection of favorite first lines from books, and all the pain of the secrets she has kept from her childhood.  Nora desperately wishes her friends would reunite again, and with one phone call from Ozzie fifteen years later, The Invisibles rise again. 



This is a heartwarming story of friendship, pain, redeeming yourself and moving on.  Each of the four girls carries around an amazing load of baggage from their childhood.  I loved The Invisibles group, they form as a wonderful therapy.  The rules are amazing and what the girls try to do for one another shows true companionship, but as children they can only make themselves feel better at the moment and not actually solve any of the deep-rooted issues in their lives.  Each of the girls was very interesting and with their own personalities, Nora was my favorite of the group quiet, reserved, observant and I loved her first line collection.  It was interesting to see how each woman’s baggage and personality affected them as adults and how they came to eventually deal with it.  The emotions were real and raw with issues that many women might face, abusive relationships, body insecurities, sex, postpartum depression, money and abortion. 




This book was received for free in return for an honest review. 

Purchase Links

Amazon | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble

About Cecilia Galante
Cecilia Galante is the author of three young adult novels, three middle-grade books, and a children's chapter-book series. She is the recipient of many awards, including a NAIBA Book of the Year and an Oprah's Teen Read Selection for her first novel, ThePatron Saint of Butterflies. Her books have been translated into Japanese, Turkish, and Polish.

Find out more about Cecilia at her website, and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

About the Book: 
When your last name is Charming, rescuing virgins comes with the territory -- even when the virgin in question is a nineteen-year-old college boy.

Someone, somewhere, has declared war on Kevin Kichida, and that someone has a long list of magical predators on their rolodex. The good news is that Kevin lives in a town where Ted Cahill is the new sheriff and old ally of John Charming. 

The attacks on Kevin seem to be a pattern, and the more John and his new team follow that thread, the deeper they find themselves in a maze of supernatural threats, family secrets, and age-old betrayals. The more John learns, the more convinced he becomes that Kevin Kichida isn't just a victim, he's a sacrifice waiting to happen. And that thread John's following? It's really a fuse... 


FEARLESS is the third novel in an urban fantasy series which gives a new twist to the Prince Charming tale. The first two novels are Charming &Daring.




Review: 
John Charming is a Prince, trained by the Knights Templar to kill supernatural beings…well until he turned into one.  As a werewolf and a Knight, John is a type of abomination.  However, John still upholds the Pax Arcana with a strange group of other supernatural beings.  Right now, John and the group are trying to figure out who unleashed a bunch of supernatural horror on 19-year-old Kevin Kichada and why.   The attacks on Kevin are strange, but obviously someone wants to kill him. John and the team delve into the realm of underground supernatural fighting to find the thing trying to kill Kevin.  Of course, the only way to stop this thing will be ridiculously dangerous, even for a werewolf Knight.




I didn't quite know what I was getting into with this book, especially since it was the third in a series.  It can be read as a standalone; however, I think I would have preferred to read the first two books beforehand so I could be a little more filled in.  I was thrown into a world with many supernatural beings and a team protecting the world from any harmful supernatural beings.  All of the characters were interesting, quirky and well developed.  It did take me a little while to figure out all of their relationships to each other.  John was pretty awesome, I liked that he was a walking contradiction as well as his sarcastic but helpful attitude.  I loved that so many different supernatural beings and creatures were introduced to me in this book, I enjoy the legend of the each uisge and was glad that it was the first creature introduced.  I also really liked the underground fighting circle, there were some awesome fight scenes and it was a great way to meet a lot of different characters and see their powers in action.  Overall, a charming a funny urban fantasy, supernatural romp.  




About the Author: 
About Elliott James: An army brat and gypsy scholar, ELLIOTT JAMES is currently living in the Blue Ridge mountains of southwest Virginia. He’s been an avid reader since the age of three (or that's what his family swears anyhow), and he has an abiding interest in mythology, martial arts, live music, hiking, and used bookstores.

About The Uninvited
• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (August 11, 2015)

Twenty-five-year-old Ivy Rowan rises from her sickbed after being struck by the great influenza epidemic of 1918, only to discover that the world has been torn apart in just a few short days.

But Ivy's lifelong gift—or curse—remains. She sees the uninvited ones—ghosts of loved ones who appear to her, unasked for and unwelcomed, for they always herald impending death. On that October evening in 1918, Ivy sees the spirit of her grandmother, rocking in her mother's chair. An hour later, she learns her younger brother and father have killed a young German out of retaliation for the death in theGreat War of Ivy's other brother, Billy.

Horrified, she leaves home and soon realizes that the flu has caused utter panic and the rules governing society have broken down. Ivy is drawn into this new world of jazz, passion, and freedom, where people live for today, because they could be stricken by nightfall. She even enters into a relationship with the murdered German man's brother, Daniel Schendel. But as her "uninvited guests" begin to appear to her more often, she knows her life will be torn apart once again, and terrifying secrets will unfold.



Purchase Links

Amazon | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble

Review: 
The females of the Rowan family have a secret; they can see the ghosts of loved ones who have passed.  These uninvited guests however, are carrying an omen of a death soon to come.  Ivy Rowan is 25 and has not lived much of life outside of her family farm.  The Great War and the Spanish Influenza have taken their toll on her and her family.  Ivy awakes after suffering the flu to learn that her father and brother have taken out their revenge on the last German business owner in town and have brutally murdered Mr. Schendel of Liberty Brothers Furniture.  Unable to live with her father and brother’s deed, Ivy strikes out on her own and decides to pay penitence to the other Schendel brother in any way she can.  With Daniel Schendel, Ivy comes into her own, ignites her love of jazz and finds things that were missing in her life.   However, when she begins to see her uninvited guests everywhere she turns, Ivy begins to fear life once again.

This was a very surprising book that was ultimately about a woman figuring out how to live life to the fullest in the most unexpected of ways.  At first the blend of the time period with the element of the paranormal really intrigued me.  Although, when I was reading, it was Ivy’s character that kept me wrapped up in the pages.  Ivy surprised me with many of her actions, constantly showing parts of herself that made me respect her more and more.  From her ever growing confidence to her ability to drive a model-T and her relationship with Daniel, Ivy is a woman full of heart that I could easily relate to.  The other part of the book that drew me in was the setting, during the Great War in a small town suffering with Influenza.  Terror and panic rule the streets, many people forget that the German immigrants were ostracized and blamed during this time period, the fear and misunderstanding was apparent in the streets of Buchanan, Illinois that probably mirrored many other small towns at the time.  The paranormal aspect of the book seemed like just a side note at first, but grows steadily with time and offers a surprising twist near the end.  When the twist was first offered, I felt a little crushed for Ivy, but with Ivy’s true nature shining through she carries on and continues to make the best of it.  Overall, an engaging and unexpected book with wonderful characters, and a great blend of historical fiction and paranormal.

This book was received for free in return for an honest review.    

About the Author: 
Cat Winters's debut novel, In the Shadow of Blackbirds, was released to widespread critical acclaim. The novel has been named a finalist for the 2014 Morris Award, a School Library Journal Best Book of 2013, and a Booklist 2013 Top 10 Horror Fiction for Youth. Winters lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and two children.

Find out more about Cat at her website, and follow her on tumblr, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter.