All tagged Molly O'Keefe

Recommendation Roundup: Summer 2015

Hi folks! I'm happy to share our summer recommended reads with you. It's funny, I keep saying that I haven't gotten super excited about many books this year, but here we have 20+ books that we feel good about recommending--I guess are some good ones out there after all!

Reading has been tough this summer--I took on some huge projects that have competing deadlines and that means my eyeballs aren't too happy with me by the end of the day, so I haven't been reading as much. Plus I've been (intentionally) checked out from a lot of the book chatter online, so I haven't been as on it with regard to what's new and buzzed. (Not necessarily a bad thing.)

Onward to the recommendations!

Listorama: 11 Romance Novels for Clever Ladies

Recently, The Mary Sue--a website I have deeply conflicted feelings about--posted a super-ignorant, click-bait-y piece about romance novels and romance readers.

Rather than rebut the silliness (because what's the point), I thought I'd offer some recommendations for clever ladies looking to try out the genre, want to try a new subgenre of Romance or who want to revisit it after an absence. I'm not an expert, but I've read reasonable widely in the genre and appreciate that it is, in many ways, a deeply feminist field of offerings, particularly in recent years. 

The following are 11 smart big-R romances (read: happy ending of a central love story, as defined by the Romance Writers Association) I recommend for Clever Ladies who are interested in the genre. Keep in mind that there's just about something for everyone in this genre, so if there's not something that's up your alley on this list, there's probably something out there--leave a note in the comments and I'll see what I can do. 

Recommendation Roundup: Winter/Spring 2014-15

Well, I got a bit behind on, like, life, so I thought I'd bundle a few months of our recommended reads for you, rather than trying to catch up month-by-month. 

I did a bit of re-reading over the last few months, which has been pretty fun. I think I will continue to revisit my favorites as a matter of course, because there's something enjoyable in revisiting a beloved story. We all read The Carnival at Bray for book club right before it was a Printz honoree and we all loved it so much, so if you haven't snagged that brilliant little book, do so!

As always, click on the cover for more information. If we have a review available, it will be noted.

Listorama: 10 Favorite Fictional Couples

It’s been ages since I’ve posted one of my beloved “List-o-Rama” posts, and I can’t for the life of me recall why I quite creating them. In honor of Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d revitalize Listorama and bring a few of my favorite fictional couples.

Some of these are from straight up romances, while others are from novels with significant or memorable romantic elements. No worries, though, all of these picks have either a happy ever after or a happy for now ends--no one gets hit by a bus at the end in an attempt to make the novel appear to have more literary significance. 

3 Quickie Contemporary Romance Reviews

If you're having a rough week, it's probably not a good idea to read a novel set in hell--literally. A guaranteed happy ending is more the ticket in these situations. 

I recently picked up an assortment of contemporary romances, and have a few thoughts I'd like to share. Each of these novels belongs to a series of interconnected novels, but can be read as standalone stories. 

Recommendation Roundup: Oct. 2014

We're back with our monthly roundup of recommended reads!

My picks this month really demonstrate my weird, er, eclectic taste, I think. I'm recovering from a killer month, schedule-wise, so I'm hoping to get in some more writing about some of these books, because I read some interesting ones in October. 

Recommendation Roundup: August 2014

Now that the bulk of summer is over, I've been working on catching up with my summer reading list, of course. 

I was so excited to read Stephanie Perkins long-anticipated new novel, which didn't disappoint me in the least (I do think it'll be a love it or hate it story for folks, though--Keertana wrote a fantastic review that resonated with me in terms of why I'm in the love it camp). I was also lucky enough to read a way early copy of Liza Palmer's 2015 novel, Girl Before a Mirror, which is absolutely stellar. I think it'll be a bit polarizing, but in a good way. There are a lot of layers to dig into and I can't wait for it to be in the world so I can talk to people about it! 

I also wrapped up reading The Dust Chronicles series by Maureen McGowan, which I really liked (read that series if you liked Divergent, The Darkest Minds or Legend--it's got all the action-y bits that fans of those books will love, and some good social issues things as well). And on the series front, I read the second book in Chuck Wendig's rad YA series, Blightborn. 

Enough chat! On to our recommendations!

Recommendation Tuesday: Summer Rain Anthology

Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. Basically, this is my way of making Tuesday a little more awesome. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @FullShelves and I'll help spread the word.

View all of the past recommendations over here. 

When author Ruthie Knox emailed me about a review copy of the Summer Rain anthology, I jumped on it when I saw the lineup of authors contributing to this collection of "novelettes." In addition to Ruthie, favorites like Molly O'Keefe and Mary Anne Rivers also contributed to the anthology which supports the important work of RAINN

Each of the nine novelettes is a complete story (unlike so many anthologies which are too often stuffed with teasers for other books *shakes fist*), thematically bound together by the idea of summer rain. The major are contemporary stories, but there are a couple of science fiction/fantasy entries and there's also a "new adult" entry from Audra North. 

Recommendation Roundup: April 2014

Clearly, I had a much better reading month than my CEFS compatriots, with a number of books I quite enjoyed. 

By far, my most surprising read was Zac & Mia, which is one of those review copies that I downloaded on impulse because the folks at Harper Collins have me auto-approved for their books. Little did I know that it had won the Text Prize in Australia a couple of years ago, because that would've been my first clue that it was a good one. It's getting a lot of comparisons to The Fault in Our Stars, but I'm not sure that's an apt one, though the subject matter is similar. If I were to compare it stylistically to a "cancer book," I'd probably say it's more similar to The Probability of Miracles by Wendy Wunder, but that's not that best comparison either. It's actually just unique, with a distinctive voice and style. 

Links & Things: It's Been Awhile Edition

I haven't posted my link roundups in quite some time and there's a reason for that. I've had a problem with those posts being lifted verbatim or nearly-verbatim and re-published. This has, understandably, been pretty upsetting, so I stepped back from compiling them until I could figure out a way to still share but mitigate the chances of that happening.

Unfortunately, I don't have an answer for that, but I'm hoping that by diversifying my linkage content, it'll be less-appealing to folks who don't understand attribution and plagiarism. *cross fingers*

The Official 2013 Clear Eyes, Full Shelves List of Awesome

Each year, we here at Clear Eyes, Full Shelves put together a list of books that stood out to us over the last twelve months as particularly full of awesome. Last year's list had a whopping 24 titles.

Let's see if 2013 can match up, shall we?

The One Sarah Recommends to Anyone & Everyone:
Nowhere But Home by Liza Palmer

The red light blinks. Welcoming me home. What’s the exact opposite of blaze of glory? I look around my dusty Subaru, cut-off jeans, and think: me. This. This is what the exact opposite of a blaze of glory looks like.”

 

Recommended Reads On Sale

Hey y'all! I've been buried in work lately, hence no link roundups, but there are some awesome books I recommend on sale at the moment that I have to call your attention to.

Hope you find a good read or two for your long holiday weekend (in the U.S.).

The Sly Subversiveness of Molly O'Keefe's Wild Child

It's no secret that Molly O'Keefe's novels are my favorites in the very crowded contemporary romance genre.  Her books, which on their surface follow the norms of romance novels (since that's what they are), are brilliantly subversive. All of the novels I've read by this author riff on romance archetypes and conventions in a deliciously satisfying manner. Molly's latest, Wild Child, is no different.

Wild Child focuses on Monica Appleby, famous reality television teen wild child, who wrote a bestselling tell-all memoir of her raucous and destructive formative years. She's alone, her closest friend having recently died and not having a relationship with her mother, and has returned to the town of Bishop, Arkansas to write her follow-up book, this time chronicling the events of her parents' tumultuous relationship and her father's subsequent death. Monica is all hard edges and walls, unwilling to make even casual connections with anyone.

Monica ignored Jackson as he slid into the booth across from her. First the Cracker dude and now Jackson. Good Lord, weren’t the headphones a giveaway? Did she need to make a Do Not Disturb sign? This was why she so rarely went to coffee shops to work, preferring her own company and her own music.

 

The mayor of Bishop is Jackson Davies, who dropped out of law school and returned to his hard-luck hometown to raise his younger sister, Gwen, after their parents were killed in a car accident. Jackson never wanted to make Bishop his home; the town is dying, with an empty factory gathering dust and many of the town's residents struggling in the blighted economy. His father was mayor of Bishop as well, and his goal at the town's leader is the turn the economy around, make sure his sister is safely away at college and then get out of town.

Review: Crazy Thing Called Love by Molly O'Keefe

My reviews of Molly O'Keefe's Crooked Creek Ranch series are probably starting to get a bit dull.

Here's a quick synopsis of the crux of each of my reviews,

Wow! These characters are fully fleshed-out, complex people. I completely believed in their romance because their path toward happiness was hard and took work, but the payoff was completely worth it! This pushes the boundaries of what we talk about when we talk about characters and stories in romance! Exclamation points!

Each of these three novels explores the path of challenging, driven, damaged people as they find happiness together. Crazy Thing Called Love features Madelyn (formerly known as Maddy), a rising star who hosts a morning talk show in Dallas, and Billy, an aging hockey enforcer whose career is at rock bottom.

Oh, and Billy and Maddy used to be married.

This is a scenario I usually would avoid reading, because generally speaking, it seems that relationships run their course for a reason, so the reconciliations generally read as superficial or not long lasting in the context of real life. However, in the case of Crazy Thing Called Love, the setup works. 

Billy and Maddy married young--way young--and while they were in love, they were also immature and their marriage was rooted in their mutual desire to escape their lives. Billy's hockey career was their ticket out.

Maddy left Billy, having lost herself and her identity amidst Billy's rising stardom and remade herself into a polished, confident local media star. But in a strange way, within her job she also loses a piece of herself, 

AM Dallas needed her to be the trusted, knowledgeable, well-dressed, and skinny best friend every woman in Dallas wanted to have. She didn’t have opinions, or outrage or passion. She smiled and told people about the delicious wonder that was gluten-free cheese.

Billy's in desperate need of a new image after spending the season riding the bench for the Dallas Mavericks (yes, this makes me snicker, because the Mavericks are a basketball team, not a hockey team). He has a lot of anger and bitterness and has the potential to go in a very dark direction. 

When Maddy's talk show proposes proposes a makeover of Dallas's notorious bad boy hockey player--clothes, hair, etiquette, the works--she balks, not wanting to revisit that part of her life and definitely not wanting her coworkers to know her past. But Billy embraces the chance to reconnect with his ex-wife.

Their forced renunion after 14 years is challenging, to say the least.

As a rule Billy didn’t believe in fate, but having her come back into his life when it was at its very darkest, that seemed important. Like something he shouldn’t ignore. Something he didn’t want to ignore.

List-O-Rama: Celebrating 8 Difficult Female Characters

Challenging, difficult and unlikable characters are a funny thing. When they're done well, they make for some of the most memorable characters in books. 

However, they're often misunderstood as readers tend to want characters to whom they can relate, and no one wants to admit to related to someone who's well, kind of a jerk. It's even tougher for female characters, whom are often held to higher standards than their male counterparts (a subject I intend to write about eventually).

So, I thought I'd use this week's List-O-Rama post to give a shout-out to some of my favorite challenging female characters.

Every character in every book by Courtney Summers. (YA)

Namely, Sloane from This is Not a Test and Regina from Some GIrls Are. These two girls are definitely people people I would not want to hang out with--and neither would even think of letting me be their friend. But Summers is such an adept writer that she makes me care about these girls and want things to be okay for them. I wanted Sloane to want to survive the zombie apocalypse; I wanted mean girl Regina to triumph over the other mean girls. 

This is Not a Test on CEFS / Amazon / Goodreads 
Some Girls Are on Amazon ($4 paperbacks!) / Goodreads