Fictional Faceplants and My Real Tomatoe Plants... This weeks' Sunday Salon

Welcome to The Sunday Salon! It's the place where Book Bloggers from around the world share their bookish finds with one another in a virtual place called The Sunday Salon. Thank you to for Deb at ReaderBuzz keeping us all together on Sundays and hosting The Sunday Salon now! I also visited with Kim at The Caffeinated Reader, another Sunday gathering place for us bookish people called The Sunday Post!

This week marks the final re-potting of my Seed Snails before the actual transplanting into the raised bed garden (which needs some serious weeding!) The Seed Snails were a total experiment because I had never sowed seeds to grow anything indoors, but they actually sprouted and grew. They were a little leggy (skinny stems) because they were stretching for more light from the shelves I had them on, by one of the front windows. I did not have grow lights. But I opened the seed snails up and took half of the plants and put them into a new seed snail and added more dirt and buried those stems a little deeper and they came back stronger and happier (or at least I hope they were happier). The past few weeks I've been hardening them outdoors in a mini garden shed, and this week I'm going to re-pot some of them into their own pots to give some of them some more room.

And while I was dealing with my tomato plants, I noticed another trend in plants... Faceplants. Faceplants on book covers!?! Yes, it seems like it's a thing. The new hit series on Apple TV, Margo's Got Money Trouble based on the Rufi Thorpe book made me remember that my first library book from my new local library back in 2018 was an illustration of a girl faceplanted on a couch too... Which got me thinking about if there were other books with women faceplanted on their couch... and the answer is yes! Here are my top 3...

Margo's Got Money Trouble by Rufi Thorpe... As the child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler, Margo Millet's always known she’d have to make it on her own. So she enrolls at her local junior college, even though she can’t imagine how she’ll ever make a living. She’s still figuring things out and never planned to have an affair with her English professor—and while the affair is brief, it isn’t brief enough to keep her from getting pregnant. Despite everyone’s advice, she decides to keep the baby, mostly out of naiveté and a yearning for something bigger.

Now, at twenty, Margo is alone with an infant, unemployed, and on the verge of eviction. She needs a cash infusion—fast. When her estranged father, Jinx, shows up on her doorstep and asks to move in with her, she agrees in exchange for help with childcare. Then Margo begins to form a plan: she’ll start an OnlyFans as an experiment, and soon finds herself adapting some of Jinx’s advice from the world of wrestling. Like how to craft a compelling character and make your audience fall in love with you. Before she knows it, she’s turned it into a runaway success. Could this be the answer to all of Margo’s problems, or does internet fame come with too high a price?

Blisteringly funny and filled with sharp insight, Margo’s Got Money Troubles is a tender tale starring an endearing young heroine who’s struggling to wrest money and power from a world that has little interest in giving it to her. It’s a playful and honest examination of the art of storytelling and controlling your own narrative, and an empowering portrait of coming into your own, both online and off.

Published by William Morrow in 2024

how hard can it be? by Allison Pearson... Look, I was doing OK. I got through the oil spill on the road that is turning forty. Lost a little control, but I drove into the skid just like the driving instructors tell you to and afterwards things were fine again, no, really, they were better than fine.Kate Reddy had it all: a nice home, two adorable kids, a good husband. Then her kids became teenagers (read: monsters). Richard, her husband, quit his job, taking up bicycling and therapeutic counseling: drinking green potions, dressing head to toe in Lycra, and spending his time―and their money―on his own therapy. Since Richard no longer sees a regular income as part of the path to enlightenment, it’s left to Kate to go back to work.

Companies aren’t necessarily keen on hiring 49-year-old mothers, so Kate does what she must: knocks a few years off her age, hires a trainer, joins a Women Returners group, and prepares a new resume that has a shot at a literary prize for experimental fiction.

When Kate manages to secure a job at the very hedge fund she founded, she finds herself in an impossible juggling act: proving herself (again) at work, dealing with teen drama, and trying to look after increasingly frail parents as the clock keeps ticking toward her 50th birthday. Then, of course, an old flame shows up out of the blue, and Kate finds herself facing off with everyone from Russian mobsters to a literal stallion.

Surely it will all work out in the end. After all, how hard can it be?

Published by St. Martin's Press in 2018

Lynn Ly is Doing Just Fine by Thao Votang... Told with deadpan humor and brutal honesty, this debut novel follows Vietnamese American Linh Ly’s unraveling as she reckons with the traumas of both her past and present.

When twenty-seven-year-old Linh Ly’s recently divorced mother begins dating a coworker, Linh is determined to make sure he is worthy of her mother. She’s seen the kind of men her mother ends up with—she grew up watching her unreliable and volatile alcoholic father as her mother worked two jobs to make ends meet. Linh is certain that her mother can’t do this on her own, but what begins as genuine worry quickly turns obsessive.

Following her mother and spying on her dates becomes part of Linh’s routine, especially after a university shooting at Linh’s work that leaves her feeling adrift—at least her mom’s dating life gives her something to focus on. Linh doesn’t exactly have a life of her own (dating or otherwise) and figures the best course of action is action—not how she handled the shooting: curl up in a ball and wait it out.

Linh is slowly forced to reconcile the image of her mother from her childhood with the woman she’s getting to know as an adult. Growing up Vietnamese in the middle of Texas with a broken household taught Linh a certain guarded way of living—one she never quite left behind.

Published by Alcove Press in 2024

Have you read any faceplant books?

How about planning on growing any tomato plants?

Here are some Honorable Mention Faceplant Covers...

BTW, did you notice the Careering by Daisy Buchanan cover? It's the same image as the cover for Linh Ly is Doing Just Fine! 

(Click on the links, they'll take you to the post!)

Memoir Monday... Strangers by Belle Burden. "He wanted it, he wanted me. And then he didn’t."

New Book Tuesday... Part One and Part Two (Because there were too many new good books coming out this week!)

In My Mailbox... Wow, I received some great reading from publishers this past week! Check out what came into my mailbox (and eReader).

Book Review for Blood Bound by Ellis Hunter... OMG, if you love Romantasy, you need to read this. If you have never read Romantasy, but want to try some, you need to read this! I just loved this book, and I just started reading romantasy. Read my review!

New Book Announcement... Did you love The Time Travelers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger?! Then you need to read this post! 

First Lines Friday... You'll want to pack your bags for this one!

A Little Library Love... I share my library loot this week!

Kindle Deal...For romantacy readers! If you want to read Dire Bound before book 2 hits the shelves on Tuesday, have I got a Kindle deal for you!

That does it for this week! Have you found your next read here? How about finding a spark to start some tomato plants? Share any great reads you found this week!

Happy Reading... Suzanne