Fresh Off the Press: Three New Releases You’ll Want on Your Radar Today

Today's the day for these books you'll want to put on you TBR list! One yummy memoir, and 2 romances that will have you turning those pages as fast as you can.

Extra Sauce bby Zahra Tangorra... At twenty-two years old, Zahra Tangorra was trying on adulthood and attempting to find herself when a harrowing near-death experience stopped her in her tracks. It felt like a twisted version of a second chance. Who am I? she asked herself. What do I love? The answers started coming to her: Stuffed shells and giant meatballs at J&J’s, the Italian red sauce joint of her Long Island childhood. Her mother’s chocolate mousse pie and her father’s sweet and savory pea soup. The people, places, and experiences that made her her, the relationships both loving and fraught—they were all, for better and sometimes worse, inextricably bound up with food. In this memoir that celebrates both the delicious and the messy in life, Zahra reckons with the adrenaline-filled highs and devastating lows of opening cult-favorite Brooklyn restaurant Brucie and then closing it at the height of its popularity. From cooking her father his last meal and the unexpected yet beautiful things she found at the bottom of her grief to the relationships she couldn’t save through cooking, like her fractured family and the lover she had to leave in Tuscany, Zahra writes about the immense courage it takes to allow ourselves to be loved, extra sauce and all. Told with uproarious humor and tremendous insight, Extra Sauce is for anyone who yearns to embrace their whole self, who loves with abandon, and who eats with gusto.

Published by Dial Press and in my eReader as we speak. I'm always us for a memoir that has a cook and food in it!

Cherry Baby by Rainbow Rowell... Everybody knows that Cherry's husband, Tom, is in Hollywood making a movie . . . Almost nobody knows that he isn't coming home. Tom is the creator of Thursday—a semi-autobiographical webcomic that's become an international phenomenon. Semi-autobiographical. That means there's a character in this movie based on Cherry . . . "Baby." Wide-hipped, heavy-chested, double-chinned Baby. Cherry never wanted this. No fat girl wants to see herself caricatured on the page—let alone on the big screen. But there's no getting away from it. Baby looks so much like Cherry that strangers recognize her at the grocery store. While her soon-to-be ex-husband is in Los Angeles getting rich and famous and being the internet's latest boyfriend, Cherry is stuck in Omaha taking care of the dog he always wanted and the house they were going to raise a family in . . . and wondering who she's supposed to be without him. Cherry had promised to love Tom through thick and thin. She'd meant it. One night, Cherry decides to leave all her problems, including Tom's overgrown puppy, at home. She ventures out to see her favorite band play her favorite album . . . and someone recognizes her from across the room. Russ Sutton knew Cherry when she was a young art student with a fondness for pin-up dresses and patent leather heels. Before Tom. Russ knows Cherry. He likes Cherry. And best of all . . . he's never heard of Thursday.

Tender, funny, and utterly human, Cherry Baby is Rainbow Rowell's richest, most surprising—sexiest—novel yet.

This sounds like so much fun. I love a girl who holds her own and perserveres! Published my William Morrow and on my Wishlist!

Go Gentle by Maria Semple... Adora Hazzard has it all figured out. A Stoic philosopher and divorcée, she lives a contented life on New York City’s Upper West Side. Having discovered that the secret to happiness is to desire only what you have, she’s applied this insight to blissful effect: relishing her teenage daughter, the freedom of being solo, and her job as a moral tutor for the twin boys of an old-money family. She’s even assembled a "coven"—like-minded women who live on the same floor in the legendary Ansonia—and is making active efforts to grow its membership. Adora’s carefully curated life is humming along brilliantly until a chance meeting with a handsome stranger. Soon, her ordered world is upended by black-market art deals, secret rendezvous, and international intrigue . . . and her past—which she has worked so hard to bury—lands like a bomb in her present. Inflamed by unquenchable desire, Adora finds herself a woman wanting more: and she’ll risk everything to get it. Adora Hazzard’s journey of self-discovery will grip you from the start. Romantic, hilarious, intelligent, and bursting with the stuff of life, Go Gentle is a thrilling story of one woman’s mid-life transformation, cementing Maria Semple in the pantheon of our most exciting and important contemporary writers.

Maria Semple is know for her smash hit, Where'd You Go Bernadette, and her newest book sounds just as wonderful as her last! Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons and on my Wishlist! (BTW, I love pink, but hate this cover 😐)

Putting any of these books on your TBR list?

 

The Sunday Salon and... "Sunny" Book Covers for a Winters Day

Welcome to The Sunday Salon! The special day of the week we talk books!  It's been a gorgeous weather week in South Carolina, with a few days of short sleeves and barefoot reading on the front porch to breezy & sunny and ending in better put on you winter coat and maybe even a raincoat. I've tuned into finding some more great books this past week, adding a few more to the TBR pile, as well as starting my January Book Club pick, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson (which I am half way thru reading and am loving it!). I also finished my First Book of the Year 2020, Such a Fun Age by Kiely Reid and really enjoyed that! It seemed like a light read at the beginning, but there was plenty of depth to the characters and story that I could not put it down. In fact I read it in one day. Now there's a book that would make a great book club read. You can read my full review here. But what "new" books did I find this week? To go with all the Sunny South Carolina weather this past week, I happen to find "Sunny" Book covers... books that in some way I thought had "Sunny" covers... I may have stretched that a bit...

My Sunshine Away by W.O. Walsh... Oprah magazine called this book "A tantalizing mystery and 

tender coming-of-age story...Unputdownable." And from the book jacket:  In the summer of 1989, a Baton Rouge neighborhood best known for cookouts on sweltering summer afternoons, cauldrons of spicy crawfish, and passionate football fandom is rocked by a violent crime when fifteen-year-old Lindy Simpson—free spirit, track star, and belle of the block—is attacked late one evening near her home. For such a close-knit community, the suspects are numerous, and the secrets hidden behind each closed door begin to unravel. Even the young teenage boy across the street, our narrator, does not escape suspicion. It is through his eyes, still haunted by heartbreak and guilt many years later, that we begin to piece together the night of Lindy’sattack and its terrible rippling consequences on the once-idyllic community.

For the life of me I can't remember how I stumbled upon this book, but since finding it I've looked thru countless rave reviews about it. Published in 2016 by G.P. Putnam's & Sons, I have this one on my nightstand this week, part of my Library Loot this week.

The Yellow Bird Sings by  Jennifer Rosner ... In Poland, as World War II rages, a mother hides

with her young daughter, a musical prodigy whose slightest sound may cost them their lives.

As Nazi soldiers round up the Jews in their town, Róza and her 5-year-old daughter, Shira, flee, seeking shelter in a neighbor’s barn. Hidden in the hayloft day and night, Shira struggles to stay still and quiet, as music pulses through her and the farmyard outside beckons. To soothe her daughter and pass the time, Róza tells her a story about a girl in an enchanted garden.

I requested this book from the publisher, Flatiron Books, because it seemed like such a great story. And of course for all of us WWII story fans, this just seemed perfect. I have the digital copy in my eReader as we speak and just reading the little I have inbetween books, I have decided I really like author Jennifer Rosner's writing. This book will be released March 3rd.

Late MigrationsL A Natural History of Love and Loss by Margaret Renkl... Growing up in

Alabama, Renkl was a devoted reader, an explorer of riverbeds and red-dirt roads, and a fiercely loved daughter. Here, in brief essays, she traces a tender and honest portrait of her complicated parents―her exuberant, creative mother; her steady, supportive father―and of the bittersweet moments that accompany a child’s transition to caregiver.

And here, braided into the overall narrative, Renkl offers observations on the world surrounding her suburban Nashville home. Ringing with rapture and heartache, these essays convey the dignity of bluebirds and rat snakes, monarch butterflies and native bees. As these two threads haunt and harmonize with each other, Renkl suggests that there is astonishment to be found in common things: in what seems ordinary, in what we all share. For in both worlds―the natural one and our own―“the shadow side of love is always loss, and grief is only love’s own twin.

First of all, I have to say I love this cover! Secondly, I love the idea of reading little snippets, miniature stories or small essays about nature and family. I read about this book on Ann Patchett's bookstore Parnassus' blog. (Which if you haven't visited, the bookstore or the blog, you should!) And then I read a sampling of the writing and essays, and just loved it. So, I ordered a copy from Parnassus. Besides me enjoying the sample I read, it has gotten rave reviews from countless bookish places, including Indie Next, Oprah, New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library and Publishers Weekly. Released in July 2019 and published by Milkweed editions.

How Do You Find Your Next Reading Book?

Week in Review...
This week I highlighted a couple great books in my Memoir Monday and First Lines Friday post.

In Memoir Monday I posted about The Library Book by Susan Orlean, which isn't really a memoir as much as a love story to libraries. You can read Memoir Monday here.

First Lines Friday, I posted the first lines of Bird Cloud by Annie Proulx. How anyone can resist reading anything by Annie Proulx would amaze me. Her writing is beautiful and this book is no exception. Read about it here.

Book Review of And Every Morning The Way Home Gets Longer and Longer by Fredrik Backman. It's a novella that will strike a chord with anyone ever effected by a loved one with Dementia or Alzheimers. You can read my review here.

That is about all that has happened this past week, how about you?! Any great book finds this week? Next week there will be more books to talk about but also... Book Bingo!! Yes, next week I'll reveal Chick with Books Book Bingo Card for 2020! Ever play Book Bingo? It's a year long "game" where we try to fill our bingo card with books specific to the bingo squares. You have to check it out! It's another good one this year. My Book Club meets this Thursday, so I can't reveal it until after then.

Happy reading... Suzanne

Such a Fun Age by Kiely Reid... A Review

First book of the year and what a thought-provoking read. My emotions were running in so many directions, as the stories of each of the main characters played out and their histories revealed.

The opening "incident" of the book just sucks you in. Emira, the 25 year-old black babysitter of a very privileged white couple, is accused of kidnapping their daughter when she takes the little girl into an upscale market late at night. Words are exchanged, things happen, a bystander films it and as I feverishly read the pages because I wanted to find out how it ends I am thinking that this is what the book is about. This incident. But it's not. Deceptively this incident really isn't the story at all, it just serves as a catalyst for everything else.

Mother of the little girl, Alex, feels guilty over the incident and decides to try and become friends with Emira. Try to treat her like an "equal", which doesn't really work out too well because they really live in two very different worlds. And we see this as the book navigates the two women's lives separately and together. Emira doesn't really want to be friends and she doesn't want her "help" either.  

But when something from Alex's past connects the two women, it causes an explosion of emotions from both women, and the story really takes off. OMG... Any façade that these characters had just got burned off in the fire.

The writing is fresh. The story is complex and interesting. You can really read this story in many ways. On the surface it's a story about Emira's "coming-of-age", a story of a young black girl trying to find herself as she navigates her life with 2 part time jobs and a strong group of women she calls friends. It's about the strong bond of women's friendship. It's about being young and vulnerable. But deeper into the layers of the story you see the social commentary Kiley Reid is pointing out about race, privilege and the the choices we make to be true to ourselves.

The characters are awesome. The author really develops their personalities, lives and back stories. Once you start reading Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid, you won't want to put it down. There is so much more to talk about, but if I did, it would reveal all sorts of spoilers. That being said, this would make a great book club selection, because believe me, there is plenty to discuss. I definitely give it a solid 4 stars.

I want to thank Penguin Group Putnam for sending along a digital copy for me to review.

First Book of The Year 2020!

Happy New Year! A new reading year has begun! What is our First Book of the Year 2020...

It's Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid! 

"Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right.

But Emira herself is aimless, broke, and wary of Alix's desire to help. At twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix's past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other."

Published by G.P. Putnam's & Sons and just released December 31st, I am so excited about reading this! This book sounds like it is filled with emotion and characters that will pull us into the story. I was lucky enough to receive an advanced digital copy of Such a Fun Age from the publisher too, but have been saving it for my choice for the first book I open the year with! In fact, it's the first book I'm opening the decade with! 

I'm also participating in The First Book of the Year 2020 with Sheila over at Book Journey, who is hosting this event for the 7th year! Want to see what other people are reading for their book? Hop on over to Book Journey and check it out!

So today you will find me with my nose stuck into a good book! And very soon I'll let y'all know what I thought about it (aka as a review!)... Happy New Year! and Happy New Reading Year to you too!