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?

 

This One Is Mine by Maria Semple... A Review

Violet Parry = Anna Karenina with an L.A. Lifestyle

Back of The Book... Violet Parry is living the quintessential life of luxury in the Hollywood Hills with David, her rock-and-roll manager husband, and her darling toddler, Dot. She has the perfect life--except that she's deeply unhappy. David expects the world of Violet but gives little of himself in return. When she meets Teddy, a roguish small-time bass player, Violet comes alive, and soon she's risking everything for the chance to find herself again. Also in the picture are David's hilariously high-strung sister, Sally, on the prowl for a successful husband, and Jeremy, the ESPN sportscaster savant who falls into her trap. For all their recklessness, Violet and Sally will discover that David and Jeremy have a few surprises of their own. THIS ONE IS MINE is a compassionate and wickedly funny satire about our need for more--and the often disastrous choices we make in the name of happiness.

What Did I Think?! This One Is Mine by Maria Semple is wickedly funny, sassy and shocking, with larger than life characters that show us that having it all may not be all that it's cracked up to be, and having nothing has a whole set of other issues... When rich, snobbish, well educated very married Violet Parry meets Teddy Reyes, a down-on-his luck ex-drug addict over-sexed bass player, she thinks she's found something to fill that void, LITERALLY! And I think, what are you doing?! Violet seems to have lost her mind. There's nothing to make you like Violet's husband really, but Teddy seems far from the answer. As Violet throws money, gifts and food his way and herself too, I couldn't stop turning those pages. Then Maria Semple adds to the story one track mind Sally, Violet's sister-in-law, whose only goal is to snag a rich husband and have the perfect accessory. The only thing these two girls have in common is they're both train wrecks waiting to happen, and you can't help but hop on for the ride. While you're watching the scenery Violet and Sally develop into women that you can really empathize with... and that makes the story so much more than just "chick lit".

Maria Semple's writing is smart and fresh. Her story is lust, longing, and happiness. It's ultimately about friendship and the girl getting the guy and finding herself in the process. And it's a book you'll enjoy.

Learn more about Maria Semple at her website MarieSemple.com, read how she came to write This One Is Mine at the Hachette Book Group website and read about how This One Is Mine was an Indie Notable Pick this past January.

*I received a copy of this book to review from Marie's publicist. Thanks Gigi it was a fun read!

*P.S. This Book is Kindle Ready!