Cheryl's Book Nook

To be honest when I read that the author was a LGBTQ rights activist, I was really re-thinking wanting to check this book of poems out. This is because while my views differ from these life styles, I don't push my views off on others. So being an activist I know that they are strong voices and so was not sure that I wanted to read a book of poems that would force these briefs on me. This book turned out to be a nice surprise. The poems were not heavy handed in LGBTQ subjects. In fact, there is a poem for everyone to be found in this book. What I most liked about the poems is that Mr. Wenke came out swinging. He did not hide anything and was truthful. Which I have always thought that poems were a form of expression, so there should be no filter. Warning: Some of the poems can be blunt so if you get easily offensive you may not like those poems.   

Susannah Marren’s debut novel crackles with the tensions of real life—rivalries, betrayals, shaky marriages and the challenges of mothering—in a way that simultaneously resonates and illuminates. It’s no surprise that BETWEEN THE TIDES (St. Martin’s Press; July 2015) has such insight into the lives of women: their challenges, their triumphs and their inner yearnings.   Told against the backdrop of the Selkie legend – enchanted seals who shed their skins to live on land as women – Marren’s unique style peels back the layers of a ‘ perfect world’ to reveal the shifting tides of marriage, family, career and friendships. Her protagonist, Lainie Smith Morris, moves against her will out of her beloved New York City for the affluent suburbs of New Jersey with her surgeon husband and four children. The dark side of the American dream begins to consume her as Lainie starts to unravel.  Does Lainie depend too much on her twelve year old daughter, Matilde, and her art work...

  Are you ready to challenge yourself, and turn up the intensity of your workouts? Are you ready for a proven program that burns fat, increases muscle, and sculpts the physique you’ve always wanted? If so, then Maximum Interval Training is for you!   Maximum Interval Training combines high-intensity exercises and nontraditional equipment with a variety of modalities and training options to stimulate muscle growth, avoid plateaus, and produce results. You’ll find step-by-step instructions, expert advice, and photo depictions of 147 exercises as well as ready-to-use programs for power, strength, endurance, quickness, agility, tactical training, and total-body conditioning. But rest assured that it won’t be more of the same. You’ll test your limits with a regimen of sprints, medicine balls, heavy ropes, kettlebells, sandbags, body-weight exercises, and suspension training. Train with maximum intensity for maximum results! My Review This is a very well written b...

The breakout author of The Forgotten Girl and Cemetery Girl , “one of the brightest and best crime fiction writers of our time” ( Suspense Magazine ) delivers a new novel about a man who is haunted by a face from his past.... When Nick Hansen sees the young woman at the grocery store, his heart stops. She is the spitting image of his college girlfriend, Marissa Minor, who died in a campus house fire twenty years earlier. But when Nick tries to speak to her, she acts skittish and rushes off. The next morning the police arrive at Nick’s house and show him a photo of the woman from the store. She’s been found dead, murdered in a local motel, with Nick’s name and address on a piece of paper in her pocket. Convinced there's a connection between the two women, Nick enlists the help of his college friend Laurel Davidson to investigate the events leading up to the night of Marissa’s death. But the young woman’s murder is only the beginning...and the truths Nick uncovers may make him...

I found this to be a sweet, charming read. Jordyn and Will made a cute couple. I say cute because even when they were fighting it did not last long and there was not a lot of steamy romance in the bedroom. There were a few moments but they were brief. Even talk about ranch life was quick. So you did not really get the feel of what it would be like to take care of animals on a ranch. Yet, despite the lack of steamy romance I did find this to be a nice read with some fun characters. The good natured ribbing that Will got from his brothers was entertaining. Even though this is my first time getting introduced to Jordyn and Will. It did feel like I had known them both for a long time. with their ups and downs it made them real and relatable. This turned out to be a  charming read. It took me quite a while into the story to warm up to either Amie or Preston. I did not find either one that endearing or interesting. In fact, it was not until about eight chapters in when they ac...

Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet . . . So begins this debut novel about a mixed-race family living in 1970s Ohio and the tragedy that will either be their undoing or their salvation. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee; their middle daughter, a girl who inherited her mother’s bright blue eyes and her father’s jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue—in Marilyn’s case that her daughter become a doctor rather than a homemaker, in James’s case that Lydia be popular at school, a girl with a busy social life and the center of every party. When Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together tumbles into chaos, forcing them to confront the long-kept secrets that have been slowly pulling them apart.    My Review The moment I opened this book and started reading it I was hooked. I was already half way done reading t...

Deirdre watched as Marisa turned and looked at her. She was shocked when she saw the child in her enemy’s arms. The Gothowan woman turned away to shield the child. Deirdre saw the child’s face. The child was looking right at her. Her expression was more curious than frightened. Deirdre knew she could take the fugitive without touching the child. She reoriented her aim, and her finger began to tighten. It is twenty-five years after the events of Price of Vengeance. Deirdre and her sisters have returned to their home planet of Etrusci after completing their training with the Finnian Shock Forces. Their homecoming plans are disrupted when their mother, High Priestess Celinia, and other leaders of the clergy are taken hostage, and their father, Colonel Liam O’Connor, disappears. In their desperate search for their father, they discover that the Rebellion is secretly building weapons that could end civilization as they know it. Meanwhile, Liam has been befriended by a Rebel war crim...