Books Reviewed by T @ Traveling With T

The Gift of a Lifetime by Melissa Hill

the-gift-of-a-lifetime

Photo Credit: St. Martin’s Press

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

The Gift of a Lifetime

Summary: From the internationally-bestselling author of A Gift from Tiffany’s comes another New York Christmas love story make you fall in love all over again.

Hollywood movies are Beth’s passion. She hopes her life will always be filled with classic movie moments, where magical things happen every day. Her boyfriend Danny has always been the embodiment of her perfect Hollywood hero—though after seven years together the initial silver-screen romance has settled into something more predictable.

Then one morning at work just before Christmas, Beth receives an anonymous gift of a take-out coffee cup with a cryptic message. From there, she is given a series of other gifts and riddles directing her to some of NYC’s most popular landmarks—a treasure trail using unique rom-com-related prompts perfect for a movie-lover like Beth to decipher.

And she is forced to wonder: has Danny realized their relationship needs a boost—or could it be that charming new work colleague Ryan with his intense gaze, flirtatious smile, and almost encyclopedic movie knowledge, wants to sweep her off her feet? How would she feel about taking a chance on a leading man who seems determined to give her the Christmas gift of a lifetime… Continue reading →

#FuturisticFriday review: The Marriage Lie by Kimberly Belle

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Photo Credit: Mira, 12/27

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

The Marriage Lie

Summary: Even the perfect marriage has its dark side… 

Iris and Will’s marriage is as close to perfect as it can be: a large house in a nice Atlanta neighborhood, rewarding careers and the excitement of trying for their first baby. But on the morning Will leaves for a business trip to Orlando, Iris’s happy world comes to an abrupt halt. Another plane headed for Seattle has crashed into a field, killing everyone on board, and according to the airline, Will was one of the passengers on this plane.

Grief-stricken and confused, Iris is convinced it all must be a huge misunderstanding. But as time passes and there is still no sign of Will, she reluctantly accepts that he is gone. Still, Iris needs answers. Why did Will lie about where he was going? What is in Seattle? And what else has he lied about? As Iris sets off on a desperate quest to find out what her husband was keeping from her, the answers she receives will shock her to her very core. Continue reading →

#FuturisticFriday Review: Stalked by Elizabeth Heiter

stalked

Photo Credit: MIRA

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

Stalked

Summary: If you’re reading this, I’m already dead…

That’s the note seventeen-year-old Haley Cooke leaves behind when she disappears from inside her high school. FBI profiler Evelyn Baine is called in to figure out who had reason to hurt her. On the surface, the popular cheerleader has no enemies, but as Evelyn digs deeper, she discovers that everyone close to Haley has something to hide. Everyone from estranged parents, to an older boyfriend with questionable connections, to a best friend who envies Haley’s life.

Secrets can be deadly…

One of those secrets may have gotten Haley killed. If she’s still alive, Evelyn knows that the more the investigation ramps up, the more pressure they could be putting on Haley’s kidnapper to make her disappear for good. It’s also possible the teenager isn’t in danger at all, but has skillfully manipulated everyone and staged her own disappearance. Only one thing is certain: uncovering Haley’s fate could be dangerous—even deadly—to Evelyn herself. Continue reading →

Well-Played: The Ultimate Guide to Awakening Your Family’s Playful Spirit

well-played

Photo Credit: William Morrow

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

Well Played

Summary: From Today show contributor Meredith Sinclair comes this ultimate resource for awakening your playful spirit, jumpstarting your relationships, and upping your happiness quotient.

In our age of digital addiction, many of us have lost our ability to be spontaneous. More parents are complaining that they no longer even remember how to play…with their children, their spouse, and even with their own friends. Don’t fret! In Well Played, expert Meredith Sinclair helps readers relearn what used to come naturally and shows how to find happiness through play.

For children, playing comes naturally…or at least it used to. But today that kind of spontaneous fun is harder to come by, for both kids and their parents. With hectic lifestyles and constant technology overload, we have simply forgotten how to play. The solution? Relearn the art of integrating fun and creative play into our day-to-day lives.

Well Played will show you how to fit play into your overscheduled lives with plenty of original and entertaining ideas, including:

Why a disco ball is an essential kitchen appliance
Lip Sync Battle, family edition
Parent-child slumber parties…don’t forget the popcorn!
Party like it’s 1949 with old-school table games
12 dates that are way better than dinner and a movie
Stop helicopter parenting yourself—find things that thrill and slightly alarm you all at the same time!
Grown-up field trips to slap on your schedule
“Vino pong”—beer pong’s classier cousin

Packed with fun and engaging line drawings, Pinterest-worthy DIY projects, and hundreds of lists and tips on reintroducing play into your lives, Well Played is an indispensable guide for incorporating quality fun and playtime into our daily lives. Continue reading →

#FuturisticFriday Review: Crepe Factor by Laura Childs

crepe-factor

Photo Credit: Berkley

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

Crepe Factor

Summary: The Winter Market in the French Quarter is in full swing, but murder isn’t taking a holiday in the latest from the New York Times bestselling author of Parchment and Old Lace…
 
The holidays are a busy time for scrapbook shop owner Carmela Bertrand—but not so hectic that she doesn’t have time to enjoy browsing the booths at the Winter Market with her best friend Ava. The last thing the ladies expect to see is a thrashing man stabbed by a serving fork, dying in front of them.

The victim is loathed restaurant critic Martin Lash, who posted his scathing reviews on the Glutton for Punishment website. And the prime suspect is New Orleans restauranteur Quigg Brevard—who was seen giving the critic a tongue-lashing minutes before someone stuck a fork in him. An old flame of Carmela, Quigg asks for her help, which does not please her current beau, Detective Edgar Babcock, to say the least.

Before her relationship is the next victim, Carmela needs to find a murderer who had no reservations about punishing the culinary curmudgeon… Continue reading →

#FuturisticFriday: When All The Girls Have Gone by Jayne Ann Krentz

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Photo Credit: Berkley, 11/29

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

When All The Girls Have Gone

Summary: Jayne Ann Krentz, the New York Times bestselling author of Secret Sisters, delivers a thrilling novel of the deceptions we hide behind, the passions we surrender to, and the lengths we’ll go to for the truth…

When Charlotte Sawyer is unable to contact her step-sister, Jocelyn, to tell her that one her closest friends was found dead, she discovers that Jocelyn has vanished.

Beautiful, brilliant—and reckless—Jocelyn has gone off the grid before, but never like this. In a desperate effort to find her, Charlotte joins forces with Max Cutler, a struggling PI who recently moved to Seattle after his previous career as a criminal profiler went down in flames—literally. Burned out, divorced and almost broke, Max needs the job.

After surviving a near-fatal attack, Charlotte and Max turn to Jocelyn’s closest friends, women in a Seattle-based online investment club, for answers. But what they find is chilling…

When her uneasy alliance with Max turns into a full-blown affair, Charlotte has no choice but to trust him with her life. For the shadows of Jocelyn’s past are threatening to consume her—and anyone else who gets in their way… Continue reading →

#FuturisticFriday review: Miracle on 5th Avenue by Sarah Morgan

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Photo Credit: Harlequin, 11/29

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

Miracle on 5th Avenue

Summary: It will take a Christmas miracle for two very different souls to find each other in this perfectly festive fairy tale of New York!

Hopeless romantic Eva Jordan loves everything about Christmas. She might be spending the holidays alone this year, but when she’s given an opportunity to house-sit a spectacular penthouse on Fifth Avenue, she leaps at the chance. What better place to celebrate than in snow-kissed Manhattan? What she didn’t expect was to find the penthouse still occupied by its gorgeous—and mysterious—owner.

Bestselling crime writer Lucas Blade is having the nightmare before Christmas. With a deadline and the anniversary of his wife’s death looming, he’s isolated himself in his penthouse with only his grief for company. He wants no interruptions, no decorations and he certainly doesn’t appreciate being distracted by his beautiful, bubbly new housekeeper. But when the blizzard of the century leaves Eva snowbound in his apartment, Lucas starts to open up to the magic she brings…This Christmas, is Lucas finally ready to trust that happily-ever-afters do exist? Continue reading →

A Wedding for Christmas by Lori Wilde

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Photo Credit: Avon

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

A Wedding for Christmas

Summary: The whole town is ready for the holidays: The Cookie Club is baking, Main Street glitters with lights, the carolers sing . . .There’s even a Christmas wedding.

When bodyguard Ryder Southerland sees his best friend’s sister Katie at an L.A. Christmas party, he mistakes the slinky blonde for a celebrity stalker and tackles her. Then they tackle each other . . . at his place. The next morning, Katie’s gone, and Ryder tells himself it’s for the best. It isn’t. Now, one Christmas later, Ryder’s falling for the woman he’s been missing in the town he hasn’t missed at all . . .

Katie Cheek’s outgrown the romantic fantasies she had about Ryder when she was fifteen. Katie’s packed their hot night away in a box labeled “fling”—or tried to. But Twilight’s bad boy is the best man in her brother’s wedding. And up-close and personal, Ryder’s impossible to ignore. So Katie can either go into hiding—or surrender to Christmas magic. Continue reading →

Say No More by Hank Phillippi Ryan

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Photo Credit: Forge Books

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

Say No More

Summary: When Boston reporter Jane Ryland reports a hit and run, she soon learns she saw more than a car crash—she witnessed the collapse of an alibi. Working on an expose of sexual assaults on college campuses for the station’s new documentary unit, Jane’s just convinced a date rape victim to reveal her heartbreaking experience on camera. However, a disturbing anonymous message—SAY NO MORE—has Jane really and truly scared.

Homicide detective Jake Brogan is on the hunt for the murderer of Avery Morgan, a hot-shot Hollywood screenwriter. Her year as a college guest lecturer just ended at the bottom of her swimming pool in the tight-knit and tight-lipped Boston community called The Reserve. As Jake chips his way through a code of silence as shatterproof as any street gang, he’ll learn that one newcomer to the neighborhood may have a secret of her own.

A young woman faces a life-changing decision—should she go public about her assault? Jane and Jake—now semi-secretly engaged and beginning to reveal their relationship to the world—are both on a quest for answers as they try to balance the consequences of the truth. Continue reading →

The Life- Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck by Sarah Knight

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Photo Credit: Little Brown & Co

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving A F*ck

Summary: THE “GENIUS” (Cosmopolitan) NATIONAL BESTSELLER
ON THE ART OF CARING LESS AND GETTING MORE
Are you stressed out, overbooked, and underwhelmed by life? Fed up with pleasing everyone else before you please yourself? It’s time to stop giving a f*ck.

This brilliant, hilarious, and practical parody of Marie Kondo’s bestseller The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up explains how to rid yourself of unwanted obligations, shame, and guilt–and give your f*cks instead to people and things that make you happy.

The easy-to-use, two-step NotSorry Method for mental decluttering will help you unleash the power of not giving a f*ck about:

Family drama
Having a “bikini body”
Iceland
Co-workers’ opinions, pets, and children
And other bullsh*t! And it will free you to spend your time, energy, and money on the things that really matter. So what are you waiting for? Stop giving a f*ck and start living your best life today! Continue reading →