Watcha Readin' Wednesday

This week's review is Baby, Oh Baby! by Robin Wells. (another Friends of the Library used book sale find) It's a Love Spell book, published February 2001. Here's the Amazon link for the blurb and cover pic: http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Oh-Time-Your-Life/dp/0505524279/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234132398&sr=1-2

Based on a very modern premise (a crooked doctor used sperm Jake and his now-dead wife had left at the fertility clinic, to impregnate Annie when she went in for artificial insemination), this book also uses the old "marriage of convenience" angle. Jake and Annie are as different as two people can be. Their conflict is huge - he believes he'll never love another woman like he loved his dead wife, and she has no intention of playing second best again, after she did so in her first marriage. Neither trusts the other and each fears the other will try to take baby Madeline away. Their attraction is undeniable, though. I loved being in each character's point-of-view. Wells does a great job of making us like and root for her characters, even those in the secondary romance plot. Jake's proposal just capped this story for me as the most original I've read. I got my awwwwsome ending.

This book is a Keeper. You won’t regret either time or money spent with this book. It has a permanent spot on your shelf. Recommend it freely and lend it carefully to that trustworthy “inner circle” of reader friends. Put the author on your To Be Read list.

On the nightstand: Talk Me Down by Victoria Dahl
On Sony Reader: What the Lady Wants, by Jennifer Crusie

Autumn Piper
Got romance?

Watcha Readin' Wednesday

This week, I’ll review Pigtopia, by Kitty Fitzgerald, published 2005 by Hyperion.

This was another “bargain” book I got on a clearance sale from B&N last January. I liked that it sounded different – fresh.

I was not disappointed. Jack Plum is about as different as they come. Most of the book is written from his perspective. He’s a thirty-something, uneducated man-boy who has a very large head, an abusive mother (who blames his malformation for her being bound to a wheelchair), and a deep kinship and understanding of pigs. Yes, hogs. In fact, between caring for his mother, Jack has created a special place below their house, a walk-out cellar leading to the woods out back, where his pig “tribe” dwells. His pigs are his friends and his family. The only human love Jack has ever known was from his father, who has been gone for years. His mother tells him it’s his fault his father abandoned them. When Jack decides to befriend Holly Lock, a teenaged neighbor girl, things change in ways he’d never expected.

I really enjoyed this book. It took a couple of chapters for me to sink into his jargon and understand him, but once I did, it was amazing. Something like one of those emails designed to show you how your brain can still read with all the letters in words jumbled. This is NOT a romance, in any way. I can’t really call it literary fiction, because, well, I liked it and I don’t generally care for literary pompousness. It’s just general fiction with very deep point of view. Nicely done. A nice change from “the usual” for me.

This book is a Nice Bang for Your Entertainment Buck. Well worth your time and money, but not one you'll have to keep around. Pass it on to someone who’ll enjoy it and keep the author on your radar.

On the nightstand now? Baby, Oh Baby, by Robin Wells.

On the Sony Reader? What the Lady Wants, by Jennifer Crusie

Yes, now that I've got the Reader too, I'll have to do the schizo/balance act thing and read more than one book at a time!

Piper Denna

Romance is sexy!