The Printed Page

This week’s By the Chapter featured book is Mrs. Perfect by Jane Porter.

Follow today’s discussion over at Amy’s blog, My Friend Amy

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This week’s reading scheduling: Monday: The Printed Page Tuesday: Amy’s blog, My Friend Amy Wednesday: The Printed Page Thursday: Amy’s blog, My Friend Amy Friday: The Printed Page/Amy’s blog, My Friend Amy

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If you’ve read, or are currently reading, Mrs. Perfect please stop by and share your thoughts with us.

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OK my normally books only blog is taking a slight detour to rave about Castle a new ABC series. It’s book related! And I guess it doesn’t hurt that I’m a litte bit in love with Nathan Fillion. He’s the hunky lead actor from Firefly. 

It hooked me from the very start. It’s smart, sexy, funny and has great cast chemistry. Even my hubby, a tough self-stylized TV show critic loved it. We plan to tune in every week as long as ABC airs it.

What’s it about:

Wildly famous mystery novelist Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) is bored with his own success. Then he learns that a real-world copycat killer has started staging murder scenes depicted in his novels. Castle is questioned by NYPD Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic), a bright and aggressive detective who keeps her investigations under tight rein. Though they instantly clash, sparks of another sort also begin to fly, leading both to danger and a hint of romance as Castle steps in to help find the killer. And once that case is solved, he and Beckett build on their new relationship as they look to solve more strange homicides in New York – as much fun as one can have with death and murder. 

Castle is kept grounded by his Broadway diva mother, Martha Rodgers (Susan Sullivan), and quick-witted teenage daughter Alexis (Molly Quinn). Also starring in the series are Ruben Santiago-Hudson as NYPD Captain Roy Montgomery, Tamala Jones as Medical Examiner Lanie Parish, Jon Huertas as NYPD Detective Javier Esposito and Seamus Dever as NYPD Detective Kevin Ryan. 

“Castle” is produced by ABC Studios. Andrew Marlowe (writer, “Air Force One”) serves as executive producer/writer, along with executive producers Armyan Bernstein, Barry Schindel, Rob Bowman (who also directed the pilot) and Laurie Zaks.

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Richard Castle is playing poker with James Patterson and Stephen J. Cannell

*** Did you watch it? Please let me know what you thought.

Welcome to By the Chapter. This week’s featured book is Mrs. Perfect by Jane Porter. Sharing hosting duties with me this week is Amy from My Friend Amy.

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If you’re not familiar with Mrs. Perfect here’s a little background on the book from Amazon:

Taylor Young has convinced the other suburban mothers of Bellevue, Wash., that she’s the quintessential supermom who manages to stay impeccably coiffed while tending to her dapper husband, three amazing wee ones and picture-perfect home. But she has never shaken off her own insecurities, which include a psychic hangover from her troubled upbringing and an ongoing battle with bulimia. When hubby Nathan drops a bombshell on her, Taylor is forced to confront her fears and the reality of how her life will change, not necessarily for the better. While Taylor would be easy to loathe, her frailties and insecurities go a long way to turning her into an endearing lead, making this less dopey and more poignant than the standard mommy lit fare.

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I’m about 6o pages from finishing the book and really only put it down to write this post.

After coping with childhood feelings of abandonment and insecurity, creating a new persona for herself in college and building a dream world the picture perfect life that Taylor leads has shattered and the truths about her, her marriage and the need to perfect and ‘on’ all the time have been revealed. I’m not going to any deeper into this story line as I don’t want to spoil this great book for you, the readers.

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Taylor isn’t easy to like. She didn’t start out being likable and still, at times, I don’t like her. I don’t agree with her values and attitudes. Her priorities aren’t always in the best order. She’s lost in a haze of perfection and perception issues. Though her husband Nathan isn’t such a great guy himself having lied to Taylor placing a large part of the blame for their current dire straits at her feet because he ‘knew how she’d react’. Later in the book he chides her for selling the furniture for $25,000. To Taylor that sum means a home, food on the table and bills being paid on time. To Nathan it’s a failure on Taylor’s part and just another bad decision.

As the story progresses you begin to see bits and pieces of the woman that she once was. Underneath the glossy, high-priced exterior she’s a survivor. She fought for this, something totally opposite of her childhood. She battled adversity and built a life she’s extremely proud of. But somewhere along the way she lost herself. She got tangled up in the real issues of today – self-esteem and image,  juggling marriage and children, providing better for your children than you had yourself, keeping up even if it means living beyond your income. I could go on as the list is endless. She thinks that whatever she does is never good enough. She can always improve, be better, and do more. She’s never satisfied; she’s always pushing the bar higher until it falls.

Taylor is flawed but then aren’t we all. I’m far, far from perfect. Though unlike Taylor I don’t obsess over my imperfections nor do I beat myself. I’ve chosen a different path, a different way of dealing. Each of us must choose what works for us and then make the best of it.

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I’m enjoying this book much more than I thought I would. It wasn’t the book I was expecting. But then her books always become more than just light, beach chick lit. I love Ms. Porter’s writing. She draws me right into the story. I get involved with her characters and I care what happens to them.

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If you’ve read, or are currently reading, Mrs. Perfect please share your thoughts with us.

*** This week’s reading scheduling: Monday: The Printed Page Tuesday: Amy from My Friend Amy Wednesday: The Printed Page Thursday: Amy from My Friend Amy Friday: The Printed Page/Amy from My Friend Amy

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I’m a very visual person and love beautiful, or interesting, cover art. It doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll read the book but at least I might stop and take a peek instead of walking right on by. This week’s Cover Attraction is:

Title: The Order of Things Author: Lynn Hinton Release date: March ’09

From Fantastic Fiction: Andreas Jay Hackett is a university librarian known for her love of keeping things organized. But one summer, she finds herself falling away from a sense of well being, depressed, “out of order.” Her work doesn’t give her pleasure, her friends worry about her, and her own voice begins to frighten her. Therapy, pills and doctors visits don’t help, so Andreas checks herself into a psychiatric facility. There, she finds herself in a room next door to a prison inmate who has also been hospitalized. As she talks with her new neighbor, Andreas begins to come out of her despair–ultimately finding the healing she needs through a friendship that develops in the darkest of circumstances, and despite boundaries of race, gender, education, and age.

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What’s your favorite cover attraction this week? Don’t forget to leave a link to your Cover Attraction post.

This week’s By the Chapter featured book is Mrs. Perfect by Jane Porter.

Follow today’s discussion over at Amy’s blog, My Friend Amy

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This week’s reading scheduling: Monday: The Printed Page Tuesday: Amy’s blog, My Friend Amy Wednesday: The Printed Page Thursday: Amy’s blog, My Friend Amy Friday: The Printed Page/Amy’s blog, My Friend Amy

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If you’ve read, or are currently reading, Mrs. Perfect please stop by and share your thoughts with us.

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Welcome to By the Chapter. This week’s featured book is Mrs. Perfect by Jane Porter. Sharing hosting duties with me this week is Amy from My Friend Amy.

***

If you’re not familiar with Mrs. Perfect here’s a little background on the book from Amazon:

Taylor Young has convinced the other suburban mothers of Bellevue, Wash., that she’s the quintessential supermom who manages to stay impeccably coiffed while tending to her dapper husband, three amazing wee ones and picture-perfect home. But she has never shaken off her own insecurities, which include a psychic hangover from her troubled upbringing and an ongoing battle with bulimia. When hubby Nathan drops a bombshell on her, Taylor is forced to confront her fears and the reality of how her life will change, not necessarily for the better. While Taylor would be easy to loathe, her frailties and insecurities go a long way to turning her into an endearing lead, making this less dopey and more poignant than the standard mommy lit fare.

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I’ve read the first 7 chapters of this 25 chapter book. So far…

I first meet Taylor Young in Jane Porter’s book, Odd Mom Out. That wasn’t Taylor’s story but that of Marta Zinsser and her daughter Eva. Now the tables are turned. Marta will be a player but Taylor is front stage, center.

Taylor Young would appear to have it all. She is married to Nathan, her handsome, highly successful husband who is still in love with her after 16 years. They have three beautiful daughters: Jemma, Brooke and Tori who attend the right schools, play sports, take dance and music lessons and hang out at the country club with their friends. They live in a gorgeous home, Taylor herself designed, in a beautiful, high-class residential area, she drives a luxury SUV, shops with platinum credit cards, vacations in trendy spots along well-heeled friends. Beneath the glossy exterior lurks dark secrets and insecurities. Her childhood was a far cry from her current life and she’s worked damn hard to get where she is today. Taylor is wound tighter than a spring, suffers from major self-esteem and body image issues and completely over compensates. She doesn’t dare let anyone but Nathan know where she’s come from or how she got where she is today. Unfortunately her world is about to come crashing down around her perfectly coiffed hair in ways she’s never imagined. A part of her suspects, but refuses to believe, that Nathan is cheating. Then one day she answers the phone and the person calling is, hold on here, a Realtor. A Realtor? Yep and it appears the Youngs are relocating. And they say the wife is the last to know.

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What I love about Ms. Porter’s books are the characters and she’s done a superb job of creating Taylor Young both in Mrs. Perfect and Odd Mom Out. I’ve lived in the Bellevue, Washington area for a number of years surrounded by old money and Microsoft millionaires. Bellevue wives are perfectly turned out every time they leave the house and hop into their fancy cars and high-end SUVs. Whether it’s lunch with girlfriends and shopping at Bell Square, dropping the kids at school, or stopping by the grocery store you can’t miss a Bellevue Wife. That’s not to say that the everyday people aren’t there, they are. You just tend to notice a Bellevue Wife. Taylor Young is a very good example. She is immaculately dressed, over booked and stressed out as she serves on every, very important school committee, is seen in all the right places with all the right people. You don’t dare let your guard down and you definitely keep up with the Jones’, the Gates’ and the Allen’s if not two steps ahead.

Also her books are so real and genuine. Real people, real everyday problems. Struggles with balancing family and work. Keeping your head above water while paddling as hard you can hoping you don’t sink along the way. Her writing is witty, humorous and engaging. She’s a fairly new author to me and quickly has become one of my favorites.

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If you’ve read, or are currently reading, Mrs. Perfectl please share your thoughts with us.

*** This week’s reading scheduling: Monday: The Printed Page Tuesday: Amy from My Friend Amy Wednesday: The Printed Page Thursday: Amy from My Friend Amy Friday: The Printed Page/Amy from My Friend Amy

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If you’re new to Mailbox Monday welcome! Thank you to everyone who stops by Mailbox Monday. Whether you comment or visit I appreciate your taking the time to drop in.

My vacation didn’t quite turn out as planned. We had a great time except for the eventful Friday night when another driver decided to get a little too up close and personal with my SUV and a Las Vegas city bus. But the bright spot was returning home to find a book bonanza from Miriam at Hachette Books. She totally knows how to make a book junkie’s day.

Action/thriller/suspense ~ The First Family by David Baldacci (favorite author)

Action/thriller/suspense ~ The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly (favorite author)

Horror/suspense ~ Afraid by Jack Kilborn (new-to-me author)

Horror/suspense ~ Angel of Wrath by Bill Myers (new-to-me author)

Horror/suspense ~ The BoneMan’s Daughters by Ted Dekker (new-to-me author)

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What books came into your house last week? Don’t forget to leave a link to your Mailbox post or a list of books if you don’t have a blog.

Today’s pondering:

False Colours by Georgette Heyer is the March pick for the Historical Fiction Lovers Book Club (at Facebook) started by Jennifer of the The Literate Housewife blog fame.

Here’s a synopsis of the plot line: A missing twin …

Something is very wrong, and the Honourable Christopher Kit Fancot can sense it. Kit returns to London on leave from the diplomatic service to find that his twin brother Evelyn has disappeared and his extravagant mother’s debts have mounted alarmingly.

A quick-minded heiress …

The Fancot family’s fortunes are riding on Evelyn s marriage to the self-possessed Cressy Stavely, and her formidable grandmother’s approval of the match. If Evelyn fails to meet the Dowager Lady Stavely in a few days as planned, the betrothal could be off.

A fortune in the balance …

When the incorrigible Lady Fancot persuades her son to impersonate his twin (just for one night, she promises) the masquerade sets off a tangled sequence of events that engage Kit s heart far more deeply than he d ever anticipated with his brother s fiance who might know much more about what s going on than she cares to reveal…

*** I knew before I even started this one that trouble was brewing. How did I know? Well when one of first descriptive sentences I come across is Reading Georgette Heyer is the next best thing to reading Jane Austen. ~ Publishers Weekly then I know it’s not going to go well.

I cleared my mind of any presumptions, fired up the Kindle and promptly started at section one. Things got off to an OK start not nearly as rocky as I thought they might be. I muddled my way through most of Chapter 1 the first night. It was very late and her writing style and vocabulary is a bit tricky so I put the Kindle down intending to start fresh the next day. Well day two of False Colours was exactly what I’d expected before starting the book – not my style. While I think the storyline is interesting and would actually be quite funny and entertaining I can’t get past the awkward vocabulary. It’s the writing and speaking style used for the story setting that throws me for a loop. Because Ms. Heyer is meticulous in her research and stays true to time and place the Regency slang is difficult for me to understand. Just as I don’t have children to interpret the language of today’s young people I need a code breaker to get through this book. I’m spending more time figuring out what the characters are saying or the point they’re trying to make than I am enjoying the story. So I diligently read Chapters 2 & 3 before calling it a day with this author.

Ms. Heyer is a favorite of many and her books continue to be re-issued long after they’ve gone out of print. Amazon even has some in Kindle edition which attests to her staying power.

For me though this one goes in the DNF pile.

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Anyone who says they have only one life to live must not know how to read a book. ~ Author Unknown

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I’m a very visual person and love beautiful cover art. It doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll read the book but at least I might stop and take a peek instead of walking right on by. This week’s Cover Attraction is:

Title: The Rose of Sebastopol Author: Katherine McMahon US Re-release: March ’09

From Fantastic Fiction: Russia, 1854: the Crimean War grinds on, and as the bitter winter draws near, the battlefield hospitals fill with dying men. In defiance of Florence Nightingale, Rosa Barr – young, headstrong and beautiful – travels to Balaklava, determined to save as many of the wounded as she can. For Mariella Lingwood, Rosa’s cousin, the war is contained within the pages of her scrapbook, in her London sewing circle, and in the letters she receives from Henry, her fiance, a celebrated surgeon who has also volunteered to work within the shadow of the guns. When Henry falls ill and is sent to recuperate in Italy, Mariella impulsively decides she must go to him. But upon their arrival at his lodgings, she and her maid make a heartbreaking discovery: Rosa has disappeared. Following the trail of her elusive and captivating cousin, Mariella’s epic journey takes her from the domestic restraint of Victorian London to the ravaged landscape of the Crimea and the tragic city of Sebastopol, where she encounters Rosa’s dashing stepbrother, a reckless cavalry officer whose complex past – and future – is inextricably bound up with her own. As her quest leads her deeper into the dark heart of the conflict, Mariella’s ordered world begins to crumble and she finds she has much to learn about secrecy, faithfulness and love. But, in the thick of a war fought on more fronts than one, she also discovers a strength and passion she never knew she possessed.

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What’s your favorite cover attraction this week?

It’s time once again for The State of The Bookcase. Not much progress this month in clearing the shelves. Four books were added while 5 were read and found new homes. I’m holding steady and not tipping the scales either direction. February was a rather slow reading month as I only read seven books total but no DNFs.

Title: The Good Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood Author/website: Sy Montgomery 272 pages Publisher: Ballantine Books Publication date: April ’07 Genre: Memoir I really liked this one. A treat for animal lovers.

Title: True Colors Author/website: Kristin Hannah 400 pages Publisher: St. Martin’s Press Publication date: February ’09 Genre: Women’s fiction Ms. Hannah is one of my favorite women’s fiction authors and she’s written another great book.

Title: Sarah’s Key Author/website: Tatiana de Rosnay 320 pages Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin Publication date: September ’08 Genre: Contemporary/historical fiction I can’t say enough about this book. Sarah’s story is one that you’ll remember long after you turn the last page.

Title: The Associate Author/website: John Grisham 384 pages Publisher: Doubleday Publication date: January ’09 Genre: Fiction Not one of his best but another one of my favorite authors and I’m still a fan.

Title: The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel Author/website: Jasper Fforde 384 pages Publisher: Penguin Publication date: February ’03 Genre: Fiction Interesting concept. Though not the book for me I did finish it.

Title: Fine Feathered Death (Kendra Ballantyne, Petsitter Mysteries, No. 3) Author/website: Linda O. Johnson 272 pages Publisher: Berkley Publication date: May ’06 Genre: Mystery A light-hearted cozy mystery series I read purely for fun.

Title: Peony in Love Author/website: Lisa See 320 pages Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks Publication date: February ’08 Genre: Historical fiction I loved it. If you’re a fan of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan you might also enjoy this book.

*** Favorite book: Sarah’s Key Least favorite book: The Eyre Affair

*** Genres: Memoir – 1 Women’s fiction – 1 Contemporary/historical fiction – 2 Fiction – 2 Mystery – 1

Total pages -2,249

Challenges eBook – 2 New author – 3 ARCs/Review copies – 3 ’09 Pub – 1

*** 2009 progress Total pages: 6,092 Books read: 17 DNFs: 3

Challenges eBook – 6/10 New author – 14/65 ARCs/Review copies – 11 ’09 Pub – 5/9