Book Review: A Sinful Calling (Reverend Curtis Black #13) by Kimberla Lawson Roby

Title: A Sinful Calling

Author: Kimberla Lawson Roby

Publish date: June 21, 2016

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing











Goodreads summary:

Two years ago, to everyone's surprise, Dillon Whitfield Black, the secret son of Reverend Curtis Black, boldly moved back home, married a woman named Raven, decided he was going to become a minister, and then founded a church right in the center of his living room. Today he's pastor of a 1,000-plus-member congregation, and new members are joining weekly. Sadly, behind closed doors, Dillon is far from being a saint. Dillon has become more like the man his father was thirty years ago-consumed with money, power, and lots of women. His family may have let bygones be bygones, but they continue to keep their distance...

My thoughts:

  A Sinful Calling is the 13th book in the Reverend Curtis Black series. It features a few of Reverend Black's kids: Dillon and Alicia. Dillon strives to get status, money and power by becoming a mega church preacher just like his dad. Unfortunately the apple doesn't fall far from the tree in other instances in his life, either. One of his obstacles is his wife Raven who wants a piece of the pie. Meanwhile his sister Alicia is having problems of her own with her marriage and mental issues. 
 Without giving too much away, this book was a gripping and entertaining novel with lots of family and church drama. It also deals with infidelity, mental illness and greed. I recommend this book to people that likes to read christian fiction and doesn't mind drama.

Review: Handbook for an Unpredictable Life: How I Survived Sister Renata and My Crazy Mother and Still Came Out Smiling (with Great Hair) by Rosie Perez

Title: Handbook for an Unpredictable Life...

Author: Rosie Perez

Pub date: 2/25/2014

Publisher: Crown Archetype

Source: Edelweiss









My thoughts/review:

Rosie Perez is a survivor. I was curious to read her memoir because I remember growing up watching Soul Train and seeing her in movies. I barely remember the tabloid stories that she mentions in the book since I was so young but I remember her. This was a fast read and very entertaining. This book felt like a friend talking to you rather than an impersonal memoir. Her personality shines throughout the book. Something parts were sad but she showed how she overcame her situations. 

Book Review: The Color of Tea by Hannah Tunnicliffe

Title: The Color of Tea

Author: Hannah Tunnicliffe

Publisher: Scribner

Pub date: 6/5/2012

Source: The Library








Goodreads summary:

Macau: the bulbous nose of China, a peninsula and two islands strung together like a three-bead necklace. It was time to find a life for myself. To make something out of nothing. The end of hope and the beginning of it too. After moving with her husband to the tiny, bustling island of Macau, Grace Miller finds herself a stranger in a foreign land—a lone redhead towering above the crowd on the busy Chinese streets. As she is forced to confront the devastating news of her infertility, Grace’s marriage is fraying and her dreams of family have been shattered. She resolves to do something bold, something her impetuous mother would do, and she turns to what she loves: baking and the pleasure of afternoon tea.

Grace opens a cafÉ where she serves tea, coffee, and macarons—the delectable, delicate French cookies colored like precious stones—to the women of Macau. There, among fellow expatriates and locals alike, Grace carves out a new definition of home and family. But when her marriage reaches a crisis, secrets Grace thought she had buried long ago rise to the surface. Grace realizes it’s now or never to lay old ghosts to rest and to begin to trust herself. With each mug of coffee brewed, each cup of tea steeped and macaron baked, Grace comes to learn that strength can be gleaned from the unlikeliest of places.

A delicious, melt-in-your-mouth novel featuring the sweet pleasures of French pastries and the exotic scents and sights of China, The Color of Tea is a scrumptious story of love, friendship and renewal.

My review/thoughts:

Grace Miller and her husband, Pete, are living in Macau, China for Pete's work. After they find out they can't have children, Grace opens a cafe called Lillian's where she makes macarons and serves tea. Grace makes friends with people she wouldn't have otherwise known after she opens Lillian's. We meet Marjory, Rilla, and Gigi just to name a few women that Grace becomes close to. Gigi is a feisty character that I liked reading about and was very memorable. This is the first time I've read about China so that was cool since I've never been there. Grace has a lot of issues but she works through them in the book. Overall, this was a light and fast read. Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. It was a fabulous read. As soon as I finished, I wanted a macaron.

Review: Welcome, Caller, This is Chloe by Shelley Coriel

Summary from Goodreads:

Big-hearted Chloe Camden is the queen of her universe until her best friend shreds her reputation and her school counselor axes her junior independent study project. Chloe is forced to take on a meaningful project in order to pass, and so she joins her school’s struggling radio station, where the other students don’t find her too queenly. Ostracized by her former BFs and struggling with her beloved Grams’s mental deterioration, lonely Chloe ends up hosting a call-in show that gets the station much-needed publicity and, in the end, trouble. She also befriends radio techie and loner Duncan Moore, a quiet soul with a romantic heart. On and off the air, Chloe faces her loneliness and helps others find the fun and joy in everyday life. Readers will fall in love with Chloe as she falls in love with the radio station and the misfits who call it home.

My Thoughts/Review:

Chloe is an optimistic, happy, sixteen year old girl and her world is turned upside down when she finds out her best friends, Merce and Brie, dumps her.. She works at the school's radio station KDRS 88.8 for her Junior Independent Study Project because her counselor thinks she can help. At first Chloe doesn't want to do it, but she comes around when she learns she has no choice. She turns lemons into lemonade by bounces back from being friendless to finding friends with the radio station group of misfits and she even finds love. I liked Chloe's attitude. She was resilient.  The book had its warm and fuzzy moments but it wasn't one-note, either. It had real issues like teen pregnancy, drug addiction and Parkinson's disease. When I was reading, I felt like I was reading a Disney movie. I can see this book on the Disney Channel with Bella Thorne  playing Chloe because she got the red hair hair. This was a fabulous read.

Review: The Cranes Dance by Meg Howrey

Title: The Cranes Dance

Author: Meg Howrey

Publisher :Knopf Doubleday, Vintage Books

Publication Date: 5/15/2012

Source: NetGalley








Summary from Goodreads:

I threw my neck out in the middle of Swan Lake last night.
So begins the tale of Kate Crane, a soloist in a celebrated New York City ballet company who is struggling to keep her place in a very demanding world. At every turn she is haunted by her close relationship with her younger sister, Gwen, a fellow company dancer whose career quickly surpassed Kate’s, but who has recently suffered a breakdown and returned home.

Alone for the first time in her life, Kate is anxious and full of guilt about the role she may have played in her sister’s collapse.  As we follow her on an insider tour of rehearsals, performances, and partners onstage and off, she confronts the tangle of love, jealousy, pride, and obsession that are beginning to fracture her own sanity. Funny, dark, intimate, and unflinchingly honest, The Cranes Dance is a book that pulls back the curtains to reveal the private lives of dancers and explores the complicated bond between sisters.

My review/thoughts:
The Cranes Dance is about the Crane sisters: Kate and Gwen. They are both ballerinas and this story gives you a glimpse into the New York ballet world. Kate is the oldest of the two sisters and narrates the story. She talks to the reader and tells us how she has been dealing with her sister's downward spiral into craziness, while showing that she herself is a little crazy as well.  After Kate feels she can no longer handle her sister, she calls their parents. The story goes from scenes of what Kate is doing in the present to when Gwen was acting weird and paranoid. The story got really interesting when you dug a little deeper into the book. It was a fabulous read. If you want to read a book about sisters dealing with mental illness and are curious about how the ballet world, then works this the book for you.