Review: Passion on Park Avenue

Passion on Park Avenue by Lauren Layne

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I wish that more romance writers would realize that less is more. So often I’ll enjoy reading a romance only to become annoyed when it becomes a broken record of all the petty roadblocks the central characters have put between themselves making me want to go all Cher in Moonstruck and yell “Snap out of it!”.  Sometimes I even want to slap them. While that did happen to an extent in Lauren Layne’s Passion on Park Avenue, Ms. Layne kept her novel of a former housekeeper’s daughter made good and the boy, now very much a man, who tormented her and helped to bring on her mother’s downward spiral short and sweet. Yet, she was able to add a little weight to what could’ve been a pretty typical romance novel.
I’ve read novels where the author attempted to add some meat to a familiar story but it often felt like it was tacked on – a failed attempt to stand out from the pack. In Passion on Park Avenue however, Walter’s Alzheimer’s not only felt authentic but was actually necessary to Naomi’s journey of forgiveness and healing. Naomi is a great character – strong, and empowering, yet vulnerable and haunted, as we all are, by our past – and Oliver is totally swoon-worthy, which any romance reader knows is very important. Along with the romance, which was sweet with just a little steam, there was also a fun friendship between three unlikely women.   Thank you to Goodreads.com for the opportunity to read this ARC.  I cannot wait to read the next to books in the Central Park Pact series.

There are a lot of romance novels out there.  Among my favorite authors are Susan Elizabeth Phillips (her Ain’t She Sweet is one of my absolute favorites) and Kristan Higgins.  If you’re looking for something short and light, you can’t get much lighter than Janet Evanovich’s early romance novels such as Manhunt and Suzanne Baltsar’s Trouble Brewing features a strong, independent businesswoman like Naomi from Passion on Park Avenue

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New Year, New Plans

I did a lot of thinking during the last month of the year and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m writing this blog about the wrong subject.  Or, I should say, writing about the books I read isn’t enough.  While I am always reading something, what I read does not always inspire me to write a full-blown blog entry.  Therefore I’ve made too few entries this past year.  And my heart wasn’t always in those I did post.  So I feel that I either must end this blog altogether or expand the subject matter beyond my bookshelves.

Now, I have many, many interests but I am an expert at none.  My first instinct was to expand my entries to books and movies.  Then I thought I might add TV shows and music to the list of subjects about which I write.  But like with reading, I feel that one’s taste in movies, shows, and especially music is very personal.  And maybe it’s the trauma of middle school talking but I don’t trust that I won’t be judged harshly for my tastes.  Nothing personal, but the internet hasn’t shown itself to be the safest place to pour one’s heart out.

I’ve also considered posting snippets of my own fiction writing.  Again my trusts issues come into play.  Even though the writing is probably mostly crap, I can’t trust that my ideas won’t be stolen.  I have issues.  We all do.  I know that but I’m only now beginning to realize that these trust issues of mine are holding me back not only in my blog but with my fiction.  Maybe, instead of the usual resolution to get fit or be more responsible with money, my 2017 resolution should be to work on my trust issues.  And not just my trust of strangers on the internet but also I need to learn to trust myself.  This, I believe, would greatly benefit my writing as well as other areas of my life.  Which I don’t trust you enough to talk about.  Still, if I’ve actually posted this, it is a step in the right direction.  Right?

Now, before the trust exercises begin I must post my annual Year in Review of the books I read in 2016.  I went well over my goal of 30 books with 46 but that’s because I didn’t do very well at my other resolution to focus more on my fiction writing.  I could blame a particularly tough year but the truth is I’m just really good at believing my own excuses.  Neither did I succeed in completing Reading Challenge I attempted.

2016 Reading Challenge from modernmrsdarcy.com

I thought it would be simple with only 12 books but I’m still working on the book that intimidates me – James Michener’s Alaska – and I never got around to the book I should’ve read in school or the one I’d previously abandoned.  That’s not surprising considering that I didn’t want to read them the first time around.  Here are the books I read to complete the other challenges:

A Book Published This Year:

• Lady Cop Makes Trouble (Kopp Sisters #2) by Amy Stewart
• Every Yesterday by Nancy Naigle
• Luck, Love, & Lemon Pie by Amy E. Reichert
• The Royal Nanny by Karen Harper
• Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld
• The Literature Book

(Goodreads.com giveaways were quite helpful in completing this one)

A Book You Can Finish in a Day:

• The Star Seed by Mary Alice Fontenot

(I should write an entry on what this local children’s author has meant to me)

A Book You’ve Been Meaning to Read:

• Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
• Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes

A Book Recommended by your Local Librarian:

• Girl Waits with Gun (Kopp Sisters #1) by Amy Stewart (Thank you, Marjorie!)
• Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah (Thank you Ms. Nan!)

A Book Chosen for You by Your BFF:

• Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (Thank you, Dorothy!!)

A Book Published Before You Were Born:

• Lady Susan by Jane Austen
• Little House in the Big Woods (Little House #1) by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• The Princess Bride by William Goldman

A Book that Has Been Banned at Some Point: 

• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
• Falling Up by Shel Silverstein (Banned? Really?  That’s ridiculous!)

A Book You Own But Have Never Read:

• Back to the Bedroom by Janet Evanovich
• The 10^th Kingdom by Kathryn Wesley
• A Common Life (Mitford #6) by Jan Karon
• Artistic License by Katie Fforde
• Night Play (Dark-Hunter #5) by Sherrilyn Kenyon
• The Brightest Star in the Sky by Marian Keyes

(To be fair this category is true of most of the books I read.)

A Book You’ve Read at Least Once:

• Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Oz #1) by L. Frank Baum
• The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

And now for my top read of the year:

I chose Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart.

Amy Stewart’s wonderful Kopp Sisters series is based on the experiences of real-life sisters Constance, Norma, and Fleurette Kopp in the 1910s.

I know I didn’t give it a full 5-star rating but it was just such a fun surprise and I think many people would enjoy the tale based on actual events.  Don’t believe me?  Go to the author’s page dedicated to these three brave women.  I think it just proves that librarians really do know the best books.  Plus there’s a fantastic sequel for when you finish long before you want it to end.

Review: Back to the Bedroom

Back to the Bedroom by Janet Evanovich

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Some novels are meant simply to be light, fun reads. This is definitely one of those novels. I think Janet Evanovich’s early romance novels can best be described as practice. Evanovich even admits that Elsie Hawkins (the best character in Back to the Bedroom) is an early version of Stephanie Plum’s Grandam Mazur. So I don’t think they’re meant to be judged too harshly but simply enjoyed like a bowl of buttery popcorn – no need to focus too hard.

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