Tag: Donna Ball

What I Read Last Week

Posted January 3, 2011 by Tracy in Features | 14 Comments

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a very nice new year. My hubby took the girls to see the new Narnia movie and I stayed home and read. Nice! lol I stayed up until 12 and then was asleep by 12:05. I know, I’m a party animal.

For 2011 I’ve decided to only take on 1 challenge besides my own TBR challenge and that is Wendy’s TBR challenge. Can you tell I’m trying to get through that sucker? It’s needs to diminish! The rule about posting the review on a specific date is always what fucks me up so I’ll see how it goes.

If you haven’t already gone over to DIK to enter the Grand Finale giveaway you need to do it! Great books being given away to 2 lucky winners. You have until the 8th at midnight to enter

The Karen Mercury book giveaway for Working the Lode is open until 1/4/11 at 11:59pm (pacific).

Life is pretty boring around here so I’ll get on with telling you what I read:

I started off with The Trap by Indigo Wren. This is a story about workaholic David who finally decides to take a vacation to an island resort. The brochure was just too compelling and he decided to take a break for a month. He gets there only to find out that it’s not a resort – it’s all a hoax perpetrated by his ex-best friend, Ethan, to get him alone and make him face some hard truths about himself – mainly his sexuality and lack of acceptance of what it really is. I really liked the book a lot. There were some times that I thought David overreacted and I wanted to smack him upside the head but overall a really good book. 4.5 out of 5

Next was The Christmas Fantasy by KT Grant. This was a cute story about a woman who is on a mission to lose her virginity and wants it taken by her brother’s best friend who she’s been in love with forever. He’s all for the idea but life gets in the way and the woman starts to believe the crap in her head rather than reality. It was a light, fun read – nothing too deep and we didn’t get too into the characters but if that’s what you’re looking for in a Christmas read than it’s perfect. 🙂 3.5 out of 5

Love Letters from Ladybug Farm by Donna Ball was next. I read this for The Book Binge and you can read my review here. It was romance in the book but mostly the book tells about 3 women in their 50’s who run a farm and attempt to put on a society wedding. Ok, but really not my thing. 3 out of 5

The Darkling Thrush by Josh Lanyon was my next read and a very interesting one. It’s fantasy with a bit of romance about a man who is a book hunter and is looking for what might be a fictitious book. Only there are very dark forces at work in the story. The man ends up with his boss but the boss moved a bit too fast for my liking and declared himself pretty abruptly. That being said the writing was as wonderful as always and the story incredibly engaging. 4 out of 5

Dream a Little Dream by Susan Elizabeth Phillips was the book I read for my DIK Challenge read for the month. It was a great way to end the challenge as the book was so good. You can read my review here. 4.5 out of 5

Skin Heat by Ava Gray was next on the list. Another book read for the Book Binge. This is book 3 in the Skin series and I really liked it. Zeke was held in the facility in the last book and was set free. He’s now home and is not exactly comfortable in his own skin. He takes a job at the local vet clinic and falls in love with the vet, Neva. It’s a great story and has a psycho killer in it as well – good stuff. I’ll let you know when my review posts. 4 out of 5

Instant Temptation by Jill Shalvis was my next read. This was the story of Harley and TJ who’ve circled each other for year but haven’t exactly been friends. TJ decides that it’s time to stop the animosity – especially since he has no idea what caused it – and make his move. I really liked this book. The story was pretty simple but I loved the honesty of the characters. No subterfuge, no lies, just plain out telling the truth about everything. Wish I could read more of that! lol 4 out of 5

My Tracy’s TBR Challenge for the week was The Reluctant Reformer by Lynsay Sands. The first part of the book annoyed me – he thought she was a famous prostitute and she thought he’d found out about her writing. The misunderstanding was amusing a bit but not enough to stop the annoying bit. Now, the second part of the book was almost like a different book. This was the man taking care of the woman but he can’t keep his hands off her and compromising her constantly. And there was someone who tries to kill her multiple times. The second part of the book was good – the first, not to my liking. 3.5 out of 5

Last for the week was Pleasures of a Notorious Gentleman by Lorraine Heath. This was the story of a woman who claims to be the mother of a baby and takes the babe to the father’s family – only in the hope that they’ll care for it. When she finds out the father, Stephen, is alive she’s thrilled as she fancies herself in love with him. But he has no idea who she is due to amnesia and him losing 2 years of his memory. It was a pretty darned good book. I’m not one for all the camouflage in a relationship but this one worked for me. 4.25 out of 5

My Book Binge reviews that posted since last Monday:
No Place to Run by Maya Banks
Love Letters from Ladybug Farm by Donna Ball
Must Love Kilts by Allie Mackay
How to Marry a Duke by Vicky Dreiling
My Fair Succubi by Jill Myles

Happy Reading!

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Tagged: Ava Gray, Donna Ball, Indigo Wren, Jill Shalvis, Josh Lanyon, KT Grant, Lorraine Heath, Lynsay Sands, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Vicky Dreiling, What I Read Last Week, What I've Been Reading This Week

Guest Review: Love Letters from Ladybug Farm by Donna Ball

Posted December 29, 2010 by Book Binge Guest Blogger in Reviews | 1 Comment

Tracy’s review of Love Letters from Ladybug Farm (Ladybug Farm series #3) by Donna Ball

Renovating a broken-down mansion in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley gave three lifelong friends a welcome second chance. But after taking the biggest risk of their lives, are these women also willing to risk their hearts?

All the effort Cici, Lindsay, and Bridget have put into transforming an historic but overgrown farm into an upscale winery and special events business is paying off-Ladybug Farm has been chosen to host a society wedding. What this really means is that they are about to be invaded by warring mothers-in-law, a Bridezilla, and a completely clueless groom. They have their hands full keeping Ladybug Farm from descending into total chaos.

But there’s something about a wedding…

After an article in a popular Virginian magazine Cici, Lindsay and Bridget’s farm has become quite the talk of the town. The blog that Bridget began has gotten more hits than ever and she’s actually getting orders for gift baskets – a lot of orders. On top of that their friend Paul has a friend of a friend of a friend who needs a location for a wedding…in 3 weeks.

The women decide to take on the wedding project because they really need the massive amount of money that the brides family is paying them, but they’re wholly unprepared for the many, many, many emails and phone calls that they constantly get from both the mother of the bride and the bride herself. They question themselves daily as to the wisdom of their decision.

Then there is real life that goes on whether they’re planning a wedding or not. Accidents, people dying, old loves coming back, friends having marital problems…it’s never ending chaos. But it also makes the women stop and think about what’s important in their lives.

This was a very sweet book that had a lot of mad cap things happening in it. It was kind of like Murphy’s law hitting everything in the women’s lives at once and though it was crazy they handled it quite well.

There was nothing wrong with the book, it just wasn’t my kind of story. I’m not a person who enjoys bad things happening to good people and though it was all remedied in the end, it put me on edge just reading about it and wondering what the heck was going to happen next and was it going to be as bad or worse than the thing before? As I said, the women handled it and it made them all the stronger for it but I had a hard time enjoying the book because of the difficulties they were facing.

Rating: 3 out of 5

The series:

You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place

This book is available from Berkley Trade. You can buy it here or here in e-format.

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Tagged: 3.0 Reviews, Berkley, Contemporary, Donna Ball, Guest Reviews, Ladybug series, Reviews, Tracy's Reviews, Women's Fiction

Review: At Home on Ladybug Farm by Donna Ball.

Posted November 6, 2009 by Rowena in Reviews | 0 Comments

Rowena’s review of At Home on Ladybug Farm by Donna Ball.

Grade: 4 out of 5

A year after taking the chance of a lifetime, Cici, Lindsay, and Bridget are still trying to make a home for themselves on the newly-renovated Ladybug Farm. Life in the Shenandoah Valley is picturesque, but filled with unexpected trials- such as the introduction of two young people into the ordered life the women have tried to build for themselves.

As the walls of the old house reveal their secrets and the lives of those who have gone before begin to unfold, the cobbled-together household starts to disintegrate into chaos. And when one of their members is threatened by a real crisis, they must all come together to fight for the roots they’ve laid down, the hopes they share, and the family they’ve become.

It’s always nice to take a break from reading romance and sink your teeth into a great women’s fiction story. Especially if the women’s fiction book centers around three friends who gave up their suburban lifestyle to take on the job of purchasing an old rundown and restoring it. It was great to reunite with Cici, Lindsay and Bridget and to see the progress and the bumps that came along with buying Ladybug farm. In the first book, we were introduced to the different women and we got to know them and what brought them to the present, retired and moving to the country but in this book, we got to find out the history of the house through flashbacks and what not.

In this book there are new arrivals at the farm, one cranky teenager, Noah, who I totally went soft for as the book wore on, and then there was Cici’s daughter, Lori. When the book first started and we see Lori showcasing her bullheaded side, I didn’t think I was going to like her. I thought she was going to turn out to be this bratty college student who thinks she knows everything but she wasn’t. I enjoyed getting to know her character and was delighted to see more of her.

I swear, nothing went right on this farm. They couldn’t catch a break to save their life but watching them all work through their struggles made for a story that was too easy to fall into. Ball does a great job of keeping you invested in these characters. She did a great job of making me fall in love with these women all over again. A big draw for me with these kinds of books are the struggles that each of the characters have to overcome over the course of the book. Nothing happens fast, nothing is ever easy but you keep right on trucking along with them and at the end, you’re in a happy place because you know that despite the rocky road they were on, they’re going to be okay. They’re going to get to their happy place and everything will be fine.

In this book, I still think I connected the most with Bridget. She was still my favorite friend but I enjoyed both Lindsay and Cici. I enjoyed Lindsay and the way that she was with Noah. I enjoyed watching Cici struggle to keep her sanity in check with her daughter under foot. I even enjoyed Ida Mae and her cranky self. Overall, this was a great story of friendship and of perseverance. I think I liked the first book more but this book wasn’t a bad read at all. I’d recommend it.

This book is available from Berkley Trade. You can buy it here or here.

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Tagged: 4.0 Reviews, Contemporary, Donna Ball, Ladybug series, Reviews, Rowena's Reviews, Women's Fiction

Review: A Year on Ladybug Farm by Donna Ball.

Posted April 23, 2009 by Rowena in Reviews | 5 Comments

Grade: 4 out of 5

Their husbands were gone, their families were grown, and the future stretched out before them like an unfulfilled promise . . . Tired of always dreaming and never doing, Cici, Lindsay, and Bridget make a life-altering decision. Uprooting themselves from their comfortable lives in the suburbs, the three friends buy a run-down mansion, nestled in the picturesque Shenandoah Valley. They christen their new home “Ladybug Farm,” hoping that the name will bring them luck. As the friends take on a home improvement challenge of epic proportions, they encounter disaster after disaster, from renegade sheep and garden thieves to a seemingly ghostly inhabitant. Over the course of a year, overwhelming obstacles make the three women question their decision, but they ultimately learn that sometimes the best things can happen when everything goes wrong . . .

At my reading core, I’m a romance reader but every now and again I like to read chick lit books. This isn’t a chick lit but a women’s fiction that surprised me with how much I enjoyed it. This book is so different from anything that I would have thought I’d like and there really isn’t much to this story but I really did enjoy the story.

This story is about three women who have carved their lives in the suburbs and are now trying to make a go of it in the country. They bought a big sprawling estate that is falling down on its ear and they’re trying to restore it to its former glory. Along with rebuilding this estate, they’re each dealing with their own set of issues and trying to adjust to moving from suburbs to this the nearest town is an hour away country and it’s hard. It’s hard to move from the suburbs where everything you’ve ever wanted or needed is minutes from your house to a country estate where there is nothing but space for miles and miles.

I enjoyed reading the struggles that each of these women went through to try to adapt to being in a new place at their age. They had all these plans and it was funny to see that what they thought they were getting into wasn’t at all what they got. It was like the house had a mind of its own and was trying to tell the girls something and then someone was stealing their vegetables and then the sheep, lots of things were going down and yet this book had a lazy feel to it. It’s funny that I enjoyed this book because there was not one romantic storyline in this entire book. It was straight up about these three women.

Of the three women, I connected the most with Bridget. She was the cook of the bunch and she was always making something in that kitchen and of the three women, I had the most in common with her. I liked her character and it was a joy getting to know her. Cici reminded me of my friend Mulu, she’s the go getter, the one that is always fixing things and then there’s the artist Lindsay and that was totally my friend Theresa. Watching these three women go through their new life made me realize that I want to be like these guys when I grow up. When I’m older and have lived my life, I would definitely want to do something like this. Move in with my best friends and spend my days rebuilding a garden and house like them.

This book made me want to take a road trip with my best friends and find our own adventure. This book made me want a lot of things, to still be friends with my best friends when I’m their age and still be going strong. I enjoyed this story and I enjoyed the way that this writer wove their story. It was a delight to read and it did spark some tears toward the end but I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is willing to read a great story. Be warned though, this is women’s fiction not romance.

This book is available from Berkley. You can buy it here.