Stacking the Shelves #10!

Stacking The Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews and Reading Reality all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks! And audiobooks. Don’t forget audiobooks!

I had a good haul from NetGalley this week. And the Goodreads Giveaways have been generous to me this week!

NetGalley:

I heard great things about the first book in this series, Make Me Wilder, so I requested Walk on the Wilder Side.

Synopsis: His best friend’s sister is rocking his boat. In the best way possible.

Brody: What’s a bad boy doing hosting a book club on his boat? Excellent question. All I can tell you is, it’s not going well. I forgot the bug wipes, the extra TP, and the hand sanitizer, we’re out of wine, and… well, I may have made some people angry, if the reviews are any indication. The only way to dig myself out of this hole is to redeem myself by offering the best girls’ nights out in town.

Enter my best friend’s sister. I’ve gone out of my way to avoid Rachel, since despite her good-girl rep, I can’t seem to get her out of my head. Now she’s in my boat… and if I don’t watch myself, soon she’ll be in my bed. Things are going surprisingly well between us… but I know myself, and I’m not this guy. I’m the guy you want for fantasy fulfillment, not the guy you want for forever.

But what if I need this time to be different?

Pretty Cover and the blurb looks interesting.

Synopsis: An enchanted Christmas dress brings two generations of women together for the magic of the season in this delightful holiday story from New York Times bestselling author Courtney Cole. 

One Dress. Two Women. The Magic of the Holiday Season.

When hopeful fashionista Meg Julliard must return to her hometown of Chicago to manage her late father’s apartment building, she thinks her dreams of making it in the fashion business are over. Add in her father’s eclectic roster of tenants who all need Meg’s attention (ASAP!), a host of building related disasters, and a handsome handyman she keeps embarrassing herself in front of, and this has all the makings for the worst Christmas she’s ever had.

Ellie Wade, one of the building’s longtime residents, is also not feeling the Christmas Joy this year. She is preparing to move into a nursing home (reluctantly), and is in the process of sorting through her belongings to downsize. Every corner of her apartment holds memories, some good, some bad. But there’s one dress she hesitates to pack up as it represents both the best and worst night of her life.

Ellie and Meg strike up an unlikely friendship and the story of Ellie’s dress comes out. Ellie gifts the gorgeous dress to Meg, hoping that it will bring her more luck, on the condition that she wear it to the building’s Christmas party.

The dress magically fits, and while it eventually leads to the best night of Meg’s life, it also acts as inspiration for Meg to follow a life-long dream of her own, a dream that will help save the crumbling Parkview West, and restore it to its former glory, and keep it as a safe home for all of the current tenants.

The dress and the magic of the holiday season help both Meg and Ellie find their own happy endings. 

Another NetGalley book that looks interesting.

Synopsis: Now available in the US—the dark horse literary novel that has taken Britain by storm! In the best tradition of Tessa Hadley, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Ann Patchett—an astonishing, keenly observed period piece about an ordinary British woman in the 1950s whose dutiful life takes a sudden turn into a pitched battle between propriety and unexpected passion.

LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION.

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR PICK: Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times Ireland, Daily Express.

1957: Jean Swinney is a feature writer on a local paper in the southeast suburbs of London. Clever but with limited career opportunities and on the brink of forty, Jean lives a dreary existence that includes caring for her demanding widowed mother, who rarely leaves the house. It’s a small life with little joy and no likelihood of escape.

That all changes when a young woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth. Jean seizes onto the bizarre story and sets out to discover whether Gretchen is a miracle or a fraud. But the more Jean investigates, the more her life becomes strangely (and not unpleasantly) intertwined with that of the Tilburys, including Gretchen’s gentle and thoughtful husband Howard, who mostly believes his wife, and their quirky and charming daughter Margaret, who becomes a sort of surrogate child for Jean. Gretchen, too, becomes a much-needed friend in an otherwise empty social life.

Jean cannot bring herself to discard what seems like her one chance at happiness, even as the story that she is researching starts to send dark ripples across all their lives…with unimaginable consequences.

Both a mystery and a love story, Small Pleasures is a quintessentially British novel in the style of The Remains of the Day, about conflict between personal fulfillment and duty; a novel that celebrates the beauty and potential for joy in all things plain and unfashionable.

Advanced Reader Copy from Publisher:

I was sent the physical book, The Riviera House from the publisher.

Synopsis: A lush and engrossing novel of one woman’s quest to keep Nazis from stealing priceless art during WWII, perfect for fans of The Rose Code.

Paris, 1939: The Nazis think Éliane can’t understand German. They’re wrong. They think she’s merely cataloging art in the Louvre and unaware they’re stealing national treasures for their private collections. They have no idea she’s carefully decoding their notes and smuggling information to the Resistance. But Éliane is playing a dangerous game. Does she dare trust the man she once loved with her secrets, or will he only betray her once again? She has no way to know for certain . . . until a trip to a stunning home on the French Riviera brings a whole new level of peril.

Present Day: Wanting to forget the tragedy that has left her life in shambles, Remy Lang heads to a home she’s mysteriously inherited on the Riviera. While working on her vintage fashion business, she discovers a catalog of the artworks stolen during World War II and is shocked to see a painting that hung on her childhood bedroom wall. Who is her family, really? And does the Riviera house hold more secrets than Remy is ready to face?

Goodreads Giveaways:

I posted a blog post about luck last week (Friday the 13th! Books with the word “Luck” in the title.) and this week I won Two Goodreads Giveaway books!

I won the kindle version of Becoming Wilde by H.K. Jacobs this week. I love the cover and it’s about a pediatric doctor in Botswana

Synopsis: Is this the beginning of our epic love story? Alexandra Wilde’s life is beyond her wildest dreams. After a tumultuous year, she has returned to Botswana as a full-fledged pediatric ICU doctor and reignites a consuming romance with Ian Devall, the privileged philanthropist who has captured her heart. Her new position at the hospital is fraught with challenges as saving lives pushes her resourcefulness to the brink. Meanwhile, her connection with Ian deepens, and she realizes that forging a commitment with him will require a sacrifice she isn’t ready to make. As she teeters on the precipice of decision, tragedy strikes and sends her into a spiral of grief where she must find hope in adversity…or risk losing everything she has become.

Warming My Winter Heart by Michelle Cornish just looked so cute. The cover is cute and the story looks cute too. I won the Kindle version of this book this week.

Synopsis: You can’t run from love forever . . .

When Lexi Blair comes home to Little City from LA for Christmas, she gets the surprise of her life—the ex-fiancé she thought was dead is very much alive and wants her back!

It’s Christmas Eve and Lexi’s seen a ghost. Or . . . she thought he was a ghost until her mom admits to faking his death so Lexi would come home for Christmas.

After a humiliating run-in with her ex—which results in Lexi disowning her mother—she hides out at her best friend’s tree farm, babysitting a nameless puppy while her friend and hubby tend to a family emergency.

But farm life comes with a few perks Lexi isn’t expecting—mainly a hunky farmhand who’s helping Lexi run the place until her friends return.

While Lexi ran from Little City, John ran to it, and she quickly learns he’s healing from past hurts of his own.

Can Lexi and John stop running before it’s too late?

That’s all I have for this week. Have you read any of these books? What’s on your list to read? Comment below!