Sandcastles

Sandcastles always wash away with the tides, but a family's love is forever.

In Luanne Rice's Sandcastles this is just what is expected from the Sullivan family. Sisters, Regis, Agnes, and Cecilia have never seen love as strong as that shared by their parents, John and Honor Sullivan. Their passion feeds off of each other and creates the innovative painter and sculptor that they are. The girls always thought their family's love would last through anything.

One stormy, fateful day on a trip in Ireland, the Sullivan family is changed dramatically when John is sent to prison over a mishap with one of his sculptures. Six years later, Honor and her daughters are living their lives alone at Star of the Sea Academy in Connecticut under the careful watch of Mother Superior Bernadette Ignatius, John's sister.

All five girls wait patiently for John's return only to find that he will be arriving much sooner than expected. His daughters are excited for their father to come home to them. They can't wait to inform him of everything he missed in their lives while he was away, most importantly about the engagement of his eldest daughter, Regis.

Naturally Regis, Agnes, and Cecilia expect their mother to be just as excited for John's return as they are. They imagine she'll run into their father's arms, just like in all the romantic movies. But for Honor, John's homecoming brings mixed feelings. She doesn't know how to let go of what happened in Ireland, nor does she know how to react to a husband that's been gone for so long.

Although she still loves him, he broke her heart six years ago, and she doesn't believe that it has fully healed. Honor worries about how her daughters will respond to their father that they barely know.

Bernadette is the only one who knows the truth of Honor's feelings, and even through she's ecstatic for the return of her brother, she also worries about her nieces. Things become even more worrisome when secret messages are inscribed in the chapel at Star of the Sea. Faded memories become real, leading to the appearance of an archangel and the disappearance of one of the Sullivan daughers.

Sandcastles is a painstakingly real novel that defines the true love that can only come from a family. It's full of hope, love, and the reassurance that family will always be there through thick and thin, no matter what hardships may come along in life.

What I Did for Love

Glamour, fame, and fortune: the life of a Hollywood star. Everyone knows your name, who your friends are, your films, family members, life story, personal drama...

In What I Did for Love, by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Georgie York leads this exact life. At first everything is certainly glamorous all around, until the paparazzi captures her heartbreaking divorce with one of the top actors in Hollywood and pastes it on the front cover of every popular entertainment magazine.

Georgie began her career as a star on the sitcom "Skip and Scooter", with her loathed costar, Bram Shepard. Everyone on the set catered to Bram and his dreaminess, while Georgie took a back seat and watched his career slowly go up in flames due to alcohol, drugs, and bad influences.

Now, it is Georgie's career that's going up in flames as the world is shown her every raw emotion and open wounds from her devastating divorce. To top it off, every headline on the entertainment magazines highlights some good deed that her ex-husband's new wife is performing to save the world.

Just as she thinks her life can't get any worse, she wakes up in bed with a strange man. This man just so happens to be Bram Shepard, and he just so happens to have their wedding certificate in the pocket of his pants.

Naturally, this scandal would shoot Georgie's career through the roof and most likely make it disappear forever, so she can't do anything but go along with the show, just like the good little actress she is. Luckily Bram agrees to go along, as well, since he's trying to resurrect his acting career from the dead. Plus, Georgie agrees to pay him.

Flames and fire shoot through Bram's house as the not-so-happy newlyweds try to get along for the paparazzi. As the drama unfolds, Georgie begins to see the bad boy in a new light, and Bram concludes that there's nothing wrong with being a goody-goody. But it's all part of the act, right?

What I Did for Love is an excellent novel full of scandal, deceit, and of course, lots of acting. This book brings the Hollywood life into a new light and places an excellent heroine in the spotlight. With humor and many surprise romances, readers will love following the adventures of Georgie York and Bram Shepard.

The Beach House

Nothing can be more relaxing and therapeutic than a few days by the water, sun, and sand.

In The Beach House, by Jane Green, Nan, the sixty-five year old, rambunctious woman who everyone in Nantucket knows of, opens her home to guests wanting a few days of blissful vacation by the beach.

First, there’s Daniel, needing space away from his wife for the summer, who decides to come to Nan’s beach house. He and his wife have spent months with a therapist, struggling with a marriage that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Daniel is quiet and finds it difficult to open up to his wife, especially about his one secret that would tear their family apart forever.

Next comes Daff, a real-estate agent needing some serious alone time with her thoughts and herself after her overwhelming divorce. Her young, teenage daughter struggles so much with the divorce, that Daff actually considers letting her spend some time with her father and his new girlfriend. Although guilty at first, Daff finally is free to just be herself and not have to worry about walking on eggshells in the presence of a teenager.

Finally, Nan is ecstatic to have her son, Michael, come home for the summer. Michael has been so busy as a top jeweler in New York that he barely has time to visit his mother in Nantucket, his home and favorite place in the world. After ending yet another disastrous relationship, he escapes to Nantucket to help his mom with her lovely home on top of the bluff.

Nan is so happy to have her home bustling with people again, that she doesn’t even focus on the money that’s slowly fading away in her bank account and the huge mansions that are being built all around her beach house, taking the place of previous small, beach homes that have always made up Nantucket.

As the group slowly receives their much needed relaxation, some visitors arrive in Nantucket that change the leisure time to anxiety time.

The Beach House is a wonderful beach read that tells the tale of numerous characters who all form a solid connection in the end. This novel looks at many different perspectives that all tie into one destination- finding one’s true self.

Speak

Secrets are not always easy to keep. They can eat away at you and slowly take over your mind, body, and soul until it consumes your every thought and movement. No, secrets are definitely not good to keep. . .

Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak is all about one gigantic secret kept by Melinda Sordino, the quiet, antisocial girl in school.

After a classic, parents-out-of-town summer party, Melinda's world is turned upside down and muted. The party starts to get out of control for her, and all she can think of doing is calling the cops. Unfortunately, everyone at the party shuns her for ruining it, including her very best friends. Melinda becomes the outcast.

Now, it's the first day of high school and instead of having new friends, all Melinda has are some new pencils and notebooks. Not even her old friends speak to her anymore.

Although she doesn't mind being alone, her thoughts haunt her. They take her back to that night at the party where her deep, dark secret still remains.

So when a new girl comes to school and latches herself onto Melinda, she feels a little bit grateful to finally have a friend. But her new friend discovers Melinda's "status" in high school and feels that it's best if they aren't friends after all, for the sake of her reputation, of course. Once again Miss Sordino is alone.

Being alone is not the end of the world, but she needs a way to release her emotions somehow. The secret almost burns through her skin on some days. When the art teacher suggests that she use art to liberate her feelings, Melinda finds this is a fairly good strategy.

But even as she purges her emotions, her secret continues to follow her. . .

Speak is an excellent novel about speaking up for yourself and what you believe is right, even if it's the hardest thing you ever have to do. Exceptionally well written, this book is full of typical high school drama and daunting trauma that is so real, readers actually feel with the leading lady, Melinda. Her story is so memorable and this book is defintely a great read for high school students and anyone else who has ever kept a secret.

The Lucky One

Being a part of the U.S. Marines, you have to face a lot of different, scary, and unforgettable things; a little luck can go a very long way.

In “The Lucky One,” by Nicholas Sparks, Logan Thibault, a U.S. Marine, finds just what he needs to bring him some luck.

When Thibault first finds the photograph of the pretty young woman in the dirt in Iraq, he decides to post it up at his base camp hoping that someone will claim their lost picture. After a few weeks with the picture still hanging up unclaimed, Thibault is struck with an urge to keep the picture for himself, safe in his pocket.

With the photograph safely by his side, he finds himself carrying some newfound luck as well. Not only does he win a few rounds of poker, but he also is miraculously saved from deadly combat.

Once Thibault arrives home, he concludes that the luck he was given in Iraq was no ordinary luck, so he sets out with his dog Zeus to find the woman in his picture.

With a few clues from the writing on the back and the images behind the woman in the photograph, Thibault finds himself in Hampton, North Carolina face to face with his lucky charm.

Elizabeth is her name, and she’s a divorced mother living with her son, Ben, and her Nana. The three of them run a dog kennel, and when Thibault finds her, he has an impulse to apply for a job at the kennel.

Beth and Thibault spend more time together after he starts work, and he is surprised by the way he begins to feel about her. He even becomes closer to Ben, which Beth finds admirable in this new mystery man.

The closer they get, the closer Thibault clings to his secret about the photograph and the reason he came to meet Beth in the first place, but her ex-husband won’t rest till he discovers Thibault’s secret. . .

“The Lucky One,” is another great read by Nicholas Sparks that naturally tugs at the heartstrings. Filled with tender loving moments, and suspenseful edge-of-your-seat surprises, this novel is an excellent read for anyone who has ever fought to find their true destiny and their soul mate.

Jodi Picoult

With beautifully crafted words and uniquely real characters in seventeen skillfully written fiction novels, Jodi Picoult has definitely deserved all her success.

While her journey began at Princeton, where she studied creative writing, she published two short stories in Seventeen magazine. Jodi worked numerous jobs after graduation, ranging from technical writing for a Wall Street brokerage firm to teaching eighth grade students.

Jodi then married Tim Van, whom she met at Princeton, and then preceded to craft, Songs of the Humpback Whale. This first novel was created while she was pregnant with her first child and was only the beginning of her very thriving writing career.

Throughout her years as a novelist, Jodi has won several awards including: the New England Bookseller Award for Fiction, an Alex Award from the Young Adult Library Services Association, the Book Browse Diamond Award, a lifetime achievement award for fiction from the Romance Writers of America, Cosmo’s Fearless Fiction Award 2007, Waterstone’s Author of the Year in the UK, a Vermont Green Mountain Book Award, a Virginia Reader’s Choice Award, the Abraham Lincoln Illinois High School Book Award, and a Maryland Black-Eyes Susan Award.

Along with her seventeen novels, she also wrote five issues of Wonder Woman for DC Comics, and her novel My Sister’s Keeper was made into a movie by New Line Cinema. The Pact, Plain Truth, and The Tenth Circle, were also adapted into television movies.

Jodi Picoult knew her desire of writing and followed that dream all through college and beyond. Now look at all she has accomplished. Her story proves that a solid college education can certainly go a long way!

http://www.jodipicoult.com/

Baby Proof

When you find your perfect match, life can’t get any better. You fit so well together that you share most of the same views and ideas of the world. Then naturally you would fall deeply and madly in love, plan a wedding, and then start a family. That’s the way it always works.

In Emily Giffin’s Baby Proof, this is exactly what happened to Claudia Parr. She met her perfect match, Ben, on a blind date, no less. What made him even more perfect was the fact that he shared the same views on children as she did. Neither one of them wanted any.

Two years after Claudia and Ben’s marriage, when they are on a ski trip with their mutual friends, Annie and Ray, Annie announces that she is eight months pregnant. Even though Claudia should be happy for her friends, she can’t help feeling betrayed knowing that they had felt the same way about children, and now, here they are, having a child of their own.

Ben, on the other hand, couldn’t be happier for them. Then he talks to Claudia about having a baby. That throws Claudia for a loop and she asks him if he wants to be her husband more than he wants a baby. The look in his eyes tells her that he really wants a baby. Slowly, their marriage falls apart.

The two go their separate ways in divorce, Ben with his new girlfriend and Claudia with Richard, her boss.

Despite Claudia trying to move on and deal with the fact that Ben has found another woman already, she can’t shake the depression that creeps up on her every once in a while. She knows she still does not want children whatsoever. But she misses her Ben.

Although Richard is handsome, wealthy and perfect in most women’s eyes, to Claudia, he is no Ben, and they will never work out. She can’t help thinking that maybe she made the wrong decision, and she can’t stop worrying about Ben’s new female friend.

Baby Proof is entertaining, heartfelt, and thought-provoking. Emily Giffin’s characters are so realistic and Claudia is the ideal heroine. This novel is definitely appropriate anyone who has ever loved and had to make sacrifices for that love.