Sheila's Books Read

Sheila's bookshelf: read

The Best Intentions
Scotland's Melody
The Secret Society of Salzburg
Secret of the Sonnets
20-40-60-Minute Dinners: Meals to Match the Time You Have
Through the Wilderness: My Journey of Redemption and Healing in the American Wild
Secret Santa Claus Club: A Tool to Help Parents Unwrap the Secret of Santa
Mr. Pudgins
Revenge Never Rests
The Best Mistake
Meriden Park
More Inspirational Stories for Young Women
The Great Tree: A Christmas Fable
To Capture His Heart
The Call of the Sea
Esperance
Livvy and the Enchanted Woodland
Come, Gentle Night
The Bad Boy Theory
Guide To Smart Wedding Planning: What You want to know and everything you haven't thought of yet.


Sheila's favorite books »

2024 Goodreads Reading Challenge

2024 Reading Challenge

2024 Reading Challenge
Sheila has read 4 books toward her goal of 100 books.
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Saturday, December 29, 2018

Head Case By Niki Cluff: Officla Book Blitz and Giveaway





Niki Cluff lives in Northern Arizona with her husband, three children, and Great Dane who also doubles as a pony. For the last four years, she has worked as a literary intern sorting through queries while writing her own books. When she isn't writing or watching BIGBANG and EXO videos, she's sketching, playing video games (Legend of Zelda is her favorite), crocheting, and cooking. Copycat recipes are her specialty. She's also a massive anime fan (Sailor Moon forever!) and hopes to visit Tokyo some day.


Twitter ~ Blog ~
Amazon ~




Allyson has been in a coma for the last nine months. What’s worse, she can hear everything the doctors say. She knows they’re keeping her in a coma and that she’s at the mercy of the hospital's First-in-Human trial—a VR system implanted in her brain for a second chance at life.

Attached to the VR, Ally discovers worlds unlike home. She can do whatever she wants, but she misses her parents. With help from Harrison, a rabbit-eared boy, they work together to free themselves from Aishwarya, the mad queen of the world. 

But when Harrison wakes up and doesn’t come for Ally, she’ll split her soul to the brink of death to save herself.





Character Casting:


Ally: Dove Cameron
Harrison: Dylan Sprouse
 
Chester: Cameron Boyce
Aishwarya: Ananya Panday 
Aalim: Michael B Jordan
Midori: Lyrica Okano 


 Top Ten List:


10: Mother of three kids, and a Great Dane.
9: I love Sushi, particularly anything tempura battered.
8: Jurassic Park is one of my all-time favorite movies
7: I love to collect water bottles, purses, and watches.
6: I spend most of my time in the kitchen. I love to cook, especially copycat recipes.
5: Someday I want to visit Japan. I love the culture and anime!
4: Phantom of the Opera is my favorite musical/book
3: I love marching band. I was a drum major in high school and often miss it.
2: Bacon and black olive pizza is one of my major food groups.
1: I love video games. Legend of Zelda will always be my favorite series.




To view our blog schedule and follow along with this tour visit our Official Event page 





Thursday, December 27, 2018

A Wish to Be a Christmas Tree By Colleen Monroe-Book Review


My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read this delightful Christmas Book for the first time this year. I loved it! It has a tender story about a tree that is never chosen by humans to be their Christmas tree. Year after year he's been passed by.

The tree is devastated again one year as he is once again not chosen by any family. His animal friends decide to let him know how much they love him and appreciate how much the tree has helped the animals through the year.They also decide to make him "their" Christmas Tree in the forest. It has a happy ending of course when the tree feels so loved by his animal friends.

Yes, it's one of those books that made me cry as I read it to 2nd graders. That has happened several times through the years.

This is a book that should be in every family's Christmas book collection. I know it's going to join mine. 

****Purchase the book 

View all my reviews

Saturday, December 22, 2018

Christmas Countdown Blitz & Giveaway 2018: Day 18-Featuring "One Winter NIght" By Heather Tullis



HEATHER TULLIS has been reading romance for as long as she can remember and has been publishing in the genre since 2009. She has published more than twenty books. 

When she’s not dreaming up new stories to write, or helping out with her community garden, she enjoys playing with her dogs and cat, cake decorating, trying new jewelry designs, inventing new ways to eat chocolate, and hanging out with her husband. 

Learn more about her and sign up for her newsletter on her website.






Jonah Owens thought moving to Echo Ridge to open his art gallery would solve all of his problems. The need to sell his grandma's house adds an unexpected complication. It would be easier if his neighbor didn't have all those farm animals.

 Kaya Feidler's family has owned their land for nearly a hundred years--long before the neighbors were there. There's no way she's giving up the animal therapy business she's been struggling to make profitable. She gets a temp job helping Jonah in the gallery. 

Spending time together is a recipe for romance, but can they overcome their own hangups to be more than friends?





Snippet:

Jonah turned to a new page, thought of the boy and started drawing him on the sorrel, his gangly arms and legs seemingly out of proportion with the rest of him as boys so often were at his age. Jonah didn’t draw him straight on, but at an oblique angle, his excitement showing from the way he held his arms and legs, the implied movement of the horse. It felt a little like joy.
When he finished a rough draft, he flipped the sheet and started on one of the girl in the wheelchair and the happiness that had suffused her face as she held out a treat for the goat. It nuzzled her hand and she grinned brightly, joy on her face. She was detailed, and the goat was moderately detailed, but the rest of the space, the straw, the wooden beams and windows were little more than shapes in the picture, lines shooting off in different directions, adding dimension and mood without being fully formed.

It felt good to create, to feel the dust of charcoal, the sharp edges of the rectangular stick pressing into the pads of his fingers. His hands ached to hold a brush and spread paint across the paper, to see the form emerging from his mind and heart as he created something more than either part of him could ever do alone. 





To view our blog schedule and follow along with this tour visit our Official Event page
    




Friday, December 21, 2018

Christmas Countdown Blitz & Giveaway 2018: Day 17- Featuring "The Billionaire's Blue Christmas" By Jennifer Griffith



Jennifer lives in Arizona where she writes escapist fiction she calls "Cotton Candy for the Soul."






He needs this job to honor his late wife.
 She needs to complete her late fiancĂ©’s bucket list to be free.

Former action-movie star Chet has counted the days since he lost his wife last New Year’s Eve almost a year ago. When he’s given a shot at starring in a reboot of her favorite TV show, he jumps at it. But there’s a catch: the producers won’t hire him unless he can prove he’s regained emotional stability—by bringing a steady girlfriend to his five auditions.

Which means: five mandatory dates for this bereft widower.

Social worker Holly lost her fiancĂ© to war. With his good life snuffed out too soon, she feels compelled to finish his bucket list of unselfish deeds. But four years later, several remain, and they’re ridiculously impossible. Until she accomplishes her soldier’s dreams, she can’t even consider moving on with her life.

When they meet on the beach at Getaway Bay, what she doesn’t know is homeless-looking mourner Chet is actually Colt Winchester, screen star and fashion icon. What he doesn’t know is that he’s a means to an end.

When their walls start to crumble on their Christmas season dates, can these two find love again, or will they forever be chasing ghosts?"



Snippet:

The sun dipped behind the horizon, and purple twilight replaced the sunset’s glare.
Holly extended her hand, still confused—until the first stranger lifted his sunglasses. Those green eyes gazed at her.
Chet?
This guy, with the cleaned-up clothes and the nicely trimmed beard—and still those eyes—was the guy from the beach? Holly’s date? His eyes held her captive a moment, their verdant color infusing her.
Ho, ho, ho, merry Christmas to me.

“Hi, I’m Holly.” She took the slick guy’s hand, tearing her gaze away from Chet’s green eyes.





To view our blog schedule and follow along with this tour visit our Official Event page
    




Thursday, December 20, 2018

Christmas Countdown Blitz & Giveaway 2018: Day 16- Featuring "Jacob T. Marley" By R. William Bennett






R. William (Bill) Bennett is the author of Jacob T. Marley, The Christmas Gift, and a new Christmas novel being published by a major publisher for Christmas, 2019



 ~ Website ~
  




"Marley was dead to begin with . . . "

These chillingly familiar words begin the classic Christmas tale of remorse and redemption in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. 


But, what about Jacob Marley?  And why hadn't he been given the same final chance of redemption as Ebenezer Scrooge?



Or had he?









Snippet:

-Regarding when Marley began his journey to become the wicked old man.  A teacher had just complimented him on his arithmetic skills: 

“Young Marley,” said the schoolteacher, apparently not having felt he had achieved the desired effect with his compliment, “you are, without a doubt, the single best mathematician I have ever taught.” Of those thirteen words, there was one that held Jacob’s attention. He knew them all and had used the sum of them in sentences for many years. But it was the particular arrangement of the thirteen, specifically in the way this one word would betray the other twelve. The word was best. Marley had been no stranger to compliments, having been a boy of greater than average character. He had shown virtues in many areas, which is not to say he did not suffer at times the foibles of youth. Yet this word, this word! “Best!” Though it seems quite unlikely, Jacob had never thought of his own accomplishments in relation to those of his peers. He had only considered what ought to have been done and whether he did it well. But now he was given a yardstick with which to measure himself against others. And in the first taking of that measure, he was found by this revered teacher to be unequaled. He was the best—and he liked it very much. 





To view our blog schedule and follow along with this tour visit our Official Event page