The Unexpected Waltz by Kim Wright

From the author of the critically acclaimed debut "Love in Mid Air" comes this moving novel about a middle-aged widow who finds her feet by embracing a new hobby: ballroom dancing.
Kelly Wilder becomes recently widowed from a much older wealthy man with whom she spent her married life doing charity work, building a lovely home, and, as she says, "pretending to be a whole lot more conservative and stupid and nicer than I really am."
Now, with too much time and money on her hands, Kelly has absolutely no idea what happens next. So on a whim she signs up for a ballroom dancing class, and slowly, step by high-heeled step, begins to rebuild her life with the help of friends old and new: Nik, a young Russian dance teacher who sees the artistic potential she left behind; Carolina, a woman in hospice, anxious to experience a whole lifetime in a few months; and Elyse, Kelly's girlhood best friend who knows all of her past secrets--including the truth about the man who long ago broke Kelly's heart.
In the vein of Jennifer Weiner's novels, "Unexpected Waltz" is a deeply felt story about moving on after loss and finding a new walk--or dance--of life through the power of second chances.

MY REVIEW:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1213426247

Read from February 27 to 28, 2015

I was lucky enough to win this author give away through one of my goodreads book groups!!

I thought this book sounded good but I didn't realize I would just love it.

I love the characters, well most of them, there are a few jerks in it of course :-)

As it says on the back of book, Kelly is a 52-year-old widow. She had a rich husband that she's not sure she loved at all. He certainly set her up nicely which is a dream in the story itself!!

But Kelly has been laying around the house for a year grieving. She decides to run out and get some food to make for dinner and through some circumstances she ends up in a ballroom dancing studio. She signs up and off we go on a whirlwind of new friends, drama, competitions and life in general.

She has a best friend she has known since they were young. She moved away with her daughter and husband but she is very much still in the picture. They call each other and have dinner together on the phone and just chat about everything. She is sooooo lucky! I would give anything to have a friend from childhood for the rest of my life!!

Kelly also volunteers at hospice. She sits with patients, talks, reads, watches movies, basically whatever they want. This is where she meets Carolina. She is wonderful. She's not in the book too much but when she is, it is all bitter sweet. I don't want to give too much away.

This book has a wonderful cast of characters and is a great novel on the story of life. I love these kinds of stories.

I hope to read more from this author in the future. 5 Stars!

Pay It Forward

An immediate bestseller when first published, Pay It Forward captured hearts all over the world, became a wildly popular film starring Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt, and spawned a generation of increased altruism. This fifteenth anniversary edition includes a new introduction by the author. It takes an inspiring and moving tale of a young boy who believed in the power of kindness and brings it to a new generation of readers.

Twelve-year-old Trevor McKinney accepts his social studies teacher’s challenge: come up with a plan to change the world. His idea is simple: Do a good deed for three people and ask them to “pay it forward” to three others in need. He envisions a vast movement of kindness and goodwill spreading beyond his small California town and across the world. The project, however, appears to falter. Jerry, a bum who receives some allowance money from Trevor, returns to a life of dissolution. Trevor wants his pretty, hardworking mother—a woman who raised him lovingly despite struggles with alcoholism—to marry his teacher, Reuben St. Clair. Reuben is a scarred, bitter, untrusting man with a disfiguring injury from Vietnam. He seems to come alive only when in front of his class. For a time that matchmaking brings nothing but problems. Ultimately, though, unusual things start to happen. Crime rates dip across the nation, and nobody seems to know why. Then a journalist tracks down the source: an epidemic of random acts of kindness.

Anyone who has ever despaired of one person’s ability to effect change will rejoice in Trevor’s courage and determination to see the good in everyone.

MY REVIEW:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1144481339

I won this book in a GOODREADS FIRST READS GIVEAWAY!

I remember watching this movie years ago and how much it touched my heart. A sweet little boy wanting to do better in the world by paying it forward. This is such a wonderful idea.

I think it's wonderful that Catherine Ryan Hyde started the Pay It Forward Foundation. I'm going to be buying some of the bracelets to wear in case I ever forget. Not everything in this world has to be so bad.

The characters in the book are great in their own unique ways. I loved when Mrs. Greenberg paid it forward by leaving her money to Matt, Terry and the cat rescue and her no good son she left a dollar. I loved the stories of other people paying it forward.

There are people in this world that pay it forward in their own ways to this day. I love it!

Of course it has a very sad ending, but it wasn't all for nothing. 5 Stars!

Cress (The Lunar Chronicles 3)

In this third book in the Lunar Chronicles, Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, now with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together, they’re plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and her army.

Their best hope lies with Cress, a girl imprisoned on a satellite since childhood who's only ever had her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker. Unfortunately, she’s just received orders from Levana to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice.

When a daring rescue of Cress goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a high price. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing prevent her marriage to Emperor Kai. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only hope the world has.

MY REVIEW:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1188469735

Read from February 19 to 26, 2015

Wow!! I just finished Cress!! These books aways end with me thinking "You Didn't Just Stop There" !!!

I loved meeting the new member of the storyline, Cresent Moon. What a beautiful name! Cress for short. I can't believe she lived on that satellite for so long! The Lunars are cruel with shells! Can't say any more without spoilers.

There is so much going on in this book with everyone, but it's not confusing.

Iko got her game on :-). That's all I'm saying :-)

A lot of sadness for Wolf. A shocking reveal for Dr. Erland, two actually.

Trauma to Captain Thorne.

A few deaths and a lot of coolness!

I can't wait to read Fairest and Winter!!  5 Stars!

Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles 2)

Cinder, the cyborg mechanic, returns in the second thrilling installment of the bestselling Lunar Chronicles. She's trying to break out of prison--even though if she succeeds, she'll be the Commonwealth's most wanted fugitive.

Halfway around the world, Scarlet Benoit's grandmother is missing. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn't know about her grandmother or the grave danger she has lived in her whole life. When Scarlet encounters Wolf, a street fighter who may have information as to her grandmother's whereabouts, she is loath to trust this stranger, but is inexplicably drawn to him, and he to her. As Scarlet and Wolf unravel one mystery, they encounter another when they meet Cinder. Now, all of them must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen Levana, who will do anything for the handsome Prince Kai to become her husband, her king, her prisoner.

MY REVIEW:

Read from February 06 to 09, 2015

This book is so awesome!! I loved it more than Cinder and I loved that book a lot. Cinder was just the start of a whole new world.

Scarlet continues on with Cinder and new people that you love and hate.

I'm so glad to have started reading these books.

I will be reading Cress soon!!! I can't imagine where that one will take me ! 5 Stars!

The Dog Who Saved Me

Boston police officer Cooper Harrison never thought he’d go back to his hometown, Harmony Farms.  But when his faithful K-9 partner Argos is killed in the line of duty, Cooper, caught in a spiral of trauma and grief, has nowhere else to turn.  Jobless and on the verge of divorce, he accepts a offer for the position of dog officer in Harmony Farms, leaving the life he spent twenty years building behind.

And so he finds himself  back where he started.  Where his father was once known as the town drunk and  his brother outgrew juvenile delinquency to become a drug dealer.  Where he grew up as ‘one of those’ Harrisons. Cooper does his job with deliberate detachment, refusing to get emotionally invested in another dog the way he had with Argos—until he finds himself rescuing a wounded and gun-shy yellow lab gone feral. 

Cooper never thought he’d find himself going back in order to move forward, and yet Harmony Farms is the one place where Cooper must learn to forgive and, only then, heal. All with the help of a yellow dog.

MY REVIEW:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1118510546

Read from December 12 to 20, 2014

I won this book in a GOODREADS FIRST READS GIVEAWAY. This was a really good book about an abused dog and a man sad over losing his dog in police action. I could not imagne seeing my dog killed in the line of duty. It pushes Cooper over the edge. He leaves the force, moves back to his hometown to be a dog catcher. He sves and rehabilitates an abused feral Lab. It has other characters, the love interest, the alcoholic father, recently sober, the convict brother and a few others. Ultimately the story has a great ending and I enjoyed it.  4 Stars

And Then She Was Gone

Eleven-year-old Lauren O'Neil vanished one sunny afternoon as she walked home from school. Six years later, her parents Rachel and Dan still tirelessly scour their Oregon hometown and beyond, always believing Lauren will be found. Then one day, the call comes. Lauren has been rescued from a secluded farm mere miles away, and her abductor has confessed. Yet her return is nothing like Rachel imagined. Though the revelations about what Lauren endured are shocking, most heartbreaking of all is to see the bright-eyed, assertive daughter she knew transformed into a wary, polite stranger. Lauren's first instinct is to flee. For years she's been old her parents forgot her; now she doubts the pieces of her life can ever fit together again. But Rachel refuses to lose her a second time. Little by little they must relearn what it means to be a family, trusting that their bond is strong enough to guide them back to each other.

MY REVIEW:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/777581272

I WON THIS IN A GOOD READS GIVEAWAY AND I MUST SAY I LOVED THIS BOOK! I CAN'T WAIT TO READ MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR. IT'S A HORRIBLE THING TO HAPPEN TO A CHILD BUT THIS ONE TURNED OUT SO BEAUTIFUL. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT. THANK YOU SO MUCH!  5 Stars

Through the Eyes of Ernest: A Memoir to Honor Elephants

Ernest is an elephant, one of thousands of elephants kept in zoos and circuses for the amusement of humans. Throughout the day, humans stare at him and make silly faces. At night, he's confined to a tiny enclosure.

Born in captivity, Ernest has no idea about life in the wild, where close-knit families of elephants live as long as humans-presuming humans let them. His first elephant friend, wild born Frankie, tells Ernest all about the pleasures of living wild, and the family he misses so much.

When humans send Ernest to the circus to perform, he meets other wild born elephants, including wise old Mary and majestic, motherly Eve. Ernest learns more about what he's been denied even as he discovers the rigorous, sometimes brutal world of circus training.

A somber but ultimately hopeful tale told from an elephant's point of view, "Through the Eyes of Ernest "asks us to consider why we keep such intelligent, social animals in captivity.

MY REVIEW:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1040650132

Read from August 30 to September 09, 2014

This book had me in tears! Of course hearing the fate of any animal has me in tears, but the horrible things done to captive elephants is so disgusting I can't even put it into words.

I bought this book because of a Elephant Warrior group I am in on FB and the owner of the group suggested it. I am so glad she did or I might not have found it. All of the proceeds from this book is going to elephant charities, etc. She lists several at the end of the book which I'm already a member of two of them.

This book is written through the eyes of the elephant. I can't believe how good this was in that context. It brought the emotions from the elephants point of view. It's not some silly thing a person might think an animal is feeling. There are so many things elephants show toward their families and things done to them you can see and feel in their eyes. That is what made this book so remarkably beautiful and sad at the same time. You can hear them screaming and crying when they are beaten just like any other animal, but in this book you can actually hear them asking why is this happening, what did I do?

It's so sad but so wonderful at the same time. There are a lot of good things at the end. She thanked The Elephant Sanctuary here in TN in her acknowledgments and seeing how the elephants came together in a place just like the Sanctuary is so bitter sweet.

I recommend this to any and all animal lovers that have a wonderful heart and want to help all creatures!

This book will make you cry your eyes out! 5 Stars!