Patty Pick for 5/22/14 is Surprise!

Okay, sometimes life throws you a curve and you panic! That was 

yesterday. Today I realized that I don't have to be able to do everything all the time without comfort of sleep or food. And I was getting dangerously 

close to pulling all my hair out!

So, there is no Patty Pick for today. Between my family's multiple 

birthdays, work, trying to finish my own book, upcoming trip for 

work convention, book club... You get the idea. 

So read a lot of books and find some wonderful ones. There are so many

I want to read it's hard to know where to start sometimes. Hopefully life 

will let me be back next week with a great book to share with you! 

There are so many to choose from. :)

Patty's Pick for 5/15/14 is "The Art of Hearing Heartbeats" by Jan-Phillip Sendker

"The Art of Hearing Heartbeats" by Jan-Phillip Sendker is a mystery, a love story and a cultural, historical novel. As we begin this memorable story, Julia is confused why her father has suddenly disappeared. He is a successful lawyer in New York and he has been married for years. 
This is one of those books that develop into a story that will confuse you, and when you reach the end you will be amazed. This starts in Burma many 
years ago and Julia travels there to find out what happened. She had found a love letter that he wrote to a Burmese woman and with connections strengthening she goes to see if she can find her dad. 
There are many people who help her along the way and open her eyes to the true person her father was. He was more than the successful lawyer and caring father she knew.  Julie finds out a lot about her father and more about herself as she searches.
The love story she uncovers and the mystery of her father's disappearance 
is solved. You may cry like I did, but above all you will remember this 
book. It is so well written and the many twists and turns will keep you glued 
to this book until you finish. It is hard not to reveal more but you need to 
discover this story for yourself.  

Patty Pick for 5/8/14 is "The Next Thing on my List" by Jill Smolinski

Sometimes there is a book that before you read it, you assume it will be a nice piece of fluff. We all like to read and just enjoy a book without thinking too much. But after readin Jill Smolinski's book, "The Next Thing on my List",
I was pleasantly surprised. I thought it would be a quick summer read for my book club, which it was, but it also made me and my other club members think!

It reminded us that life is always too short and we had better start doing some of those things on our "bucket list" while we can. It actually gave me the courage and impetus to finally start my first book. It had been rattling around in my head for years and now is it going strong. 

June Parker decided to accomplish all the items on the bucket list of a passenger in her car, who died in a tragic accident. These were things that Marissa wanted to do before her 25th birthday. June sets out to do these in her honor. "The Next Thing on My List" will quietly push itself into your heart and you will like June Parker.

My whole book club decided to bring our own bucket lists to share with each other. It was a real eye-opener and amazing to hear what we all wanted to accomplish. Look for my novel to be a Patty Pick one of these days. In the meantime, this funny book will touch your heart and get hopefully get you 
moving on the your own Bucket List. 

Patty Pick for 5/1/14 is "Return to Tradd Street" by Karen White

Karen White has a way to pull you right into her characters. She also
writes about South Carolina and places we all love. I love to read books 
from writers who place their stories in North and South Carolina. "Return 
to Tradd Street" takes place in Charleston, South Carolina with all it's 
inherent ghosts and old money. That is what makes this book good!

"Return to Tradd Street" is Karen White's fourth book in this wonderful 
series. They all read well separately but if you are like me you love to 
read them in sequence. Melanie Middleton is quite the busy realtor, 
not only selling houses but ridding them on their ghosts it seems.

As we return to Tradd Street, we find Melanie struggling to restore or really maintain the house she inherited from Nevin Vanderhorst. Melanie finds
out she is pregnant and turns down the proposal of Jack Trenholm. 
While this is taking place the contractor fixing her houses' foundation
finds the remains of an infant buried there. As Melanie and her mother 
try to use their "special" skills to figure out the mystery the ghosts seem 
ready to push her out of the house. 

Needless to say, this book again delivers in the true Southern fashion -
love, history, drama and a few ghosts rolled together to make it interesting. 
Karen White is a consistently good storyteller. Don't miss this opportunity to find out the next chapter in the Tradd Street Series.  

Patty Pick for 4/24/14 is "Heft" by Liz Moore

Liz Moore has written a very thought-provoking book. It touches 

on a few social issues that are prevalent on our society. You have 

to love these characters even with their faults. Don't we all have  some?

Kel Keller is an 18-year-old on the brink of baseball stardom. 
His father left the family when he was small but his mother 
has gotten him into the best high school in the area and he 
is an athletic superstar. Kel's mother, Charlene, is an alcoholic who 
is trying to make the best life for her son. She is struggling to say the least. 

Arthur Opp is a wealthy former professor who taught Charlene 
in a class years earlier, had a friendship with Charlene and has 
maintained an on-again, off-again writing relationship with her since. 
Arthur weighs 550 pounds and has not left his home in years. He looks forward to any contact with Charlene. 

How these people intersect and touch each others lives will keep 
you reading until the last page. The story is well written, you 
can envision this people. You must read this to find out how their 
lives intersect!

Patty Pick for 4/17/14 is "What Alice Forgot" by Liane Moriarty

I really enjoyed "The Husband's Secret" by Liane Moriarty and have been looking forward to reading more of her books. She develops some very interesting story lines. "What Alice Forgot" delivers another. This book starts 
with another discovery as Alice falls off her spin bike at the gym and hits her head. It is soon discovered that she has lost the memory of her last 10 years of life. She goes on to discover that maybe she has changed more than she realizes in just 10 years. 
Alice wakes up and remembers being pregnant with her first child with the love of her life, her husband Nick. She and her husband are working on their first home, doing major renovations as they can afford them. What she finds out is quite the different story. Alice and Nick are getting a divorce and she has three lovely and intense children. 
This is a story about a woman that might not want to remember the last decade of her life. Will she ever get her memory back? As all the normal and exciting family interactions happen around her, she has to decide. What would you choose? Read this book to find out what Alice chooses!

Patty Pick for 4/10 is "The Orphan Train" by Christina Baker Kline

This is a story about a part of our national history that I was unaware of. We shipped orphans out west in the late 1800's to find new homes and it seems we did not do too good a job at monitoring  them or picking new homes for them.

Vivian confronts all life can throw at a person and comes thru to find friendship and family in the end. She begins our tale with a typical Irish family passage to New York from Ireland to find a better life. She is told her family perishes in a fire except for her mother who has been sent to an insane asylum. Vivian is sent to an orphanage that ships her out west to be adopted in exchange for working for the family who will feed and care for her. She meets a fellow orphan named Dutchy who helps her during the trip. 

Her name is changed several times along the way and she meets with misfortune. When the Great Depression hits, her life is turned inside out and she is sent to an even more dreadful situation.  Eventually she reaches a good and caring family and she blossoms. 

We are slowly told this story via Vivian's retelling of it when she is 90 years old to a teenager, Molly, who is doing community service at her house. Vivian unfurls her story in bits and starts. Their connection and what happens to them both next will engage you and keep you reading to find out more.