Must Love Santas

The story was cute.  However, the mystery part was rushed.  There were some grammatical errors and a lot of the sentences were a bit long and awkward.  I also thought the romance was a bit rushed and would have liked more flirtation between the main characters.  It probably would have been better to either skip the mystery or made it a little longer and given those scenes more detail and dialogue.  I was looking for a fun Christmas book and was a little disappointed.

Why do I do it?

I wanted to just throw out a quick blurb about why I am reviewing books.  I have written five novels to date and have yet to publish one of them.  I am close to finishing my second novel which I will probably self-publish.

In the course of the five years that I have written these novels I have gone to numerous workshops and book readings as well as reading and finding other author advice online.  One piece of advice that pops up often, is if you want to write you should read.   Some say, you should even read bad books, so you know what to avoid.  But something that really sticks with me is that someone said, you should help out other authors and one way to do this is to read and review their books.  Even if you don't give them a good review, it helps to make them more legitimate on Amazon if they have more reviews.  A bad review means that people besides their good friends have read the book.

So it is my intention to try and read and review as many books as I can.  I will write reviews on books that I want to read and that I really enjoy.  I will also write reviews on books that I might not have liked so much,  but I am trying to give the author feedback.  I have been getting many books for free on Amazon as well as Net Galley, so you will see quite a few books from there being reviewed.   Many of these being romance novels.  While I don't normally read a lot of romance novels, I do read them on occasion and I do enjoy a well written one.  Unfortunately, they are not all well written, which is probably why a lot of them are free.

So bear with me if you are reading my reviews.  Skip the ones you aren't interested in, but I'll let you know if I find a good one!

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

Housekeeping is a book about two orphans. They are passed around to many relatives. The story can easily be summed up in one sentence. Not a lot happens in this book. The beauty of the book lies in its loquaciousness. The words are written almost like poetry. There is a reverence for the English language, a care about choice of words that you notice. This is not a fast paces action book, but a languid journey with the main character and author.

I liked the book, but I'm not sure if I would have made it through the book if I hadn't been listening to it on audiobook. 

The book was well written and the characters are eccentrically fun.  I would recommend this book if you don't mind the slow pace.

Morgan Freeman as Easy Reader on Electric Company

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u8MY7PjSXU