Unplugged

Going to be offline for a couple of days. I hope everyone has a good weekend. I'll be around on twitter a bit since it's on my phone but no blogging for the next two days.

Fireworks Over Toccoa - A Review

Fireworks Over Toccoa - Jeffrey Stepakoff (Shelf Awareness/Publisher)

Product Details (B&N)

• Pub. Date: March 30, 2010
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Format: Hardcover, 272pp

• ISBN-13: 9780312581589
• ISBN: 0312581580

Synopsis (from book)

Lily was married for just days before her husband was sent abroad to fight in WWII. Now he, and the other soldiers are returning, and the small town of Toccoa, Georgia plans a big celebration. But a handsome and kind Italian Immigrant, responsible for the elaborate fireworks display the town commissioned captures Lily's heart and soul. Torn between duty to society and her husband, and a poor, passionate man who might be her only true love--Lily must choose between a love she never knew and a commitment she'd already made.

My Thoughts:

I picked this book up thinking I would find a sweet love story, I wasn't let down. It was that and so much more.

The story begins with Lily's granddaughter coming to her house to get her wedding dress. A dress Lily isn't sure Colleen's ready for. Lily's sees something the paper that leads them to the local museum and we find ourselves dropped into an amazing story of Lily's youth one summer while waiting for her husband, whom she was only married too for two weeks before he left, to return from WWII.

She meets Jake, a pyrotechnics's man who was setting up the fireworks for the annual firework's display, and the attraction is immediate.

I could feel the intensity of the passion, the need to be together, the uncertainty of what they were doing.

Jeffrey really brought to life the characters and the town of Toccoa. Lily's secret cabin where she did her art, her big white house with the wrap around porch. the field where the fireworks were buried. All of it I could easily envision as I turned the pages.

Grab a box of tissues folks, this one will bring tears to your eyes.

A to Z Wednesday

Welcome to A-Z Wednesday!!
To join, here's all you have to do:
Go to your stack of books and find one whose title starts with the letter of the week.
Post:
1~ a photo of the book
2~ title and synopsis
3~ link(amazon, barnes and noble etc.)
4~ Come back here and leave your link in the comments
If you've already reviewed this book you can add it also.
Be sure to visit other participants to see what book they have posted and leave them a comment.
(We all love comments, don't we?)
Who knows? You may find your next "favorite" book.

THIS WEEKS LETTER IS: D

My "D" book is:

Deadly Little Secret - Laurie Faria Stolarz

Synopsis (from B&N)

Some secrets shouldn't be kept...

Until three months ago, everything in sixteen-year-old Camelia's life had been fairly ordinary: decent grades, an okay relationship with her parents, and a pretty cool part-time job at the art studio downtown. But when a mysterious boy named Ben starts junior year at her high school, Camelia's life becomes anything but ordinary.

Rumored to be somehow responsible for his ex-girlfriend's accidental death, Ben is immediately ostracized by everyone on campus. Except for Camelia. She's reluctant to believe he's trouble, even when her friends try to convince her otherwise. Instead, she's inexplicably drawn to Ben.and to his touch. But soon, Camelia is receiving eerie phone calls and strange packages with threatening notes. Ben insists she is in danger, and that he can help-but can he be trusted? She knows he's hiding something... but he's not the only one with a secret.

I've really enjoyed this one and at some point will get around to reading book two in the series.

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading and it asks us to...

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here's my teaser this week:

He spoke with emotion and passion, and from his accent and verbiage one could tell he was well-educated. Didn't they care that atrocities were occurring daily, in every village and town in the river valley?

The Surrendered- Chang-Rae Lee pg. 5 (teaser taken from ARC, subject to changes)