Book Review: Gooseberry Island by Steven Manchester

David McClain is an Army Ranger who's about to ship out to Afghanistan. He's a nice guy who would love to find a woman to keep in touch with while he's overseas. Then he meets Lindsey and the chemistry between them is instantaneous. They spend an entire night together, sitting on a bench at the beach, talking. But then David heads to Afghanistan, and although they communicate often while he's away, David returns a changed man.

Gooseberry Island by Steven Manchester is a contemporary romance novel that explores the effects of war on relationships, and the trauma that many soldiers face with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We get to see the war from David's perspective, from wanting to get into the action, to experiencing the horrors of war up close and personal. As the war changes David, his interactions with Lindsey change as well.

The characters seem realistic throughout the entire novel, although the romance itself is a bit sappy at times. Those who love romance novels will enjoy that! I liked the fact that David was a cross between a macho man who volunteered for the toughest military duty and an emotional, gentle man around the woman he loves. Lindsey is also a complex character who has a great responsibility dealing with her father, who suffers from PTSD as well.

Overall, Gooseberry Island is a realistic story about war and PTSD, wrapped up in a sweet, honest romance. If you enjoy contemporary romance, I highly recommend this one.

My Rating: 4/5

Read my reviews of other books by Steven Manchester:
Pressed Pennies
The Rockin' Chair

This review was written based on a copy of Gooseberry Island that I received from the author in exchange for an honest review.

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Getting back to blogging

It seems that blogging has dropped to the bottom of my list for the past year, and was pretty low for the year or two prior to that. I love to read, and am continuing to do so, but as my regular readers know I haven't been around much. My last blog post was almost a year ago!!

There are many things that have taken me away from blogging. Work has been much more challenging and interesting these past few years, but that means I really don't want to get back on the computer when I get home at night - or on the weekends.

Family life has been more busy with kids having multiple activities in the evenings, leaving little time to just hang out and write about the books that I read.

I will admit to a bit of a Facebook addiction, which means way too much time spent scrolling through my newsfeed instead of doing something more productive. This is one of the things I'm working on and hoping that this will free up some time for getting back to the blog.

Overall, life is good. Work is …

Book Review: The Bookman's Tale by Charlie Lovett

Peter Byerly is distraught over the loss of his wife nine months ago. He has retreated to their cottage in the English countryside, hoping to return to his love of collecting and restoring rare books. But when he opens a book about Shakespeare forgeries and finds a Victorian watercolor of a woman who looks just like his wife, Peter is soon on a search for the origin of the painting and the truth about Shakespeare's real identity.

The Bookman's Tale: A Novel of Obsession by Charlie Lovett is a wonderful journey for anyone who loves books. It follows Peter's search in 1995, which turns into a bit of a thriller at times. But Lovett also takes the reader back in time a bit so we can learn the story of his relationship with his wife and how he came to be a bookseller. He does a beautiful job of expressing Peter's feelings about the rare books he encounters, and his feelings are contagious.

And then he takes us back even further to the history of one particular volume, whos…

Banned Books Week: Junie B. Jones by Barbara Park

This is the end of Banned Books Week and unfortunately, I haven't had a lot of time to write about banned books this year. But I did want to include at least one post about it, so today I wanted to share one of the book series that it seems most people are surprised to find on the list: Junie B. Jones by Barbara Park.

According to Wikipedia:
The Junie B. Jones series came in at #71 on the American Library Association's list of the Top 100 Banned or Challenged Books from 2000-2009. Reasons cited are poor social values taught by the books and Junie B. Jones not being considered a good role model due to her mouthiness and bad spelling/grammar. This is an interesting example of a banned book. Many times there are serious, controversial topics featured in books that are challenged. Things like homosexuality, drugs, vulgar language, etc. You can actually understand why people may not want their children to read those books, and why they may challenge their inclusion in school libra…

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