Month: October 2012

Interview with Author Sheila Roberts

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Author Interviews> Author Q&A> blog tours

I’m so hyped today. Of course I am, I’m hyped on chocolate! Again! My guest today is Sheila Roberts, and she’s here to introduce us to her first yummy (review here) book about Life in Icicle Falls, Better than Chocolate. True love IS better than chocolate, but most of us will agree that chocolate is pretty damn good.

Marlene: Sheila can you please tell us a bit about yourself?

Sheila: Thanks so much for hosting me! I’d be happy to. Here’s Sheila in a nutshell. I love to read (and write). My family is hugely important to me and so are my friends. I’m a real party girl – love to play games, any kind of games, love to bake and entertain. I’m big into tennis and I drag my hubby out dancing on a regular basis. Right now I’m in the process of learning how to golf and I think I might have discovered a new addiction.

Marlene: Describe a typical day of writing for us. Are you a plotter or a pantser?

Sheila: Definitely a plotter. I like to have a map of where I’m going. I may take some side trips on my writing journey but at least I know how I’m going to get to the end of the journey.

Marlene: What can we expect of Better Than Chocolate?

Sheila: A good read. At least that’s what I hope you’ll get. My motto is: Read Sheila for a Good Time. That’s what I try to deliver.

Marlene: There are lots of romances about family companies, but what inspired you to write about a chocolate company (Yum!)?

Sheila: Well, when I was creating my town of Icicle Falls (which is, by the way, my ideal town), I asked myself what I’d want to see in it. And a chocolate factory came to mind. I’m a bit of a chocolate addict and if I was going to own a business that’s the kind of business I’d want.

Marlene: Would you like to share your favorite scene from the book with us?

Sheila: You know, I have a lot of favorite scenes, but probably my top one is the scene where my heroine, Samantha Sterling, is having a nightmare. I won’t give it away, but let me just say it involves being chased by giant candy bar monsters and then by our hero. Oh, and there’s a vat of chocolate, too.

Marlene: Who first introduced you to the love of reading?

Sheila: Probably my grandmother – but that’s pretty ancient history we’re talking! We always had books around our house and I remember how excited I was when I got my very first library card. One of my favorite childhood books was The Wind in the Willows. Our Seattle neighborhood had a Carnegie library. It wasn’t a huge building but it was gorgeous. I can still see it in my mind’s eye – the brick building, the stone steps, the hardwood floors and the bench in the children’s book section. How the light fell through the windows in the late afternoon. What a great place!

Marlene: Who influenced your decision to become a writer?

Sheila: Only me. I’ve always written, ever since I was kid.

Marlene: What book do you recommend everyone should read and why?

Sheila: Pride and Prejudice. Great writing and a great study in human nature.

Marlene: Now can you tell us 3 reasons why people should read your books?

Sheila: Well, I think if people enjoy humor and want a laugh they’ll want to read my books. I hope the books also are encouraging (some of them, like Small Change and Bikini Season, are actually self-help fiction – I’m especially fond of Small Change because I think I included a lot of helpful money-saving tips). Finally, I think I spin a good yarn. So, if you’re looking for fun, a good story, and some encouragement then I’m the girl for you.

Marlene: Would you like to tell us a little bit about your upcoming projects? What’s next on your schedule?

Sheila: I have some fun reads looming on the horizon. In November Merry Ex-Mas, a holiday tale of wives and their exes will be out. And that one is great fun. We even made a music video for it, which you can find on Youtube. (Look for Merry Christmas Mama and you’ll see me getting hauled off by Santa!) Then come spring I’ll have a novel out titled What She Wants, which is about a group of poker buddies learning to solve their woman problems  in a very unusual way.

Marlene: Do you really think there’s anything better than chocolate? Maybe coffee? Tea? Wine? Margaritas? 😉

Sheila: Nothing is better than chocolate… but don’t tell my husband I said that. 🙂

Marlene: Morning person or night owl?

Sheila: Somewhere in between. Not a bad place to be.

Maybe nothing is better than dark chocolate, or even milk chocolate. But I’m not so sure about white chocolate. Frankly, I’m not sure white chocolate IS chocolate, but to each their own. 

Thanks so much, Sheila, for being such a wonderful guest today!

Review: Better Than Chocolate by Sheila Roberts

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Format read: print ARC provided by the publisher
Formats available: Mass Market paperback, ebook, Large Print book
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Chick-Lit
Series: Life in Icicle Falls
Length: 400 Pages
Publisher: MIRA
Date Released: September 25, 2012
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

Sweet Dreams Chocolate Company has been in the Sterling family for generations, ever since Great-Grandma Rose literally dreamed up her first fabulous recipe. But now it looks as if they’re about to lose Sweet Dreams to the bank—and that would be a disaster, not only for the family but for the town of Icicle Falls, Washington. Can Samantha, the oldest daughter and new head of the company, come up with a way to save it?After Samantha does some brainstorming with her mother and sisters, inspiration strikes. They’ll have a chocolate festival! Time’s running out, but the Sterling women are determined and the town’s behind them, so everything’s bound to go smoothly….

Or not. Events seem to be conspiring against Samantha, and her mother’s attempts to help aren’t helping. To make matters worse, the fate of her company is in the hands of her archenemy, Blake Preston, the bank manager with the football-hero good looks. It’s enough to drive her to chocolate. But Blake’s also enough to convince her that (believe it or not) there’s something even better than chocolate.

Let’s get this one out of the way right now, there are very few things better than chocolate. But true love might be one of them. And that’s the whole point behind this heart-warming story of a woman who has less than two months to rescue her family’s chocolate company–and by extension, the small town that depends upon it.

The romantic love story in Better Than Chocolate takes a back seat to the family love and the small-town neighborly affection and support type of love, but that’s absolutely okay. Because this is one of those stories where the heroine needs to get everything together (and so does the hero, just differently) before she’s in the right place for her happily-ever-after. The HEA is the chocolate syrup on this sundae.

Samantha Sterling’s first love has always been her family’s business, Sweet Dreams Chocolate Company. And that business is in dire straits, also because of family. Samantha’s mother, Muriel, stepped from marriage to Sam’s father Stephen, directly into a second marriage to Waldo. That business was her family’s legacy to their daughters, but nothing was ever put in writing, and Muriel wanted to please her new husband. Waldo had no head for business. At his death, Samantha found herself assessing the horrible damage.

She had less than two months to save everything, and no idea how to do it. She also held a load of resentment toward her mother, who had no head for money, and just trusted her husband implicitly, instead of her daughter.

Icicle Falls, Washington, depends on two things, steady employment from Sweet Dreams, and tourist money from skiers. Tourism is down because of the recession, and it’s been a warm winter, with not much snow.

If Sweet Dreams closes, it’s not just the death of the Sterling Family legacy, but it will deal one heck of a blow to the town’s economy. So Samantha tries to plead with the bank for one last chance to turn things around, only to discover that the new bank manager is unable, or unwilling to give Sweet Dreams another extension. And that Blake Preston, the new manager and former football hero from Icicle Falls High School, is just as hot in a suit and tie as he was when he was a high school senior and she was a lowly freshman.

Too bad he’s Scrooge. Or maybe that should be Mr. Potter, the venial bank manager from It’s a Wonderful Life. Blake Preston is the enemy.

If the bank won’t give her a loan, Samantha has to find another way to save the company. And that’s when her sister comes up with the brilliant idea for a Chocolate Festival. Before Valentine’s Day. Less than six weeks away.

The story of Better Than Chocolate is the whole town pitching in, often with hilarious results, to make the Icicle Falls First Annual Chocolate Festival a roaring success. As successful as the festival is, it still isn’t enough to save Sweet Dreams.

Samantha needs an angel. Maybe a frenemy will do.

Escape Rating B+: I think that how readers are going to feel about this book will depend a lot on what they are expecting. I enjoyed the small-town feel of Icicle Falls, and loved how the town both pulled together to get the Festival ready, and how some of the long-standing feuds still had impact. There are some people who can’t let go of their high school grudges, even 10 or 15 years later, even if the whole town will get hurt in the process. It’s petty but it feels real.

The character of Sam’s mother Muriel drove me crazy. On the one hand, I love the support group that picks her up. The LAMs (Life After Marriage) are awesome. That Muriel dove into a tailspin when she was widowed is understandable. But that she was so totally clueless about money gave me the heebie-jeebies for a character who is around 60, not 80. This particular stereotype is one I truly dislike.

The romance between Sam and Blake isn’t the main point of the story. The story is saving the company and pulling off the chocolate festival. It’s also about Blake figuring out how to be his own man and not a corporate whipping boy. But the best parts are the Sterling women negotiating their new places in each others’ lives and in Sweet Dreams. Sam learns that the way to save the company is not to try to do it all herself, but to bring out the best in everyone.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Ebook Review Central, Carina Press, August 2012

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Ebook Review Central> ebooks

I know, I know, it’s October, and Ebook Review Central is still talking about summer books. In this particular case, it’s the August 2012 books from Carina Press.

But hey, if the “Boys of Summer,” in other words, Major League Baseball, can play LONG into the NFL Football season, why can’t we keep talking about the summer books as long as we want–as long as they’re the good ones?

Based on the reviews, August was a pretty good month at Carina. At least the reviews were pretty tightly packed. Lots of titles in the 10+ review group, and then another bunch clumped at between 5 and 7 reviews. That 10+ gang made it difficult to pick the featured titles for the week, they were all excellent choices.

After reading over some of the terrific reviews for the books in that 10+ category, the three standouts, well, stood out after all.

First at bat this week is also the first book in L.B. Gregg’s Men of Smithfield series. When she originally released this contemporary male/male romance in 2009, the title of the book was Gobsmacked, and readers were absolutely gobsmacked from the opening scene of the story. Mark walks into church and whacks his boyfriend upside the head with a Bible for cheating on him and wiping out their joint checking account. Then he gets pulled over for speeding by the state trooper he’s always had a crush on. Carina Press has re-released Gobsmacked as Mark and Tony (the bible smacker and the state trooper) revised and with  new material added. Readers who read both versions say it’s even better the second time around.

Second in this week’s lineup is The Guardian of Bastet by Jacqueline M. Battisti. This urban fantasy/paranormal romance is one of the few times where the shapeshifter main character does not shift into a big powerful predator–Trinity becomes a house-cat. A feline who is also a witch, which makes her something very different indeed. Trinity’s little corner of the paranormal is about to be visited by something very evil, and only her peculiar mix of abilities that have never quite worked makes her suitable to inherit the responsibility of being the Guardian, and the power that goes with it. This one is terrific if you enjoy your urban fantasy with a touch of the snarktastic.

Rounding out this week’s roster we have title number three, a contemporary romance between a hopeless romantic and the anti-Cupid. The book I’m referring to is Planning for Love by Christi Barth, and it’s the first book in her Aisle Bound Trilogy. This trilogy is all about wedding planning, and in the first book, wedding planner Ivy falls in love with Ben, a guy who is allergic to love. This looks like comedy romance of the finest kind.

 

That’s it for this edition of Ebook Review Central. We’ll be back next time with the August 2012 titles from Dreamspinner Press.