Showing posts with label Emilie Richards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Emilie Richards. Show all posts

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Review: Sunset Bridge (Happiness Key #3) by Emilie Richards

In Sunset Bridge, the third and last book of the Happiness Key trilogy, Emilie Richards writes a wonderful story of close friendships between five women, a romance for two of them and still manages to include a suspense story line with action that kept me interested until the end. Of course in this story the characters take center stage. Their lives are full of real life issues, their reactions are relatable and as in real life, there's humor to go along with all the drama.

Tracy has come a long way from the person she used to be, the cold socialite with a con man ex-husband who left her broke and broken. Out of her little community of friends at Happiness Key, she created a close-knit family and also found Marsh Egan, a man who makes her happy. But things change between Tracy and Marsh once she realizes what her bouts of nausea really mean. An unplanned pregnancy is the last thing Tracy needs, especially when her relationship with Marsh is just taking off... now, how will she be able to tell weather he wants her for herself or for the baby?

Janya's seems to be content in her arranged marriage to Rishi and the life they've made for themselves at Happiness Key. They long to have a family and after a few years of marriage their hopes seem to be dimming. However, tragic circumstances bring two small children to Janya and Rishi... but, will they be able to keep them?

After years of being a mother and the wife of a cop, loud and opinionated Wanda finally realizes her dream and opens Wanda's Wonderful Pies. She's happy with her life, her husband and her friends, but things are about to change for her. Her daughter Maggie is moving back home after leaving her job and live-in boyfriend in Miami, and their mother-daughter relationship is not exactly a close one. Plus, her business is about to take off in unexpected directions.

Maggie quit her job as a cop in Miami after an investigation didn't go her way. To her way of thinking, long-time lover and cop Felo didn't back her up either, so she left him too. Now she's coming back to work with her mother at the pie shop and to live at Happiness Key. Her future is as uncertain as her feelings for Felo. When a couple is murdered, Maggie finds herself involved in an investigation after agreeing to help a friend... and her future might not be the only thing hanging in the balance.

Alice loves her granddaughter Olivia, but as she recuperates from her stroke keeping up with the young girl becomes harder each day. How will she manage to maintain the pace and her health?

In Sunset Bridge, Richards weaves a story of friendship, love and suspense that flows and that kept me turning those pages. Although at the beginning it took me a while to orient myself, soon the characters began to take shape and became people who interested me.

There's Tracy who with her hormonal changes, her insecurities and pregnancy issues drives Marsh nuts throughout the story. Marsh is a guy and of course clueless for much of the story, although I admit to feeling sorry for him more than once when well... he didn't read Tracy's mind or gave the right answer at the right time. Theirs is a humorous and frustrating situation that I enjoyed to the end. And then there's Maggie... with her angsty and very serious trust and control issues. I was pulling for Maggie to wake up and smell the roses, as I fell in love with her man Felo myself. These two story lines gave the book that touch of romance that I needed to really enjoy this book.

However, the central story is about the friendship, and I love the way the women support each other throughout all types of situations, both light and dire. Best of all I really enjoyed the way they tell each other the truth, and call each other out when they're wrong without being either pushy or interfering. The older women, Wanda and Alice, don't have a problem telling the younger ones, especially Tracy and Maggie, why they're decisions are questionable. Janya falls in between, she is young but has wonderful insight and wisdom, making her one of my favorite characters in this story.

Although Sunset Bridge is the last book of the series and the relationships have been developed throughout the first two books, Happiness Key and Fortunate Harbour, in my opinion it stands quite well on its own. This is a wonderful story about friendship between different women from different cultures, of different ages and ways of life. I really enjoyed it and recommend it as a great read.

Category: Women's Fiction
Series: Happiness Key
Publisher/Release Date: Mira, June 21, 2011
Source: ARC Planned Television Arts, Ruder Finn
Grade: B+

Visit Emilie Richards here.

Series:
Happiness Key, Book 1
Fortunate Harbour, Book 2
Sunset Bridge, Book 3

Thursday, June 23, 2011

This n' That: Catching Up

Hi there! I'm here... reading, working and will soon be posting reviews again.

I've had a few bad days all around. Last Thursday, I lost my glasses! I spent three days blind as a bat, trying to work without using a computer, which is next to impossible in my line of work, and then trying to finish my days without taking a bottle of analgesics to calm the headaches. No reading for me during that time at all! Plus, no computer when I got home either.

By the time my new pair of glasses were ready it was Saturday evening. I do the bulk of my reading and review writing during the weekend, and well... the headaches didn't go away until Tuesday of this week. I felt like the man from that Twilight Zone episode, "Time Enough At Last," all those books to read and I couldn't see a thing! What frustration. Whatever happened to my spare pair of glasses?

Of course this week I had to catch up on all the work that was neglected due to my blindness! So, late nights, eating at my desk and lots of files to get through at the office this week. Plus, RWA is next week and I'll be leaving early a couple of days in a row and taking one day off to hang out with fellow bloggers, so I want to get ahead of myself so I don't have to worry about work. It's burnout time!

But hey, before the whole fiasco with the glasses and during this week I did read a couple of books. There's Cheryl St. John's new June release Her Wyoming Man (see my review), which I really enjoyed, and I did finish More Than a Mistress by Mary Balogh. That's a book I've been meaning to read forever. Well, I can tell you that it was worth the read for me personally. Now I'll try to read the second book in the series, No Man's Mistress, before the new release comes out next month. :)

At the moment I'm reading and enjoying a women's fiction book with quite a few interesting characters and situations, Sunset Bridge by Emilie Richards, part of her Happiness Key series.

And, slowly but surely, I'm also reading Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse) by James S.A. Corey, a science fiction opera that's going to take me a while to read as it's 592 pages and it's chuck-full of sci-fi details, plus there's a private investigation in it with a mystery and everything... I can't wait to find out what happens in both these books.

So what's everyone reading at the moment? What are you looking forward to reading in July? I'm waiting for Mary Balogh's The Secret Mistress.