The Guest Book - book review

The Guest Book by Marybeth Whalen

This was a very good book. I enjoyed reading it. It keeps your attention as you wonder if she will find the man who was drew the pictures. Every summer Macy had gone with her family to a beach house. There was a guest book there and she would draw a picture in the book. It became a means of communication with a boy whom also drew pictures in the guest book. They were to meet when she was 16 but with her Dad's recent death she is sad and withdrawn. She runs away from the meeting but then wonders about him for the next 10 years of her life. Now her family is back at the beach house and she prays that God will help her to find him. 

I liked her writing style. It was an interesting book Nice summer read! Light hearted and enjoyable. 

Excellent Fresh Tomato soup

We really enjoyed this Tomato soup with tomatoes fresh out of our garden. It was delicious. I did 'edit' it some. I made it completely organic and gluten free. I used olive oil instead of butter - and then added potato flour for the thickening agent. I did not add salt or sugar (who needs that - the tomatoes add enough of their own flavor). I did separate the soup into two pans - and added milk to most of it - as the rest of the family likes it creamy - and I loved it just as is. So no milk for me. Further, I just used a blender and blended all the ingredients - so they all stayed in the soup - no reason to 'lose' any of the good value of all those veggies. Since I planned to blended it I did not put the garlic in whole but chopped it up. Once blended it was fairly smooth. Click here for the recipe.  It was very, very good. 

Summer reading

Our local library had a summer reading program for adults. For each book read you fill out a bookmark that had the name of the book, author and what you would tell a friend about the book. Then you indicated the prize number of the prize you were interested in winning. They had a bunch of things from local business. My son was helping me fill in some of my choices - and he wanted to put down the coffee basket prize as Dad would love it if we won that. And guess what we won - the coffee basket! It is really cool - there was a $5 gift card to the coffee shop, a coffee mug, and a thing of ground coffee. 

We had a good laugh - I did the reading and my husband get the prize! 

Book review

Interestingly enough - I started Time Flies by Claire Cook. Usually I have to finish a book just to know how it ends. This is the first book in a very long time that is just not good enough to even waste my time reading to the end. I did not like it. The storyline is drab. The best thing about the book is the fun picture on the cover and sadly - that is it! I thought I was just in a phase of being too busy to read because I just couldn't seem to pick it up to keep reading.

Then I picked up The Wishing Tree by Marybeth Whalen. It held my attention. I was engrossed and couldn't put it down. Stayed up late last night to finish reading.

Loved this book. It was fantastic. Good story line. Good writing. Ivy Marshall discovers that her husband is cheating, her business is closing - all on the same day her sister's boyfriend proposes on live TV. She is jealous her sister has the fairytale romance that she doesn't have. She packs up and flees her cheating husband to go back home to help with the wedding. It is a process of figuring out where she came from, mending fences, and coming to terms with her past. It is also about the need to be forgiven and giving forgiveness to others. I do recommend reading this book. The other one - Time Flies --- leave that one on the shelf and don't waste your time.