Away

With a failed romance behind her, Cassidy Clayton accepts a proposal from the boy next door. Unfortunately, with her prospective mother-in-law Lillian also next door, tensions increase as Lillian insists on making all the wedding arrangements in the guise of "helping". Even looking like an overstuffed marshmallow in the wedding dress Lillian selects does not convince Cassidy to speak up for herself. When the city inspector comes two weeks before she closes on the sale of her house, Lillian's interference leads to four pages of repairs and a desperate search for a contractor who can do the work.

Waiting for her best friend at a local watering hole, Cassidy meets Blade Frederick. With his casual bad boy look, she never suspects that he owns the bar or a million-dollar construction business. She accepts his business card and, when she cannot find anyone else to handle the work on her house, calls him out of desperation. Even though Blade's company does not do residential work; he is more than willing to help out. But Blade continues to present himself as blue-collar worker. After all, he does not believe a man like himself deserves a woman like Cassidy.

Author Michele Dunaway presents considerable emotional entanglements in SWEEPING THE BRIDE AWAY. Cassidy grouses about her future mother-in-law but still manages to comply with Lillian's unreasonable demands. She knows she is settling with Lillian's son, yet cannot bring herself to act. Moreover, Blade goes along with his partner's nebulous plan to use Cassidy's political connections for his own purposes. The unfortunate result is that SWEEPING THE BRIDE AWAY lacks the flow and polish that usually characterizes Dunaway's work. By the time Cassidy finally takes control of her life, readers may have already grown too impatient to care. Nevertheless, there are classic Dunaway moments that truly sparkle, as when Cassidy finds herself rained in at Boy Scout camp. SWEEPING THE BRIDE AWAY comes recommended.

In Sweeping the Bride Away, Dunaway combines a fantasy and a nightmare in one short funny book.

The fantasy? The bride-to-be, Cassidy Clayton, finds a man who is not only strong, sensitive and sexy, but incredibly handy around the house. And the nightmare? Her fiance's mother is interfering, commandeering, patronizing, and she lives next-door. Ouch.

The heroine's parents are out of town, having left her the task of selling their home. Unfortunately the presale inspection turned up a long list of fix-it jobs, just when (and partly because) her mother-in-law-to-be is pressing to move up the wedding. Cassidy doesn't know any handymen. They just don't come with the territory for an image consultant for CEOs and politicos. Her fiance, preoccupied with his duties as a museum curator, is no help at all.

But at the dive where she goes to drown her sorrows with a girlfriend, she finds a sympathetic, and very muscular, shoulder to cry on. Society girls aren't his type, but Blade Frederick knows he can help her. Rather than send an employee from his construction company, he decides to play Mr. Toolbelt himself. His visits to the house don't escape the neighbor's notice. It isn't that she believes Cassidy could be attracted to a blue-collar worker, but her future daughter-in-law must be above reproach.

This is a fast fun book to read and put yourself in the heroine's shoes, as she figures out what she really wants. Could there be any doubt?

This is an entertaining, smooth read, full of good characters, great romance, and hot sensuality.

"A Most Wanted Man" is a good story, with charming characters and a decent little "mystery." The heroine, Leanne, seems almost too good to be true, and the romance was more one of those "meant to be" sort of things than a well-developed relationship. But I appreciated the good writing and appealing characters, and the romance was very sweet (especially with the happily ever after ending).

I thought "Love Sessions" the best of the bunch. Stories where the hero and heroine know one another but are forced to reevaluate themselves and their relationship always appeal to me a lot, and Devine handles the fears of the heroine very well. Both of the characters were well-developed and very charming, and Hunter is a man any woman would want! Devine's writing style was a little out of the ordinary, but still very easy to follow, and if anything the oddity only enhanced the story.

"Promise Me Pleasure" was probably the weakest story, although I began to like it more as it went on. This is a personal preference, but "immediate hot attraction between two incredibly attractive people" stories don't appeal to me as much, especially when they involve international playboys. And the relationship seemed to be initially based too much on sex. That said, Mason does a good job of developing that relationship, and the fantasy of being "romanced" by the world's sexiest man will be enough to pull in many readers. The writing was good, and the characters attractive.

All in all, this is a good summer read. Enjoy!

"A Most Wanted Man" by Marilyn Campbell - Leanne Shepard needs some repair work done on her newly inherited home in Key West. When she hires an elderly handyman named Zachary Rush to help fix the place up, she has no idea he's really a gorgeous, thirty-three year old fugitive in disguise...

"Love Sessions" by Thea Devine - Leslie Gordon tells herself that the only reason she's bidding on Hunter Devlin at the charity bachelor auction is because a date with a celebrity like Hunter will make a great article for the magazine she writes for. When their date ends up in a secluded ski resort in St. Moritz, she isn't so sure of her motives any longer...

"Promise Me Pleasure" by Connie Mason - Stood up at the altar, Cara Brooks decides to take her scheduled honeymoon cruise anyway. She soon discovers that getting ditched was to be the best thing that ever happened to her...

This is an entertaining anthology to read on a rainy day or while lying on the beach soaking up the sun. Nothing heavy or complicated. Just a light, enjoyable read.

Thrown Away is a surreal story about a small group of southern California apartment dwellers whose lives are strangely intertwined. The author has developed each character in such a manner as to make the reader "feel" each characters' sensitivity. Thrown Away is somewhat "dark," yet the reader is compelled to continue reading as there is a definite thread of hopefulness within each characters' nature. Thrown Away causes the reader to reflect upon his/her own beliefs of racial prejudice, human nature, and morality, and grow together with the characters by the story's end.

Thrown Away is a sensitive portrayal of real-life experiences in the world today. underlying racial bias is explored from the standpoints of several characters' points-of-view, and is realistically explored. Morality issues based upon a common, yet sad real-world situation are delicately addressed. Although the book may be somewhat moribund on the outset, the careful construction of each character and his/her viewpoints as well as growth make the final outcome one of great hope. If you enjoy stories based on reality, this one is for you!

This is a one-of-a-kind narrative about the great feats of an australian crew on the air war over europe. Even if you aren't an aviation buff, you'll enjoy it.

I couldn't believe it! Everyday I could just learn one thing to burn off the fat! it made start to feel great and look it too!

Incredibly handy for those times when you decide on Saturday that you want to do "something different" this weekend, but have not a clue what are your options. Divided into activities appropriate for each season, the book suggests a wide range of trips around the area, from historic exploring to art appreciation to communing with nature. I had an old version of this book that I lent out and lost, and I loved it so much I'm buying another copy!

Although not approaching the genius of Stephens' sonnet sequence on Ledbetter Beach or his narrative "White River Poems", this is still a classic Stephens primer. His insistence on attention to detail will draw the reader in and keep her there.
I had the privilege of studying with Stephens in Santa Barbara, and his wit and intelligene constantly amazed me. These are evident in the poems.
If you are seeking a fresh voice from the American West, please pick up this book. And if you find a copy of "White River Poems," do yourself an enormous favor and buy it immediately!

Now that we have learned about the failure of Communism, you might think that a book about early Communist China is not worth reading. Well, I read the German version of this book, and I read it about ten times (I never got my hand on an Enlish version, and I am still hoping for one).

I never quite understood Joshua Horn's affiliation to Communism, for me he is deeply rooted in Christianity. What he writes about is the responsibility of the surgeon not only to his patients, but to society.

Horn describes deseases as not only individually grounded 'heaven's revenge for your sins', but also names the political reasons for deseases.

Whatever our attitude towards Communist China may be, this book should give us (and especially our docs) some inspiration how to handle health care in the so-called third world. Perhaps even the first world's got something to learn.

I thought this was a pretty good book. The fight between Tom and Elizabeth shoots up to its max when Tom hears that Elizabeth is leaving SVU to go to Denver with her boyfriend, Scott. It seems that everything is going to work out with them when Jessica impersonates Liz and makes out with Tom. The only problem is that Elizabeth catches them kissing and runs away from the goodbye party Jessica made for her, no longer debating whether or not to leave SVU, but intent on leaving. There's some fighting between Elizabeth and Jessica and then they make up, and then they start fighting again. It's like a never-ending cycle...

The best thing about "Carried Away," is the research Bowlby has done on marketers' changing models of shoppers' consciousness. She deftly shows that these models are empty of any true psychological insight, but instead entirely bound up with the culture and the time and the economic circumstances in which the models were devised. The worst thing is that she spends too much time researching British marketing publications from the 50s and 60s. The US has always been the hot molten center of marketing and retail trends -- a fact which Bowlby readily acknowledges throughout most of the book -- thus the inclusion textual readings from old British marketing journals seems to have everything to do with Bowlby being a professor in England and her original publisher being British, and nothing to do with whether this information is really appropriate.

But this is a relatively minor annyonance in what is really quite a witty, interesting look at the rise of the supermarket and the concomitant creation of new packaging, new advertising, new models of the shopper consciousness. Bowlby is at her best here, giving us an historical perspective of shoppers (mostly women in the early days of supermarket shopping) who,depending on the theorist, are believed to be extremely suggestible given certain conditions, or extremely rational no matter what the conditions. For instance, in the 50s, that era of mass outputs and mass consumption and McCarthyism, some social critics like Vance Parkard posited that advertisers were "hidden persuaders" using sophisticated brainwashing techniques to sell weak-minded women things they did not really need. But in the 60s and 70s, the model of shopper consciousness shifted. Suddenly, the shopper -- still nearly always seen as a woman -- was in charge, "with it," "sophisticated." The rise of the "power brand" in the 80s -- a time during which the appeals of certain brands were apparently so overwhelming that even the sophisticated 70s shopper succumbed -- swung the pendulum back to the weak-minded model. Bowlby neatly lampoons the variations these psycological models have gone through since the rise of the supermarket, but notes that ultimately, this bipolar model is still intact.

I particularly recommend "Carried Away" to marketers, especially young marketers who have never seen the vacillation in the models of shopper consciousness. Take it to the next marketer's conference you attend. It's the perfect antidote to those enlessly dull days spent listening to hour after hour of case studies in which consumers are uniformly described as "sophisticated," or "savvy." Bowlby's light touch and eye for the absurd will help you keep all the tepid, instrumetally tainted "shopper psychology" in perspective.