Review: Miracle on 5th Avenue

Miracle on 5th Avenue is the third and final book in Sarah Morgan's From Manhattan with Love series. I wrote about the first two books (Sleepless in Manhattan and Sunset in Central Park) earlier this year. OK, maybe "wrote" isn't strong enough..."gushed" might be more accurate. I just adored this series and was both sad and happy to finally read the last story.

Here's the synopsis:

It will take a Christmas miracle for two very different souls to find each other in this perfectly festive fairy tale of New York!Hopeless romantic Eva Jordan loves everything about Christmas. She might be spending the holidays alone this year, but when she's given an opportunity to house-sit a spectacular penthouse on Fifth Avenue, she leaps at the chance. What better place to celebrate than in snow-kissed Manhattan? What she didn't expect was to find the penthouse still occupied by its gorgeous—and mysterious—owner.
Bestselling crime writer Lucas Blade is having the nightmare before Christmas. With a deadline and the anniversary of his wife's death looming, he's isolated himself in his penthouse with only his grief for company. He wants no interruptions, no decorations and he certainly doesn't appreciate being distracted by his beautiful, bubbly new housekeeper. But when the blizzard of the century leaves Eva snowbound in his apartment, Lucas starts to open up to the magic she brings…This Christmas, is Lucas finally ready to trust that happily-ever-afters do exist?

I knew even before I read the synopsis of this book that Eva was going to be paired with Lucas, who also happens to be one of Eva's best friend's favourite authors. I could sense how Morgan was setting it up in the first two books but I was looking forward to seeing how she was going to have the pair actually meet. And seeing how on earth they'd get along. Eva is all sunshine and sweetness and Lucas is a crime writer who tends to see the worst in the world. Talk about opposites attract!

And attract they did! It's almost always amusing to be the reader and know that both the heroine and the hero are attracted to each other but aren't doing a damn thing about it and/or trying to deny their attraction. Why they tried to resist it, I'll never know but I did love reading as the attraction between Eva and Lucas grew. And grew...and grew...until they finally gave in.

I'll admit I was very worried about Eva because she's such a sweet character. But don't confuse sweet with boring or helpless. She is a strong female who just loves love and tries to be positive as much as possible. I did like that Morgan allowed Eva to finally grieve some more for her grandmother without feeling so guilty about it. I was worried because I knew there would come a time in the book where Lucas would inevitably hurt her (I'm no newbie to romances...I know the formula and don't mind it as long as the author makes me want to keep reading. And Morgan always makes me want to keep reading) and I didn't want to see her hurt. Of course, I also knew I'd get the Happily Ever After I wanted :)

I had put off reading the third book in the series for a couple of reasons. I like to give myself a break between books when I know the main characters are going to change. I fall in love with them and I want to keep reading about them and I know if I switch too soon then I won't love the next pair as much as I should. I also wanted to wait to read this until closer to Christmas because I knew it would help get me in the holiday spirit. It's not so Christmassy that you can't read it at any time of year but it has enough festive cheer to make it a fantastic read for the season. Decorations, holiday galas, New York in December, and the magic of Christmas...it just all works so well for romance novels!

I don't know how much else I can say about Miracle on 5th Avenue that I haven't already said about the first two books in Sarah Morgan's series. I loved it and didn't want it to end because I just adored spending time with Eva, Lucas, and the rest of the characters (though I found they don't make as many appearances in this book as in the others...perhaps because Lucas isn't part of their group and he's holed away trying to finish his novel). I highly recommend the From Manhattan with Love series. In fact, the first book would make a great stocking stuffer for the romance lover in your life!

*An ARC of this novel was provided by the publisher, Harlequin, in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Event Recap: BookBuzz Toronto

Just over a week ago I was involved in an absolutely fabulous book event, BookBuzz Toronto. It’s taken me awhile to write this recap, in part, because I’m still in awe that it happened. (The other part is that I’ve been traveling all over the province and have also been hit with a cold.)

The sign that greeted us outside the bar.

BookBuzz started when authors Samantha Stroh Bailey, Meredith Schorr, and Francine LaSala decided to hold an event in New York City this past May during the week of Book Expo America (BEA). It was a hit so Sam, Lydia Laceby (author and fellow blogger), and I decided to bring the event north of the border. BookBuzz Toronto was born!

For the past few months, Sam, Lydia, and I were planning this event and trying to make it the best possible event it could be. This planning resulted in hundreds of emails and lots of little inside jokes. We picked venue pretty early on and settled on The Crest, a great bar on St. Clair West. I actually had to trust Sam and Lydia on this decision as I wasn’t able to get into the city to see the bar before the night of the event. They did a great job in securing this place because I think the décor and feel of the bar was perfect for what we were going for.

Chandeliers and brick. Love.

The fun part of planning this event was reaching out to authors to see who would want to attend. We were really lucky that the majority of the authors we talked to were so excited and were more than willing to take part. Yay! We had ten authors to promote and we were thrilled. The authors involved in BookBuzz Toronto were:

Cat Lavoie

Chantel Guertin

Francine LaSala

Heather Wardell

Kate Hilton

Lydia Laceby

Meredith Schorr

Romi Moondi

Samantha Stroh Bailey

Samantha March

Back, from left: Lydia, me, Heather, Chantel
Front, from left: Romi, Meredith, Cat, Sam, Samantha, Kate

The majority of the authors were coming from the GTA but we had some traveling large distances to come to our event. (Even I live well out of the Toronto area.) Cat came from Montreal, Meredith from New York City, and Samantha March from Iowa. Francine is also from New York but a last minute family crisis kept her at home (we missed you, Francine!).

Being able to meet these authors was like a dream come true for me as these ladies have written some of my favourite books. If you’re reading this you’re probably a huge book lover like me so you can understand what it’s like to be able to meet some of your favourite authors at one event. Amazing. I have to admit that I’m quite proud of myself for being involved in an event that brought all of these authors together for others to enjoy as well (though there’s no way I could have done it without Sam and Lydia!).

From left: Cat, Meredith, Samantha, Chantel, Me, Heather

Since I have an events background, I prepared myself for something to go wrong (Murphy’s Law!) but we were so lucky that the little snags were incredibly minor. The biggest thing that affected me was trying to get to the venue on time. Lots of traveling that day (I had picked up Samantha at the Buffalo airport) and brutal traffic had us getting to the venue with only about a half hour to spare. But, like I said, there were only minor issues and we all sighed with relief at the end of the night when we realized nothing major went wrong and everyone seemed to have a great time. Woo!

I wanted to incorporate a bit of a formal element to the mix and mingle event and have all the authors be introduced and explain what the night was all about. That translated into me, the only non-author involved, having to do the speech and pronounce everyone’s names. I don’t do public speaking if I can help it but I squared my shoulders, drank a delicious Pink Stiletto (or two) and braved the microphone. I think it went well but I was definitely able to breathe a little easier after that part was over!

Our signature drink, the Pink Stiletto. Yum.

My other job was to help Kathryn, my fellow blogger at Novel Escapes, with the book sale table. I am so incredibly grateful that she was there because I found myself away from the table more often than not. She was a superstar! We were both lucky that we had read the majority of the books for sale and we could confidently recommend them to anyone looking to purchase a book…or two, or three. They were only $10! I actually bought quite a few myself as Christmas presents for my girlfriends. I’m so glad they read! I had my favourite titles, of course, but I don’t think anyone could go wrong with any of the books we had for sale.

I want to give a shout out to our awesome sponsors. The week before the event NOW Magazine put an ad in their magazine for us and The Crest was a huge help to us as well. Their food was fabulous (from what I was told…I honestly didn’t eat much!) and I loved what they did with our Pink Stilettos (pink lemonade and vodka in a sugar rimmed champagne glass with a raspberry garnish…yum!). Huge thanks go out to our main sponsors Kobo Writing Life (they even donated a Kobo to be given away!) and Wattpad. We couldn’t have had this event without their support!

There’s so much more I can say about this event but I don’t even know where to start. Like I said, I’m still in awe that I was able to meet these ladies in person. We made the most of our time together though and a few of us went out for brunch the next day and did some wandering around the city. Well, more talking and less wandering, to be honest! I was also tasked with showing Samantha Niagara Falls (I live in St. Catharines and she’d never been to Canada before, let alone the Falls, so she stayed with me on Friday) and I loved being able to see her face as she witnessed the awesomeness that is Niagara Falls. I also have to say that I am so happy that my mom and sister made the trek to the event. They live a couple of hours north of the city and did not have to come but they did and I’m so glad. My sister was actually the one who took the majority of the pictures you see in this post!

Left: I can't believe I actually spoke at the event. Ack! :)
Right: Lindsey from Random House of Canada stopped by!

Sadly, though, the event had to come to an end, we had to say goodbye, and we had to go back to our regular lives. It’s almost harder to have a purely virtual relationship with these authors since we’ve now met in person. We’re all hopeful that we can meet up again in NYC in May during BEA and for another edition of BookBuzz (keep your fingers crossed that I get a job as I want to spend my birthday in New York!). Until then, we’ll have to settle for email and social media and for reading their fabulous books. 

Other recaps:

Just a Lil' Lost

A Hidden Life

Fresh Print Magazine
The Many Misadventures of Megpie

Book Buzz Toronto

For the past few months I've been working with authors Lydia Laceby and Samantha Stroh Bailey on planning an awesome bookish event: Book Buzz Toronto! This event will feature a number of fabulous women's fiction authors and we're SO EXCITED!

Does this sound familar? Some of you might recall that there was an NYC event this past May. It was a hit (from what I've been told...I wasn't able to attend the event. Boohoo!) and we decided we wanted to bring it to Canada!

You can find all the details on the Book Buzz Toronto site, along with bios of every attending author, but I'll give you the rundown here, too:

Thursday November 7

7-9pm

The Crest - 794 St. Clair West, Toronto

Free cocktail

Free snacks

Great book deals and the chance to get them signed!

I'm also pumped at the line up we have for this event. I never imagined that I'd ever get to meet some of these ladies!

Cat Lavoie

Chatel Guertin

Francine LaSala

Heather Wardell

Kate Hilton

Lydia Laceby

Meredith Schorr

Romi Moondi

Samantha Stroh Bailey

Samantha March

So what do you say, are you in? It's a free event, you get a free drink, and the chance to meet some amazing authors. What's not to love? RSVP to bookbuzz2013 AT gmail DOT com. Hope to see you there!

Review + Giveaway: Kissing My Old Life Au Revoir

When author Eliza Watson asked me to review her novel Kissing My Old Life Au Revoir I read the synopsis and was hooked by the first two words: event planner. After my undergrad I did a diploma in event management and have since planned a few events so I was interested to see what Samantha's life was like. The novel was enjoyable, if a little dramatic at times.

Here's the synopsis:

Event planner Samantha Hunter is prepared for a few challenges when escorting a group of good ole boy beer distributors to Paris, the city of haute cuisine and fine wines. However, she doesn’t foresee being passed up for a promotion because she is too professional and doesn’t knock back beers with her clients.
Her focus soon switches from landing the well-deserved promotion to finding her free-spirited sister, who lives in Paris and has disappeared, leaving behind family secrets to be uncovered. A sexy puppeteer helps Samantha search for clues to her sister’s whereabouts and teaches her to embrace her inner child. And a funeral-crashing psychic demonstrates the importance of living life to the fullest. It takes Samantha’s life spiraling out of control for her to finally get a life.

I know I was looking forward to reading this one because of the event planning aspect but I was happy that this didn't take centre stage. Samantha's not really working for the good majority of the book but it is clear from her personality that she's a planner. She's totally an A-type personality, which is great for event planners (and probably why I'm not actually working in events, haha), and is so focused on her work that she hasn't had a life. I don't think there are enough novels about planners and that's a bit of a shame. Yes, there are many wedding planner books but there are other options. I think this is an untapped source because, like weddings, event planning provides lots of built in drama. One of the first things I learned in school was that something always goes wrong! :)

There were a few things in the book that I felt could have been cut out. There was one unnecessary bit of drama around a situation that is not mentioned in the synopsis and I won't mention it either because it's a surprise in the book. (Confused yet?) Let's just say it involves two men and not knowing how they're involved in things. Moving on! There was also this crazy painter that was obsessed with getting paintings back from Libby and Samantha had to deal with him. I have no idea what the point of this was.

I liked that there was some intrigue in this novel. I think that, in part, helped the novel move along and made sure the story didn't stall or get boring. The family secrets that are uncovered were really interesting and it added more depth to the overall story. I'm really happy with how things turned out, family wise especially, for Samantha and Libby. I also liked that I didn't quite know how the story would end. I had some guesses but I really couldn't predict exactly what would happen.

Overall, Kissing My Old Life Au Revoir by Eliza Watson was enjoyable but there was sometimes too much excess to work through that the main story got a little lost. I'd still recommend this one to women's fiction lovers who are looking for a little something different.

Now, time for the info about the giveaway the title of this post references! Eliza has been kind enough to offer an autographed print copy of her book to a US/Canada winner or an ebook gifted from Amazon, B & N or Smashwords if the winner is international. Entry will be super duper easy. Just leave a comment and let me know why you'd want to travel to Paris (or your dream destination if Paris isn't your cup of tea) or what made you want to travel to Paris (if you're one of those lucky people who have visited). Make sure you leave an email address so I can contact you if you're the winner. Since this review is part of a tour, I'll have the contest open until the last day - August 23rd. You'll have until midnight EST to enter. I've had some people have issues with comments before so if you're unable to comment, tweet me @KaleyS23 or send me an email books.etc.blogger AT gmail DOT com. Good luck!

*I received a copy of this novel from the author in exchange for an honest review.*

Congrats to Steph (from Steph the Bookworm) for winning the contest! Thanks to those you entered :)