Review: The Pirate Queen

The Pirate Queen by Patricia Hickman: Book Cover

Product Details

  • Pub. Date: August 2010
  • Publisher: The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group
  • Format: Paperback , 352pp
  • Sales Rank: 218,216
Synopsis

Treasure is found in the most unlikely places.
The envy of all her friends, wife and mother Saphora Warren is the model of southern gentility and accomplishment. She lives in a beautiful Lake Norman home, and has raised three capable adult children. Her husband is a successful plastic surgeon—and a philanderer. It is for that reason that, after hosting a garden party for Southern Living magazine, Saphora packs her bags to escape the trappings of the picturesque-but-vacant life.
Saphora’s departure is interrupted by her husband Bender’s early arrival home, and his words that change her life forever: I’m dying.
 
Against her desires, Saphora agrees to take care of Bender as he fights his illness. They relocate, at his insistance, to their coastal home in Oriental—the same house she had chosen for her private getaway. When her idyllic retreat is overrun by her grown children, grandchildren, townspeople, relatives, and a precocious neighbor child, Saphora’s escape to paradise is anything but the life she had imagined. As she gropes for evidence of God’s presence amid the turmoil, can she discover that the richest treasures come in surprising packages?

My Review:

First, let me say that this cover totally drew me in from the moment I saw it.  Now, on to the book, which I must say was not at all what I expected.   I knew that it was going to be an emotional roller coaster just from reading the back of the book.  What is more touching that a husband with cancer?

Saphora Warren seems to have it all.  Three grown children, a home that is being featured in Southern Living Magazine and a husband who is plastic surgeon.  The problem being that her husband has had relations with many of the women in the community and Saphora is done with it.  Just as she is ready to leave, her husband Bender arrives home in the middle of the day to announce that he has brain cancer.  Saphora drops her plans to leave and cares for her ailing husband at their vacation home in Oriental where they take their grandson, Eddie, along as his father cannot find childcare for him.  Bender insists that their first stop be at the beach where they meet Tobias, a young boy Eddie’s age, who they will come to find has AIDS.  There are challenges for both Bender and Tobias, as far as health goes, and finding the true meaning of existence.  There are more challenges for Saphora to find her place in all of this.

This is the touching story of the Warren family and is all about what true love really is.  It is extremely well written and while I normally would not pick up a book this heavy I am so glad that I did.  By far this is probably the best book I have read this month and most of the year.  Maybe just that is so out side of my normal reading or that it is just that emotional touching.  I would highly recommend this book with 5 stars.  Please check this book out.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by Should be Reading .

  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The Pirate Queen by Patricia Hickman: Book Cover
Page 89

He’s got his medical books all around that hospital bed.

I told the boys to try and go to sleep by eleven.

Besides, in the morning I’m taking a walk along the beach and finding me a chair where I can read my novel.

Review: Sundays at Tiffany’s

Sundays at Tiffany's by James Patterson: Book Cover

Product Details

  • Pub. Date: January 2009
  • Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
  • Format: Paperback , 355pp
  • Sales Rank: 56,661

Synopsis

The author of the #1 bestseller Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas returns with a magical story of a love that’s too perfect to be real.
AN IMAGINARY FRIEND
Jane Margaux is a lonely girl. Her mother, a powerful Broadway producer, makes time for her only once a week, for their Sunday trip to admire jewelry at Tiffany’s. Jane has only one friend: a handsome, comforting, funny man named Michael. He’s perfect. But only she can see him. Michael can’t saty forever, though. On Jane’s ninth birthday he leaves, promising her that she’ll forget him soon.
AN UNEXPECTED LOVE
Years later, in her thirties, Jane is just as alone as she was as a child. And despite her own success as a playright, she is even more trapped by her overbearing mother. Then she meets a man, a handsome, comforting, funny man. He’s perfect
AN UNFORGETTABLE TWIST
Sundays at Tiffany’s is a heartrending love story that surpasses all expectations of why these people have been brought together momentum and gripping emotional twists that have made James Patternson a bestseller all over the world, Sundays at Tiffany’s takes an altogether fresh look at the timeless and transforming power of love.

My Review:
I have to say that I was very disappointed in this book.  First, it took me a very long time to get into it.  I was a little bored from the beginning.  I knew going into it that this was going to be a pretty predictable story and it was.  To start I was drawn to Jane Margaux and relationship with her imaginary friend and her predictable boring adult life and relationship with her mother.  Once her imaginary friend Micheal reenters her life is where I felt the plot and story began to fall apart.  It felt like a rushed end to the story without much thought to what was going on.  I feel like I expected more from James Patterson.  While I am not sure that I have read any of his previous books I have heard great things about him and I just feel disappointed in this story.  I feel like he put his name on the book for publicity for the other writer.  So with that being said, I give this book 2 1/2 stars.  It would be a good read if you just wanted something to pass the time.
1/2