#BookReview: Passing Love - Jacqueline E. Luckett

Because you are to me a song,

I must not sing you over long.

Because you are to me a prayer,

I cannot say you everywhere.

Because you are to me a rose,

You will not stay when summer goes.

- Passing Love by Langston Hughes

Ruby Mae Garrett looked out for herself and made no apologies for it.  From the moment she saw Arnett Dupree, she was a woman possessed.  Actually, she was a girl possessed, but at 16, she thought she was a woman.  So when her strict mother caught wind of Ruby Mae sneaking off with the horn player, she put an end to it.  Never one to be outdone, Ruby Mae had to have the last word and the day she left her parent's house was the last day she spoke to them.

Nicole-Marie Roxane grew up loving all things French.  Her infatuation started with a small, blue French to English dictionary she found in her parent's cedar chest.  Speaking French with her father strengthened their special bond.  One day the dictionary was gone and not another word about it or French was spoken.

Fast forward to present day, 56 year old Nicole is tired of watching life pass her by. She's wasted over half of her life on a married man who still dangles the "I'll leave my wife and marry you when the time is right" carrot in front of her.  If it wasn't for her friend insisting that she go to Paris, Nicole probably would have continued to only dream of going.  But she's finally on her way to 30 days of exploring the country that's always fascinated her.

When Nicole's explorations lead to the discovery of a picture of her father in his military uniform over fifty years ago, she has to know why the picture is there, who owned it and what their connection is to her Alzheimer suffering father.  Though her mother offers little information over the phone, she does send her enough information to set Nicole off on a fact finding mission, knowing that she may not like what finds out.

As we've seen in Searching for Tina Turner, and as she again shows us in Passing Love, Jacqueline Luckett writes books about women who we rarely see as the protagonist.  As was Lena in Searching, Nicole is a woman of a certain age.  Both women feel under-valued and -appreciated by the people in their lives and set off on journeys to rediscover their self-worth and, of course, by the end of the books, they have.

306pp
Published: January 2012

Theme: April in Paris by SarahVaughan

#BookReview: Ada's Rules: A Sexy Skinny Novel - Alice Randall

I know several people who loved this book. I've watched them gush over it and wondered, did we read the same book?  I didn't dislike the book, but I didn't love it like they did.  The biggest problem I had with it was that I couldn't decide what it wanted to be, a work of fiction or a diet guide.  I get the feeling that the author really wanted it to be both, but what if the reader only wants one or the other?

Ada Howard is a preacher's wife who has managed to pack on a few pounds over the years.  Her husband, Lucious, or Preach as he's called, says he loves her as she is, but his distance and lack of lovemaking lead her to believe otherwise.  When she receives an invite from a long ago boyfriend to her 25th college reunion, she decides to get in shape.  If Preach doesn't want her, maybe Matt Mason will.

How did Ada get out of shape to in the first place? The same way a lot of people, especially women, do.  Burdened with caring for elderly parents, raising two daughters of her own, running her own business and being a wife, Ada neglected herself.  As Ada begins her journey to her new self, she transforms not only physically, but mentally and spiritually.  And because she has a spirit of giving, she can't keep the things she learns to herself.  Her daughters, the families at her daycare center and everyone around her benefits from the changes she's making.  The only person that doesn't seem to realize how good the changes are is her husband.

While I can appreciate the author wanting to share her guide to weight loss with readers, I really wish she'd written this as either two separate books or the fictional part up front with tips for weight loss in the back or vice versa.

352pp
Published: April 2012

 

Theme: Let's Get Physical by Olivia Newton-John