From the Review Pile (31)

From the Review Pile is a meme hosted by Stepping Out of the Page every Thursday.

The aim of this meme is to showcase books that you've received for review (or if you don't receive review books, any book that you own and really want to read/review) but haven't yet got around to reading, in order to give the book some extra publicity.

I know that a lot of you have a huge pile of books that you want to read/review, but it understandably takes a while to get around to reading them all - here you can give a book (or two!) some of the publicity that it deserves, even if you haven't read it yet!

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This week, I'm going to showcase After the Snow!

As it was snowing where I live earlier this week, I thought it'd be appropriate to feature a book with 'snow' in the title! I think this book looks great and now would be a great time to pick it up, don't you think?

After The Snow by SD Crockett

Hardback, 320 pages

Published February 2012 by Macmillan Children's Books

Dancing with someone is an act of trust. Elegant and intimate; you're close enough to kiss, close enough to feel your partner's heartbeat. But for Vanessa, dance is deadly – and she must be very careful who she trusts . . .

Vanessa Adler attends an elite ballet school – the same one her older sister, Margaret, attended before she disappeared. Vanessa feels she can never live up to her sister's shining reputation. But Vanessa, with her glorious red hair and fair skin, has a kind of power when she dances – she loses herself in the music, breathes different air, and the world around her turns to flames . . . 

Soon she attracts the attention of three men: gorgeous Zep, mysterious Josh, and the great, enigmatic choreographer Josef Zhalkovsky. When Josef asks Vanessa to dance the lead in the Firebird, she has little idea of the danger that lies ahead – and the burning forces about to be unleashed . . .

The Secret Supper Club - Guest Post

Hello everyone! 

I am so happy to let you all know that the wonderful Dana Bates has taken the time to write a guest post for my blog! The Secret Supper Club is her debut novel which will appeal to a lot of you readers, especially chick-lit fans! Here, Dana has provided an insight into writing.

"Before I even sat down in front of my computer to write The Secret Supper Club, I knew I wanted to write a story about food. I love food. I’ve always loved food – cooking it, eating it, thinking about it. So combining my two loves – writing and cooking – seemed like a natural fit. Easy, right?

Wrong. Problem #1: I not only wanted to incorporate food into my story, but I also wanted to do it in a way that felt fresh. Every idea I came up with left me feeling…well, less than excited. A chef who…? No. A bakery owner who…? Definitely not. I started one story that had potential, but if I’m being honest, I was never all that excited about the idea.

Then one night, as I lay in bed, an idea popped into my head and wouldn’t go away. I was living in London at the time, away from my home in the States, and that morning I’d read an article online about a woman called “MsMarmitelover” who ran an underground supper club out of her flat. She basically turned her apartment into an unlicensed restaurant, and people from all over would pay to eat there. How cool was that?

The story of MsMarmitelover and her supper club stuck with me all day, and that night in bed, I started thinking about what it would take to run an operation like that. It would be pretty stressful, right? And, since supper clubs aren’t technically legal, what would happen if you got caught? 

The more I thought about running the supper club, the more excited I became, and then I realized, bingo: I had the premise for my book.

With Problem #1 solved, I sat down to write, and about a quarter of the way into the story, I encountered Problem #2: how much food is too much?

The thing is, even though I was passionate about food, I realized not everyone shared my intense and semi-obsessive interest in all things culinary. So I decided to pull back the reins on the food talk. No one but me would want to read about the process of frying risotto balls, right?

Wrong. The biggest criticism by one of my early readers was, “More food, please!!” Wait…other people wanted to read about food as much as I did? Really?

Hearing this was like hitting the jackpot. I dug back into my manuscript and peppered it with food descriptions: carrot cake, brisket, cinnamon buns, risotto balls. When I stopped censoring myself, the story finally came together. I let food become its own character, which is what I’d really wanted from the start. 

That, of course, introduced Problem #3: the need to take numerous writing breaks to snack on muffins and chocolate and cookies because fictional carrot cake does nothing to sate one’s appetite. For the record, I still haven’t solved that problem, and honestly? I’m not sure I ever will. "

Huge thanks to Dana for her post and I hope that you all enjoyed it.

The Secret Supper Club is out tomorrow (6th December) so please be sure to check it out!

The Secret Supper Club

The Secret Supper Club by Dana Bate

Paperback, 480 pages

Expected publication: 6th December 2012 by Canvas

My shelves: adult-fiction, chick-lit, contemporary, read, read-in-2012, realistic-fiction

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Description via Goodreads:

If twenty-six-year-old Hannah Sugarman had her way, she'd be whipping up carrot cakes and running her culinary empire. Instead, she spends her hours cooking up papers on the financial crisis. It doesn't help that no one in her life takes her passion seriously - not even her boyfriend. 

When her relationship implodes, Hannah decides to jump-start her life by hosting a secret supper club out of her landlord's flat. Her underground operation presents some problems. Running an unlicensed restaurant out of someone's home is not, technically speaking, legal. 

As the success of Hannah's supper club grows, so do the number of secrets she is forced to keep. Can Hannah keep her pop-up restaurant underground? When mysterious guests turn up for dinner, can she handle the heat? Or will she have to step out of the kitchen? A charming romantic comedy, The Secret Supper Club is a story about finding yourself, fulfilling your dreams, and falling in love along the way.

The Secret Supper Club (published as The Girls' Guide to Love and Supper Clubs in the USA) is Dana Bate's debut novel. I hadn't read any reviews of this book before I picked it up myself, but I didn't hesitate to accept it for review, the story sounded entertaining and easy to read, which it was.

This is a chick-lit book and will most probably appeal to all chick-lit lovers out there, with a good sense of realism, strong characters and a good dose of romance! From the title of this book, you can tell it's about a Secret Supper Club - something I didn't even know existed before picking this up! If you're a fan of cooking, this should certainly appeal to you. I personally don't cook, but still found the food aspect of this book to be interesting and with the growing UK popularity of cookery programmes, I'd imagine that this will be a huge hit for foodies who want to read some light fiction!

Although a Secret Supper Club and cookery is the main theme of this book, it's certainly not overwhelming - it's balanced out with other aspects of, our main character, Hannah's life, from her difficult work situation to her relationships. Overall, I thought that the book was balanced well but I must admit that I did become a little bored when Hannah's job was the main focus and because of this, I felt the book dragging quite a bit - simply because I wasn't interested in her job or the logistics surrounding it, it was rather mundane. I liked reading about the organisation of the Supper Clubs and the 'mystery' surrounding them (Who would turn up? Would all go to plan?) and I found myself wanting to rush through parts just to get to read about another Supper Club dinner!

I really liked Hannah and reading about her friendships and relationships. Hannah felt like such a genuine person, so real and easy to connect to. I wasn't expecting so many smiles from this book, but her attitude made me laugh quite a few times - she really felt like an awesome person to 'know'. The highlight of this book for me was reading about her relationships with Joshua and Blake, but Blake in particular as we discovered how opposed he is to Supper Clubs! As Hannah felt so real, it wasn't difficult to sympathise with her, worry with her and be happy with her too. The other characters we are introduced to are also very well developed and tangible.

I thought that the idea of this book was a good one and though sometimes a little silly (in a good way!) at times, it did seem realistic for the most part. Hannah really made this book a hit for me and her strange situations made me smile. I enjoyed reading about Hannah and her relationships most of all. If you're a bit of a 'foodie', I think you'd enjoy this even more than I did - there is even bonus material including recipes from the book! If you just like watching the odd cookery programme, I'm sure you'll enjoy this too. For a reasonably quick and easy read, this is recommended. 

Come back to Stepping Out of the Page on 5th December for an exclusive guest post from the author of this book, Dana Bate!

Stacking the Shelves and Showcase Sunday (30)

Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews. Showcase Sunday is hosted by Books, Biscuits and Tea.

These memes are a replacement of The Story Siren's In My Mailbox.

Stacking the Shelves and Showcase Sunday make a place to showcase your new books,

whether you obtained them through the post or otherwise.

I received two books for review this week!

Geek Girl looks like it's going to be awesome, so I've got really high hopes for it - I just love the title! I also received a copy of Fuse, the second book in the Pure Trilogy - I just have to get around to reading the first now!

I hope you've all had a great week!