Punch by the cupful makes a comeback on the party scene. That’s what I am hoping for. How great would it be to throw a fun dress-up party with actual punch!!! Maybe even Champagne punch. I would be channeling my parents on any Saturday night during the holidays during the 1970’s!!!! My friend Sue Sartor (you know how I LOVE her dresses), recommended this week’s book club choice, Parties Around A Punch Bowl by Kimberly Whitman. Here’s the 411:
Consummate hostess Kimberly Whitman introduces the lively, rich history of the punch bowl, from India to England & Europe to the American South and beyond. She creates a dozen festive party ideas organized around a punch bowl: an Easter Egg Hunt, a classic Blue and White Party, a Bar Cart Party, a Fall Gathering, a Holiday Breakfast Coffee, and more. Recipes for both alcoholic and nonalcoholic punches, plus recipes for what to serve with it are the center of each celebration. Kimberly’s expert hostess tips are scattered throughout. A variety of punch bowls, bases, and glasses featured in the book will send readers out shopping for their own special style.
Kimberly Whitman is a lifestyle and entertaining expert. She has published seven books on entertaining, done countless television appearances, and a daily radio segment on Dallas’s number one morning show. She is an editor-at-large for Southern Living magazine. Kimberly and calligraphy artist Jen O’Neal have created the Halo Home line of monogrammable linens and popular emoji cocktail napkins, which are found in over 85 stores nationwide.– Amazon.com
For more information or to purchase this book, click HERE.
I got an alert today that a very interesting “bombshell” book is available today for pre-order….Finding Freedom, Harry and Megan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family is going to be released later in the summer. The Couple has spilled some royal secrets to the authors, in this up close tell-all book. Here is the story:
When news of the budding romance between a beloved English prince and an American actress broke, it captured the world’s attention and sparked an international media frenzy. But while the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have continued to make headlines—from their engagement, wedding, and birth of their son Archie to their unprecedented decision to step back from their royal lives—few know the true story of Harry and Meghan.
For the very first time, Finding Freedom goes beyond the headlines to reveal unknown details of Harry and Meghan’s life together, dispelling the many rumors and misconceptions that plague the couple on both sides of the pond. As members of the select group of reporters that cover the British Royal Family and their engagements, Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand have witnessed the young couple’s lives as few outsiders can.
With unique access and written with the participation of those closest to the couple, Finding Freedom is an honest, up-close, and disarming portrait of a confident, influential, and forward-thinking couple who are unafraid to break with tradition, determined to create a new path away from the spotlight, and dedicated to building a humanitarian legacy that will make a profound difference in the world. -Amazon.com
For more information or to pre-order this book, click HERE.
If there is one thing that is needed during quarantine, it’s a cocktail. This week’s book choice, Ladies Who Drink!! is for all my sweet ladies who are working so hard, WFH, cooking, cleaning, home-schooling, grooming, training and so much more. We made it to week 7. Though I am still in shock honestly as to how we exactly got here and still taking it day by day. I think this book is exactly what is needed to help us get through this home stretch and into the “Re-Opening”! Here’s the summary:
A perfect housewarming gift or entertaining guide for any gathering of your gal pals, this is a gloriously glamorous excursion into the world of cocktails.
Ladies Who Drink is a one-of-a-kind cocktail book that brings together classic and modern drink recipes, small-bite pairings, entertaining ideas, and to-die-for original fashions presented in a gorgeous array of scenes by illustrator Anne Keenan Higgins. Broken down by occasions like game day, book club, barbeque, or Sunday brunch, as well as moods like April in Paris, seaside sunset, or Mardi Gras, Ladies Who Drink is a dazzling entertaining guide filled with ideas for all your fun-filled occasions. – Amazon.com
For more information or to purchase this book, click HERE.
Let’s focus on some happy things…Do One Thing Every Day That Makes You Happy: A Journal was recommended to me and I love it!!! Try it and add a little sunshine to your life:
Each day presents an opportunity to find delight, whether in your surroundings, your work, your relationships, your insights, or your actions. This journal will guide you to look inside and outside yourself to discover and appreciate what makes you happiest.
With prompts and exercises, the wise words of writers, musicians, philosophers, and leaders will help you reflect on what fills you with joy. You’ll measure your happiness at the outset and along the way; after a year’s worth of delight, your smile will be bigger than ever. – Amazon.com
For more information or to purchase this book, click HERE
Everyone is readying so much more during these long days at home..A friend told me that her son read one of the Monday book club books in ONE DAY!!! Woah…I need to up my game…Here are a bunch of books that you can get for your Kindle for free…they are all award-winning titles and sound really really good. If you are spending a lot of time on your computer these days, like me, try these Blue Light Blocking Glasses. They should help with headaches and eye fatigue. I just ordered mine so I can get reading!!
When Justin walks out on Alice on their honeymoon, with no explanation apart from a cryptic note, Alice is left alone and bewildered, her life in pieces.
Then she meets Evelyn, a visitor to the gallery where she works. It’s a seemingly chance encounter, but Alice gradually learns that Evelyn has motives, and a heartbreaking story, of her own. And that story has haunting parallels with Alice’s life.
As Alice delves into the mystery of why Justin left her, the questions are obvious. But the answers may lie in the most unlikely of places…
Impossible choices are made, decisions that leave the survivors tormented with grief and regret. Unable to let go, Finn keeps vigil as they struggle to reclaim their shattered lives. Jack, her father, who seeks vengeance against the one person he can blame other than himself; her best friend, Mo, who bravely searches for the truth as the story of their survival is rewritten; her sister Chloe, who knows Finn lingers and yearns to join her; and her mother, Ann, who saved them all but is haunted by her decisions. Finn needs to move on, but how can she with her family still in pieces?
Heartrending yet ultimately redemptive, In an Instant is a story about the power of love, the meaning of family, and carrying on…even when it seems impossible.
Kate’s return flips her family’s world upside down—her husband is remarried, and her daughter barely remembers her. Kate herself doesn’t look or act like she did before.
While the family tries to help Kate reintegrate into society, they discover truths they’ve been hiding from each other about their own relationships. But they aren’t the only ones with secrets. As the family unravels what happened to Kate, a series of shocking revelations shows that Kate’s return is more sinister than any of them could have imagined.
So, when wealthy couple James and Rosemary come to choose a child to adopt, Angela is desperate to escape.
Years later, Angela starts to search for her birth mother, Evelyn, hoping to heal the scars of her childhood. But strange and sinister events start to unfold. And Evelyn fears she may not survive her daughter’s return.
Then Charlie vanishes without a trace, and all that seemed safe is shattered by a tragedy that is incomprehensible—except to Liz.
It took one fleeting moment for her to change the lives of everyone she loves—a heartrending accident that can’t be undone. Neither can the second-worst mistake of her life: concealing it. As two marriages crack and buckle in grief and fear, Liz retreats into her own dark place of guilt, escalating paranoia—and betrayals even she can’t imagine. Because there’s another good neighbor who has his own secrets, his own pain, and his own reasons for watching Liz’s every move.
And only he knows that the mystery of the missing boy on the Deschutes River is far from over.
The story she pieces together is confusing and unsettling, and appears to have been patched over with lies. But who can tell her the truth? With her father sinking into Alzheimer’s and her brother reluctant to help, it seems Cara will never find the answers to her questions. One thing is clear, though: someone knows more than they’re letting on.
Torn between loyalty to her family and dread of what she might find, Cara digs into the early years of her parents’ troubled marriage, hunting down long-lost relatives who might help unravel the mystery. But the picture that begins to emerge is not at all the one she’d expected—because as she soon discovers, lies have a habit of multiplying . . .
From behind a computer screen, Autumn watches Grace’s every memory, from birthdays to holidays to bedtime snuggles. But what starts as an innocent fascination soon spirals into an addictive obsession that comes to a screeching halt the day the McMullen family closes their Instaface account without so much as a warning.
Frantic and desperate to reconnect with her daughter, Autumn applies for a nanny position with the McMullens, manipulating herself into Grace’s life under false pretenses. And it’s only then that Autumn discovers pictures lie, the perfect family doesn’t exist, and beautiful people? They have the ugliest secrets.
My good friend and fellow blogger, Stacy of Stacy Knows introduced me to the Bedside Reading Bookshelf. Jane Ubell-Meyer, founder of Bedside Reading is opening up her library for you during this quarantine time. Bedside Reading places books in 5-star hotels and while the travel world has come to a halt, she’s now passing along her bestsellers and classics! You basically choose which genres you are interested in….. And she’s ready to ship ASAP! The books are free all you pay is the shipping. Here’s the link to get your books: https://www.bedsidereading.com/bookshelf.html
