Wandering Thoughts...my K-World

Monday, October 18, 2010

my bookshelf..

I got lots of romance novels from my favorite romance writer Janet Dailey.

Some of her books in my bookshelf are:

1. All her "Americana Collections" from 52 states of the USA (Harlequin Collections)
2. No quarter Asked (my favorite and her debut novel)
3. This Calder Sky
4. Rivals
5. Masquerade
6. Green Calder Grass
7. The Heiress
8. The Glory Game
9. Aspen Gold
10.Tangled Vines
11.Stands A Calder Man


These are only some of my recent collections.



Category:Books
Genre:Literature & Fiction
Author:Nicholas Sparks
Seventeen year old Veronica "Ronnie" Miller's life was turned upside-down when her parents divorced and her father moved from New York City to Wilmington, North Carolina. Three years later, she remains angry and alientated from her parents, especially her father...until her mother decides it would be in everyone's best interest if she spent the summer in Wilmington with him. Ronnie's father, a former concert pianist and teacher, is living a quiet life in the beach town, immersed in creating a work of art that will become the centerpiece of a local church.

The tale that unfolds is an unforgettable story of love on many levels--first love, love between parents and children -- that demonstrates, as only a Nicholas Sparks novel can, the many ways that love can break our hearts...and heal them.


my thoughts:

it was a story that made my tears flow, not because it was a sad story, which in a way it was, but because it tells about the relationship between father and daughter, and the (lost) times spent apart, of forgiving each other, of making the most out of little time they have, of (ronnie, the daughter) choosing to stay behind to be together for the last time...the conversations between them... of a father's love to his children..these make this story wonderful. as a reader, i find myself contemplating about life, family, and time. this book makes me humble as a human being, makes me realize how fortunate i am now, enjoying the presence of my family.

on a lighter note, this was also a story about falling in love for the first time and a story about friendship. as a whole, i would say that it was a great book.


Category:Books
Genre:Romance
Author:Nicholas Sparks
Where does a story truly begin? In life, there are seldom clear-cut beginnings, those moments when we can, in looking back, say that everything started. I'm not sure why I feel compelled to tell my story in the first place. What can be achieved by unearthing the past? But I know I must try to tell it, if for no other reason than to finally put this all behind me. This is, above all, a love story, and like so many love stories, it is rooted in tragedy. At the same time, it is also a story of forgiveness. And it is my story as well. I, too, played a role in all that happened -From A BEND IN THE ROAD Miles Ryan's life seemed to end the day his wife was killed in a hit-and-run accident two years ago. As deputy sheriff of New Bern, North Carolina, he not only grieves for her and worries about their young son Jonah but longs to bring the unknown driver to justice. Then Miles meets Sarah Andrews, Jonah's second-grade teacher. A young woman recovering from a difficult divorce, Sarah moved to New Bern hoping to start over. Tentatively, Miles and Sarah reach out to each other....soon they are falling in love. But what neither realizes is that they are also bound together by a shocking secret, one that will force them to reexamine everything they believe inincluding their love.


my thoughts:

A Bend in the Road is a story that has a light approach..easy to read, but as you go down the pages..little by little, it gets a bit complicated..not the words but the real story was unfolding. It was about love, finding love, trying for a second chance at happiness. Miles(the widower) and Sarah(came out from a bad marriage) were perfect for each other. But the circumstances that will envelop them will test their newfound love..if it is worth saving, or if it would be better to let it go.

I find the story almost true to life. Accidents happen everyday, whether it was done out of revenge, or simply an innocent accident that no one wants to happen. This story tells about a person's struggles living with a secret no one knew, and trying to keep it in, trying to live a normal life...until finally it was out in the open. As a reader, I feel sorry for this person, I feel the emotions, how sorry this person was of the crime he unknowingly committed.

Reaching the last pages, I was not disappointed by the turn of events..and those last pages were powerful, full of intense emotions. I just hoped that there were at least 2 more chapters. I felt that the ending was cut short, hanging.

But it was good. A beautiful story. A story that lingers after you close the book. It kept you thinking, still.



Category:Books
Genre:Literature & Fiction
Author:Stephenie Meyer
The author of the Twilight series of # 1 bestsellers delivers her brilliant first novel for adults: a gripping story of love and betrayal in a future with the fate of humanity at stake.

Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away. The earth has been invaded by a species that take over the minds of their human hosts while leaving their bodies intact, and most of humanity has succumbed.

Wanderer, the invading "soul" who has been given Melanie's body, knew about the challenges of living inside a human: the overwhelming emotions, the too vivid memories. But there was one difficulty Wanderer didn't expect: the former tenant of her body refusing to relinquish possession of her mind.

Melanie fills Wanderer's thoughts with visions of the man Melanie loves-Jared, a human who still lives in hiding. Unable to separate herself from her body's desires, Wanderer yearns for a man she's never met. As outside forces make Wanderer and Melanie unwilling allies, they set off to search for the man they both love.

Featuring what may be the first love triangle involving only two bodies, THE HOST is a riveting and unforgettable novel that will bring a vast new readership to one of the most compelling writers of our time.

my thoughts:

this one took me really a while to finish reading it. the first chapter was like a maze to me...like i was studying science and i don't understand where it will lead me so i had to go back again or back read to keep my mind on track.

but when finally understood the story, the characters, i began to enjoy it. i like wanderer, the soul who invaded melanie's body. i like her thoughts, her feelings, her pain, her love, her sometimes confused mind. it was like reading a story about twin sister but in one body.

the love triangle was ok, but as i read wanderer's thoughts, i was thinking, maybe the author should have let her and jared explore that feelings. in jareds point of view, there was little information if he felt the same way towards wanda..what is distinct was his feelings for melanie.

anyway, it is still a beautiful story, but unlike Twilight, the love story was not that powerful.


Category:Books
Genre:Mystery & Thrillers
Author:John Grisham
Before The Firm and The Pelican Brief made him a superstar, John Grisham wrote this riveting story of retribution and justice -- at last it's available in a Doubleday hardcover edition. In this searing courtroom drama, best-selling author John Grisham probes the savage depths of racial violence...as he delivers a compelling tale of uncertain justice in a small southern town...Clanton, Mississippi.

The life of a ten-year-old girl is shattered by two drunken and remorseless young man. The mostly white town reacts with shock and horror at the inhuman crime. Until her black father acquires an assault rifle -- and takes justice into his own outraged hands.

For ten days, as burning crosses and the crack of sniper fire spread through the streets of Clanton, the nation sits spellbound as young defense attorney Jake Brigance struggles to save his client's life...and then his own...

my thoughts:

the story was about racial discrimination. how cruel it felt to be discriminated..to see your daughter brutalized by two soulless white men. it was about a father's revenge to seek justice. a story of triumph and overcoming obstacles to find the truth.
a beautiful drama...


Category:Books
Genre:Literature & Fiction
Author:Danielle Steel
It was the maiden voyage of the Titanic, the greatest ship ever built, and in one fatal, unforgettable night, the sea shattered the lives and future of an extraordinary family, the Winfields. Edwina Winfield, retuming from her engagement trip to England with her fiancé and her family, instantly becomes a woman mourning the death of her parents and the man she loved. She retums to San Francisco with her five younger siblings and takes responsibilities at the family newspaper and at home that are overwhelming and unexpected. Edwina is intent on keeping the family together and Phillip, the oldest boy, tries to help before going on the Harvard and the Great War. But madcap George, the source of laughter in the family, is drawn to Hollywood, and his sister Alexis eventually follows him, courting both excitement and disaster in the film world. For twelve years Edwina carefully avoids any romantic involvements, but as each child sets off on his or her own—to Hollywood, to Europe, and elsewhere—Edwina frees herself from the ghosts of those se loved and lost on the Titanic. Her life is far different than it would have been, but in some ways far more exciting than she expected.


my thoughts:

i picked this one just to have something to read from the bookstore. i knew that the story was about the Titanic...and i thought it would be just like the film i already watched, a love story. yes, it was a love story, but a story of love for a family, a selfless love, a love that sacrifices everything for her siblings...this one is a beautiful and heart wrenching story, this is a must read for everyone who has a family, who loves his family. reading this book will teach us to value our family, to remind us to be more giving, more understanding, and to stand up and take the lead when something terrible hit us. it teaches us to be a stronger person.

from the first part to the last part of the story, i was crying, but at the same time, it lightens my heart because the story is a reminder that there is no greater love than the love of a sister or a brother to her/his siblings..that of being selfless.


Category:Movies
Genre:Drama
If you thought The Notebook was a tearjerker, get out the hankies, pull up a chair, and get ready to have your heart monkey-wrenched by Nicholas Sparks's secondstar-crossed love story, Message in a Bottle. When Theresa Osborne takes a much-needed summer holiday at Cape Cod, she finds a lot more than a break from the hustle and bustle. On an early-morning jog along Cape Cod Bay, she comes across a corked bottle with a scrolled-up message inside that reads, "My Dearest Catherine, I miss you, my darling, as I always do, but today is especially hard because the ocean has been singing to me, and the song is that of our life together..." It bobbles around in the same vein for several more paragraphs and ends with "...am alone on the pier and I do not care what others think as I bow my head and cry and cry and cry. Garret." Garret may eat quiche, but no bother--before you can say "Look!I found two more letters!" Theresa is hot on his trail and determined to find this mysterious yet sensitive message-in-a-bottle man. She finds him at a sleepy North Carolina port, working on his beloved sailboat, The Happenstance.From there, a romance buds and blossoms into a colorful bouquet of emotional baggage. Theresa has problems with her past--or, more accurately, her past is a problem. She is so scarred from her "I'm a super churchgoing guy now that I've run out on my wife" ex-husband that she hasn't tried to date since her divorce some three or four years before. And who is Catherine? And what's Garret's bag, anyway? When Theresa finds out, she plunges to the depths of her soul and uncorks a whopper of a secret about herself, bringing Garret to terms with who he really is. Message in a Bottle has the earmarks of sentimental tongue-wagging at its finest and should please romantics and cynics alike--it's sure to bring romantics to their knees, while cynics will be slapping theirs in laughter.

my thoughts:

i've yet to read the novel..but the movie version was so beautiful..heart wrenching...my tears kept pouring...and i know that the book will be more beautiful and detailed

it was a story about love..how a man's love for his wife who already passed away was still hurting him, was still haunting him, of how he let things of his wife be untouched, as if time had stood still, letting her memory linger not just inside his heart but on their home as well.

a story of a new love, of a woman's heart being crushed knowing she can never replace the love left by the one who will never come back..

a story of letting go, of moving on, of saying goodbye to your first love, of asking permission even in thought, to let him love again...

a riveting story, a story that will linger even after you had turned off the television, a story that will touch one's heart, make you cry, make you long for that unfulfilled love...

a love story that could have been.



Category:Books
Genre:Literature & Fiction
Author:Nicholas Sparks
Nicholas Sparks brings back two characters from his beloved bestseller, True Believer, in this continuing saga of extraordinary love. There are few things Jeremy Marsh was sure hed never do: hed never leave New York City; never give his heart away again after barely surviving one failed marriage; and most of all, never become a parent. Now, Jeremy is living in the tiny town of Boone Creek, North Carolina, married to Lexie Darnell, the love of his life, and anticipating the birth of their daughter. But just as his life seems to be settling into a blissful pattern, an unsettling and mysterious message re-opens old wounds and sets off a chain of events that will forever change the course of this young couples marriage.

my thoughts:

it took me awhile to finish the book AT FIRST SIGHT. when i bought it, i had no idea about the story. i thought it was just another love story where i will fall in love just like the characters in the story. after reading chapter 3, i was thinking that the story was boring that's why i let it rest and did not read for a few days. this morning i decided to finish it once and for all so that i can move on to something more interesting...

and that's when the real story unfolds...

it was written mostly in Jeremy's point of view. how a man falls in love, ready to start again, being impulsive in making decisions just because he fell in love. i really thought that everything's going to be alright..after all this is a love story.

but then again, i forgot that it was a nicholas sparks creation, where he is known for making unforgettable stories that tugs at the heart when you least expected.
and !!! just like that... i was caught off guard when finally i reached that page where i felt my heart squeezed for a moment. i felt tears pricking my eyes, then rolling silently as i read nonstop. it was a very emotional scene in the story and i can feel Jeremy's pain and shock!

i had watched Message in the Bottle and A Walk to Remember, and i should have had enough clues..but no, i was really not anticipating the turn of the story.

it goes to show that we must not take things for granted...because life is so short. so short it could vanish in a blink of an eye.



Category:Books
Genre:Literature & Fiction
Author:Stephenie Meyer
"Softly he brushed my cheek, then held my face between his marble hands. ''Be very still,'' he whispered, as if I wasn''t already frozen. Slowly, never moving his eyes from mine, he leaned toward me. Then abruptly, but very gently, he rested his cold cheek against the hollow at the base of my throat."

As Shakespeare knew, love burns high when thwarted by obstacles. In Twilight, an exquisite fantasy by Stephenie Meyer, readers discover a pair of lovers who are supremely star-crossed. Bella adores beautiful Edward, and he returns her love. But Edward is having a hard time controlling the blood lust she arouses in him, because--he''s a vampire. At any moment, the intensity of their passion could drive him to kill her, and he agonizes over the danger. But, Bella would rather be dead than part from Edward, so she risks her life to stay near him, and the novel burns with the erotic tension of their dangerous and necessarily chaste relationship.

Meyer has achieved quite a feat by making this scenario completely human and believable. She begins with a familiar YA premise (the new kid in school), and lulls us into thinking this will be just another realistic young adult novel. Bella has come to the small town of Forks on the gloomy Olympic Peninsula to be with her father. At school, she wonders about a group of five remarkably beautiful teens, who sit together in the cafeteria but never eat. As she grows to know, and then love, Edward, she learns their secret. They are all rescued vampires, part of a family headed by saintly Carlisle, who has inspired them to renounce human prey. For Edward''s sake they welcome Bella, but when a roving group of tracker vampires fixates on her, the family is drawn into a desperate pursuit to protect the fragile human in their midst.The precision and delicacy of Meyer''s writing lifts this wonderful novel beyond the limitations of the horror genre to a place among the best of YA fiction.(Ages 12 and up)

my thoughts:

even before i bought this book, i heard from friends how they love edward and bella..they watched the movie version. i decided to buy first the book then watch the film after, because i know from experience that book is more detailed and more interesting than movies. and i was right to read it first because i find the story to my liking, a love story, what else? i thought that i'd be scared while reading it, but no, i was mesmerized, hooked, and did not stop reading until the wee hours of the night.

i love it! the movie version? well, there were scenes not in the book, and of course, you can not execute the true feelings of the characters in the book. visually, it was ok, but it was more clear while reading it because your mind create the exact scenario of the story as how the author wrote it.

what is interesting about twilight is the forbidden love between edward and bella that transcends time.


Category:Books
Genre:Literature & Fiction
Author:Jane Austen
For over 150 years, Pride And Prejudice has remained one of the most popular novels in the English language. Jane Austen herself called this brilliant work her "own darling child." Pride And Prejudice, the story of Mrs. Bennet's attempts to marry off her five daughters is one of the best-loved and most enduring classics in English literature. Excitement fizzes through the Bennet household at Longbourn in Hertfordshire when young, eligible Mr. Charles Bingley rents the fine house nearby. He may have sisters, but he also has male friends, and one of these—the haughty, and even wealthier, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy—irks the vivacious Elizabeth Bennet, the second of the Bennet girls. She annoys him. Which is how we know they must one day marry. The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and Darcy is a splendid rendition of civilized sparring. As the characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, Jane Austen's radiantly caustic wit and keen observation sparkle.


Category:Books
Genre:Literature & Fiction
Author:Stephenie Meyer
'Bella?' Edward's soft voice came from behind me. I turned to see him spring lightly up the porch steps, his hair windblown from running. He pulled me into his arms at once, and kissed me again. His kiss frightened me. There was too much tension, too strong an edge to the way his lips crushed mine - like he was afraid we had only so much time left to us. As Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge, Bella once again finds herself surrounded by danger. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between her love for Edward and her friendship with Jacob - knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the ageless struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation approaching, Bella has one more decision to make: life or death. But which is which? Following the international bestsellers Twilight and New Moon, Eclipse is the much-anticipated third book in Stephenie Meyer's captivating saga of vampire romance.

my thoughts:

of the twilight saga series...this installment is the most beautiful story for me, where Edward and Bella were finally reunited and compromised about Bella's turning into a vampire...after marriage. this is also where both Edward's and Jacob's family joined forces to protect Bella...

i like this book because Bella chose Edward...for she can not really live without him and telling Jacob, that it was always been Edward from the start.


Us pillars of the earth.gif
The Pillars of the Doom
Us pillars of the earth.gif
The cover art of Pillars of the Earth
(US edition)
AuthorKen Follett
CountryGreat Britain
LanguageEnglish
Genre(s)Historical fiction
PublisherWilliam Morrow, NY
(US edition)
Publication date1989
Media typePrint
(
hard / paperback)
Pages976
(US paperback edition)
ISBNISBN 0451207149
(US paperback edition)
Followed byWorld Without End

The Pillars of the Earth is a historical novel by Ken Follett published in 1989 about the building of a cathedral in the fictional town of Kingsbridge, England. It is set in the middle of the 12th century, primarily during the time sometimes called the Anarchy, between the time of the sinking of the White Ship and the murder of Thomas Becket. The book traces the development of Gothic architectureout of the

preceding Romanesque architecture and the fortunes of the Kingsbridge priory against the backdrop of actual historical events of the time.

Before this novel was published, Follett was known for writing in the thriller genre. The Pillars of the Earth became his best-selling work. The book was listed at no. 33 on the BBC's Big Read, a 2003 survey with the goal of finding the "nation's best-loved book." The book was also selected for Oprah's Book Club in 2007. A sequel, entitled World Without End, was released in October 2007.

source:



my thoughts:

i am still reading this book, 900 pages long. right now, i am still stuck at chapter 2. it was a very complicated story for me, so many characters to be memorized..i kept on back reading to check which character the book was talking about. even the words are a mouthful, it was using the old English language. but i still think that this book is interesting.

hoping one of these days, i will be able to continue reading it.





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