Book Review: "The Christmas Countdown" by Holly Cassidy

It’s almost Christmas, but Callie can’t seem to find the spirit this year. Even though it’s been seven months since Oliver, her childhood sweetheart and longtime boyfriend, broke up with her, she’s not feeling the holidays. And she’s certainly not going home to visit her family, given that Oliver’s family lives next door.

Callie’s sister Anita is never one to pass up the chance to meddle. She wants Callie to get her joy and sense of fun back, so she creates an Advent calendar challenge for her. Every other day, she’ll be challenged to do something out of her comfort zone (and she’ll get treats on the alternate dates). The plan is for Callie and Anita to accomplish the challenges as a pair.

On the first day of the challenge, Callie meets Marco, a handsome chef and baker. She’s immediately charmed by him, but her heart is too heavily guarded to think of Marco as anything but a friend. Yet the more time they spend together, the more her feelings start to get muddled. And when he steps in to replace Anita as Callie’s challenge partner, sparks really start flying.

At the same time that Callie is being challenged to recapture her holiday joie de vivre, things at work are becoming more stressful. She’s been able to tolerate still working at the same company as Oliver, but a new supervisor really causes chaos, and refuses to take any responsibility for the tension.

Can Callie and Marco complete the advent calendar challenge with their holiday spirit intact? Can two people who are trying to protect themselves from getting hurt actually let love in? Will Anita stop meddling and let things be?

This was such a fun and sweet read. I loved the whole concept of the book and the terrifically warm characters. And all of the descriptions of desserts made me hungry!! Holly Cassidy is the pen name of Hannah Mary McKinnon, and now I love books written by both.

Book Review: "Evvie Drake Starts Over" by Linda Holmes

If you're looking for a book to charm you completely and worm its way into your heart, you don't have to look any further than Linda Holmes' debut novel, Evvie Drake Starts Over. Boy, did I thoroughly enjoy this one!

It's been nearly a year since her husband died in a car accident, and Evvie (like "Chevy," not "Stevie") Drake has spent most of the time holed up in her house, trying to stay out of the public eye. Her husband was a beloved physician in their small Maine town, and she is rarely in the mood to hear everyone's continued condolences and their encouragement that she seems to be holding up well.

Everyone, including her own father and her best friend, Andy, think she spends her days trying to get her grief under control. She's not interested in correcting them and letting them know the truth.

Andy's childhood best friend, Dean Tenney, was a major league baseball pitcher. He was in a few World Series championships and was well known for his pitching skill. Until one day he couldn't pitch anymore. He wasn't injured, he wasn't exhausted, he wasn't ready to be done with baseball—he just couldn't seem to throw straight no matter how hard he tried. And he tried. Everything. But after a while he got tired of the world second-guessing and ridiculing him, so he just walked away.

When Andy proposes that Dean move into the apartment at the back of Evvie's house, it sounds like a good deal for the both of them. Evvie can pick up some extra money since she hasn't been working much over the last year, and Dean can find a quiet place to reset himself, outside the glare of the media. They settle on the perfect deal: Evvie won't ask him anything about baseball, and Dean won't ask her anything about her marriage or her husband.

"The amount of time people who have just met are supposed to look directly at each other, particularly without talking, is a unit that's both very short and very precise. When you exceed it, you get suspicious, or you get threatened, or you get this flicker of accidental intimacy, like you've peeked at the person naked through a shower door."

As the two start to build a friendship, however, those rules start to go out the window. Evvie tries to understand what is keeping Dean from pitching the way he used to, and tries to determine if he really is satisfied with giving it all up. And for his part, Dean begins to realize all of the secrets and emotions that Evvie has kept bottled up for so long regarding her marriage and her relationship with her late husband.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see where their relationship might be headed, and of course, there are complications along the way. How do two people who have gotten so used to keeping their lives so private begin to trust in one another, and how do they help each other without pushing too hard? Can a relationship between two people who are just beginning to truly know themselves really succeed?

"Your head is the house you live in, so you have to do the maintenance."

No matter how predictable some of the plot of Evvie Drake Starts Over is, this book is pretty wonderful. I enjoyed these characters, flaws and all, and I found their backstories just as fascinating as the road that Holmes unfurled for them throughout the book. Both Evvie and Dean have had their share of damage and hard-knocks, and it isn't easy to realize that you can't always fight every battle on your own, nor do you have to fight every single battle.

At times the book moved a little slower than I hoped it would, but I still couldn't tear myself away. This book does deal with some serious issues, but it also has a tremendous amount of humor and hope, not to mention a few pretty steamy sex scenes. I wouldn't mind a return visit to Maine, to Evvie and Dean and Andy and Monica.

This book is the perfect solution for you if you've been reading a bunch of heavier books recently. It will make you chuckle and it may even make you tear up with happy tears, but it will definitely give you someone to root for.

Book Review: "New Dogs, Old Tricks: How to Succeed in a Second Generation Family Business" by Peter J. Postorino

Full disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!

When people hear the term "family business," they think it's an old-fashioned concept, like "mom and pop" businesses of yesteryear. But family-owned businesses exist and thrive today, across a wide number of industries. More importantly, however, they have the potential for lasting success through multiple generations—provided they don't fall into the traps that have harmed many a business.

Pete Postorino knows very well of what he writes—he and his brothers took over their father's environmental services business more than 20 years ago, and have grown it far beyond what anyone had initially envisioned. But this wasn't, and isn't, an easy journey. Keeping any service-oriented business running and thriving through the years is always challenging, and once you throw family into the equation, it increases the pressure and the potential for risk, as well as success, exponentially.

This is a really well-written book, because Postorino isn't just spouting management theories—he's citing specific examples and incidents in his 20+-years of experience, acknowledging that some truths are fairly universal, while some may be more specific to a particular situation. He's not afraid to put himself in an unflattering light from time to time, as he recounts some of his own mistakes, some of his and his family's "a-ha" moments, some of the things they wish they knew in advance. As he puts it, "this is as much a how-not-to as it is a how-to manual."

But don't discount this book if you're not involved in a family business, or not considering opening your business to your children or other family members in the future. I run an industry trade association, but still walked away with a lot of useful information—ideas I've thought about but lost in the midst of day-to-day craziness, as well as concepts that I should have thought of but they never crossed my mind. Postorino's writing style is straightforward and even a little sarcastic from time to time (which always gains points with me), and he backs a lot of his points up with some strong research. (Plus, how can you pass up a book that quotes not only A Few Good Men, but our favorite Jersey boy, Bruce Springsteen?)

If I'm interested in learning more about a subject, I want to go to an expert. And that's the case with this book: it's an enjoyable-to-read, easy-to-understand, valuable resource from someone who knows what he's talking about.