"The Liar" by Nora Roberts

Oh Miz Roberts.  You do it again.


Summary:  The first time Shelby fell in love, she was young.  Her whirlwind marriage to the rich and handsome stranger swept her off her feet and into a world of glitter, glamour and privilege.  Until he died in a freak boating accident that left her and their small daughter alone and unsure of how to move ahead with their lives.  But her husband's death wasn't the worst thing that happened.  As Shelby begins to recover from her husband's loss and begins looking into managing her own future (or "adulting" as I like to call it) she learns that her husband wasn't who he appeared to be, that her very marriage was a sham, and that cleaning up someone else's lies is more expensive than she could have ever dreamed.

My Thoughts:  I imagine writing Contemporary Romance is incredibly hard.  Or maybe it's just hard to write a good Contemporary Romance.  And near impossible to write a Contemporary Romance that is good and that I also like.  Unless, of course, you're Nora Roberts.  Nora (as I call her in my head.  Lord knows if I bumped into her in the street I'd call her Goddess of All Things Romance.  Or just stand there mouth agape and beet red.  But I digress.) knows how to write a strong heroine that can still fall head over heels in love---without losing an inch of herself.  In fact, that's why I enjoyed "The Liar" so much more than I expected.

I can appreciate Nora's set up for the romance between Shelby and Griff.  The first time Shelby fell in love, she was consumed by her husband's overpowering personality.  She wore her hair how he preferred, she lost touch with her friends and family, and she let him run her (and her life) until she was little more than a trophy.  And she was horribly burned because of it. Shelby lost herself and paid the price for trading herself for a man.

Shelby has to build her life, and her self, back up from scratch on her own merits.  She's smart enough to swallow her pride (and this I can admire, as I'm not sure I could do it) and move home to her family, who she knows still love her even after she cut them from her life.  What I like best about Shelby's phoenix moment is that while Shelby is brought low, she relies on her family - and herself- to rebuild her life into something of which she can be proud.

If I had to pick out one flaw in the book (and its not so much a flaw for me, but may be for others) is that I found Shelby's fall and rebirth far more compelling than the love story.  Don't get me wrong, the love story was sweet, romantic and honest....but also very familiar to the avid romance reader.

There were also some resemblances to the In the Garden trilogy that might turn some readers off.  (Not me...I hadn't yet read the trilogy so the similarities weren't apparent until after I'd read the earlier trilogy.)  The biggest similarity was between Shelby and Roz Ashby's scoundrel ex-husbands.  They were both liars, cheats, and out to get their ex-wives.  I actually had a moment where I wondered if they were the same guy.

Rating:  I'd read it again.  (And probably will.)


Also Read By This Author:  I've read almost all of Roberts' catalog, which you can find at her website.  You can check my other reviews on Robert's books by searching for Nora Roberts in the quick search on the right hand side of the page, or by clicking individual links here:  Shadow Spell   |   Dark Witch   |   Thankless in Death   |   Concealed in Death  |  The Collector  |  Blood Magick  |  Blue Dahilia

Reviewed By:  Tami 

"Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton and Me" by Pattie Boyd

There was no way I could not read "Wonderful Tonight" after working my way through "Miss O'Dell" and "Clapton."  It seems like Patti Boyd was the center of quite a few obsessions in her day and I wanted to see if I could pinpoint just what the allure was.


In good news, I think I'm finally over my own little Beatles phase.  You're welcome.

Summary:  Any time I read an autobiography I have a hard time summarizing it.  To be short and sweet (and accurate) it is the story of a person's life filtered through their own recollections and often rose-tinted glasses.  Moments are exaggerated or down played in a way that makes the subject look best...or at least not as bad as they were.

"Wonderful Tonight" tells the story of Patti's life, from her early childhood in Kenya to her tumultuous marriages to George Harrison and Eric Clapton and beyond.

My Thoughts:  I thought "Wonderful Tonight" was really interesting.  Patti Boyd had a life that seemed at moments quite charmed, at others horribly sad, and occasionally both at the same time.

Patti spent her early childhood with her three siblings, parents and rich grandparents in Kenya.  Then her father walked out on the family and her mother immediately remarried and moved the family back to England.  Patti's stepfather was weird (like...really weird) and the strained feeling at home pushed her out the door and into modeling at a young age.  It was as a model that she first started drugs via "skinny pills" and eventually met her first husband, Beatles guitarist George Harrison.  Patti traveled the world with George, was introduced to the elite of rock and roll and learned about Indian mysticism.  What started out as a happy marriage ended sadly as Patti left one bad relationship for another, this time with Guitar legend Eric Clapton.

There were parts of Patti's story that I liked.  I found her life to be really interesting.  She is fearless and isn't afraid to try new things, concepts that absolutely mystify me.  She traveled to exotic locales in her youth (and still does) and let those experiences change her outlook on life.  She mingled with rock stars and actors and didn't bat an eyelash.

However as glamorous as Patti's life was, it was also a lot more lonely and sad that I would have thought.  I felt especially sad reading about Patti's marriages.  While both relationships with her husbands seemed to start out with love, it was clear that neither George nor Eric saw her as anything other than a possession.  She lived her life for her men and didn't take care of herself.

But what was most sad, was that Patti's story seemed to end when her rock and roll lifestyle ended.  The book just glossed over her life after Eric as if it wasn't as important.  I'm not sure if that's for the reader or if it is how Patti really sees life.  I hope the former.

Rating:  An easy, quick read and a nice way to roll up my Beatles phase.

Also Read By:  N/A

Reviewed By:  Tami

"Clapton: The Autobiography" by Eric Clapton

After finishing "Miss O'Dell" I felt an overwhelming need to learn more about Eric Clapton.  Chris O'Dell painted the guitar legend as an abusive, chauvinistic asshole (sorry - there is no better word) and I wanted to hear his side of the story.  And who better to hear from than the man himself?

Summary:  Eric Clapton, guitar legend and drug addled playboy, penned his autobiography at the close of his 2007 world tour.  Spanning decades of fashion, music and copious substance abuse, Clapton holds very little back, although at times glossing over the people his addictions hurt most.

Starting from his days as a boy growing up in the working class neighborhood of Ripley, Clapton goes into great detail of his childhood - focusing on the root of his sexual fear of women and how he self-taught himself to play guitar by emulating the greats.  Clapton also spends considerable time on his early career and the start of his many addictions - some of the stories he tells are completely outrageous.  Clapton then skims over the retelling of his lost years (I assume because to him they really are lost).  The subsequent chapters speak to Clapton's rock bottom, his redemption through fatherhood, terrible losses and finally finding his place in the world.

My Thoughts:  I'm honestly a little confused regarding my feelings towards this book.  Like contemplating making a flowchart or spreadsheet confused.

I started off curious:  can the man who wrote Layla and Bell Bottom Blues really be such a self absorbed asshole to the ladies?  It's claimed her did massive amounts of heroine and booze...how was he even capable of basic adulting much less writing his own music?

Once I got into the story, I felt pity:  well shoot, he really had an uncle/brother, no wonder he's confused about his relationship with women!  His family was so poor they had an outhouse, no wonder he squandered 8K a week on drugs!

Followed closely by shock and disgust:  wait, you mean he squandered 8k/week on drugs?!    He actively pursued one of his closest friends' wives....after dating her sister?  Not one but TWO love children?  For the love of God, stop name dropping!

Then more pity:  his son died in a horrible and tragic accident and my heart aches for you.  He's lost just about everything, including his self respect, wife and a shit ton of money.  He fakes rehab....think of all this squandered potential.

And ending with bemusement:  well you old hooligan, you did it.  Got sober and ended up marrying a woman 25 years younger than you.  Now you're a bit of a homebody who goes on tour to pay the bills.  And to top it off you're still kicking even though you've taken enough drugs to fell an ox.

Rating:  While this book lacked humor and warmth (or was maybe just British), it's a fascinating read that I recommend to any music fan.

Also Read By:  N/A - but his discography is pretty stellar.

Reviewed By:  Tami

Note:  For those interested, Clapton notes Chris O'Dell once...as being one of Pattie Boyd's wedding attendants.  So now I'm off to read Pattie Boyd's tell all.

"Miss O'Dell" by Chris O'Dell and Katherine Ketcham

Have I mentioned how much I love the library?  I'd shout if from the roof tops if I could.  (Or if I had been drinking like a frat boy...and not scared of heights...)  My library puts together several different displays each month and if I have time I try to peek at them every so often.  I found "Miss O'Dell" on a Grammy Awards display and picked it up on a whim.  I'm glad I did.

Summary:  Chris O'Dell spent the golden era of rock and roll as a cross between a super groupie and an inside man for some of the biggest rock groups of the 60s, 70s and 80s.  After a chance meeting with a music bigwig at a party in LA, twenty something Chris O'Dell packed her bags, moved to London and finessed her way into a job working with the Beatles at their Apple label.

O'Dells's appetite for drugs and alcohol combined with her self-described inability to say no catapulted her into the inner circles of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and other high profile bands of the 60's through the 80's.  "Miss O'Dell" is a collection of O'Dells more shocking memories of life at home and on the road with rock's greatest.

My Thoughts:  Do you ever read Perez Hilton or watch an episode of TMZ, thoroughly enjoy it, then feel sort of greasy for enjoying it as much as you did once its over?  That's exactly how I felt about this book. "Miss O'Dell" is a rock and roll tell all on the big bands of the past, going into the lurid and absolutely entertaining history of who slept with the most groupies (the Rolling Stones), who did the most drugs ( the Rolling Stones) and who was a total asshat behind closed doors (see: every one, but mostly Eric Clapton.)

While I'm not convinced that the stories in the book were 100% accurate (O'Dell imbibed an amazing amount of coke and liquor during most of the story) I think that the author believes the stories are accurate and told them as she remembered them with only minor twisting to make herself look better than perhaps she was.  This made the book feel genuine to me, which in turn led me to see Chris O'Dell in a sympathetic light.  She may have been a ruthless social engineer who used any means necessary to get into the inner circle of rock's elite, but she was an endearing social engineer and I ended up rather liking her even when she did something awful (sleep with her BFF's Beatle husband), stupid (piss off her other BFF's alcoholic guitar legend husband over and over) or really stupid (allow her doped up husband to drive the car with her infant son in the back).  On second thought, maybe I didn't like her....maybe I pitied her so I tried not to judge her quite so harshly.

"Miss O'Dell" focused on the people behind the legends and was at some of musics most historic events.  The story telling method of writing was very cleverly done and let the reader feel as if they were experiencing the momentous events as Chris did.  Sing in the chorus of Hey Jude?  Sure!  Snort some blow with Freddie Mercury?  Ok!

I also enjoyed Chris' personal story woven in and out of the famous ones.  Chris didn't shy away from admitting to her problems with drugs and alcohol, nor did she shy away from detailing her multiple rock bottoms.  Her honesty about herself in these moments had me rooting for her to come clean and make something of herself at the end.

Overall I enjoyed this book.  It was easy to read, seriously entertaining, and kept the celebrities just mean enough that I wasn't bothered by their darkest moments being aired by someone they once trusted.

Rating:  If you're at all interested in celebrity gossip or rock and roll, check this book out.

Also Read By This Author:  N/A

Reviewed By:  Tami

Side Note:  After reading this book I'm curious to read "the other side" of the stories.  Look for a review on autobiographies by Eric Clapton and Patti Boyd coming soon.