Troubles in Paradise by Elin Hilderbrand

Where do you consider your own personal Paradise that you love or want to visit?

 Troubles in Paradise is the conclusion of the Paradise Trilogy.  I read the first book as part of the Page-turners’ Book Club at the Kewaunee Public Library.

 The Steele family has moved to St. Johns, and they are still looking for the answers in the helicopter accident that killed Russell Steele and his lover Rosie. The survivors all find their lives intwined. Russell’s widow Irene works on a fishing boat with Rosie’s stepfather Huck.  Russell’s sons Baker and Cash have moved to the Island and are having complicated love stories with friends of Rosie’s.  Maia, the daughter of Rosie and Russell, tries to figure out how to move on without her parents.  As a hurricane nears the island, will they all survive?

 I have enjoyed this entire trilogy.  I loved the mystery and that it is resolved in this final novel.  The plot moved quickly, and it was very readable.  I especially enjoyed getting to know all of the characters over the three novels.  I was sad as the novel concluded as I realized I wanted to stay with the characters and their story, even though the conclusion of the novel was a good one.

 Favorite Quote:

“This Is the kind of conversation he likes the least – murky ambiguous.  They’re middle-aged.  Why can’t they just say what they mean?”

 “Her mother was right, Maia thinks.  Love is messy and complicated.  And, most of all, unfair.”

 “It doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to be true.”

 “You can lose the people you love the most; you can lose homes, cars, antiques, hand-knitted silk rugs that cost five figures; you can discover that the very life you’re living is a terrific lie.  And despite this, despite all this, the sun will continue to rise.”

 Overall, Troubles in Paradise was a great conclusion to the trilogy.

 Book Source:  Kewaunee Public Library.  Thank-you!

What Happens in Paradise by Elin Hilderbrand

 What Happens in Paradise in #2 in the Paradise Trilogy and picks up just after the first book, Winter in Paradise concluded.  We read Winter in Paradise in January for the Kewaunee Library Book Club.  I was excited to read book number two, and I read it very quickly on my Kindle!

Irene Steele is still looking into the mystery of what life her late husband, Russell, was living in the Caribbean.  The FBI is now involved and has taken over her beloved Iowa home.  Irene and her sons return to the island of St. John to try to figure out what exactly happened to Russell and to maybe start new lives of their own. 

We also get some answers into how Russell’s relationship started with Rosie, through her friend Ayers.  Ayers helped to clean out Rosie’s old room and has discovered her diary.  She reads through it and the reader makes discoveries.  I’ll admit though, I’m still dubious on Russell and Rosie’s relationship.  Russell was described a mid-forties, pudgy, married man on the island for work.  Rosie was described as a sexy 23-year-old.  I didn’t quite buy that this would work as I really don’t see what Rosie sees in Russell.  When I was 23, my Dad was in my mid-forties and I was not checking out his friends. 

I read this book really fast and stayed up too late reading it on my Kindle at night.  It ended with another cliffhanger, so I am waiting for the third novel from the library.  It’s an entertaining read.  I want to know why Russell and Rosie ended up dead and what bad business Russ found himself in.  I also want their family and friends to have a happy ending.  I enjoy the characters and the plot!

Favorite Quotes:

“She’s a civil engineer.  She builds bridges in the Bay Area, the kind of bridges that can withstand earthquakes.”  - This was about a very minor character, but I am always on the look out for engineers in books!

“Life gave me another chance to be happy.  Only an idiot would say no to that out of fear.”

“Did two good people do something they knew was wrong because there was some kind of magical chemistry involved?  Or was it plain old human fallibility, weakness in the face of temptation?”

“It was so important to stay vigilant where your heart was concerned.  Why didn’t they teach you that in school?”

“Because if you don’t write down what happens in a day, you forget – and that day becomes a blur and that blur becomes your life.”

“But if she did believe it, she might understand that everyone has her baggage and her sad stories.  What differentiates people is how they choose to deal with them.”

“Love is messy, complicated, and unfair.”

Overall, What Happens in Paradise was an entertaining, fast read.  I would recommend reading this after you have already read the first book in the series, Winter in Paradise.

Book Source:  E-book copy from the Kewaunee Public Library

Winter in Paradise by Elin Hilderbrand

Have you every traveled to the Caribbean?  If so, what island?  I have sadly never been there, but I love to read about it.

 Winter in Paradise was another book that I read through quite quickly.  It was the January pick for the Kewaunee Library Book club.  I haven’t been able to go to that book club for over a year since switching jobs, but with working from home and a virtual book club format, I was able to spend a delightful lunch hour with everyone this past week.

 Irene Steele is shocked to learn that her husband Russell has been killed in an accident while he was away on a business trip.  She is even more shocked to learn that he has a 15-million-dollar mansion on the island of St. John and a mistress.  How could a former corn syrup salesman from Iowa end up in such a situation?  Irene and her sons, Baker and Cash, take off for St. John to learn more about what happened to Russell and to collect his ashes.  The trip opens up more questions that it answers.  It also makes them realize that Russell’s mistress, Rosie, was a real person with many people who loved her.  How did Russell and Rosie end up together?  What exactly did Russell do for a living with his new job?

 Unfortunately, I didn’t realize this was a trilogy and the novel ends with a cliffhanger and no answers to my questions.  Luckily the next two novels have been published and I have put a hold on the second one at the library.  I thought the story line was intriguing in this book and I couldn’t put it down.  I like most of the characters, but Irene’s sons Baker and Cash both annoyed me.  The general consensus of book club was that they liked this novel.  We all liked the story line and I think were all indignant about a husband that could keep such a secret from his wife.

 Favorite Quotes:

“It’s newly astonishing to Irene that as much as we know about the world, we still can’t see into another person’s mind or heart.”

 “It’s not necessarily the creature comforts themselves, it’s that someone thinks you deserve them.”

 “Secrets become lies and lies end up destroying you and everyone you care about.”

 “They were taught in school that fear often derives from ignorance.  Once you understand a situation, it becomes far less intimidating.”

 Overall, Winter is Paradise has an intriguing storyline, but beware, it is the first book in a trilogy, and you need to read all three books to resolve the storyline.

 Book Source:  Purchased from Amazon.com

Barefoot by Elin Hilderbrand

Barefoot was the February selection for my FLICKS Book and Movie Club.  Sadly Penelope was teething the night of the meeting and Ben and the boys were off to wrestling practice so I had to miss this month.  Barefoot is the second Elin Hilderbrand novel I’ve read.  I listened to and really enjoyed Silver Girl this past fall.

Barefoot is about three women with a vast array of problems who are vacationing on Nantucket Island.  Vicki has just discovered she has lung cancer and is going to go through chemotherapy while staying at the tiny cottage she inherited from her aunt on Nantucket.  Her sister Brenda is along to help out with Vicki’s two children, but is also running away from a mess.  A respected new professor, Brenda had it made until she had a ruinous affair with a handsome student and wrecked a prized painting at her college in the aftermath.  Now jobless and under investigation, Brenda needs to determine what course she needs to take for her future.  Vicki also invites her friend Melanie for the summer.  Melanie has just discovered her husband has been cheating on her, and that she is finally pregnant after endless rounds of invitro fertilization.  Unsure of what to do, Melanie leaves her husband without telling him about the pregnancy.

Having all of this drama together in one tiny cabin ensure that the summer will be anything, but boring.  To help with the kids, Brenda hires a babysitter, a young college student named Josh.  Josh noticed the woman when they first arrived at the island and is sure that they are destined to change his life.

I thought the story of Barefoot was interesting, but I didn’t like how the story was framed from Josh’s point of view.   It made the story feel odd and disjointed at times.  SPOILER ALERT:  I especially did not like Josh and Melanie’s affair.  I know Melanie’s husband cheated on her, but sleeping with your significantly younger babysitter while you are pregnant just gave me an “icky” feeling while reading those parts of the book.  SPOILER END  I did like Vicki’s storyline and her realistic struggle with cancer.  Somehow the power of her story was lessoned by the frivolity of the other plot lines.

Overall, Barefoot was a highly readable chick lit novel, but not as good as Hilderbrandt’s newer novel, Silver Girl.

Book Source:  The Kewaunee Public Library

2011 Audiobook Challenge Wrap-up and 2012 Audiobook Challenge Sign-up

 This year I joined The 2011 Audio Book Challenge hosted by Teresa's Reading Corner.  My goal for the year was to listen to twelve audiobooks.  I met that goal and listened to a couple of extra for a total of fourteen audio books this for the year 2011.  The audiobooks I listened to were as follows:

1.  Rescue by Anita Shreve
2.  Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff

3.  An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin

4.  The Cinderella Deal by Jennifer Crusie
5.  Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

6.  The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean

7.  Maybe This Time by Jennifer Crusie
8.  A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
9.  The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

10.  Burnt Mountain by Anne Rivers Siddons

11.  Silver Girl by Elin Hilderbrand

12.  The Help by Kathryn Stockett
13.  The End of Normal by Stephanie Madoff Mack
14.  Matched by Ally Condie

I listened to a lot of fantastic audiobooks throughout 2011.  I wanted to pick out a clear favorite, but I enjoyed too many of them in different ways to pick one best audiobook.   I did love learning about the history of the legendary Cleopatra in Stacy Shiff's fantastic biography.  I also loved the light hearted romance in The Cinderella Deal by Jennifer Crusie.   The Madoff scandel was brought to life in the fictional account of a wronged wife in Silver Girl by Eline Hilderbrand, and in the painful, but beautiful memoir The End of Normal by Stephanie Madoff Mack.  I enjoyed starting a new trilogy with Matched by Ally Condie and I'm almost finished with listening to the second book in the series (Crossed) right now.  The Help was a wonderful audiobook.  I loved the actors who read the parts for each of the main charactesr and brought the story to life.  Juliet Stevenson is a marvelous actress and also a wonderful audiobook reader.  Her audiobook reading of Sense and Sensibility is not to be missed. 

What didn't I like?  While The Disappearing Spoon was fascinating subject matter, I think I would have much prefered to read the book rather than listening to it.  I needed a periodic table of elements at hand to go along with a lot of the stories.  Maybe This Time by Jennifer Crusie just didn't have the same magic for me as The Cinderella Deal did.  Burnt Mountain by Anne Rivers Siddons wanted to be a good audiobook, but abrupt changes in genre brought the book to a rather messy conclusion.

Seven of the audiobooks I listened to I check out from the Kewaunee Public Library, five I received as review copies from Hachette Audio, and two I received from Penguin Audio.  Thirteen of the audiobooks I listened to on CD, while one I listened to as a digital audiobook on my droid.  I really liked the digital audiobook experience and hope to check it out more this year.  Unfortunately, while my library does offer digital audio to check out, most of the books I look up have a VERY long waiting list.

I am joining the 2012 Audiobook Challenge once again hosted at Teresa's Reading Corner.  I am going to aim for 12 audiobooks again this year, which is the level "Going Steady."  It looks like it will be a fun challenge again this year with a few new and intriguing features.  I'm currently listening to Crossed by Ally Condie and A Christmas Homecoming by Anne Perry.  What are you listening to or planning to listen to this year?

The End of Normal by Stephanie Madoff Mack (audiobook)

The End of Normal is a riveting look into the downward spiral of the Madoff family. Stephanie Madoff Mack is the widow of Mark Madoff, Bernie Madoff’s eldest son that committed suicide two years after the Madoff scandal broke.


The End of Normal details Stephanie’s first meeting with Mark, their dating life, and fairy tale marriage. Stephanie and Mark had a wonderful life with each other and a deep love that only seemed to be threatened by control issues with Mark’s ex-wife. Although Mark came from the uber-rich Madoff family, he made his own wealth by running a successful enterprise in his father’s firm. Mark and Stephanie had a wonderful daughter and were expecting a new son when their world came crashing down.

Mark and his brother Andy sat down with their father to discuss some irregularities at work only to receive a bombshell from their father; he was running a Ponzi scheme and was trying to get rid of the last millions to family and friends before he would be discovered. Mark and Andy left enraged and Mark turned his father in to the authorities later that day.

Although Mark and Andy had nothing to do with Bernie’s Ponzi scheme and had in fact turned him over to the authorities, having the Madoff name became a curse rather than a blessing. Hounded by the press and lawyers, Mark and Stephanie’s marriage started to falter. Mark was also the most hurt by his mother who chose to stay by Bernie’s side at the expense of her sons’ feelings. With their marriage on the mend, Stephanie and her four-year old daughter are at Disney World when the unthinkable happened.

The End of Normal was a fascinating book to listen to at times, but also a very hard book to listen to at other times. Stephanie Madoff Mack read her own work in the audiobook, which gave it the personal touch, but also made it hard to listen to during emotional events. One could hear the crack in Mack’s voice like she was doing all she could to keep it under control. I give her much credit for reading her own memoir for the audiobook version as it must have been fraught with emotional landmines.  I had a hard time stopping this book as I wanted to keep listening to it all of the way through!

The End of Normal gave me a new view of the Madoff scandal. I read Tangled Webs earlier this year, which gave me the clinical view of what went wrong, but this gave me more of the emotional view of how Bernie Madoff’s crimes tore apart his own family, ultimately resulting in his son’s suicide. It also disturbed me how in our society today, a person can be literally hounded to their death. I think Mark Madoff thought he would be helping his family by his death in hopes that the lawsuits would stop, but they only went on to his children.

I just can’t understand how Bernie Madoff could swindle not only the entire world, but his family as well. What did he think would happen to his own family when his crimes would eventually come to light? It makes one wonder if he had any soul at all.

On a side note, I just listened to Silver Girl by Elin Hilderbrand last month and I’m amazed at how much of that novel actually followed the real life circumstances of the Madoff family. It almost makes me want to read it again!

The only negative I had with The End of Normal is that Mack tried to write about how they were a normal family and not living the jet set life of Bernie and Ruth Madoff. While this worked on some level, it had the major effect that it made me believe she didn’t realize how the other 99% lives. Most people do not have three homes and a nanny, especially after losing your job. I think this comes from living an upper middle class life in New York City for her entire life.

Overall, The End of Normal is a captivating personal account of how the Bernie Madoff scandal affected his son’s family. It really made me think about the witch hunt mentality of our society and how that can extend to innocent bystanders.

The End of Normal is my thirteenth item for The Audiobook Challenge 2011.

Audiobook Source: Review Copy from Penguin Audio. Thank-you!

Silver Girl by Elin Hilderbrand (audiobook)

I have found a new author that I really enjoy, and that I’m sure my FLICKS Book and Movie Club would also enjoy. In Silver Girl, Elin Hilderbrand has written a moving story of friendship through the changes and hardships of life. If you enjoy novels by some of my and my book club’s favorite authors such as Jennifer Weiner, Kristin Hannah, and Jodi Picoult, I think you would really enjoy Hilderbrand as well. This is my first book by Hilderbrand, but it definitely will not be my last!


In a story ripped from headlines, Meredith Martin Delinn has discovered that her husband Freddy has been running a giant investment scheme and has ripped his clients off of all of their money. Freddy has single-handedly brought the American economy down to its knees, and for it has been thrown into jail for the rest of his life. Suddenly without money, her husband, and separated by her sons due to current criminal investigations, Meredith finds herself alone and hated by friends, the press, and all of Freddy’s investors. Luckily, Meredith has one estranged best friend, Constance “Connie” Flute that she can call.

Connie has recently lost her husband to cancer and has become estranged from her daughter. She lives a lonely life and is ready to welcome Meredith back into it. She worries about the fact that Meredith is under a criminal investigation, and things turn sinister as someone starts to vandalize Connie’s home. Will Connie and Meredith be able to repair their friendship? Will they be able to move on with their lives after love lost? Who is stalking Meredith? There are a lot of great story threads in this novel that kept me riveted.

I love how this novel gave the entire story of both women’s lives and the history of their friendship. It was a deep complex look, just like the greatest of friendships. I also liked the many mysteries imbedded in the story, especially the stalking of Meredith, what caused their friendship rift, where did Freddy hide his money, and what caused the rift between Connie and her daughter. It made it a great story to listen to the audiobook as I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next as well as the resolution to all of these mysteries. The novel does an excellent job of tying up all of the threads of the narrative for a great conclusion.

The characters were all fantastic, particularly Meredith and Connie. They were full three-dimensional characters with problems and worries of their own. Meredith was not painted as a just a victim of her husband damsel in distress. She had been duped, but she was able to help solve the mystery and take her future into her own hands. Connie was able to battle alcoholism and to put her love for her deceased husband aside in order to move on with life. I particularly liked when Connie was going to go on a date and had the same worries as a teenager although she was in her 50’s.

I also enjoyed the shout-outs to Jane Austen in the book. Meredith goes to a bookstore and purchases Persuasion, the only Austen she had not read. I thought to myself, you are in for a treat, it is a fabulous novel.

I find it interesting how the Bernie Madoff scandal has made it firmly into our culture. I read and really enjoyed Tangled Webs by James B. Stewart this past spring which includes an analysis of the scandal. Next up on my audiobook list is The End of Normal by Stephanie Madoff Mack, a memoir by Bernie Madoff’s daughter-in-law. I find it all intriguing, but what do you think – too much Madoff? Or did the impact on our society as well as the intrigue of a man whose selfish greed ruled him too intriguing of an idea for a writer to resist?

I thought it was interesting in this novel that Meredith was shunned by everyone and guilty by association, although she had no clue that Freddy was a liar and a cheat. It was almost a Salem witch trial feel where everyone was so against her, which was sad to read, but so true of the way our society works at times.

Silver Girl was told through the point of view of both Meredith and Connie. The audiobook did an excellent job of putting voices to both of these narratives by having two different readers, Janet Metzger and Marianne Fraulo. I think they both did an excellent job narrating the story. I also thought it was a perfect book to listen too as I stated before due to the great plotlines and mysteries.

Silver Girl is the 11th book I’ve listened to this year as part of The Audiobook Challenge 2011.

Book Source: Review Copy from Hachette Book Group. Thank-you!