Women Books

Deceit from outside forces pull these two young, tragic lovers apart but after 11 years, Matt & Meredith find that they were never truly divorced. Discovering the truth about what really happened and finding that they never stopped feeling for one another makes this story simply wonderful.

Matt's "proposal" to keep his wife was absolutely brilliant. McNaught does it again!

This is my first McNaught contemporary and based of all reviews here, I expected more. But this is not Paradise at all. Too long, too many details about business ... Yes, there are some typical Judith's traces just like big misunderstandings, strong tough hero, beautiful heroine, loving/brutal relatives and so on, but I felt something missed. And - sometimes I had a feeling I read about characters I've already known: Miss Stern is like Lucinda Throckmorton-Jones, Joe O'Hara like Jake, Patrick Farrell like Duncan, all from Almost heaven which I absolutely love. I think McNaught should stay at historical, but I'll give her another try with Perfect.

This is one of the best romance novels I've ever read if not the THE best. I loved both Matt and Meredith and all the supporting characters are special. I couldn't even hate her father even though it's more than warranted.

This my go to book when I'm feeling down. I recommend that everyone that loved contemporary romance read this book

Although this book was first published in 1991, I only recently purchased it and read it. I stayed all night and a good part of the early hours of the morning reading Paradise and it was a paradise reading..I did not feel the time as I kept turing page after page. This is a keeper.

I absolutely loved this book. This was the first Judith McNaught book I have read but it certainly won't be the last. You just fall in love with Matt and Meredith from the beginning. This book made me laugh out loud and as another review mentioned...have your kleenex box handy as well. I couldn't put it down and my family barely saw me for the two days it took me to read it. I would recommend this romance novel to anyone with no hesitation!

Very interesting book. Ii gives us an insight into the lives of people in
third world countries and the horror some girls and women have to suffer
because of religious interpretations.
But it also show how perseverence, conviction and courage triumph over
ignorance and fundamentalism.
I highly recommend this book especially to every woman.

It was the first half of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's memoir that gave me new insight. So many times I have seen the news about the terrible strife in Africa with one group slaughtering another - and it was inexplicable, completely beyond my understanding. How were these people different from each other? They spoke the same language, were of the same religion yet sometimes they would speak of the `others' as if they were hardly human. At least now I understand what a clan is and how strong the memory of their ancestors is to them. Rarely have I learned so much from one book. I want to thank this remarkable woman for sharing her life with me.
And, of course, her amazing courage is an example to us all.

This book is about the life of Ayaan. It begins in Somalia where Ayaan is born. She is brought up in a Muslim family. Her mother wants to lead a very strict Muslim life, her father is a bit more relaxed but still obeys the Muslim rule.

Her father is a member of a political movement that is working against the president of Somalia, Siad Barre. As a result, the family had to move around a lot to be safe. First Saudi Arabia, where they were exposed to the very strict rules of Islam. Woman were totally covered and could not leave the house without a male family member. After Saudi, they moved to Ethiopia and then on to Kenya. Ayaan tried to live as a devote Muslim but she was disillusioned with the violence, the intolerance and the treatment of women.

When she was in her early 20's, her father arranged a marriage for her with a Muslim who was living in Canada. Ayaan was sent to Germany to await her VISA. While she was there and was exposed to Western culture, she made the quick decision to go to Holland and apply for refugee status and hide from her family. Eventually the family found her but she refused to leave Holland and divorced her husband.

Ayaan went to school in Holland and earned her degree in political science. She becomes politically active in Holland and is elected as a member of Parliament. She becomes an atheist and is very open about Islam and begins to speak and write about it's deception. The overall theme of this book is, there is no line drawn between moderate and extreme Islam. It is all the same. As a result of her openness, she has received many death threats and must live her life hidden from those that have sentenced her to death.

Some interesting and very eye opening quotes in this book about Islam. "Every society that is still in the rigid grip of Islam oppresses women and also lags behind in development. Most of these societies are poor; many are full of conflict and war. Societies that respect the rights of women and their freedom are wealthy and peaceful." ....the Quran is an act of man, not of God. We should be free to interpret it; we should be permitted to apply it to the modern era in a different way, instead of performing painful contortions to try to recreate the circumstances of a horrible distant past." In Saudi Arabia, every breath, every step we took, was infused with concepts of purity or sinning, and with fear. Wishful thinking about the peaceful tolerance of Islam cannot interpret away this reality: hands are still cut off, women still toned and enslaved, just as the Prophet Muhammad decided centuries ago." " Life is better in Europe than it is in the Muslim world because human relations are better, and one reason human relations are better is that in the West, life on earth is valued in the here and now, and individuals enjoy rights and freedoms that are recognized and protected by the state. To accept subordination and abuse because Allah willed it----that, for me, would be self hatred." As a member of Parliament, Ayaan proposed dramatically reducing unemployment benefits and abolishing the minimum wage. "From my experience as a translator with welfare cases, I knew that easy access to generous unemployment benefits leads to a poverty trap: people in Holland often make more money from welfare than they would in actual jobs."

Ayaan is my new hero. Her bravery and openness in her speech about Islam is truly amazing and sets an example. Our society needs to listen carefully to Ayaan and stop being afraid of being viewed as racist as they dare to scrutinize this backward culture.

Some authors invite you to take a journey with them. But in "Infidel" Ayaan grabbed my hand firmly and pulled me down her path, sometimes with my heels dug in for fear of what the next turn would reveal. But I could not put the book down. This is a fearless revelation into the very heart of the Islamic world and an honest working through of her faith and feelings. It constantly amazed me that she could recall and relive this horrible existence without hate or resentment. The writing style is extraordinarily good and draws you in from the first paragraph.

Another incredible thing was how she takes the reader into her mind while she was watching CNN and American news coverage during and after the 9/11 crisis. Westerners were trying to convince themselves that these terrorists were isolated extremists. Ayaan tells the reader otherwise, that most Muslim mothers would have rejoiced to have had their son involved in this "holy" and justified act. It is a rare glimpse of politically incorrect honesty.

I felt as if I had fallen into the book. I became, along with her, a conformist and a rebel, an obedient woman and a disobedient daughter, a refugee and a rescuer. I would finally feel safe only to discover that all around me there were those seeking to kill me for revelations of life behind the veil of Islam.

In the end I ached for her. Her emptiness now that she has rejected Allah is palpable. But her strength and character and loving honesty is a testament to the amazing woman she has always been inside.

I literally could not put this book down and read for hours and hours last weekend. Upon reaching the final page I felt that it seemed more like a beginning than an end. A story of brutality and repression that is beautifully inspiring, this book deserves a read.

The last few weeks, I have been enjoying my commute in the company of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, as I've listened to her fascinating book Infidel. I love books that transport me to a foreign place or time, and immerse me in a culture that I didn't know about before. And I love books that provoke thought about important ideas. Infidel does both of things exceedingly well. It is the autobiographical account of an independent-minded woman who was raised in a traditional Somali Muslim family and grew up to be a Member of Dutch Parliament advocating for women's rights. The first half of the book is a vivid account of her childhood in Somalia, and later in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Kenya as her family escaped the turbulence of their war-torn homeland. Her description of life in places like Mogadishu, Mecca, and Nairobi is rich in detail about their houses and neighborhoods, their food, their culture and traditions. Her portraits of her parents, her siblings, her grandmother, and other family members are richly complex, infused with the emotional perspective of her childhood at the same time balanced by an unflinching retrospective assessment of their good qualities and their weaknesses. The genealogist in me was fascinated learning about the Somali tribal culture that puts such a premium on one's ancestry that children at an early age can recite their ancestry for nine generations, and when two Somalis meet, they can readily ascertain their kinship even to tenth cousins. And her description of the variations of Muslim practice between countries, and the rise of Muslim fundamentalism, was illuminating and especially relevant today. She does a remarkable job of making comprehensible such alien traditions as polygamy, arranged marriages, and female genital mutilation. What is especially remarkable is how, even though she would later come to condemn some parts of the traditions she was raised with as being completely barbaric, she describes them in the context of her early life subjectively and dispassionately, neither concealing the barbarity nor revealing anger, judgment, and condemnation. The account is all the more powerful for that, allowing the reader to understand how such barbarity could be accepted and tolerated because of how it is embedded in traditional ways of life and in how sons and daughters are raised. And it allows us to understand this amazing woman on all the parts of her journey, from childhood, to adolescence when she was drawn to fundamentalism, to adulthood when she escaped to discover liberal ideas. The latter half of the book describes her life in the Netherlands, where she becomes not only a parliamentarian but a political lightning rod after making a controversial film with Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh which lead to his murder and death threats for her. The book then becomes more about politics, ideology, and her intellectual autobiography, though embedded in personal experiences of immigration, learning Dutch culture, and ultimately life as a figure in hiding from death threats. She raises significant questions about whether a liberal society can survive being tolerant of a growing immigrant community within its midst that remains insular and perpetuates an illiberal way of life. (These questions have reverberations here in America, not only regarding Islamism, but in issues like the recent Texas FLDS raids, and in the fault lines of conflict between religious liberty and civil rights protections -- issues I hope to explore in future blog posts.) And she makes a compelling argument that Islam needs to undergo its own Reformation if it is to be reconciled to modernity. Her ideas and the amazing life experience that formed them make for vital and fascinating reading.

Very moving story about the strength and weaknesses of women (not just black women). It's a story of principle, dreams and nightmares and how you find yourself at the very moment you learn to control both. These women teeter on the edge of self discovery ....all they need is a little push! And it takes inner strength and tough choices to realize sometimes you have to catch yourself.

This was worth reading. It's not full of porn or scandal but a nice read. I enjoyed that the main character was a real person and not the stereotypically ideal "beauty" queen most authors like to use.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. If you are looking for an entertaining, suspenseful, drama, this is a book for you. It was a page turner, sometimes hard to put down. Donna and Virginia, keep up the great work, and keep these type of novels coming.

Hooks the reader and keeps them captivated to the last chapter. The characters are multi-dimensional and the story is rich with detail about family, friendship and deceit. Plenty of twists and turns with a few jaw drops.
A must-read! You won't regret it.

Read this book quite sometime ago...enjoyed it a great deal, so I decided I would like to experience it again....on audiobook!

Man, so glad I got this book. I pondered buying it for a few weeks as it sat in my cart and then I couldn't ignore the reviews any longer. I bought and am so glad I did. It's a page turner. Thought I wouldn't like the format being diary entries and all but found it just as engaging if not more than any book I've ever enjoyed. This book made me laugh and cry and want to know more every step of the way. It never dragged and was highly fascinating because the writing felt true to what the early pioneers must have gone through. I found myself thinking of those scenarios a lot and having much more respect for anyone that made that trek. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to get lost in a novel.

A VERY COMPELLING NOVEL FROM THIS FIRST-TIME AUTHOR. I CAN'T WAIT TO READ SARAH'S QUILT.

Thank you for the wonderful, endearing tale of Sarah Agnes Prine. I can't stop thinking about her and have just joyfully began Sarah's Quilt. The picture Ms. Turner paints of the Arizona Territory is terrifying and authentic.

This book was so much fun to read, It was exciting and adventurous. I couldn't wait to get a few minutes to keep reading it. The love story is great as well.

These is My Words is definitely my favorite book from the last few years. It starts out with 18 year old Sarah Prine traveling across the country with her family in 1881. As you can imagine, it's hard and stressful on all of the family. We see Sarah through the trip, the settling down with her family in the Arizona Territory, and starting her life in the harshness of the time.

The book is written as Sarah's diary. As she grows older, so does her writing. Sarah Prine is such an engaging character - very strong and brave even though she doesn't always want to be strong. She falls in love, works hard on her ranch, and survives. It sounds like it could be a very depressing book, and I suppose there are books written about this time that are depressing. But throughout the book I was rooting for Sarah, shared in her triumphs and cried with her in the sadness. And I was inspired by her.

I believe you will fall in love with Sarah as I did. After you've read this book, you will want to read more about Sarah in the next two books in the series. And you won't be disappointed.

I was determined to finish this book just to count the number of times Georgia Durante mentioned how beautiful she was. It was a million plus. You get the drift. This little lady couldn't get over herself. Her poor daughter Toni took the brunt of her mother's bad, bad choices and paid the price. There was claptrap galore, from her inane, juvenile musings to the stupefying way she portrayed herself as a hapless victim. And the verbatim dialog? How could anyone possibly remember exact conversations from three decades ago? Come on!!

Georgia Durante should just have named her book, "All About Me". At least it would have been an honest if not vacuous biography by just another celebretard who managed to sleep her way to the top of the heap.

The author keeps you turning pages with an incredible life, as fast as the company she keeps. I enjoyed this read, the author's no nonsense delivery, the woman's perspective, and the story told straight and true. If there are embellishments, you wouldn't know it as it's told. An excellent memoir.

Having lived in Rochester all my life, I recognized a lot of the names that Georgia wrote about, even remember her as the Kodak Summer Girl.
Excellent read

I have recommended Georgia Durante's The Company She Keeps to many of my clients who are recovering from being sexually, physically, or psychologically abused. Ms. Durante's story, her courage, and her subsequent success in a field dominated by men serves as a wonderful source of encouragement and inspiration. It is the true story of a very remarkable person who had many things to overcome, including not being taken seriously because she is so physically beautiful. When you read this book, you learn her inner beauty and strength.

Larry M. Raskin, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist
Louisville, Kentucky

This is a brave book. I can't imagine going through some of the things the author went through and not have a heart attack from fear! My sister loved the book too!

This is an incredibly inspiring story, both of an African American man who overcame incredible odds and turned his life around, and of a loving couple committed to helping those less fortunate than they were.

"Same Kind of Different as Me" is an excellent read; in fact, I rate it among the best I have ever read! I read it through without putting it down, as did my brother and my son. Highly recommended!

A powerful testimony of how God works in the lives of His children for
"His good". We certainly can't understand the process and the outcome is
not what we would always desire, but God is in control and we must trust
Him in all circumstances.

Here is a copy of an email I just sent my friends, and I want to share it with anyone reading these reviews.

I'm reluctant to impose my spiritual beliefs, such as they are, on anyone - I wouldn't have made a very good disciple! - but I can't help but share this book with some of you whom I think would appreciate reading a very inspiring book called "Same Kinda Different as Me". I certainly will give a copy to each of my girls, knowing they may not get around to reading it for a while, but someday they will see it in their bookshelf up and say, "I wonder why Dad wanted me to read this." The book was suggested to me by a good friend in Texas, and I am thanking her by sending this recommendation along to you. It's a pretty quick read - I thought it was extremely well written and edited, and while not in the genre of your favorite page turning author, from Robert Ludlum to Dan Brown, I can tell you that I spent an entire Sunday sitting by a mountain lake reading until I finished it -- and I hope any of you who take my suggestion to read it feel it was worth the time and money. The book certainly gives new meaning to the fishing practice of "catch and release".

I thoroughly enjoyed this one - it's very thought provoking and insightful with many life lessons. I liked the way the narration went back and forth between the white man and the black man with their personal thoughts on the same situation. Very interesting and I highly recommend it for anyone.

This book is a feast for the eyes. Beautifully illustrated and with a very nice lesson about love and family, this book is a favorite of mine(and my three year old loves it as well). Nancy lives in her own little fancy world, but she is loved for who she is. This book is a great read. Adults and children will be happy to sit down and read this one

I held a Fancy Nancy party for my granddaughter for her 6th birthday. We made a Fancy Nancy cake and the ultimate was when she opened all her Fancy Nancy books that she received as gifts. Just adorable writing and illustrations. Thanks.

I loved this book...it is so sweet and my own grandbaby "Fancy Nancy" will love it!!

I have been reading the Fancy Nancy books to my daughter since she was a year old. She loves them. She asks for Nancy every night and at nap time too! She now is the proud owner of a Fancy Nancy doll.

I have a four-year-old daughter, and this is the perfect book (and series) for her and her age set. The girls can all relate to how fancy Nancy appears all the time, and I love all the great new vocabulary words my daughter has picked up from Nancy's "fancy" words. Great (and clever) illustrations, too. I now buy this book as a birthday gift for any of my daughter's friends who don't yet have it, and it's an instant hit. This is a can't miss book! I only wish I had it when I was their age!

Very nice set--I purchased it for a gift and am very pleased with it :)

Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder is a whole series of books about a girl named Laura Ingalls Wilder. The books talk about some of the hardships Laura and her family faced. These books also tell about every thing that happened in her life from Wisconsin all the way to Kansas. The story of her life starts as a young girl and talks about her getting married as a young lady. The books tell how she changed and some of the places she went and even some of the people she met.
I like these books because the way these books were written because they were written so you fell like you are actually there. I also like these books because they tell what people had to go through in the 1800's. I read all these books and I liked them. If you read them you will like them too.

"They're an inspirational source of literature that celebrates the turn of the century, the struggle of the American family and the bonds that held them together."

These books are straight garbage, a friend got them for me and they stink...I could totally pWn Pa Ingall's IRL.

Fantastic set. My daughter was very excited to receive the set and continue her reading journey. The quality of the set was very good and will last a long time.

I purchased these books for my eight year old daughter. We read all of them already. She loved them, and so did I. I was a little disappointed that there were no pictures at all. In the older version, there were some very beautiful pictures that helped bring understanding to some of the concepts of being a pioneer. Overall, this was a great purchase.

I read this book the first time when I was in Jr. high school. I know I have reread it at least ten times. I have 2 copies one falling apart and one to lend to friends. As you can surely see I love this book.

Yes! I have read a few books that I wanted to read again. However, "Mrs. Mike" by Benedict and Nancy Freedman found me wanting to re-read chapters the first time through.
This treasure will be stored in a special place to be read again and again when I want to go back in time, feel feelings and thank God for talented authors.
I wish I had found it as a teenager, or a young mother. Guess this retiree should just be grateful that I was given this warm gift in my latter years.

Mrs Mike is an old friend. I first read and enjoyed this book more than 35 years ago. This story chronicals the life of mountie Sgt Mike and Mrs. Mike. It honestly chronicals these lives and shows that it is in the sharing of the small things that make life joyful. I'm so happy to be able to now be able to now share this book with my neice

I just got this book again since I lost/loaned my first copy. Although some have critisized the writing style, and the facts, I really enjoyed this book. I think it's one to keep on your shelf and pull out from time to time to reread.

I found this book in the school library when I was in 7th grade. I read it every year I was in school there. It was a wonderful story about a young girl who falls in love with a good man and talks about their life together. It made me laugh, cry, and cry some more. I would recommend it to anyone who likes a good story. It is a great book.

I think this book was read to me in school many many years ago. I remembered it as an adult and purchased it for sentimental reasons. I think it reminded me of The Secret Garden in a way. The seashell cottage was the perfect hideaway that every little girl could dream of making her own. I loved the story of Mandy and found myself wistfully wishing that I had a place like that as a child. What a wonderful story that Julie Andrews has created. I will cherish it always and keep it to pass down to the young girls in my family.

I read and reread this book about 5 or so times as a child. I simply loved the adventure of it all about the protagonist discovering a home away from home that she could call her very own. This is a fascinating tale for children who love to live in their adventurous daydreams and who love secret hiding places of their own where they can just "be". Although this is a book I would reccomend to children, I wouldn't reccomend it to adults as the plot and drama is very minimal. Adults would be bored of this whereas most children, especially little girls, would be fascinated by the simplicity and beauty described within its pages.

Mandy is obviously the protagonist of this story. She is an orphaned child living in an orphanage with other children of the state. She has a friend that she bonds with over time and gets along farily well with eveyone else, as well as the staff, until the day that mandy climbs over the wall of the orpganage and discovers an abandon cottage! She decides from that moment thatthe cottage is hers and her secret hideaway. She begins to do things that are uncharacteristic of her such as lying about where she has been, stealing from the orphanage supplies to take and supply her new home with, and is suddenly secretive with everyone, even her best friend. Read on to find out about Mandy and what she goes through as a child trying to make a cottage into a home and keep her secret place just that... secret.

Although this book is aimed to appeal to girls approximately between the ages of 7-13, I was in college when Mandy was first released. Being a hugh fan of Julie Andrews, I of course bought the book and was amazed that I could not put it down! To me, a great book has the ability to transport the reader from their day-to-day life into another time and place. I was mesmerized by this charming story from beginning to end as I am sure every child who reads it will be. Mandy is not only a sweet, likeable orphan, but she is very positive role model for children, showing that if you try hard enough, you can make your dreams come true. I admire Mandy's spirit and courage to go after her dream of someday having a real family.
I had read that because Julie Andrews lost a bet to her teenage step-daughter Jenny, that her forfeit was to write her a story, which turned into this wonderful book! Lucky for us readers, the result of that bet gave us our first glimpse at yet another one of Julie Andrews' many talents.
It's been 30 years now since I first read Mandy and I still have my original version of this book in a prominant place on my bookshelf, along with a hardback copy of Mandy and each updated version that has been printed. All the young girls in my family have read this classic book and loved it as much as I do. I only hope someday a movie version of this beautiful story is produced.

I purchased this book with my own money when it first came out thirty-six years ago. I was eight years old. I still have it on my bookshelf and shared it with my own children. This is truly a classic and I hope that someday it will be adapted for the screen!

This book reminds me a lot of "The Secret Garden" without being quite as preachy and overly descriptive. My two daughters absolutely love this book and consider it one of their favorites.