Pompeii, the City on Fire - a title that catches your interest right away. Despite the name, the book mostly deals with the lives of the citizens of the city in the days leading up to the disaster we all know about.

There's lots of different elements in this book - naturally, it's historical fiction, but there are also elements of Christianity (the days when Christians were still killed for their beliefs), mystery, romance, politics, and sports (gladiators). (I feel like this is a Princess Bride moment)

The characters in this book are all flawed, which makes them both likable and believable. Ariella, the main female character, is so stubborn that at times I wanted to yell at my e-reader to get through to her.

The moment when the volcano gives way is written very well and you can see events unfolding before your eyes, and the last part of the book was definitely the highlight of the entire novel for me (with my heart pumping the entire time).

Since I work in retail, as I soon as I saw this book on netgalley I knew I had to read it.

Anna lives overseas, and worked as a cashier "check out girl" for eight years, and this is the story of being a working girl. It's rather hysterical to me, to see just how universal working in retail is, regardless of where you live. I too am constantly plagued by "Are you open?" and "Where's the bathroom?" and tries to not only educate the public, but does it in a way that makes you laugh.

Anna begins the book by telling you how she got hired and trained, which I laughed through (having gone through an extremely similar process), and then continues by telling you about her daily life working in a grocery store and the story of the contant "beeps".

It's ironic because I have often wanted to try to write a book about my life in retail, but have no talents in that arena! But I'm happy that someone else out there did.

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I received a free copy of this book from netgalley in exchange for my honest views/opinions

Another one of those biographies where the author continually tries to claim he's completely innocent, but an interesting read all the same. Dragged a lot in the middle

I received this book as part of an upcoming blog tour.

I was super excited to read it - I love the 60's/70's and I thought it'd be fun to read about a women who lived fairly local to me, and her experiences. I thought she'd be right there in the thick of things, campaigning maybe or fighting the good fight or protesting the war.

Well, Elizabeth didn't do any of those things, but it was still an enjoyable book.

She met a guy, got pregnant, got married, had a baby, moved to Boston, opened up a children's clothing boutique store and owned a successful restaurant. She didn't get caught up in politics, but she lived through the era.

There were a few times when I wanted to Gibb's slap Elisabeth across the back of the head for some of the stupid stuff she did (like not having any food for her own wedding guests and smoking pot with her young son in the house), but you couldn't help cheering for her throughout her life.

The book definitely didn't go where I hoped it would, but it was nice to read about a decade in our history from the point of view of an average woman.

I still don't know how to write a review for this book, even after I finished it a couple of days ago. So this is more just general thoughts about the book then a 'real" review.

- the book drags, alot. This one just seems really slow going.
- the story line seems to circle a lot. (spoiler) Claire gets kidnapped, and raped, then she and Jaime get dragged off all over the place, and then Brianna gets kidnapped by the reoccurring bad guy. Really? All in one, albeit very long, book?
- Roger out of nowhere decides to become a minister, and just coincidentally can become one conveniently close, the exact same faith that he is. Gee, what are the odds?
- good thing the big murder of the book gets solved right at the end. Ooh, coincidence!
- I still love reading about Jaime and Claire, but man oh man does she ever worship him and man oh man, is he ever always perfect. It's getting a little old.
- I think this book is really where I feel the series starts to decline. I still really liked this one, and will most likely reread it (again), but I don't love the series like I did

In the beginning are two teenage boys out for a good time. I enjoyed the interaction and enjoyed where the story was going. The main character goes back in time, and that's when the book lost me.

I've been "taught" that good historical fiction - the definition of a book being historical fiction - is that the storyline wouldn't make sense if it was dumped into any other time or place. I don't believe this book fits the bill (not that the book is labeled as historical fiction, because it's not; but it does take place in the 1940's which means the book is striving for at least some historical fiction elements).

Joel, as most characters in time travel books do, doesn't need much more than five minutes to adapt to the fact that he's living in the past. Pet peeve #1! If I was thrust into a different time period I'd be freaking out for more than five minutes, and Joel doesn't freak at all. Reading other reviews would lead me to believe that this was well written historical fiction, but I didn't particular feel like Joel was walking down a 1940's world - there were too many references to too many things that weren't historical accurate, for one thing.

Then all of a sudden the book starts talking about another character with no reference to what time frame Grace is in, leaving me confused and pissed off and not really wanting to read another page. You eventually figure it out, but the author could have inserted a heading or started a new chapter or something to make you aware of what was going on. pet peeve #2

I continue to stumble upon reading the book and of course everything magically falls into place, just way too conveniently... pet peeve #3.

The action continues, though at a much slower pace then I would prefer and without spoiling anything, the book of course ends.

The book was written well enough, well edited, the premise was ideal, but all in all it wasn't my cup of tea.


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I received a review copy free the author but was not paid for my review.

It's always hard reviewing a long, chunkster book, because so much happens. I try to just share my general thoughts about it as compared to a more formal review.

1. The book is well written, and the style is engaging, though the plot does get a little slow at times (especially when reading characters you don't really like, which often happens with a large multi-volume series like this one. You can't possibly be interested in following every single character's whole life in great detail). Especially towards the end, I did tend myself skimming through long passages with characters whining about the same thing for the tenth time in so many minutes.

2. The characters are very, very two dimensional, but I think Jakes does it on purpose. The "good" characters are very very good, and the "bad" characters are very, very bad. No one in real life is that one sided, but I think Jakes does it to make a point. It does get frustrating after a while.

3. I'm not big into romance & there's a tiny smidge of it here, as characters meet and fall in love. There are some sex scenes but most are rather brief.

Instructive

I thought this book was going to be more of a narrative; instead it is a series of quotes from various sources grouped around a similar topic.

It is geared towards a beginner nurse starting her new job. I thought it was going to be stories about being a nurse, not instruction in how to be a nurse.

Why three stars? The book isn't what I thought it would be but is still well written. There are inspiring, knowledgeable quotes throughout.

I work full time in retail, and have been selling digital products online for a few years now. I was curious about this book as I've been thinking about becoming a virtual assistant for authors, since I am also a book blogger. I thought this book would address becoming a virtual assistant, along with other ideas for making a little bit of extra cash in ways I hadn't thought of before.

On that, I was a little disappointed. The author, Harrop, does suggest a broad range of ideas for making money online, but actually left out quite a few things I already do (and have been doing for years) to make extra money online - "to leave the job behind" so to speak - like answering surveys, using rebate / coupon apps, etc. Definitely not "get rich quick" schemes, but the extra income does help.

What Harrop does talk about, she does well, though I was a little disappointed that on each individual topic, she just includes links to other websites instead of telling us the information herself. I don't mind a few links to expand upon the topic, but I feel when an author writes a paragraph or two introducing us to a subject and then leaves links to other writers, it's a co-op and lazy to boot.

I still am rating the book four stars however, because this is a great starting point, especially if you've never thought about trying to make extra income online, and she does mention some great resources that one may not have heard of before.

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I received a book for free in order for my honest opinion. I was not paid for my review.

I have had a vegetable garden for a few years now, and still consider myself a beginner - there is always something more to learn about growing vegetables. Books like this make me wonder if I'm not really a beginner gardener anymore, because the book didn't contain anything new for me, which was disappointing to say the least.

The book is very short, is divided up into various subjects, but the information presented is extremely basic, and there is too much information missing. The author talks about the different types of soil, but doesn't tell you when to plant a particular crop. There were a few comments that made me wonder how much the author even knew about the subject, such as suggestion that you should put your compost pile away from your home because of the smell. I've never found a compost pile that smelled, including my own. (manure piles, yes; compost, no).

I wasn't sure who the author was actually targeting with this book, because the basic information seemed like it was aimed at beginners, but because so much basic information was left (like how to actually grown crops) off, it felt like it was aimed at more advanced gardeners. The premise is on how to grow a lot of crops in a small amount of space, but the author doesn't even offer one garden plan.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.