WhatImWatching – *Mom Loves Reading*

💁🏼‍♀️I’m back, Booksta-fam & blog readers, after a much needed break from social media, & I feel mentally refreshed! And I have a brand new GIVEAWAY to kick off September & my return to social media for a wonderful recent release that I loved & I know you will, too! And it has a 70+ yr old Instagram influencer in it! So cool!👵🏼🤳🏻

Barbara O’Neal, bestselling author of ‘When We Believed in Mermaids’, returns w/ a tale of two generations of women reconciling family secrets & past regrets.

Life’s beautiful for seventy-something influencer Gloria Rose, in her Upper West Side loft w/ rooftop garden & scores of Instagram followers–until she gets word that her old flame has been arrested for art theft & forgery, &, knowing her own involvement in his misdeeds decades earlier, decides to flee. But that plan is complicated when the nieces she raised are thrown into crises of their own.

Willow, overshadowed by her notorious singer-songwriter mother, has come home to lick her wounds on the heels of a failed album & yet another disastrous relationship. Sam, prickly & fiercely independent, is on the verge of losing not only her beloved video game company but the man she loves, thanks to her inability to keep her always-simmering anger in check.

With the FBI closing in, Willow’s career in shambles, & Sam’s tribulations reaching a peak, each of the three woman will have to reckon w/ & reconcile their interwoven traumas, past loves, & the looming consequences that could either destroy their futures or bring them closer than ever.

This is such a fantastic, well-crafted, heartfelt, & satisfying novel w/ a well-rounded cast of complex characters. Thank you @tlcbooktours for my gift copy! It released on 8/10, so get it on your TBR lists & enter now to win a copy now by going to my Instagram page HERE.

To enter on Instagram: 1- LIKE this post on Instagram, 2- Be following @mom_loves_reading on Instagram, & 3 -Tag a few book lovers!
Bonus entries if you SHARE to your stories on Instagram & tag me. (Can do daily). You can also get bonus entries if you follow my blog www.momlovesreading.com & LIKE/ comment on this blog post.

Giveaway is open to US res only, 9/1/21-9/4/21, & isn’t affiliated w/ Instagram. Please don’t unfollow after or you’ll miss out on a lot of upcoming giveaways, it’s mean, & I do keep track.

Purchase Links

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books-a-Million

Barbara O’Neal is the author of more than a dozen award-winning, bestselling novels, including the runaway bestseller, When We Believed in Mermaids, which has been published in 20 countries and spent many months on the Amazon Charts, as well as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Washington Post bestseller lists. Barbara is an avid traveler and passionate cook, and she lives in the beautiful city of Colorado Springs with her husband, a British endurance athlete who vows he’ll never lose his accent. You can find more information on her newsletter and where to find her on social media at barbaraoneal.com.

Click HERE for my Instagram post (Go give it a LIKE 😉)

So who else has been watching ‘Little Fires Everywhere’ on Hulu? It’s freaking good, am I right?!

From the bestselling author of ‘Everything I Never Told You’, (one of my FAVORITE books of all time!), comes a riveting novel that traces the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family & the enigmatic mother & daughter who upend their lives..In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned–from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.

Enter Mia Warren–an enigmatic artist & single mother–who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, & rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia & Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past & a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town–& puts Mia & Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia & her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia’s past. But her obsession will come at unexpected & devastating costs.

‘Little Fires Everywhere’ explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art & identity, & the ferocious pull of motherhood–& the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster.

First off, you will only understand why I have a copy of “The Vagina Monologues” in my pic if you have been watching the show (spoiler alert: there is a different book in the ‘book’ version of LFE.) I watched all the available episodes yesterday (new ones drop on Weds) & I find it pretty riveting..Both Witherspoon & Washington bring their A-games to this screen adaptation! (Fun fact: Did you know Celeste Ng grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio?) I am LOVING seeing & hearing all the 90’s nostalgia in the show since that’s when this takes place!

Who else has been watching the show? What are your thoughts? Or have you read the book? And don’t forget you can also get this book on audio by going to Libro.fm & using my code MOMLOVESREADING to get a 3-for-1 special on audiobooks. Click HERE to go straight to this book.

Stay safe out there, everyone, & let’s flatten this curve together! (Now go wash your hands…)