Tag Archives: Rosey Lee

First Line Friday — A Gardin Wedding

14 Feb

Happy Friday! With Valentine’s Day tomorrow, I thought I would share an upcoming romance by Rosey Lee. A Gardin Wedding, releasing in May 2025, features the exasperating Martha first seen in The Gardins of Edin. She’s getting married, or as Rosey Lee said to me at the book festival last month, is she? I can’t wait to see what Lee has in store for Martha!

Here’s the first line:

Martha swept the sandalwood fan in her hand back and forth, not to cool her brow but to tame the nervous energy brewing inside her.

One of the Gardin women must navigate a season rich with unexpected challenges in the follow-up to The Gardins of Edin, a heartwarming story about love, forgiveness, new beginnings, and what it takes to get there.

Martha Gardin is a mess, and no one knows this better than the women in her family. Good-hearted but often misguided by distrust and insecurity, Martha is known for stirring up drama. That’s why Ruth, Naomi, and Mary are pleasantly surprised when Martha mellows out after she begins dating one of the most eligible bachelors in town. 

Handsome, well-connected Oji Greenwald is everything Martha hoped to find in a man, and it’s only a matter of time before he pops the question. Rarely caught off guard, Martha is accustomed to getting her way. But when it appears she’s finally about to have the life she’s always wanted, a crisis in Oji’s family brings out Martha’s tendency to try to save the day her way, and the divide deepens between her and Oji’s already indifferent mother, Eve. 

Confronted with these unforeseen challenges to her plans, Martha finds herself on a journey that forces her to fully acknowledge her previous mistakes and reconcile her past. But will it be enough to deliver her the future—and the love—her heart desires?

Rosey Lee writes hopeful stories about complicated families and complex friendships. As a native of the Westbank of New Orleans, Louisiana who lives in Atlanta, Georgia, Rosey’s writing is inspired by the people, traditions, and food that anchor her to the South. She enjoys cooking, listening to live music, and occasional bursts of fanatical bargain shopping.

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Top 10 Tuesday — Love Freebie

11 Feb

Happy Tuesday! Today book bloggers celebrate Valentine’s Day early with a Love Freebie! I’ve chosen to highlight books with symbols of Valentine’s Day in their titles — love, hearts, and roses — and one that generally leads to the culmination of all that romance! It’s an eclectic list, for sure. I hope you find one to whet your interest.

For more lovely book lists, please visit That Artsy Reader Girl.

Top Titles Featuring Love, Hearts, Roses, And . . . A Wedding!

The Key to Love by Betsy St. Amant

The Love Script by Toni Shiloh

To Love A Viking by Heather Day Gilbert and Jen Cudmore

Change of Heart by Courtney Walsh

Heart Echoes by Sally John

Paper Hearts by Courtney Walsh

Roses Have Thorns by Sandra Byrd

The Rose of Winslow Street by Elizabeth Camden

Yellow Roses by Suzie Waltner

A Gardin Wedding by Rosey Lee

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TTT — New-to-Me Authors in 2024

28 Jan

I love finding new must-read authors! How about you? Today’s TTT list features those whose books I read for the first time in 2024. I hope you find a new one too!

For more new-to-them authors, visit the bloggers listed at That Artsy Reader Girl.

New-to-Me Authors in 2024

Angela Bell — The Lady’s Guide to Marvels and Misadventure

Sarah Brunsvold — The Divine Proverb of Streusel

Angela Carlisle — Secondary Target

Heather Kaufman — Up from The Dust

Rosey Lee — The Gardins of Edin

Hannah Hood Lucero — Already in The Kudzu

Vanessa Miller — The American Queen

Blossom Turner — Christmas at The Jekyll Island Club

Holly Varni — On Moonberry Lake

D. L. Wood — Unintended Target

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Mini-Review — The Gardins of Edin

9 Jan

If you are looking for a book with plenty of Southern-sass, then you are in for a treat with The Gardins of Edin by Rosey Lee. Set in the fictional town of Edin, Georgia, this contemporary novel features four women in the Gardin family — Ruth, Naomi, Martha, and Mary. That’s right! The characters are named for the famous biblical mother-in-law/daughter-in-law and sister duos. While this is not a retelling of Bible stories, the women are definitely inspired by their namesakes and there are plenty of spiritual truths shared. The Gardin family loves fiercely, but they are a messy bunch! Full of real life relationship pitfalls and strengths, Lee delivers a poignant story that also made me laugh out loud.

With its strong characterization, The Gardins of Edin is a wonderful debut from Lee. I look forward to a continuation of the story, A Gardin Wedding, releasing in May 2025.

Recommended.

Audience: Adults.

(I purchased the audiobook from Audible. All opinions expressed are mine alone.)

The four women of the Gardin family live side-by-side in Edin, Georgia, but residing in tight proximity doesn’t mean everything is picture-perfect. Ruth runs the family’s multimillion-dollar peanut business, a legacy of the Gardins’ formerly enslaved ancestors. But tensions have intensified since the death of her husband, Beau, and she feels like an outsider in the very place she wishes to belong. 

Sisters Mary and Martha fuel the family tension. Martha’s unfounded mistrust of Ruth causes her to constantly seek ways to undermine Ruth’s decisions with the business, while Mary, trying to focus on her new restaurant that serves healthy comfort food, is dragged into the family fray by Martha. 

For years, Naomi, the matriarch who raised the sisters after their parents’ death and supported Ruth in her grief, has played peacemaker. But as she decides to take a step back, hidden truths, life-and-death circumstances, and escalating clashes finally force the Gardin women to grapple with what it means to be a family.

A heartwarming Southern story of family and all its many complexities, The Gardins of Edin delivers a thoughtful portrayal of four women trying to hold on to their secrets. Women who just might—if they can only let go—find the peace they seek by holding on to one another.

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Top 10 Tuesday — Changing Habits

22 Oct

Happy Tuesday! I considered not participating in today’s TTT — too much thinking required 😉 and I wasn’t sure I had much change in my reading habits over the past years. However, I did think about it and discovered that along with changes in my real life, my reading life followed suit. It’s been 5 years since my husband sold his business to a corporate buyer and he started working for the man. 😉 I was suddenly and gleefully out of a job (change #1). Then two of my children married (change #2) and two grandchildren were born (change #3). My husband went from working 5 days a week to 4 days a week to 3 days a week (big change #4). So here I am with seemingly endless time on my hands, but it has been filled with more travel, more husband together time, and with seeing family a little more often. That means reading slowly shifted in priority. I used to read well over 100 books a year. I am currently 7 books behind in a 75-book Goodreads Challenge. I know, 50 plus books already read this year is way over the national average, but it is certainly a change for me.

All that being said, I really have changed my reading habits. My list details some of those changes and the books that fit them.

For more bloggers’ lists, visit That Artsy Reader Girl.

5 Top Reading Habit Changes in The Last 5 Years

I used to read everywhere and have 3 books going at the same time — one audiobook, one ebook, and one physical book. Now I occasionally read more than one book at a time, but for the most part I read just one.

Current read: A Place to Land by Lauren K. Denton

I used to go on solo road trips to see my daughter play college soccer while her dad stayed home and worked. A lot of my time spent in the car included an audiobook. I also found myself doing chores in longer blocks of time that I passed with an audiobook — not so much any more. I haven’t listened to an audiobook in forever. I have one started that I need to finish.

Audiobook to finish: The Gardins of Eden by Rosey Lee

My choice of books has changed a bit too. My go-to will always remain mystery/suspense, but I find I gravitate to historical fiction more often now.

The last historical fiction book I read: The American Queen by Vanessa Miller

Years ago I chose to read more for pleasure, than have-to (review books).

The last book I read because I wanted to: Something Borrowed by Rachel Scott McDaniel, Allison K. Pittman, and Susie Finkbeiner

I joined another book club in order to read outside my box. This has been so much fun. My small group chooses historical fiction featuring strong (and real) female characters.

The last book we read: Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade by Janet Skeslien Charles

What has changed in your reading life?

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