Tuesday, December 4, 2007

A Little Bit of Baseball and a Little Bit of "Chick-Lit"


I received Choosing Sophie by Leslie Carroll (272 pgs, Avon Trade) from the Harper Collins First Look program last week. I needed something light to read, so I picked this one up! (This book will be released on January 22, 2008).

Olivia "Venus" deMarley was pretty happy with the way her life was shaping up. She had a wonderful fiance, she had a great nest-egg socked away from her years as a burlesque dancer, and she was getting ready to move to Colorado to be near her future husband's family.

Then life threw her a curve ball. Her father, a man that pretty much disowned her, passed away. They hadn't spoken in over 20 years. When Venus went to the reading of the will, she got more than one surprise. First, her father left her controlling interest in his bottom-of-the-division minor-league baseball team if she met one stipulation: she had to close the "circle". What does that mean?? Enter Sophie, the other surprise. The daughter she gave up for adoption when she was only 20 years old.

Choosing Sophie was a surprise to me. A pleasant one. Reminiscent of Bull Durham and A League of Their Own, the secondary story of the baseball team struggling to get out of the cellar was just plain fun. Especially when Venus tries to "shake things up" a bit. Trying to picture grown men playing baseball in "raspberry" colored uniforms was just too funny.

Venus and Sophie's relationship was a little too easy. There just wasn't as much "drama" as you would expect in this situation. When Sophie decides to move in with Venus to help close the circle, the expected fireworks just aren't there. They mesh well....a little too well sometimes. And the final chapter is a bit abrupt in the way Carroll chose to end the book. BUT, it's a nice, sweet, feel-good type story. And I enjoyed it. So, if that's what you are looking for, this book is for you! 3.5/5

3 comments:

Bookfool said...

Sounds like a great "brain break" book.

I've completely given up on First Look, but you seem to have the kind of luck I used to have with them. For a while, I was getting 1-3 books per month. Then nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. Talk about raspberries. LOL Oh, no, that was raspberry-colored uniforms. Well, close enough. :)

jpderosnay said...

hmm, i must say, in spite of myself this sounds actually quite interesting... its certainly quite unique!

it also sounds quite heartfelt, without being sentimental.

Angela/SciFiChick said...

OT: Have you checked my site lately? I sent you an email along with the other winners of Helix, but it came back to me. My email doesn't seem to like certain email domains like yahoo and sbc. If you have another email address, send along your mailing address and I'll have Solaris send the copies right out!