Thursday, August 17, 2017

Series Book Review: Getting A Grip and Balance Check - A #MyNewLife Novel by M.E. Carter




Title: Balance Check
A #MyNewLife Novel
Author: M.E. Carter
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Release Date: August 18, 2017




Blurb


Life has a funny way of throwing you off balance.

Take me for example. I spent years in a bad marriage with a self-serving ass, only to have the love of my life show up when I least expected him. Greg helped me on my journey of self discovery and taught me that, no, I’m not perfect. But I’m perfectly me.  It was an amazing journey.

We laughed hard. We loved even harder.

And then he was suddenly and cruelly ripped away from me by the unclenching jaws of fate.

Ok, so it wasn’t that dramatic. And I really need to stop watching the Investigation Channel.

But now Greg is back and as it turns out, re-incorporating someone into your life isn’t that easy. Between jobs, kids, and barely-there friendships, life and love can be messy. Making it all work is a balancing act. 

But we’re determined to get it in check.









Purchase Links

AMAZON US / UK / CA / AU






Also Available


AMAZON US / UK / CA / AU


My Rating:

 





Favorite Quotes:



Getting a Grip



“I feel bad for poor Bruce Jenner.” She shakes her head and sighs. “It’s no wonder that poor man had to become a woman… If you had your choice of being married to that woman or wearing a dress for the rest of your life, I’d choose the pantyhose, too.”


 Poor kids. They can see the trampolines, rings, and foam pits… it’s all right in front of their wide little eyes… and no one will open the gate to let them in and run free. I get it. I feel that way right before they open the doors at Target during Black Friday every year.


Briefly, I feel an urge to run out there myself and start tumbling. But then I remember the last time I jumped on a backyard trampoline with Fiona to show her my front flip, and I peed all down my leg. They don’t tell you about that in your health classes in high school. We’d see a huge drop in teenage pregnancy in this country if we only told the poor girls about weak bladders and hemorrhoids. I’m sure of it.


“Callie, I have to join a gym.” That finally gets her attention. She looks at me, face pale, hand over her mouth. “It’s a fate worse than death,” she whispers.

  .


 Balance Check



Then he turns and swaggers out the door. Literally swaggers. Puts his hands in his pockets to make sure the seat of his pants pulls tight as I watch him walk away. Damn that kid. He just used his best asset to make sure I didn’t say no. He’s good. He’s real good.


 Have you ever seen a forty-one-year old woman hit the deck? It’s worse than if I tried to drop it like it’s hot. And the last time I did that, my pants ripped straight down the middle... It sounded like an explosion in the back of my pants.


He puts the present up to his ear and shakes it, grimacing when it rattles… “They’re the tiny Legos with instructions in Spanish that I’m going to have to try and interpret while I make the damn things myself, aren’t they? …You’re a family full of evil people, you know that?”


My Review:



Getting A Grip was my first venture into the works of M.E. Carter and I am a smitten kitten. She is my new favorite author as she has well mastered the tricky skills of putting fun and interesting words in a delightful and endlessly entertaining order upon the page. She definitely has the word voodoo as I quickly fell under her spell on page one. I now want all her words.   I giggled, smirked, snorted, and laughed aloud as I gobbled up this amusing and delectable treat. How have I not discovered her genius before this?  Getting A Grip was a fun yet pertinent read with a crisp and engaging storyline, snappy wit, and mature and feisty characters who cleverly deliver one-liners and quips like a prize fighter delivers jabs. Woven into the humor and deftly handled with smooth aplomb were real-life issues pertinent to many of us - betrayal, body image and insecurities, broken marriages, and navigating the treacherous waters of child-rearing with contentious and childish ex-spouses. I reveled in noting the main character’s transformation and may have over identified with her, just a tad, as I actually voiced a few exuberant cheers when she found her voice. M.E. Carter has mad skills and a new fangirl.


Balance Check picked up nine months after the end of Getting A Grip with a narrative that quickly brought us up to speed and then launched Elena into a comical dilemma. I enjoyed this humorous yet observant installment as much as I had the first book in the series, and although book two was considerably shorter, both were equally eventful, amusing, and satisfying reads. I adored these strong, playful, and sassy characters and look forward to reading many more engaging tales from this talented scribe.

Empress DJ






Author Bio

Mother, reader, storytellerME Carter never set out to write books. But when a friend practically forced a copy of Twilight into her hands, the love of the written word she had lost as a child was rekindled. With a story always rolling around in her head, it should come as no surprise that she finally started putting them on paper. She lives in Texas with her four children, Mary, Elizabeth, Carter and Bug, who sadly was born long after her pen name was created, and will probably need extensive therapy because of it.


Author Links

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