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The countdown to Valentine's Day is on! Stuck on what to buy your Valentine? Our featured titles have the bookish answer. From the secret to creating the perfect chocolate mousse and finding a man who’s worthy of you to a celebration of love among friends and tales of adventures in online dating, from a lying bride to a seductive tale of food and lust, our Valentine's Day suggestions are sure to satisfy whatever you’re craving to give on this holiday.
Our Featured Valentine’s Day titles are:
DATING UP by J. Courtney Sullivan, THE ESSENCE
OF CHOCOLATE by John Scharffenberger, I LOVE YOU, LET’S MEET by
Virginia Vitzthum, NOT QUITE A BRIDE by Kirsten Sawyer, SEDUCING HARRY by Judith Marks-White
and STEALING HOME by Sherryl Woods.
• Click
here to see our winners and read who they would like to spend Valentine’s Day with.
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Price: $13.95
ISBN: 0345492382
Coco Plotnick-Hollander-Harding doesn't let little things like turning fifty, her respectable but dull-in-bed husband, or "burb boredom" (life in the suburbs) stop her from discovering pleasure. When Coco meets Harry Troutman, renowned Fifth Avenue plastic surgeon, sparks fly, and she is sorely tempted to indulge in a little "dining out." Surprisingly, Coco's ensuing affair with Harry seems to bring new life to both their marriages until an anonymous letter arrives. The jig is up. Coco and Harry have been discovered, but the secrets are only beginning to tumble out as events unfold and the table is set for intrigue. Sexy, sensual, fun-filled, this food and love-fest winds its way to a naughty conclusion.
Judith Marks-White's award-winning column, "The Light Touch" appears every Wednesday in the Westport News. She has been writing her column for the past twenty-two years. Her articles appear in magazines and newspapers throughout the country and she has contributed fiction articles to numerous children's publications.
Prior to becoming an independent free-lance writer, Ms. Marks-White worked for Time Inc. She served on the staff of Time/Life Books in NY and Doubleday and Company. She has also been involved in the design and instruction of creative writing programs in CT and has taught writing for many years. She is currently an adjunct professor of English at Norwalk Community College where she won The Teacher of the Year award for 2005. She also teaches a course in Humor Writing at NCC.
Read our review of Seducing Harry.
More about Judith Marks-White: www.judithmarks-white.com
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Price: $12.95
ISBN: 0758216637
Molly Harrigan has always dreamed of the perfect wedding, she just never thought she'd be in scores of them as the bridesmaid. Now on her thirtieth birthday-after her younger, married sister announces that she's pregnant-Molly's old dream takes on an all-new urgency.
It doesn't help matters that her best friend Brad drops the bomb that he's engaged to his spoiled brat of a girlfriend. Devastated, Molly does what almost no one in the same situation would do. With a giant wedding fund burning a hole in her pocket (courtesy of her late, beloved grandmother), Molly hires a fiancé.
Now armed with the perfect boyfriend, Molly stages a whirlwind courtship, engagement, and grand-ballroom-style wedding. Lying to her friends and family is a small price to pay for cake-tastings, gift registries, and dress fittings. But lying to herself could cost Molly her one chance at true love-with a man whose feet are turning as cold as her own...
While working as the assistant to a sitcom writer, Kirsten Sawyer caught the writing bug herself. She recently left the insanity of entertainment for something more insane... full-time motherhood. In between Mommy and Me yoga classes, she is working on her second novel. She lives in Los Angeles.
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Price: $35.00
ISBN: 1401302386
As Americans have become fascinated by chocolate, and especially high-quality chocolate, one name has risen above the rest: Scharffen Berger. Founded in 1996 by Robert Steinberg, a physician and amateur chef, and John Scharffenberger, an award-winning vintner, the company's confections have won a following among food professionals and home cooks alike. Now, in their first cookbook, the duo shares their passion with the world.
The Essence of Chocolate features more than one hundred spectacular -- and often simple -- recipes drawn from the Scharffen Berger files and from two dozen top pastry chefs. It is divided into three sections: "Intensely Chocolate," which includes such decadent treats as That Chocolate Cake, in which the sumptuous flavor of chocolate is the star; "Essentially Chocolate," with lighter chocolate desserts like White Velvet Cake with Milk Chocolate Ganache or Brown Butter Blondies; and "A Hint of Chocolate," with recipes that use chocolate's spicier qualities to their best effect, like Vegetarian Chili and John's Cocoa Rub. And all will work magnificently with any high-quality chocolate. Filled with helpful tips, sumptuous photographs, and the story of how chocolate is really made, here is a book that is every bit as seductive as its subject.
John Scharffenberger founded Scharffenberger Cellars, one of the premier sparkling wine manufacturers in the United States. He sold his interest in the winery, and in 1996 he and Steinberg founded Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker. Scharffenberger lives in Berkeley and Mendocino County.
More about John Scharffenberger: www.scharffenberger.com
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Price: $6.99
ISBN: 0778323633
In Stealing Home, a southern fiction celebration of women's love for their friends, Maddie Townsend needs her lifelong friends when her husband of twenty years leaves her, and their three children, for his young, pregnant nurse. With Dana Sue and Helen's help, Maddie opens The Corner Spa for women in Serenity, S.C. and rediscovers the strong, resourceful woman who had slipped away over the years, a woman who hits a homerun with her teenage son's baseball coach.
Before Sherryl Woods sold her first novel, the Ohio State University graduate spent more than ten years as a journalist, most of them as a television critic for newspapers in Ohio and Florida. With more than 100 novels published, Sherryl divides her residence between her childhood home in Colonial Beach, VA and her retreat in Key Biscayne FL. When she's not writing or reading, Sherryl loves to garden, though she's not at her best on a riding lawn mower. She also loves tennis, theater, and ballet, though she's never set foot on a stage. She also loves baseball, which explains how the sport plays a pivotal role in Stealing Home, the first in her Sweet Magnolias trilogy for MIRA Books.
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Price: $13.99
ISBN: 0446697605
We've all heard the stereotypes about women who marry into money-they're gold diggers, they don't care about love. The fact is, there are plenty of fabulous men out there who happen to be wealthy, and someone's going to marry them. If you're a smart, sophisticated, independent woman looking for love, why shouldn't it be you?
J. Courtney Sullivan has created a guide for women everywhere who have worked hard to get where they are in their lives and their careers and deserve to be challenged, excited, and supported-financially and otherwise-by the men in their lives. It's not anti-feminist-it's knowing what you need from a partner and demanding the entire package.
With tips on everything from "top 10 products for under $10," "8 types of rich men to avoid," and "9 essential clothing items that no girl should be without," Dating Up will help women attract the right kind of man. It also gives advice on where to go to meet men and how to transition from the first few dates to having sex to meeting his mother. Stocked full of top ten lists; enlightening quotes from film, literature, and pop culture; and sidebars with extra Quick Tips, this manual will be a must-have for all women ready to find Mr. Right.
J. Courtney Sullivan grew up outside of Boston, attended Smith College, and now lives and dates in Manhattan. She has written for The New York Times, Allure, Tango, and the New York Observer.
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Price: $23.99
ISBN: 0316057843
In this savvy guide to a fascinating new world, former sex columnist Virginia Vitzthum goes underground in the online world to navigate the meanings and mores of sex and love on the web. Using interviews, anecdotes, and her own experience with dating online, Vitzthum builds an animated and irreverent narrative about modern intimacy.
How does the path of a relationship change when it starts with a profile? What do we reveal about ourselves - our personal lives and our private preferences - when we look for love online? Who are the people who actually manage to find happy relationships by trolling the web? Success stories, sociopaths, and fearing the F2F meeting: Vitzthum is an entertaining decoder of online culture, under all of which lies the question - what does the internet do to human relationships? A compassionate voyeur, Vitzthum approaches her fellow online daters with an open curiosity that makes her the perfect guide.
Virginia Vitzthum is a journalist and former sex columnist for Salon.com. She has written for the Village Voice, Elle, Ms., Time Out, and many other publications. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.
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