The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead. Join in weekly, bi-weekly or for a monthly wrap up.
This week has been incredibly busy with going out Christmas shopping, a doctor visit for my hubby, taking our son back and forth to work, library trips, taking stuff to GoodWill after a cleanup, multiple trips to Walmart and visiting my husband’s parent’s graves. I’m glad to be taking a day off from running around today. I’ll be reading and taking a walk today. I hope your health is well and you’re finding some time to relax.
On the night that Trudy Asp discovers her ex is engaged to the same dental hygienist who’s been picking at her teeth for ten years, her daughter, Madison, suddenly announces that she too is getting married, in Europe.
Frumpy, floundering, and forced to live with her martini-swilling mother, Trudy is swamped by these revelations. And on top of it all, she’ll be wearing the second most scrutinized gown at the wedding.
Having packed on the pounds during the demise of her marriage, the idea of being eyeballed by her ex and his scrawny fiancée Zelda, is truly horrifying. To make matters worse, there’s the paralyzing fear of a transatlantic flight — something Trudy has avoided for decades.
When Zelda offers to stand in for her, Trudy is forced to confront the forces that stole her marriage and threaten to steal her daughter’s wedding too. With three months until the ceremony, Trudy must get to Europe, squeeze herself into a gown, and claim the role she wants more than anything: Mother-of-the-Bride.
Will this Odd Mom Out sink or swim? Or will she drown in a sea of humiliation?
Pre-order Links
Publication Date: 1st January 2024
Author Bio –
Sandy Day is a recovering chatterbox and writer of riveting slice-of-life poetry, memoir, and fiction. She has authored five books to date, with two in the works. A graduate of Glendon College, she studied creative writing under Michael Ondaatje and bp nichol. A lover of cheese, coffee shops, and illustrations, she lives on the shore of Lake Simcoe in Georgina, Ontario, Canada. You can find and follow her on Substack and sandyday.ca – it rhymes!
339 pages Kensington publisher April 26,2022 publish date
ABOUT THE BOOK
Finding love on Martha’s Vineyard has been a dream come true—but for the bride-to-be, the price of happiness may be too high . . .
With her long-awaited wedding to police sergeant John Lyons only weeks away, bestselling author and Vineyard Inn proprietor Annie Sutton is faced with more drama than usual. Between the hideous heirloom gown her new family expects her to wear and the challenges of bonding with John’s contentious daughter Abigail, Annie’s having serious doubts. But when the baby she once found on her doorstep goes missing, Annie has bigger concerns, including that the little girl’s pregnant, older half-sister is in no condition to hear bad news . . .
Desperate for answers, Annie combs the island, questioning friends and even her family-to-be. Because suddenly it seems as if Abigail will do just about anything to stop her father from marrying Annie—even if it means putting a child at risk. But if scaring Annie half to death is the plan, it’s working. Nothing else matters now except finding the little girl. And if postponing her future with John—indefinitely—is the only way to make that happen, it’s a sacrifice Annie may have to make . . .
MY THOUGHTS
It’s lovely to continue a series with a carryover of so many characters you’re familiar with. These delightful beach reads will charm you right into reading them. Set on the beautiful Martha’s Vineyard, you will hear the waves crashing and feel the mist on your face as you’re out walking.
We’ve met famous author of mystery books and Vineyard Inn proprietor Annie Sutton in the past books. She is excited to be soon tying the knot with police sergeant John Lyons.
Her biggest concern is how to wear the wedding dress his family expects her to wear. Wedding dresses are supposed to be beautiful, feminine and make you feel happy and wonderful, this does none of these.
A baby that she rescued off of her porch several years ago is now missing and everything shifts from the importance of her wedding dress to the missing child. What has happened to the child, who would want to take her?
A mystery, a romance and some family drama. This was as good as all the other books in this series.
Pub Date 26 Apr 2022 I was given a complimentary copy of this book. All opinions expressed are my own.
THE AUTHOR
I enjoy writing about the types of challenges in life that are faced by “everyday” women—and showing how they turn their struggles into wisdom in order to overcome obstacles. Each book also includes a bit of a mystery and a touch of love “just for fun.” I also have written under the name Abby Drake.
My first novel, SINS OF INNOCENCE, was published by Random House in 1994, and was named an amazon.com ebook bestseller in 2016, which was very exciting! A few of my early Vineyard novels appeared on the USA Today bestseller list.
My 20 novels have been published around the world in various languages. My latest series is from Kensington Books and takes place on Martha’s Vineyard (where I live): the first titles are A VINEYARD CHRISTMAS and A VINEYARD SUMMER. Both are available in print, large print, as ebooks, and as audio books.
American Transplant Foundation’s Executive Director, Anastasia Darwish, is interviewed for this article produced by Yahoo Beauty.
Kiersten Miles and Baby Talia, who she saved. Yes, there are still incredibly giving people in the world.
A few weeks ago, a 22-year-old college student and nanny voluntarily donated part of her liver to the 16-month-old child she was hired to babysit.
The caretaker, Kiersten Miles, learned about the child’s health crisis three weeks after she began working for the Rosko family last year. Baby Talia was suffering from a chronic disease that could be fatal without a liver transplant — and Miles jumped at the opportunity to rescue the little girl.
Doctors explained the severity of the situation to the young nanny. “I can never donate again, so they had to tell me in the future if I have a child in a similar
situation or a different one and they need a liver, even if I’m a 100 percent match, I can’t donate,” she told Fox 29 News Philadelphia.
Regardless of the future risk, she was determined to donate a portion of her organ to the toddler. “It’s such a small sacrifice when you compare it to saving a life,” stated Miles. “Some of her doctors said she possibly wouldn’t have made it past 2 years old. All I had to do was be in the hospital for a week and a 5-inch scar. I don’t know, it just seemed like such a small sacrifice to me.”
In order to meet the qualifications for being a liver donor, Miles needed to undergo a battery of tests by various specialists.
“It’s a multistage evaluation process,” Peter L. Abt, MD, an associate professor of transplant surgery in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, who was Miles’s surgeon, tells Yahoo Beauty. “We start with the patient’s history and make sure they’re healthy — that they’re not overweight and don’t have any systemic illness. We also do a variety of blood tests to make sure their liver is healthy, and then do some imaging to make sure the anatomy is appropriate to donate.”
Anastasia Darwish, executive director of the American Transplant Foundation, tells Yahoo Beauty that donors are typically under the age of 60. And while liver donors do not need to be blood relatives of liver recipients, they “must have a compatible blood type.”
Abt further explains that surgery can take anywhere from four to eight hours. “It depends on what portion of the liver you’re donating,” he says. “A donation to a child is a smaller piece of liver, but if you donate to an adult, it’s often a larger piece of liver.”
“It’s a multistage evaluation process,” Peter L. Abt, MD, an associate professor of transplant surgery in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, who was Miles’s surgeon, tells Yahoo Beauty. “We start with the patient’s history and make sure they’re healthy — that they’re not overweight and don’t have any systemic illness. We also do a variety of blood tests to make sure their liver is healthy, and then do some imaging to make sure the anatomy is appropriate to donate.”
Anastasia Darwish, executive director of the American Transplant Foundation, tells Yahoo Beauty that donors are typically under the age of 60. And while liver donors do not need to be blood relatives of liver recipients, they “must have a compatible blood type.”
Abt further explains that surgery can take anywhere from four to eight hours. “It depends on what portion of the liver you’re donating,” he says. “A donation to a child is a smaller piece of liver, but if you donate to an adult, it’s often a larger piece of liver.”
And in most cases, liver donors can resume their regular activities once they have fully recovered from surgery. “The goal is for the donor to return to the health they had prior to donation,” says Abt. “Rarely are there any long-term complications, and the only medication they may need to take for a couple of weeks is some pain medicine — if they need it at all.”
Darwish adds that living liver donation is “much riskier” than living kidney donation.
“There’s about a 25 percent complication rate for living liver donors versus less than 1 percent for living kidney donors,” she states. “Patients and families should only make a decision about living donor transplantation after being fully informed of the risks and benefits of this procedure. That said, this is a lifesaving procedure and a much-needed option for those patients who are on the liver waiting list.”
Fox 29 News Philadelphia has also reported that both Miles and baby Talia “are doing well.”
Thank you for stopping in. May your day be blessed.
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