Band of Sisters

A scholarship girl from Brooklyn, Kate Moran thought she found a place among Smith’s Mayflower descendants, only to have her illusions dashed the summer after graduation. When charismatic alumna Betsy Rutherford delivers a rousing speech at the Smith College Club in April of 1917, looking for volunteers to help French civilians decimated by the German war machine, Kate is too busy earning her living to even think of taking up the call. But when her former best friend Emmeline Van Alden reaches out and begs her to take the place of a girl who had to drop out, Kate reluctantly agrees to join the new Smith College Relief Unit.

Four months later, Kate and seventeen other Smithies, including two trailblazing female doctors, set sail for France. The volunteers are armed with money, supplies, and good intentions—all of which immediately go astray. The chateau that was to be their headquarters is a half-burnt ruin. The villagers they meet are in desperate straits: women and children huddling in damp cellars, their crops destroyed and their wells poisoned. 

Despite constant shelling from the Germans, French bureaucracy, and the threat of being ousted by the British army, the Smith volunteers bring welcome aid—and hope—to the region. But can they survive their own differences? As they cope with the hardships and terrors of the war, Kate and her colleagues find themselves navigating old rivalries and new betrayals which threaten the very existence of the Unit.

With the Germans threatening to break through the lines, can the Smith Unit pull together and be truly a band of sisters?  

I simply loved this book...this story and everything about how this book came about. I listened to it on audiobook. I also listened to a few interviews with the author and found her story about how she found these women amazing. She writes with love and tells their version or a version of their story based on the letters from the girls of the unit themselves.

I finished The Kiss Quotient. 4.0 stars Summary: Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases—a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old.
It doesn't help that Stella has Asperger's and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice—with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can't afford to turn down Stella's offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan—from foreplay to more-than-missionary position...

Before long, Stella not only learns to appreciate his kisses but to crave all the other things he's making her feel. Soon, their no-nonsense partnership starts making a strange kind of sense. And the pattern that emerges will convince Stella that love is the best kind of logic...

This book is rated R...so don't read it if you have a problem with that. The very premise means they are going to be busy. The basic plot is a gender-swapped Pretty Woman.

Stella is autistic and loves math. She is very very good at it and her job in economics perfectly suits her.

Michael is a stud muffin and a perfectly handsome book boyfriend. He's got the dark, handsome, haunted thing going for him.

The book is filled with family and side characters that are a lot of fun. There's a twist towards the end that I did not see coming, it's pretty funny and will have you shocked and laughing.

As always, I'm interested in the author and how they came to be published. The Kiss Quotient is no different. She was diagnosed as autistic in her thirties when she thought her daughter was autistic. It was not an unsurprising diagnosis and explained a lot of her growing up. Helen Hoang attended Pitch Wars and was able to make connections to get her novel published. The series has two other stories, all in the same world.

To Blog again

I'm trying this again. I joined bookstagram. It was truly only a matter of time. I'm reading several books at the moment. Daisy Jones and the Six I'm 35% of the way through (thank you Goodreads) I'm enjoying this book for much. I love how each character has their own voice. One Day In December I'm about 20% through and I don't have an opinion yet. It's just okay. I don't want to DNF it...we'll see. This Kiss Quotient. I 65% of the way through this book. I'm enjoying it so far. It's a lot of fun and gives me insight into how the autistic brain works. It's also clearly a gender-swapped Pretty Woman. I started using Audible and finished American Royals. I started reading the book and then decided to give audible a try. It made sense, I'm a busy mom, I work full time and I commute...which cuts into my reading time. I thought this was book was much fun. I loved the idea of an alternate America where we have a monarchy. I'll probably try and get my hands on the sequel. #Allhailqueenbee With my Audible subscription, I get all kinds of freebies. I also listened to Anne of Green Gables read by Rachel McAdams. It was amazing. It's already one of my favorite books of all time and she is absolutely the perfect person to read the book. I'm in the middle of Anne of the Island which is also free. I'd forgotten about this book. It's okay so far. It's good revisiting Anne again.