Michelle is a mother of a sweet almost three year-old, and an author/blogger over at Two Exits Past Mommyland. As a chick lit devotee, I quickly volunteered when Ashley asked me if I wanted to review Julia's Child by Sarah Pinneo for Freckleberry Finds. What could be better than a funny story about a mom trying to have it all in the big city? I'm glad I signed up to check out this book - it was fantastic company on my train ride to work and fun to linger with over coffee. I highly recommend you pick it up and see for yourself! The book tells the story of Julia Bailey, the struggling owner of a small food business that specializes in organic food for kids called "Julia's Child". She has a lovely husband, a somewhat scatterbrained au pair, and two young boys. Her business started out with money borrowed from the family nest egg but in spite of her best efforts is not making a profit. She and her second-in-command Marta cook by night (in a rented kitchen) and peddle their food to … [Read more...]

  By Jennifer Sargent I recently read The Underside of Joy by Sere Prince Halverson, which begins when Ella, married to Joe for just three short years, learns that he drowned early one morning while taking photographs from an oceanside cliff. She is left with his two very young children that she has been raising as her own. Ella had been told that their birth mother, Paige, abandoned the family shortly before she herself met Joe, with no intention of ever returning. But when Paige shows up at Joe’s funeral, Ella soon learns that the real story is much more complex.   As a mother myself, the story of what happens to Ella and her young children as they deal with the death of their father and its aftermath was moving, thought provoking, and at times heartbreaking. I mourned with Ella, worried about her and the kids, and understood the agonizing decisions she had to make as the story unfolded.  I also came to understand Paige as the birth mother and the struggles that … [Read more...]