Meet Book Mama: Marlene Roberts Engel

One of the best things about being in the Twitterverse is “e-meeting” great people who also love good books. Good Chick Lit books. This is how I met Marlene Roberts Engel or A.K.A BookMama: a proud and tough mama, a book reviewer and a Chick Lit/Women’s fiction champion.

I chatted with Marlene to find out what she’s eating, reading and loving these days.

EATING CUPCAKES!!! I love, love, love cupcakes. I’m not eating any this second, but I had my fair share of them over the weekend. There is one bakery in particular that I love getting cupcakes at and it’s an Italian bakery in my town called Dolce & Biscotti. Their strawberry cupcake is my all time fave! They also have a wide variety of Italian cookies as well. I’m guilty of buying a bunch of cookies and a cupcake and eating them all before I get home. I really think there should be a law against eating and driving. I don’t know if it’s the act itself or the combination of operating a vehicle and eating my favorite desserts that turn into a huge hazard. There really sh lovingould be a 12 step program when it comes to my love of cupcakes.

READING I’m currently reading The Lost Husband by Katherine Center. I’m only a few chapters in, but I am really enjoying it. I do book reviews at both Chick Lit Central and at my blog, Book Mama. We have recently affiliated our blogs and are now “sister blogs”. Melissa Amster, who started Chick Lit Central, is the person who gave me my start at reviewing books on a blog. I have always had a passion for reading and books. No matter where I am, you will always find a book (and it has to be a print copy) in my purse. I tend to choose which books to review based on the story. Authors/publishers will send a snippet from the book and based on that information, I determine if I will review the book or not. I know how important reviews are to authors and the sale of books, so I would NEVER write a negative review. If I feel I can’t do a book justice with my review, then I won’t post a review.

LOVING Right now I’m loving seeing my daughter Bella grow and learn new things. She is three now. We adopted her when she was only two months old and she is just so much fun to spend time with, we’re always smiling and laughing at something. I also have three grown boys who are all in college and had a special needs daughter who passed away almost seven years ago from Leukemia. Several months after she passed my husband and I decided to become foster parents and we only took in special needs foster children, because it can be nearly impossible to place them and we wanted to give them the opportunity to know how it feels to be loved, be a part of a family and have a sense of normalcy. We fostered for a few years until we decided that we wanted a child who wouldn’t end up leaving. That’s when we pursued private adoption and went through the special needs department. Our daughter was placed in the special needs department of the agency due to her prematurity (since she was approximately four months premature). Thankfully she is a healthy little girl.

Thank you for asking me to be a part of your blog!!

Check out Book Mama at http://bookmama2.blogspot.com/