5 Things We Didn't Know About...Jane Porter

Today's guest: Jane Porter Why we love her: She's one of our faves for good reason. Since we read Flirting With Forty, we've been HUGE fans!

Her latest: The Good Wife (The third of the Brennan sisters novels.)

The scoop: Is it possible to love someone too much?

Always considered the beauty of the family, the youngest Brennan sister, Sarah, remains deeply in love with her husband of ten years. Boone Walker, a professional baseball player, travels almost year-round while Sarah stays home and cares for their two children. Her love for her husband is bottomless—so much so that her sisters say it will end up hurting her.

Living apart most of the time makes life difficult, especially since Sarah often wonders whether Boone is sharing his bed with other women on the road, even though he swears he’s been true to her since his infidelity three years ago. While she wants to be happy and move forward in her life, Sarah constantly fears that Boone will break his promise. Now with Boone facing yet another career change, tension rises between the two, adding more stress to an already turbulent marriage. Emotionally exhausted, Sarah can’t cope with yet another storm. Now, she must either break free from the past and forgive Boone completely, or leave him behind and start anew...

Our thoughts: A great book. A wonderful series. You will love these characters!

Giveaway: TWO SETS of ALL THREE books from Jane's Brennan Sisters series! Leave a comment to be entered to win. We'll select the winners on Sunday, September 22nd after 12 pm PST.

Fun fact:This is the 4th time Jane has been our guest. She's also shared her 5 Best Evers, 5 Things she'd tell her teen self and What's on her Bucket List.

Where you can read more about Jane: Her website,her blog, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest!

LIZ & LISA PRESENT...5 THINGS WE DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT... JANE PORTER

1. I love a steak dinner.  A thick, juicy steak, roasted potatoes and a crisp green salad – heaven!  My grandfather was a Texan who owned three ranches and I grew up in cow country.  In fact, it was my love for ranching that inspired me to write She’s Gone Country a couple of years ago.

2. When I was young, I wanted to be an architect.  I love to create and build new things.  I guess I’m still doing that now – creating and building… but with words.

3. I’m really into sports.  I come from a family of athletes.  My siblings and I were always involved in some way with sports and for me it was swimming.  I love to swim and I also love ball games, especially football and baseball.  I’m very happy joining my guys to watch a football game on TV but I’m happiest going to the stadium to watch a baseball game.

4. I make a mean hot fudge sundae.  I don’t have a recipe as such to follow, I like to change it up by using different flavors, powders or cream and lots of different chocolates each time so it tastes different every time.  Sometimes it’s really thick and other times, not.  But it’s dang good and my boys love it when I make them!

5. I’m a historical romance junkie.  I love to read books by my favorite authors like Georgette Heyer, Mary Balogh, Joanna Bourne, Stephanie Laurens, and so many others.  Every time I travel or need to unwind, reading historicals is my favorite thing to do.

Thanks, Jane!

Must See Fall TV

We're TV Whores- plain and simple. We whore ourselves out so much to good (and bad!) TV shows that our DVRs are busting at the seams. It's so bad that our poor husbands can barely get any space! But hey, what can we say? Our lives are busy and stressful and to say TV is important to us is an understatement. We've got everything from Bachelor Pad to The Good Wife (hey, it's not all fluff!) and now, like any good TV whores, we're ready to mix it up and are on the prowl for more.

With Fall TV upon us (where did the summer go?), we're hot for the new (and the old faithfuls) that are sure to turn us on...

RINGER The only thing better than Sarah Michelle Gellar returning to TV (after 8 years) is Sarah Michelle Gellar returning as not one, but two people. On Ringer, she’ll play estranged twin sisters- one running from the FBI and one that disappeared. We loved Buffy. We loved her in Cruel Intentions. And we even loved her in The Grudge- even though the movie scared the effing sh*t out of us. And we loved her all over again in the pilot for this CW thriller about sisters, Bridget and Siobhan. When Siobhan goes missing, Bridget assumes her identity. Juicy! We didn’t realize just how much we’d missed her. September 13th, The CW.

THE RACHEL ZOE PROJECT Shut the front door! Rachel Zoe is back... and she's preggers. The only thing better than a neurotic Rachel Zoe is a neurotic and pregnant Rachel Zoe. (Btw, she's 6 months pregnant, but you can't even tell. WTF?) We have to admit that even though we'll miss Brad and his bow ties (WTH went down there anyway?) we're excited about the new cutie that replaced him. Tuesdays, Bravo.

UP ALL NIGHT We were super bummed when Christina Applegate’s series, Samantha Who was cancelled. (Also bummed to no longer see hottie, Barry Watson once a week). So we’re thrilled she’s back in this comedy (also starring Will Arnett and Maya Rudolph) about new parents, Reagan and Chris (played by Christina and Will) who are raising a new baby later in life. The show is tackling this later in life first time parenthood that's becoming increasingly more common. Something to which Lisa can definitely relate! Plus, when we read that Christina Applegate said she'd do the show as long as her character never had to come to work with spit up on her shirt, we were in. September 14th, NBC.

PAN AM Mad Men got us all excited about the sixties. (Guess there’s something about philandering men that look like Don Draper drinking hard liquor that gets us all warm and fuzzy inside!) And now Pan Am (starring Christina Ricci!) looks like it will prove to be another exciting drama set in this time period- albeit at 30,000 feet and full of espionage. Yes, the stewardesses (that's what they were called then) partake. We love that this show is based its creator's and executive producer's actual experiences (she and the Pan Am team helped rescue Cubans during the crisis!?). Because she was a stewardess for the airline for seven years, it should prove to make the script all the more real and exciting.  September 25th, ABC.

PARENTHOOD  The Bravermans are back! But more importantly, Peter Krause is back. (Yummy!) Last year we fell for this show with its all-star cast and surprisingly relatable storylines (well most of the time anyway).  And this season, the family's timeline has fast forwarded five months where, among many other things, we find Adam (Krause) still out of work and his wife, Christina, seven months prego and working again to support them (tense!). Saw the premier last night and all we can say is we want more! September 13th, ABC.

THE GOOD WIFE We were dying at the end of last season when Alicia and Will FINALLY got their groove on after a season of sexual tension.  Easily one of the best shows on TV, The Good Wife just keeps getting better.  We can't wait to see what will happen when Peter takes office and we can't help but wish that Cary would just come back to Locke and Gardner already-we can't get enough of him! September 25th, CBS.

HAPPY ENDINGS  Happy Endings debuted in April and gained a lot of buzz. In fact, it's taking Cougar Town's spot (Don't fret-it's coming back in January!) We found it in summer reruns and haven't laughed this hard since Charlie Sheen was running around talking about winning and warlocks.  It reminds us of a cross between How I Met Your Mother and Friends.  Seriously consider checking it out-it's freakin' hilarious AND the characters like to make up their own words. (You'll have to watch to see what we mean...) September 28, ABC.

What Fall TV are you excited about?

xoxo,

L&L

Watch this, not that by Liz

As much as I love my children, I must admit there's one aspect of my pre-mommy life that I miss so much it hurts sometimes...

Sitting on the couch for hours watching bad TV.

These days I'm lucky if I can keep up with Project Runway (forget about that Models of the Runway show) and usually just have the hubs give me his dramatic reenactment of that week's Amazing Race. (Which, btw, he never quite seems to do it justice...)  My Tivo is constantly erasing my fave shows in favor of Hot Wheels, Battle Force 5 and I've had to re-prioritize my priority manager more times than I care to mention.

So, I had to learn the hard way how to become a more discerning TV watcher. And because I know many of us have the same problem, I'm happy to help ya out a bit by cutting through all the bullshit and letting you know to Watch this, not that!

Watch The Good Wife

There's a reason that EW chose The Good Wife as one of the ten best TV shows on right now. I was originally drawn to this show hoping to get my *Mr. Big* fix but ending up staying because of Julianna Marguiles. It's a story about a woman who stands by her man through a political scandal and finds herself entering the work force after staying home for fifteen years raising her two children.  The storyline is so layered, so well acted, that my stomach does a little flip each week when I see that Tivo has recorded it.  And the best part?  It's got enough criminal procedural stuff going on that your hubby won't feel like he's emasculating himself by watching it with you each week!

Watch The Millionaire Matchmaker

With less time to watch TV these days, I think this is the kind of show I miss most.  The Millionaire Matchmaker kindly runs marathons constantly, just begging you to sit your lazy ass on the couch and watch as Matchmaker Patti cuts through any and all BS. She. Is. Genius. From the way she handles the enormous millionaires' egos or catfights with a drag queen, she is fantastic.  Whether she's telling the real estate developer that cuff links are so 1987 and that his haircut channels that guy from Greatest American Hero or she's telling off an NBA player for mistreating one of her girls, she has the balls to say exactly what we're all thinking.  If you only have time for one guilty pleasure on your Tivo, I highly recommend this!

Not Cougar Town

I really wanted to like Cougar Town.  It sounded right up my alley-alums from Scrubs, Friends and Dawson's Creek (don't judge!) and also featuring the ridiculously hot Josh Hopkins.  Not to mention the fact that, at age thirty-six, I'm *gulp* entering cougar territory myself and was hoping to relate to some of Courtney Cox's antics.  While watching the pilot, I told myself that it was just a fluke that it seemed, um, awkward and forced.  But since I was determined to become a Cougar Town fan, I gave it a few weeks to get it together.  But I then returned to discover that they were STILL trying too hard.  And while it may still have a place in my Tivo, (right next to the twelve episodes of Desperate Housewives I can't bring myself to watch) Cougar Town lost it's place in my heart.

Not Tool Academy

Wanna feel better about your own relationship?  Then Tool Academy may be right up your alley.  It's about women(and a few good men) who, in a last ditch effort to save their relationship, bring their bandana-wearing, fake tanning, cheating significant others to the Tool Academy. After spending thirty minutes with Neander-Tool, Looney-Tool and DoubleTalking-Tool, I didn't blame that girlfriend one bit for screaming I'll cut your ass! at the therapy session.  I felt like screaming too.

For those of us who loved bad boys back in the day, this show will make you squirm, remembering what it was like to date a complete DOUCHE BAG and rejoice in the fact that you pulled your head out of your ass before it was too late.  New favorite quote: You can't turn a ho into a housewife~Daniel a.k.a. Glow Stick Tool

What are YOU watching this week?

xoxo, Liz