tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80586947933802615112024-03-16T00:30:41.785-07:00A Bookish Libraria ~ The Bookish Dame ReviewsDebhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.comBlogger721125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-18262114722233507352016-04-09T14:23:00.001-07:002016-04-09T14:23:43.288-07:00"After The Storm" by Linda Castillo-Suspenseful!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<u>SUMMARY</u>: </div>
When a tornado tears through Painters Mill and unearths human remains, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder finds herself tasked with the responsibility of identifying the bones―and notifying the family. Evidence quickly emerges that the death was no accident and Kate finds herself plunged into a thirty year old case that takes her deep into the Amish community to which she once belonged. <br />
Meanwhile, turmoil of an emotional and personal nature strikes at the very heart of Kate's budding relationship with state agent John Tomasetti. A reality that strains their fragile new love to the breaking point and threatens the refuge they've built for themselves―and their future. <br />
Under siege from an unknown assailant―and her own personal demons―Kate digs deep into the case only to discover proof of an unimaginable atrocity, a plethora of family secrets and the lengths to which people will go to protect their own.<br />
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<u>PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK</u>:<br />
Published by: St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books<br />
Author: Linda Castillo<br />
Pages: 320<br />
Series: Book 7<br />
May Be Purchased: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/After-Storm-Kate-Burkholder-Novel/dp/1250061563/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1460234901&sr=1-1&keywords=after+the+storm">Amazon</a><br />
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<u>ABOUT THE AUTHOR</u>:<br />
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Linda Castillo knew from an early age that she wanted to be a writer--and penned her first novel at the age of thirteen. She's published thirty books for three New York publishing houses and won numerous industry awards, including a nomination by the International Thriller Writers for Best Hardcover, the Golden Heart, the Daphne du Maurier Award of Excellence, and a nomination for the prestigious Rita.<br /><br />Her debut thriller, SWORN TO SILENCE, garnered starred reviews from Library Journal, Publisher's Weekly, and Booklist--and spent four weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. The following books in the series also hit the NYT and USA Today lists and became international bestsellers. Recently, SWORN TO SILENCE was adapted into a two-hour original movie re-titled AN AMISH MURDER and starring Neve Campbell as Kate Burkholder.<br /><br />In her spare time, Linda enjoys trail riding, and dabbles in barrel racing. She resides in Texas with her husband, two rescued Blue Heelers, and two Appaloosa horses. She's currently at work on her next novel, a thriller set in Amish Country and featuring Chief of Police Kate Burkholder.</div>
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This book received 4.6 out of 5 points in the Amazon reviews!</div>
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See her website at: <a href="http://www.lindacastillo.com/">http://www.lindacastillo.com/</a></div>
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<span style="color: #0c343d;"><u>THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS</u>:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0c343d;">I am a huge fan of Linda Castillo! Can't get enough of her books and her feisty protagonist, Chief Kate Burkholder. One of her books, "Sworn to Silence," was made into a Lifetime Original Movie starring Neve Campbell as Burkholder...the perfect casting...and now I can only see her when I read the books.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0c343d;">Castillo is a master at keeping the book and story moving along. The chapters race at rapid speed with the plot advancing at every turn. I pride myself on being a regular crime reader who isn't easily fooled, but these novels trip me up every time! It's a joy ride for me.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c;">In this particular novel, Castillo enlists our sympathies from the very beginning.... I was hooked. I was taken in track by track as Kate Burkholder moved to solve the crime. This is not a story that you would expect about a sleepy Amish community. It's a down and dirty, every day community hidden behind a strict religious screen that protects it from outsiders. Because Kate grew up Amish, and left the order as a late teen, she has some understanding of the oxymoron, which keeps the story real and revealing to a curious reader.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c;">I highly recommend this series of novels. Murder is possible in the Amish community...from the most unsuspecting people! I loved this book. Also a fabulous read was her book:</span></div>
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This one is about an Amish man and his three children who were hit and run...he and two children killed. Kate finds this was a deliberate act of murder! Fantastic book! It had me guessing until the end.</div>
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5 stars for both!</div>
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Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-48246526892874491692015-10-26T10:27:00.001-07:002015-10-26T10:27:44.079-07:00"You Can Trust Me" by Sophie McKenzie-Sizzles!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #134f5c;">SUMMARY:</span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;"><b>From Sophie McKenzie, best-selling and award-winning author of <i>Girl, Missing</i> and <i>Sister, Missing</i></b><br /><b></b><br />On a quiet, sunny Sunday morning, Livy arrives at her best friend Julia's apartment for a lunch date only to find her dead. Though all the evidence supports it, Livy cannot accept the official ruling of suicide; the Julia she remembers was loud, inappropriate, joyful, outrageous and loving, not depressed. The suspicious circumstances cause Livy to dig further, and she is suddenly forced to confront a horrifying possibility: that Julia was murdered, by the same man who killed Livy's sister, Kara, eighteen years ago.<br />
Desperate to understand the tragedies of her past and hold her unraveling life together, Livy throws herself into the search for Kara and Julia's killer, who she now believes is someone close to her family. But if that is true, can she still trust anyone? Damien, the man Julia was secretly dating? Leo, her husband's boss and a close family friend? His son Paul, her husband's best mate since college? Or even Will, her own dear husband, who has betrayed her perhaps one time too many?<br />
And when Livy finally faces her sister's killer, and he traps her with one horrible, impossible choice, she must finally decide: is she strong enough to trust herself?<br />
Get lost in the dark, gripping pages of <i>You Can Trust Me</i>.<br />
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<strong>PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK:</strong><br />
Published by: St. Martin's Press<br />
Author: Sophie McKenzie<br />
ISBN: 978-1-250-03399-4<br />
Purchase on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Trust-Me-Novel/dp/1250033993/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1445879221&sr=1-1&keywords=you+can+trust+me+sophie+mckenzie">Amazon</a><br />
Author's Page: <a href="http://www.sophiemckenziebooks.com/">Sophie McKenzie</a><br />
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<strong>ABOUT THE AUTHOR:</strong><br />
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<strong></strong> </span>Sophie's first crime fiction novel for adults - psychological thriller Close My Eyes - was published in 2013. Her second, You Can Trust Me, comes out in April 2015. <br /><br />Sophie made her name as an award-winning writer for children and teens in the UK and her teen thriller In a Split Second is published in March 2015, with sequel Every Second Counts following on soon...<br /><br />Based in London, England, Sophie has also written a number of award-winning books for children and teens in the UK, including two YA romance series and teen thrillers including Girl, Missing, Blood Ties and the Medusa Project series. <br />
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<strong><span style="color: #134f5c;">THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS:</span></strong><br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c;">Sophie McKenzie is one of those authors who will have you guessing to the very end! This is a fine novel of suspense and terror. The thrills keep up on every page as we try to figure out who would kill her protagonist's best friend, and her sister many years before.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c;">One of the great things employed in Ms McKenzie's writing are the journal entries spread throughout the book of the psychopathic killer as he documents the murders of his victims. They give subtle hints as to his identity, teasing us, but never really giving away who he is. Loved her development of the twisted mind. Creepy and egging us on to the conclusion!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c;">I had a hard time putting together the pieces until nearly the end, and even then I was surprised.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c;">This is a very well-written thriller with characters who are beautifully filled out and believable. It was difficult to put the book down since the chapters moved along quickly and the anticipation built so strongly.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c;">I loved the book, thoroughly enjoyed the read, and hope to find myself engrossed in another of Sophie McKenzie's books very soon. She's a fabulous writer!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c;">5 stars</span><br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c;">Deborah, The Bookish Dame</span><br />
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<br />Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com65tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-32809789897235411232015-10-07T09:14:00.001-07:002015-10-07T09:14:56.996-07:00"Blind Justice" by Ethan Cross...Heart-stopping!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Deacon Munroe is not your average investigator. He’s intelligent, cultured, well-connected.<br /><br />And totally blind.<br /><br />Washington DC is Munroe’s city. Now it’s a city shaken to the core by the death of a high-ranking general and his wife. All the evidence suggests that the general killed his wife before taking his own life. Deacon Munroe does not trust what other people see – only what he knows is true.<br /><br />What Munroe soon knows is that the general's death is part of a far greater plan, a sophisticated and brutal plot to kill thousands of innocent people, including those closest to Munroe himself.<br /><br />But with only a small team at his aid, and just hours to stop a devastating attack on the city, can Munroe unearth the truth in time to bring justice to the city?</div>
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Published by: The Story Plant</div>
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Author: Ethan Cross</div>
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Available: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Justice-Ethan-Cross/dp/1611882079/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1444233239&sr=1-1&keywords=blind+justice+ethan+cross">Amazon</a></div>
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Author's Website: <a href="http://www.ethancross.com/">http://www.ETHANCROSS.COM</a> </div>
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ETHAN CROSS is the International Bestselling and Award-Winning Author of THE SHEPHERD, THE CAGE, CALLSIGN:KNIGHT, and his latest, THE PROPHET--a novel described by bestselling author Jon Land as "The best book of its kind since Thomas Harris retired Hannibal Lecter" while #1 New York Times Bestselling Author Lisa Gardner said, "The surprises are fast and furious and will leave you breathless to read more." </div>
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THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS:</div>
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This is a real deal fast-paced thriller! Ethan Cross is a top-notch author with a story to tell that will keep your heart racing and you sitting on the edge of your seat. I found my eyes widening and my heart skipping on certain chapters.</div>
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Mr. Cross has developed some strong characters who are both visually available and who capture your inner imagination with their vitality. Deacon Monroe is a character not unlike Jeffrey Deaver's blind retired detective, only he's more mobile and government-connected. They are alike in that they have strong intellectual capacities and don't let their handicaps hinder their work and willingness to solve mysteries and crime. However, they are different in their emotional makeup, Deacon being more accessible and willing to share his feelings which is a nice quality in such a novel.</div>
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The plot of the book seemed to stagger for me a bit at first, but when it got going and was made clear after the first couple of chapters, I was hooked. As I've said, it's a page-turner with short, dynamic chapters that really have strong impact. </div>
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I loved this book and will be looking forward to reading more of Ethan Cross's books very soon. He's now at the top of my suspense novelist list.</div>
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5 stars</div>
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Deborah, The Bookish Dame</div>
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Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com33tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-74975762857453898102014-08-08T00:28:00.001-07:002014-08-21T19:32:52.660-07:00"The Giver" by Lois Lowry~Read Soon!<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="8181388303094645274"></a> <br />
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<a href="http://lavenroseramblings.blogspot.com/2011/05/back-in-stacks-giver-by-lois-lowry.html"><span style="color: #336699;">BACK IN THE STACKS: "The Giver" by Lois Lowry</span></a> </h3>
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><u><em>BACK IN THE STACKS</em></u>:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: medium;">I chose this classic, award-winning novel for my Bookish Libraria Blog as a "Back in the Stacks" review book this past week.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: medium;">It's actually, unbeknownst to me prior to my reading it, a dystopian novel about the coming of age and the coming to wisdom and understanding of a young boy in a futuristic society. A book I missed reading in school, but which my children were exposed to in their time, this is somewhat dated in spots; I felt, but held the same sort of message that we hear and see in our own world and society today through a plethora of young adult literature. That alone makes it worthy of reading!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: medium;">It's a small book, but every page is profound. Lois Lowry knows how to write exactly like my Rhetoric professor wanted us to write...with precision and acuracy. Her every word has purpose and meaning. And, in that instance, we discover that we need to pay attention, acutely, to what she's telling us. </span><span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: medium;">This is a serious book with a warning for young and old, alike.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: medium;">I found it most poignant that Ms Lowry wrote "The Giver" for young people at their pivitol age. It's a book that is meant to make them consider the society they are a part of without a doubt, but it's also meant to make them question the world and the ways of life they've taken for granted. It hopes, it seems, to help them shed the scales from their eyes and take the plugs from their ears...to have the courage to rise up against the norm. For that alone, I found it worthy of the Newberry Prize.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: medium;">It seems to me that as adults we fear young people. We want to corral them, to keep them in check, to make sure they don't skate board near the Library. There's alot about them that reeks of uncontrollable power and unhinged disaster. There's impulse on edge, and the half-here-and-half-there sense of what's going to really damage their lives and the lives around them, and what's not. Because of this, teens and pre-teens have this magical quality to them...this freshness of vision coupled with this wildness of vision like the boys in "Lord of the Flies," like those vampires and psychics and witches they "wanna be" in the YA novels.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: medium;">In "The Giver" we see such power in the young protagonist. He is pent up and on the verge of destruction in several instances. We see him risk breaking serious rules only to see him pull back and turn to the side of wisdom to protect those he loves. This is the quality that Lois Lowry is telling the young to emulate, this is the hidden treasure that the Giver has to offer~this potential to create a new system lovingly, or simply to destroy mindlessly. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Ms Lowry acknowledges the terrible strength and power of the young adult to be victorious or to vanquish, and offers an instruction of vision, values and valor. In a society where everything is ordered, equal, peaceful and happy...life is not valued, and people deemed less than fit for society are done away with like old newspaper.</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /><span style="color: #351c75; font-size: medium;"></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: medium;">"The Giver" is a book worthy of literary and humanitarian awards, and it's a book worthy of being the classic it's become.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: medium;">I strongly recommend "The Giver" to everyone, young and old, who hasn't already read it...and even to those who have. It's a good time to reread this book. It's an especially good time to read it...</span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: medium;">I look forward to the up-coming movie!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Deborah/TheBookishDame </span></div>
Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com326tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-51234533892670494062014-08-05T17:54:00.001-07:002014-08-05T17:54:37.530-07:00Book Haul~New Stash and Recently Received<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Here's a new crop of books that have come in recently from publishers, and a couple that I've ordered for myself. Things have slowed down with the publishers since I took a hiatus with my illness, but now that I'm back reviewing...are picking up again. I'm delighted to be back and able to read again.<br />
There's a mixed bag here as you'll see.<br />
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One I just ordered that came in this week! I may have already told you about it, but it bears telling again. It's fantastic. Published by Orbit. Here's a summary:<br />
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<span style="color: #990000;"><div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407283477243_1174">
<i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407283477243_1175">The Girl With All the Gifts</i> is a groundbreaking thriller, emotionally charged and gripping from beginning to end.</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407283477243_1173">
Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class.</div>
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When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh.</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407283477243_1169">
<b id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407283477243_1171">Melanie is a very special girl.</b></div>
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<span style="color: black;">A new book ( #2 ) in the Flavia Albia series! Thanks to St. Martin's Press.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><u>SUMMARY </u>:</span><br />
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<em>"There are rules for private informers accepting a new case. Never take on clients who cannot pay you. Never do favours for friends. Don’t work with relatives. If, like me, you are a woman, keep clear of men you find attractive. </em><br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407283641862_992">
<i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407283641862_993">“Will I never learn?”</i></div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407283641862_984">
In Ancient Rome, the number of slaves was far greater than that of free citizens. As a result, often the people Romans feared most were the “enemies at home,” the slaves under their own roofs. Because of this, Roman law decreed that if the head of a household was murdered at home, and the culprit wasn’t quickly discovered, his slaves—all of them, guilty or not—were presumed responsible and were put to death. Without exception.</div>
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When a couple is found dead in their own bedroom and their house burglarized, some of their household slaves know what is about to happen to them. They flee to the Temple of Ceres, which by tradition is respected as a haven for refugees. This is where Flavia Albia comes in. The authorities, under pressure from all sides, need a solution. Albia, a private informer just like her father, Marcus Didius Falco, is asked to solve the murders, in this mystery from Lindsey Davis.</div>
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Another Elin Hilderbrand...I love her stories, as I've said. This is one I just bought at Target on a whim. Don't you love the cover? It's published by Little, Brown & Co.<br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><u>SUMMARY </u>:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><strong><span style="color: black;">A summer wedding stirs up trouble on both sides of the family in the newest bestseller from "the queen of the summer novel" (</span><i><span style="color: black;">People</span></i><span style="color: black;">)</span></strong><span style="color: black;"> </span><br />
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The Carmichaels and the Grahams have gathered on Nantucket for a happy occasion: a wedding that will unite their two families. Plans are being made according to the wishes of the bride's late mother, who left behind The Notebook: specific instructions for every detail of her youngest daughter's future nuptials. Everything should be falling into place for the beautiful event -- but in reality, things are falling apart.</div>
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While the couple-to-be are quite happy, their loved ones find their lives crumbling. In the days leading up to the wedding, love will be questioned, scandals will arise, and hearts will be broken and healed. Elin Hilderbrand takes readers on a touching journey in BEAUTIFUL DAY -- into the heart of marriage, what it means to be faithful, and how we choose to honor our commitments.</div>
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<span style="color: black;">This is an unusual memoir sent to me by Skyhorse Publishing. It harkens back to the times when the Soviet Union was closed and at its worst where human rights was concerned. I'm interested to give it a try...</span><br />
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<u><span style="color: #274e13;">SUMMARY :</span></u><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;">There is always some part of the world where human rights are trampled and oppression quashes the human spirit. In the 1980s, it was the Soviet Union. In <i>Swimming in the Daylight</i>, Lisa Paul, a Catholic-American student living in Moscow in the early ’80s, details how she grew to understand the perverse reality of the pre-Gorbachev Soviet regime as her friendship with her Russian-language tutor, Inna Kitrosskaya Meiman, blossomed. Inna, a Soviet-Jewish dissident and refusenik, was repeatedly denied a visa to receive life-saving cancer treatment abroad. The refusal was an apparent punishment imposed on both her and her Jewish husband, Naum, for his participation in the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group—the lone group fighting for human rights in the U.S.S.R. <br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407284228691_975">
Before Lisa returned to the United States, she promised Inna she would do all she could to get her out of Moscow. But Lisa was one person, what could she possibly do that would make a difference? Inspired by her faith and rights as an American, Lisa staged a hunger strike, held press conferences, and galvanized American politicians to demand Inna’s immediate release.</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407284228691_999">
In this heartfelt, compassionate, and inspiring narrative, Lisa brings the reader along with her as she learns indelible lessons from her heroic teacher. Inna’s greatest lesson—that it is possible to swim through treacherous waters, in daylight, not in despair—is as relevant today as it was during the final years of the Soviet regime. At a time when international strife seems insurmountable and worries at home seem to paralyze, this story will teach people everywhere that it is the courage inside, not the chaos outside, that defines us.</div>
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Louise Penny is a new author for me. I've listened to one of her books on tape and enjoyed it, and look forward to an actual read. I know she has a tremendous group of followers. This was sent very nicely by St. Martin's Press.<br />
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<span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><u>SUMMARY </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #6fa8dc;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407284497822_755">
Happily retired in the village of Three Pines, Armand Gamache, former Chief Inspector of Homicide with the Sûreté du Québec, has found a peace he’d only imagined possible. On warm summer mornings he sits on a bench holding a small book, <i>The Balm in Gilead,</i> in his large hands. “There is a balm in Gilead,” his neighbor Clara Morrow reads from the dust jacket, “to make the wounded whole.”</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407284497822_754">
While Gamache doesn’t talk about his wounds and his balm, Clara tells him about hers. Peter, her artist husband, has failed to come home. Failed to show up as promised on the first anniversary of their separation. She wants Gamache’s help to find him. Having finally found sanctuary, Gamache feels a near revulsion at the thought of leaving Three Pines. “There’s power enough in Heaven,” he finishes the quote as he contemplates the quiet village, “to cure a sin-sick soul.” And then he gets up. And joins her.</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407284497822_779">
Together with his former second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and Myrna Landers, they journey deeper and deeper into Québec. And deeper and deeper into the soul of Peter Morrow. A man so desperate to recapture his fame as an artist, he would sell that soul. And may have. The journey takes them further and further from Three Pines, to the very mouth of the great St. Lawrence river. To an area so desolate, so damned, the first mariners called it The land God gave to Cain. And there they discover the terrible damage done by a sin-sick soul. </div>
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<span style="color: #660000;">Very kindly sent to me by Kensington Press, this is of course a historical fiction about Jack the Ripper and his wife. Brandy Purdy is known for her fiction having to do with kings and queens of England. I look forward to reading this new approach of hers!</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">I am so looking forward to starting this one sent by Tom Doherty Associates. It looks awesome. I love this type of thriller. Read the summary below:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #0c343d;"><div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407284984359_717">
<span style="color: #134f5c;">The Ark Storm is coming—a catastrophic weather event that will unleash massive floods and wreak more damage on California than the feared “Big One.” One man wants to profit from it. Another wants to harness it to wage jihad on American soil. One woman stands in their way: Dr. Gwen Boudain, a brave and brilliant meteorologist. </span></div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407284984359_705">
<span style="color: #134f5c;">When Boudain notices that her climate readings are off the charts, she turns to Gabriel Messenger for research funding. Messenger’s company is working on a program that ionizes water molecules to bring rain on command. Meanwhile, Wall Street suits notice that someone is placing six-month bets on the prospect of an utter apocalypse and begin to investigate. Standing in the shadows is journalist Dan Jacobsen, a former Navy SEAL. War hardened, cynical, and handsome, Jacobsen is a man with his own hidden agenda.</span></div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407284984359_702">
<span style="color: #134f5c;">Linda Davies's <i>Ark Storm</i> brings together the worlds of finance, scientific innovation, and terrorism in a fast-paced thrill ride that will leave readers gasping.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK0xlUIL2KVQplxEqy-Iefkmyov6FcJGRqQ1tCUl-4Es7Y5jp1OcGBPpBAMorHwvWcXGA2KdQJMPm3VVcWdiieZj4uZydDiE1HlX0tvgVOSJhJIYCw2rXnOxK_V3NWcqEgNVnRFfVoHGjI/s1600/Book++Deadout.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK0xlUIL2KVQplxEqy-Iefkmyov6FcJGRqQ1tCUl-4Es7Y5jp1OcGBPpBAMorHwvWcXGA2KdQJMPm3VVcWdiieZj4uZydDiE1HlX0tvgVOSJhJIYCw2rXnOxK_V3NWcqEgNVnRFfVoHGjI/s1600/Book++Deadout.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></div>
<span style="color: black;">A techno thriller sent kindly by Tom Doherty Associates, as well. This one sounds like it could be a modern-day happening! It's a follow up to another book, but, hopefully easy to catch up on.</span><br />
<span style="color: black;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><u>SUMMARY </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407285200692_804">
A trip to an island off the New England coast—and away from the demands of police work—might be just what is needed to jumpstart Detective Doyle Carrick and Nola Watkins’ stalled relationship. But a mysterious plague is killing the island’s bees. Nola takes a job at an organic farm hit hard by the disease, working for the rich, handsome, and annoying Teddy, with whom she quickly becomes a little too friendly for Doyle’s liking. When Teddy’s estranged father offers Doyle a big payday to keep his son out of trouble until he can close a big government contract—and when Doyle meets Annalisa, a beautiful researcher studying the bees—Doyle decides to stick around.</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407285200692_796">
Stoma Corporation, a giant biotech company, moves in with genetically modified super bees that supposedly are the answer to the world’s bee crisis. As tension grows between protestors and a private army of thugs, Doyle realizes that bees aren’t the only thing being modified. Annalisa’s coworkers start to go missing, and she and Doyle uncover a dark, deadly, and terrifying secret. Things spin violently out of control on the tiny island, and when Doyle closes in on what Stoma Corporation is really up to, he must race to stop them before their plot succeeds, and spreads to the mainland and the world.</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407285200692_840">
<i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407285200692_841">Deadout</i> is thrilling follow-up to McGoran’s highly acclaimed novel, <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407285200692_858">Drift.</i></div>
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A mystery and crime novel also generously sent by Tom Doherty Associates. This one is a Sonya Iverson series book. Has been compared to Barbara Taylor Bradford in its storyline.<br />
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<span style="color: #bf9000;"><u>SUMMARY</u> :</span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407285525132_836">
Elsa Klensch, host of the groundbreaking CNN news magazine, <i>Style with Elsa Klensch</i>, is the author of the <i>New York Times</i> bestseller, <i>Style with Elsa Klensch</i>. When she retired from television, Elsa took with her many secrets, stories she'd never been able to tell...until now in <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407285525132_835">The Third Sin</i>.</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407285525132_834">
Television producer Sonya Iverson has a habit of stumbling over dead bodies. Wade Bruckheimer decides to sell a fabulous diamond that once belonged to his late mother. He needs money, and selling the Braganza seems the best way of getting it. His stepmother, Irina, is furious—that diamond is her ticket to every A-list party in New York. A few days before the sale, Wade is found dead in his luxurious apartment.</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407285525132_831">
Sonya was already working on a story about the diamond and immediately begins to cover the murder, to the dismay of her boyfriend, who fears that Sonya is putting herself in danger. Irina Bruckheimer is the first, but not the last, suspect. Esperanza’s family want the Braganza back. There are long-standing rumors that Wade’s high-maintenance wife is having an affair. Only Sonya, with her outsider’s viewpoint, can sort through Wade Bruckheimer’s life and find his killer.</div>
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Beautiful cover...this one is an ancient Ireland mystery which is Peter Tremayne's forte'. I love this time period and a good mystery. This one should be a fun read. Many thanks to St. Martin's Press for thinking of me with this one.<br />
<br />
<u>SUMMARY </u>:<br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407285866379_636">
Winter, 670 AD. King Colgú has invited the leading nobles and chieftains of his kingdom to a feast day. Fidelma and her companion Eadulf are finally home for an extended stay, and have promised their son, Alchú, that they’ll be able to spend some time together after months of being on the road, investigating crimes. Fidelma and Eadulf are enjoying the feast when it is interrupted by the entrance of a religieux, who claims he has an important message for the King. He approaches the throne and shouts ‘Remember Liamuin!’ and then stabs King Colgú. The assassin is slain, but does enough damage to take out Colgú’s bodyguard, and to put the king himself on the verge of death.<br /><br /> As King Colgú lies in recovery, Fidelma, Eadulf, and bodyguard Gormán are tasked with discovering who is behind the assassination attempt, and who Liamuin is. They must journey into the territory of their arch-enemies, the Uí Fidgente, to uncover the secrets in the Abbey of Mungairit, and then venture into the threatening mountain territory ruled by a godless tyrant. Danger and violence are their constant companions until the final devastating revelation.</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407285866379_674">
</div>
<i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1407285866379_673">Atonement of Blood</i> is a mystery of Ancient Ireland from Peter Tremayne.<br />
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<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><u><span style="color: #741b47;">On another note</span></u>:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm reading "Outlander," "Me Before You," and "A Game of Thrones" presently. Also have started "The Girl with all the Gifts," which I've said is excellent!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
Hope you are enjoying your new reads. Check back with me soon...<br />
<br />
Deborah<br />
<br /></span><br />
</span> </span><br />
<u><span style="color: #274e13;"></span></u> </span>Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com70tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-29406820608050005952014-08-04T21:35:00.001-07:002014-08-04T21:47:32.534-07:00"Game of Thrones" by George R. R. Martin~The HBO Series!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkub6bKD79en2t0-0nTF6vTrQHG6JyoGk0Cjvc9Yd9zDqrlvi45HhRxom8JpMhUy4olVnWYMEcg_vr8haMCIlBOxtSIJHYVjMhUuv5ipme3yLYAztAcUOaunOdPvd6_TMrsxFS911iSmDy/s1600/Book++Game+of+Thrones+HBO+Series+1+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkub6bKD79en2t0-0nTF6vTrQHG6JyoGk0Cjvc9Yd9zDqrlvi45HhRxom8JpMhUy4olVnWYMEcg_vr8haMCIlBOxtSIJHYVjMhUuv5ipme3yLYAztAcUOaunOdPvd6_TMrsxFS911iSmDy/s1600/Book++Game+of+Thrones+HBO+Series+1+cover.jpg" height="320" width="239" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #0c343d;"><u>SUMMARY </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;"><span style="color: black;">Based on the bestselling book series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, this sprawling new HBO Drama is set in a world where summers span decades and winters can last a lifetime. From the scheming south and the savage eastern lands, to the frozen north and the ancient Wall that protects the realm from the mysterious darkness beyond, the powerful families of the Seven Kingdoms are locked in a battle for the Iron Throne. This is a story of duplicity and treachery, nobility and honor, conquest and triumph. In the Game of Thrones, you either win or you die. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;"><u>PARTICULARS OF THIS PRODUCT </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black;">Produced by: HBO Home Video </span><br />
Inspired by author: George R.R. Martin<br />
Book Series: "Game of Thrones" series<br />
See author's website: <a href="http://www.georgerrmartin.com/">http://www.georgerrmartin.com</a> <br />
<br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;"><u>ABOUT THE AUTHOR </u>: </span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;">(Mr. Martin prefers not to have his photo displayed without written permission. Please see his website for more information and a picture of him...)</span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;"></span><br />
George R.R. Martin was born September 20, 1948 in Bayonne, New Jersey. His father was Raymond Collins Martin, a longshoreman, and his mother was Margaret Brady Martin. He has two sisters, Darleen Martin Lapinski and Janet Martin Patten.<br />
<br />
Martin attended Mary Jane Donohoe School and Marist High School. He began writing very young, selling monster stories to other neighborhood children for pennies, dramatic readings included. Later he became a comic book fan and collector in high school, and began to write fiction for comic fanzines (amateur fan magazines). Martin’s first professional sale was made in 1970 at age 21: “The Hero,” sold to <em>Galaxy</em>, published in February, 1971 issue. Other sales followed.<br />
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In 1970 Martin received a B.S. in Journalism from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, graduating summa cum laude. He went on to complete a M.S. in Journalism in 1971, also from Northwestern.<br />
<br />
As a conscientious objector, Martin did alternative service 1972-1974 with VISTA, attached to Cook County Legal Assistance Foundation. He also directed chess tournaments for the Continental Chess Association from 1973-1976, and was a Journalism instructor at Clarke College, Dubuque, Iowa, from 1976-1978. He wrote part-time throughout the 1970s while working as a VISTA Volunteer, chess director, and teacher.<br />
<br />
In 1975 he married Gale Burnick. They divorced in 1979, with no children. Martin became a full-time writer in 1979. He was writer-in-residence at Clarke College from 1978-79.<br />
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Moving on to Hollywood, Martin signed on as a story editor for <em>Twilight Zone</em> at CBS Television in 1986. In 1987 Martin became an Executive Story Consultant for <em>Beauty and the Beast</em> at CBS. In 1988 he became a Producer for <em>Beauty and the Beast</em>, then in 1989 moved up to Co-Supervising Producer. He was Executive Producer for <em>Doorways</em>, a pilot which he wrote for Columbia Pictures Television, which was filmed during 1992-93.<br />
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Martin’s present home is Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is a member of <a href="http://www.sfwa.org/">Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America</a> (he was South-Central Regional Director 1977-1979, and Vice President 1996-1998), and of Writers’ Guild of America, West.<br />
<br />
His awards and honors are too numerous to list here, please see his website for details!<br />
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Second Season of the Series<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgujP-mx6uLpqyqRWaeV-fN0hKeKegU7fPfDGCrKNY90wABu3erg18w8vtIeqs96N9Hti0XlyqErhO7WAkIf83ANf8IyJaDr8vAGAsuow9Vhvk0IKtHIGSoFXB7r4LUGPkIA2IcIChuWhf1/s1600/Book++Game+of+Thrones+HBO+Series+3+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgujP-mx6uLpqyqRWaeV-fN0hKeKegU7fPfDGCrKNY90wABu3erg18w8vtIeqs96N9Hti0XlyqErhO7WAkIf83ANf8IyJaDr8vAGAsuow9Vhvk0IKtHIGSoFXB7r4LUGPkIA2IcIChuWhf1/s1600/Book++Game+of+Thrones+HBO+Series+3+cover.jpg" height="320" width="234" /></a></div>
Third Season of the Series!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_e3kaMSAVlgbQmKW0yPPOcFhUdxxvxlcJVXure8D0Qy1pSYOr11ZtCdhBAmZe0lHKGARz0-jac_QiKoW6IL0FMevNzAVYQ5psK8Yxefp20g4kRdamT2aBpSbchaJDSwOOS2JxUcB3l0oR/s1600/Book++Game+of+Thrones+box+set.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_e3kaMSAVlgbQmKW0yPPOcFhUdxxvxlcJVXure8D0Qy1pSYOr11ZtCdhBAmZe0lHKGARz0-jac_QiKoW6IL0FMevNzAVYQ5psK8Yxefp20g4kRdamT2aBpSbchaJDSwOOS2JxUcB3l0oR/s1600/Book++Game+of+Thrones+box+set.jpg" /></a></div>
One of the box sets... "A Song of Ice and Fire" inspired the HBO series<br />
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<br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;"><u>THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;">I'm probably the last to see this magnificent series inspired by George R.R. Martin's books. Now, needless to say, I've been spending a marathon of days and nights over this past weekend and today watching the DVD's, hoping to catch up. I'm only on season #3 at this point. Hooked!!! This has to be the best of any series I've seen, and I highly recommend it to those of you who have been waiting or have missed out as I have.</span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;">Not ordinarily a huge fan of fantasy, I discovered "Game of Thrones" one day when I was bored and browsing at Barnes & Noble about six years ago. I took a notion to ask one of the stocking guys to tell me what some of his favorite books were. This isn't something I do on a regular basis...I usually ask the women clerks! His eyes flared and he said, "Game of Thrones," you have to read it!" I bought it on a lark and started it as soon as I got home. The writing was gorgeous and lush. I was truly bowled over. Not like any fantasy book I'd read before. But, I somehow put it down. Something else called to me...could have been a review I needed to write. Could have been that I wanted to buy the whole series before I started it. I can't remember. Then, I had a huge physical problem that put me out of commission, and the book fell to the wayside...</span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;">Once the HBO series hit the news in force, I was determined not to watch it. I wanted to get back to reading the book. It was so good, and I didn't want to spoil the prose by watching the acting. Time went by; however, and my health got worse. So, I decided this weekend to break my promise to myself and go ahead and get the DVDs. I'm so thrilled I did. I've rarely enjoyed anything more!</span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;">There is a medieval tone to the story. The characters are rich and deeply involving. The plot is intriguing. Everything about the series is seductive and exciting. I'm particularly drawn to the "Mother of the Dragons." This is a story of war and hardship, love and family, betrayal and honor. There's so much to love and enjoy about the fantasy and the characters. The acting is superb and the stage sets are fabulous. Even Queen Elizabeth is a fan!</span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;">Of course, I could never summarize here the entire show. Suffice it to say that if you haven't yet tried it, please go find a copy of a DVD (I purchased mine...just had to). It's well worth your time.</span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;">Primarily, I recommend getting a copy of the book(s) which are simply outstanding. George R.R. Martin is a literary genius. The books are easy to read, and are just gorgeously written in every way.</span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;">Loving this series on DVD, and I've sent for the box set of books for my library!</span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;">5 stars</span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;">Deborah/TheBookishDame</span>Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com80tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-4275202083305748432014-07-30T17:30:00.000-07:002014-07-31T18:31:46.991-07:00"The Predator, The Making of a Wiseguy" by Anthony Aqua ~ Going Viral<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDpcJVM7IsiTQ7eT4ZyVOF6YMIVYflYGYzdhNWrToEWcBtuKbtVW68P329_EuofTbml_kAs3TCgO_sZXfMhdH3D05DaAH_52ahv5YunU4tWJvfI11Sh1VyfShKgW4b01LE9HarRQ5r_nHw/s1600/Book++The+Predator.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDpcJVM7IsiTQ7eT4ZyVOF6YMIVYflYGYzdhNWrToEWcBtuKbtVW68P329_EuofTbml_kAs3TCgO_sZXfMhdH3D05DaAH_52ahv5YunU4tWJvfI11Sh1VyfShKgW4b01LE9HarRQ5r_nHw/s1600/Book++The+Predator.jpg" height="320" width="212" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #660000;"><u>SUMMARY </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #660000;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"></span><br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406764209756_687">
<span style="color: #444444;"><i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406764209756_686">He was about to take Julie against her will. Having her body would not be the same as having her heart and mind, but Don didn't realize it at the time.</i></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;">
<em></em><br />
</span><br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406764209756_690">
<span style="color: #444444;">Obsession takes on terrifying form in Anthony V. Aqua's <i>The Predator</i>. This sexually explicit cat-and-mouse game will take readers into the mind of a man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants.</span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;">
<br />
</span><div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406764209756_691">
<span style="color: #444444;">Don Ricci is handsome, rich...and a psychopath. After a humiliating rejection by Julie, an old classmate, he kidnaps her at knifepoint and locks her away in a homemade dungeon.</span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;">
<br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406764209756_685">
Determined to make Julie into his idealized version of the perfect "wife," Don's violently sexual encounters with his traumatized captor are interrupted only by his intermittent carousing around town.</div>
<br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406764209756_713">
As his tempter spirals out of control, Don runs into more and more trouble both in and out of his underground lair. His erratic behavior eventually brings him to Black Jack Roma, a grizzled veteran of the New England mafia who assumes Don is there to silence him for good.</div>
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406764209756_1037">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
But as Black Jack realizes the true nature of Don's derangement, he decides to make the rich playboy an offer that he simply can't refuse.</div>
<u><span style="color: #990000;"></span></u><br />
<u><span style="color: #990000;"></span></u><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><u>PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;">Published by: CreateSpace</span><br />
Pages: 248<br />
Genre: Thriller<br />
Series: Don Ricci The Making of a Wiseguy Book 1<br />
Author: Anthony V. Aqua<br />
Purchase the book: <br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-predator-anthony-v-aqua/1119970207?ean=9781494866518">Barnes & Noble</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Predator-Making-Wiseguy-Don-Ricci/dp/149486651X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406764647&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Predator+by+Anthony+V.+Aqua">Amazon</a></span><br />
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<br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><u>ABOUT THE AUTHOR </u>:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUVpNVafVMcFnWk-ZDeAgJt7rN32eBFkLuRO2qX3g_CPIiNpMYRBlrZ99IHTy9GGqxPAHnqlK8WUej3Tnh5XDP8iyTaLQhz9JfIrKkLGmuxexR4HmhFcB7VJQbv_74rZSf_vC_t-GsWWmA/s1600/Anthony+and+Clara.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUVpNVafVMcFnWk-ZDeAgJt7rN32eBFkLuRO2qX3g_CPIiNpMYRBlrZ99IHTy9GGqxPAHnqlK8WUej3Tnh5XDP8iyTaLQhz9JfIrKkLGmuxexR4HmhFcB7VJQbv_74rZSf_vC_t-GsWWmA/s1600/Anthony+and+Clara.png" height="320" width="246" /></a></div>
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Anthony V. Aqua is second-generation Sicilian, having grown up in Boston and graduated from Northeastern University. After working a variety of jobs, including as an employee in his family’s import/export business and as a police officer, he settled into a twenty-five-year career in real estate.<br />
Mr. Aqua currently lives with his wife in Naples, Florida, where he is hard at work on his Don Ricci series.<br />
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<span style="color: #990000;"><u>THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;">This is not the type of book I generally read or review, but this one is starting to go viral, and I wanted to bring it to you. Like "Shades of Grey," Anthony V. Aqua's "The Predator" is a shocker. It stands out in a unique way. It is more than risqué, it's downright explicit sexual material; more so than any book I've ever read. But, it's completely un-put-downable! People have commented they are compelled to keep reading.</span><br />
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Dedicated to those who have been kidnapped and held hostage, and those who have been sex slaves, it gives an eye-opening glimpse into the heart and mind of a predator and psychopath. It's not a beautiful story, but it's more realistic than any I've read in my life.<br />
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The book is fraught with the type of violence that only those connected with criminals would know to be an every day matter. It's stuff that will absolutely shock you to read. While Mr. Aqua swears he has no connection to the mob and never has, it is difficult to believe when you read this book! Amazing chapters, and such fine, descriptive writing in some places, you feel you're watching a movie.<br />
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The weakness in the book is that Mr. Aqua is a new author, so there are some obvious loose points and less intriguing sections. These are easily over looked in the long run. <br />
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This isn't one for everyone, and I hesitate to recommend it. I'm just letting you know it's out there. I suspect it will become a cult novel fast. If you have the stomach for something sexually explicit and violent that's about the mafia, you might like to give it a try.... Warning!!<br />
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Deborah/TheBookishDame<br />
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<br />Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com68tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-72337135074897661992014-07-24T11:11:00.001-07:002014-07-24T11:40:35.838-07:00"What Is Visible" by Kimberly Elkins ~ Fascinating...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnCyDr943zU2vIboU6dsKJICI2NcIWrB1j3hi0XJePaOwNq7xg3SR-GDY25bzuUnOVFPgLAWydpK-Jsibt6so7dIgWjIlGpmlyAtFY_49uDdZHclR6LWRPqhwBIvIamrOwWRe-4cbJ9RE7/s1600/Book++What+Is+Visible.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnCyDr943zU2vIboU6dsKJICI2NcIWrB1j3hi0XJePaOwNq7xg3SR-GDY25bzuUnOVFPgLAWydpK-Jsibt6so7dIgWjIlGpmlyAtFY_49uDdZHclR6LWRPqhwBIvIamrOwWRe-4cbJ9RE7/s1600/Book++What+Is+Visible.jpg" height="320" width="211" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #e06666;"><u>SUMMARY </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #e06666;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #e06666;"><i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406223347336_919"><span style="color: black;">A vividly original literary novel based on the astounding true-life story of Laura Bridgman, the first deaf and blind person who learned language and blazed a trail for Helen Keller.</span></i><br />
<em></em><br /><span style="color: black;"> At age two, Laura Bridgman lost four of her five senses to scarlet fever. At age seven, she was taken to Perkins Institute in Boston to determine if a child so terribly afflicted could be taught. At age twelve, Charles Dickens declared her his prime interest for visiting America. And by age twenty, she was considered the nineteenth century's second most famous woman, having mastered language and charmed the world with her brilliance.</span><br />
<span style="color: black;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"> Not since <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406223347336_922">The Diving Bell and the Butterfly</i> has a book proven so profoundly moving in illuminating the challenges of living in a completely unique inner world.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #e06666;"><span style="color: black;">With Laura-by turns mischievous, temperamental, and witty-as the book's primary narrator, the fascinating kaleidoscope of characters includes the founder of Perkins Institute, Samuel Gridley Howe, with whom she was in love; his wife, the glamorous Julia Ward Howe, a renowned writer, abolitionist, and suffragist; Laura's beloved teacher, who married a missionary and died insane from syphilis; an Irish orphan with whom Laura had a tumultuous affair; Annie Sullivan; and even the young Helen Keller.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">Deeply enthralling and rich with lyricism, WHAT IS VISIBLE chronicles the breathtaking experiment that Laura Bridgman embodied and its links to the great social, philosophical, theological, and educational changes rocking Victorian America. Given Laura's worldwide fame in the nineteenth century, it is astonishing that she has been virtually erased from history. WHAT IS VISIBLE will set the record straight.</span></div>
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<u>PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK </u>:<br />
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<span style="color: black;">Published by Grand Central/Hachette Publishing</span><br />
<span style="color: black;">Pages: 320</span><br />
<span style="color: black;">Genre: Historical Fiction</span><br />
<span style="color: black;">Author: Kimberly Elkins</span><br />
Website: <a href="http://www.kimberlyelkins.com/">http://www.kimberlyelkins.com</a><br />
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<span style="color: #e06666;"><u>ABOUT THE AUTHOR </u>:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT_2rI59UmV-PtqdFRl3vF3wHOUgGV6q9xE_DV-QAhK92AK98lmG84NtZl81gSM2D1RMYrDTMb5Ar8-BqWbClVidjDaBt_bvbUkVyfoa87jgU7T1CrnhU3RwM487mHOxqbP8Ifst-X9-X1/s1600/Author++Kimberly+Elkins.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT_2rI59UmV-PtqdFRl3vF3wHOUgGV6q9xE_DV-QAhK92AK98lmG84NtZl81gSM2D1RMYrDTMb5Ar8-BqWbClVidjDaBt_bvbUkVyfoa87jgU7T1CrnhU3RwM487mHOxqbP8Ifst-X9-X1/s1600/Author++Kimberly+Elkins.jpg" height="320" width="210" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black;">Kimberly Elkins was a finalist for the National Magazine Award and has published fiction and nonfiction in the <i>Atlantic</i>, <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406223347336_1422">Best New American Voices</i>, <i>Iowa Review</i>, <i>Chicago Tribune</i>, <i>Glamour</i>, and <i>Village Voice</i>, among others. WHAT IS VISIBLE is her first novel.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #e06666;"><u>THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #e06666;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black;">When I decided to preview this novel on Netgalley with a "taste" of the book, I never thought I would be caught up, leading me to purchase it just so I could finish the story. This is a fascinating account of Laura Bridgman, the very first known woman who was both deaf and blind, and who learned to communicate. It is a book I imagine will mesmerize everyone. I was held rapt, absolutely.</span><br />
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While "What Is Visible" is a historical novel, Kimberly Elkins writes with such grace and delicacy that it flies off the pages as a real account. Absorbing and disturbing at times, it's a book I couldn't put down and raced through the night hoping to finish. It took me longer than I had eyes to keep open!<br />
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Each of the characters she describes are vivid in their every day lives in her novel. I was completely engaged with Laura and the Doctor. I was drawn in like a voyeur, able to see what a magnificent and complicated person Laura was, and how she loved the Doctor who sculpted her life. I think the underlying study of what her inner life might have been like was most compelling. This is a novel with teeth, but also with a strong heart at the center. Laura seems to reach for us from its pages and she touches us!<br />
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I can't say enough about the genius of Ms Elkins's writing. The novel is beautifully crafted. The characters engender caring and tender feelings. The story is moving. You can tell her heart is in this book.<br />
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This is a must read!<br />
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5 stars Deborah/TheBookishDame<br />
<br />Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com63tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-85929640672179885502014-07-23T09:38:00.001-07:002014-07-23T09:38:57.044-07:00Summer Reading~New Books<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU1wcyxhQ66LNVJBVNtzlpgFBP9zHRpnCiu-lh136FUS-KiyA79aef-JVp1gDAJT-ylV_Jaa2-dYAC3t6i86pNp6arkOBa_G6bvsrZM5Npw_jWBh95bw791RzWYq2VAwRGdrWOTLRjjuog/s1600/Books+Summer+Reading+7+14+002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU1wcyxhQ66LNVJBVNtzlpgFBP9zHRpnCiu-lh136FUS-KiyA79aef-JVp1gDAJT-ylV_Jaa2-dYAC3t6i86pNp6arkOBa_G6bvsrZM5Npw_jWBh95bw791RzWYq2VAwRGdrWOTLRjjuog/s1600/Books+Summer+Reading+7+14+002.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><u></u></span><br />
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><u>SUMMER READING BOOKS </u>:</span><br />
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This is my newest collection of books I'm planning on reading in August or before. I'm including below a couple of pictures of more which I don't yet have in earnest, but which I've ordered. Just about everything has a blue tinge!<br />
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My head is doing better and it's getting easier to read again, so I'm excited about that. I'm hoping as the months increase, my eyes will get better and I'll be back to my reading speed again. I'm coming out of my slump, as well. It feels great!<br />
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So let me give you some summaries of the above books:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXVKbT43lx4kh8OfQo6pktXra1hyyGfyHD1iXQ5cLgPgB9ZQp5ov5QqL66IAddCcjK7Uz5oLLcy-HsMQvPD9FUEHJnFca0ViJCbNN5dVkRHN7pdDB6Hbrf5GShqnPOs0tNF_VV3c_Lw8ih/s1600/Book++The+Sea+House.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXVKbT43lx4kh8OfQo6pktXra1hyyGfyHD1iXQ5cLgPgB9ZQp5ov5QqL66IAddCcjK7Uz5oLLcy-HsMQvPD9FUEHJnFca0ViJCbNN5dVkRHN7pdDB6Hbrf5GShqnPOs0tNF_VV3c_Lw8ih/s1600/Book++The+Sea+House.jpg" height="320" width="209" /></a></div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406131415416_1046">
In 1860, Alexander Ferguson, a newly ordained vicar and amateur evolutionary scientist, takes up his new parish, a poor, isolated patch on the remote Scottish island of Harris. He hopes to uncover the truth behind the legend of the selkies—mermaids or seal people who have been sighted off the north of Scotland for centuries. He has a more personal motive, too; family legend states that Alexander is descended from seal men. As he struggles to be the good pastor he was called to be, his maid Moira faces the terrible eviction of her family by Lord Marstone, whose family owns the island. Their time on the island will irrevocably change the course of both their lives, but the white house on the edge of the dunes keeps its silence long after they are gone.</div>
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406131415416_1027">
It will be more than a century before the Sea House reluctantly gives up its secrets. Ruth and Michael buy the grand but dilapidated building and begin to turn it into a home for the family they hope to have. Their dreams are marred by a shocking discovery. The tiny bones of a baby are buried beneath the house; the child's fragile legs are fused together—a mermaid child. Who buried the bones? And why? To heal her own demons, Ruth feels she must discover the secrets of her new home—but the answers to her questions may lie in her own traumatic past. <i>The Sea House</i> by Elisabeth Gifford is a sweeping tale of hope and redemption and a study of how we heal ourselves by discovering our histories.</div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c;">*Note: I'm a sucker for books about the Scottish coasts and its legends. This one about mermaids and selkies should be good.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf2g6KXeiqdgQZaicgrcCvN7GayPeNOf8Zo5Kb7oAzv1zLX1WH-lN89jwj5kKRhTIBCh8KvvBmGo38HtkpqKFWr2VrnIRvxNj2hePgTxK5SzlGOnTws5KQDP6BSWQDtwaoxfG1QdS_8aC5/s1600/Book++Close+Your+Eyes+and+Hold+Hands.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf2g6KXeiqdgQZaicgrcCvN7GayPeNOf8Zo5Kb7oAzv1zLX1WH-lN89jwj5kKRhTIBCh8KvvBmGo38HtkpqKFWr2VrnIRvxNj2hePgTxK5SzlGOnTws5KQDP6BSWQDtwaoxfG1QdS_8aC5/s1600/Book++Close+Your+Eyes+and+Hold+Hands.jpg" height="320" width="210" /></a></div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406132096314_1086">
<b id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406132096314_1087"></b> </div>
<b>A heartbreaking, wildly inventive, and moving novel narrated by a teenage runaway, from the bestselling author of <i>Midwives</i> and <i>The Sandcastle Girls</i>.</b><br />
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406132096314_1075">
<i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406132096314_1085">Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands</i> is the story of Emily Shepard, a homeless teen living in an igloo made of ice and trash bags filled with frozen leaves. Half a year earlier, a nuclear plant in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom had experienced a cataclysmic meltdown, and both of Emily's parents were killed. Devastatingly, her father was in charge of the plant, and the meltdown may have been his fault. Was he drunk when it happened? Thousands of people are forced to flee their homes in the Kingdom; rivers and forests are destroyed; and Emily feels certain that as the daughter of the most hated man in America, she is in danger. So instead of following the social workers and her classmates after the meltdown, Emily takes off on her own for Burlington, where she survives by stealing, sleeping on the floor of a drug dealer's apartment, and inventing a new identity for herself — an identity inspired by her favorite poet, Emily Dickinson. When Emily befriends a young homeless boy named Cameron, she protects him with a ferocity she didn't know she had. But she still can't outrun her past, can't escape her grief, can't hide forever—and so she comes up with the only plan that she can. </div>
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406132096314_1090">
A story of loss, adventure, and the search for friendship in the wake of catastrophe, <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406132096314_1123">Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands </i>is one of Chris Bohjalian’s finest novels to date—breathtaking, wise, and utterly transporting.</div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;">*Note: I've started this one. Bohjalian is a great author, so what's not to love. I'm excited to get further into this post apocalyptic novel. Something new for him...</span><br />
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<em>Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet</em> . . . So begins the story of this exquisite debut novel, about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee; their middle daughter, a girl who inherited her mother’s bright blue eyes and her father’s jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue—in Marilyn’s case that her daughter become a doctor rather than a homemaker, in James’s case that Lydia be popular at school, a girl with a busy social life and the center of every party. <br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406132344312_1131">
When Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together tumbles into chaos, forcing them to confront the long-kept secrets that have been slowly pulling them apart. James, consumed by guilt, sets out on a reckless path that may destroy his marriage. Marilyn, devastated and vengeful, is determined to find a responsible party, no matter what the cost. Lydia’s older brother, Nathan, is certain that the neighborhood bad boy Jack is somehow involved. But it’s the youngest of the family—Hannah—who observes far more than anyone realizes and who may be the only one who knows the truth about what happened.</div>
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406132344312_1137">
A profoundly moving story of family, history, and the meaning of home, <i>Everything I Never Told You</i> is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, exploring the divisions between cultures and the rifts within a family, and uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.</div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c;">*Note: I did a preview read of this one, as well. Great writing. This one was a recommended read for me. It captured my interest immediately. I'm interested in getting to it very soon.</span><br />
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<div class="simple-html" id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406132562146_1085">
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406132562146_1094">
From the author of <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406132562146_1161">Queen’s Gambit</i>, which <i>People</i> magazine called, “A must-read for Philippa Gregory fans,” a gripping historical novel about two sisters who tread as dangerously close to the crown as their tragic sister, Lady Jane Grey, executed after just nine days on the throne.</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406132562146_1095">
Early in Mary Tudor’s turbulent reign, Lady Catherine and Lady Mary Grey are reeling after the brutal execution of their elder seventeen-year-old sister, Lady Jane Grey, and the succession is by no means stable. In <i>Sisters of Treason</i>, Elizabeth Freemantle brings these young women to life in a spellbinding Tudor tale of love and politics.</div>
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406132562146_1084">
Neither sister is well suited to a dangerous life at court. Flirtatious Lady Catherine, thought to be the true heir, cannot control her compulsion to love and be loved. Her sister, clever Lady Mary, has a crooked spine and a tiny stature in an age when physical perfection equates to goodness—and both girls have inherited the Tudor blood that is more curse than blessing. For either girl to marry without royal permission would be a potentially fatal political act. It is the royal portrait painter, Levina Teerlinc, who helps the girls survive these troubled times. She becomes their mentor and confidante, but when the Queen’s sister, the hot-headed Elizabeth, inherits the crown, life at court becomes increasingly treacherous for the surviving Grey sisters. Ultimately each young woman must decide how far she will go to defy her Queen, risk her life, and find the safety and love she longs for.</div>
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406132562146_1112">
From “a brilliant new player in the court of royal fiction,” (<i>People</i>) <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406132562146_1148">Sisters of Treason</i> brings to vivid life the perilous and romantic lives of two little known young women who played a major role in the complex politics of their day.</div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c;">*Note: Elizabeth Fremantle became one of my favorite historical fiction authors when she wrote "Queen's Gambit" last year. A brilliant read... I can't wait to get to this one!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #990000;"><u>NOW FOR BOOKS I'M EXPECTING IN THE MAIL OR ON NETGALLEY </u>:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg91mtGOilk4x0ixJQKix55n33ICbQvJMLlmyhKRR5h210BR_p4NGW5FDPDliYtVf-JUhFAFj0xOib7M-SkKiDD7R2uIIbFs4EOnQKreJSSxqD5joFM4fN0Ke_qsVSlYLtr-2lsks7j2ToO/s1600/Book++The+Girl+with+all+the+Gifts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg91mtGOilk4x0ixJQKix55n33ICbQvJMLlmyhKRR5h210BR_p4NGW5FDPDliYtVf-JUhFAFj0xOib7M-SkKiDD7R2uIIbFs4EOnQKreJSSxqD5joFM4fN0Ke_qsVSlYLtr-2lsks7j2ToO/s1600/Book++The+Girl+with+all+the+Gifts.jpg" height="320" width="209" /></a></div>
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406132847857_1047">
<i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406132847857_1048">The Girl With All the Gifts</i> is a groundbreaking thriller, emotionally charged and gripping from beginning to end.</div>
<br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406132847857_1046">
Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class.</div>
<br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406132847857_1045">
When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh.</div>
<br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406132847857_1043">
<b id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406132847857_1042">Melanie is a very special girl.</b></div>
<strong></strong><br />
<span style="color: #990000;">*Note: Creepy!! This is a novel I just ordered from Amazon after a "taste" of it on Netgalley. It's a fabulous read....I can't tell you more. :]</span><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFUV4Q51puxAaHNZnJK1mx760s0x2s6ghOsS7sR9v0bb5eh_QwohZI8dKd3AvZ-o-tOKFFOuM4S2dVqeRg7DCVZfebR0MNV7x5_NZKI39dXSt29q3ZpMPfna04LHMkgKhftgZslQNSWssb/s1600/Book++Sweetness+%239.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFUV4Q51puxAaHNZnJK1mx760s0x2s6ghOsS7sR9v0bb5eh_QwohZI8dKd3AvZ-o-tOKFFOuM4S2dVqeRg7DCVZfebR0MNV7x5_NZKI39dXSt29q3ZpMPfna04LHMkgKhftgZslQNSWssb/s1600/Book++Sweetness+%239.jpg" height="320" width="205" /></a></div>
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406133054019_698">
<b id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406133054019_699">"Funny and moving. After this, nothing will ever taste the same again."—T. C. Boyle</b></div>
<strong></strong><br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406133054019_702">
It's 1973, and David Leveraux has landed his dream job as a Flavorist-in-Training, working in the secretive industry where chemists create the flavors for everything from the cherry in your can of soda to the butter on your popcorn.</div>
<br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406133054019_703">
While testing a new artificial sweetener—"Sweetness #9"—he notices unusual side-effects in the laboratory rats and monkeys: anxiety, obesity, mutism, and a generalized dissatisfaction with life. David tries to blow the whistle, but he swallows it instead.</div>
<br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406133054019_676">
Years later, Sweetness #9 is America's most popular sweetener—and David's family is changing. His wife is gaining weight, his son has stopped using verbs, and his daughter suffers from a generalized dissatisfaction with life. Is Sweetness #9 to blame, along with David's failure to stop it? Or are these just symptoms of the American condition?</div>
<br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406133054019_673">
David's search for an answer unfolds in this expansive novel that is at once a comic satire, a family story, and a profound exploration of our deepest cultural anxieties. Wickedly funny and wildly imaginative, <i>Sweetness #9</i> questions whether what we eat truly makes us who we are.</div>
<br />
<span style="color: #e06666;">*Note: Can't resist this one! I like a book like this for a change. I'm getting a snap of it on Netgalley this week...but you can find it for purchase on B&N and Amazon.</span><br />
<span style="color: #e06666;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #e06666;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;">So, those are my newest choices. Wonder what you're reading this summer....</span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;">Deb</span></div>
Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com85tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-70278465939917356902014-07-22T21:30:00.000-07:002014-07-22T21:30:21.327-07:00"One Kick" by Chelsea Cain ~ Explosive!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGadL4-O4FFoL3K6_m37bQz7i-zGS_XgLwrbNpFKq6Dk5Ytc9RAL2m1TwXvQhlfqHqnoAqrqerKLghJtR2yyGUum5pAgB2JdX3uPdYJQDEj-RFmlN6M_B9vUwqnFTVoWe6ziNGaCkJVbO6/s1600/Book++One+Kick.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGadL4-O4FFoL3K6_m37bQz7i-zGS_XgLwrbNpFKq6Dk5Ytc9RAL2m1TwXvQhlfqHqnoAqrqerKLghJtR2yyGUum5pAgB2JdX3uPdYJQDEj-RFmlN6M_B9vUwqnFTVoWe6ziNGaCkJVbO6/s1600/Book++One+Kick.jpg" height="320" width="215" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #990000;"><u>SUMMARY </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #660000;"><div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406088048802_868">
From the author of the critically acclaimed <i>New</i> <i>York</i> <i>Times</i> bestselling Archie Sheridan/Gretchen Lowell thrillers: The first in a nail-biting new series featuring Kick Lannigan, a young woman whose complicated past has given her a very special skill set.</div>
<br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406088048802_871">
Famously kidnapped at age six, Kick captured America’s hearts when she was rescued five years later. Now, twenty-one, she finds herself unexpectedly entangled in a missing child case that will put her talents to the test.</div>
<br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406088048802_872">
Trained as a marksman, lock picker, escape artist and bomb maker by her abductor, Kick could not return to the life of the average young girl after her release. So, in lieu of therapy, she mastered martial arts, boxing, and knife throwing; learned how to escape from the trunk of a car, jimmy a pair of handcuffs, and walk without making a sound—all before she was thirteen.</div>
<br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406088048802_862">
Kick has trained herself to be safe. But then two children go missing in three weeks, and an enigmatic and wealthy former weapons dealer approaches her with a proposition. John Bishop uses his fortune and contacts to track down missing children. Not only is he convinced Kick can help recover the two children—he won’t take no for an answer.</div>
<br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406088048802_889">
With lives hanging in the balance, Kick is set to be the crusader she has always imagined herself. Little does she know that the answers she and Bishop seek are hidden in one of the few places she doesn’t want to navigate—the dark corners of her own mind.</div>
<br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406088048802_890">
A heart-stopping, entertaining thrill ride, <i>One</i> <i>Kick</i> announces the arrival of a blistering new series by a stunning talent in the thriller realm.</div>
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<br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;"><u>PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #660000;">Published by: Simon & Schuster</span><br />
Pages: 320<br />
Series: Kick Lannigan Series Bk 1<br />
Genre: Thriller/Mystery/Suspense<br />
Author: Chelsea Cain<br />
Website: <a href="http://www.chelseacain.com/">http://www.chelseacain.com</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;"><u>ABOUT THE AUTHOR </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSm0bc_1CF142Q_qndPmI4EDvQWkKgGE-4JfpX3ZN82ml7C5PTIAhcjQfbcMvJh1kmIV4cC1-X33AWfFHRyVjhY0CdN9VGP-5nBEJvA42JDFDvQ-CKHYitYC5myt1JF-XYQocny2Wxj9o3/s1600/Author++Chelsea+Cain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSm0bc_1CF142Q_qndPmI4EDvQWkKgGE-4JfpX3ZN82ml7C5PTIAhcjQfbcMvJh1kmIV4cC1-X33AWfFHRyVjhY0CdN9VGP-5nBEJvA42JDFDvQ-CKHYitYC5myt1JF-XYQocny2Wxj9o3/s1600/Author++Chelsea+Cain.jpg" height="320" width="227" /></a></div>
<br />
Chelsea Cain is the author of the <i>New</i> <i>York</i> <i>Times</i> bestselling Archie Sheridan/Gretchen Lowell thrillers <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406088048802_1010">Heartsick</i>, <i>Sweetheart</i>, <i>Evil</i> <i>at</i> <i>Heart</i>, <i>The</i> <i>Night</i> <i>Season</i>, <i>Kill</i> <i>You</i> <i>Twice</i>, and <i>Let</i> <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406088048802_1014">Me</i> <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406088048802_1011">Go</i>. Her Portland-based thrillers have been published in twenty-four languages, recommended on the <i>TODAY</i> show, appeared in episodes of HBO’s <i>True</i> <i>Blood</i> and ABC’s <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1406088048802_1015">Castle</i>, been named among Stephen King’s top ten favorite books of the year, and included in NPR’s list of the top 100 thrillers ever written. According to <i>Booklist</i>, “Popular entertainment just doesn’t get much better than this.”<br />
<br />
CHECK out her website for a link to a Goodreads giveaway!!! <a href="http://www.chelseacain.com/">http://www.chelseacain.com</a> <br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;"><u>THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #660000;">It's after midnight and I've just finished another Chelsea Cain novel much to my delight. She's a long time favorite thriller/suspense novel writer who never fails to give a great "ride" for the money. Chelsea is one of those authors who calls you to pick up every book she writes because you know you're going to get consistent thrillers that speed along and are gripping. "One Kick" is no exception to this rule. I'm excited to have this introduction to a new set of characters and a new series.</span><br />
<br />
Loved, loved the story here of a young woman who is a grown up "rescue" from a child kidnapping. The details of what she went through in her transition back to "normal" are exceptional and believable. They add a broad dimension to this thriller based on finding two children who have also been kidnapped. <br />
<br />
Kick Lannigan is a wiry and wild protagonist who is worthy of a series of her own. I absolutely love her. Beautiful and brilliant, she is also physically powerful and; yet, psychologically vulnerable. A startling combination for a potent storyline. Her strange relationship with John Bishop adds that sugar and vinegar aspect to the plot that's pitch perfect! These two are dynamic and fun to read about.<br />
<br />
I couldn't put this book down all day until I'd finished it. I think you'll love it if you're interested in a fast-paced suspense novel. Great storyline with fascinating characters.<br />
<br />
5 stars Deborah/TheBookishDame</span><br />
<br />Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com71tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-77161007395716641572014-07-21T19:19:00.003-07:002014-07-21T19:19:59.046-07:00"The Matchmaker" by Elin Hilderbrand~A Summer Hit!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJjEGMi8yEfEwml4q5da8SjD1BXRyP2xOBhYSBr8bS7yq4AeQyQ2dBe6aesUD5TDCrDIZJJNV3VCi9EOTcS1amV5pNr7r6_H0OR_ee9OT-I1FXdJMZs32rhBIwT7wwo2GQYt4SCnyuS2XX/s1600/Book++The+Matchmaker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJjEGMi8yEfEwml4q5da8SjD1BXRyP2xOBhYSBr8bS7yq4AeQyQ2dBe6aesUD5TDCrDIZJJNV3VCi9EOTcS1amV5pNr7r6_H0OR_ee9OT-I1FXdJMZs32rhBIwT7wwo2GQYt4SCnyuS2XX/s1600/Book++The+Matchmaker.jpg" height="320" width="206" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #741b47;"><u>SUMMARY </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #741b47;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #741b47;"></span><div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1405971666890_1128">
<span style="color: #741b47;"><b id="yui_3_8_1_1_1405971666890_1129">A touching new novel from bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand in which a woman sets out to find love for those closest to her - before it's too late.</b></span></div>
<span style="color: #741b47;">
<strong></strong><br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1405971666890_1137">
48-year-old Nantuckter Dabney Kimball Beech has always had a gift for matchmaking. Some call her ability mystical, while others - like her husband, celebrated economist John Boxmiller Beech, and her daughter, Agnes, who is clearly engaged to the wrong man - call it meddlesome, but there's no arguing with her results: With 42 happy couples to her credit and all of them still together, Dabney has never been wrong about romance.</div>
<br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1405971666890_1127">
Never, that is, except in the case of herself and Clendenin Hughes, the green-eyed boy who took her heart with him long ago when he left the island to pursue his dream of becoming a journalist. Now, after spending 27 years on the other side of the world, Clen is back on Nantucket, and Dabney has never felt so confused, or so alive.</div>
<br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1405971666890_1107">
But when tragedy threatens her own second chance, Dabney must face the choices she's made and share painful secrets with her family. Determined to make use of her gift before it's too late, she sets out to find perfect matches for those she loves most. <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1405971666890_1138">The Matchmaker</i> is a heartbreaking new novel from Elin Hilderbrand about losing and finding love, even as you're running out of time.</div>
</span><br />
<br />
<u>PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK </u>:<br />
<br />
Published by: Little, Brown & Co.<br />
Pages: 357<br />
Genre: Fiction<br />
Author: Elin Hilderbrand<br />
Website: <a href="http://www.elinhilderbrand.net/">http://www.elinhilderbrand.net</a><br />
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<br />
<span style="color: #a64d79;"><u>ABOUT THE AUTHOR </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #a64d79;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfgUJo0uU1xB87pxE-o723GW2a7_qe73HAHJtpdE-qrCN5h47oZJw7i986NLU7wbXlc7lKjct-T21vrH167ssZZR156sqEYea7fEJx7Z-mfrgw58JXiMywLmjZaTkqDQbkFnZE5c-AFdGw/s1600/Author++Elin+Hilderbrand.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfgUJo0uU1xB87pxE-o723GW2a7_qe73HAHJtpdE-qrCN5h47oZJw7i986NLU7wbXlc7lKjct-T21vrH167ssZZR156sqEYea7fEJx7Z-mfrgw58JXiMywLmjZaTkqDQbkFnZE5c-AFdGw/s1600/Author++Elin+Hilderbrand.jpg" height="320" width="241" /></a></div>
<br />
Elin Hilderbrand does her best writing on the beaches of Nantucket, as well as on the charming streets of Beacon Hill in Boston. She has three magical children who beg her not to sing along to the radio or dance in public. <em>The Matchmaker </em>is her 13th novel.<br />
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<object width="320" height="266" class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="https://ytimg.googleusercontent.com/vi/wxNEbeGks_U/0.jpg"><param name="movie" value="https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/wxNEbeGks_U&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/wxNEbeGks_U&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div>
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<br />
<span style="color: #a64d79;"><u>THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #a64d79;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black;">I know, I know....beach reading, right? My daughter said to me tonight, "Mom, don't give in to the girly and the light!! Go back to your dark and drafty reading material, quick!" I know. But, honestly, Elin Hilderbrand just can't be resisted. Her stories that take place on Nantucket are like cherries dipped in chocolate glimmering on a cold, silver plate to me. I can't help myself...I'm just hooked every summer!</span><br />
<br />
This is a particularly gripping story of Elin's. It starts out light and fluffy, I'll give you that. But, before you know it, you're a huge fan of the main character, Dabney. You're feeling like her best friend. And, you kind of remember well that boyfriend you had that you were madly in love with in high school that you haven't seen in years. And before you know it, you're drawn in and can't stop reading.<br />
<br />
Elin Hildebrand's characters are simply charming. They are the friends you never had but wish you did. They are real and vulnerable, wholesome and lovable. The family members she writes about are your family, too. I just couldn't get enough of the people that populate this novel.<br />
<br />
As Dabney is reunited with her first love, my heart was laid out right there with hers. As she negotiated around all the obstacles in their path, I held my breath for them. And when tragedy began its viney way towards them, I was shell shocked along with them.<br />
<br />
This is the first book in a long time that's lifted my heart; made me laugh and cry in the same sittings.<br />
In fact, I cried a bucket at the end.<br />
<br />
It's a summer read, of course. But, it's a great one!<br />
<br />
5 stars Deborah/TheBookishDame<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com64tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-65617372572690103432014-07-20T16:50:00.000-07:002014-07-23T08:53:51.983-07:00"Frog Music" by Emma Donoghue ~ Magical and Spirited!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBsxYcRymnOxuyAe48nLEluT3EIXYunPS486Z8KHrGrtuNOp4EE3gAyxnrz3OwBb4vUZs2DAa_XJi7f33OY8eUAh4QJxGqkL17kuknOPRxN6byVG1de4-KQHXFHALm5Q6ECx0M6Q4p9OB_/s1600/Book++Frog+Music.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBsxYcRymnOxuyAe48nLEluT3EIXYunPS486Z8KHrGrtuNOp4EE3gAyxnrz3OwBb4vUZs2DAa_XJi7f33OY8eUAh4QJxGqkL17kuknOPRxN6byVG1de4-KQHXFHALm5Q6ECx0M6Q4p9OB_/s1600/Book++Frog+Music.bmp" height="320" width="206" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><u>SUMMARY </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"></span><br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1405897860324_1223">
<span style="color: black;"><b id="yui_3_8_1_1_1405897860324_1224">From the author of the worldwide bestseller</b> Room: "Her greatest achievement yet...Emma Donoghue shows more than range with FROG MUSIC—she shows genius." — Darin Strauss, author of <b>Half a Life</b></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
<strong></strong><br />
</span><br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1405897860324_1222">
<span style="color: black;">Summer of 1876: San Francisco is in the fierce grip of a record-breaking heat wave and a smallpox epidemic. Through the window of a railroad saloon, a young woman named Jenny Bonnet is shot dead.</span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
<br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1405897860324_1221">
The survivor, her friend Blanche Beunon, is a French burlesque dancer. Over the next three days, she will risk everything to bring Jenny's murderer to justice—if he doesn't track her down first. The story Blanche struggles to piece together is one of free-love bohemians, desperate paupers, and arrogant millionaires; of jealous men, icy women, and damaged children. It's the secret life of Jenny herself, a notorious character who breaks the law every morning by getting dressed: a charmer as slippery as the frogs she hunts.</div>
<br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1405897860324_1214">
In thrilling, cinematic style, FROG MUSIC digs up a long-forgotten, never-solved crime. Full of songs that migrated across the world, Emma Donoghue's lyrical tale of love and bloodshed among lowlifes captures the pulse of a boomtown like no other.</div>
</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><u>PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black;">Published by: Little, Brown & Co.</span><br />
Pages: 416<br />
Genre: Fiction/Historical Fiction<br />
Author: Emma Donoghue<br />
Website: <a href="http://www.emmadonoghue.com/">http://www.emmadonoghue.com</a><br />
Purchase this book: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Frog-Music-Novel-Emma-Donoghue/dp/031632468X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405898128&sr=1-1&keywords=frog+music+by+emma+donoghue">Amazon</a> or <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/frog-music-emma-donoghue/1116333039?ean=9780316324687">Barnes & Noble</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><u>ABOUT THE AUTHOR </u>:</span><br />
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Born in Dublin, Ireland, in October 1969, I am the youngest of eight children of Frances and Denis Donoghue (the literary critic, Henry James Professor at New York University). I attended Catholic convent schools in Dublin, apart from one eye-opening year in New York at the age of ten. In 1990 I earned a first-class honours BA in English and French from University College Dublin (unfortunately, without learning to actually speak French). I moved to England, and in 1997 received my PhD (on the concept of friendship between men and women in eighteenth-century English fiction) from the University of Cambridge. From the age of 23, I have earned my living as a writer, and have been lucky enough to never have an ‘honest job’ since I was sacked after a single summer month as a chambermaid. After years of commuting between England, Ireland, and Canada, in 1998 I settled in London, Ontario, where I live with Chris Roulston and our son Finn (10) and daughter Una (6).<br />
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<span style="color: #6aa84f;">a bit more about Ms Donoghue:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia,palatino; font-size: 12pt;">Although I work in many genres, I am best known for my fiction, which has been translated into over forty languages.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia,palatino; font-size: 12pt;">My latest novel, <em>Frog Music</em> (2014), is a multi-faceted murder mystery set in San Francisco in 1876.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia,palatino; font-size: 12pt;"><em><a href="http://www.emmadonoghue.com/books/novels/room-the-novel.html"><span style="color: #de2323;">Room</span></a></em> (2010) is narrated by a five-year-old called Jack, who lives in a single room with his Ma and has never been outside. An international bestseller, <em>Room</em> was shortlisted for the Man Booker and Orange Prize, and won the Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Commonwealth Prize (Canada & Carribbean Region), the Canadian Booksellers’ Association Libris Awards (Fiction Book and Author of the Year), the Forest of Reading Evergreen Award and the W.H. Smith Paperback of the Year Award.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia,palatino; font-size: 12pt;">I began by writing about contemporary Dublin before the Boom in a coming-of-age novel, <a href="http://www.emmadonoghue.com/books/novels/stir-fry.html"><span style="color: #de2323;">Stir-fry</span></a> (1994), and a tale of bereavement, <a href="http://www.emmadonoghue.com/books/novels/hood.html"><em><span style="color: #de2323;">Hood</span></em></a> (1995, winner of the American Library Association’s Gay and Lesbian Book Award, and recently republished by HarperCollins in the US), and I returned to my transformed home city with a love story that contrasts it with smalltown Ontario in <a href="http://www.emmadonoghue.com/books/novels/landing-a-novel.html"><em><span style="color: #de2323;">Landing</span></em></a> (2007, winner of a Golden Crown Literary Award).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia,palatino; font-size: 12pt;">I have a great love for the <a href="http://www.emmadonoghue.com/books/short-story-collections/astray.html"><span style="color: #de2323;">short story</span></a> form; my stories have been published in <em>Granta</em>, the <em>New Statesman</em>, <em>One Story</em>, the <em>Sunday Express</em>, <em>Mail on Sunday, The Lady</em>, the <em>Globe and Mail</em>, as well as 30 other journals and anthologies. They have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4, RTE and CBC. <a href="http://www.emmadonoghue.com/books/short-story-collections/touchy-subjects.html"><em><span style="color: #de2323;">Touchy Subjects</span></em></a> (2006) is a set of nineteen contemporary stories about social taboos that moves between Ireland, Britain, France, Italy, the US and Canada.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia,palatino; font-size: 12pt;">I became a YA author by accident. <a href="http://www.emmadonoghue.com/books/short-story-collections/kissing-the-witch.html"><em><span style="color: #de2323;">Kissing the Witch</span></em></a> (1997), my sequence of re-imagined fairytales, was published for adults in the UK but bought by Joanna Cottler Books (HarperCollins) in the US; they managed to win me a whole new 12-and-up audience, and <em>Kissing the Witch</em> was shortlisted for the James L. Tiptree Award. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia,palatino; font-size: 12pt;">Perhaps inevitably, given my scholarly background and bent, I moved into historical fiction with <a href="http://www.emmadonoghue.com/writings/fiction-slammerkin.htm"><em><span style="color: #de2323;">Slammerkin</span></em></a> (2000), a whydunnit inspired by a 1763 murder. <em>Slammerkin</em> was a Main Selection of the Book of the Month Club, won the 2002 Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction, and was a finalist in the 2001 Irish Times Irish Fiction Prize. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia,palatino; font-size: 12pt;">I followed it with a sequence of short stories about real incidents from the fourteenth century to the nineteenth, <a href="http://www.emmadonoghue.com/books/short-story-collections/the-woman-who-gave-birth-to-rabbits.html"><em><span style="color: #de2323;">The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits</span></em></a> (2002), and then <a href="http://www.emmadonoghue.com/books/novels/life-mask.html"><em><span style="color: #de2323;">Life Mask</span></em></a> (2004, a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award), which tells the startling true story of a love triangle in 1790s London. <a href="http://www.emmadonoghue.com/books/novels/the-sealed-letter.html"><em><span style="color: #de2323;">The Sealed Letter </span></em></a>(US/Canada 2008, UK 2011) is a domestic thriller about an 1860s cause celebre (the Codrington Divorce), joint winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction and longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia,palatino; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://www.emmadonoghue.com/books/short-story-collections/three-and-a-half-deaths.html"><em><span style="color: #de2323;">Three and a Half Deaths</span></em></a>, my first mini ebook (UK/Ireland only), brings together four stories of calamities ranging from 1840s Canada to 1920s France. And <a href="http://www.emmadonoghue.com/books/short-story-collections/astray.html"><em><span style="color: #de2323;">Astray</span></em></a> (2012, shortlisted for the Eason Irish Novel of the Year) is a sequence of fourteen fact-inspired stories about travels to, from and within North America; one of them, ‘The Hunt’, was a finalist in the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Prize, the world’s most valuable award for a single story.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia,palatino; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><u>THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS </u>:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia,palatino; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #6aa84f;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia,palatino; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">Naturally, I'm a huge fan of Ms Donoghue after having read "Slammerkin" and "Room," but even I was caught off guard by this strange sounding book with an odd plot... I need not have been. "Frog Music" is just as engaging and challenging as her other books. I absolutely loved it. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia,palatino; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia,palatino; font-size: 12pt;">There's a sort of "Deadwood" (if you remember the TV program from some years ago) quality about this book. It's dark and it's filled with singular characters that lift off the pages like illuminated glyphs. The characters are small miracles from the mind of Donoghue. Exacting in detail, beautifully rendered, they speak with perfect pitch their roles in this vignette of the old west and settling of a still wild San Francisco in the 1800's. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia,palatino; font-size: 12pt;">Blanche, the central figure, is a sympathetic, baudy-house lady with a pretty little Frenchman lover and his fellow who depend upon her, a sickly baby who wrenches her heart and a friendship with Jenny, a gal who wears pants and totes a gun in a time when it's against the law for women. The mystery of who shot and killed Jenny carries the plot of the story, but it's the surrounding details that really make this book sing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia,palatino; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia,palatino; font-size: 12pt;">Emma Donoghue is a genius at making her stories come alive in the details. We can sense the tension, feel the fear, joy and love of the characters, hear what they hear, and see what they see. The songs of the era shared in the book are lilting and eerie, lending another element to support this petite, masquerade of characters.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia,palatino; font-size: 12pt;">This is a book that picks you up gently at the beginning and before you know it you're hooked. It's the kind of book that's difficult to describe. One where the writing tends to outshine the summary. You know the type...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia,palatino; font-size: 12pt;">I highly recommend it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia,palatino; font-size: 12pt;">5 stars Deborah/TheBookishDame</span>Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com81tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-15339436650991938292014-07-11T18:48:00.000-07:002014-07-11T20:31:09.318-07:00"Little Mercies" by Heather Gudenkauf- Absorbing!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #cc0000;"><u>SUMMARY </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;"></span><br />
In her latest ripped-from-the-headlines tour de force, New York Times bestselling author Heather Gudenkauf shows how one small mistake can have life-altering consequences…<br />
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Veteran social worker Ellen Moore has seen the worst side of humanity—the vilest acts one person can commit against another. She is a fiercely dedicated children's advocate and a devoted mother and wife. But one blistering summer day, a simple moment of distraction will have repercussions that Ellen could never have imagined, threatening to shatter everything she holds dear, and trapping her between the gears of the system she works for.<br />
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Meanwhile, ten-year-old Jenny Briard has been living with her well-meaning but irresponsible father since her mother left them, sleeping on friends' couches and moving in and out of cheap motels. When Jenny suddenly finds herself on her own, she is forced to survive with nothing but a few dollars and her street smarts. The last thing she wants is a social worker, but when Ellen's and Jenny's lives collide, little do they know just how much they can help one another.<br />
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A powerful and emotionally charged tale about motherhood and justice, Little Mercies is a searing portrait of the tenuous grasp we have on the things we love the most, and of the ties that unexpectedly bring us together.<br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000;"><u>PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK </u>:</span><br />
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Published by: Harlequin MIRA<br />
Pages: 320<br />
Genre: Fiction<br />
Author: Heather Gudenkauf<br />
Website: <a href="http://www.heathergudenkauf.com/">http://www.heathergudenkauf.com</a> <br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000;"><u>ABOUT THE AUTHOR </u>:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000;"></span><br />
Heather Gudenkauf is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Weight of Silence and These Things Hidden.<br />
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Heather was born in Wagner, South Dakota, the youngest of six children. At one month of age, her family returned to the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota where her father was employed as a guidance counselor and her mother as a school nurse. At the age of three, her family moved to Iowa, where she grew up. Having been born with a profound unilateral hearing impairment (there were many evenings when Heather and her father made a trip to the bus barn to look around the school bus for her hearing aids that she often conveniently would forget on the seat beside her), Heather tended to use books as a retreat, would climb into the toy box that her father’s students from Rosebud made for the family with a pillow, blanket, and flashlight, close the lid, and escape the world around her. Heather became a voracious reader and the seed of becoming a writer was planted.<br />
Heather Gudenkauf graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in elementary education, has spent her career working with students of all ages and continues to work in education as a Title I Reading Coordinator.<br />
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Heather lives in Iowa with her husband, three children, and a very spoiled German Shorthaired Pointer named Maxine. In her free time Heather enjoys spending time with her family, reading, hiking, and running. She is currently working on her next novel.<br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000;"><u>THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black;">It wasn't until I read Heather Gudenkauf's bio. that I discovered she has "profound unilateral hearing impairment." Now that I'm deaf in one ear, I feel a new kinship with her. I wonder if this hearing loss of hers contributes to her extraordinary sense of characterization and conversational timing as she writes. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and can hardly wait to read her latest, "Little Lies."</span><br />
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The opening chapters of the book are shocking and simply drag us into the story. The predicament of the social worker mother is one we immediately identify with, and; now that her same "mistake" is in our nation's attention this summer, it's even more compelling! I was physically rocked by what happened to her and her child.<br />
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The secondary storyline kept close pace with the primary one...it was just as gripping. Ms Gudenkauf is a great storyteller who knows how to captivate and keep us guessing. None of her characters are run-of-the-mill.<br />
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If you're looking for a book that is different and will hold your attention throughout, this is one of them. I've been tired reading books with similar plots and themes. Heather Gudenkauf took me on a journey I appreciated and will look forward to in others of her books.<br />
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5 stars Deborah/TheBookishDame<br />
<br />Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com67tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-14001515121974657302014-05-03T06:57:00.000-07:002014-05-03T07:02:34.703-07:00"Spun" by Catherine McKenzie~Novella Continues "Spin"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #e06666;"><u>SUMMARY </u>:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444;"></span><div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1399124459775_1033">
<span style="color: #444444;">In this funny and touching novella, bestselling author Catherine McKenzie returns to the story of Amber Sheppard, It Girl and celebrity train wreck from McKenzie’s reader-favourite novel, <em>Spin</em>.</span></div>
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1399124459775_1031">
Life has been rough for starlet Amber since leaving rehab. She’s been two years sober, but no one seems to believe her -- not the gossip media, not casting agents, and most certainly not her spotlight-loving parents. With her friendships ruined by betrayal and her career at a standstill, Amber’s just trying to get her life back on track. It doesn’t help that her former love, movie star Connor Parks, keeps trying to draw Amber back in, not just to their relationship but to his hard-partying ways. One fateful night, Amber breaks down and agrees to join him on board his private jet as it readies for take-off -- a decision that will change her life forever and expose her to a whole new level of scrutiny and heartbreak.</div>
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<span style="color: #e06666;"><u>ABOUT THE BOOK </u>:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444;">Published by: HarperCollins</span><br />
Pages: 150 <br />
Genre: Contemporary (Novella)<br />
Author: Catherine McKenzie<br />
Website: <a href="http://www.catherinemckenzie.com/">http://www.catherinemckenzie.com</a><br />
Twitter: @CeMcKenzie1 <br />
Purchase: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Spun-Catherine-McKenzie-ebook/dp/B00I7WV51Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1399125360&sr=1-1&keywords=spun+by+catherine+mckenzie">Amazon</a><br />
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<span style="color: #e06666;"><u>ABOUT THE AUTHOR </u>:</span><br />
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</span>A graduate of McGill University in History and Law, Catherine practices law in Montreal, where she was born and raised. An avid skier and runner, Catherine’s novels, SPIN, ARRANGED and FORGOTTEN, are all international bestsellers. Her fourth novel, HIDDEN, will be released in June, 2013 in Canada and in Spring 2014 in the US. Her novels have been translated into French, German, Czech, Slovak and Polish. And if you want to know how she has time to do all that, the answer is: robots<br />
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<span style="color: #e06666;"><u>THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #e06666;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;">It's been a while since I read "Spin," but it wasn't difficult to remember the very brave and clearly drawn characters Catherine McKenzie drew in the novel. So jumping into this small novella was easy and a whirlwind of a ride. I do; however, recommend your reading "Spin" for the joy of it, if you haven't, although I don't think it's necessary to really get the impact of this one.</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;">McKenzie whips us into a frenzy from the first pages of "Spun;" thus the title, I believe. We are torn from one direction to the other as her protagonist Amber works to resettle herself as a starlet after rehab. Not such an easy job with the confusion and expectations of so many who make demands of her and surround her.</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;">Bringing back some of the old characters in new displaced roles was genius. I loved seeing them in this new light. Their individual struggles made them even more interesting, and caused the whole lot of them to blend a tighter web. Beautiful characterization of people slightly on the warp. Comedic in a slightly tilted way.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444;">At the end of the book I found myself deeply touched to tears. I don't know why exactly except that I felt finally Amber had found her way to the "light." She had kicked aside all the things and people who held her down, and was ready for a new life. I thought she deserved it.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444;">Quick and easy little novella. I loved the way it wrapped up the "Spin" novel...</span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444;">4 stars Deborah/TheBookishDame</span><br />
<br />Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com59tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-30072046884420680632014-04-18T09:06:00.000-07:002014-05-03T06:38:04.230-07:00Book Haul~Week of April 18th<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #45818e;">What a great week for books this was! I'm delighted to get some of these, and can't wait to get to reading them. It's such an burst of excitement to hear my little Yorkie barking when the mailman drops off a book. She's all prancing and dancing around the door and I'm in a flurry to find out what's been sent by the very generous publishers. My health has steadily been improving, and these books keep me encouraged and busy. So, let's see what's new!</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAphyphenhyphenIa4eeMMxPSkF6Ry_8EkPCfDlpIIxhIUMmclem6GjoRUcgpbkzloYFx0XzpRScxb4Vgm3o-SIZMS28_-uaELDcC2ldCEwKEROcw3vS9X0olGE1mVBIZd4zqhwcYatFOtAaNxW7rJlR/s1600/Book++The+Last+Girl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAphyphenhyphenIa4eeMMxPSkF6Ry_8EkPCfDlpIIxhIUMmclem6GjoRUcgpbkzloYFx0XzpRScxb4Vgm3o-SIZMS28_-uaELDcC2ldCEwKEROcw3vS9X0olGE1mVBIZd4zqhwcYatFOtAaNxW7rJlR/s1600/Book++The+Last+Girl.jpg" height="320" width="212" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;"><u>SUMMARY </u>: <br />
</span><br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397837064178_1043">
<span style="color: #0c343d;">“Maeve Kerrigan [is] a fascinating and plausible character…What she has is persistence, integrity and emotional intelligence, and a very deft way of insinuating herself into a reader's affections.”—<i>The Irish Independent</i> (UK)</span></div>
<span style="color: #0c343d;">
</span><div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397837064178_1042">
<span style="color: #0c343d;">Vast wealth offers London defense attorney Philip Kennford a lot of things: a gorgeous house with a pool in the backyard, connections in the top echelons of society, a wardrobe worthy of Milan runways. But his money doesn’t provide a happy marriage, or good relationships with his twin daughters…and it does nothing to protect his family when someone brutally murders his wife and daughter in their own home.</span></div>
<span style="color: #0c343d;">
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*<span style="color: #444444;">Many thanks to St. Martin's for this one!</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmG5Ey4y6c3HseA-tt3FksZRi5D5oLHitNvqeiNrQqgvhQDkFqqoGOGI-j44FZd3VOEOtwiswQUH7gNWelZloiOlJRtx1yO_1s9bt6hyphenhyphenq6FaXX9Z-JwO2lKDgzFtXXl8OLLEbwtwaey2Et/s1600/Book++The+Blonde.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmG5Ey4y6c3HseA-tt3FksZRi5D5oLHitNvqeiNrQqgvhQDkFqqoGOGI-j44FZd3VOEOtwiswQUH7gNWelZloiOlJRtx1yO_1s9bt6hyphenhyphenq6FaXX9Z-JwO2lKDgzFtXXl8OLLEbwtwaey2Et/s1600/Book++The+Blonde.jpg" height="320" width="211" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;"><u>OVERVIEW </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #660000;"><div class="simple-html" id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397837367344_691">
<br />
<i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397837367344_690">At the height of the Cold War, Marilyn Monroe was the most infamous woman in the world. But what if she was also a secret Soviet spy?</i> <br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397837367344_692">
In 1947, a young, unknown Norma Jeane Baker meets a mysterious man in Los Angeles who transforms her into Marilyn Monroe, the star. Twelve years later he comes back for his repayment, and Marilyn is given her first assignment from the KGB: uncover something about JFK that no one else knows...</div>
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*<span style="color: #444444;">With thanks to Weinstein Publishing and FSB Media Associates for this opportunity to review.</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXN6GpEbv3nhyLQu4ayVPBMphn6NmbnTQW75iQjt4twHdptEF8olOMxZj8-b8W5BArpUdaSG3S9QyXwtqZAApBL8ciFPsecxb7RmQLAR8mCdYdz2qBbaEQ7xDmS3FuRBoWOYG-9RHvQkvj/s1600/Book++The+Sea+House.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXN6GpEbv3nhyLQu4ayVPBMphn6NmbnTQW75iQjt4twHdptEF8olOMxZj8-b8W5BArpUdaSG3S9QyXwtqZAApBL8ciFPsecxb7RmQLAR8mCdYdz2qBbaEQ7xDmS3FuRBoWOYG-9RHvQkvj/s1600/Book++The+Sea+House.jpg" height="320" width="209" /></a></div>
<u><span style="color: #4c1130;">SUMMARY :</span></u><br />
<u><span style="color: #4c1130;"></span></u><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130;"></span><br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397837549104_989">
<span style="color: #4c1130;">In 1860, Alexander Ferguson, a newly ordained vicar and amateur evolutionary scientist, takes up his new parish, a poor, isolated patch on the remote Scottish island of Harris. He hopes to uncover the truth behind the legend of the selkies—mermaids or seal people who have been sighted off the north of Scotland for centuries. He has a more personal motive, too; family legend states that Alexander is descended from seal men. As he struggles to be the good pastor he was called to be, his maid Moira faces the terrible eviction of her family by Lord Marstone, whose family owns the island. Their time on the island will irrevocably change the course of both their lives, but the white house on the edge of the dunes keeps its silence long after they are gone.</span></div>
<span style="color: #4c1130;">
<br />
</span><div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397837549104_986">
<span style="color: #4c1130;">It will be more than a century before the Sea House reluctantly gives up its secrets. Ruth and Michael buy the grand but dilapidated building and begin to turn it into a home for the family they hope to have. Their dreams are marred by a shocking discovery. The tiny bones of a baby are buried beneath the house; the child's fragile legs are fused together—a mermaid child. Who buried the bones? And why? To heal her own demons, Ruth feels she must discover the secrets of her new home—but the answers to her questions may lie in her own traumatic past. <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397837549104_1069">The Sea House</i> by Elisabeth Gifford is a sweeping tale of hope and redemption and a study of how we heal ourselves by discovering our histories.</span></div>
<span style="color: #4c1130;">
</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;">*Most graciously sent by St. Martin's Press, thank you!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkBAb5JHF6GJdokXNSBZyaWPe_0bzL7W6XqoVllLpkqUF_Jpilvw0zyC3q0zz-XklvxiW0gtIl5ghkD5k1H0QXTRyyqJYqJww6DKan2hCUNPtcUy8eLVXV6_vkehCGuzkHiNq0-YTwBqDg/s1600/Book++The+Cold+Nowhere.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkBAb5JHF6GJdokXNSBZyaWPe_0bzL7W6XqoVllLpkqUF_Jpilvw0zyC3q0zz-XklvxiW0gtIl5ghkD5k1H0QXTRyyqJYqJww6DKan2hCUNPtcUy8eLVXV6_vkehCGuzkHiNq0-YTwBqDg/s1600/Book++The+Cold+Nowhere.jpg" height="320" width="207" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #cc0000;"><u>SUMMARY </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black;">Edgar Award finalist and international bestselling author Brian Freeman brings the long-awaited return of Lieutenant Jonathan Stride to the bitter cold of Duluth, Minnesota.<br /> <br /> Sixteen-year-old Catalina Mateo shows up unannounced one night in Detective Jonathan Stride’s home, dripping wet from a desperate plunge into the icy waters of Lake Superior. Her sodden clothes stained with blood, Cat spins a tale of a narrow escape from a shadowy pursuer.<br /> </span></div>
</span></span><span style="color: #e06666;">*Thanks to Quercus and author Brian Freeman for sending this one for a review. Thank you!</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEjcPthhkUTcjBHSRFKe_FA4X3qLfCsjeefzy8Aw_8_tDAavlW7x8pR4n98TKE278oUgvbzWatOKxyd_O3Mirdp6twcZt5DqLBHdF_V2ITYsUvN2af34jAHm2eM-9IGxvr2yK3pYtWrV9i/s1600/Book++The+People+in+the+Photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEjcPthhkUTcjBHSRFKe_FA4X3qLfCsjeefzy8Aw_8_tDAavlW7x8pR4n98TKE278oUgvbzWatOKxyd_O3Mirdp6twcZt5DqLBHdF_V2ITYsUvN2af34jAHm2eM-9IGxvr2yK3pYtWrV9i/s1600/Book++The+People+in+the+Photo.jpg" height="320" width="205" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #38761d;"><u>Overview </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;"></span><br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397838211393_1238">
<span style="color: #38761d;">"Every note of the characters' correspondence rings true."—<i>Le Nouvel Observateur</i></span></div>
<span style="color: #38761d;">
</span><div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397838211393_1237">
<span style="color: #38761d;">"A page-turning novel with a skilfully woven plot."—<i>Page des Libraires</i></span></div>
<span style="color: #38761d;">
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397838211393_1236">
"Rich in deftly turned prose and subtle character study."—<i>Sud-Ouest</i></div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397838211393_1235">
"A wonderful book about the archaeology of memory."—<i>Le Magazine Littéraire</i></div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397838211393_1234">
"Elegant, restrained, and poetic."—<i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397838211393_1233">France Inter</i></div>
<em></em><br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397838211393_1229">
<i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397838211393_1232">The three figures in the photograph are frozen forever, two men and a woman bathed in sunlight . . .</i></div>
<em></em><br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397838211393_1266">
The chance discovery of a newspaper image from 1971 sets two people on the path to learning the disturbing truth about their parents' pasts.</div>
<br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397838211393_1283">
Parisian archivist Hélène takes out a newspaper advert calling for information about her mother, who died when she was three, and the two men pictured with her in a photograph taken at a tennis tournament at Interlaken in 1971. Stéphane, a Swiss biologist living in Kent, responds: his father is one of the people in the photo. Letters and more photos pass between them as they embark on a journey to uncover the truth their parents kept from them. But will the relics of the past fill the silences left by the players?</div>
<br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397838211393_1302">
Winner of fifteen literary awards, this dark yet touching drama deftly explores the themes of blame and forgiveness, identity and love.</div>
</span><br />
<span style="color: #e06666;">*Many thanks to Meryl Zegarek Public Relations Inc. and Gallic Books, for this very exotic little book.</span><br />
<span style="color: #e06666;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZtgdNdBiY_0HVwP_S9Pegsrg6qRafmYuMTyI9Op_ijVPnbkIoUTOdzqmHOPR-3XIm5nN8Lqg_UcO1fE_moeCiuj8hg8meJkrEsvgo74ylkZ_OdU589bvh7EtbBvndvKLHjKV7JlB9MK7C/s1600/Book++The+Garden+of+Burning+Sand.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZtgdNdBiY_0HVwP_S9Pegsrg6qRafmYuMTyI9Op_ijVPnbkIoUTOdzqmHOPR-3XIm5nN8Lqg_UcO1fE_moeCiuj8hg8meJkrEsvgo74ylkZ_OdU589bvh7EtbBvndvKLHjKV7JlB9MK7C/s1600/Book++The+Garden+of+Burning+Sand.jpg" height="320" width="212" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #e06666;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #b45f06;"><u>SUMMARY </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #b45f06;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="color: black;"><em>The New York Times</em> bestselling author John Hart raved that “If you like stories of good people struggling to do right in the world’s forgotten places, there is no one better suited than Corban Addison to take you on the ride of your life.” In <i>The Garden of Burning Sand</i>, Addison, the bestselling author of <i>A Walk Across the Sun</i>, creates a powerful and poignant novel that takes the reader from the red light areas of Lusaka, Zambia, to the gilded chambers of the Washington, D.C. elite, to the splendor of Victoria Falls and Cape Town.<br /> <br /> Zoe Fleming, an accomplished young human rights attorney, has made a life for herself in Zambia, far from her estranged father—an American business mogul with presidential aspirations—and from the devastating betrayals of her past.<br /> <br /> When a young girl with Down syndrome is sexually assaulted in a Lusaka slum, Zoe joins Zambian police officer Joseph Kabuta in investigating the rape. Piecing together clues from the victim’s past, they discover an unsettling connection between the girl—Kuyeya—and a powerful Zambian family who will stop at nothing to bury the truth.<br /> <br /> As they are drawn deeper into the complex web of characters behind this appalling crime, Zoe and Joseph forge a bond of trust and friendship that slowly transforms into love. Opposed on all sides, they find themselves caught in a dangerous clash between the forces of justice and power. To successfully prosecute Kuyeya’s attacker and build a future with Joseph, Zoe must risk her life and her heart—and confront the dark past she thought she had left behind.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #e06666;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #e06666;">*This one was sent by Quercus, as well. Interesting book...</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw2hy9-RfqEy2h3y-g3UxPFsv3x93OlerRm7lVcY5N_n6ZpXUaB_-t2jyxcH7HvPziaNNtSGVp9TP6cZiaQhk3cyKRMxLNZPJUGTGAIzrkg6eNNhoA-NaYxXzt-7cSvUt8kRqFKb1fTIBH/s1600/Book++In+Accord.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw2hy9-RfqEy2h3y-g3UxPFsv3x93OlerRm7lVcY5N_n6ZpXUaB_-t2jyxcH7HvPziaNNtSGVp9TP6cZiaQhk3cyKRMxLNZPJUGTGAIzrkg6eNNhoA-NaYxXzt-7cSvUt8kRqFKb1fTIBH/s1600/Book++In+Accord.jpg" height="320" width="212" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #134f5c;"><u>SUMMARY </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black;">It's October in Buffalo as four long-time friends, The In Accord Book Club, gather around a fireplace while a fierce windstorm amasses strength outside. They are deeply disappointed with the unfaithful characters and lackluster resolution of the novel they've met to discuss. When they agree to each write a richer, more satisfying conclusion in lieu of their next month's selection, none has any idea of the tempests about to erupt in her own world. </span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;"></span><br />
*Also kindly sent by Kelley & Hall book publicity and promotions. Thanks, Jocelyn!<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">I now have lots of work on my hands! Maybe you'll choose one or two of these books to read along with me. Keep reading and hope to see you back here as I continue my reviewing journey...</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">Deborah</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;"></span><br />Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-76876503322223922622014-04-16T19:21:00.001-07:002014-04-16T19:57:17.194-07:00"The Red Lily Crown" by Elizabeth Loupas~Author Interview!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-U3S_BZDr3Mjx0tndOJhOyc-t5EiJNtrhGcBSfzJ9c9CqMf8AcAuxn9bbNtCulmxoP-By8bk2mQIhVYjCggP0iN2J0EgQyM3jX2-2V0V3JIu0vxcu1pj0HPkeDHhD6GyA9q6167G_cLS3/s1600/Book++The+Red+Lily+Crown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-U3S_BZDr3Mjx0tndOJhOyc-t5EiJNtrhGcBSfzJ9c9CqMf8AcAuxn9bbNtCulmxoP-By8bk2mQIhVYjCggP0iN2J0EgQyM3jX2-2V0V3JIu0vxcu1pj0HPkeDHhD6GyA9q6167G_cLS3/s1600/Book++The+Red+Lily+Crown.jpg" height="320" width="212" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #990000;"><u>SUMMARY </u>:</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #990000;"></span> </div>
<span style="color: #990000;"></span><br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397693918887_1047">
<span style="color: #990000;"><b id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397693918887_1046">Elizabeth Loupas returns with her most ambitious historical novel yet, a story of intrigue, passion, and murder in the Medici Court...</b></span></div>
<span style="color: #990000;">
<strong></strong><br />
</span><br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397693918887_1028">
<span style="color: #990000;">April, 1574, Florence, Italy. Grand Duke Cosimo de’ Medici lies dying. The city is paralyzed with dread, for the next man to wear the red lily crown will be Prince Francesco: despotic, dangerous, and obsessed with alchemy.</span></div>
<span style="color: #990000;">
<br />
</span><div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397693918887_1027">
<span style="color: #990000;">Chiara Nerini, the troubled daughter of an anti-Medici bookseller, sets out to save her starving family by selling her dead father’s rare alchemical equipment to the prince. Instead she is trapped in his household—imprisoned and forcibly initiated as a virgin acolyte in Francesco’s quest for power and immortality. Undaunted, she seizes her chance to pursue undreamed-of power of her own.</span></div>
<span style="color: #990000;">
<br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397693918887_1024">
Witness to sensuous intrigues and brutal murder plots, Chiara seeks a safe path through the labyrinth of Medici tyranny and deception. Beside her walks the prince’s mysterious English alchemist Ruanno, her friend and teacher, driven by his own dark goals. Can Chiara trust him to keep her secret s even to love her or will he prove to be her most treacherous enemy of all?</div>
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<br />
<u>ABOUT THE BOOK </u>:<br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">Published by: Penguin Group</span><br />
<span style="color: black;">Pages: 448</span><br />
<span style="color: black;">Genre: Historical Fiction</span><br />
<span style="color: black;">Author: Elizabeth Loupas</span><br />
<span style="color: black;">Website: <a href="http://www.elizabethloupas.com/">http://www.elizabethloupas.com</a></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><u>ABOUT THE AUTHOR </u>:</span><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDFx75tKsqJwYPS7w0vMcE2eBbRq6p3LnptAjtiQDdLhanAExlHmb_laJ4GD4LpzdLcdvojKW2wXG3Txp_kX5Yrhdfj9Ce0aEPuNCdwCYKIQjnCuu0cxaR4nIROqM1fE3k6aqVd0vyUcFv/s1600/Author++Elizabeth+Loupas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDFx75tKsqJwYPS7w0vMcE2eBbRq6p3LnptAjtiQDdLhanAExlHmb_laJ4GD4LpzdLcdvojKW2wXG3Txp_kX5Yrhdfj9Ce0aEPuNCdwCYKIQjnCuu0cxaR4nIROqM1fE3k6aqVd0vyUcFv/s1600/Author++Elizabeth+Loupas.jpg" /></a></div>
<strong>Elizabeth Loupas</strong> held various positions in radio and television, and worked as an editor, writer, and marketing consultant. She holds degrees in literary studies and library/information science. She lives with her husband and two beagles. She is the author of <i>The Second Duchess </i>and <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397693918887_1522">The Flower Reader.</i><br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">INTERVIEW:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000;">The Bookish Dame is delighted to host Ms Loupas today with an author interview. Thank you so much for joining us, Elizabeth! Love your interesting life, and it's so great to share it with our readers. Let's get right to it...</span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1)</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Tell us something about yourself, please.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do most people describe you?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Most people would probably describe me as kind of solitary
and stay-at-home. I suspect I’m the only writer in the world who grew up
reading <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Little Women</i> and wanted to be
Beth. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> <span style="color: #cc0000;"> </span></span><span style="color: #cc0000;">Briefly,
from where did the idea for your novel come from?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">When I was researching <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Second Duchess</i>, I learned that Barbara of Austria and her younger sister
Joanna traveled south from Austria together and were married at virtually the
same time—Barbara to Alfonso II d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, and Joanna to
Francesco de’ Medici, Prince of Florence. This intrigued me, and in early
drafts of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Second Duchess</i>, there
were actually scenes in which Joanna (in Florence called Giovanna) visited
Barbara in Ferrara. Those scenes were cut (primarily because they would have
been historically inaccurate), but I didn’t forget Giovanna. A little reading
about Francesco uncovered the fact that he was historically obsessed with
alchemy, and the story pretty much exploded from there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2)</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Who first told you that you could write well,
and how did it affect you?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The first person who encouraged me to write stories (as
opposed to school “reports”) was my junior high school home room and English
teacher, Maida Dugan. How I adored her! I wrote rambling romantic tales (even
then I loved historical fiction) for her and she commented on them very kindly
and patiently. I wish I could talk to her today and coax her to tell me what
she really thought!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">She also assigned us poems to memorize, and I always chose
the long story-poems—Poe and Browning and Longfellow. To this day I’ll start
reeling off lines and lines of poetry when something jogs my memory, much to
the amazement of my husband.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Which contemporary authors do you most admire?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This will vary from day to day, depending on my mood. Some
contemporary authors I’m reading at the moment are Deanna Raybourn, Lisa
Brackmann, Kate Quinn, Sharon Kay Penman, Anne Rivers Siddons, and Kate Morton.
I hate making lists like this because I want to include hundreds of authors! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">4)</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Who are your favorite classical authors?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This is another case of wanting to make a huge list of
thousands of names. The swashbucklers, of course—Dumas, Baroness Orczy,
Sabatini, Shellabarger, Dunnett. My beloved comfort reads—E.F. Benson, Angela
Thirkell, Miss Read, E.M. Delafield, Flora Thompson. Jane Austen, the Brontes,
Elizabeth Gaskell, Nathanial Hawthorne. The Pre-Raphaelites—the Rossettis,
Swinburne, and Browning, of course, although he wasn’t technically a Pre-Raph.
Oh, and now that I’ve strayed into poetry, Edwin Arlington Robinson. Sorry,
I’ll stop now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">5)</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What was your first book as a child?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What’s your all-time favorite book?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The first books I owned were Little Golden Books. (Am I
dating myself?) I remember The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pokey
Little Puppy</i> and one that had a fuzzy yellow cat—the pictures of the cat
were flocked with velvety stuff so you could actually pet them. I was
enthralled. I don’t think I have one all-time favorite book. Perhaps the six
books of the Lymond series by Dorothy Dunnett—it’s all one story, so that would
count as one book, right?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Best book you’ve read in the past 6 months?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The one I got lost in most deeply was a re-read, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">...And Ladies of the Club</i> by Helen
Hooven Santmyer. It’s enormous and reading it is like living a whole alternate
life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The one (which shall remain unidentified) where I was
shouted at repeatedly by my boss (who shall remain nameless). Or even worse,
was trapped into sitting by while he shouted at someone else. I don’t do
shouting well at all. See above about me wanting to be Beth March.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What’s your earliest memory?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Being sick with the measles (according to my mother I was
about three at the time) and “coloring”—scrawling all over with a bright red
crayon—a drawing my older brother brought home from Sunday School. I swear I
can still see all those loopy red scribbles. My brother was not amused.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As a child who liked to draw and color, in a family with
musical talent, I called myself the “artical” one. I suppose now I’d describe
myself as “writacal.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What’s your most treasured possession?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Barring the beagles—and I’m probably more their possession
than they are mine—the first thing I’d grab in a fire would be a banker’s box
filled with pictures, including the baby book my own mother lovingly created,
and my own scrapbooks through the years. Oh, and I suppose the external hard
drive I use for computer back-ups, so I’d have all my digital pictures and
documents.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Are you working on a new novel?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I am! It’s still in very early
stages, so I don’t want to talk too much about it, but it will have something
to do with the introduction of chocolate to Europe, and a priceless casket of
cacao beans that was a Spanish princess’s betrothal gift to a French king...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Oh, so delightful! You certainly are the "artical" one, Elizabeth. I look forward to the next book in your cache. I'm a huge fan!</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Calibri;"><u>THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS </u>:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Calibri;">This is a delicious book of intrigue, mysticism and glamour. Ms Loupas never fails to pull us into a story. She had me from the first chapter with her brave and brazen young Chiara, and her introduction of the strong and stand-offish Englishman, Ruanno. The chemistry in this book isn't just alchemy!!</span></div>
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<span style="color: #660000;">Brilliant in details about the time and place of the Medici in Florence, this novel is vivid and engaging. I couldn't help visualizing as I read. Elizabeth Loupas is an alchemist herself with the use of color-effects and characterization. These characters are fiery and beautiful to read about. It's a sophisticated novel, not fluff.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #660000;">The plot of the story is well-developed with intrigue and mystery. I learned a great deal about the tools and mystique of alchemy, the House of Medici, and the culture of Florence. And the enchanting love story had me turning pages, as well.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #660000;">This is a "must read" for historical fiction aficionados. You will love the depths the story brings you into. I dare you not to identify with Chiara! I dare you not to be obsessed with the House of Medici in all its glory and madness!</span></div>
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<span style="color: #660000;">5 stars Deborah/TheBookishDame</span></div>
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<br />Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-21218212138282769262014-04-14T10:20:00.002-07:002014-04-14T10:26:46.836-07:00"Days of Blood and Starlight" by Laini Taylor<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #990000;"><u>SUMMARY </u>:</span></div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397493821845_1124">
<i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397493821845_1126">Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war.</i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397493821845_1125">This is not that world.</i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
Art student and monster's apprentice Karou finally has the answers she has always sought. She knows who she is—and <i>what</i> she is. But with this knowledge comes another truth she would give anything to undo: She loved the enemy and he betrayed her, and a world suffered for it.</div>
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In this stunning sequel to the highly acclaimed <i>Daughter of Smoke & Bone</i>, Karou must decide how far she'll go to avenge her people. Filled with heartbreak and beauty, secrets and impossible choices, <i>Days of Blood & Starlight</i> finds Karou and Akiva on opposing sides as an age-old war stirs back to life.<br />
<br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397493821845_1145">
While Karou and her allies build a monstrous army in a land of dust and starlight, Akiva wages a different sort of battle: a battle for redemption. For <i>hope</i>.</div>
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But can any hope be salvaged from the ashes of their broken dream?</div>
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<span style="color: #990000;"><u>ABOUT THE BOOK </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: black;">Published by: Little Brown Books for Young Readers</span><br />
Pages: 544<br />
Genre: Fantasy<br />
Author: Laini Taylor<br />
Series: Daughter of Smoke and Bones #2<br />
Author's website is <a href="http://www.lainitaylor.com/">www.lainitaylor.com</a><br />
Purchase this book: <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/days-of-blood-and-starlight-laini-taylor/1108613282?ean=9780316133982">Barnes & Noble</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Days-Blood-Starlight-Daughter-Smoke/dp/0316133981/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397493274&sr=1-1&keywords=days+of+blood+and+starlight+by+laini+taylor">Amazon</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><u>ABOUT THE AUTHOR </u>:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #990000;"></span><br />
Laini Taylor is the <i>New York Times</i> bestselling author of <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397493821845_1522">Days of Blood & Starlight</i>, <i>Daughter of Smoke & Bone</i>, the Dreamdark books <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397493821845_1521">Blackbringer</i> and <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397493821845_1525">Silksinger</i>, and the National Book Award finalist <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397493821845_1520">Lips Touch: Three Times</i>. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, illustrator Jim Di Bartolo, and their daughter, Clementine. <br />
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<br />
<span style="color: #990000;">An Award-Winning Trailer for "Days of Blood & Starlight"</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">Not having read the "Daughter of Smoke and Bone" all the way through puts me at a disadvantage to review this sequel. I decided to try it, however, because I had heard such accolades about Laini Taylor and her writing style. I have to tell you this book was a mixed bag for me. </span></div>
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I thoroughly enjoyed her world-building and her prose in places. Although the density of her lovely prose was just overwhelming at times and diminished her story. I wanted more about the angelic beings to be described and thought I'd probably missed out on that in the first book.</div>
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Her main characters were engaging and beautifully created so that they held my attention throughout.</div>
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Absolutely a book of strong characters, but I don't think the story befits them. It's a book of beautiful descriptions of places and magical things, but I don't think the story itself is particularly moving. Probably because I'm not much on demons and battles...and the love story got lost for me.</div>
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I suspect this is a great sequel to those young readers who loved "Daughter of Smoke and Bones," however. It had all the makings of being that kind of book. So, if you're one who would like to start a new series, I would say go for this one, but start from the beginning. It's gotten rave reviews from those who are familiar with the series.</div>
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I would give it a 4 stars for one who hasn't read the first book, but who finds magical prose and angelic beings interesting. And, I do like the way Ms Taylor writes. Laini leaves a cliff hanger at the end that portends the third book in the series for all her many fans.</div>
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4 stars Deborah/TheBookishDame</div>
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<br />Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-1981159755689368942014-04-13T14:00:00.001-07:002014-04-14T09:42:16.144-07:00"The Winter People" by Jennifer McMahon~Scary Story!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBAMNdI6uZAu4MPjyIcq2lGcCEN6igqLiupASW3H6G-jYk1hEh6rcBWg9zhqJ2dx_ofND4PX2zwDl4DxD0lrXdlEqpw6vEP9Fv12i6x4_Da1IAGSv8UJiZBX-cH2s3j4lI5xcIANy28P8v/s1600/Book++The+Winter+People.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBAMNdI6uZAu4MPjyIcq2lGcCEN6igqLiupASW3H6G-jYk1hEh6rcBWg9zhqJ2dx_ofND4PX2zwDl4DxD0lrXdlEqpw6vEP9Fv12i6x4_Da1IAGSv8UJiZBX-cH2s3j4lI5xcIANy28P8v/s1600/Book++The+Winter+People.jpg" height="320" width="209" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c;"><u>SUMMARY </u>:</span></div>
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<strong>The <i>New York Times</i> bestselling author of <i>Promise Not to Tell</i> returns with a simmering literary thriller about ghostly secrets, dark choices, and the unbreakable bond between mothers and daughters . . . sometimes <i>too</i> unbreakable.</strong> </div>
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West Hall, Vermont, has always been a town of strange disappearances and old legends. The most mysterious is that of Sara Harrison Shea, who, in 1908, was found dead in the field behind her house just months after the tragic death of her daughter, Gertie. Now, in present day, nineteen-year-old Ruthie lives in Sara's farmhouse with her mother, Alice, and her younger sister, Fawn. Alice has always insisted that they live off the grid, a decision that suddenly proves perilous when Ruthie wakes up one morning to find that Alice has vanished without a trace. Searching for clues, she is startled to find a copy of Sara Harrison Shea's diary hidden beneath the floorboards of her mother's bedroom. As Ruthie gets sucked deeper into the mystery of Sara's fate, she discovers that she's not the only person who's desperately looking for someone that they've lost. But she may be the only one who can stop history from repeating itself.</div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c;"><u>ABOUT THE BOOK </u>:</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">Published by: Knopf Doubleday</span><br />
Pages: 336<br />
Genre: Fiction/Gothic/Mystery<br />
Author: Jennifer McMahon<br />
Find this book: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Winter-People-Novel-Jennifer-McMahon/dp/0385538499/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397421096&sr=1-1&keywords=the+winter+people">Amazon</a> and <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-winter-people-jennifer-mcmahon/1115479175?ean=9780385538497">Barnes & Noble</a><br />
Website: <a href="http://jennifer-mcmahon.com/">http://jennifer-mcmahon.com</a><br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c;"><u>ABOUT THE AUTHOR </u>:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcuPw_BKRjpuMCfbQLzq55BEQSgGWYzVL5gYIgkJ63zCj4Mm2GHUNI_S5QSO6FHoyQOnWB7T9BT_cRuFE1gB7xiKDIOuh-FJqVJ2Xre_OSNhW6Ybltj34Fk-FVGBVYDeRHlDyasjNdCNrZ/s1600/Author++Jennifer+McMahon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcuPw_BKRjpuMCfbQLzq55BEQSgGWYzVL5gYIgkJ63zCj4Mm2GHUNI_S5QSO6FHoyQOnWB7T9BT_cRuFE1gB7xiKDIOuh-FJqVJ2Xre_OSNhW6Ybltj34Fk-FVGBVYDeRHlDyasjNdCNrZ/s1600/Author++Jennifer+McMahon.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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I was born in 1968 and grew up in my grandmother’s house in suburban Connecticut, where I was convinced a ghost named Virgil lived in the attic. I wrote my first short story in third grade. I graduated with a BA from Goddard College in 1991 and then studied poetry for a year in the MFA in Writing Program at Vermont College. A poem turned into a story, which turned into a novel, and I decided to take some time to think about whether I wanted to write poetry or fiction. After bouncing around the country, I wound up back in Vermont, living in a cabin with no electricity, running water, or phone with my partner, Drea, while we built our own house. Over the years, I have been a house painter, farm worker, paste-up artist, Easter Bunny, pizza delivery person, homeless shelter staff member, and counselor for adults and kids with mental illness — I quit my last real job in 2000 to work on writing full time. In 2004, I gave birth to our daughter, Zella. These days, we’re living in an old Victorian in Montpelier, Vermont. Some neighbors think it looks like the Addams family house, which brings me immense pleasure.<br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c;"><u>THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS </u>:</span></div>
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It's been a while since I've read a really good scary story. Jennifer McMahon writes that kind you'd hope to hear around a fireplace on a wintry evening in Vermont...fitting since that's her personal surrounding. It's the perfect novel if you want a gothic mystery that's a page turner when you're alone some night or weekend. It simply draws you in and makes you feel as if you know the creaky floors of the old Victorian farmhouse you're walking about in, you can see the dense, craggy woods beyond the farmland, and you sense the presence of ghostly beings.</div>
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I've lived in the North Country of New Hampshire and Vermont and know very well the type of landscape, snow, rock formations and lonely old farmhouses Ms McMahon writes about, but even if you haven't, or aren't a native of that area, you can't help falling into the pace of this book. It's an old-fashioned gothic with a mystery that runs the gamut of several generations. It's creepier than a modern witch story because it seems more set in reality.</div>
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The characters are well drawn and vivid. The women in particular leap from the pages. Neurotic, deeply loving mothers, risk-takers, committed wives, these women are tough and tender at the same time. It's difficult not to identify with them and their heart-felt run for saving their children at all costs. The men characters are crafted more shadowy. While their emotions are told, they are not as strong as the women involved in the story.</div>
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If there's anything to complain about, it would be that I found it difficult to follow all the different voices and timeframes bouncing back and forth in the novel since I read it in ebook format. I find I loose the context when I read from ebooks. I don't think the same thing would have happened had I had the actual book in hand.</div>
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This is a great book with the perfect timing of a gothic, ghostly mystery. I thoroughly enjoyed it and strongly recommend it. Unlike anything else I've read this year. It's a book that kept my attention firmly in place to the end.</div>
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4.5 stars Deborah/TheBookishDame</div>
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<br />Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-62610813723528693302014-04-10T09:01:00.000-07:002014-04-10T12:30:32.462-07:00"The Jade Temptress" by Jeannie Lin~Exotic Historical Mystery<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDUjCs_IRA9svdnbxABVsqh2hU0sxrbqybrBebPX18ilDqkuBsEmo5ntE2EHQ4vBymX8QDuw5eaLwSvXUZduiebbDLXW5sPL0n7FXJJg56qxXsO_nIIUeENmb3CjjTnNaUTgYhC0wiNReB/s1600/Book++The+Jade+Temptress.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDUjCs_IRA9svdnbxABVsqh2hU0sxrbqybrBebPX18ilDqkuBsEmo5ntE2EHQ4vBymX8QDuw5eaLwSvXUZduiebbDLXW5sPL0n7FXJJg56qxXsO_nIIUeENmb3CjjTnNaUTgYhC0wiNReB/s1600/Book++The+Jade+Temptress.jpg" height="320" width="202" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><u>SUMMARY </u>:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444;"><em id="yui_3_8_1_1_1397144387485_676">Welcome to the infamous Pingkang li—home of the celebrated Lotus Palace courtesans, and a place of beauty and treachery .</em></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;">Charming and seductive, Mingyu is the most sought-after hostess in the pleasure quarter. She has all men wrapped around her finger—<em>except</em> Constable Wu Kaifeng, the one man she can't resist, the only man to have placed her in chains.</span></div>
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Wu Kaifeng's outwardly intimidating demeanor hides a reluctant, fierce attraction to beautiful Mingyu. But the passionate temptation she presents threatens to destroy them both when a powerful official is murdered and they find themselves on a deadly trail. Amid the chaos, a forbidden affair could change Mingyu's fate forever, for following her heart is bound to have consequences. </div>
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<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><u>ABOUT THE BOOK </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;">Published by: Harlequin</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;">Format: ebook</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;">Pages: 384</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;">Genre: Historical fiction/Mystery</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;">Author: Jeannie Lin</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;">Purchase: <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-jade-temptress-jeannie-lin/1116240440?ean=9781460327081">Barnes & Noble</a> or <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Jade-Temptress-Lotus-Palace-Books-ebook/dp/B00FBZKZRW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397144646&sr=1-1&keywords=the+jade+temptress+jeannie+lin">Amazon</a></span><br />
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<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><u>ABOUT THE AUTHOR </u>:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs85krA9BxYdKRTKnE60XCvRQQAT8CcRpzCgNH8Mcd-ThM1KsaOtAxtFejAeg0-70nGoM-hlBxJBCyaqgOkTw5ZNdiq2bv85HzSV9PmtkDAvWaib-u5R4EmuGJj-cleXcDh0b6AJtsc_sp/s1600/Author++Jeannie+Lin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs85krA9BxYdKRTKnE60XCvRQQAT8CcRpzCgNH8Mcd-ThM1KsaOtAxtFejAeg0-70nGoM-hlBxJBCyaqgOkTw5ZNdiq2bv85HzSV9PmtkDAvWaib-u5R4EmuGJj-cleXcDh0b6AJtsc_sp/s1600/Author++Jeannie+Lin.jpg" height="320" width="226" /></a></div>
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For news on new releases and events, sign up for her newsletter at: http://conta.cc/1b2M4NP</div>
Find out more about Jeannie Lin online at http://www.jeannielin.com<br />
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USA TODAY bestselling author Jeannie Lin grew up fascinated with stories of Western epic fantasy and Eastern martial arts adventures. When her best friend introduced her to romance novels in middle school, the stage was set. Jeannie started writing her first book while working as a high school science teacher in South Central Los Angeles. <br />
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Jeannie is known for writing groundbreaking historical romances set in Tang Dynasty China starting with her Golden Heart award-winning debut, Butterfly Swords. Her Chinese historicals have received multiple awards and starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. <br />
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She currently writes historical romance Chinese warriors and scholars, courtesans and swordswomen. Beginning in 2014, she will be starting a steampunk series set during the Opium Wars. <br />
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Titles by Jeannie Lin:<br />
The Jade Temptress (The Lotus Palace #2)<br />
The Lotus Palace<br />
Butterfly Swords<br />
The Dragon and the Pearl<br />
My Fair Concubine<br />
The Sword Dancer<br />
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<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><u>MORE ABOUT THE BOOK </u>:</span><br />
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From <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?docId=1000027801">Booklist</a></h3>
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While it is true that Lady Mingyu didn’t love General Dang Zhi, she didn’t hate him enough to murder him either. However, Mingyu discovers that someone else truly did despise Dang when she arrives at his home in Changan and finds his headless corpse. The only man Mingyu can turn to for help is the one man she has never been able to charm: Constable Wu Kaifeng. Discovering that Mingyu is involved in yet another murder case convinces Wu that the beautiful courtesan is nothing but trouble, and this proves to be even truer once Wu realizes his feelings for Mingyu are seriously interfering with his mission to find the killer. The colorful sights, sounds, and even scents of Tang Dynasty China provide a fascinating backdrop, and romance readers tired of cookie-cutter settings will devour this expertly crafted novel. By incorporating some intriguing investigative details into the plot, Lin also gives historical-mystery readers an incentive for giving this captivating series a chance. --John Charles </div>
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<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><u>THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS </u>:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;">Exotic and engaging, this murder mystery is a particularly enticing one to solve while we get a gorgeous glimpse of the orient in delicious detail, and a sexy love story between a courtesan and a constable. I highly recommend this book to all those who love a story set in ancient China, but also to those looking for a little change in the ordinary murder/suspense novel.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;">Ms Lin creates a magnetic push-pull chemistry between her characters, Constable Wu Kaifeng and Lady Mingyu. Mingyu is a beautiful courtesan from the pleasure house, Lotus Palace, who finds herself enmeshed in the murder of one of her "clients." Since this is not the first time Kaifeng and Mingyu have found themselves solving a murder together, it is interesting and exciting to see how they interact. A course in the cultural differences and the setting!</span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;">I was glued to the pages of this novel. I rarely read an ebook for review, but found this one on netgalley and couldn't stop racing through it. It's one of those you'll be happy you picked up.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;">5 stars Deborah/TheBookishDame</span></div>
Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-17456799702674026252014-04-08T10:33:00.000-07:002014-04-08T14:18:39.432-07:00"The Promise" by Ann Weisgarber~Author Interview<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY3MmIKs-k33g7r7JrO7Qu2rRouWduUXYpUv8rU_NC25UmIg0EEuiVFxvZdjt5n4Yta6-Ahgze6M_EmPXDWSh2LMKgs-p1leLzC1JFEp_Pnpsp32nAOgLY0puERhv9Ot9lf_4fsylccf_Y/s1600/Book++The+Promise.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY3MmIKs-k33g7r7JrO7Qu2rRouWduUXYpUv8rU_NC25UmIg0EEuiVFxvZdjt5n4Yta6-Ahgze6M_EmPXDWSh2LMKgs-p1leLzC1JFEp_Pnpsp32nAOgLY0puERhv9Ot9lf_4fsylccf_Y/s1600/Book++The+Promise.jpg" height="320" width="212" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #274e13;"><u>SUMMARY </u>:</span><br />
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From the author of <i>The Personal History of Rachel Dupree</i>, shortlisted for the Orange Award for New Writers and long listed for the Orange Prize.<br />
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1900. Young pianist Catherine Wainwright flees the fashionable town of Dayton, Ohio in the wake of a terrible scandal. Heartbroken and facing destitution, she finds herself striking up correspondence with a childhood admirer, the recently widowed Oscar Williams. In desperation she agrees to marry him, but when Catherine travels to Oscar's farm on Galveston Island, Texas—a thousand miles from home—she finds she is little prepared for the life that awaits her. The island is remote, the weather sweltering, and Oscar's little boy Andre is grieving hard for his lost mother. And though Oscar tries to please his new wife, the secrets of the past sit uncomfortably between them. Meanwhile for Nan Ogden, Oscar’s housekeeper, Catherine’s sudden arrival has come as a great shock. For not only did she promise Oscar’s first wife that she would be the one to take care of little Andre, but she has feelings for Oscar which she is struggling to suppress. And when the worst storm in a generation descends, the women will find themselves tested as never before.<br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;"><u>PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK </u>:</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">Published by: Skyhorse Publishing</span><br />
Pages: 320<br />
Genre: Historical Fiction<br />
Author: Ann Weisgarber<br />
Website: <a href="http://www.annweisgarber.com/">http://www.annweisgarber.com</a><br />
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<u><span style="color: #274e13;">WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT "THE PROMISE:"</span></u><br />
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"A gripping, beautiful story of loyalties and hidden loves. Ann Weisgarber's pitch-perfect characters will break your heart and keep you guessing right to the very end."<br />
—Carol Rifka Brunt, <i>New York Times</i> bestselling author of <i>Tell The Wolves I’m Home</i><br />
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“In this superb novel, Ann Weisgarber has created voices so convincing it is as if the dead themselves have arisen to tell their story. <i>The Promise</i> is a novel that, once started, few readers will be able to put down.”<br />
— Ron Rash, <i>New York Times</i> bestselling author of <i>Serena</i><br />
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"Ann Weisgarber's <i>The Promise</i> is set against the backdrop of the worst natural disaster of the 20th century in the U.S., but the weather is no match for [this] story of two women's love for the same man. The coastal isolation of Galveston shows Weisgarber's ability to make a place come alive, and the real storm in the book is the demand of family, the hope of love, and the impossibility of reinvention. Fans of <i>A Reliable Wife</i> will find <i>The Promise</i> to be a book they can latch onto."<br />
—Alexi Zentner, author of <i>Touch</i> and <i>The Lobster Kings</i><br />
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"Set against the worst natural disaster in twentieth century American history, The Promise is a riveting tale, told in lean luminous prose, of the power of love and the frailty of the human condition. Weisgarber knows storms, those that devastate the land and those that rage in the human heart. Her characters will live in your imagination long after you’ve turned the last deeply moving page."<br />
—Ellen Feldman, author of <i>Next to Love</i> and <i>Scottsboro</i><br />
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"Weisgarber's conjuring of Galveston Island at the turn of the 20th century is miraculous--a sensory feast. Narrated by a pair of compellingly divergent female voices, <i>The Promise</i> is at once an American story of second chances, an achingly felt love triangle, and a psychological tour de force. I am stunned. Rarely do novelists so happily marry depth of insight to unflagging suspense."<br />
—Lin Enger, author of <i>Undiscovered Country</i><br />
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<i>The Promise</i> is a gripping drama, at once personal and macrocosmic, a powerful recreation of the hurricane that devastates Galveston in 1900--and the fragile but hopeful life that a young woman is rebuilding there after fleeing from a scandalous past. I was captivated by Weisgarber's deft use of voices, her careful delineation of character, and her ability to pull the reader into a different time and place. <br />
—Chitra Divakaruni, author of <i>Mistress of Spices</i> and <i>Oleander Girl</i><br />
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"<i>The Promise</i> is a thrilling and heartbreaking novel. Told in alternating voices, with perfect pitch, it brings the past alive with a vivid sense of place and time. This is a story of the enduring bonds between people, of shame and redemption, of promises kept. No one has ever dramatized a cataclysmic storm better, the fury and aftermath. It is a novel of the struggle, the work, and the power of love."<br />
—Robert Morgan, author of <i>The Road From Gap Creek</i><br />
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<i>The Promise</i> takes a historical premise, The Galveston Hurricane of 1900, but makes the story of two women and the way they try to live and love in a hard hard world as affecting and evocative as any storm." <br />
Susan Straight, author of <i>Between Heaven and Here</i> and <i>Highwire Moon</i><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;"><u>ABOUT THE AUTHOR </u>:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP_iNJN8N605tAuO_OcJgAfxQxWSMUX5JnYCOFhb4E3hgx-9-y6Xw6SQSGQyiGSAJgYflcQvTD2CSbkAsk16dlSMbdtO8K0GR6EKnl0hQgsya6y2LSt1SVOpVkohNUpXriO0xDzmPus3i1/s1600/Author++Ann+Weisgarber.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP_iNJN8N605tAuO_OcJgAfxQxWSMUX5JnYCOFhb4E3hgx-9-y6Xw6SQSGQyiGSAJgYflcQvTD2CSbkAsk16dlSMbdtO8K0GR6EKnl0hQgsya6y2LSt1SVOpVkohNUpXriO0xDzmPus3i1/s1600/Author++Ann+Weisgarber.jpg" /></a></div>
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Ann is the author of <i>The Promise </i>and <i>The Personal History of Rachel DuPree. </i>She was nominated for England’s 2009 Orange Prize and for the 2009 Orange Award for New Writers. In the United States, she won the Stephen Turner Award for New Fiction and the Langum Prize for American Historical Fiction. She was shortlisted for the Ohioana Book Award and was a Barnes and Noble <i>Discover</i> New Writer. Ann serves on the selection committee for the Langum Prize in American Historical Fiction.<br />
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<i>The Promise </i>was inspired by a dilapidated house and by an interview Ann conducted when she was writing articles for a Galveston magazine. She wrote much of the novel in Galveston where pelicans glide along the surf and cows graze in pastures. <br />
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Her debut novel,<i> The Personal History of Rachel DuPree </i>was inspired by a photograph of an unknown woman sitting in front of a sod dugout. It was published in England and France before being published in the United States.<br />
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Ann was born and raised in Kettering, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton. She graduated from Wright State University in Dayton with a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work and earned a Master of Arts in Sociology from the University of Houston. She has been a social worker in psychiatric and nursing home facilities, and taught sociology at Wharton County Junior College in Texas.<br />
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In addition to Ohio and Texas, Ann has lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Des Moines, Iowa. She now splits her time between Sugar Land, Texas, (home to Imperial Sugar Company), and Galveston, Texas. She and her husband, Rob, are fans of America’s national parks and visit at least one park a year. Ann is currently working on her next novel that takes place in Capitol Reef National Park, Utah, during the winter of 1888.<br />
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*Note: Photo by Christine Meeker<br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;"><u>AN INTERVIEW WITH MS WEISGARBER </u>:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;">We are so thrilled to bring you this Q&A interview with Ann today. She's an extremely interesting person, but also one you'd love to have as a next door neighbor! Welcome, Ann!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: #e06666;">Tell us something about yourself, please.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do most people describe you? <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #274e13;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My
innate shyness kicks in whenever I’m asked to talk about myself but I’ll take a
deep breath and give it a try.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I grew up
in Kettering, Ohio, and came from a family that had stacks of library books in
the house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Owning books was a luxury and
I saved my allowance to buy them from the drugstore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I make that sound so simple but in reality
I’d debate and deliberate for days about which book to buy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #274e13;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Reading,
spending time in libraries, and buying books - but now in bookstores rather
than drugstores - are still important to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So is baseball.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My husband and I
go to Houston Astros games as often as we can, and I’m one of those crazy fans
who keeps score.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m also a fan of
national parks and the more remote, the better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>While writing my first novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Personal History of Rachel DuPree</i>, the U.S. Park Service gave me a
four-week writing residency at Badlands National Park in South Dakota.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I lived in ranger housing and didn’t have
television or Internet services.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
didn’t miss either one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I don’t
know how people might describe me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m
afraid to ask them!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: #e06666;">Briefly, from where did the idea for your novel
germinate?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After
I finished my first novel, I freelanced for a Galveston magazine, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Islander</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My articles were about people with unusual
jobs and for one assignment, I interviewed a brother and sister who owned a
small grocery store on the rural end of the island.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’d moved there with their parents in 1963,
and their stories about rural island life fascinated me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The tap water was rusty and not safe to
drink, electricity went out frequently, and there were more rattlesnakes than
people. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If
that was life in 1963, what was the rural end of Galveston like during 1900
when a massive hurricane hit the island and killed over 6,000 people?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That question drove me to the Galveston
library where I found very little information about the people who once lived
outside of the city limits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seemed
that Galveston’s dairy farmers, ranchers, and fishermen had been forgotten, and
that felt like an injustice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Promise </i>is my way of remembering
those people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: #e06666;">Who first told you you could write well and how did
that affect you?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My freshman
composition instructor at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, pulled me
aside at the end of the quarter and told me she thought I was a good
writer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was shocked; no one had told
me that before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Years later when I
decided I wanted to write a story about a woman I’d seen in a photograph, the
instructor’s words gave me the confidence to try.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t begin to measure the impact her words
had on my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She made me think I could
write a book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: #e06666;">Which contemporary authors do you admire?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There
are so many but novelists Ellen Feldman, Robert Morgan, Paulette Jiles, and
Alexi Zentner are big favorites.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For unexplainable
reasons, novelist Jennifer Hritz has been overlooked, and I love her books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I keep a collection of poet Billy Collins’ work
on my bedside table so I can end each day with a poem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #e06666;">Who are your favorite classical authors</span></span><span style="color: #e06666;">?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Two
of the classics that I love are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Charlotte’s
Web</i> by E. B. White and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Secret
Garden</i> by Frances Hodgson Burnett.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
received both as gifts when I was a child, and I’ve read them countless
times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re on my desk now as I write
this and I long to read them again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They’re considered children’s literature but these stories of
friendship, sacrifice, and loyalty touch my adult heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #e06666;">What was your first book as a child?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is your all-time favorite?</span> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
don’t remember specifically my first book but I’m willing to bet it was a
Little Golden Book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I especially liked
the ones about Mickey Mouse, Minnie, and Daisy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My
all-time favorite is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">To Kill a
Mockingbird</i> by Harper Lee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve read
it many times and I always marvel at the author’s wisdom to confront injustice,
racism, and mental illness through the eyes of a child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: #e06666;">Read any good books during the last six months?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Gary
Schanbacher’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Crossing Purgatory </i>is
absolutely wonderful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes place in
eastern Colorado prior to the Civil War, and the voice of the narrator – a man
whose family has died – is haunting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
few weeks ago, I read the advanced reading copy of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Before the Fall</i> by Juliet West.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She’s from the UK and it’ll be a great loss if this outstanding novel
about a young East End woman during World War I isn’t published in the
States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: #e06666;">What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After
I graduated from high school, I didn’t want to go to college.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, I took a job as a secretary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a disaster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was the youngest person in the office by
twenty years, I made a mess of an important document I had to prepare for my
boss, and I got the shakes every time the sales team asked me to handle their
expense receipts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I quit after a few
months and no one begged me to stay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
found another job as a proofreader and applied for admission at Wright State
University in Ohio.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: #e06666;">What’s your earliest memory?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
distinctly remember my brother’s birthday party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was five, I was three, and my mother
wouldn’t let me play some of the games.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Not only was I too young but I was the only girl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I stood at the back door and watched the boys
play tag in the yard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was not a good
sport about being left out. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: #e06666;">What’s your most treasured possession?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This
might sound sappy but it’s my library card.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It represents all that’s good about America – free and equal access to
knowledge and literature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: #e06666;">Are you working on a new novel?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 125%;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’m
working on a novel that takes place in Utah’s canyon country during the winter
of 1888.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The narrator is a 37-year old
woman who helps polygamists hide from U.S. marshals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not all that far along and the plot could
change so I won’t say more. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span></span><span style="color: #e06666;">Ann, I can't believe you have a memory that early in your life. That really must have impacted you. I'm looking forward to your new book. Polygamists really interest me these days... Thank you for stopping by!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;"><u>THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #274e13;"></span><br />
This is a rare book. The author is outstanding and the story is captivating. I was swept up in the telling of it and with the very distinct characters that inhabit the pages. Truly one of those "you can't put it down" books of the season. It's luminous and heart-rending.<br />
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I don't know much about Galveston, Texas, having never been there, but Ms Weisgarber brings it to life vividly. She sharpens our senses to the salty air of the beach, the weathered landscape and the beaten habitations of Oscar's farm. I became anxious as Catherine first crossed the waters in her train and throughout her trip there. And I felt the anxiety and terror throughout the storm the whole family faced...both real and psychological. Matchless writing that garnered many visceral and emotional reactions from me!<br />
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The characterization is strong here. I truly felt the isolation of Catherine as she faced first her deceptions, and then her personal fears and love. I struggled with Oscar as he tried to understand and find a heart's balance. And I sensed the longing and pain in Nan. The confusion in little Andre. And much more. Ann Weisgarber is a master at rendering the perfect beat needed for each character in their settings.<br />
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This is a beautiful book full of longing, love, heart-breaking reality and a sense of lost life regained. I loved it. I hope you'll give it a try. It's the perfect book group book...lots of meat here...lots of situations to discuss.<br />
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5 stars Deborah/TheBookishDameDebhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-27874461430636249562014-04-03T19:26:00.001-07:002014-04-08T15:56:53.051-07:00"Elephant in the Sky" by Heather A. Clark<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtDBAbKOuYifRt-Na9qyc-jPkszIC_kIhSfw0aNR8-JgERtYHeb8aX0VIV4O5zG2Xof5aSqONlZMfWNIVJydc9vw8UUpESYclzsPWjDSJwqilbUjetPhwJTy7wbE7HL5Y33UbuHALYkpUs/s1600/Book++The+Elephant+in+the+Sky.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtDBAbKOuYifRt-Na9qyc-jPkszIC_kIhSfw0aNR8-JgERtYHeb8aX0VIV4O5zG2Xof5aSqONlZMfWNIVJydc9vw8UUpESYclzsPWjDSJwqilbUjetPhwJTy7wbE7HL5Y33UbuHALYkpUs/s1600/Book++The+Elephant+in+the+Sky.jpg" height="320" width="204" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c;"><u>SUMMARY </u>:</span><br />
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Widely acclaimed for her ability to tell emotionally powerful stories that capture the real lives of women, bestselling novelist Heather A. Clark tackles the subject of childhood mental disorders. <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396033818847_806">Elephant in the Sky</i> is told from both nine-year-old Nate’s point of view and that of his mother, Ashley, an overworked ad executive who struggles with a demanding workload and the worry that she’s not spending enough time with her family — especially as her son’s battle with mental unbalance and paranoid delusions escalates. The two narratives converge in a deeply moving tale of a family dealing with mental illness. <br />
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396033818847_776">
<i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396033818847_823">Elephant in the Sky</i> is a story about unconditional love, and it articulates a complicated, real-life subject with grace, wisdom, and sensitivity. It looks at what it means to be different in our society and beautifully explores the distance a mother will go to protect her child.</div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c;"><u>PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK </u>:</span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;">Published by: ECW Press</span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;">Pages: 326</span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;">Genre: Contemporary Fiction</span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;">Author: Heather A. Clark</span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;">Purchase this book: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Sky-Novel-Heather-Clark/dp/177041083X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396034425&sr=1-1&keywords=elephant+in+the+sky+heather+clark">Amazon</a></span><br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c;"><u>ABOUT THE AUTHOR </u>:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguDxzQeJf35TMXKhoCEDC0JVKX7cvGdMr-2GifkHBa7dEkopZfNsUWqQB-mIvhohogJynJ-R7NEKiEbAVTui_8GJF2uEX93nnnmNAcFuD_cj4oPniJBz4OTCV3cGTyF6iEIqj6Q8Ve80OR/s1600/Author++Heather+A.+Clark.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguDxzQeJf35TMXKhoCEDC0JVKX7cvGdMr-2GifkHBa7dEkopZfNsUWqQB-mIvhohogJynJ-R7NEKiEbAVTui_8GJF2uEX93nnnmNAcFuD_cj4oPniJBz4OTCV3cGTyF6iEIqj6Q8Ve80OR/s1600/Author++Heather+A.+Clark.png" height="167" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><strong>Heather A. Clark</strong> is the author of the bestselling novel <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396033818847_885">Chai Tea Sunday</i>. She lives in Oakville, Ontario, with her husband and three children. Visit her online at heatheraclark.com. </span><br />
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<u><span style="color: #134f5c;">THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS :</span></u><br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c;">This is one of those books that is startling in its raw truth while it is heart-warming in conveying love and family bonding. I blitzed through this novel hardly stopping for a breath it was so good!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c;">Heather A. Clark is brilliant in telling a story while making it so real we believe every note of it. I was deeply moved by the child in the novel as well as the mother who believes in him. The boy and his innocent way of being "lost" was so authentically expressed. I wondered if Ms Clark actually knew a child from whom she took this story, if felt so real.</span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;">This is not a tear-jerker of a story. It has substance and solid writing behind it. It's one of the best I've read on the subject of childhood mental illness since Clark doesn't choose to make us pity the boy...just love and respect him.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c;">Highly recommended to everyone. This would be a perfect book for a gathering of friends to discuss.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c;">May be pre-ordered on Amazon for a May release...</span><br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c;">5 stars Deborah/TheBookishDame</span>Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-29463232514521809952014-03-30T19:40:00.000-07:002014-03-30T19:49:48.552-07:00"The Midnight Witch" by Paula Brackston<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfruEe-7mxLTFVhxdRkYcdClL2rFon8y7cNpVO44zH6NVW0naS7W2Vzv00SdhXiqkeNbZ0DnIc6XMhyphenhyphen6Zy1WGZaRUGOKKr59NxzBvuccEL9c_SvqJasHBSIthMVTmSBxL750qVvMfe8T2M/s1600/Book++The+Midnight+Witch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfruEe-7mxLTFVhxdRkYcdClL2rFon8y7cNpVO44zH6NVW0naS7W2Vzv00SdhXiqkeNbZ0DnIc6XMhyphenhyphen6Zy1WGZaRUGOKKr59NxzBvuccEL9c_SvqJasHBSIthMVTmSBxL750qVvMfe8T2M/s1600/Book++The+Midnight+Witch.jpg" height="320" width="210" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #8e7cc3;"><u>SUMMARY </u>:</span><br />
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Midnight is the most bewitching hour of them all…<br />
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From Paula Brackston, the New York Times bestselling author of <i>The Witch’s Daughter</i> and <i>The Winter Witch</i>, comes a magical tale that is as dark as it is enchanting. Set in high society Edwardian England, <i>The Midnight Witch</i> is the story of a young witch who faces the choice between love and loyalty to her coven…<br />
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<i>Lady Lilith Montgomery is the daughter of the sixth Duke of Radnor. She is one of the most beautiful young women in London and engaged to the city’s most eligible bachelor. She is also a witch.</i></div>
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<i>When her father dies, her hapless brother Freddie takes on his title. But it is Lilith, instructed in the art of necromancy, who inherits their father’s role as Head Witch of the Lazarus Coven. And it is Lilith who must face the threat of the Sentinels, a powerful group of sorcerers intent on reclaiming the Elixir from the coven’s guardianship for their own dark purposes. Lilith knows the Lazarus creed: secrecy and silence. To abandon either would put both the coven and all she holds dear in grave danger. She has spent her life honoring it, right down to her engagement to her childhood friend and fellow witch, Viscount Louis Harcourt.</i></div>
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<i>Until the day she meets Bram, a talented artist who is neither a witch nor a member of her class. With him, she must not be secret and silent. Despite her loyalty to the coven and duty to her family, Lilith cannot keep her life as a witch hidden from the man she loves. </i></div>
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<i>To tell him will risk everything.</i></div>
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<span style="color: #8e7cc3;"><u>PRAISE FOR PAULA BRACKSTON'S WRITING</u>:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #8e7cc3;"></span><br />
<h5 id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396114107014_968">
<span style="color: #8e7cc3;">
Publishers Weekly</span></h5>
<span style="color: #8e7cc3;">
01/06/2014<br /> Bestseller Brackston follows The Witch’s Daughter and The Winter Witch with another sturdy historical paranormal. In 1913 London, on the eve of WWI, Lady Lilith Montgomery takes the title of Head Witch of the Lazarus Coven after her father’s death. Lilith and her fiancé, fellow witch Louis Harcourt, must defend the secret of the elixir of life from rival sorcerers, but both are distracted when impoverished artist Bram Cardale wins Lilith’s heart. War and the schemes of her enemies leave Lilith isolated, but loosening social conventions allow her to find love with Bram and success in her pursuits. Brackston lightly layers in unusual historical locales, like war-torn Uganda, but otherwise provides the expected charms of Edwardian balls, decadent slumming in opium dens, and repentant work in wartime soup kitchens. Her characters also fit convention (unsure prodigy, flighty socialite, spurned yet noble suitor) but their sincerity and humor make them worth following to the end. (Mar.) </span></div>
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“A sensitive, beautifully written account… If the Brontë sisters had penned magical realism, this would have been the result.” –The Guardian (London)<br />
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“There’s a whiff of Harry Potter in the witchy conflict—a battle between undeveloped young magical talent and old malevolence—at the heart of this sprightly tale of spells and romance, the second novel from British writer Brackston (The Witch’s Daughter, 2011)…. Love of landscape and lyrical writing lend charm, but it’s Brackston’s full-blooded storytelling that will hook the reader.” --Kirkus</div>
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“Brackston delivers an intimate paranormal romance that grounds its fantasy in the reality of a 19th century Welsh farm.” –Publishers Weekly</div>
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“Brackston's imaginative story is fascinating, polished and intriguing.” –CurledUp.com</div>
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“Paula Brackston’s Winter Witch is a whimsical and mystical tale that’s part romance part mystery part fantasy and all extraordinary. Her beautiful narrative moves flawlessly throughout the story… This unique novel will appeal to fans of a multitude of genres from historical to fantasy and will engage fans of all ages as well.” -- <a href="http://www.thereadingfrenzy.blogspot.com/">www.thereadingfrenzy.blogspot.com/</a></div>
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<span style="color: #8e7cc3;"><u>PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK </u>:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #8e7cc3;"></span> </div>
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<span style="color: black;">Published by: St. Martin's Press</span></div>
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Pages: 352</div>
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Author: Paula Brackston</div>
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Genre: Fiction</div>
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Website: <a href="http://www.paulabrackston.com/">http://www.paulabrackston.com</a> </div>
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<span style="color: #8e7cc3;"><u>ABOUT THE AUTHOR </u>:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQm7q5kQB2yt_7k2UFNqjcgVoih0g8ReA_NlooE52tnkuBt5IbIWdpwVOZ9Ck7GQ0kqsTv_wuM6cG0dYB6vIi4qFi645mDn83vqz9gedQrWo9zU6p5GVK3ouVUwRw_4RHGXbyTkCWxtZhD/s1600/Author++Paula+Brackston.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQm7q5kQB2yt_7k2UFNqjcgVoih0g8ReA_NlooE52tnkuBt5IbIWdpwVOZ9Ck7GQ0kqsTv_wuM6cG0dYB6vIi4qFi645mDn83vqz9gedQrWo9zU6p5GVK3ouVUwRw_4RHGXbyTkCWxtZhD/s1600/Author++Paula+Brackston.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black;">PAULA BRACKSTON is the New York Times bestselling author of The Witch’s Daughter and The Winter Witch. She has a master’s degree in creative writing from Lancaster University in the UK. She lives in Wales with her family. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large;">The book trailer:</span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/KOtfI96CR3U?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<span style="color: #c27ba0; font-size: large;">For an excerpt click here: <a href="http://issuu.com/stmartinspress/docs/the_midnight_witch_excerpt" saprocessedanchor="true" target="_blank">http://issuu.com/stmartinspress/docs/the_midnight_witch_excerpt</a></span></div>
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<span style="color: #8e7cc3;"><u>THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS </u>:</span></div>
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To put it short and sweetly: I loved this book. It's been a while since I've read such a bewitching witch novel. Paula Brackston is a captivating author with a gift for storytelling that is sure to keep even the most skeptical of readers wide-eyed!<br />
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Not only is the book a great story, but the details of a coven and witches were so realistic. Beautifully cast, the finest outlines of persons, clothing and places make this novel come alive. I was spellbound. I could see the vivid colors, the ghostliness of the coven's inter sanctum, and the fearsomeness of some of the characters. Ms Brackston leaves no stone unturned to give us a gorgeous picture of her characters and their settings. I also appreciated so much the secondary story of the artists, their sensibilities and passions. <br />
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The love story of Lilith and Bram is wound elegantly throughout, and it's difficult not to fall in love with both of these main characters. Bram, as an artist, appealed to me because of this additional dimension and his compassion.<br />
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This is a novel with much to offer. Not the run-of-the-mill story... It's a study in the sacred bonds of family and lovers, vows and secrets.<br />
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Not to be missed!! I highly recommend it on many levels: Excellence in writing, great characterization, descriptive detailing, background and ambience, love story, bewitching tale and more.<br />
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5 stars Deborah/TheBookishDame<br />
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Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-58930335628651728492014-03-28T11:33:00.001-07:002014-03-28T13:01:05.589-07:00New Book Haul ~ 3/27/2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHqCfp5tjourIeqfbNgwgFAMVSyuKnh0qiBf-B4KWFzkdYpluDjh6h8O0Qy7tkrKDDU3-YRw6DTps9ydaXEjSLi7GQAlzXWvyxR6LejJOjaezP74yCtSCPUov1K9Ws0rS32JIgKj9NxM_g/s1600/Book+Haul+3+24+14+001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHqCfp5tjourIeqfbNgwgFAMVSyuKnh0qiBf-B4KWFzkdYpluDjh6h8O0Qy7tkrKDDU3-YRw6DTps9ydaXEjSLi7GQAlzXWvyxR6LejJOjaezP74yCtSCPUov1K9Ws0rS32JIgKj9NxM_g/s1600/Book+Haul+3+24+14+001.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #990000;">Literally a gorgeous cache of books over this past week or so. I love the beautiful covers and the subjects are so diverse and interesting. I'm going to have an absolute feast with these. I've started several of them...just couldn't wait. Let me tell you about them without making you wait another minute:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSGADUoPYqBJq9sE3mZWY2TJ2dfukcDQDTLZgRnZUyF0vWykjmFx2K2s6ySrdiqSp2_jSGpsyrdCoR6FRsuJ38lHjRUvaPAWptqhOEOD974Y-dEabifM_f2_SKatYUUCdG4okYzPPqglEh/s1600/Book++The+Collector+of+Dying+Breaths.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSGADUoPYqBJq9sE3mZWY2TJ2dfukcDQDTLZgRnZUyF0vWykjmFx2K2s6ySrdiqSp2_jSGpsyrdCoR6FRsuJ38lHjRUvaPAWptqhOEOD974Y-dEabifM_f2_SKatYUUCdG4okYzPPqglEh/s1600/Book++The+Collector+of+Dying+Breaths.jpg" height="320" width="212" /></a></div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396028527122_717">
<b id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396028527122_716">From the internationally bestselling author, a lush and imaginative novel that crisscrosses time as passion and obsessions collide</b></div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396028527122_720">
Florence, Italy—1533:</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396028527122_721">
An orphan named René le Florentin is plucked from poverty to become Catherine de Medici’s perfumer. Traveling with the young duchessina from Italy to France, René brings with him a cache of secret documents from the monastery where he was trained: recipes for exotic fragrances and potent medicines—and a formula for an alchemic process said to have the potential to reanimate the dead.</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396028527122_710">
In France, René becomes not only the greatest perfumer in the country, but also the most dangerous, creating deadly poisons for his Queen to use against her rivals. But while mixing herbs and essences under the light of flickering candles, René doesn’t begin to imagine the tragic and personal consequences for which his lethal potions will be responsible.</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396028527122_738">
Paris, France—The Present:</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396028527122_739">
A renowned mythologist, Jac L’Etoile—trying to recover from personal heartache by throwing herself into her work—learns of the sixteenth-century perfumer who may have been working on an elixir that would unlock the secret to immortality. She becomes obsessed with René le Florentin’s work—particularly when she discovers the dying breaths he had collected during his lifetime.</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396028527122_740">
Jac’s efforts put her in the path of her estranged lover, Griffin North, a linguist who has already begun translating René le Florentin’s mysterious formula. Together they confront an eccentric heiress in possession of a world-class art collection, a woman who has her own dark purpose for the elixir . . . for which she believes the ends will justify her deadly means.</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396028527122_784">
This mesmerizing gothic tale zigzags from the violent days of Catherine de Medici’s court to twenty-first-century France. Fiery and lush, set against deep, wild forests and dimly lit chateaus, <i>The Collector of Dying Breaths</i> illuminates the true path to immortality: the legacies we leave behind.</div>
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<span style="color: #990000;">*Absolutely gorgeous cover on this book. Thanks to Atria Books/Simon & Schuster for this opportunity to review!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIFdPvdkxtxGzNZV5FRfEV82XacCrk_Dqbb91k6tpfVGwe-09BFKd5WTjRwsRStwvvZbQaPOUOJbFhtJW0JMFwaOVQ9KuzikoEEiAnrAbetfJ7EBg8E1Q3djnn0Pxt6A0bonCSDRK_0y2-/s1600/Book++Tequila+Sunset.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIFdPvdkxtxGzNZV5FRfEV82XacCrk_Dqbb91k6tpfVGwe-09BFKd5WTjRwsRStwvvZbQaPOUOJbFhtJW0JMFwaOVQ9KuzikoEEiAnrAbetfJ7EBg8E1Q3djnn0Pxt6A0bonCSDRK_0y2-/s1600/Book++Tequila+Sunset.jpg" height="320" width="198" /></a></div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396028839790_1141">
<b id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396028839790_1142">Shortlisted for the Golden Dagger Award 2013.</b></div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396028839790_1140">
Praise for <i>Tequila Sunset</i>:</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396028839790_1139">
"Haunting . . . recalls the best of James M. Cain."—<i>The Financial Times</i></div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396028839790_1135">
"A fascinating, tense, and engaging read that draws you into the lives of the characters with consummate ease until you reluctantly turn that final page."—<i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396028839790_1136">Crimesquad</i></div>
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<span style="color: #990000;">*I think this cover is so cool! It's bright turquoise with gilt...love it. I appreciate the copy from Serpent's Tail publishing and Meryl Zegarek Public Relations, Inc.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRQjUibgz3NZ_IBLcZoSowrISjTHBhvvlNjv28PnFWgVCI9X9grxuSG3HJnsFqHpnjXegubF2Sed-vQgLzZB8Xn1f-4Kx9YGM6r-ilK4l1xw_wcf_u6KUkFuKipfJBUiEqPR2mdHEP7liR/s1600/Book++Expecting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRQjUibgz3NZ_IBLcZoSowrISjTHBhvvlNjv28PnFWgVCI9X9grxuSG3HJnsFqHpnjXegubF2Sed-vQgLzZB8Xn1f-4Kx9YGM6r-ilK4l1xw_wcf_u6KUkFuKipfJBUiEqPR2mdHEP7liR/s1600/Book++Expecting.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396029227045_609">
A mom, a dad, a baby...and another dad.</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396029227045_608">
Laurie and Alan are expecting, again. After two miscarriages, Laurie was afraid they'd never be able to have a child. Now she's cautiously optimistic — the fertility treatment worked, and things seem to be different this time around. But she doesn't yet know how different.</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396029227045_607">
Jack can't seem to catch a break — his parents are on his case about graduating from college, he's somehow dating two girls at once, and he has to find a way to pay back the money he borrowed from his fraternity's party fund. The only jobs he is qualified for barely pay enough to keep him in beer money, but an ad for the local sperm bank gives Jack an idea.</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396029227045_604">
Laurie and Alan's joy is shattered when their doctor reveals that Laurie was accidentally impregnated by sperm from a donor rather than her husband. Who is Donor 296. And how will their family change now that Donor 296 is inarguably part of it?</div>
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<span style="color: #990000;">*Wow! Doesn't this one sound amazing!? Very kindly sent a copy from Sourcebooks...</span><br />
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396029363311_728">
<strong id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396029363311_729">A mother risks everything to uncover the truth behind her daughter's botched suicide attempt</strong></div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396029363311_732">
To the outside world, Susan Jackson has it all-a loving family, successful husband, and beautiful home-but when Charlotte, her teenage daughter, steps in front of a bus and ends up in a coma, she is forced to question all of it.</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396029363311_727">
Desperate to find out what caused Charlotte's suicide attempt, she discovers a horrifying entry in her diary: "keeping this secret is killing me." As Sue spins in desperate circles, she finds herself immersed in a dark world she didn't know existed-and the closer she comes to the truth, the more dangerous things become.</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396029363311_725">
Can she wake up from the nightmares that haunt her and save her daughter, or will Charlotte's secret destroy them both?</div>
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<span style="color: #990000;">* I'm very interested in this one! Can't wait to start it. Beautifully constructed book so that the pages don't bend as you turn... Thanks to Sourcebooks</span><br />
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396029545677_740">
<strong id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396029545677_739">The winner of the National Book Award returns with a moving story of a family of women drawn together by the trials of the times.</strong></div>
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396029545677_466">
The women in the Hand family are no strangers to either controversy or sadness. Those traits seem, in fact, to be a part of their family?s heritage, one that stretches back through several generations and many wars. <em>A Dangerous Age</em> is a celebration of the strength of these women and of the bonds of blood and shared loss that hold them together.</div>
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<span style="color: #990000;">* With many thanks to Algonquin Books, I'm delighted to begin this novel by Gilchrist</span><span style="color: #990000;">!</span><br />
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<strong id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396029734261_681">“Refreshing, Engaging, and Inspiring . . .[Gilchrist] unabashedly and movingly celebrates life, true love, and triumphs over calamity and adversity . . . [These stories] reflect a lifetime of observing,writing, and living.” —<em>Library Journal</em></strong></div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396029734261_742">
<strong id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396029734261_741">Critical Acclaim for Ellen Gilchrist</strong></div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396029734261_686">
“Gilchrist’s writing is funny, wise, and wonderful . . . Her stories seem charged with an irresistible energy . . . Stories of passion and science, poetry and shyness.</div>
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<span style="color: #990000;">*I've already started this book. It's fabulous! I've loved Ellen Gilchrist since I was in my 30's. Awesome writer. Thank you Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill!</span><br />
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<h3 id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396029967876_826">
<i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396029967876_880">RedDevil 4</i> is spine-tingling techno-thriller based on cutting edge research from surgeon and inventor Eric C. Leuthardt.</h3>
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396029967876_829">
Renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Hagan Maerici is on the verge of a breakthrough in artificial intelligence that could change the way we think about human consciousness. Obsessed with his job and struggling to save his marriage, Dr. Maerici is forced to put his life’s work on the line when a rash of brutal murders strikes St. Louis....</div>
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<span style="color: #990000;">*Started this one the other night and I have hardly been able to put it down. It's a great scientific thriller...highly recommended. Most appreciated to Forge books via Meryl L. Moss Media Relations, Inc.</span><br />
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<strong>“Alice is cast in the mold of a character created by an earlier Alcott, the passionate and spunky Jo March. A refreshingly old-fashioned heroine, she makes THE DARING LADIES OF LOWELL appealing”</strong><i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396031879859_1020">--The New York Times Book Review</i><br />
“Offers up a compelling slice of both feminist and Industrial Age history”--<i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396031879859_1024">Christian Science Monitor</i> <br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396031879859_1017">
From the <i>New York Times</i> bestselling author of THE DRESSMAKER comes a moving historical novel about a bold young woman drawn to the looms of Lowell, Massachusetts--and to the one man with whom she has no business falling in love.<br />
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Eager to escape life on her family’s farm, Alice Barrow moves to Lowell in 1832 and throws herself into the hard work demanded of “the mill girls.” In spite of the long hours, she discovers a vibrant new life and a true friend—a saucy, strong-willed girl name Lovey Cornell.<br />
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But conditions at the factory become increasingly dangerous, and Alice finds the courage to represent the workers and their grievances. Although mill owner, Hiram Fiske, pays no heed, Alice attracts the attention of his eldest son, the handsome and reserved Samuel Fiske. Their mutual attraction is intense, tempting Alice to dream of a different future for herself.<br />
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This dream is shattered when Lovey is found strangled to death. A sensational trial follows, bringing all the unrest that’s brewing to the surface. Alice finds herself torn between her commitment to the girls in the mill and her blossoming relationship with Samuel. Based on the actual murder of a mill girl and the subsequent trial in 1833, THE DARING LADIES OF LOWELL brilliantly captures a transitional moment in America’s history while also exploring the complex nature of love, loyalty, and the enduring power of friendship.</div>
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<span style="color: #990000;">* Bought this one myself. My grandmother was a mill worker in NC nearly 100 years ago, so I'm very interested in this subject. This book is published by Doubleday.</span><br />
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396032100461_837">
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: black;">Arthur Conan Doyle has just killed off Sherlock Holmes in “The Final Problem,” and he immediately becomes one of the most hated men in London. So when he is contacted by a medium “of some renown” and asked to investigate a murder, he jumps at the chance to get out of the city. The only thing is that the murder hasn’t happened yet—the medium, one Hope Thraxton, has foreseen that her death will occur at the third séance of a meeting of the Society for Psychical Research at her manor house in the English countryside. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: black;">Along for the ride is Conan Doyle’s good friend Oscar Wilde, and together they work to narrow down the list of suspects, which includes a mysterious foreign Count, a levitating magician, and an irritable old woman with a “familiar.” Meanwhile, Conan Doyle is enchanted by the plight of the capricious Hope Thraxton, who may or may not have a more complicated back-story than it first appears. As Conan Doyle and Wilde participate in seances and consider the possible motives of the assembled group, the clock ticks ever closer to Hope’s murder, in <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396032100461_856">The Revenant of Thraxton Hall</i> by Vaughn Entwistle.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #990000;">* This copy most graciously sent by Minotaur Books. Looking forward to reading the story combining Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde!</span><br />
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396032363772_1037">
<span style="color: black;">Mesmerizing and illuminating, Alice Hoffman’s <i>The Museum of Extraordinary Things</i> is the story of an electric and impassioned love between two vastly different souls in New York during the volatile first decades of the twentieth century.</span></div>
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</span><div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396032363772_1013">
<span style="color: black;">Coralie Sardie is the daughter of the sinister impresario behind The Museum of Extraordinary Things, a Coney Island boardwalk freak show that thrills the masses. An exceptional swimmer, Coralie appears as the Mermaid in her father’s “museum,” alongside performers like the Wolfman, the Butterfly Girl, and a one-hundred-year-old turtle. One night Coralie stumbles upon a striking young man taking pictures of moonlit trees in the woods off the Hudson River.</span></div>
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396032363772_1023">
The dashing photographer is Eddie Cohen, a Russian immigrant who has run away from his father’s Lower East Side Orthodox community and his job as a tailor’s apprentice. When Eddie photographs the devastation on the streets of New York following the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, he becomes embroiled in the suspicious mystery behind a young woman’s disappearance and ignites the heart of Coralie.</div>
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396032363772_1065">
With its colorful crowds of bootleggers, heiresses, thugs, and idealists, New York itself becomes a riveting character as Hoffman weaves her trademark magic, romance, and masterful storytelling to unite Coralie and Eddie in a sizzling, tender, and moving story of young love in tumultuous times. <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396032363772_1070">The Museum of Extraordinary Things</i> is Alice Hoffman at her most spellbinding.</div>
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<span style="color: #990000;">* Another personal purchase. I adore Alice Hoffman, so can never pass up one of her new books. This one is published by Scribner.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #990000;">AND FINALLY: Here are some books I forgot to post last Haul.....</span><br />
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<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: black;">In early 20th century British East Africa, there are rules for the British and different ones for the Africans. Vera McIntosh, the daughter of Scottish missionaries, doesn't feel she belongs to either group; having grown up in Africa, she is not interested in being the well-bred Scottish woman her mother would like her to be. More than anything she dreams of seeing again the handsome police officer she's danced with. But more grisly circumstances bring Justin Tolliver to her family's home.<br /> <br /> The body of Vera's uncle, Dr. Josiah Pennyman, is found with a tribesman’s spear in his back. Tolliver, an idealistic Assistant District Superintendent of Police, is assigned to the case. He first focuses on Gichinga Mbura, a Kikuyu medicine man who has been known to hatefully condemn Pennyman because Pennyman’s cures are increasingly preferred over his. But the spear belonged to the Maasai tribe, not Kikuyu, and it's doubtful Mbura would have used it to kill his enemy. Tolliver's superior wants him to arrest the medicine man and be done with it, but Tolliver pleads that he have the chance to prove the man's guilt. With thote help of Kwai Libazo, a tribal lieutenant, Tolliver discovers that others had reasons to hate Pennyman as well, and the list of suspects grows.<br /> </span></span></div>
<div class="simple-html" id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396030287728_777">
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: black;">Annamaria Alfieri's <i>Strange Gods</i> is the first in a new series. Romantic and engaging, this mystery captures the beauty and the danger of the African wild and the complexities of imposing a culture on a foreign land.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #990000;">* I appreciate Minotaur Books/St. Martin's sending me this copy for review</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: black;">"It's a clever plot and Le Floch is sympathetic, but it's the superb Parisian detail and atmosphere that truly beguiles."—<i>The Times</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: black;">This is the second volume of the Nicolas Le Floch Investigations.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: black;">October 1761 finds newly promoted Commissioner Le Floch on duty at a royal performance of Jean-Philippe Rameau's latest work. Events take a dramatic turn and Nicolas is soon embarked on a major investigation when the body of a courtier's son is found. The evidence points to suicide, but Le Floch's instincts tell him he is dealing with murder of the most gruesome kind.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: black;"><b id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396030570420_1019">Jean-François Parot</b> is a diplomat and historian.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #990000;">*This is going to be a strange little book, to be sure! But I'm interested to try it. With many thanks to Gallic Books and Meryl Zegarek Public Relations, Inc.!</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #990000;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbJuZciHXcYBtaR0rmFD4Sf6q6vh22OfxzqYYiw4pPjBsiNx6hEMV088hqbOX2NPKGv2EE_dZ1eqIfAYkoRlPqyDSDzjw23QMyoFkqqPOAACL1CZ306WK9tnbZv8YQ4fptTm0xTzJxIdQD/s1600/Book++The+Ballad+of+a+Small+Player.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbJuZciHXcYBtaR0rmFD4Sf6q6vh22OfxzqYYiw4pPjBsiNx6hEMV088hqbOX2NPKGv2EE_dZ1eqIfAYkoRlPqyDSDzjw23QMyoFkqqPOAACL1CZ306WK9tnbZv8YQ4fptTm0xTzJxIdQD/s1600/Book++The+Ballad+of+a+Small+Player.jpg" height="320" width="216" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: black;">
Publishers Weekly</span></span></h5>
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★ 02/03/2014<br /> The latest from author and journalist Osborne (The Forgiven) is a searing portrait of addiction and despair set in the glittering world of Macau’s casinos. “Lord Doyle,” as he’s known to the other gamblers, is an English lawyer who has embezzled from a client and fled to Asia. Doyle spends his days and nights playing baccarat, which he calls “a game of ecstasy and doom.” At the tables he drinks fine wine, handles his cards wearing kid gloves, and slowly but surely loses. Doyle’s descriptions of the tables, the players, and the game’s siren allure are by turns touching, acid, and depressing. A fellow gamer has eyes that reveal “worlds of private pain.” A particularly garish casino inspires Doyle to muse, “There is something in kitsch that reminds you there is more to being alive than being alive.” But Doyle’s jaundiced eye barely masks his monstrous compulsion; indeed, the novel’s energetic portrait of the highs and lows of a gambler’s fortunes are as good as anything in the literature of addiction. Just when it seems Doyle’s luck may have at last run out, he’s rescued by Dao-Ming, a beautiful prostitute, whose genuine concern for him seems to rouse Doyle from his dissipation and downward spiral. But the novel subverts an easy storybook ending and reveals something much bleaker. Osborne’s intriguing Chinese milieu and exquisite prose mark this work as a standout. (Apr.)<br />
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<span style="color: #990000;">* Looking forward to reading this small book. With many thanks to Hogarth Books.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: black;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKpHDc2zKfAGSRxlzDpYu-Xaq-24EuRgX1qKqiV2TBaVs82nAK9wgVJ_L4wokJwnlyjUPiC_FepdJMJb146cW2bTp3Pt24KAjUoEwEzp5ccwhiwQmNptRBEoykaXE6eYWccTpHLL0Sny55/s1600/Book++Rogue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKpHDc2zKfAGSRxlzDpYu-Xaq-24EuRgX1qKqiV2TBaVs82nAK9wgVJ_L4wokJwnlyjUPiC_FepdJMJb146cW2bTp3Pt24KAjUoEwEzp5ccwhiwQmNptRBEoykaXE6eYWccTpHLL0Sny55/s1600/Book++Rogue.jpg" height="320" width="212" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: black;">Bound by the attributes of valor and compassion, the Beloved are sent by the Father to battle demons head on in order to help those in greatest need. But as their prowess and power grows they face a new threat, their own weaknesses. </span></span></div>
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</span></span><div class="simple-html" id="yui_3_8_1_1_1396031101841_1130">
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: black;">Major Daniel Parker's life changes in an instant when he comes to the aid of one his soldiers. In a flash, Major Parker transforms from a Union Officer fighting in the Civil War to a Beloved. But Daniel's thirst for power clouds his judgment leaving him damned to an eternal hell of suffering and remorse at the hands of an ancient demon. His only chance at salvation now lies with his younger brother, Jonathan.</span></span></div>
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No matter the price, Jonathan will not abandon Daniel. But does he have the strength and courage to save his brother? Can he overcome the temptations that consumed Daniel or will he become a victim as well? The scar upon his chest is the key to who he must become.</div>
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Contrasting the valiant qualities of the Beloved with the vicious intent of the demons, Rogue inextricably weaves real-life battles of the Union and Confederate armies with the mystical wars between demons and the Beloved.</div>
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<span style="color: #990000;">* Just a strange little book sent on by Smith Publicity. I'm curious!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #990000;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"> That's all for now. Thanks for stopping by!</span></span></div>
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Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-12017323593770115022014-03-26T15:58:00.000-07:002014-03-29T10:22:00.320-07:00Belated Book Hauls!!!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg54f4HJnIbsFBxH0W9uyYi7wNYqAd506Qrg6dIrCxwF0W8-GI4of496ELCmhZNgylLvjRw2HleqLpuEeXkgaQOIb1yhzygutE5st1-pJt3sQXRRuAKGNUalH07gDrsesaEsejWBfKcgWif/s1600/Books+Feb+March+2014+001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg54f4HJnIbsFBxH0W9uyYi7wNYqAd506Qrg6dIrCxwF0W8-GI4of496ELCmhZNgylLvjRw2HleqLpuEeXkgaQOIb1yhzygutE5st1-pJt3sQXRRuAKGNUalH07gDrsesaEsejWBfKcgWif/s1600/Books+Feb+March+2014+001.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGWIhzDDVayoAddLKlbsebbipMYDR5ibVLyHIQxOrEWq4O96sQr0hEOx7T7FqctKLIFGEDBR9Kzn8KwEyXWh-MGI_CT44QaiEz0rQ03AO0856XWdND7FQj_V2fED0Sz0ufV-hS2fI_SrUk/s1600/Books+Feb+March+2014+002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGWIhzDDVayoAddLKlbsebbipMYDR5ibVLyHIQxOrEWq4O96sQr0hEOx7T7FqctKLIFGEDBR9Kzn8KwEyXWh-MGI_CT44QaiEz0rQ03AO0856XWdND7FQj_V2fED0Sz0ufV-hS2fI_SrUk/s1600/Books+Feb+March+2014+002.JPG" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #e06666;">Seriously, I've been remiss in making note of the books that have been coming in. And they are so interesting and I'm very anxious to get to them, so I need to share with you.... </span><br />
<span style="color: #e06666;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #e06666;">I have been taking it easy this past couple of months because I haven't been well, actually. I was diagnosed with an <strong>acoustic neuroma</strong>, a benign brain tumor which affects the nerves having to do with hearing, the face and balance. I had a series of Cyberknife radiation treatments to halt the growth and kill the tumor the end of Sept., and have been dealing with the side-effects since then. I've completely lost my hearing in my left ear which has been a horrifying thing for me...and unexpected. And, I'm now getting physical therapy for vertigo and balance issues. What do I mean by vertigo? It's as if I've been twirled around on a swing and then let go! My head is often just wonky, so my balance is off slightly. When I walk sometimes I look like I'm a bit tipsy. It's not like this all the time, Thank God!! I'm learning to live with these side effects, and hoping the tumor will shrink and go away in the coming months. They tell me it can take up to 2 years.</span><br />
<span style="color: #e06666;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #e06666;">Meanwhile, you may have noticed my reading and reviewing has slowed up a bit to compensate for this issue. I'm not taking on as many books a week as I was in the past. But, thankfully, this situation has nothing to do with and does not affect my ability to read, write and reason!! All of that is as normal...for whatever that's worth!! We can't blame the tumor for my opinions and thoughts! :]</span><br />
<span style="color: #e06666;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #e06666;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #e06666;">So, on to the books in my 3 Month Haul! I hope you enjoy seeing what's new and coming soon to the book shops:</span><br />
<span style="color: #e06666;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMVxp69Wl6XNuQRESzatJ5eQFnL1a1mSJL6u1pcJpPaC5oS1pIJKvnIabd4O9c4axKBHk9p4xTXk6QZfMivDRzbZlD6DWOZrpJwXEspZLu0lw4McEerzWP5xBXu40zACtOmN7TghZtRVu8/s1600/Book++Moriarty+Returns+a+Letter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMVxp69Wl6XNuQRESzatJ5eQFnL1a1mSJL6u1pcJpPaC5oS1pIJKvnIabd4O9c4axKBHk9p4xTXk6QZfMivDRzbZlD6DWOZrpJwXEspZLu0lw4McEerzWP5xBXu40zACtOmN7TghZtRVu8/s1600/Book++Moriarty+Returns+a+Letter.jpg" height="320" width="211" /></a></div>
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<h5 id="yui_3_8_1_1_1394827927409_1440">
<span style="color: #e06666;">
Library Journal</span></h5>
<span style="color: #e06666;">
01/01/2014<br /> Present-day brothers Reggie and Nigel answer Sherlock Holmes-related correspondence since their law practice is at 221 Baker Street. This time, a case transcends reality and puts the brothers in danger. <strong>Sherlockians will grab this fourth entry</strong> (after The Baker Street Translation). <br />
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<span style="color: black;">*Many thanks to St. Martin's Press</span><br />
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1394828235164_1312">
<span style="color: #45818e;">Introducing Alice Quentin, a London psychologist with family baggage, who finds herself at the center of a grisly series of murders</span></div>
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1394828235164_1311">
<span style="color: #45818e;">Alice Quentin is a psychologist with some painful family secrets, but she has a good job, a good-looking boyfriend, and excellent coping skills, even when that job includes evaluating a convicted killer who’s about to be released from prison. One of the highlights of her day is going for a nice, long run around her beloved London—it's impossible to fret or feel guilty about your mother or brother when you're concentrating on your breathing—until she stumbles upon a dead body at a former graveyard for prostitutes, Crossbones Yard. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">*In appreciation to St. Martin's Press</span><br />
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<span style="color: #351c75;">Midnight is the most bewitching hour of them all…</span></div>
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1394828410639_675">
<span style="color: #351c75;">From Paula Brackston, the New York Times bestselling author of <i>The Witch’s Daughter</i> and <i>The Winter Witch</i>, comes a magical tale that is as dark as it is enchanting. Set in high society Edwardian England, <i>The Midnight Witch</i> is the story of a young witch who faces the choice between love and loyalty to her coven…</span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="color: black;">*Thanks, again, St. Martin's Press!</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #351c75;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5szUBj6Eaq1oWZsQQVRlNYhUXNSsVEyu97ePzyXgGvy_coCcHZF3SfDlP91i4q8JgmpE6ALnoK4FaDNc6poG8rmLHREkDDCONAJjclDpH0X6rdn-ngv4FWDwQ0NLb_nnZj_AhGICp4Ueu/s1600/Book++The+Queens+Dwarf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5szUBj6Eaq1oWZsQQVRlNYhUXNSsVEyu97ePzyXgGvy_coCcHZF3SfDlP91i4q8JgmpE6ALnoK4FaDNc6poG8rmLHREkDDCONAJjclDpH0X6rdn-ngv4FWDwQ0NLb_nnZj_AhGICp4Ueu/s1600/Book++The+Queens+Dwarf.jpg" height="320" width="210" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="color: #a64d79;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="color: #a64d79;">
A richly imagined, gorgeously written historical novel set in the Stuart court featuring a unique hero: Jeffrey Hudson, a dwarf tasked with spying on the beautiful but vulnerable queen.<br />
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</span></span><br />
<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1394828623039_1220">
<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="color: #a64d79;">It's 1629, and King Charles I and his French queen Henrietta Maria have reigned in England for less than three years. Young dwarf Jeffrey Hudson is swept away from a village shambles and plunged into the Stuart court when his father sells him to the most hated man in England—the Duke of Buckingham. Buckingham trains Jeffrey to be his spy in the household of Charles’ seventeen-year-old bride, hoping to gain intelligence that will help him undermine the vivacious queen’s influence with the king.</span></span></div>
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*Note: I reviewed this book in February. Please check the "Search" box on the left to find the review. With gratitude to St. Martin's Press!<br />
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-AoF5WupZ3Bath1RUieNZYsvTUJeQCRwr5G7kA6I1sBWD8CQrS1DzIqyTSTn4nHA2XzRk62fM4rfzS17_pKGsaC3xHQyqgQWkGNlfq1UAwPM5Thfc3ED81KvK-y5jhfVzvaiUJJulu2L8/s1600/Book++The+Red+Crown+Lily.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-AoF5WupZ3Bath1RUieNZYsvTUJeQCRwr5G7kA6I1sBWD8CQrS1DzIqyTSTn4nHA2XzRk62fM4rfzS17_pKGsaC3xHQyqgQWkGNlfq1UAwPM5Thfc3ED81KvK-y5jhfVzvaiUJJulu2L8/s1600/Book++The+Red+Crown+Lily.jpg" height="320" width="212" /></a></span></div>
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1394829570091_886">
<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="color: #741b47;"><b id="yui_3_8_1_1_1394829570091_885">Elizabeth Loupas returns with her most ambitious historical novel yet, a story of intrigue, passion, and murder in the Medici Court...</b></span></span></div>
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1394829570091_884">
<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="color: #741b47;">April, 1574, Florence, Italy. Grand Duke Cosimo de’ Medici lies dying. The city is paralyzed with dread, for the next man to wear the red lily crown will be Prince Francesco: despotic, dangerous, and obsessed with alchemy.</span></span></div>
<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="color: #741b47;">
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</span></span><div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1394829570091_883">
<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="color: #741b47;">Chiara Nerini, the troubled daughter of an anti-Medici bookseller, sets out to save her starving family by selling her dead father’s rare alchemical equipment to the prince. Instead she is trapped in his household—imprisoned and forcibly initiated as a virgin acolyte in Francesco’s quest for power and immortality. Undaunted, she seizes her chance to pursue undreamed-of power of her own.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">*In appreciation to Penguin!</span><br />
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</span><span style="color: #274e13;"><div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1394829798372_741">
Egypt, 1400s BC. The pharaoh’s pampered second daughter, lively, intelligent Hatshepsut, delights in racing her chariot through the marketplace and testing her archery skills in the Nile’s marshlands. But the death of her elder sister, Neferubity, in a gruesome accident arising from Hatshepsut’s games forces her to confront her guilt...and sets her on a profoundly changed course.</div>
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1394829798372_745">
Hatshepsut enters a loveless marriage with her half brother, Thut, to secure his claim to the Isis ...</div>
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<span style="color: black;">*Note: Thanks again to Penguin!</span><br />
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</span><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1394830042236_1036">
<span style="color: #45818e;">Tolstoy wrote, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." This is the statement that inspired bestselling author Gretchen Rubin to wonder whether she could foster an even greater happiness in her home. During <i>The Happiness Project</i>, the same questions kept tugging at her. How can I raise happy children? How can I maintain a tender, romantic relationship with my spouse--after fifteen years of marriage? How do I keep my Blackberry from taking over my private life? How can I foster a well-ordered, light-hearted atmosphere in my house, when no one else will lift a finger to cooperate?</span></div>
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1394830042236_995">
<span style="color: #45818e;">This book is Gretchen's account of her second journey in pursuit of happiness. Prescriptive, easy-to-follow, and anecdotal, <i>Happier at Home</i> offers readers a way of thinking and being that is positive and life-affirming. With specific examples following the calendar year, an intimate voice, and drawing from science and pop culture, this book will resonate with anyone looking to strengthen the bonds of family.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">*Note: With thanks to Crown Publishing/Random House</span><br />
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</span><span style="color: #45818e;"><div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1394830269466_933">
Nancy Turner burst onto the literary scene with her hugely popular novels <i>These Is My Words, Sarah’s Quilt,</i> and <i>The Star Garden.</i> Now, Turner has written the novel she was born to write, this exciting and heartfelt story of a woman struggling to find herself during the tumultuous years preceding the American Revolution.</div>
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1394830269466_929">
The year is 1729, and Resolute Talbot and her siblings are captured by pirates, taken from their family in Jamaica, and brought to the New World.</div>
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<span style="color: black;">*Note: With gratitude to St. Martin's Press</span><br />
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</span><span style="color: #b45f06;"><strong>This mesmerizing coming-of-age novel, with its sheen of near-magical realism, is a moving tale of family and the power of stories.</strong> </span><br />
<span style="color: #b45f06;"><br /> After their mother's probable suicide, sisters Olivia and Jazz take steps to move on with their lives. Jazz, logical and forward-thinking, decides to get a new job, but spirited, strong-willed Olivia—who can see sounds, taste words, and smell sights—is determined to travel to the remote setting of their mother's unfinished novel to lay her spirit properly to rest.</span><br />
<span style="color: #b45f06;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black;">*Thank you, Crown Publishing!!!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="color: #45818e;">For fans of Meg Wolitzer and Allegra Goodman, an intimate and provocative novel about three couples whose paths intersect in their New York City neighborhood, forcing them all to weigh the comfort of stability against the costs of change. </span><br />
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</span><div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1394830515128_968">
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="color: #45818e;">Nina is a harried young mother who spends her evenings spying on the older couple across the street through her son’s Fisher-Price binoculars. She is drawn to their quiet contentment—reading on the couch, massaging each other’s feet—so unlike her own lonely, chaotic world of nursing and soothing and simply getting by. One night, through that same window, she spies a young couple in the throes of passion. Who are these people, and what happened to her symbol of domestic bliss?</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #45818e;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;"></span> <span style="color: black;">*Note: I appreciate the book Houghton, Mifflin Harcourt!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #783f04;"><div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1394830703263_830">
From the author of <i>The Personal History of Rachel Dupree</i>, shortlisted for the Orange Award for New Writers and long listed for the Orange Prize.</div>
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1394830703263_763">
1900. Young pianist Catherine Wainwright flees the fashionable town of Dayton, Ohio in the wake of a terrible scandal. Heartbroken and facing destitution, she finds herself striking up correspondence with a childhood admirer, the recently widowed Oscar Williams. In desperation she agrees to marry him, but when Catherine travels to Oscar's farm on Galveston Island, Texas—a thousand miles from home—she finds she is little prepared for the life that awaits her. The island is remote, the weather sweltering, and Oscar's little boy Andre is grieving hard for his lost mother. And though Oscar tries to please his new wife, the secrets of the past sit uncomfortably between them. Meanwhile for Nan Ogden, Oscar’s housekeeper, Catherine’s sudden arrival has come as a great shock. For not only did she promise Oscar’s first wife that she would be the one to take care of little Andre, but she has feelings for Oscar which she is struggling to suppress. And when the worst storm in a generation descends, the women will find themselves tested as never before.</div>
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<span style="color: black;">*Note: Thanks so much for the book, Skyhorse Publishing!</span><br />
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</span><span style="color: #cc0000;"><div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1394830912868_834">
"Every child knows how the story ends. The wicked pirate captain is flung overboard, caught in the jaws of the monster crocodile who drags him down to a watery grave. But it was not yet my time to die. It's my fate to be trapped here forever, in a nightmare of childhood fancy, with that infernal, eternal boy."</div>
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<div id="yui_3_8_1_1_1394830912868_833">
Meet Captain James Benjamin Hook, a witty, educated Restoration-era privateer cursed to play villain to a pack of malicious little boys in a pointless war that never ends. But everything changes when Stella Parrish, a forbidden grown woman, dreams her way to the Neverland in defiance of Pan’s rules. From the glamour of the Fairy Revels, to the secret ceremonies of the First Tribes, to the mysterious underwater temple beneath the Mermaid Lagoon, the magical forces of the Neverland open up for Stella as they never have for Hook. And in the pirate captain himself, she begins to see someone far more complex than the storybook villain.</div>
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<span style="color: black;">*With thanks to St. Martin's Press</span><br />
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</span><span style="color: black;"><strong>The mesmerizing story of Hillary Clinton's political rebirth, based on eyewitness accounts from deep inside her inner circle</strong> Hillary Clinton’s surprising defeat in the 2008 Democratic primary brought her to the nadir of her political career, vanquished by a much younger opponent whose message of change and cutting-edge tech team ran circles around her stodgy campaign. And yet, six years later, she has reemerged as an even more powerful and influential figure, a formidable stateswoman and the presumed front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, marking one of the great political comebacks in history. </span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">*I appreciate the opportunity to have a "look-see," Crown Publishing!</span><br />
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Litigation lawyer and harried single mother Kate Baron is shocked when her daughter's exclusive Brooklyn private school calls to tell her that Amelia—her intelligent, high-achieving fifteen-year-old—has been caught cheating. But when Kate arrives at Grace Hall, she's blindsided by far more devastating news: Amelia is dead. Despondent, she's jumped from the school's roof. At least that's what Grace Hall and the police tell Kate. It's what she believes, too, until she gets the anonymous text: <em id="yui_3_8_1_1_1394831219511_1195">Amelia didn't jump.</em> ...</div>
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<span style="color: #666666;"><b id="yui_3_8_1_1_1394831370777_1111">The Wind Is Not a River</b> is Brian Payton's gripping tale of survival and an epic love story in which a husband and wife—separated by the only battle of World War II to take place on American soil—fight to reunite in Alaska's starkly beautiful Aleutian Islands.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666;">Following the death of his younger brother in Europe, journalist John Easley is determined to find meaning in his loss. Leaving behind his beloved wife, Helen, he heads north to investigate the Japanese invasion of Alaska's Aleutian Islands, a story censored by the U.S. government...</span></div>
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<span style="color: #6aa84f;">At the end of a particularly grueling summer day, Ash is heading home to his wife and kids when he discovers a pair of bodies, shot execution style, in the front seat of a crashed vehicle. As the first officer on the scene, Ash finds himself and his department 20 minutes behind a killer in a race where every second counts. With two victims down and a third unaccounted for, the clock is ticking and Ash must find the killer before he strikes again...</span></div>
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<span style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="color: black;">*Note: Thanks to Grand Central/Hachette Publishing</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #e06666;">When Eve Petworth writes to Jackson Cooper to praise a scene in one of his books, they discover a mutual love of cookery and food. Their friendship blossoms against the backdrop of Jackson's colorful, but ultimately unsatisfying, love life and Eve's tense relationship with her soon-to-be married daughter. As each of them offers, from behind the veils of semi-anonymity and distance, wise and increasingly affectionate counsel to the other, they both begin to confront their problems and plan a celebratory meeting ...</span></div>
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<span style="color: #e06666;"></span> <span style="color: black;">*Note: Thanks so much to Grand Central/Hachette Publishing!!</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><strong id="yui_3_8_1_1_1394833218119_637">"This assured, compassionate first novel channels the suburban angsty of Updike and Cheever...with pitch-perfect prose and endearingly melancholy characters."--<em>Booklist</em> (Starred Review)</strong> </span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">Anders Hill, entering his early sixties and seemingly ensconced in the "land of steady habits"--a nickname for the affluent, morally strict hamlets of Connecticut that dot his commuter rail line--abandons his career and family for a new condo and a new life...</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">*Note: With thanks to Little, Brown & Co.</span><br />
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MORE BOOKS COMING SOON!!! :]</div>
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</span>Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8058694793380261511.post-32897931501582741382014-03-26T15:21:00.002-07:002014-03-26T15:55:30.293-07:00"Under Magnolia" by Frances Mayes (A Southern Memoir)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7omocY5ujXXev8sTQ7fIAFCkU4777-pMskjij_jQrsDCZ_DD_Gu8l_UbympAYvt_DA8m3UVWBxSpwiwmA_1LiNrdUa84H3b9eyVAUHhx3Ol3D19mnz7Dkhw1tsJR7GgEZJF1oz6pa5Y_n/s1600/Book++Under+Magnolia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7omocY5ujXXev8sTQ7fIAFCkU4777-pMskjij_jQrsDCZ_DD_Gu8l_UbympAYvt_DA8m3UVWBxSpwiwmA_1LiNrdUa84H3b9eyVAUHhx3Ol3D19mnz7Dkhw1tsJR7GgEZJF1oz6pa5Y_n/s1600/Book++Under+Magnolia.jpg" height="320" width="216" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #76a5af;"><u>SUMMARY </u>:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444;"><b id="yui_3_8_1_1_1395870718315_812">A lyrical and evocative memoir from Frances Mayes, the Bard of Tuscany, about coming of age in the Deep South and the region’s powerful influence on her life.</b></span></div>
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The author of three beloved books about her life in Italy, including <i>Under the Tuscan Sun</i> and <i>Every Day in Tuscany</i>, Frances Mayes revisits the turning points that defined her early years in Fitzgerald, Georgia. With her signature style and grace, Mayes explores the power of landscape, the idea of home, and the lasting force of a chaotic and loving family.</div>
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From her years as a spirited, secretive child, through her university studies—a period of exquisite freedom that imbued her with a profound appreciation of friendship and a love of travel—to her escape to a new life in California, Mayes exuberantly recreates the intense relationships of her past, recounting the bitter and sweet stories of her complicated family: her beautiful yet fragile mother, Frankye; her unpredictable father, Garbert; Daddy Jack, whose life Garbert saved; grandmother Mother Mayes; and the family maid, Frances’s confidant Willie Bell.</div>
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<i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1395870718315_817">Under Magnolia</i> is a searingly honest, humorous, and moving ode to family and place, and a thoughtful meditation on the ways they define us, or cause us to define ourselves. With acute sensory language, Mayes relishes the sweetness of the South, the smells and tastes at her family table, the fragrance of her hometown trees, and writes an unforgettable story of a girl whose perspicacity and dawning self-knowledge lead her out of the South and into the rest of the world, and then to a profound return home.</div>
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<span style="color: #76a5af;"><u>PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK </u>:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444;">Published by: Crown Publishing</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;">Pages: 336</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;">Genre: Non-Fiction/Memoir</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;">Author: Frances Mayes</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;">Find her: <a href="http://www.francesmayesbooks.com/">http://www.francesmayesbooks.com</a></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;">Purchase this book: <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/under-magnolia-frances-mayes/1115960923?ean=9780307885913">Amazon</a></span><br />
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<span style="color: #76a5af;"><u>ABOUT THE AUTHOR </u>:</span><br />
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In addition to her worldwide bestselling Tuscany memoirs <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1395870718315_1280">Under the Tuscan Sun, Bella Tuscany,</i> and <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1395870718315_1283">Every Day in Tuscany</i>, FRANCES MAYES is the author of the travel memoir, <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1395870718315_1279">A Year in the World,</i> illustrated books <i>In Tuscany</i> and <i>Bringing Tuscany Home</i> (with Edward Mayes), and <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1395870718315_916">The Tuscan Sun Cookbook</i> (also with Edward Mayes). She has published a novel, <i>Swan</i>, set in the South, <i id="yui_3_8_1_1_1395870718315_919">The Discovery of Poetry: A Guide for Readers and Writers</i>, and five books of poetry. Her books have been translated into more than fifty languages. She divides her time between Tuscany and North Carolina. Visit her at <a href="http://www.francesmayesbooks.com/">www.francesmayesbooks.com</a>.<br />
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<span style="color: #76a5af;"><u>THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS </u>:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444;">It's rare to find a memoir that reads like an adventure novel! But Frances Mayes has written one. She is a daunting woman who is world travelled, but who can come home in the most regal and relateable way. Reading this memoir is like having the most enjoyable of training courses in becoming a Southerner! </span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444;">Wonderfully written with anecdotes of her wild and woolly childhood, her growing up years and her coming of age in a home where she wasn't completely neglected but had enough of it to have to learn much by herself, this book is both heart-warming and sad. There is much here to admire in a mouthy child who is full of spunk and "spit," as we say in the South. It's obvious where she got the courage to persevere and become one of the best-loved authors of her kind in the world. Yet, through it all, she has become a great minder of the beautiful things in life.</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;">She really has a way with words and a way of truly "seeing" the world around her. Her ability to translate that world, even from early childhood is a gift. </span><span style="color: #444444;">Mayes's descriptions of even the smallest details of the South brought me flashbacks of home growing up there myself. I loved the way she brought it to life again after so many years for me.</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;">Whether you're a fan of Ms Mayes because of her Tuscany or other books, a Southerner yourself, or "wannabe"one, or just a reader who wants to be taken on a trip through a fabulous memoir, this is the book for you. I highly recommend "Under Magnolia." It would be a great book group read...lots to discuss here.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444;">5 stars Deborah/TheBookishDame</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"></span><br />Debhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10318926277089882125noreply@blogger.com10