Deborah is a writer and champion of books. She is an independent reader/reviewer, uncompensated for major and minor publishers. With degrees in Fine Arts, ArtHistory/MuseumStudies and English Lit., her interests are eclectic, as are her reading preferences. Surrounding herself with books,artworks, assorted papergoods and a collection of pens, she reads constantly, writes reviews...writes and writes!View Full Profile
What writer Benjamin Constable needs is a real-life adventure wilder than his rampant imagination. And who better to shake up his comfortable Englishman-in-Paris routine than the enigmatic Tomomi “Butterfly” Ishikawa, who has just sent a cryptic suicide note?
She’s planted a slew of clues—in the pages of her journal, on the hard drive of her computer, tucked away in public places, under flowerpots, and behind statues. Heartbroken, confused, and accompanied by an imaginary cat, Ben embarks upon a scavenger hunt leading to charming and unexpected spaces, from the hidden alleys of Paris to the cobblestone streets of New York City.
But Butterfly’s posthumous messages are surprisingly well informed for the words of a dead person, and they’re full of confessions of a past darkened by insanity, betrayal, and murder. The treasures Ben is unearthing are installments of a gruesome memoir. Now he must draw a clear line between the real and surreal if he is to save himself, Butterfly, and what remains of their crazy and amazing friendship.
ABOUT THE BOOK :
ISBN-13: 9781451667264
Publisher: Gallery Books
Publication date: 6/4/2013
Pages: 352
SOMETHING ABOUT THE AUTHOR :
Benjamin Constable was born in Bristol and grew up mostly in Derby. He lives in Paris where he writes fiction and teaches English. Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa is his first novel.
THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS :
This is an odd little book. One of those that starts out feeling contrived and suddenly sinks its teeth in you and won't let go. It simply "grows on you." I confess I didn't like it to begin with, but the more I decided to give it a chance, the more I liked it.
The author has a way of causing his characters to become endearing as you read the quandary of Ben to find Butterfly's clues to her mysterious self and the "task" she's set him. Ben is immediately captivating. He's the proverbial innocent boy-next-door who needs someone to shake up his life; and, Butterfly seems the perfect, quirky girl to do just that.
What I also really loved about the book was the details about Paris...some odd little tidbits. And I liked the glimpses into the computer and journal life of Butterfly as she led Ben on and left her "clues." New York looked pretty awesome in this author's eyes, as well!
This isn't a book for everyone. I'd say it's rather a quest into something unusual and a taste of something a little sweet 'n sour off the shelves. I loved it, but it may not be for everyone's tastes.
One of those books you have to sit back and let take you on a serendipitous trip...
Danielle Trussoni is the author of' "Falling Through the Earth: A Memoir," which was the recipient of the 2006 Michener-Copernicus Society of America Award, was a BookSense pick and was one of The New York Times Ten Best Books of 2006. Her first novel "Angelology" will be published in 30 countries.
AN INTERVIEW WITH MS TRUSSONI :
Note: This interview is taken from Pursuitist online magazine~
Interview with Angelology Author Danielle Trussoni
Danielle Trussoni is the author of the memoir Falling Through the Earth, which was selected as one of the Ten Best Books of 2006 by The New York Times Book Review. A graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, she lives in the United States and France. Trussoni’s first novel Angelology was inundated with rave reviews; the New York Times’ Janet Maslin called Angelology “a class-obsessed, scholarship-spouting, minutiae-strewn thrill ride that follows the “Da Vinci Code” model as loftily as it can.” Trussoni is planning a series and is already at work on a second book, Angelopolis. Variety reports that Columbia beat Universal in a million dollar auction for film rights to Angelology, which will be produced by Will Smith and James Lassiter’s company Overbrook Entertainment.
Here’s a quick Q&A with the author of Angelology:
Q. What inspired you to combine the Orpheus myth with the Biblical tale of the fallen angels?
A. I began to write Angelology with a very clear picture of the settings I wanted to include in the story. I knew that I wanted to write about a convent and I knew that I wanted to write about The Devil’s Throat, a cave in the Rhodopes Mountains of Bulgaria with an amazing waterfall and underground river that is now a UNESCO World Heritage site, but I wasn’t entirely sure of how to bring the material together.
Knowing that I needed to have a firsthand encounter with convent life, I went to St. Rose Convent in La Crosse, Wisconsin (my hometown) to speak with the nuns who lived there. My great-aunt Drusilla is a Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration living at St. Rose, and this made my presence at the convent a little less odd, although I’m sure that the nuns didn’t know what to think of having a writer trailing after them and asking personal questions!
At the time of my visit to the convent, I had no clear vision of how I would write about the convent. And so I spent a lot of time simply following the Sisters through their day. There was a beautiful chapel at St. Rose where the nuns went to pray. One night, when I was walking back from the chapel, I found myself in the convent reading room, a small space filled with religious books. One shelf of the library was filled with books about angels. I took a stack of books down, sat in a comfortable chair and began reading. Within hours I understood that angels would be at the very center of my book and that the Nephilim—the angel-human hybrids mentioned in Genesis 6 of the Bible—would be central characters.
I came to the Orpheus myth in an equally roundabout fashion. The Devil’s Throat captured my imagination when I lived in Sofia, Bulgaria, with my husband, the writer Nikolai Grozni. He took me to the cave for the first time and I fell in love with the stark, craggy landscape and the mythologies that surrounded the cave. In local legend, the Devil’s Throat forms the entrance to the underworld where Orpheus descended to save his lover Eurydice. So my interest in Orpheus was really secondary to my interest in the cave itself, at least in the beginning.
Q. How was the process of writing your previous book, the memoir Falling Through the Earth, different from writing the novel Angelology?
A. The process was completely different in some ways and very similar in others. My first book was a memoir about my relationship with my father and was, of course, much more personal in nature. I found that Falling Through the Earth was more emotionally draining, especially because my father was ill for much of the time I was writing the book. Angelology, on the other hand, was a pleasure to write. I had such fun creating the characters. I found that I deeply enjoyed going to my desk each morning because I would often discover something completely new about the story. By the end, I loved the characters I had created and didn’t want the project to end.
Q. What kind of research did you do in order to write Angelology?
A. Research was a huge element in preparing to write Angelology. I did not have much experience studying theology or the history of religion, and so I felt that it was absolutely necessary to learn as much as possible about the various perceptions of angels. I read a lot of wonderful academic studies about angels and I read quite a lot of the Bible. I read parts of Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine and the history of religious orders in the United States. It was also very important for me to research the historical periods that appear in the novel—the medieval world of Brother Clematis, the Second World War environment of Celestine and Gabriella. I also made many trips to New York to capture Evangeline’s and Verlaine’s world.
Q. Which did you enjoy writing more, the present-day events with Evangeline and Verlaine or Celestine’s narrative?
A. Actually, the most engrossing section of Angelology for me to write was Brother Clematis’s narrative, a first-person journal of a monk’s journey to the Devil’s Throat. I also loved writing Celestine’s recollections of Paris in the 1940s. Both of these characters allowed me to imagine places and historical events that were very far from the life I was living when I wrote the book. Being transported to other places is, for me, is the real pleasure of writing fiction.
Q. One of the novel’s conceits suggests that the divide between church and science was engineered by an outside agency. Do you think religion and science have become antagonistic?
A. Yes, it seems to me that, in many ways, science and religion have parted ways. We don’t have many intellectuals like Isaac Newton who are dedicated to exploring both the divine and natural worlds at once. Our era is marked by the division of thought into specialized compartments—either one is a scientist or a historian or a mathematician or a philosopher or a doctor. Indeed, Newton—who was a physicist and an astronomer and a theologian among other things—would probably find our specialized approach to knowledge very strange.
Q. Do you believe that a more-than-human evil lay behind the rise of the Nazi regime and others like it?
A. In Angelology, the characters posit the idea that the Nephilim are behind all great acts of evil throughout history—war, famine, genocide, and great economic inequality. The angelologists, who are at work to fight the Nephilim, believe that through wealth and influence the Nephilim have created systems—economic, political, social—that suppress regular people. Some of the characters in the novel believe that the Nephilim orchestrated the Nazi rise to power, but of course this speculation is part of the fictional world I’ve created.
Q. You split your time between the United States and France. Has living abroad altered your perceptions as a writer?
A. I have always loved the sense of dislocation I feel when I live abroad. I have lived in Japan, Bulgaria and now France. I find that I begin to pay very close attention to my own culture when I’m in a place that is entirely foreign, and that my attention to detail sharpens. The English language becomes very comforting, almost like a cocoon, after fumbling with a foreign language. In the end, it is nice to have the option to live far away from home but then, of course, it is great to come back, too.
Q. Your husband, Nikolai Grozni, is also a novelist. How does living with another writer affect your own work?
A. In a lot of ways living with another writer helps me to stay on course with my own work. We have a set schedule each day. Both Nikolai and I write in the morning in different offices at home. We work until around lunch, eat lunch together, and then either go back to writing or do the shopping or take a walk. Our morning work hours are very quiet, very calm, with no music or television on, making the house a perfect environment for writing. I am also able to discuss my work with Nikolai, which is unbelievably helpful.
Q. The ending of Angelology has quite a surprise twist. Where do you see Evangeline headed from here?
A. Evangeline is in quite a difficult situation at the end of Angelology and she will be working through the complications of this in the next book.
Q. What are you working on now?
A. I am writing about Evangeline, of course! The sequel to Angelology is set in Paris and finds Evangeline and Verlaine trying to find their way back to one another.
video of "Angelology" Danielle Trussoni discussing the angels :
THE BOOKISH DAME'S COMMENTS :
This was a fabulous book! Mysterious and monumental in the telling of the legendary Nephilim of biblical times. I was completely mesmerized by it. Danielle Trussoni is a master storyteller. Imaginative does little to describe her talents. "Angelology" is a mystery and suspense novel that is unusual while it posits some interesting theories about earthbound angels spoken of in ancient times.
The angel characters Ms Trussoni has created are glorious, dark creatures while they pass for beautiful humans. Charismatic and strong, they draw the average human to them, often with deadly results. As literary figures they are as monumental and captivating as Anne Rice's vampires. I fell in love with them...even the most evil of them!
Evangeline, the "human" protagonist who grew up protected in the convent is a precious figure who becomes daring and dangerous as the novel progresses. I found this so compelling in the plot as it drove the action and kept me cheering her on.
This is a startling novel unlike any I've ever read. It's rich in detail. Rich in gothic, descriptive surrounding and lush living. The angelic creations are gorgeous and inspired.
Ms Trussoni is a wonderful author who has followed up "Angelology" with a new book, "Angelopolis" which I'll be reviewing in the coming week. It, too, is a blockbuster of a novel!
Stay tuned for that one.
I highly recommend this book as a great read and the first in Trussoni's series. You can grab it in paperback on the bookstands now.
In 2011, Sarah Jio burst onto the fiction scene with two sensational
novels--The Violets of March and The Bungalow. With Blackberry
Winter--taking its title from a late-season, cold-weather phenomenon--Jio
continues her rich exploration of the ways personal connections can transcend
the boundaries of time.
Seattle, 1933. Single mother Vera Ray kisses her
three-year-old son, Daniel, goodnight and departs to work the night-shift at a
local hotel. She emerges to discover that a May-Day snow has blanketed the city,
and that her son has vanished. Outside, she finds his beloved teddy bear lying
face-down on an icy street, the snow covering up any trace of his tracks, or the
perpetrator's.
Seattle, 2010. Seattle Herald reporter Claire
Aldridge, assigned to cover the May 1 "blackberry winter" storm and its twin,
learns of the unsolved abduction and vows to unearth the truth. In the process,
she finds that she and Vera may be linked in unexpected
ways...
Sarah Jio is the New York Times bestselling author of
BLACKBERRY WINTER, THE VIOLETS OF MARCH (a Library Journal Best Book of 2011),
THE BUNGALOW, and THE LAST CAMELLIA (to be published on 5/28/13)–all from
Penguin (Plume). A magazine writer and the health and fitness blogger for
Glamour magazine, she has written thousands of articles for national
magazines and newspapers including Redbook, O, The Oprah
Magazine, Cooking Light, Glamour, SELF, Real
Simple, Fitness, Marie Claire, Hallmark magazine,
Seventeen, The Nest, Health, Bon Appetit,
Gourmet, The Seattle Times, Parents, Woman’s Day, American
Baby, Parenting, and Kiwi. She has also appeared as a commentator
on NPR’s Morning Edition.
Sarah has a degree in journalism and writes about topics that
include food, nutrition, health, entertaining, travel, diet/weight loss, beauty,
fitness, shopping, psychology, parenting and beyond. She frequently tests and
develops recipes for major magazines.
Sarah is working on her fifth and sixth novels. In total, to
date, Sarah’s books have been sold/translated for publication in 17
countries.
Sarah lives in Seattle with her husband, Jason, and their three
young sons.
Please find her blog and more about her here: Sarah Jio
THE BOOKISH DAME'S REVIEW :
This is a charming novel with a story that will keep you turning pages long into the evening. Sarah Jio is a writer with her fingers on the pulse of the young American woman...particularly young homemakers, I would think. Not a heavy novel with a dreary or difficult message to give, this book has a sweet note of love and redemption to deliver. I thought it was a bit old-fashioned and bridging close to a romance novel, but it was enjoyable for a change of pace for me.
There isn't a lot of sophistication to Ms Jio's writing; however, it is beautiful in its own way. It is simple and clear with a kindly storytelling manner. Her characters are lovable and real, making one feel immediately sympathetic to their struggles.
Vera, the young, single mother who has difficulties with love and taking care of her child, is a wonderful character. I fell in love with her from the start. I couldn't help cringing at some of the things that happened to her, and smiling at some of the happy moments she shared with her little boy. This is the power of Sarah Jio. Her characters throughout the book are charming and captivating. They engender emotional responses such as sadness, joy, laughter and tears.
We may have read similar stories to this one in other places and times, but rarely with the depth of compassion and feeling Jio enlists. This book is sure to draw lots of readers who are familiar with her other books and writings. She is a popular writer with a voice that appeals to a broad spectrum of readers. I don't think they will be disappointed with "Blackberry Winter" at all.
4 stars for a good read with lovable characters Deborah/TheBookishDame
A memorable and moving page-turner about two very different women, each yearning to create a family of her own.
What if the thing you most longed for was resting on a two week wait? From the author of the international bestselling One Moment, One Morning, comes a moving portrait about what it truly means to be a family.
After a health scare, Brighton-based Lou is forced to confront the fact that her time to have a baby is running out. She can't imagine a future without children, but her partner doesn't seem to feel the same way, and she's not sure whether she could go it alone.
Meanwhile, in Yorkshire, Cath is longing to start a family with her husband, Rich. No one would be happier to have children than Rich, but Cath is infertile.
Could these strangers help one another?
With her deft exploration of raw emotions and her celebration of the joy and resilience of friendship, TheTwo Week Wait is Sarah Rayner at her best.
PARTICULARS OF THIS BOOK :
Published by: St. Martin's Press
Pages: 432
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Purchase the book: Barnes & Noble or Amazon
A BIT ABOUT MS RAYNOR :
SARAH RAYNER was born in London and now lives in Brighton with her partner. She worked for many years as an advertising copywriter, and now writes fiction full time.
JESSICA'S REVIEW :
I
was immediately drawn to the storyline summarized on the cover of this
novel.I am a woman who myself has been
through the ups and downs, joys and sadness of the journey of fertility treatments,
and IVF.I couldn’t wait to see if what
Rayner wrote on was at all close to the complexity that fertility and IVF
brings.
I loved many many things about this novel, but
the two things I will highlight are Rayner’sincredible gift for creating complex characters, and her ability to draw
a reader into the story so much so that I re-established what I thought were my
clearly established ethics.
Rayner’s
characters are masterfully created, she is deliberate and insightful.Each of the women in the novel are individual
in their thoughts and struggles, yet each experience the deep heartache and longing
to be a mother.The emotions that both the
men and women characters share bind them to the reader. I felt compelled to read on, experiencing this
journey with them.I felt an immediate
connection to all of the characters, seeing them all as separate entities, yet
connecting them in my mind by drawing on emotions that I have felt during the
long years of waiting for it to be my turn to be a mother.
I
was also fascinated by Rayner’s ability to make me question my own ethics.Rayner quietly and intentionally creates
human experiences, connections, and limitations.I had
no idea when I started the novel that one of the characters longing to be a mother
was a lesbian.When this life choice was
revealed early on in the novel, I felt myself immediately make a judgment.Until this, I had liked the character.It stunned me that I would immediately shut down my compassion for the
circumstance based on that particular character’s personal choices.I began to feel myself siding with the
heterosexual couple, consciously noting the distance I began to place between
myself and the gay couple.
Rayner
was able to take me out of my comfort zone, and draw me in to questioning my
own so called established ethics.I
realized the compassion I was feeling for the women was not because of the
life style they made, but because they were characters written
with such detailed complex emotions, ones that I have felt, and do feel.It became apparent to me, that I had
consciously made a decision as a reader to negate characters’ feelings
based on her sexuality!I thought a long
time on that.Rayner, and her gift for
characterization, helped me to take down the dividing wall I had built in my
mind, and see them openly as women, as
people with the same desires and longings I have had.
I
really savored this novel.It was to me
an eye opening look at not only the ethical rollercoaster that fertility creates,
but also the dividing boundaries that society instills in people.This novel is a love story, but not in the
traditional sense.It is a story of
women with the powerful desire to be a mother.
I
would recommend the novel to anyone.This novel will take you on a journey, one that will leave you with a
deeper understanding of the soul wrenching decisions one makes in the ultimate
hope to be a mother.I hope it does for
you what it did for me, made me question my own morals and ethics, and opened
the doors of my heart.Bravo
Rayner!I applaud your bravery, your
compassion, and deep understanding of the complexities of the human heart.
A gripping suspense story about a woman who returns to Galveston, Texas after a personal tragedy and is irresistibly drawn into the insular world she’s struggled to leave.
Photographer Clare Porterfield's once-happy marriage is coming apart, unraveling under the strain of a family tragedy. When she receives an invitation to direct an exhibition in her hometown of Galveston, Texas, she jumps at the chance to escape her grief and reconnect with the island she hasn't seen for ten years. There Clare will have the time and space to search for answers about her troubled past and her family's complicated relationship with the wealthy and influential Carraday family.
Soon she finds herself drawn into a century-old mystery involving Stella Carraday. Local legend has it that Stella drowned in her family's house during the Great Hurricane of 1900, hanged by her long hair from the drawing room chandelier. Could Stella have been saved? What is the true nature of Clare's family's involvement? The questions grow like the wildflower vines that climb up the walls and fences of the island. And the closer Clare gets to the answers, the darker and more disturbing the truth becomes.
Steeped in the rich local history of Galveston, The Drowning House portrays two families, inextricably linked by tragedy and time.
"The Drowning House marks the emergence of an impressive new literary voice. Elizabeth Black's suspenseful inquiry into dark family secrets is enriched by a remarkable succession of images, often minutely observed, that bring characters, setting, and story sharply into focus." —John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
*Note: Taken from Barnes and Noble Overview
PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK: Published by: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Pages: 288 Genre: Contemporary Fiction Find the book: Barnes & Noble and Indie Bound
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Elizabeth Black was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island and now lives in Houston, Texas. The Drowning House is her first novel.
THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS :
Quickly go grab a copy of this book. It's hopping off the shelves. There were only two copies left at my local book store. Articulate and hypnotic, this is a novel that flows and speeds toward its conclusion. It will hold you captive for hours. Elizabeth Black can't possibly be a debut author, I thought! Her book is so good, I was reminded of "Prince of Tides" from the get-go. I absolutely couldn't put it down.
Told from the perspective of Clare, a young artistic photographer who has just experienced the death of her only child and who returns to her childhood home, it is a break-neck suspense novel and Southern Gothic. It takes place around Galveston Island with its own set of mysteries and island lore, town folkisms and traditions that kept me on the edge of my seat.
Ms Black has a distinct voice that is seductive. She is a writer of the old school in that she knows how to tell a tale about the South with its idiosyncrasies, love of the strange and absurd; characters in particular, families that are eccentric and enduring. I could read her work all night long.
Let me give you an example:
"...Every instant of every day, life is streaming past, all experience--every action, word, or thought, every particle of intention--rushing toward some moment you can't foresee that is anything but safe. Toward, perhaps, one ordinary afternoon."
and
"...marriage is generally unfathomable..." She had no understanding even of her own.
I resonated with this author from the moment I picked up her book. She was writing my story; in my head, speaking my thoughts. If there's one book you should read this year it's this one. I have a feeling it's going to be one of my favorites.
5 shining stars for a debut author Deborah/TheBookishDame
From rising star Amy Hatvany, an engrossing new novel about a woman whose life is turned upside down when the man she's engaged to suddenly becomes a full-time father to the children from his previous marriage.
Thirty-six-year-old Grace McAllister never longed for children. But when she meets Victor Hansen, a handsome, charismatic divorced restaurateur who is father to Max and Ava, Grace decides that, for the right man, she could learn to be an excellent part-time stepmom. After all, the kids live with their mother, Kelli. How hard could it be?
At thirteen, Ava Hansen is mature beyond her years. Since her parents’ divorce, she has been the one taking care of her emotionally unstable mother and her little brother—she pays the bills, does the laundry, and never complains because she loves her mama more than anyone. And while her father’s new girlfriend is nice enough, Ava still holds out hope that her parents will get back together and that they’ll be a family again.
But only days after Victor and Grace get engaged, Kelli dies suddenly under mysterious circumstances—and soon, Grace and Ava discover there was much more to Kelli’s life than either ever knew.
Narrated by Grace and Ava in the present with flashbacks into Kelli’s troubled past, Heart Like Mine is a poignant and hopeful portrait about womanhood, love, and the challenges of family life.
PARTICULARS OF THIS BOOK : Published by: Washington Square Press Pages: 342 and Readers Club Guide Genre: Fiction/Contemporary Find more here: Amy Hatvany Twitter: @AmyHatvany Facebook.com/amy.hatvany
SOMETHING ABOUT MS HATVANY : *Taken from her website
Amy was born in Seattle, WA in 1972, the youngest of three children. She graduated from Western Washington University in 1994 with a degree in Sociology only to discover most sociologists are unemployed. Soon followed a variety of jobs – some of which she loved, like decorating wedding cakes; others which she merely tolerated, like receptionist. In 1998, Amy finally decided to sell her car, quit her job, and take a chance on writing books.
The literary gods took kindly to her aspirations and THE KIND OF LOVE THAT SAVES YOU was published in 2000 by Bantam Doubleday. THE LANGUAGE OF SISTERS was picked up by NAL in 2002. (Both were published under her previous last name, Yurk.)
Amy spends most of her time today with her second and final husband, Stephan. (Seriously, if this one doesn’t work out, she’s done, kaput, no more husbands.) She stays busy with her two children, Scarlett and Miles, and her “bonus child,” Anna. Their blended family also includes two four-legged hairy children, commonly known as Black Lab mutts, Kenda and Dolcé.
When Amy’s not with friends or family, she is most likely reading, cooking, or zoning out on certain reality television shows. Top Chef is a current favorite. She eagerly awaits auditions for the cast of “Top Author.” (“Quick Edit” instead of “Quick Fire” Challenge? C’mon, producers! That’s gripping television!)
THE DAME'S REVIEW :
I really wanted to review "Heart Like Mine" so much and was delighted to be able to get a reader's copy recently. It was burning a hole in my coffee table all through the Christmas holidays as I was dying for the opportune time to pick it up for a good read. Well worth the wait, I'm here to report to you!
Amy Hatvany is one of the best of the contemporary women writers of today, in my humble opinion. She knows how to translate women's issues and to bring them to the forefront through believable and endearing characters, both female and male...and those of all ages. She is a chronicler of our times, I think, in her assessment of what goes on in the contemporary family and in the minds of those mothers who are dealing with them. She has her hand on the pulse of women in crises and she can tell you about them so that you feel their angst and their push-pull of emotions.
My sympathies were torn in this book between the main female characters. Grace, the young woman who really didn't want to be a mother but was thrust into a situation where she had to choose to be one or not to the children of the man she loved. A tough decision no matter how you look at it! And, Kelli, the natural mother of the children in question, who died and left them to their father. Both of these women, the children and their father seemed so real in Hatvany's hands! I thought about them in the hours when I wasn't reading...
If, as so many authors believe, characterization is the thing that makes a book great, "Heart Like Mine" is a great book!
It is a gripping novel from the first sentences and it holds on 'til the last. This is one you won't soon forget, with women you'll be thinking about for days after you put the book down. A perfect book for book group reading!
Emma Tupper is a dedicated lawyer with a bright future. But when she takes a month-long leave of absence to go on an African vacation, she ends up facing unexpected consequences. After she falls ill and spends six months trapped in a remote village thanks to a devastating earthquake, Emma returns home to discover that her friends, boyfriend, and colleagues thought she was dead—and that her life has moved on without her.
As she struggles to re-create her old life, throwing herself into solving a big case for a client and trying to reclaim her beloved apartment from the handsome photographer who assumed her lease, everyone around her thinks she should take the opportunity to change. But is she willing to sacrifice her job, her relationships, and everything else she worked so hard to build?
In Forgotten, Catherine McKenzie tweaks a classic tale of discovering who we really are when everything that brings meaning to our lives is lost.
PARTICULARS OF THIS BOOK : Publisher: William Morris/Harper Collins Publishing Pages: 437 Genre: General Fiction/Adult Author: Catherine McKenzie Learn More About the Book: http://www.catherinemckenzie.com Purchase here: Barnes & Noble and Amazon Other book by Ms McKenzie: "Spin" reviewed here! Seach, please!
Video Trailer!!!! Meet Catherine McKenzie...
The Dame Interviews Catherine McKenzie!!
Hello, Catherine.Welcome to A Bookish Libraria!
I’m so delighted you’ve agreed to allow us to get to
know you and your book better.I have
several questions! So exciting to have you here...
1) First of all, please tell us a special something
about what makes you “tick.”When you
aren’t writing, what are you doing?
There’s a long list of things I’m doing when I’m not
writing – I work as a lawyer – but one thing that makes me tick is running. And
TV.
2) You chose a specific place and time to write
about, what made you choose it?
The inspiration for Forgotten was a story I heard
about a woman who’d been stuck in Africa for a period of time so that is what
inspired me to set part of the book in Africa.
3) Bronte or Austen?Hemingway or Hawthorne?Why?
Austen, definitely. Austen makes me smile and nod. I
find Bronte (all of them) really bleak. Hemingway. He’s a master at dialogue.
4) In your opinion, what makes a book a great one?
When you can’t put it down. When you’re sorry it
ends. When you can’t wait to read it again.
5) Which author(s) most influenced your love of
books?
L.M. Montgomery, Laura Ingalls Wilder – I read and
read and read them as a child.
6) Read any good books in the past 6 months?
Yes, several! Loved Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, The
Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, Defending
Jacob by William Landy, When She Woke
by Hillary Jordan
("Defending Jacob" reviewed here earlier this year. Search on sidebar!!)
7) Choose 4 guests from any era for dinner.Who would they be and what would you choose
for a topic of conversation?
Austen, L.M. Montgomery, Bob Dylan, John Lennon. I’d
just let the conversation flow.
8) There’s a song that goes along with your book,
what is it?
Leaving on a
Jet Plane.
9) If you could cast your book for a movie, who
would you choose for your 2 main characters?
I can never answer this question! Seriously, I don’t
have a visual image of the characters and prefer to leave it to people’s
imagination.
10) Worst habit you have while writing books?
Not outlining enough.
11) How much research did you do before and during
writing?
Quite a bit on Africa to develop the country where
it was set.
12) Psychologists tell us the thing we think we’d
most like to grow up to be when we’re ten years old is our avocation.What did you want to be?
An astronaut.
Thank you, Catherine. Pleasure to have you on my blog. You're the best!
THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS "FORGOTTEN:"
It's always pure pleasure to read a book by Catherine McKenzie. Easy and refreshing dialog, interesting plot, and over all intriguing problems to work through. Her books are current and relevant. I just love the way she writes. She's witty and wise at the same time. If you haven't read one of her books, grab this one asap.
Without reiterating the summary, I'll say that this story is brighter and more interesting than it sounds. McKenzie makes the ordinary sing. She takes a situation that is sometimes comedic and turns it on its head to make your heart wrench. She takes a human tragedy and turns it into an opportunity for renewal for her characters. I love her panache!
"Forgotten" is the novel I bet many an author today wishes they'd thought of. It's so fresh and engaging. It reads like a charm. I loved every minute of it.
This is one of those rare contemporary books I can recommend without reservation. Needless to say, I'm a fan of Catherine McKenzie and will be waiting in line for her next book. Please read this one, I know you're going to thank me if you do!
5 stars Deborah/TheBookishDame
HAPPY TO OFFER A GIVEAWAY OF TWO BOOKS!!!!!! To Enter: Please follow me on Twitter and GFC on my sidebar Leave your Twitter "handle" and your email addy Giveaway ends on October 31st...... US and Canada Only!!! Thanks for commenting on this one! :]
The new Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn’t drink or swear, and she has the appropriate number of cardigans in her wardrobe. Abby believes she has enough distance from the darkness of her past, but when she arrives at college with her best friend, her path to a new beginning is quickly challenged by Eastern University’s Walking One-Night Stand.
Travis Maddox, lean, cut, and covered in tattoos, is exactly what Abby wants—and needs—to avoid. He spends his nights winning money in a floating fight ring, and his days as the ultimate college campus charmer. Intrigued by Abby’s resistance to his appeal, Travis tricks her into his daily life with a simple bet. If he loses, he must remain abstinent for a month. If Abby loses, she must live in Travis’s apartment for the same amount of time. Either way, Travis has no idea that he has met his match.
PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK:
Published by: Simon and Schuster/Atria Books
Pages: 432
Genre: YA Fiction
Author: Jamie McGuire
ABOUT THE AUTHOR :
Jamie McGuire is the author of the New York Times bestseller Beautiful Disaster and The Providence Trilogy. She and her husband, Jeff, live with their children just outside Enid, Oklahoma, with four dogs, four horses, and a cat named Rooster.
Please visit JamieMcGuire.com.
THE DAME'S REVIEW :
"Beautiful Disaster" is not the best book I've read, nor is it the worst. I rarely damn a book with faint praise, but this may be the fault of this one; it's mediocre and never hits its stride though I waded through the 400+ pages in hopeful anticipation. Gave it the old college try.
The plot was thin and tired. Poor boy from dysfunctional home meets poor girl also from dysfunctional home. And, after much struggle over his propensity to sleep with every loose girl on campus, and her reluctance to be just another notch on his belt, they admit they have found true love in each other.
I kept trying to figure out exactly which of the numerous disasters in this book was "the" beautiful one! His being bloody after major fights and saving her from being possibly raped, or her throwing up all night after he throws her a 19th birthday party and holds her head over the toilet for her.
The characters and dialog are simply trite and predictable as are the circumstances of the plot as it builds and ebbs without impact. Ridiculous disasters are just the norm in this book.
Ms McGuire fails to go into depth about her characters on any point which makes them shallow, shadow figures with whom I could not invest emotionally. Her main characters Travis and Abby both seemed whiny and emotionally stunted...just plain unlikeable. I guess it was not surprising they ended up together. Perhaps that was the "beautiful disaster."
This is one of those rare books I found little to like about. While I pushed through it hoping to find something redeeming to share with my readers, I found I couldn't. I was in fact surprised that the author had received such praise for her writing on other books. Perhaps this was her disaster after several other beautiful novels.
At best, this is a mediocre book for teens and college freshmen. Simply put...a disaster.
Summary: Blockbuster #1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Weiner returns with an irresistible story about a young woman trying to make it in Hollywood…
At twenty-three, Ruth Saunders headed west with her seventy-year-old grandma in tow, hoping to be hired as a television writer. Four years later, she’s hit the jackpot when she gets The Call: the sitcom she wrote, The Next Best Thing, has gotten the green light, and Ruthie’s going to be the show-runner. But her dreams of Hollywood happiness are threatened by demanding actors, number-crunching executives, an unrequited crush on a boss, and her grandmother’s impending nuptials.
Set against the fascinating backdrop of Los Angeles show business culture, with an insider’s ear and eye for writer’s rooms, bad behavior backstage and set politics, Jennifer Weiner’s new novel is a rollicking ride on the Hollywood rollercoaster and a heartfelt story about what it’s like for a young woman to love, and lose, in the land where dreams come true.
Jennifer Weiner was the keynote speaker at the recent Book Expo America Bloggers segment and how awesome she was! Here is the video of her speech courtesy of Simon & Schuster but note it takes a while to view the entire thing...and her language is "flowery!"
Here's Jennifer's Bio.:
Jennifer Weiner was born in 1970 on an army base in Louisiana. She grew up in Connecticut and graduated with a degree in English literature from Princeton University in 1991. She worked as a newspaper reporter in central Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Philadelphia until the publication of her first novel in 2001, and has been a full-time fiction writer ever since.
Her books include GOOD IN BED (2001); IN HER SHOES (2002), which was turned into a major motion picture starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley MacLaine; LITTLE EARTHQUAKES, (2004); GOODNIGHT NOBODY (2005); the short story collection THE GUY NOT TAKEN (2006); CERTAIN GIRLS (2008), the sequel to GOOD IN BED, BEST FRIENDS FOREVER (2009); FLY AWAY HOME (2010); and THEN CAME YOU (2011). She is also the co-creator and executive producer of the ABC Family show State of Georgia, which ran during the summer of 2011.
Jen is a frequent public speaker who has appeared on The Today Show, The CBS Early Show, The Martha Stewart Show, The Rachael Ray Show, and a number of defunct national talk shows that she suspects she killed just by showing up. Her work has appeared in Seventeen, Salon, Redbook, Glamour, Good Housekeeping, In Style and Elle. She writes occasionally for the Huffington Post and on her own blog right here. In 2011, Time Magazine named her as one of its 140 Best Twitter feeds.
Jen likes sunsets, sushi, reality TV and long walks on the beach and dislikes fake people, humidity, and entrenched sexism in the literary world. Her last name is not pronounced exactly the way it’s spelled. She can be found on Facebook, and on Twitter, where she keeps readers up to date on her writing life and live-tweets cheesy reality TV shows, including but not limited to “The Bachelor.”
Excerpt of "The Next Best Thing": (Partial~ See http://jenniferweiner.com for the entirety! and more about Ms Weiner. She's amazing!!)
ONE
The telephone rang. If it’s good news, there’s going to be a lot of people on the call, Dave had told me. Bad news, it’ll just be one person from the studio, the executive in charge of the project. I lifted the phone to my ear, feeling like the air had gained weight and my arm was moving through something with the consistency of tar. My heartbeat hammered in my ears. My jeans and T-shirt felt too small, my bedroom looked too bright, and the atmosphere felt thin, as if I was working harder than I normally did to pull oxygen into my lungs. Please, God, I thought—me, the girl who hadn’t been in a synagogue since my grandma and I had left Massachusetts, who’d barely remembered to fast last Yom Kippur. But still. I was a woman who’d lost her parents, who’d survived a dozen surgeries and emerged with metal implants in my jaw, the right side of my face sunken and scarred, and an eye that drooped. In my twenty-eight years, I hadn’t gotten much. I deserved this.
“Hello?”
“Hold for Lisa Stark, please!” came Lisa’s assistant’s sing-song. My breath rushed out of me. Lisa was my executive at the studio. If she was the only one on the call, then this was the end of the road: the pass, the thanks-but-no-thanks. The no. I pushed my hair—lank, brown, unwashed for the last three days—behind my ears and sat on the bed. I would keep my dignity intact. I would not cry until the call was over.
I had told myself to expect bad news; told myself, a thousand times, that the numbers were not in my favor. Each year, the network ordered hundreds of potential new programs, giving writers the thumbs-up and the money to go off and write a pilot script. Of those hundreds of scripts, anywhere from two to three dozen would actually be filmed, and of those, only a handful—maybe four, maybe six, maybe as many as ten—would get ordered to series. My sitcom, The Next Best Thing, loosely based on my own life with my grandmother, had made the first cut three months ago. I’d quit my job as an assistant at Two Daves Productions in order to work full-time on the script, progressing through the steps from a single-sentence pitch—a college graduate who’s been laid off and her grandmother who’s been dumped, move to an upscale assisted-living facility in Miami, where the girl tries to make it as a chef and the grandmother tries to live without a boyfriend—to a paragraph-long pilot summary, then a beat sheet detailing each scene, then a twelve-page outline, and, finally, a forty-page script.
For months I’d been writing, holed up in my bedroom, or doing the clichéd thing of bringing my laptop to a neighborhood coffee shop, where I was surrounded by my more attractive peers, the ones who carried on long, loud telephone conversations in which they used the words my agent as often as possible, and did everything but prop tip cups and WRITER AT WORK signs in front of their laptops. I wrote draft after draft, turning each one over to the studio that had funded my efforts and to the network that would, I hoped, eventually air them. I considered each round of notes; I cut and edited, rewrote and rewrote again. I pored over books for expectant parents to give my characters just the right names, and spent days in the kitchens of local restaurants so I could nail the details of my heroine’s job.
Two weeks ago I’d delivered the absolutely, positively final final draft. I’d brushed my lips against every single one of the pages, kissing each one lightly before I slid the script into the hole-puncher, then slipped the brass brads through the holes and pushed them shut. To celebrate, I’d taken Grandma out to lunch at the Ivy, at her insistence. My grandmother, a petite and stylish woman of a certain age, was a great fan of the tabloids. Any restaurant where the paparazzi were a regular presence on the sidewalk was a place she wanted to be.
When we walked up to the stand, the maitre d’ looked at me—in a plain cotton shift dress and five-year-old zippered black leather boots, with my laptop tucked under my arm—and gave a small but discernible shrug. My grandmother stepped toward him, smiling. If I dressed to maximize comfort and minimize attention, in shades of black and gray and blue, with a single necklace or a single bracelet and sensible shoes, my grandmother had style enough for the both of us. That day she wore a black-and-white cotton dress with a black patent-leather belt and black canvas espadrilles with bows that tied at her ankles. Her necklace was made of vintage Bakelite beads in poppy red, and she had a matching red patent-leather clutch in her hand and a red silk flower tucked behind one ear.
"How are you today?” she asked.
"Fine.” The host’s eyes lingered on her face as he tried to figure out if she was someone he should know, a screen star of yesteryear or one of the Real Housewives’ mothers. “This is my granddaughter,” said Grandma, and gave me a brisk poke in the small of my back. I stumbled obediently toward the podium with a can-you-believe-her look on my face, wishing I’d worn a necklace or a flower, or had thought to carry a pretty purse, or to have purchased one in the first place. “Ruthie is a writer.” The man behind the podium could barely suppress his wince. Writer, of course, was not the magic word that would cause him to usher us to the finest table in the restaurant and send over a bottle of free Champagne. Maybe writing for TV was a big deal elsewhere in America. In Hollywood, it meant less than nothing. Television writers were as common as cat dirt, and anyone with a working laptop and a version of Final Draft on her hard drive could claim to be one. You could almost see the word nobodies in a balloon floating above the man’s neatly barbered head as he led us to a table so far in the back it was practically in the kitchen. “Ladies,” he said.
Grandma paused and rested her hand on the man’s forearm. She tilted her face up toward his, batted her eyelashes, and gave him her gentle smile.
"Would it be possible for us to have a booth? Or a table with a little more light?” Even at her age—seventy-six, although she’d have shot me if I’d said it out loud—her skin was still smooth, her eyes still bright, face vivid with rouge and lipstick, eyeliner and curling false lashes. Her waist was still slim, and her teeth were all her own. “We’re celebrating.”
He smiled back—it is, I have learned over the years, almost impossible to resist my grandma’s smile—and led us to a booth halfway between the open front porch, where the stars would pose and preen for the cameras, and the dim back room, where the nobodies were sequestered. We shared pasta and a chopped salad, had a glass of wine apiece, and split tiramisu for dessert. As we ate, Grandma told me stories from the set of OR, the medical drama where she’d been working as an extra that week. “The kids they bring in,” she complained, running the edge of her spoon along the ridge of whipped cream that topped the tiramisu. “They’re out partying all night, so by the time they get in their gurneys they’re exhausted. One of the ADs has to run around set five minutes before every take just making sure they’re not sleeping.”
"Tough gig,” I said. Grandma herself was spending eight hours a day sitting in the fake OR’s fake waiting room. Every day, from ten in the morning until six o’clock at night, with union-mandated breaks for lunch and snacks, she’d get paid to do what she might have done for free on a normal day—sit in an uncomfortable plastic chair with a tote bag of knitting in her lap, looking somewhere between bored and worried as she waited for her name to be called.
"You have to respect them,” she said, nibbling at the strawberry that sat on the side of the dessert plate. “Finding a way to get paid for sleeping. That’s initiative.”
"Nice work if you can get it,” I said, and flagged down our waiter, and paid the bill. Then Grandma had gone back to the Radford lot in the Valley, a neighborhood ten miles away from and ten degrees hotter than Hollywood, where a number of television shows and movies were shot, and I drove back to Hancock Park, a pretty neighborhood with spacious sidewalks and green lawns, to our apartment in an Art Deco building called the Moroccan, to wait.
The network had started picking up its comedies a week after our lunch. I’d spent my days with my phone in my hand, from the moment I opened my eyes to the moment I closed them. I would perch it on the edge of the sink while I showered or brushed my teeth, and sleep with it plugged in underneath my pillow. My thumb was permanently attached to the screen, hitting “Refresh” on Deadline Hollywood and L.A. Confidential and all of the websites that covered the industry. I’d quit going to the gym after I realized how much I was annoying my fellow swimmers by pausing at the end of each lap to check my phone, which I’d stowed in a waterproof plastic Ziploc bag and left by the deep end. I was too nervous to sit through a meal but I was snacking constantly, eating bags of pretzels and dehydrated carrot chips and Pirate’s Booty and sunflower seeds that I didn’t really want, and ignoring my boyfriend Gary’s phone calls, because there was, we’d learned, nothing he could say or do that would possibly calm me down.
Now here was my news, I thought, waiting for Lisa to get on the line, and the news wasn’t good. Oh, well. At least I’d be disappointed in private. After I’d made the mistake of telling Grandma that I should be hearing something this week, she’d announced her intention of giving me my space. “You don’t need an old woman breathing down your neck,” she’d said, all the while hovering within five feet of my person, dressed in her at-home attire of lounging pajamas or a vividly embroidered silk robe, her slippered feet noiseless on the wooden floors as she found one task after another to keep her busy. So far she’d polished the silver, rearranged the china, emptied, scrubbed, bleached and refilled the kitchen cupboards and the refrigerator, and regrouted the powder-room tile. That morning while we drank the smoothies she’d made of pineapple and mango and Greek yogurt, she’d announced her plans to rent a steamer and replace the dining-room wallpaper, even though I’d begged her to leave that job to the professionals. "Nu?” she’d ask casually, just once every night, as she served dinner to me and Maurice, her gentleman caller. As usual, her nerves were made manifest in the reemergence of her Boston accent and in her cooking. On Friday, when the first wave of pickups was announced, she’d prepared a standing rib roast, Yorkshire pudding, potatoes au gratin, and homemade horseradish sauce. On Saturday, she’d served a breast of veal stuffed with cornbread and sausage and studded with garlic and rosemary, and on Sunday, she’d produced an entire Thanksgiving dinner, complete with two kinds of potatoes and a turkey she’d brined in the hot tub (our down-the-hall neighbors, devoted fitness buffs, had howled when they’d gone up to the roof for a little post-hike relaxation and found, instead of clear water, a fragrant brew of bay leaves and garlic cloves and juniper berries, with a kosher turkey bobbing merrily in the middle).
I would pick at my food, then excuse myself, telling Grandma and Maurice that I needed to work, closing my bedroom door behind me. Of course, I wasn’t working. I was staring at my phone, trying to will it to ring, and when I wasn’t doing that I was dialing the first nine of the ten numbers that would have connected me with Dave.
"Ruth?” The voice on the other end of the line startled me so badly that I gave a little squeak. The assistant, who had probably grown accustomed to the quirks of neurotic writers, pretended not to notice. “I have Lisa on the line. Please hold for Tariq, and Lloyd and Joan from the network.” I got to my feet, my heart lifting as quickly as it had sunk. The network. Oh God oh God oh God. The network doesn’t call unless it’s a pickup, Dave had said. They give the bad news to the agent, not the writer, and probably you’ll read it online before someone has the decency of telling you to your face that your show is dead. But maybe Dave was wrong. It had been years since his own show was green-lit, years since he’d had to sit, in breathless, chest-pounding agony, waiting for the call, this call.
Voices came back on the line, one after another, ringing like bells.
“I have Tariq,” said Tariq’s assistant.
"Holding for Joan,” said Joan’s.
"Ruth?” asked Lisa. “Still there?”
"I’m here.” My voice was faint and quivery. I stood up,
clenching my fists, my jaw, my abdominal muscles, trying to keep from shaking.
“Please hold,” said a new voice, male and brusque and impatient, “for Chauncey McLaughlin.”
I reeled back toward the bed. It felt like Christmas morning, New Year’s Eve, a birthday cake blazing with candles, a man down on one knee with a diamond ring in his hand. Joan was ABS’s head of comedy, and Chauncey McLaughlin (rumor was, he’d been born Chaim Melmann, then changed it to Charles, then gone full WASP with Chauncey) was the president of the network, a man I’d glimpsed once at a holiday party and had spoken with precisely never. Chauncey McLaughlin was the man who ultimately decided which of the pilots would get shot and, of those, which would make it onto the air in the fall and which would die quietly in the springtime.
"Who’ve I got?” he asked in a booming voice. Names were reeled off—Tariq, Lisa, Lloyd, Joan. “And Ruth, of course.”
"Hi,” I managed.
"Chauncey McLaughlin. I don’t want to keep you waiting. We’re going to go ahead and shoot The Next Best Thing.”
I closed my eyes. My legs went watery with relief. “Thank you,” I said. With the phone still pressed to my ear, I got up and unlocked the bedroom door to find my grandmother standing there. Evidently she’d given up even pretending that she wasn’t waiting for the call. I flashed her a thumbs-up. She sprang into the air and actually clicked her heels together, a feat she couldn’t have managed before her hip replacement two years before. Then she held my face in both of her hands. I could feel her hand on my left cheek and felt, as usual, nothing on my scarred right side.
Grandma kissed me, first on one cheek, then the other, before stowing her cell phone in her brassiere (“God’s pocket,” she called it) and hurrying off to the kitchen, undoubtedly to start giving her hundred closest friends and relations the news. A moment later, Maurice appeared in the living-room doorway, dressed for golf, with his tanned hands clasped over his head. He stood on his tiptoes to kiss me—Maurice, while not technically a little person, is a long way from tall, and a good six inches shorter than I am—then turned back down the hallway. Maurice had two sons, no daughters, and even though he’d never said so, my sense was that he liked having a young lady in his life. He’d pull out my chair, hold doors open for me, ask me if my boyfriend was treating me well, and say that if he wasn’t, he, Maurice, would be happy to talk to him about it.
As congratulations spilled over the line, from Lisa and Tariq and Chauncey, I found myself wishing not for my boyfriend, Gary, but for Dave. Dave, one of the Two Daves, was my boss and my mentor, the one who’d helped me craft the concept for The Next Best Thing, who’d overseen each revision of the script and assured me that I had just as good a shot at writing my own show as any other writer in Hollywood, even if I’d never even been a staff writer, even if I was only twenty-eight. Dave’s promise to serve as my co-executive producer had gotten me the meeting with Joan, and Dave’s involvement, I was sure, had gotten the network to take a chance on an unknown quantity. A Hollywood veteran who’d cocreated and run a successful sitcom for the past five years, Dave would know what to do next. And Gary. I’d have to call Gary, my boyfriend, and let him know.
