Waiting on Wednesday: THE HOUSE ON OYSTER CREEK by Heidi Jon Schmidt

"WAITING ON WEDNESDAY"

is hosted by Jill from

Breaking the Spine.

Join in and tell us . . .

What are you waiting for?

My pick for this week is . . .

THE HOUSE ON OYSTER CREEK

by Heidi Jon Schmidt

Pub. Date: June 2010

Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)

Format: Paperback , 368pp

ISBN-13: 9780451229922

ISBN: 0451229924

Description (from the publisher):

Sensitive but practical, Charlotte Tradescome has come to accept the reticence of her older, work-obsessed husband Henry. Still, she hopes to create a life for their three-year-old daughter. So when Henry inherits a home on Cape Cod, she, Henry, and little Fiona move from their Manhattan apartment to this seaside community. Charlotte sells off part of Tradescome Point, inadvertently fueling the conflict between newcomers and locals. Many townspeople easily dismiss Charlotte as a "washashore." A rare exception is Darryl Stead, an oyster farmer with modest dreams and an open heart, with whom Charlotte feels the connection she's been missing. Ultimately he transforms the way she sees herself, the town, and the people she loves...

Click here to read a "conversation" with the author.

About the author (from the publisher):

Heidi Jon Schmidt has lived on Cape Cod for twenty-five years.She is the author of the acclaimed story collections The Rose Thieves, Darling? , and The Bride of Catastrophe. Click here to visit the author's lovely website.



Armchair BEA Day 2: The Best So Far of 2011

Welcome to Day 2 of Armchair BEA.

Today's topic:  Best of 2011 (so far) and/or Most Anticipated Books of 2011.  My picks are below. You can link up your lists or check out the choices of other bloggers here.

Aside from all being new releases for 2011, the one thing that all these books have in common is that I found them unputdownable. Once I started reading, I just didn't want to stop. A couple of them even hooked me with just their descriptions. I think they are all wonderful. I predict that THE SOLDIER'S WIFE will be the biggest hit from this stellar lot. And someone is bound to make a movie from LOST IN SHANGRI-LA.

 THE SOLDIER'S WIFE
by Margaret Leroy

Pub. Date: June 2011

Publisher: Hyperion

Format: Paperback , 416pp

ISBN-13: 9781401341701

ISBN: 1401341705

Edition Description: Original

THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS

by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Pub. Date: August 2011

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group

Format: Hardcover, 336pp

ISBN-13: 9780345525543

ISBN: 034552554X

SUMMER IN THE SOUTH
by Cathy Holton

Pub. Date: May 2011

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group

Format: Hardcover , 352pp

ISBN-13: 9780345506016

ISBN: 0345506014

MOTHERS & DAUGHTERS

by Rae Meadows

Pub. Date: March 2011
Publisher: Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.

Format: Hardcover , 272pp

ISBN-13: 9780805093834

ISBN: 0805093834

LOST IN SHANGRI-LA
by Mitchell Zuckoff

Pub. Date: April 2011

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Format: Hardcover , 400pp

ISBN-13: 9780061988349

ISBN: 0061988340

Spotlight and Book Giveaway: THE ARRIVALS by Meg Mitchell Moore

CLOSED.

Thanks to the generous folks at
Hachette Book Group,

I have been authorized to
 give away two (2) copies of

THE ARRIVALS
by Meg Mitchell Moore

Rules for entering this giveaway
are at the bottom of this post.

THE ARRIVALS

by Meg Mitchell Moore

Pub. Date: May 2011

Publisher: Little, Brown & Company

Format: Hardcover, 324pp

ISBN-13: 9780316097710

ISBN: 0316097713

Description (from the publisher):
It's early summer when Ginny and William's peaceful life in Vermont comes to an abrupt halt.

First, their daughter Lillian arrives, with her two children in tow, to escape her crumbling marriage. Next, their son Stephen and his pregnant wife Jane show up for a weekend visit, which extends indefinitely when Jane ends up on bed rest. When their youngest daughter Rachel appears, fleeing her difficult life in New York, Ginny and William find themselves consumed again by the chaos of parenthood - only this time around, their children are facing adult problems.

By summer's end, the family gains new ideas of loyalty and responsibility, exposing the challenges of surviving the modern family - and the old adage, once a parent, always a parent, has never rung so true.

Click here to access the Reading Group Guide.

Click here to visit the author's website.

About the author (from the publisher):
Meg Mitchell Moore worked for several years as a journalist. Her work has been published in Yankee, Continental, Women’s Health, Advertising Age and many other business and consumer magazines. She received a B.A. from Providence College and a master’s degree in English Literature from New York University. The Arrivals is her first novel. Her second novel will be published by Reagan Arthur Books in 2012. Meg lives in Newburyport, Massachusetts, with her husband, their three children and a beloved border collie.

RULES FOR ENTERING THE GIVEAWAY:

• Leave an original comment on this post telling me you would like to win. Include an email address with your comment so that I can contact you if you do win. Use a spam-thwarting format such as geebee.reads AT gmail DOT com or geebee.reads [at] gmail [dot] com

• You must leave an email address in order to qualify. If I can't contact you, you can't win!

• You can earn an extra entry by being or becoming a Follower or Subscriber of this blog and telling me about it in a separate comment.

• Blog about this contest and provide me with the link to the post in a separate comment, and I'll give you yet another entry.

• Tweeting about this contest and providing me the link in a separate comment will get you one more entry. I've added a Retweet button at the bottom of every post.

• Stumble this blog, Digg it, or Technorati Fave it, whatever, and leave a separate comment for another entry.

• Winners must provide a U.S. or Canadian street address. Hachette is unable to deliver to P.O. Boxes.

• PLEASE NOTE: One win per household. If you win this title in another contest hosted at another blog, Hachette will only send one copy per household address.

• Deadline for entry is 11:59 p.m. EST on Friday, June 3, 2011.

• Winners will have 48 hours to respond to my email announcing that they have won; if I don't hear from a winner, I will draw another name.

• Winners are determined using the sequence generator at Random.org.

Thank you to Anna
at Hachette Book Group

for making this giveaway possible.

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!
THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED.

Teaser Tuesdays: THE NINTH WIFE by Amy Stolls

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Miz B. of Should Be Reading.

"Hard as it was to believe Rory had eight wives, it was equally difficult to believe none of these women had had his children. Or rather, it was one more piece of the story that seemed far-fetched but somehow explained."

-- page 226

THE NINTH WIFE

by Amy Stolls

Pub. Date: May 2011

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Format: Paperback , 496pp

ISBN-13: 9780061851896

ISBN: 0061851892

Edition Description: Original

Click here to read an excerpt.

Want to play along?  Here's what to do:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Armchair BEA: Day 1: Hi, there! Pull up a chair!

Welcome to A Sea of Books.  My name is gwendolyn b. a/k/a geebee.  And this is Armchair BEA.

Armchair BEA has been organized by a fabulous group of booklovers/bloggers for those of us who are unable to attend the publishing world's big event in New York City.  You can check out the agenda they have established for this week here.

Today's topic:  Who are you, and how do you Armchair?

We've already established who I am, so let's move on . . . First of all, let me make one thing clear -- there are no armchairs involved! None! Not a one!  Most of my reading is done in or on my bed (nestled under a window accented with a pleasant sea breeze in the summer and horrifying gale force winds in the winter.).  My blogging takes place in our home office on a second-hand office chair that was old when I got it 14 years ago. This spot is nestled nicely between the litter box and the washer and dryer. However, above the desk is a lovely large window so that I have a nice view of the sky and treetops in the neighbors' yards. We have no trees. None! Not a one! I've also been known to spend my lunch break hurriedly composing a post and sometimes I stay late at the office because my work computer is pretty nice.

I live in Rhode Island in something of a winterized beach house with my recently divorced sister and her kids - at least, the kids are with us half the time. We have a crazy routine that isn't routine at all, and that has made it difficult for me to keep up with blogging. I love blogging and would be happy to spend my days alternating between reading and blogging. Alas, I have to work for a living, and also keep up with the laundry and the litter box! Maybe someday . . .

My favorite books tend to be historical in some respect -- stories of the British monarchy; the period from WWI though WWII; American historicals, especially set in the West or the Southern states; and I've completely fallen in love with books set in Southeast Asia and China or Japan. But I do enjoy books from a much wider range as well: detective fiction and police procedurals(especially British!); science fiction and fantasy (including an occasional vampire); classic coming-of-age stories; memoirs; and real life "disaster" stories such as THE PERFECT STORM by Sebastian Junger. I'm also crazy for audio books, which I listen to almost exclusively during my daily commute. (I LOVE being stuck in traffic!)

My armchairing for this week mainly includes visiting blogs because I've been out of the loop for a while and I really miss connecting with my book-loving friends. I'll also be posting on the daily topic suggested by the Armchair BEA organizers. And I really want to explore the website they've established because they've pulled together some wonderful resources. For instance, check out this link to publisher's catalogs.

Between keeping up with this online event, catching up on my own posting, and helping with homework, I think I'll be so busy I won't have much time to regret not being in New York!

Thanks for stopping by - hope I'll soon be finding my way to visit you, too!