I found a nice surprise when I arrived home from work this evening -- an autographed copy of ACCORDING TO JANE by Marilyn Brandt. I won it just a few days ago from a giveaway hosted by Kelly Moran on her blog, Author Kelly Moran's Blog. That was a really fast turnaround! A big thanks to Kelly for hosting the giveaway. And a HUGE thank you to Marilyn along with CONGRATULATIONS on
the publication of your debut novel! I'm looking forward to settling in with Ellie and Jane.
Synopsis(from the publisher): In Marilyn Brant's smart, wildly inventive debut, one woman in search of herself receives advice from the ultimate expert in matters of the heart…
It begins one day in sophomore English class, just as Ellie Barnett's teacher is assigning Jane Austen'sPride and Prejudice. From nowhere comes a quiet "tsk" of displeasure. The target: Sam Blaine, the cute bad boy who's teasing Ellie mercilessly, just as he has since kindergarten. Entirely unbidden, as Jane might say, the author's ghost has taken up residence in Ellie's mind, and seems determined to stay there.
Jane's wise and witty advice guides Ellie through the hell of adolescence and beyond, serving as the voice she trusts, usually far more than her own. Years and boyfriends come and go—sometimes a little too quickly, sometimes not nearly fast enough. But Jane's counsel is constant, and on the subject of Sam, quite insistent. Stay away, Jane demands. He is your Mr. Wickham.
Still, everyone has something to learn about love—perhaps even Jane herself. And lately, the voice in Ellie's head is being drowned out by another, urging her to look beyond everything she thought she knew and seek out her very own, very unexpected, happy ending…
About the Author(from the publisher): Marilyn Brant has been a classroom teacher, a library staff member, afreelance writer and a national book reviewer. She lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and son, surrounded by towers of books that often threaten to topple over and crush her. A proud member of the Jane Austen Society of North America, Marilyn's debut novel featuring "Jane" won the Romance Writers of America's prestigious Golden Heart® Award. When not working on her next book, she enjoys traveling, listening to music and finding new desserts to taste test.
enyl a/k/a enyl (AT) inbox (DOT) com (already won)
rubynreba a/k/a pbclark (AT) netins (DOT) net
nfmgirl a/k/a nfmgirl (AT) gmail (DOT) com
elaing8 a/k/a elaing8 (AT) netscape (DOT) net
Andrea a/k/a andie.v107 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com
- I will be emailing all of you this evening. - Please contact me with your snail mail address A.S.A.P. - Remember, the sponsor will only mail books to U.S. and Canadian street addresses and no P.O. Boxes. - If I have not heard from you by 11:59 p.m. EST on Tuesday, October 20, 2009, your win will be forfeit and I will contact the next commenter selected by Random.org.
- Thank you to everyone who stopped by and entered. If you weren't one of the lucky ones in this drawing, click here to hop on over to the contest page at Hachette Book Group for listings of other blogs hosting book giveaways.-Be sure and check my sidebar for other ongoing giveaways here and at other blogs.
A big thank you to Valerie and Hachette Book Group for making this giveaway possible.
Martha Carrier was one of the first women to be accused, tried and hanged as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts. Like her mother, young Sarah Carrier is bright and willful, openly challenging the small, brutal world in which they live. Often at odds with one another, mother and daughter are forced to stand together against the escalating hysteria of the trials and the superstitious tyranny that led to the torture and imprisonment of more than 200 people accused of witchcraft. This is the story of Martha's courageous defiance and ultimate death, as told by the daughter who survived. Kathleen Kent is a tenth generation descendent of Martha Carrier. She paints a haunting portrait, not just of Puritan New England, but also of one family's deep and abiding love in the face of fear and persecution.
About the author(from the publisher): Kathleen Kent lives in Dallas with her husband and son. TheHeretic's Daughteris her first novel.
Most of the books that have influenced and touched me the most are historical fiction. When I was a child I read a lot of Dickens, Poe and H.H. Monroe. Some of my favorites from the past are The Quincunx, by Charles Palliser, Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears, The Weight of Water by Anita Shreve, and The Source by James Mitchener. I also read everything by Annie Dillard, Cormac McCarthy and Larry McMurtry. Currently I'm re-reading a book called The Long Home by William Gay who is, to me, one of the best writers in American fiction today.
• Leave a 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.
• Deadline for entry is 11:59 p.m. EST on Friday, October 30, 2009.
• 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.
Synopsis(from the publisher):
An introspective and beautiful dual memoir by the #1 New York Times bestselling novelist and her daughter
Sue Monk Kidd has touched millions of readers with her novelsThe Secret Life of Bees andThe Mermaid Chair and with her acclaimed nonfiction. In this intimate dual memoir, she and her daughter, Ann, offer distinct perspectives as a fifty-something and a twenty-something, each on a quest to redefine herself and to rediscover each other.
Between 1998 and 2000, Sue and Ann travel throughout Greece and France. Sue, coming to grips with aging, caught in a creative vacuum, longing to reconnect with her grown daughter, struggles to enlarge a vision of swarming bees into a novel. Ann, just graduated from college, heartbroken and benumbed by the classic question about what to do with her life, grapples with a painful depression. As this modern-day Demeter and Persephone chronicle the richly symbolic and personal meaning of an array of inspiring figures and sites, they also each give voice to that most protean of connections: the bond of mother and daughter.
A wise and involving book about feminine thresholds, spiritual growth, and renewal, Traveling with Pomegranates is both a revealing self-portrait by a beloved author and her daughter, a writer in the making, and a momentous story that will resonate with women everywhere.
• Leave a 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.
• Deadline for entry is 11:59 p.m. EST on Monday, October 26, 2009.
• 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.
Well, I didn't see this one coming . . . or perhaps I should say "going." Let me explain.
A few weeks ago, I was contacted by an author of a young adult fantasy book and asked if I would be interested in reviewing his novel. I've never read much fantasy, and it's been many years since I've read any at all. But coincidently, I'd just spent a couple of weeks with two of my teenaged nieces, and one of them really gave me a hard time about my choice of reading material. She was shocked and aghast (I mean, literally!) that I hadn't read the Harry Potter books or the Twilight books or any of the titles she rattled off from a looooong list of more hard-core fantasy. She was bewildered: "But, Dad said you read a lot." Clearly, my reputation as a bookivore took a serious hit because my reading diet was lacking a major book group.
So when I received the email from Shiraz in which he described his book as ". . . a YA fantasy, but it has some subtle educational elements in it that could actually teach kids something if they're not paying attention" I jumped at the chance to read it and redeem myself.
When the book arrived, I was a little leary of the cover which is dominatated by images of the dark forces at work in the novel. I figured I'd better keep it out of sight of the niece and nephew with whom I live. They're 6 and 9 and not fond of scary things.
Well, guess who's commandeered my book?! Let me give you a hint: He's 9. And, he's a boy. O.K., so that's 2 hints, but I'm absolutely floored! This kid, whom I shall refer to from now on as "J-Boy-9" (that is, until he turns 10), cannot be described as a reader. Oh, I tried. I've been reading to him daily since he was an infant. As a toddler he would pretend to read to his toys and his baby sister. But something happened as he transitioned away from early chapter books. I'm thinking he was put off by the increase in text and the decrease in pictures. He still enjoys being read to, and I read to him in the evenings several times a week. But on his own, if there aren't pictures, he's not interested. These days, his books of choice are along the lines of the Wimpy Kid books and Humpty Dumpty, Jr. Hardboiled Detective.
But the other day, as I settled down to read MY new YA fantasy book, J-Boy-9 started asking me questions about it. Then he wanted to look at it. Then he started reading it. (Then I had to explain to him what a prologue is.) Then he went back to reading it. And he kept reading it. He even asked me if he could take it to school for silent reading time. Don't think he's just entralled by the cover -- he took the dust jacket off within 5 minutes because it bugged him. Then last night when his mother told him it was time to go to bed, he called out: "I just want to finish this chapter." I'm really impressed. He's rather proud of himself, too.
I don't know how far he'll get with this book. It's really aimed at teens, and he's only in the 4th grade. But so far it looks as though I'm not getting it back until he's done! And here I thought it would be years before I was competing with him for my own books! !
In the meantime, I want to spread the word about the award-winning DEFENDERS OF THE SCROLL. Maybe you know a reluctant reader who will be drawn in by it's magical lure.
Description (from the publisher): A teenage boy. A dark wizard. A mystic scroll. And the fate of a world hangs in the balance...
When Alex "the Axeman" Logan is pulled from his world to help a young princess, named Dara, save her kingdom from the Shadow Lord, he thinks there has been a mistake. He's a teen guitar player close to failing 11th grade, not some defender of the realm. All he has are some school books, his wits, and his love of fantasy movies.
Overnight his life is history. Alex must confront the Shadow Lord and his minions when he is thrust into a land that has changed from a magical paradise to a barren, hopeless, helpless realm invaded by a dark army. But Alex is not alone. He has the help of Dara, a magic scroll, and a band of unlikely companions drawn from his own history books: a hardened Roman Legionnaire, a swift Japanese Samurai, a fearless African Warrior, a fiery Amazon Archer, and a spirited Shaolin Monk.
Can Alex become more than he believes and lead his small band of Defenders to the Hall of Shadows, the birthplace of the Shadow Lord? The fate of the realm and everyone in it rests on him.
2009 National Indie Excellence Awards
Winner: Fantasy and Best Editing Fiction categories
Finalist: Action-Adventure and Young Adult Fiction categories
2009 Next Generation Indie Awards
Finalist: Multicultural Fiction, Best Overall Design Fiction, and eBook Fiction
2009 New York Book Festival
Honorable Mention: Sci-Fi category
2009 Beach Book Festival
Honorable Mention: Sci-Fi and Teenage categories
2009 San Francisco Book Festival
Honorable Mention: Wild Card category
In a perfect marriage of author and subject, P. D. James—one of the most widely admired writers of detective fiction at work today—gives us a personal, lively, illuminating exploration of the human appetite for mystery and mayhem, and of those writers who have satisfied it. P. D. James examines the genre from top to bottom, beginning with the mysteries at the hearts of such novels as Charles Dickens’sBleak House and Wilkie Collins’sThe Woman in White, and bringing us into the present with such writers as Colin Dexter and Henning Mankell. Along the way she writes about Arthur Conan Doyle, Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie (“arch-breaker of rules”), Josephine Tey, Dashiell Hammett, and Peter Lovesey, among many others. She traces their lives into and out of their fiction, clarifies their individual styles, and gives us indelible portraits of the characters they’ve created, from Sherlock Holmes to Sara Paretsky’s sexually liberated female investigator, V. I. Warshawski. She compares British and American Golden Age mystery writing. She discusses detective fiction as social history, the stylistic components of the genre, her own process of writing, how critics have reacted over the years, and what she sees as a renewal of detective fiction—and of the detective hero—in recent years.
About the Author(from the publisher):
P. D. James is the author of 18 books, most of which have been filmed for television. Before her retirement in 1979, she served in the forensics and criminal justice departments of Great Britain’s Home Office, and she has been a magistrate and a governor of the BBC. The recipient of many prizes and honours, she was created Baroness James of Holland Park in 1991. In 2000 she celebrated her 80th birthday and published her autobiography,Time to Be in Earnest.
The winners of the Hispanic Heritage Month Book Giveaway are:
Carol aka mittens0831(at)aol(dot)com(confirmed)
Tena aka tenasocal(at)aol(dot)com(confirmed)
Lori L. aka shetreadssoftly(at)gmail(dot)com (confirmed) Belinda M. aka bluebelle0367(at)hotmail(dot)com (confirmed) Mia J.aka mia(at)jacobsracing(dot)com(confirmed)
enyl aka enyl(at)inbo(dot)com = no response :(
If you have not already responded to the email I sent out yesterday, you have until 12:00 noon EST on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 to get back to me with your snail mail address. If I haven't heard from you by then, I will contact the next name selected by Random.org
Thank you to everyone who stopped by A Sea of Books and entered the contest.
Be sure and check my sidebar for ongoing giveaways here
I was blog-hopping the other day and came across an interesting post on the blog of author Cheryl Rainfieldthat is definitely worth sharing. If you'd like to see more book-related artwork by this whimsically creative artist, visit his website: Livio de Marchi .
About the book(from the publisher): In the great city of Uruk, there is no peace when Gilgamesh is restless, and he is never at rest. Shamhat, a priestess of Inanna, goes into the wilderness to find and civilize a match for Uruk's violently active God-King. Like Mayflies in a Stream brings new life to the Epic of Gilgamesh, diving into one of the earliest conflicts between civilization and wilderness, civic order and freedom, romance and sexuality. A book of the Hadley Rille BooksArchaeology Series.
Alyce of At Home with Books hosts My Favorite Reads, a weekly feature spotlighting favorite reads from pre-blogging days. Because it's been a while since the books were read, these posts are not reviews per se, but rather impressionistic remembrances of a positive reading experience. I think of this feature as an opportunity to more deeply explore the range of my reading interests and those of other book bloggers and readers of book blogs outside of the current crop of new releases. Do you have an old favorite that you'd like to share?
I chose this book today because the second book in this series has just been released, and I wanted to give the first book its due. I had originally thought THE LOVER'S KNOT would be your typical cozy - comfortable and fun, but predictable. What I found in Clare O'Donohue's first novel was a cut above all that. (Is it mixing metaphors to say first that it's a cut above and next that it has more depth than expected?) The character of Nell Fitzgerald undergoes a sort of belated coming of age, and I enjoyed seeing how she grew and developed. She worked through her emotions regarding her ex-fiance and their failed relationship, and she gingerly began to let herself fall for a new guy. The book does have that small town, cozy mystery feel with a supporting cast of interesting and sometimes quirky characters, a lovely setting, and a good mystery, too! I'm glad there's a second installment of this series available now (The Drunkard's Path), and I'm looking forward to cracking it's spine soon! Click here to read an excerpt. Click here to visit the author's website.
About the author (from the publisher): Clare O'Donohue is a freelance television writer/producer. She produced television's most popular quilting show, Simply Quilts, on HGTV, and she is currently producing and writing for a variety of television crime shows, including Forensic Files. This is her first novel.
Please take a few minutes to check out Brenda's new giveaway blog, DanceAlertReads. She'll be listing book giveaways and other fun stuff. Thanks, Brenda!
Thank you to everyone who stopped by and entered the contest - please check my sidebar for other current book giveaways.
Description (from the publisher): Once in a generation a novel comes along that taps a vein of universal human experience, resonating with readers of all ages. THE LOVELY BONES is such a book -- a #1 bestseller celebrated at once for its artistry, for its luminous clarity of emotion, and for its astonishing power to lay claim to the hearts of millions of readers around the world.
"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973."
So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue without her -- her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling. Out of unspeakable tragedy and loss, THE LOVELY BONES succeeds, miraculously, in building a tale filled with hope, humor, suspense, even joy. The major motion picture version of THE LOVELY BONES, directed by Peter Jackson and starring Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon, Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, and Saoirse Ronan is scheduled for release on December 11, 2009.
• Leave a 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 linkin 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. • Deadline for entry is 11:59 p.m. EST on Friday, October 17, 2009. • 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.
The folks at Hachette Book Group have generously authorized me to give away five (5) copies of DETECTIVES DON'T WEAR SEAT BELTS by Cici McNair. I haven't read this one yet, but I'm eagerly awaiting my review copy -- it looks like a fun and informative read!
Rules for entering this giveaway are at the bottom of this post.
Growing up in Mississippi, Cici McNair was always more the tomboy her mother supported than the Southern belle her father demanded. She escaped her suffocating upbringing the first chance she had to travel the world. Whether working at the Vatican in Rome or consorting with a gunrunner in Haiti, she lived a life of international adventure. When Cici finds herself in New York, divorced, broke, and fashionably starving to death in a Madison Avenue apartment, she impulsively decides to become a private detective.
But, as Cici soon learns, the world of P.I.s is tight-knit and made up almost exclusively of former law enforcement officers. By nature, they are a highly suspicious group and are especially wary of a newcomer with an untraceable past. Diligently working her way through the Yellow Pages, doggedly pursuing the slightest lead, Cici is finally hired by a private investigator willing to take a chance. The next day she's working side by side with a pair of seasoned detectives and a skip tracer who is scary to meet but like silk on the phone. She quickly realizes she'll need all her energy and wits to succeed in this new world.
Being a private investigator is as exciting and liberating as Cici ever dreamed, from creating a false identity on the spot on her first case in the field to surviving adrenaline-rushing car chases. Working with law enforcement, she goes undercover, dealing with the ruthless Born to Kill gang in Chinatown and the Middle Eastern counterfeiters west of Broadway. A detailed account of the hidden world and real-life cases of a P.I., this action-packed memoir is as entertaining as any detective novel you've ever read.
• Leave a 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.
• 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.
• Deadline for entry is 11:59 p.m. EST on Saturday, October 24, 2009.
Synopsis(from the publisher): At the center of Francine Prose's profoundly moving new novel is a young girl facing the consequences of sudden loss after the death of her sister. As her parents drift toward their own risky consolations, thirteen-year-old Nico is left alone to grope toward understanding and clarity, falling into a seductive, dangerous relationship with her sister's enigmatic boyfriend.
Over one haunted summer, Nico must face that life-changing moment when children realize their parents can no longer help them. She learns about the power of art, of time and place, the mystery of loss and recovery. But for all the darkness at the novel's heart, the narrative itself is radiant with the lightness of summer and charged by the restless sexual tension of teenage life. Goldengrove takes its place among the great novels of adolescence, beside Henry James's The Awkward Ageand L. P. Hartley'sThe Go-Between.
My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Stars
My Thoughts:
Francine Prose has written a beautifully sad and compelling coming of age story centered around the accidental death of a beloved older sister. I was immediately drawn into the story of how Nico comes to terms with this unimaginable loss while at the same time coping with the stress and confusion of early adolescence.
In late spring, Nico is barely 13 when the talented and beautiful Margaret drowns while they are out together on the lake by their home. The sisters have always had a close and loving relationship, with Nico’s affection bordering on adoration. Nico and her parents become isolated from each other in their grief. I completely sympathized when Nico remarked that she kept wanting to tell Margaret about how “goofy” their parents were acting until she remembers why they’re acting that way – and therefore she can’t tell Margaret.
The family descends into grief, but the novel is not heavy or torturous. Rather, it is luminous - a word I usually avoid because of its overuse, but is clearly the mot juste in this instance. The author’s writing is beautifully descriptive and evocative.
“Margaret’s death had shaken us, like three dice in a cup, and spilled us out with new faces in unrecognizable combinations. We forgot how we used to live in our house, how we’d passed the time when we lived there. We could have been sea creatures stranded on the beach, puzzling over an empty shell that reminded us of the ocean.” (Page 51)
As the story progresses, Nico becomes involved with Margaret’s slightly unbalanced boyfriend, Aaron. Nico wants to understand and know Margaret better. Aaron wants Nico to be Margaret. Over the course of the summer, Nico learns how to deal with her grief and not only how, but that she must, move past it.
“I came to understand that Margaret’s death was an entity, separate from Margaret. My sister would always love me. But her death was a monster that would rip me apart, if it could. Time passed; the monster aged and lost some, but not all, of its power to ambush and wound me.” (Page 272)
GOLDENGROVE by Francine Prose is a lovely novel. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes coming of age stories or simply enjoys beautiful writing.
About the author(from the publisher): Known as much for her wit as she is for her eclecticism, Francine Prose is a true renaissance woman of the literary set. She has written essays, art and literary reviews, translations, children’s books, novellas, and short stories -- not to mention bitingly humorous novels likeBigfoot Dreams andBlue Angel.
I live a stone's throw from the sea in a kookie household that includes my 3rd grade niece, "E-Girl-8" and my 6th grade nephew, "J-Boy-11". I read a wide range to books for adults and children. If you have a book you would like me to consider for a review, spotlight, or giveaway, please contact me at:
geebee.reads AT gmail DOT com
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