Mailbox Monday…08.02.10
Mailbox Monday is where other bloggers write about the books they received the previous week. The Printed Page is the host of the Mailbox Monday meme. Visit her blog to see what books made it her way and get a chance to get one of her books once she's done reading it. You can also see who all is participating this week and read about all kinds of new books.
**It's been some time since I last posted (7/12 to be exact) so I thought I'd do a bit of catch up as well as share some of the books I've picked up from others or purchased myself. You'd think with all the books I receive for free I'd keep myself from buying more books (or so my husband would hope) but on occasion I just can't help myself! This list is lengthier than usual so this round there won't be summaries but I did include links for more book information.**
Chic-Lit
Holly Inbox: Scandal in the City by Holly Dunham
Home
Paula Deen's Savannah Style by Paula Deen (Upcoming tour this month)
Contemporary Fiction
The Book of Eli by Sam Moffie
Classic (Buy)
The Arabian Nights (Barnes & Nobles Collection; I just LOVE their collection of leather bound books! Beautiful artwork on each.)
SciFi/Fantasy/Paranormal (All Buys)
Guilty Pleasures by Laurell Hamilton (wanted to start the Anita Blake series)
Swallowing Darkness by Laurell Hamilton (re-read but I need my own to go with my Meredith Gentry series)
Divine Misdemeanors by Laurell Hamilton
Violin by Anne Rice (re-read but I had to get the hardback copy)
Historical Romance (Buy)
The Truth About Lord Stoneville by Sabrina Jeffries
Suspense (Buy)
Haunt Me Still by Jennifer Lee Carrell
And today I leave a special treat...the book trailer for Haunt Me Still by Jennifer Lee Carrell...
The Wild Irish Sea, Loucinda McGary – Review
Drawn to a force he can't resist...
Former police officer Kevin Hennessey is running from his past-choosing to battle smugglers instead of dealing with his personal demons. When a desperate, rain-drenched American woman appears on his doorstep with wild tales of danger, Kevin is drawn to helping her, despite his reservations...
She never saw him coming...
Amber O'Neill knew without a doubt that her brother was in mortal danger. Rushing heedlessly to the rocky shores of Ireland, Amber was stunned to find her rescue mission derailed by a gorgeous, but deeply flawed Irishman...
The tumultuous sea, the intertwined fates of the coastal villagers, and unearthly tales of a hidden selkie prince bring Kevin and Amber together in a connection of mind, body, and soul that neither can deny...
FROM THE BOOK FAERY REVIEWS...Reading the book back had my interest peaked in hopes of a good magical love story. But to be honest I found my interest going up and down throughout the book. It took me longer than I had hoped to read because of this. I didn't find telepathy to be that magical and the story entwined with seals that walked around as humans was just that. I expected a seal to actually magically turn into a human and had hoped that some of the main characters were indeed theses "selkies". The danger plot of smugglers had me somewhat interested but then I felt the chase and danger wasn't as adventurous as I expected. This book might peak the interest longer in another reader but for me it's not one I'd read again. The Wild Irish Sea was an ok book in my mind if looking for a love/danger book to read.
This book was provided to me for review from Sourcebooks.
Seven Year Switch, Claire Cook – Review
Just when Jill Murray has finally figured out how to manage on her own, her ex-husband proves that he can't even run away reliably. After seven long years missing in action, he's back - crashing into the man-free existence Jill and her ten-year-old daughter have built so carefully. What's a good mother to do? To a child, even a deadbeat dad is better than no dad at all.
Jill's life just hasn't turned out quite the way she planned. By now, she'd hoped to be jetting around the world as a high-end cultural coach. Instead, she's answering phones for a local travel agency and teaching cooking classes at the community center.
Enter free-spirited entrepreneur Billy, who hires Jill as a consultant for an upcoming business trip. Is their relationship veering off in a new direction? And what about her ex? Jill couldn't possibly still have feelings for him...could she? Suddenly, her no-boys allowed life is anything but.
They say that every seven years you become a completely new person, but Jill isn't sure she's ready for the big change. It takes a Costa Rican getaway to help her make a choice - not so much between the two men in her life, but between the woman she is and the one she wants to be. - Book Jacket
Find Claire on Facebook, Twitter, and on her website.
FROM THE BOOK FAERY REVIEWS...Cook's book was a very fast read and an enjoyable one. I felt I could relate to the main character even if I hadn't experienced all she'd gone through. Quick read for the beach indeed!
Watch the Seven Year Switch Trailer here...
Copy of the book was provided for review.
Think of a Numb3r, John Verdon – Review
Arriving in the mail one day is a taunting letter that ends with a simple declaration "See how well I know your secrets-just think of a number." Eerily, those who comply find that the letter writer has predicted their random choice exactly. For Dave Gurney, just retired as the NYPD's top homicide investigator and forging a new life with his wife, Madeleine, in upstate New York, the letters are oddities that begin as a diverting puzzle but quickly ignite a massive serial-murder investigation. Brought in as an investigative "consultant," Gurney soon accomplishes deductive breakthroughs that have local police in awe. Yet, with each taunting move by his seemingly clairvoyant opponent, Gurney feels his tragedy-marred past rising up to haunt him, his marriage approaching a dangerous precipice, and, finally, a dark, cold fear building that he's met an adversary who can't be stopped.
Play the creepy Think of a Numb3r game here:
http://www.randomhouse.com/crown/features/think-of-a-number/.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR...John Verdon has held several executive positions with Manhattan advertising firms, but like his protagonist, he recently relocated with his wife to rural upstate New York. Think of a Number is his first novel.
FROM THE BOOK FAERY REVIEWS...I really enjoyed this thriller. Verdon had me turning the pages and on the edge. I enjoyed "being" the character, David Gurney in my head and hope he comes back to solve another murder mystery. Think of a Numb3r is definitely a book worthy of hard copy on my shelves.
Join the tour and read what others thought of Verdon's Think of a Numb3r...
I received a copy of this book for review for the TLC Book Tour. Receiving a copy in no way altered my opinion of the book.
Seven Simple Steps for Finding YOUR Next Chapter; Claire Cook – Author Guest Post
Self. You can’t have self-awareness, self-confidence, or any of those other good self words until you decide to like yourSELF, and who you really are.
Soul Searching. Sometimes it’s just getting quiet enough to figure out what you really want; often it’s digging up that buried dream you had before life got in the way.
Serendipity. When you stay open to surprises, they often turn out to be even better than the things you planned. Throw your routine out the window and let spontaneity change your life.
Synchronicity. It’s like that saying about luck being the place where preparation meets opportunity. Open your eyes and ears – then catch the next wave that’s meant for you!
Strength. Life is tough. Decide to be tougher. If Plan A doesn’t work, the alphabet has 25 more letters (204 if you’re in Japan!)
Sisterhood. Connect, network, smile. Build a structure of support, step by step. Do something nice for someone – remember, karma is a boomerang!
Satisfaction. Of course you can get some (no matter what the Rolling Stones said.) Call it satisfaction, fulfillment, gratification, but there’s nothing like the feeling of setting a goal and achieving it. So make yours a good one!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR...Claire Cook is the bestselling author of seven novels, including Must Love Dogs, which was adapted into a Warner Bros. movie starring Diane Lane and John Cusack, The Wildwater Walking Club, Life’s a Beach, and her latest, Seven Year Switch, which has received beach read shout outs from People, USA Today, and The New York Times. Her reinvention workshops have been featured on The Today Show, and she has been a judge for the Thurber Humor Prize and the Family Circle fiction contest. Her books have been featured on Good Morning America and in People, Good Housekeeping, Redbook and more. She has two kids, seven brothers and sisters, and one husband. She lives in Scituate, MA.
Visit her website and find reinvention and writing tips at http://www.ClaireCook.com.
Friend her on Facebook at http://facebook.com/ClaireCookbooks/.
Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ClaireCookbooks/.
HER LATEST BOOK...Just when Jill Murray's finally figured out how to manage on her own, her ex-husband proves that he can't even run away reliably. After seven long years missing in action, he's back--crashing into the man-free existence Jill and her ten-year-old daughter have built so carefully. And what's a good mother to do? To a child, even a deadbeat dad is better than no dad at all.
Jill's life just hasn't turned out quite the way she planned. By now, she'd hoped to be jetting around the world as a high-end cultural coach. Instead, she's answering phones for a local travel agency and teaching cooking classes at the community center.
Enter free-spirited entrepreneur Billy, who hires Jill as a consultant for an upcoming business trip. Is their relationship veering off in a new direction? And what about her ex? Jill couldn't possibly still have feelings for him . . . could she? Suddenly, her no-boys-allowed life is anything but.
They say that every seven years you become a completely new person, but Jill isn't sure she's ready for the big change. It takes a Costa Rican getaway to help her make a choice--not so much between the two men in her life, but between the woman she is and the one she wants to be. - FROM AMAZON
Check out her book trailer below. If you can't see it here, click here.
Mailbox Monday…06.21.10
Mailbox Monday is where other bloggers write about the books they received the previous week. The Printed Page is the host of the Mailbox Monday meme. Visit her blog to see what books made it her way and get a chance to get one of her books once she's done reading it. You can also see who all is participating this week and read about all kinds of new books.
Seven Year Switch by Claire Cook (Contemporary Women's Fiction) - Just when Jill Murray's finally figured out how to manage on her own, her ex-husband proves that he can't even run away reliably. After seven long years missing in action, he's back--crashing into the man-free existence Jill and her ten-year-old daughter have built so carefully. And what's a good mother to do? To a child, even a deadbeat dad is better than no dad at all.
Jill's life just hasn't turned out quite the way she planned. By now, she'd hoped to be jetting around the world as a high-end cultural coach. Instead, she's answering phones for a local travel agency and teaching cooking classes at the community center.
Enter free-spirited entrepreneur Billy, who hires Jill as a consultant for an upcoming business trip. Is their relationship veering off in a new direction? And what about her ex? Jill couldn't possibly still have feelings for him . . . could she? Suddenly, her no-boys-allowed life is anything but.
They say that every seven years you become a completely new person, but Jill isn't sure she's ready for the big change. It takes a Costa Rican getaway to help her make a choice--not so much between the two men in her life, but between the woman she is and the one she wants to be.
My Sister’s Voice, Mary Carter – Review
At twenty-eight, Lacey Gears is exactly where she wants to be as an up-and-coming, proudly Deaf artist in Philadelphia. Then she receives a letter that begins, "You have a sister. A twin, to be exact..."
Learning that her identical, hearing twin, Monica, experienced the normal childhood she was denied resurrects all of Lacey's grief, and she angrily sets out to find Monica and her biological parents. But the truth about Monica's life, their brief shared past, and the reason for the twins' separation is far from simple...
FROM THE BOOK FAERY REVIEWS...Carter wrote a beautiful story filled with emotion, self-discovery, and love. Every page will surely have you entranced in this tale as it did me.
You can read Mary Carter's author guest post about the 5 things she learned while writing My Sister's Voice here.
This book was provided to me for review during Pump Up Your Book Promotion book tour. Receiving a copy in no way altered my opinion of the book.
The Killing of Mindi Quintana, Jeffrey A. Cohen – Review
Freddy Builder is certain he is meant for more. More than his life in corporate-America bondage. More than selling china to bluebloods in Philadelphia's landmark department store, Chanet's. Meant for more, meant for better, and lacking only, only an occasion to rise to.
And now that occasion is murder - of Mindi Quintana, an old college flame wanting simply to stay in his past.
Freddy's crime is major news from the start. Mindi is the beautiful daughter of a renowned Philadelphia businessman whose dramatic fall a few years back captivated the city. A televised trial for Freddy is in the offing. Meanwhile, he is writing the book about his relationship with Mindi - a remorseless rewrite of her life, his own, and their miserable thin involvement.
As excerpts of his book are published to acclaim, he gives articulate, sympathetic jailhouse interviews, publishes ghostwritten articles on prison issues, and coverage goes national. A new celebrity murderer is taking the stage - a killer with a book, a jailhouse literary sensation.
Freddy's defense attorney, Phillip, watches as his client builds his fame with the bones of his victim. As a career public defender, Phillip thought he'd seen evil in all its incarnations. He'd lost his outrage, his passion for the law, and his marriage along the way. But as Freddy's case is a turning point for him - the public's sympathy for the poet-murderer, the rebel, the killer as greater soul - stirs something dormant in Phillip.
To stop Freddy, and to vindicate Mindi, Phillip will have to violate his oath, even break the law. But with the help of Mindi's best friend Lisa, he gives Mindi back the truth of her life and death. And he'll deliver a comeuppance to a killer with a book. - FROM THE BOOK BACK
ABOUT THE AUTHOR...Debut novelist, Jeff Cohen, author of The Killing of Mindi Quintana, is a quintessential Philadelphian, a successful attorney, and a prominent business entrepreneur. In an age of endless fascination with celebrity murderers, his novel delivers what all too often is lost: justice.
FOLLOW THE AUTHOR...Twitter - Website - Facebook
FROM THE BOOK FAERY REVIEWS...It took me some "speed reading" to get through the first 100 or so pages but once past the the novel got more engaging and had me turning page after page. Cohen's main character Freddy reminded me of some creepy guy us females try to avoid. You know the ones who seem nice and appear everywhere you go or keep doing things that make you uncomfortable? Then the moment comes and he snaps (figuratively and literally)...that would be Freddy. For a moment I felt like I needed a bath from the disgust I felt towards Freddy a moment after killing her. Throughout The Killing of Mindi Quintana, you watch the main character Freddy change from an "unnoticeable" man to this viscous fame seeking killer who get's blind sighted in the end.
NOTE to sensitive readers: This novel does contain cursing and some graphic details of the murder.
A copy of the book was provided to me for review. Receiving a copy didn't persuade my opinions one way or the other.
Still The One, Robin Wells – Review & Giveaway
After Katie Charmaine's husband is killed in Iraq, all she has left is a closet full of his clothes, a few pictures, and fond memories. She not only lost her love, but her last chance to have the children she's always wanted. Until Zack Ferguson shows up in town . . . with the daughter Katie gave up for adoption nearly seventeen years ago.
Zack Ferguson has never forgotten Katie, or the one magical night they spent together. Seeing her again brings up a tidal wave of emotions: regret over the way he left her, anger at the secret she kept, and desire he hasn't felt in years. But he's in town for Gracie. Their daughter is sixteen, angry at the world, and-worst of all-pregnant. She needs the love of her two parents now more than ever. Can these three forgive the hurts of the past and open their hearts to each other?
“Robin Wells takes us back to Chartreuse, Louisiana for a deeply moving story of forgiveness and second chances.”---Hachette Book Group
The book club discussion can be found here: http://www.robinwells.com/still_the_one_discussion.html
ABOUT THE AUTHOR...Before becoming a full-time writer, Robin Wells was an advertising and public relations executive, but she always dreamed of writing novels—a dream inspired by a grandmother who told “hot tales” and who were both librarians.
When she sold her first novel, her family celebrated at a Chinese restaurant. Robin’s fortune cookie read “Romance moves you in a new direction”—and it has. Robin has won the RWA Golden Heart Award, two National Readers’ Choice Awards, the Holt Medallion and CRW’s Award of Excellence.
Robin lives just outside New Orleans with her husband, two daughters and an exceedingly spoiled dog named Winnie The Pooh-dle.
FROM THE BOOK FAERY REVIEWS...While this book is considered a contemporary romance (and one that had some pretty hot moments...) this had a lot to do with the secondary characters and the impact of the choice made 17 years ago. I enjoyed Wells' novel Still the One. I'm not usually big on "contemporary romance" but this one I'd recommend to others who enjoy reading novels about family drama, forgiveness, letting go, and love lost then found and rekindled.
GIVEAWAY...I'm giving away 3 copies of Still The One by Robin Wells now through the remainder of May. Leave me a comment if you'd like to see this book arrive in your mailbox and for extra entries do the following:
1) Become an email or RSS feed subscriber
2) Tweet about this giveaway and be sure to add "@farrah1230 #tbfr" (follow @farrah1230 & leave me your twitter handle/link)
3) Share this giveaway on your blog or social network site like Facebook (leave me your facebook link)
The Hazards of the Sailing Away Fantasy, JP White – Author Guest Post
There are few fantasies more compelling in American life than sailing away and leaving the rat race behind. Yet less than half the couples who embark on the "booze, cruise and snooze" life in the islands find the adventure bliss they are seeking. The other half routinely find trouble and lots of it including theft, infidelity, drugs, divorce, loss of boat and sometimes murder. The sailing life -- which is the setting for my debut novel Every Boat Turns South -- provides more than enough fodder for the mystery/crime genre because unsavory characters linger on every dock, beach and fishing pier. And it turns how sailing away is hard work. You need to navigation, engine repair, be reasonably fit and nimble, and have enormous reserves of good cheer and resilience because things will go wrong, the weather will turn foul, and will run aground somewhere. What else?
We don't have to look very far to see that pirates are alive and well in our world. Wherever there is water, there are men and women on boats with guns who know those waters better than anyone else. The Bahamas, where my story travels to, have always been used for drug smuggling because of their proximity to the States. In the 1980s, there were hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cocaine coming into Florida through the islands. Now, there is both human and drug smuggling. If nothing else, the law of the universe tells us opposites always attract. Where there is great beauty and peacefulness there is also the worm of its undoing.
In my novel, a boat delivery from West Palm Beach to St. Thomas in the B.V.I. gets sidetracked by the Trade Winds shifting. The Trades blow from the northeast from November to April then switch around to the southeast starting in April. Matt Younger, my protagonist, is a skipper on a forty-foot trimaran that pulls into South Caicos on April Fool's Day. Problem is, Matt is heading south and he gets caught there. While he's waiting for a front to push back against the Trades, he gets mixed up with a drug pilot and makes a reckless decision to steal a cocaine drop out from under the pilot's nose. When the weather turns foul, sailors make bad decisions all the time. In fact, they've been doing this for thousands of years. Every Boat Turns South is a sailing adventure retold to a dying
father. Bad decisions are the standing rigging of this tale, but then one good decision arrives, but it's not one that anyone expects.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR... J.P. White has published essays, articles, fiction, reviews, interviews and poetry in over a hundred publications including The Nation, The New Republic, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Gettysburg Review, American
Poetry Review, and Poetry (Chicago). He is a graduate of New College in Sarasota, Florida, Colorado State University and Vermont College in Fine Arts. He is the author of five books of poems and a novel, Every Boat Turns South.
Author website: www.jpwhite.net
Every Boat Turns South is the story of Matt Younger, a 30-year-old boat delivery captain, who returns to Florida from the Dominican Republic to make a confession to his dying father.
With two companions, a cook named Jesse, and Phillip, a French mechanic, Matt tells his father how he set off from West Palm Beach on board Stardust, a 40' trimaran that will be tested as much as the crew. Matt Younger reveals how, instead of sailing Stardust in one outside shot to St. Thomas, he drifts through the Bahamas, arriving in the Turks & Caicos, just as the Trade Winds switch against him. There, in Cockburn Harbor, Matt's brush with a drug pilot will take him off course to the Dominican Republic where the dreams that enchant these three sailors are paid for in lust, betrayal, and violence.
When Matt meets Rosario, a sensuous Dominican woman, he believes she can help him outdistance his guilt over his role in the premature death of his brother who was the father's favorite son, yet Rosario has her own dream of escape which she must negotiate just as Matt presses her to leave with him for St. Thomas.
Every Boat Turns South is, in part, a meditation on dying, on love and forgiveness as well as an adventure odyssey of the wayward flesh and the returning spirit, and on how one re-invents and denies the past in order to redeem the present.
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