tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50252174164889242782022-05-15T04:40:48.224-04:00Memories From BooksReviews of books I have readNadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.comBlogger1164125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-12866820544564298792022-05-14T20:40:00.001-04:002022-05-14T20:50:12.917-04:00Olive the Lionheart<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-W6aSKrZ9b44/XoEqc9cBH-I/AAAAAAAAHC0/8jDRZMxHmkUnSla81s0g_F7UMMtcKyZawCKgBGAsYHg/s1600/Olive%2Bthe%2BLionheart%2Bby%2BBrad%2BRicca.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="216" data-original-width="142" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-W6aSKrZ9b44/XoEqc9cBH-I/AAAAAAAAHC0/8jDRZMxHmkUnSla81s0g_F7UMMtcKyZawCKgBGAsYHg/s200/Olive%2Bthe%2BLionheart%2Bby%2BBrad%2BRicca.jpg" width="131" /></a></div><b>Title:</b>&nbsp; Olive the Lionheart: &nbsp;Lost Love, Imperial Spies, and One Woman's Journey into the Heart of Africa<br /><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp; Brad Ricca</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; St. Martin's Press. 2020. 400 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;1250207010 / 978-1250207012<br /><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.<br /><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"Olive was dreaming."</i><br /><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"Olive had not yet arrived at her destination. Yet already she had seen monsters."</i> <i> </i> <br /><i><br /></i><div>A waterfall in the heart of Africa is named after Olive MacLeod. Olive Macleod was an explorer. She did not start off as such. She was born in 1880 in Ireland to an affluent family. A chance meeting with Lieutenant Boyd Alexander led to a relationship and promises of marriage. Boyd Alexander was an African explorer. Soon after their meeting, he returned to Africa with promises to return. The relationship continued through letters. Then, news came that he had died - been murdered - in Africa. Grief drove Olive Macleod to journey to Africa to visit his grave.</div><div><br /></div><div>What a journey it was! She and her group travelled across the ocean. On land, they travelled about 3,000 miles via foot, horseback, and litters through areas that had never been visited by a white woman. The impact of that exploration went far beyond Olive Macleod's personal journey. The French who had authority over the region applauded her courage by naming one of the region's waterfalls for her.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is the journey that this book attempts to capture. As the introduction itself describes, "It is a narrative based on factual sources: &nbsp;a book, diaries, journals, letters, phones and drawings, and other first person accounts." Olive Macleod's story is one of courage, danger, perseverance, and discovery. For teaching me this history which I may never have encountered, I applaud and love the book.</div><div><br /></div><div>That being said, the telling of the story leaves me a bit baffled. For me, it does not capture the very real adventure and the drama that must have been this journey. The book travels back and forth through time It tells of the journey. It also tells of the time that Olive Macleod and Boyd Alexander met and their very brief in-person courtship. It then continues interspersing with the travels letters that Olive Macleod and Boyd Alexander wrote to each other. As a result, it seems to me to focus more on the emotional reason for Olive Macleod's journey rather than the journey itself. I do wonder if this is because the story is that of a female explorer? If the genders were reversed, would the story still have been told in the same way?</div><div><br /></div><div>In the same way, the telling of the story does not for me capture the wonder and grandeur of the setting or the cultures the Olive Macleod must have encountered. For a book about an explorer, I cannot picture what they saw. The discussion of the surroundings often occurred in the difficulties of traveling them. The discussion of the wildlife came in the context of hunts. The discussion of the cultures and people encountered showed the elitist and superior attitudes of the explorers towards the "natives."</div><div><br /></div><div>From the history, Olive Macleod sounds like a courageous, formidable woman. I love the premise of telling her story and the story of the lands she travelled. I just wish I had seen more of that than the romance. I was hoping for the story of an explorer and of the exploration. I got the story of the romance. Nevertheless, I am glad to have discovered the history of Olive Macleod.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-90261427998681326022022-05-07T09:30:00.004-04:002022-05-07T09:59:12.198-04:00The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6AEIwSJ1z60/YCsSKctMAKI/AAAAAAAAIYc/n1i3aJZxPXMTqo0FsvqnMGDhER73GUJPwCPcBGAsYHg/s604/The%2BMost%2BBeautiful%2BGirl%2Bin%2BCuba%2Bby%2BChanel%2BCleeton.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba" border="0" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6AEIwSJ1z60/YCsSKctMAKI/AAAAAAAAIYc/n1i3aJZxPXMTqo0FsvqnMGDhER73GUJPwCPcBGAsYHg/w133-h200/The%2BMost%2BBeautiful%2BGirl%2Bin%2BCuba%2Bby%2BChanel%2BCleeton.jpg" title="The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba" width="133" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba<div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp; <a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/search?q=%22chanel+cleeton%22&amp;max-results=20&amp;by-date=true">Chanel Cleeton</a></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; Berkeley. 2021. 384 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;0593098870 / 978-0593098875</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"I am surrounded by forgotten women."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"... when you control the media and regulate&nbsp;speech in a country you&nbsp;can shape reality however you see fit."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2018/05/next-year-in-havana.html">Next Year in Havana</a> by Chanel Cleeton is based in the history of the 1950s and 1960s and the Castro regime in Cuba. This book travels back to the 1800s - another uprising, another revolution, and another war in the tumultuous history that continues to trace Cuba's existence. This book is set during the time of the Cuban rebellion against Spanish rule. Spain's attempts to squash the rebellion ultimately read to the Spanish-American War.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">This book does not travel two timelines like&nbsp;<i>Next Year in Havana</i>. However, it does travel the story to completely different women whose lives intersect in a most unexpected way.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Grace Harrington is a young reporter in New York City. The New York newspaper scene is defined by the rivalry between William Randolph Hearst and Jospeh Pulitzer. The fued for supremacy reigns over everything. Grace finds her a pawn in this feud as she goes to work for <i>The Journal</i>, Hearst's flagship newspaper. As with any reporter, the goal is the next big scoop.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Evangelina Cisneros is an eighteen year old Cuban woman. Because of who she is, what she stands for, and what she attempts, she is ensured in a trap that lands her in a Havana women's jail.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Evangelina Cisneros' story caught William Hearst's attention. In the interest of newspaper supremacy, her story was published in <i>The Journal</i>, with the tag line "The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba." This, in turn, led to a daring attempt to rescue her from the prison. On October 8, 1897, a New York Times headline read, " Senorita Cisneros Escapes; Bars in her Room in the Casa de Recogidas in Havana Sawed Off and No Clue Found." Subsequently, many raised the question as to whether the whole thing was a hoax or fabricated for newspaper sales. <i>"When you read the news, you don't want to read about every arcane policy disagreement. You want to feel. That's how you win the people."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">At an individual character level, this book is the story of Grace Harrington and Evangelina Cisneros, of how their lives intersect, of the escape, and of what comes after. On a broader scale, this is historical fiction about Cuba and about the New York Gilded Age.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">On a philosophical level, this story is the conversation about journalism. What is news? How is the news influenced by who brings it to us? How is our reading of the news influenced by what is included and what is left out? What is the impact of a news story on the ones that the news cover? Does the impact of a story to influence change justify the means to get it? Given the current addition of social media and other quasi-entertainment sites as "news" sources, this conversation grows in importance. What is news, and what sources do we trust to bring the factual news to us?</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">At every level, the book keeps me turning pages until the very end and then, beyond the end, as I research the history to see what happened next.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-2422487175656720262022-04-19T20:25:00.001-04:002022-04-19T20:25:29.768-04:00A Family Affair<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr2QVcjXjBqIWdvx_dA4eot1Y5KTiaayqVzqNEX9DYws1FrV8tOWt9-RZ4IMF59JsXttKSL-WFufh6te7F7Fcldu-oKmRGX4ZSLJuU1AZduN0KtUjc3anAMeAPYUytS5Z0bYNgJ04TmDsA-BTwaIa5h7hUdODvTTrho0GsA2ht7FzpnzJkebjQPdvm/s600/A%20Family%20Affair%20by%20Robyn%20Carr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="A Family Affair" border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="396" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr2QVcjXjBqIWdvx_dA4eot1Y5KTiaayqVzqNEX9DYws1FrV8tOWt9-RZ4IMF59JsXttKSL-WFufh6te7F7Fcldu-oKmRGX4ZSLJuU1AZduN0KtUjc3anAMeAPYUytS5Z0bYNgJ04TmDsA-BTwaIa5h7hUdODvTTrho0GsA2ht7FzpnzJkebjQPdvm/w132-h200/A%20Family%20Affair%20by%20Robyn%20Carr.jpg" title="A Family Affair" width="132" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; A Family Affair<div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp; <a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/search?q=%22Robyn+Carr%22&amp;max-results=20&amp;by-date=true">Robyn Carr</a></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; MIRA. 2022. 336 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;0778331911 / 978-0778331919</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley and HTP Winter 2022 Women's Fiction blog tour free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"Anna McNichol gently grasped her mother's bent, arthritic hands."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"When it was good, it was very good ... When it was bad, I became an overachiever."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i> <i> </i> <h2 style="text-align: left;">***** BLOG TOUR *****</h2><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Review</h3><div>Anna McNichol is a successful attorney, who has found her passion as a judge in domestic cases. She herself has just been widowed. Her husband Chad goes on a trip and is killed in an accident. She and Chad have been married for a long time. They raised three children who are now adults. Jessie is a physician and ever the over achiever. Michael teaches and coaches high school, and he is forever his mother's champion. Elizabeth faces her challenges, diagnosed with autism as a child; her parent's support and her own perseverance lead her to an independent life as an adult. All three have relationships in their adult lives to varying degrees of success. All three bear the mark of their upbringing.</div><div><br /></div><div>From the outside looking in, Anna and Chad are "the" couple. Each successful in their own right. Each supportive of the other. Together with a wholesome family life and their love for each yet.</div><div><br /></div>And, yet, as we all know, life when the door closes often does not match the vision. That is what this book explores. It begins with Chad's death and the fact that Anna sees a pregnant woman at the funeral. Who is she, and why is she there? Turns out Anna has history that cause her to worry. The reading of the will brings further surprise and another layers to what really lies beneath Chad and Anna's life.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">The book then proceeds to examine these family relationships and the changes they undergo based on Chad's death and based on the discoveries after. Part way through, the book takes an unexpected left turn. It still explores the same things but adds the element of realization that each one of us has a limited amount of time - sometimes more limited than we think.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">The setup works for a family drama and for real life relationships and emotions. Unfortunately, for me, the unfolding of the story seems less real. It feels forced as if the point being made takes over the telling of the story which would leave the same lesson. It is just all too much.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Each main character - Anna and each of her three children - have their own story line that centers on the dysfunctional past of the family. However, that becomes the only memorable facet of each character. Anna stays in a marriage and survives. Jessie cannot sustain a relationship. Michael is afraid of not living up to his idealized version of his father. While I applaud the attempt to include a neurodiverse character, that is about the only thing I learn about Elizabeth. The story ricochets between each of these character traits without developing the character or the story further. Scattered in between are a couple of graphic scenes which don't help.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">The most interesting character in the book is perhaps Amy, whose story is sadly only told tangentially through the other four.&nbsp;</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">The premise and the setup holds potential. Unfortunately, by the end, I am not the reader for this book.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Author</h3>Robyn Carr is an award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than sixty novels, including highly praised women’s fiction such as Four Friends, The Summer That Made Us and The View from Alameda Island, as well as the critically acclaimed Virgin River, Thunder Point and Sullivan's Crossing series. Virgin River is now a Netflix original series. Robyn lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. You can visit her website at robyncarr.com.<br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Book</h3></div><div style="margin: 0px;">An exceptional storyteller, #1 New York Times bestselling author Robyn Carr beautifully captures the emotionally charged, complex dynamics that come with being part of any family. Readers will laugh and shed a few tears as they discover what it means to be loved, supported and accepted by the people who mean the most.<br /><br />When a woman notices a young pregant woman attending her husband's funeral she realizes his mid-life crisis went far beyond his weekend warrior lifestyle. But Carr's story of a family dealing with their grief is full of surprises and as everyone examines their own beliefs and behavior, they become closer than they ever thought possible. Carr tackles the serious issues women face with humor and heart.<div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Excerpt</h3><i>Excerpted from A Family Affair by Robyn Carr. Copyright © 2022 by Robyn Carr. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.</i><br /><br />The celebration of life was not held in a funeral parlor or church but rather in a fancy clubhouse in an upscale Mill Valley community. It was furnished with comfortable sofas, chairs, small round accent tables, thick carpet and carefully chosen art. Its primary purpose was for hosting parties. Residents in the community could rent it for events, which Anna had done. There was a huge viewing screen upon which the pictures of Chad’s life played, a hundred and fifty of them, carefully and lovingly chosen by Anna with a little help from the kids. Every picture had Chad in it, starting from old childhood prints she’d inherited from Chad’s mother years ago. She’d glance up to see one of him in a high school football uniform looking the worse for wear with a big grin on his dirty face; she caught a huge blowup of their wedding picture; there was one soon after of him with baby Jessie asleep on his chest. There were many pictures of Chad alone, a few of Chad and Anna, one of a young Anna gazing lovingly up into Chad’s face, several family groupings. The focus was Chad, his life, his accomplishments, his achievements, his happiness, a few of the important people in his life. Chad, Chad, Chad. Just like before he died.<br /><br />Things had been tense lately, but she remembered those younger years fondly because, although it hadn’t been easy, they had been deeply in love. They met through what can only be described as fate, as destiny. In fact, their meeting was a legendary family story. Anna had been in San Francisco, shopping on her lunch hour down at Fisherman’s Wharf. Shopping but not buying, which was typical for her as she had been and still was very frugal. She loved the sea lions, enjoyed watching tourists, sometimes found bargains at Pier 1, enjoyed the occasional meal on the pier.<br /><br />On that day, something strange happened. She heard a panicked cry rise from the crowd of tourists on the pier, saw a food truck trundling across the pier without a driver, picking up speed. A man in work clothes and apron was chasing the truck. She only had seconds to take it in. It seemed the food truck, its awning out and moving fast, was headed toward a group of people. Right before her eyes the truck knocked a man off the pier before the truck was stopped by a barricade. <br /><br />The man, completely unaware, flew off the dock and into the water below, startling a large number of fat sea lions who had been sunning themselves nearby.<br /><br />The sea lions scrambled into the water and the man was flailing around in a panic. Someone yelled, “He can’t swim!” Hardly giving it a thought, Anna dropped her purse, kicked off her shoes and jumped off the pier, swimming to the man. Getting to him was no challenge; she practically landed on top of him. But he was hysterical and splashing, kicking and sputtering. “You’re okay, come on,” she said, grabbing his shirt by the collar. But he fought harder and sank, nearly pulling her under with him.<br /><br />She slapped him in the face and that startled him enough he could let himself be rescued. She slid her arm around his neck and began pulling him to the dock where a couple of men seemed to be standing by to pull him in.<br /><br />There was a lot of commotion, not to mention honking noises from sea lions. Anna was shivering in her wet clothes and all she could think at the time was how was she going to locate a change of clothes for her afternoon at work. Then there were emergency vehicles and a handsome young police officer draped a blanket around her shoulders and took a report. The near drowning victim was taken away in an ambulance and Anna was given a ride to her apartment by the cute policeman. She was delighted and surprised when the police officer called her a week later. She almost hyperventilated in hope that he’d ask her out.<br /><br />“The man you pulled out of the water has been in touch. He wants your name,” the officer said.<br /><br />“He isn’t going to sue me, is he?” she asked.<br /><br />“I don’t think so,” he said with a laugh. “He seems very grateful. He won’t have any trouble tracking you down but I said I’d ask. He probably wants to thank you.” <br /><br />The man’s name was Chad. He was finishing up his PhD at Berkeley while she was working in a law office in the Bay Area. She was twenty-three and he was twenty-seven and she was not prepared for how handsome he was and of course much better put together than when he was dragged out of the water.<br /><br />He took her to dinner and, as she recalled, their first date was almost like an interview. He wanted to know everything about her and was utterly amazed to learn she’d had a job as a lifeguard in a community pool for exactly one summer when she was a teenager and yet jumped in to save him with total confidence. They fell in love almost instantly. The first time they made love, he asked her to marry him. She didn’t say yes right away, but they knew from the start they were made for each other. What they didn’t know was how many fights they’d have. Very few big fights but many small ones; she thought of them as bickering. They fought about what was on the pizza; a scrape on the side of the car that was not her fault, not even remotely; what kind of vacation they should have and where they should go. As Anna recalled, they always went where Chad wanted to go. They fought about what movie to see, where to eat, what was grumbled under his or her breath.<br /><br />They fought seriously about his affair. That was in the distant past but it took a long time to get over. Years. But when they finally pledged to stay married, to do their best to make it good, they fell into bed and had the best sex of their lives. And they had Elizabeth.<br /><br />That experience was how she knew that all the excuses for this current marital rift, no matter what he called it, was probably about another woman and not them growing apart or having divergent needs. He wouldn’t admit it and she had no proof, but she had better than average instincts. She believed he’d gotten all excited at the prospect of falling in love and was rewriting their history to make that acceptable. He was looking for an excuse that would make it reasonable to step outside the bonds of marriage. She could feel it; he’d been involved with someone else.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">Buy Links</h3><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/a-family-affair-9780778331742/9780778331742">BookShop.org</a><br /><a href="https://www.harlequin.com/shop/books/9780778331742_a-family-affair.html">Harlequin</a> <br /><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-family-affair-robyn-carr/1139735449?ean=9780778331742">Barnes &amp; Noble</a><br /><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Family-Affair-Novel-Robyn-Carr-ebook/dp/B097YK3ZFC/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=9780778331742&amp;qid=1637772117&amp;qsid=137-7701790-5245009&amp;sr=8-1&amp;sres=0778331741&amp;srpt=ABIS_BOOK">Amazon</a><br /><a href="https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Family-Affair/Robyn-Carr/9780778331742?id=8353658283557">Books-A-Million</a><br /><a href="https://www.powells.com/book/a-family-affair-9780778331742">Powell’s</a> <br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">Social Links</h3><a href="https://www.robyncarr.com/">Author Website</a><br />Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/RCarrWriter">@RCarrWriter</a><br />Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RobynCarrWriter">Robyn Carr</a><br />Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/robyncarrwriter/">@robyncarrwriter</a><br /><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/107767.Robyn_Carr?from_search=true">Goodreads</a><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-65235325179890338702022-04-07T20:07:00.001-04:002022-04-07T20:07:47.229-04:00Letter to a Stranger<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CtHb3BOUHXA/YPMxBlRJdPI/AAAAAAAAIz8/Fa1e6sZB1n0IgyQlZWVYsOIL1C0nLMqfACPcBGAsYHg/s579/Letter%2Bto%2Ba%2BStranger%2Bby%2BColleen%2BKinder.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="579" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CtHb3BOUHXA/YPMxBlRJdPI/AAAAAAAAIz8/Fa1e6sZB1n0IgyQlZWVYsOIL1C0nLMqfACPcBGAsYHg/w138-h200/Letter%2Bto%2Ba%2BStranger%2Bby%2BColleen%2BKinder.jpg" width="138" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; Letter to a Stranger: &nbsp;Essays to the Ones Who Haunt Us<div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Editor:</b>&nbsp; Colleen Kinder</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; Algonquin Books. 2021. 336 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;1643751247 / 978-1643751245</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley and a publisher's blog tour free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"We are born into a world of strangers."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"These letters are gifts. The invitation to write a letter is a gift. The invitation to write a letter is a gift. The invitation of a fissure is a gift. It's a way of encountering the world that stays attuned to the incompleteness of our vision: the infinitude of what we can see, and the infinitude of what we can't. These letters say: I never had you. I never knew you. I am to see to it that I do not lose your."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i> <i> </i> <h2 style="text-align: left;">***** BLOG TOUR *****</h2><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Review</h3><div><i> </i>What a fascinating project! The author put a call out to other authors to "write a letter to a stranger who haunts you." She gets responses from around the world. She then compiles sixty five responses into this book.</div><div><br /></div><div>The form and content of the letters are perhaps as diverse as the origins of the letters themselves. Nicaragua, Myanmar, Peru, Germany, Italy, India, China, Australia, France, Uganda, and several from the United States. Each letter is as individual as its writer and its individual audience; each one stands along. Yet, at the same time, there are common themes and a universality running through all of them. This book is yet another example that around the world, more unites us than divides us. A powerful lesson in a world so divided.</div><div><br /></div><div>The letters are organized into sections: &nbsp;symmetry, mystery, chemistry, gratitude, wonder, remorse, and farewell. All themes are ideas the reader can relate to, and all trigger an emotion. The form of the book itself triggers an emotion. A letter is contained. Yet, in this day of text messages, emails, and other forms of communication, a letter is at the same time expansive, allowing room to explain and breathe. The idea of writing to a stranger is expansive because perhaps in that anonymity more can be said. A letter is also intimate and personal. Reading someone else's letter can seem an illicit pleasure, or, in this case, an invitation into someone's world. That is the emotion of it.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>"My letter ... wasn't the account of an entire life; it was an account of brushing up - just briefly - against the infinitude of another person, and feeling him brush up against my own. It opened up a seam in my memory and asked me to peer through it. It was a fissure. This is a book of fissures. They live in all of us."</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Throughout this book, as I read letter after letter, strangers who touched my life come to mind. Who would I write to if I were to embark on this journey? What would I say? So, here goes one of mine...</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Dear Fellow Book Lover,</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Welcome. I do not know you, but I feel that you are a friend. A book lover who has found their way here surely must be a friend. I see you at the library and look to see what you are reading. I see you so engrossed in your book on a train. I see you on the park bench. I see you at story time perhaps passing your love of reading on. I see you at the bookstore mulling over choices.&nbsp;</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>I do not know you, yet the book you hold is one I love. I want to ask you what you think of it. How did it move you... Were your surprised when... Could you believe that ending... What other books do you love.... I want to talk and get lost in a world of books.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>I hope you enjoy what you read here and learning something about this stranger writing these words. I hope you walk away with a recommendation. I hope you come back.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Happy reading, fellow book lover!</i></div><div><br /></div><div>How about you? Who is the stranger who comes to your mind?</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Book</h3>When Colleen Kinder put out a call for authors to “write a letter to a stranger who haunts you,” she opened the floodgates. The responses—intimate and addictive, all in the form of letters, all written in the second person—began pouring in. These short, insightful essays by today’s best literary minds are organized around such themes as Grati­tude, Wonder, and Farewell, and guide us both across the globe and through the mysteries of human connection.<br /><br />Bestselling author Leslie Jamison, who provides the foreword, reveals she has been haunted for years by a traveling magician she met in Nicaragua. Journalist Ted Conover writes his missive to a stranger he met on a New Yorker assignment in Rwanda. From the story of Vanessa Hua’s shoe shopper in China to the tale of Michelle Tea’s encounter in a Texas tattoo parlor, these pieces are replete with observations about how to live and what to seek, and how a stranger’s loaded glance, shared smile, or question posed can alter the course of our lives. Moving and unforgettable, Letter to a Stranger is an irresistible read for any literary traveler and the perfect gift for anyone who is haunted by a person they met once but will remember forever.<br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Author</h3>Colleen Kinder is an essayist and editor whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, National Geographic Traveler, Salon.com, and The Best American Travel Writing. She has taught writing at Yale University, the Chautauqua Institution, and Semester at Sea. A Fulbright Scholar, Kinder received her MFA at the University of Iowa and is the author of Delaying the Real World and the cofounder of the online magazine Off Assignment.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-62255391431167410792022-03-27T18:46:00.004-04:002022-03-27T18:46:42.535-04:00This Might Hurt<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjfP7idHx12p5w0RgHt4ALaEA_rAE9MrN3sbOhZCV0HrfrhskEcOi5CBL2l21USQk5PH5dDTN5xaSuw8h_pvV4uKgb2CdEW7xK6GEGHAmA53X7VgKOCbApjeX0MTnLAJ4W9ofR7aY0XtGIVTRy89E49s_955yntBtMT5EFBDZxTE-KfE5zN_mQtkPCJ=s600" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="This Might Hurt" border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="397" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjfP7idHx12p5w0RgHt4ALaEA_rAE9MrN3sbOhZCV0HrfrhskEcOi5CBL2l21USQk5PH5dDTN5xaSuw8h_pvV4uKgb2CdEW7xK6GEGHAmA53X7VgKOCbApjeX0MTnLAJ4W9ofR7aY0XtGIVTRy89E49s_955yntBtMT5EFBDZxTE-KfE5zN_mQtkPCJ=w133-h200" title="This Might Hurt" width="133" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; This Might Hurt<div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp; Stephanie Wrobel</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; Berkeley. 2022. 336 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp; 0593100085 / 978-0593100080</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley and a publisher's blog tour free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"I stand at the head of&nbsp;the conference table."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"Did we know we were making our favorite memories while they were happening?"</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">***** BLOG TOUR *****</h2><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Review</h3><div style="margin: 0px;">Wisewood is a place. More than that, Wisewood is a state of mind. "Guests" are expected to come and stay for a minimum of six months. Some come and never leave. During their stay, guests are expected to adhere strictly to the rules. Rules such as no phone, no contact with&nbsp;the outside world, no physical contact&nbsp;with other guests, assigned chores, no leaving, and more.&nbsp;The goal - to help each guest focus entirely on themselves and become fearless.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">All Natalie Collins knows is that her sister Kit disappeared into this world about six months ago and has not reappeared. That might have been okay since Natalie and her sister have been estranged. However, Natalie receives an email from someone at Wisewood that they will reveal her secret to Kit. What secret? The email does not say, but Natalie know. So, of course, she takes herself off to Wisewood, find Kit and either prevent the secret from coming out or tell Kit herself before someone else does.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">So begins this somewhat confusing story of a cult. There are multiple narrators - Natalie, Kit, and a third unnamed narrator. There are also multiple time periods - the present at Wisewood, Natalie and Kit's childhood, Kit's time as she comes to Wisewood, and an undefined time in the life of the third narrator. Eventually, it all comes together but...</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">As a reader, it takes me way too long to realize there are three narrators - and not just Natalie and Kit - &nbsp;and then it takes me way too long to identify who the third narrator is. By the time I realize the connection, it is a little too late to go back, reread and develop a better sense of this character, to redefine the characters who are not this narrator, and bring it all together into what happens next.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">This book is dark. The images of child abuse and the physical and psychological scars it leaves are heart wrenching and disturbing. The abuse is relentless. This book does hurt and should absolutely contain trigger warning that is not currently in the book description. The fact that because of the multiple narrators, I realize late in the book the victim of this abuse makes the book a challenge. That unfortunately lessons the understanding of the far-reaching impact that childhood abuse can have.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Beyond the story of the two sisters or really the story of the third narrator, the book is a view into a cult. Perhaps the most fascinating part of this book is the concept on which the cult is based - the idea of facing fears and living live fearlessly. That idea has merit and can likely be found in much of personal development literature and training. To see an idea of merit devolve into a cult with such negative ramifications is relevant to today's world. That view, rather than the characters or the story, is my lasting memory of this book.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Author</h3>Stephanie Wrobel grew up in Chicago but lives in the UK for the past three years with her husband and dog, Moose Barkwinkle. She has an MFA from Emerson College and has had short fiction published in Bellevue Literary Review. She is also the author <i>Darling Rose Gold </i>and has been&nbsp;a creative copywriter at various advertising agencies.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Book</h3>From the USA Today bestselling and Edgar-nominated author ofDarling Rose Gold comes a dark, thrilling novel about two sisters—one trapped in the clutches of a cult, the other in a web of her own lies.<br /> <br />Welcome to Wisewood. We’ll keep your secrets if you keep ours. <br /><br />Natalie Collins hasn’t heard from her sister in more than half a year.<br /><br />The last time they spoke, Kit was slogging from mundane workdays to obligatory happy hours to crying in the shower about their dead mother. She told Natalie she was sure there was something more out there. <br /><br />And then she found Wisewood.<br /><br />On a private island off the coast of Maine, Wisewood’s guests commit to six-month stays. During this time, they’re prohibited from contact with the rest of the world—no Internet, no phones, no exceptions. But the rules are for a good reason: to keep guests focused on achieving true fearlessness so they can become their Maximized Selves. Natalie thinks it’s a bad idea, but Kit has had enough of her sister’s cynicism and voluntarily disappears off the grid.<br /> <br />Six months later Natalie receives a menacing e-mail from a Wisewood account threatening to reveal the secret she’s been keeping from Kit. Panicked, Natalie hurries north to come clean to her sister and bring her home. But she’s about to learn that Wisewood won’t let either of them go without a fight.<div style="margin: 0px;"><div> </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-23187253322870018402022-03-19T18:04:00.001-04:002022-03-19T18:04:06.535-04:00The Summer Getaway<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjmKIcK9dPlAa0THrnAjLs0L-FKUqqaZViSzsR_UQF-h2MB8BRYJTWyF142OftVq7evG3sWwXnBHU68wzwqUtR4hIFVTIJjGKc5o6Fy8hQyoRrFPWQrTDKPPmVHSmTZnFapiphqxDbZCFNDdmFGek0KxNDSbrXykI0uZBgK3Whr6o4PJ68Ef61Fhpxh=s600" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The Summer Getaway" border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="396" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjmKIcK9dPlAa0THrnAjLs0L-FKUqqaZViSzsR_UQF-h2MB8BRYJTWyF142OftVq7evG3sWwXnBHU68wzwqUtR4hIFVTIJjGKc5o6Fy8hQyoRrFPWQrTDKPPmVHSmTZnFapiphqxDbZCFNDdmFGek0KxNDSbrXykI0uZBgK3Whr6o4PJ68Ef61Fhpxh=w132-h200" title="The Summer Getaway" width="132" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; The Summer Getaway<div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp; <a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/search?q=%22susan+mallery%22&amp;max-results=20&amp;by-date=true">Susan Mallery</a></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; HQN. 2022. 416 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;1335479996 / 978-1335479990</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley and a publisher's blog tour free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"'I'm going to sleep with Dimitri.'"</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"No one who's an awful person is willing to&nbsp;consider&nbsp;the possibility that she's awful. Self-awareness requires&nbsp;intelligence..."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i> <i> </i> <h1 style="text-align: left;">***** BLOG TOUR *****</h1><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Review</h3><div>This book deals with infidelity, an absentee parent, death, mother-child angst, military service, an unplanned pregnancy, bridezilla, divorce, financial insecurity, childhood cancer, and more. At the same time, it deals with love, dreams, hopes, friendship, and the courage to pursue them. It features an odd mansion on the Santa Barbara coast overlooking the ocean. It features the kind of wealth that can afford such a mansion.</div><div><br /></div><div>So much happens in this book that it makes for a fun read because it is so over the top. Robyn Caldwell is at the heart of this story. She is there for everyone - her ex-husband, her boyfriend, her kids, her friend who also happens to be her boss, and her aunt. The question of it all is where and who is Robyn beyond all that surrounds her. Who was she before she started putting everyone else first?</div><div><br /></div><div>The thing is she has the luxury of finding out. She has the luxury of an escape to her aunt's home in California. The fact that the home happens to be a gigantic ocean front mansion helps. The fact that Robyn &nbsp;is to be at least partial heir to her aunt's fortune helps. The fact that she meets the other heir when she gets to California helps. Let's just say the book isn't exactly grounded in the day to day reality of most of our lives. However, that makes this perfect escapist reading.</div><div><br /></div><div>Robyn gets her momentary escape until everyone - and I do mean everyone - somehow ends up following her to California. Her son Austin is figuring out who is going to be when he grows up. Her daughter Harlow needs to grow up and define her self beyond an indulged kid. Harlow and her fiancé need to determine if their relationship is a partnership between adults. Robyn's ex-husband is still trying to get Robyn to solve his problems. The ex-boyfriend cannot take rejection. Even the friend intrudes on Robyn's escape with her own crisis. In the middle of all this, Robyn herself must figure out what is next for her own life.</div><div><br /></div><div>Some of the scenes and the chaos that ensues is completely over the top. Yes, emotions and situations that are closer to real life. Some I find myself relating. Yet, the fact that all of this happens to Robyn and at the same time leaves me laughing at the circumstances. Laughter is a good thing in an escapist read. I am not sure if that is the intended impact, but it works for me.</div><div><br /></div><div>All the individual stories end up about where I expect them to, but it is a fun journey getting there.</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Book</h3>Already a worldwide success in mass market and trade paperback formats, Susan Mallery’s newest hardcover is an emotional, witty, and heartfelt story about a woman who takes a trip to California to figure out her life and get a break from her family...only to be reminded that life--and your children--follow you wherever you go. With a powerful mother/daughter relationship at its core, fans of Elin Hilderbrand, Susan Wiggs, Mary Alice Monroe, and Nancy Thayer will love this book.<br /><br />Robyn Caldwell’s family is driving her crazy. There’s Harlow, her daughter, who’s engaged to a man she’s only known a short time and is rapidly turning into bridezilla. And her son, Austin, who would rather work with his dad’s family charter boating business than go to college. Her friend, Mindy, who’s playing with fire by contemplating an affair with her tennis instructor. And let’s not forget her ex-husband whose bad behavior has just crossed the line yet again.<br /><br />Robin needs some time to catch her breath and figure out what her next step should be. So when her beloved aunt Lillian asks her to come to Santa Barbara for an overdue visit, Robyn jumps at the chance. Her aunt Lillian is working on settling her affairs and a distant relative is staying with her that stands to inherit the house. Trouble is the last thing Robyn needs, but she refuses to let her aunt be taken advantage of.<br /><br />While staying in her aunt’s beautiful, quirky mansion and spending time in the Santa Barbara sunshine with the woman who’s like a mother to her, Robyn will see herself—and the people she loves most—with a bit more clarity. And it will push her to take chances she hadn’t dreamed of before.<br /><br />But life has a funny way of following you wherever you go. What began as an escape soon becomes an unforgettable adventure…and Robyn is ready to dive in, feet first.<br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Author</h3>SUSAN MALLERY is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of novels about the relationships that define women's lives—family, friendship and romance. Library Journal says, “Mallery is the master of blending emotionally believable characters in realistic situations," and readers seem to agree—forty million copies of her books have been sold worldwide. Her warm, humorous stories make the world a happier place to live.<br /><br />Susan grew up in California and now lives in Seattle with her husband. She's passionate about animal welfare, especially that of the two Ragdoll cats and adorable poodle who think of her as Mom.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Q&amp;A with Susan Mallery</h3><i><b>Tell us about your latest book, who is the main character(s) and what can we expect when we pick it up? </b></i><br />The Summer Getaway, which will be out on March 15, is the story of Robyn Caldwell, a mom who has one too many things on her plate—her daughter’s wedding demands, her son’s refusal to grow up, her best friend’s self-destructive behavior, and her ex-husband’s wildly inappropriate new girlfriend: their daughter’s soon-to-be sister-in-law. She’s been focusing on everyone else’s problems so much that she forgot to make a plan for her own future.<br /><br />She needs a minute. So Robyn hops on a plane to visit her beloved great-aunt Lillian in sunny Santa Barbara, to give herself time and space to figure out what she wants the rest of her life to look like. But she’s the heart of her family, and those family ties draw everyone she loves to follow her across the country, one by one.<br /><br />I adore Robyn, a smart, nurturing mom who has given so much that she forgot about herself. I think a lot of us women are like that, and I think readers will be thrilled to go along on Robyn’s journey of self-discovery.<br /><br /><i><b>Give us an out of context quote from your book to warm our hearts.</b></i><br />Harlow's gaze turned knowing. "You're protecting him. Not because you're still in love with him, but because he's my father. This is about me, not him." She smiled. "You're a good mom. I hope when I have kids I'm just like you."<br /><br /><i><b>Which of your characters would you want to share a campfire with, and why? </b></i><br />Oh, Robyn, for sure. First of all, because she’s the kind of woman I love to have as a friend—great sense of humor, good conversationalist, loving, loyal, smart. And secondly, because the woman knows how to cook. (That said, I would choose a fireside table at a nice restaurant. I don’t get the appeal of eating outside.)<br /><br /><i><b>Where do you get your ideas for your books, characters, series? </b></i><br />Ideas come from everywhere – conversations, articles. Songs are a great source of inspiration for me. I’m convinced that there’s a book in every country music song, but you might be surprised at the idea that comes from a song. For me, it’s not about the lyrics or the story of the song, as much as it is about the emotions.<br /><br />So yes, ideas are everywhere, but the idea is merely a spark. The tough part is fanning that spark into flames, into a full-length women’s fiction novel. I’ve had a lot of ideas that weren’t good enough to sustain a book. I either have to reassign it as a subplot, or let it go. (That is so hard sometimes!)<br /><br />The spark that led to The Summer Getaway is something no one would ever, ever guess. I had an idea to write a story about a woman who has fallen in love with an oil painting and goes in search of the artist, sure that they will share a deep connection. Instead, she discovers that the painting means nothing to him. He paints the same scene over and over again because it sells.<br /><br />But there’s no artist in The Summer Getaway. No contemporary oil painting. While brainstorming the book, the idea morphed beyond recognition from that initial spark. Inspiration is a funny, ineffable thing. You don’t know where it will lead. All you can do is loosen the reins on your mind and let it run.<br /><br />I couldn’t be happier with the end result. The Summer Getaway is a heartfelt, emotion-filled story of one woman’s triumph over self-doubt. Robyn is nurturing and fiercely loyal, and I love her.<br /><br />I might still write about that artist. . .<br /><br /><b><i>Do you interconnect series and locations or is it one and done with series?</i></b><br />Sometimes series are connected to other series, sometimes not. The Summer Getaway is a standalone novel, not part of a series. But when it comes to series, the Fool’s Gold series segued into the Happily Inc series. The Blackberry Island series segued into the Mischief Bay series—and then I returned to Blackberry Island with Sisters by Choice. A teenager in the Bakery Sisters series ended up as the hero of one of the Fool’s Gold books, Finding Perfect. (That was a reader’s suggestion, by the way.)<br /><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><b><i>How do you keep track of your characters when a series is longer...do you keep what I have heard referred to as a "Bible"? </i></b><br />I do have a series bible that my assistant creates. The Fool’s Gold bible is about 300 pages long. Every character is in it, with whatever specific details have appeared on the page—age, height, hair and eye color, where they went to college, what kind of car they drive. . . And because animals are so important in my books, even the animals are included in the bible.<br /><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><b><i>Did you love books as a child, what age did you begin to read and devour books, and what is the first book that you remember that made a difference in your writing (as a child or later)?</i></b><br />Oh yes, I was a voracious reader for as long as I can remember. Every Saturday, my dad took me to the library, and the rule was that I was allowed to check out as many books as I could carry. We would go home, and I’d read them all that day, and then spend the week re-reading the ones I loved. When a librarian told me how many more books I could carry if I used a tote bag, she changed my life!</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br />I didn’t start writing until I was in college (studying accounting). In addition to my full courseload, I took an evening class titled How to Write a Romance Novel. By week six of the eight-week course, I knew I wanted to write books.<br /><br />My goal, still, is to make each book better than the last, so I continue to study the craft of writing. I don’t remember the first book that made a difference in my writing, so I’ll tell you about a book that did so more recently—Save the Cat! It’s a book on screenwriting. Although I don’t have aspirations of writing screenplays, I like to study screenwriting because I find the story structure helpful. Save the Cat! talked about the importance of high stakes in a way that made me think differently when plotting my books. In my books, the stakes aren’t actual life and death, but they’re deeply emotional stories, and the stakes need to feel like emotional life and death to the characters and to the reader.<br /><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><b><i>Can you remember one or more early books that influenced you? What were they? Did you remain interested in the same type of stories over the decades or did your interests change?&nbsp;</i></b><br />When I was a teenager, I discovered my best friend’s mom’s stash of romance novels. She let me borrow them whenever I wanted. I still remember the feeling that came over me when reading that first one—that moment of catching my breath when the hero’s and heroine’s eyes met in the mirror—and that early reading experience continues to influence me today.<br /><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><b><i>Do you read the same genre you write or branch out to relax?</i></b><br />I still love reading women’s fiction and romance. I like stories that bring me deep inside characters’ heads and hearts, and I love happy endings.<br /><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><b><i>Do you write under another name or in other genres? If so...please share!</i></b><br />No, I only write under Susan Mallery. Early in my career, I wrote a few historicals as Susan Macias.<br /><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><b><i>How many books have you written?</i></b><br />176 and counting… (including a few that haven’t been published yet—The Boardwalk Bookshop will be out in May, Home Sweet Christmas in October, and The Sister Effect next year, assuming the title doesn’t change.) And I’m working on more.<br /><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><b>Is writing easy or difficult...or should I ask what parts are easy and what parts are difficult? </b></i><br />The beginning of a book usually goes relatively slowly for me as I get to know the characters. But once I’m in the groove, the actual writing goes pretty fast and smoothly for me. I do a lot of plot work before I ever sit down to write, and that works for me.<br /><br />The more challenging part for me, after all these books, is to come up with ideas that I haven’t already written about, but that still give readers the experience they want from one of my stories. Variety makes it more interesting and fun for me, too.<br /><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><b>Tell us about what you are reading at the moment or anticipate reading in the future? Any new books you are looking forward to?</b></i><br />Christina Dodd has a new one coming out this summer that I can’t wait to read—Point Last Seen. She’s a master of romantic suspense, and I find myself holding my breath as I read.&nbsp;I’m currently reading First Comes Baby by one of my favorite romance authors and one of my favorite people, Christine Rimmer.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /><div style="margin: 0px;"><h3 style="text-align: left;">Social Links</h3>Twitter: @susanmallery<br />Facebook: @susanmallery<br />Instagram: @susanmallery<br />Author website: https://www.susanmallery.com/<br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">Buy Links</h3>Bookshop.org: <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-summer-getaway/9781335479990">https://bookshop.org/books/the-summer-getaway/9781335479990</a> <br />Amazon: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1335479996?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=wwwsusanmalle-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1335479996">https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1335479996?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=wwwsusanmalle-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1335479996</a> <br />Barnes &amp; Noble: <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-summer-getaway-susan-mallery/1139380149?ean=9781335479990">https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-summer-getaway-susan-mallery/1139380149?ean=9781335479990</a> <br />Books-a-Million: <a href="https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Summer-Getaway/Susan-Mallery/9781335479990?id=8185827134866">https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Summer-Getaway/Susan-Mallery/9781335479990?id=8185827134866</a> <br />Indie Bound: <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781335479990">https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781335479990</a> <br />Kindle: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B093T6319S?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=wwwsusanmalle-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B093T6319S">https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B093T6319S?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=wwwsusanmalle-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B093T6319S</a> <br />Nook: <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-summer-getaway-susan-mallery/1139380149?ean=9780369703668">https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-summer-getaway-susan-mallery/1139380149?ean=9780369703668</a> <br />Google Play: <a href="https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Susan_Mallery_The_Summer_Getaway?id=ZgcsEAAAQBAJ">https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Susan_Mallery_The_Summer_Getaway?id=ZgcsEAAAQBAJ</a> <br />Apple Books: <a href="https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-summer-getaway/id1565341890">https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-summer-getaway/id1565341890</a> <br />Kobo: <a href="https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-summer-getaway-1">https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-summer-getaway-1</a> <br />Walmart: <a href="https://www.walmart.com/ip/The-Summer-Getaway-Hardcover-9781335479990/209254131">https://www.walmart.com/ip/The-Summer-Getaway-Hardcover-9781335479990/209254131</a> Target: <a href="https://www.target.com/p/the-summer-getaway-by-susan-mallery-hardcover/-/A-83982879">https://www.target.com/p/the-summer-getaway-by-susan-mallery-hardcover/-/A-83982879</a><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-50254591748371628702022-03-08T18:12:00.000-05:002022-03-08T18:12:10.231-05:00The Wonders<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEibZpZMWEvQmB-jRaoYgf6bJgQ6FjlxkNqy0SzETkDulqCWMQbTbAb2iIZP25jKN3u8XvwSmcGDA1zr7AxPZYrCcRCdTyeRho63hM4OWQJ6dcVuy58pKS8zZi4wFg0iH3SZ_5GoI1sSzonFO2f4GxvOOBTGgYzugm61RViqEA4TnvMo7AiJlsAOo4iz=s600" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The Wonders" border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="403" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEibZpZMWEvQmB-jRaoYgf6bJgQ6FjlxkNqy0SzETkDulqCWMQbTbAb2iIZP25jKN3u8XvwSmcGDA1zr7AxPZYrCcRCdTyeRho63hM4OWQJ6dcVuy58pKS8zZi4wFg0iH3SZ_5GoI1sSzonFO2f4GxvOOBTGgYzugm61RViqEA4TnvMo7AiJlsAOo4iz=w134-h200" title="The Wonders" width="134" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; The Wonders<div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp; Elena Medel (author). Lizzie Davis &amp; Thomas Bunstead (translators).</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; Algonquin Books. 2022. 240 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;1643752111 / 978-1643752112</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley and a publisher's blog tour free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"She checked her pockets and found nothing."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"It's funny, Maria will think many years from now, how memory generates its own fictions: &nbsp;how what hasn't stayed with us,&nbsp;because we think it insignificant or&nbsp;because it doesn't align with our expectations, gets filled in with what we wish had happened instead."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i> <i> </i> <h2 style="text-align: left;">***** BLOG TOUR *****</h2><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Review</h3><div>Three generations - Maria, Carmen, and Alicia - separated by time distance and difficult choices. Maria grows up in a small town. She has a baby at a young age out of wedlock. She is sent to her aunt's house in Madrid while the baby stays with her family in her small town. In Madrid, Maria learns the relationship between money and power. Carmen grows up knowing very little of her mother, and that sends her life on a different trajectory. Carmen's daughter Alicia moves to Madrid to see her own future. Maria and Alicia's paths cross in the context of the Women's March in 2018, but neither know it.</div><div><br /></div><div>In parallel perspectives, the book tells the story of these three women and the issues, challenges, and changes surrounding the role of women. Politics and the women's movement provide the context and history of their stories. </div><div><br /></div><div>The release of this book during Women's History Month is clearly purposeful as these three women chart their course within what is still a patriarchy. The placement of the current time at the time of the Women's March certainly ties into that theme.</div><div><br /></div><div>I want to like this book better than I actually do. The theme and the idea appeals to me. The publicity for the book and the awards it has one speak to its success. Yet, I feel like I am missing something. I feel like I get lost in the story, and I do not understand. That begins at the beginning and continues all the way to the ending. Perhaps that may be due to the fact that I am reading a translation. Elena Mendel's background is in poetry. Perhaps that style carries to this book, and it just does not translate.</div><div><br /></div><div>The emotion of the book - or the emotion that I think should be there - does not come to life off the pages. I don't really understand why, but say, once again, that perhaps, it does not translate well. As the language changes, so does the spirit of the story.</div><div><br /></div><div>What I do walk away is an understanding of the universality of certain experience and certain gender struggles. The women of this book struggle with teenage pregnancy, single parenting, the quest for independence, family expectations, societal norms, the patriarchy, and so much more. This book is set in Spain and covers three generations. The same conversations occur in so many other nations and across so many times. So many parallels across time and place - some days it seems like this conversation makes no progress at all.</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Book</h3>From award-winning Spanish poet Elena Medel comes a mesmerizing new novel of class, sex, and desire. <br /><br />Already an international sensation, The Wonders follows Maria and Alicia through the streets of Madrid, from job to job and apartment to apartment, as they search for meaning and stability in a precarious world and unknowingly trace each other’s footfalls across time. <br /><br />Maria moved to the city in 1969, leaving her daughter with her family but hoping to save enough to take care of her one day. She worked as a housekeeper, then a caregiver, and later a cleaner, and somehow she was always taking care of someone else. Two generations later, in 2018, Alicia was working at the snack shop in Madrid’s Atocha train station when it overflowed with protestors and strikers. All women—and so many of them—protesting what? Alicia wasn’t entirely sure. She couldn’t have known that Maria was among them. Alicia didn’t have time for marches; she was just trying to hang on until the end of her shift, when she might meet someone to take her away for a few hours, to make her forget. <br /><br />Readers will fall in love with Maria and Alicia, whose stories finally converge in the chaos of the protests, the weight of the years of silence hanging thickly in the air between them. The Wonders brings half a century of the feminist movement to life, and launches an inimitable new voice in fiction. Medel’s lyrical sensibility reveals her roots as a poet, but her fast-paced and expansive storytelling show she’s a novelist ahead of her time. I understand the sadness intellectually. I just wish I was walking away feeling it.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Author</h3>Elena Medel is a Spanish poet and the founder and publisher of La Bella Varsovia, an independent poetry publishing house. Medel was the first woman ever to win the prestigious Francisco Umbral Prize, for her debut novel The Wonders, which was also longlisted for the Finestres Award and has been translated into fifteen languages. She published her prizewinning first collection of poetry, My First Bikini, when she was sixteen years old.<br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Translator</h3>Lizzie Davis is a translator and an editor at Coffee House Press. She has translated Elena Medel’s poetry collection My First Bikini, Juan Cárdenas’s Ornamental (a finalist for the 2021 PEN Translation Prize), and work by Valeria Luiselli, Pilar Fraile Amador, and Aura García-Junco. Her work has appeared in the Paris Review, Granta, and other publications.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-78840525916206777492022-03-05T18:06:00.002-05:002022-03-05T18:23:41.862-05:00Project Hail Mary<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PS9ITMgcW8Q/YK54YLN0x9I/AAAAAAAAImQ/jNsjjFqi2ekFUc_rK-P6tUN_K5JDzIyQgCPcBGAsYHg/s603/Project%2BHail%2BMary%2Bby%2BAndy%2BWeir.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="603" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PS9ITMgcW8Q/YK54YLN0x9I/AAAAAAAAImQ/jNsjjFqi2ekFUc_rK-P6tUN_K5JDzIyQgCPcBGAsYHg/w133-h200/Project%2BHail%2BMary%2Bby%2BAndy%2BWeir.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; Project Hail Mary<div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp; <a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/search?q=%22andy+weir%22&amp;max-results=20&amp;by-date=true">Andy Weir</a></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; Ballantine Books. 2021. 490 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;0593135202 / 978-0593135204</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"What's two plus two?"</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"Human brains are&nbsp;amazing things. We can get used to just about anything."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i> <i> </i> <div><i> </i><a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2014/10/the-martian-novel.html">The Martian</a> was science-y, geeky, irreverent, and a whole lot of fun. <a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2018/01/artemis.html">Artemis</a> was a little less geeky, a little more about politic and greed, still fun, but without the intensity of The Martian. Project Hail Mail becomes the third book I have read by Andy Weir.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>A "Hail Mary" of course has its basis in Christian tradition, a prayer in praise of and seeking assistance from Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. In American culture, this phrase has long been used in the sport of football. A "hail mary" pass is a long distance throw near the end of a game with little chance of completion but with a hope and a prayer for a miracle.</div><div><br /></div><div>The use of the phrase in the title of the book is the same meaning, except not for football but rather for the survival of the human race itself. Interestingly, the book does give a nod to the Christian origins of the phrase and the recognition that other cultures and traditions may have something similar. <i>"Maybe that ship is the Praise Allah or the Blessings of Vishnu or something."</i></div><div><br /></div><div>The miracle is needed. This Ryland Grace know although at the beginning he cannot quite reconcile with where he is or why he is there. He "wakes" up on a spaceship, alone, flanked on either side by two corpses. He is cared for by the ship itself or rather computers embedded in the ship. He is unsure what his objective is. At the beginning, he is unsure of even who he is.</div><div><br /></div><div>Gradually, memory returns, and he remembers his mission. He is on a ship built by a collaborative effort by all nations on earth - political message there? He and his colleagues were hurtled far, far away into space in an attempt to save earth. Now, there is only him.</div><div><br /></div><div>Until there is not only him. Thus begins the main story of the book. There is another ship, and on it is Rocky. "Rocky is smaller than a human. He's about the size of a Labrador. He has five legs radiating out from a central carapace-looking thing. The carapace, which is roughly a pentagon, is 18 inches across and half has thick. I don't see eyes or a face anywhere."</div><div><br /></div><div>Ryland and Rocky could not be more different. Yet, they appear to be in a shared predicament. Perhaps, they even share the same goal and the same feelings towards their home planets and those they left behind. &nbsp;A friendship develops.</div><div><br /></div><div>That is the crux of this book - collaboration, friendship across seemingly insurmountable differences, caring and love across boundaries, and sacrifice for the greater good. In this book, it is the result of an existentialist threat to both their worlds. I would like to think that an outside threat precipitated the meeting the friendship, but it might have happened anyways. A lovely lesson to find anywhere.</div><div><br /></div><div>While this book does not live up to the intensity and humor of The Martian, it does provide an entertaining read and an important reminder that we are all ultimately one world.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-55307969315801795842022-03-01T18:55:00.000-05:002022-03-01T18:55:11.469-05:00Eight Perfect Hours<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PSmQG3VfmdQ/YPMw8KHJmZI/AAAAAAAAIz4/Dk5Zg_4N0Ms5_m_0CVCLvqXVV8EMoOuywCPcBGAsYHg/s606/Eight%2BPerfet%2BHours%2Bby%2BLia%2BLouis.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="606" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PSmQG3VfmdQ/YPMw8KHJmZI/AAAAAAAAIz4/Dk5Zg_4N0Ms5_m_0CVCLvqXVV8EMoOuywCPcBGAsYHg/w132-h200/Eight%2BPerfet%2BHours%2Bby%2BLia%2BLouis.jpg" width="132" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; Eight Perfect Hours<div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp; <a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/search?q=%22lia+louis%22&amp;max-results=20&amp;by-date=true">Lia Louis</a></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; Atria/Emily Bestler Books. 2021. 336 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;1982135948 / 978-1982135942</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"To Noelle. My girl. My best friend"</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"... the only way to live forever is to leave parts of yourself behind."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Lia Louis's first book <i>Dear Emmie Blue</i> is about a woman reckoning with the&nbsp;impact of a traumatic childhood event, a friendship whose conclusion the reader sees coming way before Emmie does, and a cast of mostly endearing characters. The book does incorporate serious issues including abuse and an unhealthy relationships. Yet, the book ends up a sweet, feel good story about the power of love and friendship.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Eight Perfect Hours works in somewhat the same way. The serious issues in this book include a young accidental death, depression and mental illness, caregiving, and aging. Once again, as the reader, I see the conclusion well before it arrives. Once again, the book ends up more about the power of self discovery, friendship, and the courage to live your life. Once again, some of the dynamics between Noelle and her brother are indicative of an unhealthy relationship.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">In addition, this book adds in the element of fate, karma and kismet. Call it what you will, it all ends at the same place. Some things are just meant to be.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">The book begins in the middle of an unexpected snowstorm. Noelle finds herself stuck on a highway, where the cars are not moving. A dire need lands her in the car next to her; that car belongs to Sam, an American on his way to the airport to head home. Noelle and Sam spend eight "perfect" hours stuck together in the snow storm. The highway gets cleared, and each goes on their way.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Yet, &nbsp;Noelle cannot stop thinking about Sam, and, as fate would have it, their paths keeps crossing in completely unrelated and unexpected way. It's almost as if it is meant to be. In the midst of their budding friendship, there are old relationships to be reckoned with, jobs to be contended with, and families to be cared for.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">The entire book is written from Noelle's perspective, who, at the time of this book, is thirty-something. The reader sees her continuing struggle with the death of her best friend in high school. The reader sees the sense of responsibility she feels as the primary caretaker of her mother and her resentment at her brother's role in the process. At the same time, the reader sees her need to move forward with her own life. The reader also sees her walking away from a twelve year relationship. The relationship may not have been right anyways, but her reason for walking away is family. What the reader does not see is Noelle expressing any of these concerns out loud. Nor does the book show her having the hard conversations in her life.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">The book ends as you might expect, but the addition of these conversations would have added substantial depth to the book. Nevertheless, a sweet story with which to spend eight, perhaps not perfect but still, enjoyable hours.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-67701190138186619722022-02-27T16:40:00.000-05:002022-02-27T16:40:23.593-05:00Hour of the Witch<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-34tyGtpdG0k/X8T_Owsz0RI/AAAAAAAAIM8/LFIuu6HNv7M6yKK94uAM0EN0HhlvzbN0gCPcBGAsYHg/s608/Hour%2Bof%2Bthe%2BWitch%2Bby%2BChris%2BBohjalian.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="608" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-34tyGtpdG0k/X8T_Owsz0RI/AAAAAAAAIM8/LFIuu6HNv7M6yKK94uAM0EN0HhlvzbN0gCPcBGAsYHg/w132-h200/Hour%2Bof%2Bthe%2BWitch%2Bby%2BChris%2BBohjalian.jpg" width="132" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; Hour of the Witch<div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp; <a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/search?q=%22chris+bohjalian%22&amp;max-results=20&amp;by-date=true">Chris Bohjalian</a></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; Doubleday. 2021. 416 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;0385542437 / 978-0385542432</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"It was always&nbsp;possible that&nbsp;the Devil was present."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"There were &nbsp;people in the world who were good and people who were evil, but most of them were some mixture of both and did what they did simply&nbsp;because they were mortal. And her Lord? ... He knew it all and had known it all and always would know it all."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div> </div><div><br /></div><div>A young woman. An only daughter. An educated woman. An abusive marriage. No children. An appeal for divorce. A Puritan town looking for signs of anyone breaking tradition and anyone different. A charge of witchcraft.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is Mary Deerfield's life in 1600s Boston. She and her family arrive in Boston when Mary is a teenager. Her father is a respected and wealthy businessman - a shipper and an importer of goods. Mary tries to play by the rules. She is a dutiful daughter. She is dutiful wife, hiding evidence of her husband's abuse. Yet, her power of independent thinking does not go well in this town. That combined with Mary's supposed friendship with suspicious persons - a supposed witch and a man who is not her husband - lead to suspicions about Mary herself. She pushes the boundary even further when escalating abuse causes her to file a petition of divorce from her husband. The issue escalates even more so when a series of circumstances lead to an accusation of witchcraft.</div><div><br /></div><div>This book has all the elements I love about Chris Bohjalian's books. The history is researched and real. According to author interviews, the idea for this book originated in the case of Katherine Nanny Naylor in front of the Boston Court of Assistants in 1672. The case stands out because Nanny Naylor filed for and was able to win a divorce from her husband. She spend the rest of her life living independently. The records of the case can still be found in the Massachusetts Archives Collection. Interestingly, in 1992, archeologists discovered the privy of her home in Boston. Because of the wealth of artifacts found in the privy, the discovery is considered one of the most significant ones from the early colonial period.</div><div><br /></div><div>Fascinating history aside, the book is at the same time fiction and tells a story that keeps me rapidly turning pages from beginning to the end. The characters - especially Mary herself - are well drawn and the history is so brought to life through them that I think surely, they must be real themselves. The one thing I could have done without is Mary's repeated thoughts about men and about sexual pleasure. For me, that distracts from the story about Mary's rise as a woman.</div><div><br /></div><div>What I might expect of this book is the story of Puritan New England and a male dominated society. Yet, this book is really the story of the women. It is about the individual strength of Mary herself. It is also about the women who surround her - those who would tear each other down and those who would lift each other up.</div><div><br /></div><div>By the nature of the time and place, the men play key, visible roles. <i>"This may be the hour of the witch. But the Devil? He most definitely wears breeches. The Devil can only be a man."</i>&nbsp;However, it is the women on whom the story and its final conclusion rests.</div><div><br /></div><div>The epilogue ending was what I expected given the times. However, I do wish the book had ended with the strength of the women without that add on.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-3720766104045552702022-02-18T13:04:00.000-05:002022-02-18T13:04:56.116-05:00Colorful<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cW_hyJTZfkc/YK58knyTxgI/AAAAAAAAInE/zh3ILs5WWA8UsPW5SF__SoaEH9y_KzTpQCPcBGAsYHg/s600/Colorful%2Bby%2BEto%2BMori.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cW_hyJTZfkc/YK58knyTxgI/AAAAAAAAInE/zh3ILs5WWA8UsPW5SF__SoaEH9y_KzTpQCPcBGAsYHg/w133-h200/Colorful%2Bby%2BEto%2BMori.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; Colorful<div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp; Eto Mori</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; Counterpoint. 2021. 224 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;1640094423 / 978-1640094420</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"As my dead soul leisurely drifted off to some dark place, this&nbsp;angers I'd never seen before suddenly appeared right in my way."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp; <i>"Extraordinary joy and sadness can come out of the ordinary every day."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="margin: 0px;">A nameless young individual dies. His soul drifts towards the afterlife and the cycle of rebirth. An angel named Prapura notifies him that he has won the lottery. Because of his actions during his life, this individual is about to be kicked out of the cycle of rebirth. The soul is to be no more. However, due to the decision of the "boss," he is being given a second chance. He is to be given a "homestay" in another body. There he stays until he can determine what grave error he made in his own life.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">The host body is&nbsp;fourteen-year-old Makoto Kobayashi. He has just killed himself, but due to the chance given to this nameless soul, is brought back to life. Now, this soul has to live as Makoto while determining what went wrong in his own life. Surrounding Makato are his parents, his older brother, and his school mates.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">So begins this journey of self- discovery. Although marketed as literature and fiction, this book has very much of a young adult feel. The conclusion of the book is just what I expect it to be. The lesson is just what I expect it to be. <i>"It wasn't some simple change, like things that I thought were black were actually white. It was more like when I looked closely, things I thought were a single, uniform color were really made up of a bunch of different colors. That's maybe the best way to describe it."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">The journey of self-discovery also becomes a journey of learning about those who surround us. So often in our lives, we take for granted those closest to us and see what we choose to see. The soul in Makato's body learns this lesson about his family and his school mates.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">The young-adult feel of the book comes from how simplified issues such as suicide, mental health, ethics, and infidelity seem to be. The resolutions to these issues seems equally simplified. In many ways, this is a self-help book with a lesson that appears easy to state but is so challenging to implement. <i>"Remember how it felt to move freely without trapping yourself in your own expectations."</i> The books appears to gloss over the challenges.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">The biggest issue I have with the book does not even center on the main character, but rather on a girl who he cares about. The book, in a matter of fact way, presents an eight-grader prostituting herself so that she can buy things! <i>"Pretty clothes, bags, rings, all those nice things I want are super expensive. Even if I tried to save &nbsp;up my allowance, okay. even if I saved up for a whole year, I could never buy any of them ... But if I do it with him three or four times, boom, I can buy whatever I want."</i> This is something I just cannot see past. The fact that the girl has an allowance indicates an economic level and a home life. But prostitution! The fact that I feel this book has a young adult audience makes this statement worse. The fact that is presented matter of factly and then not addressed again makes it worse and beyond my understanding. The fact that this being the reason for rejection of Makato is somewhat tangential to Makato's story makes it worse. Teenage angst over an unrequited love alone is enough. Why add this twist to the mix?</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">The original Japanese book won the Sankei Children's Book Award when originally published in the 1990s; it has been made into multiple movies. The fact that it won a Children's book award makes the subject matter even less palatable. Let's just say I do not understand.<br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-7730088276948599512022-02-12T21:28:00.003-05:002022-02-12T21:28:17.941-05:00Clean Air<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhXb50ejRf7X81BlbGT-4gJrrjp6Mg01t1GoJ1X_C8_CgH7kqaL0-T_csmhb9SCzWMo_10XxdNnwxvDoy6hfm3aDvJyc4GrphI7t0iiTmXgMeLSpwrQt3At333vJKxrW7iHySaXEjetjPIfgIicU3RB9GgzFQQNAxqHNMrZgTVVw1J-KL8B2YrXDEUX=s600" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Clean Air" border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="396" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhXb50ejRf7X81BlbGT-4gJrrjp6Mg01t1GoJ1X_C8_CgH7kqaL0-T_csmhb9SCzWMo_10XxdNnwxvDoy6hfm3aDvJyc4GrphI7t0iiTmXgMeLSpwrQt3At333vJKxrW7iHySaXEjetjPIfgIicU3RB9GgzFQQNAxqHNMrZgTVVw1J-KL8B2YrXDEUX=w132-h200" title="Clean Air" width="132" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; Clean Air<div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp; Sarah Blake</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; Algonquin Books. 2022. 320 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;1643751069 / 978-1643751061</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley and a publisher's blog tour free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"Dear Cami, We couldn't breathe the air."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"The Turning was ten years ago. That's how people talked about it. Though it took more than that year for the world to experience the full effect of it, and less than a month for any city or town to all but die off. But it was easier to call it, vaguely, the&nbsp;Turning. TO not recall which month took which town. To let it slip out of time. To let it become the generic past tragedy of the world."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i> <i> </i> <h2 style="text-align: left;">***** BLOG TOUR *****</h2><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Review</h3><div>The time is in future but not too far in the future - the 2030s or perhaps the 2040s. The world is in a post-apocalyptic new age in which humanity has learned to fight and survive the climate crisis. However, it is not an apocalypse of rising temperatures, rising seas, and the disappearing ozone layer. Rather, it is crisis of trees. Yes, trees. The trees have taken over, generating so much pollen so as to render the air unbreathable. That event is known as the Turning.</div><div><br /></div><div>The world has adapted and restarted life, moving from airtight dome to airtight dome - life existing in literally these bubbles.</div><div><br /></div><div>Kaito and Izabel remember the Turning. In fact, that was when they met. They survived when so many did not. They even thrived, falling in love and marrying. They are now parents to young Cami, whose entire life has been after the Turning.</div><div><br /></div><div>Life in the bubble is safe and moving along a planned trajectory. However, the bubble cracks - literally and figuratively. A serial killer is breaking into domes at night, causing people to be exposed to the pollen and to die.</div><div><br /></div><div>Somehow four year old Cami is involved for she talks about the killings in her sleep. Izabel begins a quest to protect her daughter and figure out the serial killer and the connection to her daughter. The ending, when it comes, is abrupt goes in a direction I don't expect. The environmental aspect I get as a current topic even though the trees being the cause of the apocalypse is somewhat out there. The imaginary world the book &nbsp;builds conjures the dystopian image. The serial murders introduce the mystery. Yet, the book ends up at magical realism and the supernatural</div><div><br /></div><div>I don't really get it. The different genres mix together in the book but, for me, do not coalesce into a whole. For me, part of the reason may be that the characters do not become real. Cami is cute but way too precocious for a four year old. Kaito and Izabel seem distant throughout the book. I don't find myself rooting for them or against them. To some extent, I become distant and do not invest in the outcome.</div><div><br /></div><div>I find the concepts - of the post apocalyptic world, of a serial killer, of a supernatural connection, of a family drama even - intellectually intriguing. The fact that the main character is a mother protecting her child should elicit the emotional reaction. Unfortunately, the characters and story for me fail to elicit that connection that makes me invest in the book. I walk away unsatisfied and not the reader for this one.</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Author</h3>Sarah Blake’s novel Naamah won the National Jewish Book Award for Debut Fiction. Blake is also the author of the poetry collections Mr. West and Let’s Not Live on Earth. In 2013, she was awarded a literature fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She currently lives in the UK.<div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Book</h3>The climate apocalypse has come and gone, and in the end it wasn't the temperature climbing or the waters rising. It was the trees. They created enough pollen to render the air unbreathable, and the world became overgrown.<br /><br />In the decades since the event known as the Turning, humanity has rebuilt, and Izabel has grown used to the airtight domes that now contain her life. She raises her young daughter, Cami, and attempts to make peace with her mother's death. She tries hard to be satisfied with this safe, prosperous new world, but instead she just feels stuck.<br /><br />And then the tranquility of her town is shattered. Someone—a serial killer—starts slashing through the domes at night, exposing people to the deadly pollen. At the same time, Cami begins sleep-talking, having whole conversations about the murders that she doesn't remember after she wakes. Izabel becomes fixated on the killer, on both tracking him down and understanding him. What could compel someone to take so many lives after years dedicated to sheer survival, with society finally flourishing again?<div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-78027529297069788482022-02-05T20:46:00.002-05:002022-02-05T20:47:17.853-05:00A Lullaby for Witches<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhh2KGoWr_IqMU8Ob5CrlUMu-cIaAt6gIFfNXjPCzns0ZBEOH28lvTUmNSquulYU1ucuDdhfInSz5x1RgaMmR_A4-pz0PY2CVJMLLtXWASuiJiCvtIYLGMTYjHojWeM1_Qzf7QQRT5WntTYWeKDr4qvxSYg6k6sMYJbTuXq4uFo1r-37VlBeTDj_8QW=s600" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="A Lullaby for Witches" border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="401" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhh2KGoWr_IqMU8Ob5CrlUMu-cIaAt6gIFfNXjPCzns0ZBEOH28lvTUmNSquulYU1ucuDdhfInSz5x1RgaMmR_A4-pz0PY2CVJMLLtXWASuiJiCvtIYLGMTYjHojWeM1_Qzf7QQRT5WntTYWeKDr4qvxSYg6k6sMYJbTuXq4uFo1r-37VlBeTDj_8QW=w134-h200" width="134" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; A Lullaby for Witches<div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/search?q=hester+fox&amp;max-results=20&amp;by-date=true">Hester Fox</a></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; Graydon House. 2022. 320 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;1525804693 / 978-1525804694</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley and the HTP Winter 2022 historical fiction blog tour free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"I was beautiful in the summer of 1876."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"Here is what I know to be true: &nbsp;we are part of&nbsp;something larger, something more beautiful than we could ever comprehend. During our brief tenure on this earth, we see but only a glimpse of&nbsp;the world around us."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i> <i> </i> <h2 style="text-align: left;">***** BLOG TOUR *****</h2><h3 style="text-align: left;">Review</h3><div>A Lullaby for Witches is the fourth <a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/search?q=hester+fox&amp;max-results=20&amp;by-date=true">Hester Fox</a> book that I have read. Unlike the first three, this one does not follow the title of&nbsp;CHARACTER of LOCATION. All main characters are women with an unusual history. All are set in New England. All are gothic with witches and powers and conduits to the beyond. Beyond that, each one has been unique. The Witch of Willow Hall is about a young woman finding her voice. The Widow of Pale Harbor is more romance than anything else. The Orphan of Cemetery Hill is about grave robbing and "scientific" experimentation. This one follows a two time period narrative, with a bridge and connection from past to present. It also features for a brief moment Pale Harbor.</div><div><br /></div><div>Margaret Harlowe is the past. She is the youngest of the Harlowe children and the only girl. She has powers that, on occasion, she uses for good and, on occasion, to suit her own purposes. The mystery of Margaret Harlowe is the conversation of where she comes from and ultimately where she disappears to. Her ghost lingers at Harlowe House.</div><div><br /></div><div>August Podos is the present. She takes, what she thinks, is her dream job as a colletctions expert at Harlowe House. Something considerably more personal draws her into life at Harlowe Hall in Tynemouth, Massachusetts.</div><div><br /></div><div>The chapter alternate perspectives between the two women. Many parallels emerge - the discord within family, the betrayal by a man, and the sense of not belonging. <i>"Do you know what it is to be lonely? Truly alone, even amidst a crowd? Even in a family?"&nbsp;</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Yet, at the same time, the two women could not be more different. Margaret's intentions are clear from the beginning to the reader. Margaret's story becomes about discovering why and how. Augusta's story becomes about following to see when she will discovers Margaret's intents and how she will respond. In this too, parallels emerge. The growth in both is the realization and the understanding of their own power.&nbsp;<i>"But what I'm beginning to realize is that I don't need to&nbsp;find myself. I've been here all along." </i>Yet, the two women again could not be more different in the use of their power.</div><div><br /></div><div>The dual narrative technique work sin this book, and I find both women and their stories intriguing. I want to know the answers to the questions for both. The climax of this book brings the two stories crashing together about as I expect yet the melodramatic conclusion keeps me turning pages to see if it turns out the way I expect it will. The epilogue is an unexpected surprise for it answers the unasked question from the beginning. Why will Margaret Harlowe never leave this house? Don't you want to know?</div><div><br /></div><div>As a random aside, the book does have a math mistake. The first sentence in the book states the year as 1876. At one point, a statement is made, "I've though about you these one hundred and fifty years." That would make the present time 2026! This book is in no way futuristics but rather anchored firmly in the past. This makes no difference to my enjoyment of the story, but I am a number person, notices, and found &nbsp;it interesting.</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Author</h3>Hester Fox is a full-time writer and mother, with a background in museum work and historical archaeology. A native New-Englander, she now lives in rural Virginia with her husband and their son.<br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Book</h3>Augusta Podos has just landed her dream job, working in collections at a local museum, Harlowe House, located in the charming seaside town of Tynemouth, Massachussetts. Determined to tell the stories of the local community, she throws herself into her work--and finds an oblique mention of a mysterious woman, Margaret, who may have been part of the Harlowe family, but is reduced to a footnote. Fascinated by this strange omission, Augusta becomes obsessed with discovering who Margaret was, what happened to her, and why her family scrubbed her from historical records. But as she does, strange incidents begin plaguing Harlowe House and Augusta herself. Are they connected with Margaret, and what do they mean?<br /><br />Tynemouth, 1872. Margaret Harlowe is the beautiful daughter of a wealthy shipping family, and she should have many prospects--but her fascination with herbs and spellwork has made her a pariah, with whispers of "witch" dogging her steps. Increasingly drawn to the darker, forbidden practices of her craft, Margaret finds herself caught up with a local man, Jack Pryce, and the temptation of these darker ways threatens to pull her under completely.<br /><br />As the incidents in the present day escalate, Augusta finds herself drawn more and more deeply into Margaret's world, and a shocking revelation sheds further light on Margaret and Augusta's shared past. And as Margaret's sinister purpose becomes clear, Augusta must uncover the secret of Margaret's fate--before the woman who calls to her across the centuries claims Augusta's own life.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><h3 style="text-align: left;">Excerpt&nbsp;</h3><i>Excerpted from A Lullaby for Witches by Hester Fox, Copyright © 2022 by Hester Fox. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.</i><br /><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Prologue<br />Margaret<br /><br />I was beautiful in the summer of 1876. The rocky Tynemouth coast was an easy place to be beautiful, though, with a fresh salt breeze that brought roses to my cheeks and sun that warmed my long hair, shooting the chestnut brown through with rich veins of copper. It was enough to make me forget—or at least, not care—that I was an outsider, a curiosity who left whispers in my wake when I walked through the muddy streets of our coastal town.<br /><br />Do I miss being beautiful? Of course. But it’s the being found beautiful by others that I miss the most. It was the ambrosia that made an otherwise solitary life bearable. And it was being found beautiful by one man in particular, Jack Pryce, that I miss the most.<br /><br />He would come to find me out behind my family’s house as I helped our maid hang the laundry on the lines or weeded my rocky garden. He always brought me a little gift, whether it was a toffee wrapped in wax paper from his parents’ shop, or just a little green flower he had plucked because it reminded him of my eyes. Something that told me I was special, that those stories around town of him stepping out with the Clerkenwell girl weren’t true.<br /><br />“There she is,” he would say, coming up with his hands in his pockets and crooked grin on his full lips. “My lovely wildflower.” He called me this, he said, on account of my insistence on going without shoes on warm days when the grass was soft and lush. Whatever little chore I was doing would soon be forgotten as I led him out of sight of the house. With my back against a tree and his hands traveling under and up my skirts, we found euphoria in a panting tangle of limbs and hoarsely whispered promises. Heavy sea mists mingling with sweat in hair (his), the taste of berry-sweet lips (mine), the gut-deep knowing that he must love me. He must. He must. He must.<br /><br />But like all things, summer came to an end, and autumn swept in with her cruel winds and killing frosts. Jack came less and less often, claiming first that it was work at the shop, then that he could no longer be seen with the girl who was rumored to practice witchcraft and worship at the altar of the moon on clear nights. Finally, on a day where the rain fell in icy sheets and even the screeching cries of the gulls could not compete with the howling wind, I realized he was not coming back.<br /><br />Time moves differently now. Then, it was measured in church bells and birthdays, clock strokes and town harvest dances. It was measured in the monthly flow of my courses, until they stopped coming and my belly grew distended and full. Now—or perhaps it is better to say “here”—time is a fluid thing, like water that flows in all directions, finding and filling every crack and empty place, like my womb and my heart.<br /><br />I did not want to give the babe up, though I knew it could only bring heartache and pain to my family. A mother’s heart is a stubborn thing, and no sooner had I felt the first stirrings of life within me, than I knew I would do anything in the world to protect my little one.<br /><br />It was folly, I know that now. A woman like me could never hope to bring a child into this cruel world, could never hope that the honey-sweet words of a man like Jack Pryce carried any weight. What irony that I should not realize such simple truths until it was too late. Should not realize them until my blood ran icy in my veins and my broken heart stopped beating. Until the man I thought had loved me stood over my body, staring down as the life ran out of me like a streambed running dry. Until I was dead and cold and no longer so very beautiful.<br /><br />1<br />Augusta<br /><br />“Hello?” Augusta threw her keys on the table and slung her bag onto one of the kitchen chairs. As usual, a precarious stack of plates had taken over the sink, and the remnants of a Chinese food dinner sat out on the table. Sighing, she covered the leftovers with plastic wrap, stuck them in the fridge and followed the sounds of video games to the living room.<br /><br />“I’m home,” she said tersely to the two guys hunched over their gaming consoles.<br /><br />Doug barely glanced up, but her boyfriend, Chris, threw her a quick glance over his shoulder.<br /><br />“Hey, we’re just finishing up.” Turning back, he continued mashing keys on the game controller, shaking his dark fringe from his eyes and muttering colorful insults at his opponent.<br /><br />Chris and Doug weren’t the best housemates. Sure, they paid their share of the rent on time, but the house was constantly a mess, and video games took priority over household chores. She supposed that’s what she got for living with her boyfriend and allowing his unemployed brother to move in with them. <br /><br />“Well, I guess I’ll be in my room if you need me,” Augusta said, too exhausted to pick a fight about the mess in the kitchen.<br /><br />“You can stay and watch,” Chris said without turning back around.<br /><br />She’d had a long, hard day. Between the air-conditioning being broken at work and discovering she only had ninety-eight dollars in her bank account after paying her cell phone bill, she wasn’t in the mood to watch Chris and Doug massacre each other with bazookas. She grabbed an apple from the kitchen, and went back to the room she shared with Chris, closing the door against the sounds of gunfire and explosions. Outside, the occasional car passed by in a sweep of headlights and somewhere down the street a dog barked. Loneliness curled around her as she sat at her laptop and began cycling through her bookmarked job listing sites.<br /><br />Her job giving tours at the Old City Jail in Salem was all right; she got to work in a historic building, it was close enough that she could walk to work, and the polyester uniform was only a slightly nauseating shade of green. But it wasn’t challenging, and she wasn’t using her degree in museum studies for which she’d worked so hard. Not to mention the student debt she was still paying off. The worst was dealing with the public, though. Some of the people that showed up on her tours were engaged in her talks, but mostly the jail attracted cruise tourists who hadn’t realized that it was a guided tour and were more interested in snapping a quick picture for Instagram than learning about the history. The other day she’d really had to remind a full-grown man that he couldn’t bring an ice cream cone into the house, and then had to clean up said ice cream cone when he’d smuggled it inside anyway and dropped it. And the witches! Just because they were in Salem, everyone who came through the door assumed that there would be history about the witches, never mind that the jail didn’t even date from the same century as the witch trials. Most days she came home tired, irritable and unfulfilled. <br /><br />From the other room came an excited shout as Chris blew up Doug’s home base. Augusta turned her music up. Most of the listings on the museum job sites were for fundraising or grant writing, the sliver of the museum world where all the money was. She knew she shouldn’t be choosy, the millennial voice of reason in her head telling her that she was lucky to have a job at all. But Chris, with his computer engineering degree, actually had companies courting him, and his job at a Boston tech firm came with a yearly salary and benefits.<br /><br />She was just about to close her laptop when a new listing popped up. Harlowe House in Tynemouth was looking for a collections manager to work alongside their curator. As she scanned the listing, her heart started to beat faster. She wasn’t familiar with the property, but a quick search showed that it was part of a trust dedicated to the history and legacy of a seafaring family from the nineteenth century. She ticked off the qualifications in her head—an advanced degree in art history, museum studies or anthropology, and at least five years of experience. She would have to fudge the years, but other than that, it was made for her. She bookmarked the listing, making a mental note to update her CV in the morning.<br /><br />The door swung open and Chris came in, plopping himself on the bed beside her. Tall, with an athletic build and dark hair that was perpetually in need of a trim, he was wearing a faded band shirt and gym shorts. “We’re going to order subs. What do you want?”<br /><br />“Didn’t you just get Chinese food?” she asked.<br /><br />“That was lunch.”<br /><br />Augusta did a quick inventory in her head of what she’d eaten that day, how many calories she was up to, and how much money she could afford. After she’d fished ten dollars out of her purse, Chris wandered back out to the living room, leaving her alone. She picked up a book, but it didn’t hold her interest, and soon she was lost scrolling through her phone and playing some stupid game where you had to match up jewels to clear the board. A thrilling Saturday night if there ever was one.<br /><br />In both college and grad school, Augusta had had a vibrant, tight-knit group of friends. She’d always been a homebody, so there weren’t lots of wild nights out at clubs, but they’d still had fairly regular get-togethers. Lunches and trips to museums, stuff like that. So what had happened in the last few years?<br /><br />Her mind knew what had happened, but her heart refused to face the truth. Chris had happened.<br /><br />She had been with him ever since her dad died. She’d run into Chris, her old high school boyfriend, at the memorial. He’d been a familiar face, and she’d clung to him like a life raft amid the turmoil of putting her life back together without her father. It had been clear early on that beyond some shared history, they didn’t have much in common, but he was steady, and Augusta had craved steady. A year passed, then two, then three, and four. She had invested so much time in the relationship, sacrificed so many friends, that at some point it felt like admitting defeat to break up. For his part, Chris seemed content with the status quo, and so five years later, here they were.<br /><br />That night, after Chris had rolled over and was lightly snoring, Augusta lay awake, thinking of the job listing. The words Harlowe House, Harlowe House, Harlowe House ran through her mind like the beat of a drum. A signal of hope, a promise of something better.<br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">Buy Links</h3><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/a-lullaby-for-witches/9781525804694">BookShop.org</a><br /><a href="https://www.harlequin.com/shop/books/9781525804694_a-lullaby-for-witches.html">Harlequin </a><br /><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-lullaby-for-witches-hester-fox/1139091731?ean=9781525804694">Barnes &amp; Noble</a><br /><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lullaby-Witches-Hester-Fox-ebook/dp/B08ZSSVMWR/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1XR69X5IOKEO4&amp;keywords=lullaby+for+witches&amp;qid=1636134856&amp;qsid=137-7701790-5245009&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=lullaby+for+wit%2Cstripbooks%2C154&amp;sr=1-1&amp;sres=1525804693%2CB09528SZ1X%2CB08ZNYQTM8%2CB08ZLHKR9M%2CB08ZNQ4VQN%2CB08ZMFBPBZ%2CB08ZMC3LPF%2C1846090652%2C153448874X%2C1480332771%2C057891915X%2CB06XP3FTLS%2C0871290715%2C1728222982%2C1848457499%2C1680524631">Amazon</a><br /><a href="https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Lullaby-Witches/Hester-Fox/9781525804694?id=8353658283557">Books-A-Million</a><br /><a href="https://www.powells.com/book/lullaby-for-witches-9781525804694">Powell’s</a> <br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">Social Links</h3><a href="http://hesterfox.com/about/">Author Website</a><br />Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/HesterBFox">@HesterBFox</a><br />Facebook: N/A<br />Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/hesterbfox/">@hesterbfox</a><br /><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/hesterbfox">Goodreads</a></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-56671918400474982292022-01-29T17:59:00.000-05:002022-01-29T17:59:38.980-05:00The Overnight Guest<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZYGMXLf3oetJfLK1NsluuuqPqjQs_Ce7D2xyLlfjVCHwxyTSU4yfRDzpv9BqgK83GimJTqsRHtV6b0mK8dYTv5w16kDAvWhCGmhA9x_KTPDDpE2X9lsmpWVtg5p57X3lAJ6mgFrBDkfUcvJO935ISv_JJ3Gr9xtcd8KYM4XJd_o_7SljeVE8a06cX=s600" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The Overnight Guest" border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="396" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZYGMXLf3oetJfLK1NsluuuqPqjQs_Ce7D2xyLlfjVCHwxyTSU4yfRDzpv9BqgK83GimJTqsRHtV6b0mK8dYTv5w16kDAvWhCGmhA9x_KTPDDpE2X9lsmpWVtg5p57X3lAJ6mgFrBDkfUcvJO935ISv_JJ3Gr9xtcd8KYM4XJd_o_7SljeVE8a06cX=w132-h200" title="The Overnight Guest" width="132" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; The Overnight Guest<div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp; <a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/search?q=%22Heather+Gudenkauf%22&amp;max-results=20&amp;by-date=true">Heather Gudenkauf</a></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; Park Row. 2022. 336 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;0778333167 / 978-0778333166</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley and a publisher's blog tour free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"On August 12, 2000, Abby Morris, out of breath with sweat trickling down her temple, was hurrying down the gray ribbon of gravel road for her nightly walk."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"It isn't the dark you should be afraid of, the girl thought, it's the monsters who step out into the light that you need to fear."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i> <i> </i> <h2 style="text-align: left;">***** BLOG TOUR *****</h2><h3 style="text-align: left;">Review</h3><div>Reader beware: &nbsp;The book features violent crimes and abuse. Read the book expecting that.</div><div><br /></div><div>August 2000. Present day. The quiet small town of Burden, Blake County, Iowa. One horrible crime in the past. The possible makings of another in the present. Both centering around the same idea. <i>"Homes were supposed to be safe havens, meant to protect. It was supposed to be a shelter from the elements, a fortress to keep out evil, and her home had betrayed ... in the worst possible way."</i></div><br />August 2000. A brutal murder on a quiet farm in a town that sees barely any crime. Young Josie survives, and young Becky disappears. Where does the investigation lead? How and why does this happen? Who is responsible. As in&nbsp;<a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2020/05/this-is-how-i-lied.html">This is How I Lied</a>, there are two girls, there is the Iowa setting, and there is a crime that no one is ever convicted of.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Present day. Wylie Lark is a true crime writer, exploring old crimes and telling the stories of the who, what, where, when, and why. She is in Burden, Iowa in the house in which the crime occurred in 2000. She is writing the story of the crime and comes to the place to finish up. A major snowstorm isolates her in the home. She finds a child in the snow and then a woman. As in&nbsp;<a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2020/05/this-is-how-i-lied.html">This is How I Lied</a>, there are two timelines and two investigations.&nbsp;</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Embedded between the two is a third story where time is not specified. That story is of a woman and her daughter kept locked up in a basement room. Occasionally, Dad visits bringing food. With Dad also comes fear, abuse, and violence. The woman, the girl, and the dad are never identified by name.&nbsp;</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">The story winds back and forth between the three. At the beginning, the connections are unclear but the threads are pulled together, some contrived but some in unexpected ways. A woman and a child happen to crash in front of a house. The house happens to be the one Wylie is staying in. That happens to be the house in which the crime was committed. All convenient, but in this case, it does not interfere with the enjoyment of the story. It had to be brought about in some way. The twists that do come are enough to make the story not feel contrived.&nbsp;</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2014/10/little-mercies.html">Little Mercies</a> was predictable, but this book surprises me with its twists but in a really good way. I do not see them coming, but once revealed, my reaction is, "Of course!". That, for me, makes a mystery and thriller work. If I see all the twists coming, then a story is less engaging to follow. If the twist seems to come out of left field, then the dissatisfaction is that I could not have seen that coming, and what was the point of the read anyways. This book manages to find that balance. I keep turning pages before and after the twists to see what is next.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Author</h3>Heather Gudenkauf is the critically acclaimed author of several novels, including the New York Times bestseller The Weight of Silence. She lives in Iowa with her husband and children. Her Q&amp;A for the blog tour of&nbsp;<a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2020/05/this-is-how-i-lied.html">This is How I Lied</a>&nbsp;references the first draft of this book.<br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Book</h3>In a snowstorm, the safest place is home. Or is it?<br /><br />True crime writer Wylie Lark doesn’t mind being snowed in at the isolated farmhouse where she’s retreated to write her new book. A cozy fire, complete silence. It would be perfect, if not for the fact that decades earlier, at this very house, two people were murdered in cold blood and a girl disappeared without a trace.<br /><br />As the storm worsens, Wylie finds herself trapped inside the house, haunted by the secrets contained within its walls—haunted by secrets of her own. Then she discovers a small child in the snow just outside. How long had the child been there? Where did he come from? Bringing the child inside for warmth and safety, she begins to search for answers. But soon it becomes clear that the farmhouse isn’t as isolated as she thought, and someone is willing to do anything to find them.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Excerpt</h3></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i>Excerpted from The Overnight Guest by Heather Gudenkauf, Copyright © 2022 by Heather Gudenkauf. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.</i><br /><br />Three<br /><br />“Maybe we can go outside and play?” the girl said as she peeked around the edge of the heavy curtain that covered the window. The sky was gray and soft drops of rain tapped at the glass.<br /><br />“Not today,” her mother said. “It’s raining and we’d melt.”<br /><br />The girl gave a little laugh and then hopped off the chair she had dragged beneath the window. She knew her mother was teasing. They wouldn’t actually melt if they went out in the rain, but still, it made her shiver thinking about it—stepping outside and feeling the plop of water on your skin and watching it melt away like an ice cube.<br /><br />Instead, the girl and her mother spent the morning at the card table cutting pink, purple, and green egg shapes from construction paper and embellishing them with polka dots and stripes.<br /><br />On one oval, her mother drew eyes and a pointy little orange beak. Her mother laid the girl’s hands on a piece of yellow paper and traced around them using a pencil. “Watch,” she said as she cut out the handprints and then glued them to the back of one of the ovals.<br /><br />“It’s a bird,” the girl said with delight.<br /><br />“An Easter chick,” her mother said. “I made these when I was your age.”<br /><br />Together, they carefully taped the eggs and chicks and bunny rab-bits they created to the cement walls, giving the dim room a festive, springy look. “There, now we’re ready for the Easter Bunny,” her mother said with triumph.<br /><br />That night, when the girl climbed into bed, the butterflies in her stomach kept chasing sleep away. “Stay still,” her mother kept re-minding her. “You’ll fall asleep faster.”<br /><br />The girl didn’t think that was true, but then she opened her eyes, a sliver of bright sunshine was peeking around the shade, and the girl knew that morning had finally arrived.<br /><br />She leaped from bed to find her mother already at the tiny round table where they ate their meals. “Did he come?” the girl asked, tucking her long brown hair behind her ears.<br /><br />“Of course he did,” her mother said, holding out a basket woven together from strips of colored paper. It was small, fitting into the palm of the girl’s hand, but sweet. Inside were little bits of green paper that were cut to look like grass. On top of this was a pack of cinnamon gum and two watermelon Jolly Ranchers.<br /><br />The girl smiled though disappointment surged through her. She’d been hoping for a chocolate bunny or one of those candy eggs that oozed yellow when you broke it open.<br /><br />“Thank you,” she said.<br /><br />“Thank the Easter Bunny,” her mother said.<br /><br />“Thank you, Easter Bunny,” the girl crowed like the child on the candy commercials that she’d seen on television. They both laughed.<br /><br />They each unwrapped a piece of gum and spent the morning making up stories about the paper chicks and bunnies they made.<br /><br />When the girl’s gum lost its flavor, and she had slowly licked one of the Jolly Ranchers into a sharp flat disc, the door at the top of the steps opened, and her father came down the stairs toward them. He was carrying a plastic bag and a six-pack of beer. Her mother gave the girl a look. The one that said, go on now, mom and dad need some alone time. Obediently, the girl, taking her Easter basket, went to her spot beneath the window and sat in the narrow beam of warm light that fell across the floor. Facing the wall, she unwrapped another piece of gum and poked it into her mouth and tried to ignore the squeak of the bed and her father’s sighs and grunts.<br /><br />“You can turn around now,” her mother finally said. The girl sprang up from her spot on the floor.<br /><br />The girl heard the water running in the bathroom, and her father poked his head out of the door. “Happy Easter,” he said with a grin. “The Easter Bunny wanted me to give you a little something.”<br /><br />The girl looked at the kitchen table where the plastic bag sat. Then she slid her eyes to her mother, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, rubbing her wrist, eyes red and wet. Her mother nodded.<br /><br />“Thank you,” she murmured.<br /><br />Later, after her father climbed the steps and locked the door behind him, the girl went to the table and looked inside the plastic bag. In-side was a chocolate bunny with staring blue eyes. He was holding a carrot and wore a yellow bowtie.<br /><br />“Go ahead,” her mother told the girl as she held an ice pack to her wrist. “When I was little, I always started with the ears.”<br /><br />“I don’t think I’m very hungry,” the girl said, returning the box to the table.<br /><br />“It’s okay,” her mother said gently. “You can eat it. It’s from the Easter Bunny, not your dad.”<br /><br />The girl considered this. She took a little nibble from the bunny’s ear and sweet chocolate flooded her mouth. She took another bite and then another. She held out the rabbit to her mother and she bit off the remaining ear in one big bite. They laughed and took turns eating until all that was left was the bunny’s chocolate tail.<br /><br />“Close your eyes and open your mouth,” her mother said. The girl complied and felt her mother place the remaining bit on her tongue and then kiss her on the nose. “Happy Easter,” her mother whispered.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">Buy Links</h3><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-overnight-guest-original-9780778333166/9780778311935">BookShop.org</a><br /><a href="https://www.harlequin.com/shop/books/9780778311935_the-overnight-guest.html">Harlequin </a><br /><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-overnight-guest-heather-gudenkauf/1139091726?ean=9780778311935">Barnes &amp; Noble</a><br /><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Overnight-Guest-Novel-Heather-Gudenkauf/dp/0778311937/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3UV9WGPGHKHB5&amp;keywords=the+overnight+guest&amp;qid=1641321197&amp;sprefix=the+overnight+guest%2Caps%2C68&amp;sr=8-1">Amazon</a><br /><a href="https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Overnight-Guest/Heather-Gudenkauf/9780778311935?id=8292090795540">Books-A-Million</a><br /><a href="https://www.powells.com/book/overnight-guest-9780778311935">Powell’s</a> <br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">Social Links</h3><a href="https://heathergudenkauf.com/">Author Website</a><br />Instagram: @<a href="https://www.instagram.com/heathergudenkauf/">heathergudenkauf</a><br />Twitter: @<a href="https://twitter.com/hgudenkauf?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">hgudenkauf</a><br />Facebook: @<a href="https://www.facebook.com/HeatherGudenkaufAuthor">HeatherGudenkaufAuthor</a><br /><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2875124.Heather_Gudenkauf">Goodreads</a><br /><br /><div style="margin: 0px;"><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-78440389369054131972022-01-28T22:01:00.000-05:002022-01-28T22:01:18.275-05:00Light Years from Home<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhyxO69i3XJ9T_BwN0CQj2tVy3PZBelv7vriNJIm1rvNeMbrxM39VJGUr9lm7X-Htx3Yn2sAht1hKM7YOCeW9avBVdY_mRyvNoTQ1CUCYPTd36iOyOglbGS93MwZ_3yPVCUTyFuUBhrxCaSVtHU_Ad3H-M7N28Ch3eDq_Icc26rMoq6PnXCc6b8uhEd=s600" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Light Years from Home" border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="396" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhyxO69i3XJ9T_BwN0CQj2tVy3PZBelv7vriNJIm1rvNeMbrxM39VJGUr9lm7X-Htx3Yn2sAht1hKM7YOCeW9avBVdY_mRyvNoTQ1CUCYPTd36iOyOglbGS93MwZ_3yPVCUTyFuUBhrxCaSVtHU_Ad3H-M7N28Ch3eDq_Icc26rMoq6PnXCc6b8uhEd=w132-h200" title="Light Years from Home" width="132" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; Light Years from Home<div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp; <a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/search?q=%22mike+chen%22&amp;max-results=20&amp;by-date=true">Mike Chen</a></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; MIRA. 2022. 352 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;0778311732 / 978-0778311737</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley and a publisher's blog tour free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"Everything in front of Jakob Shao was dark."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"How did you cause this? How will you fix it?"</i></div><br /><h2 style="text-align: left;">***** BLOG TOUR *****</h2></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Review</h3><div style="margin: 0px;">For a book that references light years in the title and begins on an alien spaceship somewhere in outer space, the story actually has very little to do with aliens themselves. This book is about family, relationships, expectations, love, and disappointments. Not that aliens may not have those, but this is a book very much about humans - the Shao family. Dad, Mom, Kass, Jakob, and Evie.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Kass is the pragmatist, the oldest child. Jakob is the screwup who could be brilliant if he only chose to. Evie is the youngest child, rebelling because somehow she can never measure up.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">The lives of this family are forever changed when one day Jakob disappears. Some assume he ran off and never looked back. Some assume he is dead. Some believe that he was abducted by aliens. No spoiler here because the first page of the book reveals Jakob to be on an alien ship under attack.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">To save the world, he must return home. The question is can you go home again? If so, how? What of those you leave behind. In the fifteen years Jakob has been gone, his father has died. His mother has developed dementia. Kass has become the primary caretaker of her mother. Evie has fled to the opposite coast and is still chasing aliens, trying to prove what his father died believing - that Jakob was abducted by aliens.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">The "action" plot of this book is about Jakob finding a piece of equipment he sent ahead from his spaceship, using it to unlock from his memory information to defeat the alien enemy, and then to transmit this information to his ragtag fleet attempting to defeat this enemy empire. Interestingly, the "emotional" plot is clear from the very beginning for the reminder driving Jakob's actions is simply, <i>"Go home."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">The "emotional" plot of this book is about Jakob and his family, about the different perspectives of the three siblings depending on their personalities and the role they play in the family dynamics. It is ultimately about love. The book tells the story in the alternating perspectives of the three siblings, creating a rounded view of the family and reinforcing how children in the same family can have completely different childhoods and memories.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Within this context, the ending of the book seems rather sudden and somewhat unfinished. I suppose it really could not end any other way, but nevertheless, with the entire book focused on family and togetherness, the decision made at the end seems to revert back to the beginning. Perhaps, the lesson is that once the past is resolved, it is possible to move forward again with a clearer purpose. Perhaps, I am reading too much into it, and it is simply the fact that most family relationship do not have a closure. They simply go on.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Regardless, the story works. Ultimately, this book is more family drama than sci fi, but a heartwarming drama to follow. This seems true of all the <a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/search?q=Mike+Chen&amp;max-results=20&amp;by-date=true">Mike Chen</a> books I have read.&nbsp;</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Book</h3>Back again with his trademark "sci fi with feelings," Mike Chen brings us a Space Opera/Family Drama mash-up. When Jakob Shao reappears after fifteen missing years, he brings turmoil to his sisters, Kass and Evie, and intergalactic war on his heels.<br /><br />Every family has issues. Most can't blame them on extraterrestrials.<br /><br />Fifteen years ago while on a family camping trip, Jakob Shao and his father vanished. His father turned up a few days later, dehydrated and confused, but convinced that they'd been abducted by aliens. Jakob remained missing.<br /><br />The Shao sisters, Kass and Evie, dealt with the disappearance end ensuing fallout in very different ways. Kass over the years stepped up to be the rock of the family: carving a successful path for herself, looking after the family home, and becoming her mother's caregiver when she starts to suffer from dementia. Evie took her father's side, going all in on UFO conspiracy theories, and giving up her other passions to pursue the possible truth of life outside our planet. And always looking for Jakob.<br /><br />When atmospheric readings from Evie's network of contacts indicate a disturbance event just like the night of the abduction, she heads back home. Because Jakob is back. He's changed, and the sisters aren't sure what to think. But one thing is certain -- the tensions between the siblings haven't changed at all. Jakob, Kass and Evie are going to have to grow up and sort out their differences, and fast. Because the FBI is after Jakob, and possibly an entire alien armada, too.<br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Author</h3>Mike Chen is the author of the award-nominated Here And Now And Then and featured in Star Wars: From A Certain Point Of View—The Empire Strikes Back. He has covered geek culture for sites such as Tor.com, The Mary Sue, and StarTrek.com and used to cover the NHL for Fox Sport and other outlets. A member of SFWA, Mike lives in the Bay Area with his wife, daughter, and rescue animals.<br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">Excerpt</h3></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i>Excerpted from Light Years from Home by Mike Chen, Copyright © 2022 by Mike Chen. Published by MIRA Books.&nbsp;</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Chapter 1<br />Jakob<br /><br />Everything in front of Jakob Shao was dark.<br /><br />His eyes adjusted after several seconds, turning the void into a black sheet laced with brilliant white dots, countless stars coming into focus. Jakob raised a finger and poked at the nothingness, only to feel a magnetic pushback from deflective impulses. Force fields, really, as Jakob still used the Earth terminology brought from a childhood of movies and comic books. Whatever they were called, they kept the vacuum of space from sucking him out, freezing him, possibly imploding him. <br /><br />The atmosphere dock of the Awakened ship wasn’t much more welcoming than deep space. It didn’t help that he stood barefoot and nearly naked, only an ill-fitting cloth halfway between a burlap sack and a poncho draped over him. The Awakened probably used it more to maintain their hostage’s body temperature than comfort, and definitely not for fashion. But where were his captors?<br /><br />Where was anyone?<br /><br />Then a voice called out.<br /><br />A familiar voice, a not-human one that strained to yell his name in a vocalization that came halfway between a crow’s caw and an electronic blip. The implanted chips between Seven Bells soldiers constantly translated for species, but nothing came through here. Something must have burned out the chip, leaving only natural expression, a human word forced into alien physiology.<br /><br />It called Jakob’s name.<br /><br /> Jakob ran to the voice, tracing the sound while rumbles vibrated the floor. Spigots of steam and gaseous vapor burst onto him, and his bare feet crunched on jagged debris. He turned a corner and though different lights flashed and fluctuated through the dim space, he saw a familiar figure.<br /><br /> Henry.<br /><br /> The unmistakable silhouette of curling horns and humanoid frame of Henry’s native species stood out against beams of light, and Jakob called out. “Henry!”—The simplest name he could assign to his friend given the physically impossible way of pronouncing their culture’s names. A harsh draft blew dust in his face, fragments hitting his bare shoulders as he charged forward. “Henry! We need to go right—”<br /><br /> Except Henry would not be able to go anywhere.<br /><br /> Stripped of his standard armor and clothing, his friend’s set of eight eyes all focused on him, their face angling away. One arm reached out to Jakob, straining to move. <br /><br /> The other remained frozen, a statue pose as the crystallization took over, organic matter gradually desiccating from the bottom up. Jakob paused, slowly putting together what it all meant.<br /><br /> Jakob was in the Seven Bells first wave of defense, but his power-armor mech had been damaged and he was captured in space. Henry was to lead the second wave, an on-the-ground defense squad that took advantage of his native planetary knowledge.<br /><br /> They must have failed. Which meant Henry’s home world had fallen to the Awakened, their technology analyzed and usurped, their population and wildlife crystallized to be used as building material.<br /><br /> Jakob took his friend’s hand, a pincer-like claw with small sensory tentacles in the palm. “I’m so sorry. So sorry,” Jakob said repeatedly, taking far too much time given the exploding craft around him. Henry’s shoulder froze, body crystalizing from elbow to forearm to claws until the whole appendage stiffened and the sensory tentacles stopped moving. Jakob leaned forward as an invisible weight suddenly pushed in on his skull, a pressure from the center outward. He looked at Henry, only their head and neck remaining, eyes closed, but tilted his way. <br /><br />Jakob knew what to do, what Henry wanted. It was the way their species passed on generational knowledge during final moments. <br /><br />He let Henry in.<br /><br />And several seconds later, Jakob absorbed information, secrets, devastation, all of the things that Henry saw and felt while Jakob had been captured. And a number. <br /><br />A sixteen-digit number that could change everything. <br /><br /> “Go,” Henry managed in their unearthly voice before the crystallization process inched upward, eventually taking over their entire head with a sparkly dead texture.<br /><br /> Then his friend collapsed, their transformed body falling apart like a sand castle imploding under its own wait. Henry's remains scattered, spilling everywhere and getting between Jakob's toes. When he turned, he felt the grind beneath his feet.<br /><br /> But there was no time to mourn or be disgusted. He needed to go. But where?<br /><br /><br />Jakob sprinted, checking all corners and hallways. But whatever had happened before he came to had caused the ship to be evacuated, mostly ransacked of anything useful. At a hanger bay, his captured half-wrecked mech sat, stripped of any useful tools. The only thing intact was a decryptor—a tool for espionage. Not escape.<br /><br />That wouldn’t help here, though he grabbed the device anyway—technically, a neural encryptor/decryptor—and looked for a way out. In the corner, a holographic interface flickered on and off. <br /><br />That just might do it. <br /><br />A closer look had Jakob laughing at his luck: the half-functioning interface was the ship's compressed-matter transporter system, something he was familiar with since the Seven Bells regularly scavenged them from downed Awakened craft. He craned his neck up at the too-tall interface next to him, fingers flying over controls he understood just enough to operate. It hummed to life, a low vibration nearly eclipsed by the ongoing rumbles of various decks exploding above him. A white glow signified it was ready to fire him across space. <br /><br />Him—and the knowledge he'd stolen. <br /><br />But what destination would provide safety until the Seven Bells recovered him?<br /><br />A star chart glowed in front of him, and the vast pool of space lay at his fingertips. One of those tiny dots represented a chance. He just had to figure out which one—fast.<br /><br /> Jakob scanned the possibilities, already tensing for the brutal gauntlet of compressed matter transport: an invisible bubble sealing around the body, then throttling it through a newly generated wormhole that collapsed upon exit. He needed somewhere safe, somewhere primitive that the Awakened would completely overlook. Only then could he track his fleet without putting them in danger. Solar system upon solar system whirred in front of him, the options coming and going until he paused at one choice.<br /><br /> One obvious, hilarious, completely impossible choice.<br /><br /> Earth. The place he’d departed fifteen years ago. <br /><br /> Jakob zoomed in on the image, examining its projected rotation. Pure dumb luck handed him a win here; they were passing through within three light years, perfectly within the edge of the transporter’s radius. The holographic light pulsed, indicating the system was ready to go. <br /><br /> But what if the Awakened chased him, captured him again? He could hide his body, yet his mind still represented a risk: specifically, the device implanted in his head that connected to the Seven Bells command fleet, activated only when speaking the right words. The Awakened were known for torturing to the point of unconsciousness, trying to pry secrets that might tip the war one way or another, except he’d been trained to protect the activation phrase with his life.<br /><br /> His life for the entire fleet’s life.<br /><br /> But did the Awakened have other ways to extract that information, something more strategic than pain? If they tracked him down, could they try some type of mental probe or memory scanner?<br /><br />Jakob turned to think, his bare foot kicking against a smooth object that suddenly caught his attention. <br /><br />The decryptor he salvaged—a basketball-sized device that could scramble certain parts of his memory. A way to blank out the activation phrase from his mind, guaranteeing its safety—and thus, the fleet’s safety—in any situation until the Seven Bells located him. Jakob calculated the risks. As one of the Seven Bells’ leading engineers, patching up damaged equipment in the heat of battle was standard procedure. But scrambling and patching up his own mind? <br /><br /> There was a first time for everything.<br /><br />Jakob held the decryptor to his forehead, pressing it firmly and thinking as hard as he could about the specific phrase to activate the skull implant’s emergency communications signal. A very quick, very sharp zap hit him, and with it, scrambled that memory, now unlockable solely with this very device. <br /><br /> But he suddenly realized that if the zap’s blast radius scrambled tangential memories, he might lose more: what had happened, what he needed, his whole mission. Jakob’s eyes darted around, searching the broken space for something that might provide a way to give himself tangible backup clues.<br /><br />The pipes on the walls.<br /><br />Whatever liquid they contained might be as good as ink.<br /><br />He grabbed jagged shrapnel off the floor and smashed the line, neon blue dripping out. It didn’t produce steam or eat through the floor. Good enough. His finger stung a little under the viscous liquid, and with it, he wrote words on his exposed skin. <br /><br />SIGNAL. WEAPON.<br /><br /> Dizziness and nausea struck as details blurred out of existence, and Jakob knew disorientation would hit soon enough. He held the decryptor close, hugging it while activating the scan sequence of the transporter. A thin beam of light trickled over him, a tingle crawling over his skin while the transporter calculated the shape and strength of its protective bubble. It nearly finished when sparks flew from the far side of the room, another shake knocking him off balance.<br /><br /> “Shit, shit, shit,” he said while reinitiating the scan, uttering Earth curses that still stayed with him. The scanning beam re-appeared, only to stop halfway down his body. He tried again and then again, but each time, it refused to move past the decryptor.<br /><br /> Jakob squinted at the repeated message on the transporter’s interface, but without the supporting communications tech from Seven Bells on him, it was incomprehensible. He looked at the decryptor in his hand, then back at the interface, then over at the message.<br /><br /> Maybe that was it. Jakob with the device might be too much. <br /><br />He set the decryptor on the floor and retargeted the scan beam. Several seconds later, a planetary image indicated a target destination. The decryptor shot off across space, a simple white flash as it vanished.<br /><br />He’d have to find it. But what if the decryptor's memory fallout erased those details? What if the transporter veered him off course on his own journey? How would he even know where to start?<br /><br />Jakob turned back to the holographic map; the decryptor had been sent somewhere on the west coast of the North American continent. The Bay Area. Images flashed through his mind, faces surfacing after so many years of disconnecting from that life. <br /><br />Mom. Dad. Kassie. Evie.<br /><br />Home. <br /><br />Such a word felt weightless, devoid of any meaning now. But it gave a shorthand to the decryptor’s location. <br /><br />He jabbed his finger into the smashed pipeline, dipping into enough alien goo to write one more message. GO HOME, he wrote across his left shoulder. That would point him in the right direction, no matter where on Earth he started. <br /><br /> Jakob took in a deep breath, then hit the controls again on the transporter. The beam returned, scanning him up and down. Seconds passed and the air changed, like he was encased in a layer of plastic— pressurized energy protecting him across the vacuum of space. Around him, various hums and vibrations indicated the system would activate in moments. <br /><br />The room shook as a hole tore open in the ceiling, fire and shrapnel showering him. <br /><br /> “Weapon. Signal. Go home.” He told himself, repeating the words. If all the writing dissolved or washed off, he could try to remember these few words. He readied himself, and only now did he notice bits of crystalline sand stuck to his legs and feet. Nausea hit Jakob, but whether it came from the decryptor process or seeing Henry’s remains, he wasn't sure. Fists formed with tight fingers and tensed arms, and he forced himself to picture Henry's crumbling body, a reminder of why he needed to do this.<br /><br />“Weapon. Signal.” <br /><br /> He had to make it to Earth safely. He had to retrieve the decryptor and contact the fleet.<br /><br /> Because he wasn’t just a Seven Bells soldier trying to find a way back. Those sixteen digits Henry had chiseled into his mind would win the war.<br /><br /> He just needed to tell them first.<br /><br /> “Go home.”<br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">Social Links</h3>Author website: <a href="https://www.mikechenbooks.com/">https://www.mikechenbooks.com/</a> <br />Twitter: @mikechenwriter<br />Instagram: @mikechenwriter<br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">Buy Links</h3>Bookshop: <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/light-years-from-home/9780778311737">https://bookshop.org/books/light-years-from-home/9780778311737</a> <br />B&amp;N: <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/light-years-from-home-mike-chen/1139205091">https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/light-years-from-home-mike-chen/1139205091</a> <br />Amazon: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Light-Years-Home-Mike-Chen/dp/0778311732">https://www.amazon.com/Light-Years-Home-Mike-Chen/dp/0778311732</a><br />Kobo: <a href="https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/light-years-from-home">https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/light-years-from-home</a><br />Apple Books: <a href="https://books.apple.com/us/book/light-years-from-home/id1562318173">https://books.apple.com/us/book/light-years-from-home/id1562318173</a> <br />Google Books: <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Light_Years_from_Home.html?id=t00oEAAAQBAJ">https://books.google.com/books/about/Light_Years_from_Home.html?id=t00oEAAAQBAJ</a></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Walmart: <a href="https://www.walmart.com/ip/Light-Years-from-Home-Hardcover-9780778311737/732092225">https://www.walmart.com/ip/Light-Years-from-Home-Hardcover-9780778311737/732092225</a> </div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-66947765856639283262022-01-21T21:07:00.000-05:002022-01-21T21:07:05.278-05:00Honor<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhzCE-v38pw4y50_qOtDDCQQR2lH3smgbqbWJ72XwgJPBl2BpyO-WaGARTrQGU6M_MH82n3otHdByzMVj54awFDDEzMEcprunMgVEDlvBU4xCURXj6GspHXzuMaF3E3ZrlDJve_59tXEL_aMwmFOxm_-Zsysbtt14eURyeKYS_7WrwseVioSNAyJRc5=s600" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Honor" border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="397" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhzCE-v38pw4y50_qOtDDCQQR2lH3smgbqbWJ72XwgJPBl2BpyO-WaGARTrQGU6M_MH82n3otHdByzMVj54awFDDEzMEcprunMgVEDlvBU4xCURXj6GspHXzuMaF3E3ZrlDJve_59tXEL_aMwmFOxm_-Zsysbtt14eURyeKYS_7WrwseVioSNAyJRc5=w133-h200" title="Honor" width="133" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; Honor<div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp; <a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/search?q=%22Thrity+Umrigar%22&amp;max-results=20&amp;by-date=true">Thrity Umrigar</a></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; Algonquin Books. 2022. 336 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;161620995X / 978-1616209957</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley and a publisher's blog tour free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"Her face is a constellation of stars."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"Everywhere she went, it seemed, it was open season on women. Rape, female genital mutilation, bride burnings, domestic abuse - everyone, in every country, women were abused, isolated, silenced, imprisoned, controlled, punished, and killed. Sometimes, it seems to Smita that&nbsp;the history of&nbsp;the world was written in female blood."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i> <i> </i> <h2 style="text-align: left;">***** BLOG TOUR *****</h2><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Review</h3><div>Meena is a young woman. Born and raised in a small village in rural India, Meena grows up under the strict control of her brothers. She and her sister flout tradition by getting paying jobs to help support the families. Her brothers use her earrings but considering her working an insult to them. Meena, a Hindu girl, falls in love with a Muslim man. She is forbidden and then worse to prevent such a union. She marries him anyway. They have a daughter. They name her Abru. <i>"It means Honor."</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Meena's brothers exact revenge and, in their eyes, restore their honor by murdering her husband by burning him alive. He dies, and Meena is left permanently scarred. Her courage propels her further. She allows an attorney to file suit against her brothers. <i>"Steel is forged from fire."</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Everyone awaits the court's decision. This is the point at which the book begins and the point at which Smita joins the story. She is a reporter. She is of Indian heritage, but her family immigrated to the United States when Smita was young. Being back in India brings back to Smita all the reasons she loved India but all the betrayals and hate that caused her family to leave.</div><div><br /></div><div>Through the story of these two women both past and present, the book tackles so many issues surrounding even modern day India - poverty, corruption, religious tensions, and, most of all, violence against women. This view is tempered through the depiction of Mohan, who embodies a passion for his homeland and a vision of what it could be.</div><div><br /></div><div>The story of this book is Smita's story, including her telling of Meena's story and her own role in Meena's story. That is my only regret about this compelling and heartbreaking book. I want this to be Meena's story first and foremost. That is the voice I want to hear for that is the voice the world needs to hear. However, the book begins and ends with Smita.</div><div><br /></div><div>Smita's story in and of itself is tragic and horrifying, but it is Meena's story that I want to hear more of. Smita's story is of strife between faiths, and times when friends and neighbors betrayed each other in the name of religion. Meena's story is of the strife between two faiths and even more so about the plight of women - women of any faith in a rigid, male dominated society. Smita's story is of a terrifying, horrifying, life altering event as a child, but it is about a way out and life - even a good life - after. Meena's story is about a lifetime of subjugation and abuse with no foreseeable way out. Smita's story is a reflection back on tragedy and the way in which a decision can alter the trajectory of an entire life. Meena's story is an ongoing tragedy. Not to mitigate the trauma in Smita's story, but I am drawn more to Meena's story. The fact that the books begins and ends with Smita highlights that disparity in focus even more starkly.</div><div><br /></div><div>Nevertheless, both women are memorable characters, and the events described so tragic that the book will stay with me for a long time.</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Author</h3><div>Thrity Umrigar is the bestselling author of eight novels, including The Space Between Us, which was a finalist for the PEN/Beyond Margins Award, as well as a memoir and three picture books. Her books have been translated into several languages and published in more than fifteen countries. She is the winner of a Lambda Literary Award and a Seth Rosenberg Award and is Distinguished Professor of English at Case Western Reserve University. A recipient of the Nieman Fellowship to Harvard, she has contributed to the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, the New York Times and Huffington Post.</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Book</h3></div>The bestselling author of the PEN/Beyond Margins Award finalist The Space Between Us and eight other critically acclaimed novels that have been published in over fifteen countries, Thrity Umrigar has long been known as an author with “an uncanny ability to look deeply into the human heart and find the absolute truth of our lives” (Luis Alberto Urrea). Now, it is with great excitement that we welcome Umrigar to the Algonquin list with HONOR (Publication Date: January 4th, 2022; $26.95), her ninth novel in a remarkably accomplished career. Returning to subjects that have long haunted her work—the complex relationship between women of different classes, the power of privilege and wealth, and the lively, frenetic energy of Mumbai—Umrigar’s HONOR is a “powerful, important, unforgettable book” (Cheryl Strayed) that shows she is working at the height of her extraordinary talents. As New York Times bestselling author Lisa Wingate says, “In the way A Thousand Splendid Suns told of Afghanistan’s women, Umrigar tells a story of India with the intimacy of one who knows the many facets of a land both modern and ancient... A place where love can sometimes involve the peril of defying convention, and ultimately risking everything for what matters most.”<br /><br />When a young Hindu woman is brutally tortured for marrying a Muslim man, and her husband murdered, Indian-American journalist Smita travels to India to cover the story of the young widow, Meena, and her attackers—her own brothers, who feel their sister’s forbidden marriage brought unforgivable shame to the family. Returning to Mumbai for the first time in twenty years, Smita sees a country entrenched in outdated beliefs about caste, religion, and patriarchy, a country where a woman can meet violence for exercising any amount of autonomy. But Smita’s harsh assessment of modern India is complicated by Mohan, a lifelong Mumbai resident with progressive ideals and a fierce love of his country who becomes her unofficial partner in her quest to bring awareness to the tragedy. As Smita works for justice on behalf of Meena and her infant daughter, she must also reckon with the privilege she now has as an American—and finally face the trauma that led to her own family fleeing India all those years ago.<br /><br />“A few years ago, I read a series of articles in the New York Times about the misogyny endured by women in rural India,” says Umrigar, a recipient of the Nieman fellowship at Harvard, a Distinguished Professor of English at Case Western University, and former prize-winning journalist whose writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe. “I lived in India until I was 21, but since I was raised in a modern, urban family, some of the ‘traditions’ and rituals I read about—most of which are rooted in iron-clad beliefs about caste and religion and patriarchy—shocked me. I began to conceive of a novel where a woman who exercises basic human rights—the right to employment, to love and marry whoever she chooses—is brutally punished for her courage. I wanted to explore her inner life, the source of such bravery. And then I thought of a second character, one who has had the advantages of wealth and education, but who has also been wounded by the divisions in Indian society. I wanted to see these two women in conversation, to see whether they could inspire and support one another.” <br /><br /> “With HONOR, Thrity Umrigar continues her habit of laying bare the folly of our perceived differences,” says Connie Schultz, author of The Daughters of Erietown. “This an intense and spellbinding novel, ricocheting between fear and hope, and betrayal and redemption. HONOR is the story of the human heart in all of its complexities, and love worth fighting for.<div style="margin: 0px;"><div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-40897839663256940672022-01-18T20:25:00.000-05:002022-01-18T20:25:38.840-05:00The Missing Treasures of Amy Ashton<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OxKbWTQ7L5Q/YK55DP0EbAI/AAAAAAAAImY/s6cuhqyYOn4RknPWCOZrBr3X0mIdL3DCgCPcBGAsYHg/s604/The%2BMissing%2BTreasures%2Bof%2BAmy%2BAshton%2Bby%2BEleanor%2BRay.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OxKbWTQ7L5Q/YK55DP0EbAI/AAAAAAAAImY/s6cuhqyYOn4RknPWCOZrBr3X0mIdL3DCgCPcBGAsYHg/w133-h200/The%2BMissing%2BTreasures%2Bof%2BAmy%2BAshton%2Bby%2BEleanor%2BRay.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; The Missing Treasures of Amy Ashton<div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp; Eleanor Ray</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; Gallery Books. 2021. 320 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;1982163526 / 978-1982163525</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"It really was too much."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"Real life needed space to grow."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i> <i> </i> <div><i> </i>Amy Ashton is a thirty-something year old woman living alone in a home she owns. She is a hoarder, but she wasn't always. The traumatic, simultaneous disappearance of her long-time boyfriend and her best friend led to Amy's hoarding. <i>"Belongings were what she could trust. People were not."</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Amy Ashton met Tim at a party. He became the love of her life. She moved in with him and her best friend Chantal. Life was merry and joyful for a while. Then, one day Tim and Chantal disappeared. No note. No goodbye. No clues. There was an investigation, but nothing was found. It was presumed that they both deserted Amy and ran off together.</div><div><br /></div><div>Amy never recovered. She changed. She withdrew more an more into herself. She turned into a hoarder. This is where the book begins. Her hoarding fills her home and spills over into her yard. Most spaces in her home are no longer accessible. The mass of stuff is providing a haven for creatures such as mice. Neighbors have complained.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>A new neighbor moves in - the right age and the right demeanor. He has two boys of his own. Can you see where this is going?</div><div><br /></div><div>The book uses a two-timeline approach to tell the stories of Amy's past and present. This approach, for me, does not work as successfully as it does in other books. By the end, the two meet. That coming together is quick and convenient. It ties everything up in a neat package - too neat. Life is not that neat.</div><div><br /></div><div>Somehow, through it all, Amy herself fails to develop into a sympathetic character. Perhaps a chronological story may have heightened the impact of the disappearance and presumed betrayal and the understanding of Amy's hoarding of particularl objects. Perhaps, a less than neat, conveniently packaged ending may have leant more reality to Amy's story. Perhaps, the use of more realistic supporting characters than the stereotypical handsome neighbor and the mean neighbor may have helped develop Amy's characters. Perhaps, the more depth to the relationships than the instant conversion of enemies to friends and neighbors into more may have helped.</div><div><br /></div><div>The issue of hoarding is central to this book. Yet, it does not appear to be given the depth and challenge that the issue deserves. Amy emerges out of her need to hoard as the unresolved mysteries of her life find resolution. Yet, no mention is made of help or resources sources sought. It appears too simplified a depiction. A trauma leads to uncontrolled hoarding. A friendship and a resolution to a mystery is the only impetus needed to lead towards a cure from the condition. Maybe it happens that way, but, most likely, it takes considerable more.</div><div><br /></div><div>Sadly, much as I want to like Amy and her story, I was not the right reader for this book.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-19376347622079996032022-01-11T19:44:00.002-05:002022-01-11T19:59:52.597-05:00My Darling Husband<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEggdOXjJ-i01QeXhV9I5wmP5aN3TbzCul6Et61E_e7xS4zXhEX2PfIkWVQy6vF9ZluP2GECmINfhlQVfZYJFUoKhFTslDOLX8eu2ie3jeA00dBLXxNO0KRDDzCdX8bEsPZinqR3ip5BYn5C01M1ncQGEN7i3Kygpb5OMyTjYnkBUn_BZ1b9B9oOodHa=s600" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="My Darling Husband" border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEggdOXjJ-i01QeXhV9I5wmP5aN3TbzCul6Et61E_e7xS4zXhEX2PfIkWVQy6vF9ZluP2GECmINfhlQVfZYJFUoKhFTslDOLX8eu2ie3jeA00dBLXxNO0KRDDzCdX8bEsPZinqR3ip5BYn5C01M1ncQGEN7i3Kygpb5OMyTjYnkBUn_BZ1b9B9oOodHa=w133-h200" title="My Darling Husband" width="133" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; My Darling Husband<div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp; Kimberly Belle</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; Park Row. 2022. 336 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;0778312119 / 978-0778312116</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley and the HTP BOOK Fall 2021 Mystery &amp; Thriller tour&nbsp;free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"Juanita Moore: &nbsp;Mr. Lasky, thank you for speaking&nbsp;with me today and sharing your story with Channel 7 Action News."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp; <i>"What's that old saying? The higher your star, the farther it is to fall. That's not an excuse, but I hope it's an explanation."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i> <i> </i> <h2 style="text-align: left;">***** BLOG TOUR *****</h2><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Review</h3><div>The "darling" husband is Cam Lasky - chef, restaurant owner, entrepreneur, husband, father, and perhaps much more and perhaps, as the author's interview states, <i>"not so darling after all."</i> The loving wife is Jade - designer, wife, mother, and someone who put her own dreams and ambitions aside to support those of her husband. The children are nine year Beatrix and four year old Baxter. Nine year old Beatrix is stubborn, mature for her age, and a violin prodigy. Baxter is a precocious four.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Lasky family lives in a mansion, drives expensive cars, and Jade is dripping in diamonds. Cam Lasky is a celebrity as Atlanta's Steak King, with his five restaurants and perhaps a sixth on the way. They are definitely one of Atlanta's power couples - loving marriage, children, success, and wealth visible to the world. However, perhaps all that glitters is not gold. Debt and a whole litany of disgruntled former employees plague Cam. Does Jade know?</div><div><br /></div><div>The book begins with two dramatic events. Jade feels as if she is being followed. Cam is dealing with a major, destructive fire at his flagship restaurant. Then, it gets worse. Jade arrives home, only to be overtaken by an intruder. Now, Jade and the kids are locked in the house with a kidnapper. With Cam making enemies of so many people, there are many candidates for who might be responsible for the fire and who the kidnapper is.</div><div><br /></div><div>The book becomes an entertaining fiction as the layers of Cam and Jade's life are peeled back to reveal their secrets and the people who have grudges against them. The book adds to the layers with multiple perspectives - Cam's, Jade's, and the invader's. Cam's perspective is portrayed through an after-the-fact interview with a reporter; it is about memory, regrets, and 20/20 hindsight. Jade's perspective is that of a mother's nightmare - captured in a house with her children and a masked invader; it is about fear, courage, and survival. The invader's perspective is the most mysterious for his identity and motive are unknown at the beginning; his is the story of anger, revenge, and desperation.</div><br />The story itself is slow moving for it is more about revelation than action. The crux of the story is the why? Why does this happen to Cam and Jade, and what role do they each play in the events that lead to this? What makes the story works is that all three characters - Cam, Jade, and the invader - are believable. All are driven by a sense of desperation. While, as a reader, there are decisions the characters make that should never be made, the sense of fear and even love that drives the choices is understandable. The children are perhaps a little too precocious, but it is what it is.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">If you want to look at a broader point in a domestic thriller, this book highlights disparity in wealth and the decisions that leads to. It also speaks to decisions of business owners that sometimes come at the expense of their employees and the need to find that balance between profit and people. That conversation too is an important one.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">So, enjoy the thriller or look for the bigger meaning or both in this entertaining book.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Book</h3>Bestselling author of DEAR WIFE and THE MARRIAGE LIE, Kimberly Belle returns with her most heart-pounding thriller to date, as a masked home invader reveals the cracks in a marriage.<br /><br />Everyone is about to know what her husband isn’t telling her…<br /><br />Jade and Cam Lasky are by all accounts a happily married couple with two adorable kids, a spacious home and a rapidly growing restaurant business. But their world is tipped upside down when Jade is confronted by a masked home invader. As Cam scrambles to gather the ransom money, Jade starts to wonder if they’re as financially secure as their lifestyle suggests, and what other secrets her husband is keeping from her.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br />Cam may be a good father, a celebrity chef and a darling husband, but there’s another side he’s kept hidden from Jade that has put their family in danger. Unbeknownst to Cam and Jade, the home invader has been watching them and is about to turn their family secrets into a public scandal.<br /><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">With riveting twists and a breakneck pace, My Darling Husband is an utterly compelling thriller that once again showcases Kimberly Belle's exceptional talent for domestic suspense.<br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Author</h3>Kimberly Belle is the USA Today and internationally bestselling author of seven novels, including her latest, My Darling Husband (December 2021). Her third novel, The Marriage Lie, was a semifinalist in the 2017 Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Mystery &amp; Thriller, and a #1 e-book bestseller in the UK and Italy. She’s sold rights to her books in a dozen languages as well as film and television options. A graduate of Agnes Scott College, Belle divides her time between Atlanta and Amsterdam.<br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">Q&amp;A with Kimberly Belle</h3><i>Q: Your cover really draws you in. Are you involved with the cover process? What do you hope this cover tells potential readers?</i><br />A: Thank you! And I agree; the designers at Park Row really nailed this one. Typically, I don’t have a lot of involvement with the cover until it’s nearly finished, which means it’s already gotten approval from my editorial team as well as the folks in sales and marketing before I get to see it. That moment when the email lands in my inbox – A sneak peek at your cover! – is always so exciting. <br /><br />In my mind, what makes the My Darling Husband cover so strong is that it gives us a view of Jade’s face but none of her husband Cam’s, only a slice of his shoulder. For me, this makes Cam feel somewhat elusive, and it hopefully puts the reader on alert that things with him may not be what they seem. Especially in combination with the title, the image lets the reader know that the husband in this story may not be so darling after all. <br /><br /><i>Q: What research did you need to conduct for this book and how did you do it?</i><br />A: I did a lot of research around a couple of plot points that if I mentioned them here, would give a big chunk of the story away. What I can mention is my research around raising a child prodigy and the kinds of stresses that degree of talent can put on both the family and the child. Beatrix is nine and has played violin since she was a toddler, when she picked up one in the toy aisle at Target. As amazing as her talent is, it’s also a daily hurdle. Lessons, practice time, the drive to succeed, the pressure to not “waste” your talent by frittering away your time with normal childhood pursuits – it can all feel very isolating. She’s a brilliant, brave kid who is much more mature than she should be, as illustrated with this line: “Most parents want their children to grow up. Cam and I should have spent more time coaxing Beatrix to grow down.” <br /><br /><i>Q: What is your elevator pitch for My Darling Husband?</i><br />A: My Darling Husband is the story of a mother held captive with her two children in their own home while her husband scrambles for the ransom, and the masked invader who’s about to turn their family secrets into a public scandal.<br /><br /><i>Q: Which came first, the story or the title?</i><br />A: I turned this book in as “Book #7” so definitely the story came first. Seven books in, and not one of my titles has ever stuck, so I’ve stopped worrying about what the story will be called when I’m writing it. My publisher has a fabulous team of experts who are so much more versed in the process than I am. While I’m only thinking of the story, they’re looking at big-picture items like comparable stories, market trends, which words are hitting a collective chord (remember all the books with “girl” in the title?). All this goes to say, they know what they’re doing, and I am happy to let them work their magic!<br /><br /><i>Q: What is your favorite season and why?</i><br />A: My favorite season has always been fall. I never mind the shorter days and cooler air, all the more reason to light a fire and wrap myself up in an oversized sweater. For me, fall has all the bests–the best fashion and the best food (soup season!) and the best festivities, ones that are centered around family. That’s hands-down my favorite part of fall, when all my people are gathered under one roof.<br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">Social Links</h3>Author website: <a href="https://www.kimberlybellebooks.com/">https://www.kimberlybellebooks.com/</a><br />Facebook:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/KimberlyBelleBooks/"> @KimberlyBelleBooks</a><br />Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/KimberlySBelle">@KimberlySBelle</a><br />Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/kimberlysbelle/">@kimberlysbelle</a><br />Goodreads: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/kimberlybelle">https://www.goodreads.com/kimberlybelle</a> <br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">Buy Links</h3>Amazon: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/My-Darling-Husband-Kimberly-Belle/dp/0778311562/">https://www.amazon.com/My-Darling-Husband-Kimberly-Belle/dp/0778311562/</a><br />Barnes &amp; Noble: <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/my-darling-husband-kimberly-belle/1138090011?ean=9780778311560">https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/my-darling-husband-kimberly-belle/1138090011?ean=9780778311560</a> <br />Bookshop: <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/my-darling-husband-9780778312116/9780778312116">https://bookshop.org/books/my-darling-husband-9780778312116/9780778312116</a> <br />IndieBound: <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780778312116">https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780778312116</a> <br />Books-A-Million: <a href="https://www.booksamillion.com/p/My-Darling-Husband/Kimberly-Belle/9780778311560?id=8388215054600">https://www.booksamillion.com/p/My-Darling-Husband/Kimberly-Belle/9780778311560?id=8388215054600</a> <br />Kobo: <a href="https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/my-darling-husband">https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/my-darling-husband</a> <br />AppleBooks: <a href="https://books.apple.com/us/book/my-darling-husband/id1539274871">https://books.apple.com/us/book/my-darling-husband/id1539274871</a> <br />Google Play: <a href="https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Kimberly_Belle_My_Darling_Husband?id=6JMHEAAAQBAJ">https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Kimberly_Belle_My_Darling_Husband?id=6JMHEAAAQBAJ</a> <br />Libro.FM: <a href="https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9781488212611-my-darling-husband">https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9781488212611-my-darling-husband</a> <br />Indigo: <a href="https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/my-darling-husband-a-novel/9780778333135-item.html">https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/my-darling-husband-a-novel/9780778333135-item.html</a> <div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-86512573991915316342022-01-10T18:20:00.000-05:002022-01-10T18:20:23.298-05:00The Paris Bookseller<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZbWofdzyeBWR5I0pgFsJY6mHhTjXbySAIF1jYV2ICVqrRe7FfZIYHMao5xxFQZq5fP5ENzkE0mjxElm_WkxuJyDAgRWmAe0d4nCcTLiHT4q_Nrl1X14OKoKtn3YXkEmCrp90cqbunS2gEs4xSBCwtGL6k8yUFq_Ys5W-7fnLlTHM3fe2A6YsskzM0=s600" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The Paris Bookseller" border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="398" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZbWofdzyeBWR5I0pgFsJY6mHhTjXbySAIF1jYV2ICVqrRe7FfZIYHMao5xxFQZq5fP5ENzkE0mjxElm_WkxuJyDAgRWmAe0d4nCcTLiHT4q_Nrl1X14OKoKtn3YXkEmCrp90cqbunS2gEs4xSBCwtGL6k8yUFq_Ys5W-7fnLlTHM3fe2A6YsskzM0=w133-h200" title="The Paris Bookseller" width="133" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; The Paris Bookseller<div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp; Kerri Maher</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; Berkeley. 2022. 336 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;0593102185 / 978-0593102183</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley and a publisher's blog tour free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"It was hard not to feel that Paris was the place."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"Not every star is like the étoile&nbsp;polar, chérie. Some are&nbsp;more elusive, more subtle. But they are no less brilliant, no less&nbsp;important."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">***** BLOG TOUR *****</h2><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Review</h3></div><div style="margin: 0px;">The store Shakespeare and Company is a bucket list destination for this reader even though the store in existence now is not the store originally established by Sylvia Beach. I relish the opportunity to read a fictional account of the store's history history and the history of its intriguing founder.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">February 2, 2022 marks the 100th anniversary of the publishing of Ulysses by James Joyce - the most impactful legacy of Sylvia Beach. The novel was first published in installments as a serial. In the United States, it was deemed immoral and, by some, pornographic. No publisher on either side of the ocean would take on the project until Sylvia Beach. She and many others deemed it art. Her undertaking to publish it altered the world of literature.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">This book is the story of Sylvia Beach, of Shakespeare and Company, and of the publishing of Ulysses. It does not cover Sylvia's entire life, but rather the time from 1917 until 1937, the period relevant to these events.&nbsp;</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Much as I find the history intriguing, I find myself not the reader for this particular book. Based on the content of Ulysses and based on Sylvia Beach's relationships at this time, this book becomes graphic at times, and that is just not for me. Much of the history relevant to this story is that of acceptance of sexuality and the differences in that acceptance amongst individuals and across continents between Europe and the United States. It is fascinating and heartbreaking to read some of the same conversations occurring today. However, I still do not need physical descriptions in a book to reach understanding.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">The telling of this book is also very much like a history. As the author's note points out, <i>"... I chose to write the novel in the third person because I wanted readers to see things that Sylvia might not."</i> This narrative approach lends itself to that history book feel. Yet, many nonfiction sources exist for this history. I love historical fiction to point me to history, but I still want the emotional, fictional story built around the characters to be the focal point. Too much in the direction of history takes away from the emotional connection to the story.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">As a broader third person history, the book also expands well beyond Sylvia's story. There are a lot of names in this book. Some I know. Some I feel I should know. Some I just don't. Many are historical figures, but some are pure fiction as the author's note distinguishes. With this broad number of characters, I find myself occasionally lost amongst the characters. When a name is first mentioned, I am unsure of how closely to pay attention as I do not know who will appear again and what relevance they may have to the story. It is a challenge, and not one I successfully meet through the entirety of the book.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Although I am not the reader for this book, I so appreciate the introduction to this history. I honor the book and the author in words from the book itself. <i>"And I feel nothing but gratitude for the writers who make the sentences. Sentences have changed my life."</i> Thank you.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Book</h3><i>(from the author's website)</i><br /><br />Discover the dramatic story of how a humble bookseller fought against incredible odds to bring one of the most important books of the 20th century to the world in this new novel from the author of The Girl in the White Gloves.<br /><br />When bookish young American Sylvia Beach opens Shakespeare and Company on a quiet street in Paris in 1919, she has no idea that she and her new bookstore will change the course of literature itself.<br /><br />Shakespeare and Company is more than a bookstore and lending library: Many of the most prominent writers of the Lost Generation, like Ernest Hemingway, consider it a second home. It’s where some of the most important literary friendships of the twentieth century are forged—none more so than the one between Irish writer James Joyce and Sylvia herself. When Joyce’s controversial novel Ulysses is banned, Beach takes a massive risk and publishes it under the auspices of Shakespeare and Company.<br /><br />But the success and notoriety of publishing the most infamous and influential book of the century comes with steep costs. The future of her beloved store itself is threatened when Ulysses’ success brings other publishers to woo Joyce away. Her most cherished relationships are put to the test as Paris is plunged deeper into the Depression and many expatriate friends return to America. As she faces painful personal and financial crises, Sylvia—a woman who has made it her mission to honor the life-changing impact of books—must decide what Shakespeare and Company truly means to her.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Author</h3><div style="margin: 0px;">Kerri Maher holds an MFA from Columbia University. She was a writing professor but now writes full-time. She lives in a Boston, Massachusetts suburb with with her daughter and dog. She is the author of The Girl in White Gloves, The Kennedy Debutante, and, under the name Kerri Majors, This Is Not a Writing Manual: Notes for the Young Writer in the Real World.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Excerpt</h3><i>From THE PARIS BOOKSELLER published by arrangement with Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2021 by Kerri Maher.</i><br /><br />Sitting at her little desk in the Palais, Sylvia kept catching the scent of dust and lavender that reminded her of A. Monnier—the shop and the woman, both—and every time she buried her nose in her sleeves to find the source of it, she found it was always elusive.<br /><br />She couldn't help thinking that this distraction was just one more sign she was not destined to be a writer, despite the fact that after all the reading she'd done in her life, everyone around her, from her parents and sisters to her oldest friend, Carlotta Welles, just assumed she would be one.<br /><br />"There's a Walt Whitman in you," her father told her every time she brought home another high mark on a school essay. "I just know it."<br /><br />But essays were not poems, or novels. When she tried her hand at verse or a story, it came out all wrong. She adored Whitman. To try to be anything remotely like him—or Kate Chopin or any of the Brontë sisters, for that matter—almost seemed an insult. It didn't help that as she grew older, she began to prefer the writers she saw successfully continuing Whitman's legacy, singing so startlingly of themselves and the world that she would sometimes complete one of their works and lie awake half the night wondering, How do they do it? How do they reach inside me, put their fist around my very soul, and rattle it in its cage? It had been like that with Chopin's The Awakening especially, and also with James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Oh god, she felt a roiling stew of lust and admiration and jealousy thinking of both those novels. The exquisite honesty with which they wrote about bodies and their cravings, and the guilt and consequences of those cravings, using words strung into unsettling sentences that embodied the very nature of the character's inner turmoil, made Sylvia sweat in her sheets.<br /><br />Could she ever write so bravely, knowing her minister father, whom she loved dearly, would read every word? It was one thing for him to quietly accept her spinsterhood, and perhaps even her discreet sapphism—for he'd never encouraged her to marry and he'd never questioned the friendships she'd had with women, which after all had run the gamut between entirely platonic and, rarely, heart-wrenchingly intimate—but it would be quite another thing for her to write about her desires with the kind of honesty she admired in the new writing she was starting to see in the more progressive journals.<br /><br />Could she write about her own deepest longings with abandon, without abandoning herself? Could she help fill the pages of her favorite journal, The Little Review, which its editor Margaret Anderson had boldly left entirely blank in 1916, publishing twenty-odd white pages with only an editorial saying that she was no longer willing to publish good enough writing; everything she published had to be true art. Art that would remake the world. And Sylvia believed with all her heart that this was the purpose of art—to be new, to make change, to alter minds.<br /><br />She recalled her mother's reply to her father's suggestion about Whitman: "Or maybe she'll be the next Elizabeth Cady Stanton." Why did her parents have to pick such big shoes for her to fill? <br /><br /><div style="margin: 0px;"> <i> </i> <div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-90792370585649609782022-01-04T20:19:00.000-05:002022-01-04T20:19:10.106-05:00The Ride of Her Life<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-smYexTf2BdM/YPJBN7O_GzI/AAAAAAAAIxw/EMkyw43tVfUFYgxr5zNTRdvBWQxUn_SBQCPcBGAsYHg/s608/The%2BRide%2Bof%2BHer%2BLife%2Bby%2BElizabeth%2BLetts.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="608" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-smYexTf2BdM/YPJBN7O_GzI/AAAAAAAAIxw/EMkyw43tVfUFYgxr5zNTRdvBWQxUn_SBQCPcBGAsYHg/w132-h200/The%2BRide%2Bof%2BHer%2BLife%2Bby%2BElizabeth%2BLetts.jpg" width="132" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America<br /><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp; Elizabeth Letts</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; Ballantine Books. 2021. 336 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;0525619321 / 978-0525619321</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"The sun rose bright over Pasadena, California, on January 1, 1954."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"... the quiet strength of her personal philosophy - that happiness comes&nbsp;only to those who participate in the&nbsp;adventure of life, and that true security is, in essence, a state of mind."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i> <i> </i> <div><i> </i>Imagine 1954 in Maine. Imagine being a 63-year old woman who has spent most of her life on an isolated farm in Maine. Imagine that you have lost your family and are about to lose your farm. &nbsp;Imagine that you have been told be the doctor to live a restful life and that you may not have long to live. If you find yourself in this situation, what do you do?</div><div><br /></div><div>Now comes the surprise. Annie Wilkins is this woman, and what she decides to do is take a huge risk. She spends a season growing a cash crop to make some money, sells her farm, buys a horse, and decides that she is going to ride cross country with her dog to see California. Why? For the simple reason of a dream to see California. Annie, at a crossroads in her life, does not want to die without living out a dream.</div><div><br /></div><div>This book is the story of that journey that lasted over a year. She began in November, 1954 and reached California in March 1956. She began with some money, a horse named Tarzan, and a dog named Depeche Toi. <i>"And more than anything, Annie had trust. When she set off, she was sure she was going to find the same America she'd grown up believing in: A country made up of one giant set of neighbors. People who'd be happy to give you a helping hand. People spread out far and wide, from sea to shining sea, with different accents, and different favorite dishes, and different kinds of homes, people who lived with dust or traffic, snowstorms or tornadoes, or mountain for flatlands, in cities or small towns. ... people who were fundamentally decent and deep down, the same."</i></div><div><br /></div><div>That trust, for the most part, bears out across the country. Annie's personal story becomes of days of riding and people along the way who provide help and support. The cycle repeats over and over and even grows as Annie's story goes "viral" through the news without the benefit of the internet. She and her animals capture the imagination of all those who learn about them.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Annie's story alone, however, is not enough to fill a book because the days do repeat and the sense of purpose remains constant. This book adds to Annie's story with inserts about the history of the United States at that time. The highway system. The beginning of the TV age. The demise of small farms. The growth of towns. The Jim Crow era. McCarthyism. And so much more. The information builds on an incident, a location, or even a person along Annie journey and expands to present the history.</div><div><br /></div><div>The history at times seems to interrupt Annie's story, but, at the same time, provides the context. At times, the balance tilts in favor of the history, with Annie's story becoming a conduit for the history. However, the uniqueness of Annie and her journey is definitely the ultimate lasting impression of this book.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-55676903086496993842021-12-31T14:02:00.000-05:002021-12-31T14:02:08.452-05:00When the Stars Go Dark<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nLxI5KughWs/X8T98NtZaEI/AAAAAAAAIMo/iT18VfFDSDICCnW3cZpOKz-z5EiP3LmIwCPcBGAsYHg/s608/When%2Bthe%2BStars%2BGo%2BDark%2Bby%2BPaula%2BMcLain.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="608" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nLxI5KughWs/X8T98NtZaEI/AAAAAAAAIMo/iT18VfFDSDICCnW3cZpOKz-z5EiP3LmIwCPcBGAsYHg/w132-h200/When%2Bthe%2BStars%2BGo%2BDark%2Bby%2BPaula%2BMcLain.jpg" width="132" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; When the Stars Go Dark<div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp; <a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/search?q=%22paula+mclain%22&amp;max-results=20&amp;by-date=true">Paula McLain</a></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; Ballantine Books. 2021. 384 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;0593237897 / 978-0593237892</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"The mother who tore off her dress when the &nbsp;police came to her house with the news and then ran down the street in only her shoes, while her neighbors, even the ones who knew her well, hid behind their doors and windows,&nbsp;afraid of her grief."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"For the longest time, I stand on Lansing Street thinking about beauty and terror. Evil. Grace. Suffering. Joy. How they're all here every day, everywhere. Teaching us how to keep stepping forward into our lives, our purpose. Long ago Corolla told me that it's not what happens to us that matters most, but how can learn to carry it. I'm starting to understand the difference, and how maybe the only way we can survive what's here, and what we are, is together."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="margin: 0px;">The author's note for this book points out. <i>"Every 73 seconds someone in America becomes the victim of sexual assault. Every nine minutes one of those victims is a child. 82% of victims under the age of eighteen are female."</i>&nbsp;These are mind boggling statistics.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Within this statistic, the book weaves in the actual history of Polly Klaas. In 1993, twelve year old&nbsp;Polly Hannah Klaas was kidnapped from her home during a sleepover. The search for Polly lasted almost two months. During this time, the information about her disappearance was shared far and wide, with thousands of people at a grassroots level involved in the search for Polly. Sadly, only her body was found. She had been strangled. I don't know if Polly's family gave permission for the inclusion of her case in this book or if the information used is public record. I would hope that it would not hurt them in any way and perhaps even bring peace that their daughter is remembered and that talking about her may save someone else. I, for one, would not know about Polly Klaas except for this book.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Within these statistics and this historic case, the book builds the fictional story of a missing teenager in Mendocino and that of detective Anna Hart. Anna Hart is a product of the foster care system. A fortunate placement with a couple in Mendocino brought love and a home, but she has not been back for years. She is passionate about her work as a police detective, often working with the most fragile of victims. Trauma in her adult life brings her "home" again. News of a missing teenage forces her to get involved. That sets her on the trail of a kidnapper but also brings her fact to face again with the traumas of her own past.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">To me, this book is not really about the suspense of who the kidnapper is. I do guess that relatively early on simply because there are not that many characters in the book. To me, this book is also not really about the life Anna is running from - her husband and her child. I do wish more had been explained about those relationships.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">To me, this book is about the damaged, flawed characters all dealing with the traumas of their past. It is about the emotional and psychological impact of childhood traumas. It is about bringing attention to the so very important issue of abuse and violence against women, particularly against children. The book is dark - by title, by subject matter, and by tone. However, it ends on a note of hope and light in some ways. It brings the statistics to life in a tragic, visual way that I will remember for a long while.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">The author's note comes at the end of this book. I am very curious as this book is such a departure from the historical fiction I have read so far from the author, and I want to understand from what the story emanates. This is certainly not what I expect.&nbsp;<i>"Writing a novel is such an interesting mix of effort and surrender, of control and vulnerability. It wasn't until late in the stages of drafting that it fully dawned on me just why I was so drawn to tell this articular story and not any other. My troubled detective, Anna Hart, is obsessed with trauma and healing, with intimate violence and the complex hidden connection between victims and predators, because I'm obsessed with those things, and long have been. I've given her other parts of me too - a version of my childhood spent in foster care, and my abiding love of the natural world as deep medicine. What Anna knows and thinks about the hidden scars of sexual abuse, I know as a sexual abuse survivor."</i> Wow. Just wow.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-46346214128952102482021-12-30T18:41:00.002-05:002021-12-30T18:54:29.735-05:00The Beautiful Ones<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DJogIZtAhis/YK53UI_xvpI/AAAAAAAAImA/CHnzA0BDNSwjaQSeW2pbM4ZtRSO9rYs3QCPcBGAsYHg/s614/The%2BBeautiful%2BOnes%2Bby%2BSilvia%2BMoreno-Garcia.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The Beautiful Ones" border="0" data-original-height="614" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DJogIZtAhis/YK53UI_xvpI/AAAAAAAAImA/CHnzA0BDNSwjaQSeW2pbM4ZtRSO9rYs3QCPcBGAsYHg/w131-h200/The%2BBeautiful%2BOnes%2Bby%2BSilvia%2BMoreno-Garcia.jpg" width="131" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; The Beautiful Ones<div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp; <a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/search?q=%22silvia+moreno-garcia%22&amp;max-results=20&amp;by-date=true">Silvia Moreno-Garcia</a></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; TOR Trade. 2021. 304 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;1250785561 / 978-1250785565</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"Hector was like a castaway who had washed up on a room of velvet curtains and marble floors."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"All we&nbsp;ultimately have to do is believe. We focus our mind on one single point, one single purpose, and we push. We grasp. We manipulate wood and glass and iron. However,&nbsp;the greatest trick is the&nbsp;belief. Belief is what makes it read."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Who&nbsp;are the beautiful ones of Loisail? They are the notable, wealthy elite. <i>"Nothing matters more than money to us, the Beautiful Ones who walk down these city streets in pristine gloves and silk-lined garments. You can give yourself the luxury of love because you are not one of us. That is why you are my friend: because despite everything, at heart you remain an innocent."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div>Amongst the beautiful ones are two relative outsiders.&nbsp;Antonina "Nina" Beaulieu has been sent to her cousin's house for the Grand Season; she comes with her family's hopes that she will make good match. Hector Auvury is telekinetic who has traveled the world as a performer but who has returned to Loisail in the hopes of reconnecting with his former fiancé Valérie Beaulieu. Valérie Beaulieu, as the name might suggest, is married to Nina's cousin. As a way of approach, Hector decides to get to Valérie by courting Nina instead.</div><div><br /></div><div>So begins this triangle. It weaves through the drawing rooms, walks, and balls that comprise the Grand Season. Hector and Nina find more in common than they might have imagined. Hector still has to reckon with Valérie's betrayal when they were both young. Nina knows nothing of this past. Valérie bears her own regrets about trading love for wealth and security. <i>"We say a great many things when we are young. Eventually, we grow wiser."</i> With those regrets come anger and grudges.</div><div><br /></div><div>The telekinetic skills add a mystery and fantasy to the story. The triangle includes twists that surprise. The era of the Grand Season and the wealthy adds a Victorian touch with "proper" behavior, societal censure, and even duels. The story is slow to begin but builds to a dramatic, unexpected conclusion.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Through the book, the sweet, somewhat innocent country-cousin-come-to-the-city Nina evolves and finds her own strength. I find myself rooting for her in life and in love. Hector is the hero from the wrong side of the tracks trying to make good. Although his actions are not all likable, overall, he too is a character to root for.</div><div><br /></div><div>What I find most fascinating of all is the dramatic difference between this book and the first I read by the author. <a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2019/12/gods-of-jade-and-shadow.html">Gods of Jade and Shadow</a> is based in mythology, with gods and goddesses and the characters traveling through time and space. This one has its magical element but is a story very much of this earth and the have and the have nots. The villain in this one is very much human. That being said, both books are about young, independent female protagonists - completely different from each other yet both on a journey of discovering and honoring their own strengths. For that, both stories work. I look forward to what Silvia Morena-Garcia writes next.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-9569623661346832202021-12-29T19:05:00.000-05:002021-12-29T19:05:51.829-05:00The Betrayals<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ipuidUMlhPg/YBga-uNfwHI/AAAAAAAAIWI/YvzLFBzakHExNaeUZbryTGXpY7VuL4bYACPcBGAsYHg/s607/The%2BBetrayals%2Bby%2BBridget%2BCollins.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The Betrayals" border="0" data-original-height="607" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ipuidUMlhPg/YBga-uNfwHI/AAAAAAAAIWI/YvzLFBzakHExNaeUZbryTGXpY7VuL4bYACPcBGAsYHg/w132-h200/The%2BBetrayals%2Bby%2BBridget%2BCollins.jpg" title="The Betrayals" width="132" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; The Betrayals<div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp; Bridget Collins</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; William Morrow. 2021. 416 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp; 0062838121 / 978-0062838124</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"Tonight the&nbsp;moonlight makes the floor of the Great Hall into a game board."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"We search for the divine everywhere, she could say, and we may find it in the grand jeu or in the liturgy or both. There were grands jeux played in the Hagia Sophia and in the Al-Aqsa Mosque and at the Western Wall. It is modern arrogance to imagine that the divinity we&nbsp;hope to touch through the grand jeu is better than, or even different to, the deities of other religions. A young way to worship is not necessarily a better way, not is it the&nbsp;only way..."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Montverre</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">This book appears set in a controlled, dystopian society where disagreeing with the powers that be will get you banished or worse. There is the Party and the Old Man. Christians are also labeled, forced to identify themselves, and persecuted. In a different context and with a different faith, sound familiar? Unfortunately, the book takes this in such a different direction that it loses a historical correlation for me. I don't want to follow along to see the parallels the book may draw to the history.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">There is a school that teaches student the "grand jeu" - the big game. However, the book never explains what that actually is. It is a mix of music, math, magic, and other things. I don't get it, for a book that is based on that, that is too large a challenge to overcome. The book attempts to make a philosophical point:</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>"The grand jeu is not a game. It is the opposite of a game It is our way of paying attention to something outside ourselves. And what is outside ourselves - whatever truly exists - is the divine. We remake the world so that we can submit to it, and what we encounter, in the act of playing the grand jeu, is the truth."</i></li><li><i>"The grand jeu is worship, isn't it? One way for humans to approach the divine. Trying to embody the truth and beauty. A testament to the grace of God in the minds of men."</i></li></ul></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div>Unfortunately, I don't see the correlation because I still don't understand what the game is and what it metaphorically relates to. So, I cannot go along for the spiritual journey.</div><div><br /></div><div>For me, it becomes even more challenging that the experts of this truth seeking are two characters whose very life and pursuit of the truth are based in lies. Again, I don't get it. It unfortunately makes the characters unlikable and unsympathetic. So, I don't wish to go along for their journey.</div><div><br /></div><div>There is another character named simply the Rat. The backstory and the unfortunate naming as a creature not a character never quite makes her real. Her correlation to the main story also never quite comes together for me. She may have had the most compelling story of all, but the book does not go in that direction.</div><div><br /></div><div>Characters aside, at over 400 pages, the pace of the book is very very slow. The winding back and forth through two timelines also does not work in this scenario because the "present" is about discovering the lies of the "past" and having that understanding lead to the past making sense for these characters. The confusion of the grand jeu ideas, the unlikability of the characters and the irony of a story about truth being held together with lies extends to both timelines and makes it truly challenging to invest in the story.</div><div><br /></div><div>To some extent, for me, the book makes an attempt at an intellectual point. Either it does so unsuccessfully, or my intellect does not reach the understanding. At the end of the book, I am left wondering. What did I just read? And why? I walk away, knowing that I was clearly not the right reader for this book.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-44031473714680665312021-12-28T20:36:00.003-05:002021-12-28T20:42:32.631-05:00The Secret of Snow<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi0AJjTCRAJFUAkr5hUDA1y4oZnc7KVOqeFi-CUc97laTRgFdngm1mVLl5Zn7Ivsuoa-QP03SZgMLsirQIPcN1es8EmobPU0ba5yz8jB4TMaLJI80PPQY4GO8DmtuezciLQ2wTOxzKKjK_MctaSnukx1j-hDRHoWA6vJyRrDN9nkrufZhMizGr3qqbx=s600" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The Secret of Snow" border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="396" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi0AJjTCRAJFUAkr5hUDA1y4oZnc7KVOqeFi-CUc97laTRgFdngm1mVLl5Zn7Ivsuoa-QP03SZgMLsirQIPcN1es8EmobPU0ba5yz8jB4TMaLJI80PPQY4GO8DmtuezciLQ2wTOxzKKjK_MctaSnukx1j-hDRHoWA6vJyRrDN9nkrufZhMizGr3qqbx=w132-h200" title="The Secret of Snow" width="132" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; The Secret of Snow<div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp; <a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/search?q=%22viola+shipman%22&amp;max-results=20&amp;by-date=true">Viola Shipman</a></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; Graydon House. 2021. 320 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;1525899813 / 978-1525899812</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through&nbsp;NetGalley and the HTP 2021 Holiday Romance Blog Tour&nbsp;free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"And look at this!"</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"But too many of us ... live as though we're dying. We're trapped in fear. we let that define us. But our lives&nbsp;should be&nbsp;defined by our&nbsp;joy, passion, and happiness."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i> <i> </i> <h2 style="text-align: left;">***** BLOG TOUR *****</h2><h3 style="text-align: left;">Book Review</h3></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Can you go home again? Can you go home if home is filled with love but also guilt and sorrow? Can you go home if you essentially ran away from home to get away from the guilt and sorrow? What happens when you are forced to go home? How do you cope?</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">These are the questions Sonny Dunes faces. She is a meteorologist in beautiful sunny southern California. Home is cold and snowy Traverse City in northern Michigan where Sonny's mother still lives. A sudden shift in her job situation leaves Sonny at loose ends. The job shift may have something to do with her over-fifty age bracket and with the technological takeover of certain professions. This is touched upon but not really explored in the book. It is simply the event that sends Sonny home.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">A college acquaintance / friend / frenemy offers Sonny a job at a regional TV station in Michigan. It is definitely a step down for Sonny, but she has no other alternatives. Again, ageism and sexism have to do with the lack of alternatives, but that is not the direction of this book.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Home brings her mother and the memories of the death of her father and her sister. Home brings the guilt and sadness associated with her sister's death. Home also brings old friends, old enemies, and new friends. &nbsp;This book goes exactly in the direction I expect it to, down to the new budding romance.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">One touching aspect of this is the friendship and mentorship Sonny develops with a young man named Ron but nicknamed Icicle. He is shy and unsure of himself. His nickname is a reminder of a childhood trauma. He is also intelligent, curious, and hardworking. This is where Sonny's age comes into play as well. She becomes a mentor to Icicle to help him escape the shadows of his past and find his voice as Ron. This actually ends up my favorite aspect of the book and perhaps the most real.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px;">The most touching aspect of this book, however, comes in the unexpected letter to the readers found at the end of the book. Viola Shipman is the pen name for Wade Rouse; it is his grandmother's name. Although this book is billed as a holiday novel, it really is not that as muchas a very personal statement. The emotion of this book is from Wade Rouses' own experience of &nbsp;his brother's death. His brother was seventeen; Wade was thirteen. The message of the book comes from his grandmother - the very same Viola Shipman. <i>"The Secret of Snow is a beautiful reminder that, no matter if those we love are no longer with us, family still surrounds us. It is a gentle reminder to reach out to those who need a hug, to let them know you care and that the names of all we’ve lost and still love shimmer as brightly as tinsel, and that their memories will never fade away as long as we refuse to let them."</i><br /><br />A sweet story with a lovely message.<br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Book</h3>When Sonny Dunes, a So-Cal meteorologist who knows only sunshine and 72-degree days, has an on-air meltdown after she learns she’s being replaced by an AI meteorologist (which the youthful station manager reasons "will never age, gain weight or renegotiate its contract."), the only station willing to give a 50-year-old another shot is one in a famously non-tropical place--her northern Michigan hometown.<br /><br />Unearthing her carefully laid California roots, Sonny returns home and reaclimates to the painfully long, dark winters dominated by a Michigan phenomenon known as lake-effect snow. But beyond the complete physical shock to her system, she's also forced to confront her past: her new boss is a former journalism classmate and mortal frenemy and, more keenly, the death of a younger sister who loved the snow, and the mother who caused Sonny to leave.<br /><br />To distract herself from the unwelcome memories, Sonny decides to throw herself headfirst (and often disastrously) into all things winter to woo viewers and reclaim her success: sledding, ice-fishing, skiing, and winter festivals, culminating with the town’s famed Winter Ice Sculpture Contest, all run by a widowed father and Chamber director whose honesty and genuine love of Michigan, winter and Sonny just might thaw her heart and restart her life in a way she never could have predicted.<br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">About the Author&nbsp;</h3>Viola Shipman is the pen name for Wade Rouse, a popular, award-winning memoirist. Rouse chose his grandmother's name, Viola Shipman, to honor the woman whose heirlooms and family stories inspire his writing. Rouse is the author of The Summer Cottage, as well as The Charm Bracelet and The Hope Chest which have been translated into more than a dozen languages and become international bestsellers. He lives in Saugatuck, Michigan and Palm Springs, California, and has written for People, Coastal Living, Good Housekeeping, and Taste of Home, along with other publications, and is a contributor to All Things Considered.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Excerpt</h3><div style="margin: 0px;"><i>Excerpted from The Secret of Snow by Viola Shipman. Copyright © 2021 by Viola Shipman. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.</i><br /><br />“And look at this! A storm system is making its way across the country, and it will bring heavy snow to the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes before wreaking havoc on the East Coast. This is an especially early and nasty start to winter for much of the country. In fact, early models indicate that parts of western and northern Michigan—the lake effect snowbelts, as we call them—will receive over 150 inches of snow this year. One hundred fifty inches!”<br /><br />I turn away from the green screen in my red wrap dress and heels.<br /><br />“But here in the desert...” I wait for the graphic to pop onscreen, which declares, Sonny Says It’s Sonny... Again!<br /><br />When the camera refocuses on me, I toss an adhesive sunshine with my face on it toward the green screen behind me. It sticks directly on Palm Springs, California.<br /><br />“...it’s wall-to-wall sunshine!”<br /><br />I expand my arms like a raven in the mountains taking flight. The weekly forecast pops up. Every day features a smiling sunshine that resembles yours truly: golden, shining, beaming.<br /><br />“And it will stay that way all week long, with temperatures in the midseventies and lows in the midfifties. Not bad for this time of year, huh? It’s chamber of commerce weather here in the desert, perfect for all those design lovers in town for Mid-Century Modernism Week.” I walk over to the news desk. The camera follows. I lean against the desk and turn to the news anchors, Eva Fernandez and Cliff Moore. “Or for someone who loves to play golf, right, Cliff?”<br /><br />He laughs his faux laugh, the one that makes his mouth resemble those old windup chattering teeth from when I was a girl.<br /><br />“You betcha, Sonny!”<br /><br />“That’s why we live here, isn’t it?” I ask.<br /><br />“I sure feel sorry for the rest of the country,” says Eva, her blinding white smile as bright as the camera lights. I’m convinced every one of Eva’s caps has a cap.<br /><br />“Those poor Michigan folk won’t be golfing in shorts like I will be tomorrow, will they?” Cliff says with a laugh and his pantomime golf swing. He twitches his bushy brows and gives me a giant wink. “Thank you, Sonny Dunes.”<br /><br />I nod, my hands on my hips as if I’m a Price Is Right model and not a meteorologist.<br /><br />“Martinis on the mountain? Yes, please,” Eva says with her signature head tilt. “Next on the news: a look at some of the big events at this year’s Mid-Century Modernism Week. Back in a moment.”<br /><br />I end the newscast with the same forecast—a row of smiling sunshine emojis that look just like my face—and then banter with the anchors about the perfect pool temperature before another graphic—THE DESERT’S #1 NIGHTLY NEWS TEAM!—pops onto the screen, and we fade to commercial.<br /><br />“Anyone want to go get a drink?” Cliff asks within seconds of the end of the newscast. “It’s Friday night.”<br /><br />“It’s always Friday night to you, Cliff,” Eva says.<br /><br />She stands and pulls off her mic. The top half of Eva Fernandez is J.Lo perfection: luminescent locks, long lashes, glam gloss, a skintight top in emerald that matches her eyes, gold jewelry that sets off her glowing skin. But Eva’s bottom half is draped in sweats, her feet in house slippers. It’s the secret viewers never see.<br /><br />“I’m half dressed for bed already anyway,” she says with a dramatic sigh. Eva is very dramatic. “And I’m hosting the Girls Clubs Christmas breakfast tomorrow and then Eisenhower Hospital’s Hope for the Holidays fundraiser tomorrow night. And Sonny and I are doing every local Christmas parade the next few weekends. You should think about giving back to the community, Cliff.”<br /><br />“Oh, I do,” he says. “I keep small business alive in Palm Springs. Wouldn’t be a bar afloat without my support.”<br /><br />Cliff roars, setting off his chattering teeth.<br /><br />I call Cliff “The Unicorn” because he was actually born and raised in Palm Springs. He didn’t migrate here like the older snowbirds to escape the cold, he didn’t snap up midcentury houses with cash like the Silicon Valley techies who realized this was a real estate gold mine, and he didn’t suddenly “discover” how hip Palm Springs was like the millennials who flocked here for the Coachella Music Festival and to catch a glimpse of Drake, Beyoncé or the Kardashians.<br /><br />No, Cliff is old school. He was Palm Springs when tumbleweed still blew right through downtown, when Bob Hope pumped gas next to you and when Frank Sinatra might take a seat beside you at the bar, order a martini and nobody acted like it was a big deal.<br /><br />I admire Cliff because—<br /><br />The set suddenly spins, and I have to grab the arm of a passing sound guy to steady myself. He looks at me, and I let go.<br /><br />—he didn’t run away from where he grew up.<br /><br />“How about you, sunshine?” Cliff asks me. “Wanna grab a drink?”<br /><br />“I’m gonna pass tonight, Cliff. I’m wiped from this week. Rain check?”<br /><br />“Never rains in the desert, sunshine,” Cliff jokes. “You oughta know that.”<br /><br />He stops and looks at me. “What would Frank Sinatra do?”<br /><br />I laugh. I adore Cliff’s corniness.<br /><br />“You’re not Frank Sinatra,” Eva calls.<br /><br />“My martini awaits with or without you.” Cliff salutes, as if he’s Bob Hope on a USO tour, and begins to walk out of the studio.<br /><br />“Ratings come in this weekend!” a voice yells. “That’s when we party.”<br /><br />We all turn. Our producer, Ronan, is standing in the middle of the studio. Ronan is all of thirty. He’s dressed in flip-flops, board shorts and a T-shirt that says, SUNS OUT, GUNS OUT! like he just returned from Coachella. Oh, and he’s wearing sunglasses. At night. In a studio that’s gone dim. Ronan is the grandson of the man who owns our network, DSRT. Jack Clark of ClarkStar pretty much owns every network across the US these days. He put his grandson in charge because Ro-Ro’s father bought an NFL franchise, and he’s too obsessed with his new fancy toy to pay attention to his old fancy toy. Before DSRT, Ronan was a surfer living in Hawaii who found it hard to believe there wasn’t an ocean in the middle of the California desert.<br /><br />He showed up to our very first official news meeting wearing a tank top with an arrow pointing straight up that read, This Dude’s the CEO!<br /><br />“You can call me Ro-Ro,” he’d announced upon introduction.<br /><br />“No,” Cliff said. “I can’t.”<br /><br />Ronan had turned his bleary gaze upon me and said, “Yo. Weather’s, like, not really my thing. You can just, like, look outside and see what’s going on. And it’s, like, on my phone. Just so we’re clear...get it? Like the weather.”<br /><br />My heart nearly stopped. “People need to know how to plan their days, sir,” I protested. “Weather is a vital part of all our lives. It’s daily news. And, what I study and disseminate can save lives.”<br /><br />“Ratings party if we’re still number one!” Ronan yells, knocking me from my thoughts.<br /><br />I look at Eva, and she rolls her eyes. She sidles up next to me and whispers, “You know all the jokes about millennials? He’s the punchline for all of them.”<br /><br />I stifle a laugh.<br /><br />We walk each other to the parking lot.<br /><br />“See you Monday,” I say.<br /><br />“Are we still wearing our matching Santa hats for the parade next Saturday?”<br /><br />I laugh and nod. “We’re his best elves,” I say.<br /><br />“You mean his sexiest news elves,” she says. She winks and waves, and I watch her shiny SUV pull away. I look at my car and get inside with a smile. Palm Springs locals are fixated on their cars. Not the make or the color, but the cleanliness. Since there is so little rain in Palm Springs, locals keep their cars washed and polished constantly. It’s like a competition.<br /><br />I pull onto Dinah Shore Drive and head toward home.<br /><br />Palm Springs is dark. There is a light ordinance in the city that limits the number of streetlights. In a city this beautiful, it would be a crime to have tall posts obstructing the view of the mountains or bright light overpowering the brightness of the stars.<br /><br />I decide to cut through downtown Palm Springs to check out the Friday night action. I drive along Palm Canyon Drive, the main strip in town. The restaurants are packed. People sit outside in shorts—in December!—enjoying a glass of wine. Music blasts from bars. Palm Springs is alive, the town teeming with life even near midnight.<br /><br />I stop at a red light, and a bachelorette party in sashes and tiaras pulls up next to me peddling a party bike. It’s like a self-propelled trolley with seats and pedals, but you can drink—a lot—on it. I call these party trolleys “Woo-Hoo Bikes” because...<br /><br />I honk and wave.<br /><br />The bachelorette party shrieks, holds up their glasses and yells, “WOO-HOO!”<br /><br />The light changes, and I take off, knowing these ladies will likely find themselves in a load of trouble in about an hour, probably at a tiki bar where the drinks are as deadly as the skulls on the glasses.<br /><br />I continue north on Palm Canyon—heading past Copley’s Restaurant, which once was Cary Grant’s guesthouse in the 1940s, and a plethora of design and vintage home furnishings stores. I stop at another light and glance over as an absolutely filthy SUV, which looks like it just ended a mud run, pulls up next to me. The front window is caked in gray-white sludge and the doors are encrusted in crud. An older man is hunched over the steering wheel, wearing a winter coat, and I can see the woman seated next to him pointing at the navigation on the dashboard. I know immediately they are not only trying to find their Airbnb on one of the impossible-to-locate side streets in Palm Springs, but also that they are from somewhere wintry, somewhere cold, somewhere the sun doesn’t shine again until May.<br /><br />Which state? I wonder, as the light changes, and the car pulls ahead of me.<br /><br />“Bingo!” I yell in my car. “Michigan license plates!”<br /><br />We all run from Michigan in the winter.<br /><br />I look back at the road in front of me, and it’s suddenly blurry. A car honks, scaring the wits out of me, and I shake my head clear, wave an apology and head home.<br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">Buy Links</h3></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-secret-of-snow/9781525806445">BookShop.org</a><br /><a href="https://www.harlequin.com/shop/books/9781525806445_the-secret-of-snow.html">Harlequin </a><br /><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-secret-of-snow-viola-shipman/1138551293?ean=9781525806445">Barnes &amp; Noble</a><br /><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Snow-Novel-Viola-Shipman/dp/1525806440/ref=sr_1_1?crid=NTHKMNMC370A&amp;keywords=secret+of+snow&amp;qid=1626362097&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=secret+of+snow%2Cstripbooks%2C176&amp;sr=1-1">Amazon</a><br /><a href="https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Secret-Snow/Viola-Shipman/9781525806445?id=7670068459528">Books-A-Million</a><br /><a href="https://www.powells.com/book/the-secret-of-snow-9781525806445">Powell’s</a> <br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">Social Links</h3><a href="https://violashipman.com/">Author Website</a><br />Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/authorviolashipman">@authorviolashipman</a><br />Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/viola_shipman/">@viola_shipman</a><br />Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/viola_shipman">@viola_shipman</a><br /><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14056193.Viola_Shipman">Goodreads</a><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5025217416488924278.post-59216458562436813592021-12-27T17:53:00.001-05:002021-12-27T18:03:05.352-05:00Sunflower Sisters<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Un_ug4iDR-s/X6dA_og5l7I/AAAAAAAAIIo/geftOtVQqhYk3wmquzVCQ60qnZrtNkOgQCPcBGAsYHg/s602/Sunflower%2BSisters%2Bby%2BMartha%2BHall%2BKelly.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="602" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Un_ug4iDR-s/X6dA_og5l7I/AAAAAAAAIIo/geftOtVQqhYk3wmquzVCQ60qnZrtNkOgQCPcBGAsYHg/w133-h200/Sunflower%2BSisters%2Bby%2BMartha%2BHall%2BKelly.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>Title:</b>&nbsp; Sunflower Sisters<div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Author:</b>&nbsp; <a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/search?q=%22Martha+Hall+Kelly%22&amp;max-results=20&amp;by-date=true">Martha Hall Kelly</a></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Publication Information:</b>&nbsp; Ballantine Books. 2021. 528 pages.</div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>ISBN:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;978-1524796402</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Book Source:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Opening Sentence:</b> &nbsp;<i>"No one suspected the&nbsp;blond boy's cargo as he drove his crude pony cart through the streets of Charleston."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Favorite Quote:</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>"Don't listen to naysayers ... You're head and shoulders above them, and those who discourage you do so to justify their own lack of imagination and will never accomplish&nbsp;anything extraordinary."</i></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i> <i> </i> <div><i> </i><a href="http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2016/03/lilac-girls.html">Lilac Girls</a> by Martha Hall Kelly brings the reader to Poland during World War II. Sunflower Sisters, for it cheery title, brings me to the United States during the Civil War. The historical basis for this story is that of Georgeanna Woolsey and her family. "Georgey" is born and raised in a New York family, taught the value of education and independence for a woman, and given strong abolitionist values. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Georgey volunteers as a nurse. She works in New York, Washington DC, and on hospital ships that bring her and her sister to the south.</div><div><br /></div><div>The story builds on this history of the Woolsey sisters and adds the story of Jemma, a girl born in slavery in the south and Anna-May, Jemma's owner. From these three perspectives, the book studies the history and atrocities of slavery, those who supported it, and those who fought against it. Through these three women, the book also explores the way in which the Civil War divided families, with family members falling on opposite sides of the battle depending on their allegiances. The book travels from the drawing room of the New York to hospitals to battlefields to plantations in St. Mary's County in Maryland and back again. It describes the toll war takes on all ends of the battle.</div><div><br /></div><div>It depicts the individual personal stories of these women, and through them, brings to life a tine and place in history. The book is billed as the third in the Lilac Girls series because each book in the series picks on a history of a woman (or women) in the family of Caroline Ferriday introduced in Lilac Girls. However, the book deals with a different time period and a different history. The "series" is really only technically a series. Each book stands alone.</div><div><br /></div><div>Although Georgey Woolsey is the feature character in the book, I actually find the stories of Jemma and Anna May the more compelling ones. Georgey's story is also one of her family, their comfortable life in the north, the philanthropic efforts, and even a love story. Jemma's story is that of the graphic atrocities of slavery; it is of the courage to stand against that world and fight. Anna May's story is that of losing a world and taking whatever steps - right, wrong, or otherwise - to maintain a way of life. The juxtaposition of Jemma as the heroine and Anna May as the villain draw their stories even closer together, making Georgy's story stand further apart. Georgy's view becomes that of someone looking in on the story, while Jemma and Anna May are the story.</div><div><br /></div><div>I would definitely recommend reading the author's note at the end. It describes the research, the actual history of the book, and the boundary between the history and the fiction. It adds a lot to the depth and understanding of the fictional story.</div><div><br /></div><div>The book includes a caution or challenge as Jemma learns to read. <i>"Careful though. You change once you read some books. Get more thoughts about things."</i> What a delightful thing that books exist such that we can "get more thoughts" and understand our history so as to learn from it.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.&nbsp;</i><i>I would love to "talk" to you.</i></div></div>Nadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05970507127762024948noreply@blogger.com0
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