First Chapter -- First Paragraph -- Tuesday Intros

Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea has started a fun new meme First Chapter, First Paragraph, Tuesday Intros. This week's intro is from the memoir 33 Days: Touring in a Van, Sleeping on Floors, Chasing a Dream by Bill See,

Day One
7/28/87
7:05 a.m.

The time has come to be brave.

For the first time in my life -- all 22 years of it -- I wake up today with this crazy-ass belief. If I can just get myself in that van I might have a chance . . . to make it possible.

Today the door opens. The culmination of three years of maniacial drive towards a singular goal. To get out of this haunted house and get my band, Divine Weeks, on tour. It's all I've thought about the last three years, daydreaming in class and writing out imaginary tour dates. Toiling at my windowless shit day job, shuffling papers everyday, helping rich men get richer while my dream just sits out there waiting for me to seize it.

Mailbox Monday -- July 25th

The reason why I love Mondays -- Mailbox Monday hosted this month by A Sea of Books. Below are the books I received this week:

1) To Be Sung Underwater by Tom McNeal. Publisher's Summary. Judith Whitman always believed in the kind of love that "picks you up in Akron and sets you down in Rio." Long ago, she once experienced that love. Willy Blunt was a carpenter with a dry wit and a steadfast sense of honor. Marrying him seemed like a natural thing to promise. But Willy Blunt was not a person you could pick up in Nebraska and transport to Stanford. When Judith left home, she didn't look back.

Twenty years later, Judith's marriage is hazy with secrets. In her hand is what may be the phone number for the man who believed she meant it when she said she loved him. If she called, what would he say?

TO BE SUNG UNDERWATER is the epic love story of a woman trying to remember, and the man who could not even begin to forget.

Thanks to Hachette Book Group!

2) The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives by Lola Shoneyin. Publisher's Summary. When Baba Segi awoke with a bellyache for the sixth day in a row, he knew it was time to do something drastic about his fourth wife's childlessness.

Meet Baba Segi . . .

A plump, vain, and prosperous middle-aged man of robust appetites, Baba Segi is the patriarch of a large household that includes a quartet of wives and seven children. But his desire to possess more just might be his undoing.

And his wives . . .

Iya Segi—the bride of Baba Segi's youth, a powerful, vindictive woman who will stop at nothing to protect her favored position as ruler of her husband's home.

Iya Tope—Baba Segi's second wife, a shy, timid woman whose decency and lust for life are overshadowed by fear.

Iya Femi—the third wife, a scheming woman with crimson lips and expensive tastes who is determined to attain all that she desires, no matter what the cost.

Bolanle—Babi Segi's fourth and youngest wife, an educated woman wise to life's misfortunes who inspires jealousy in her fellow wives . . . and who harbors a secret that will expose shocking truths about them all.

Thanks to Harper Collins!

Flashback Giveaway Ending Today!

Enter here before it is too late!

Night Train Giveaway (ends August 13th)

Publisher's Summary. In 1963, at the age of 17, Dwayne Hallston discovers James Brown and wants to perform just like him. His band, the Amazing Rumblers, studies and rehearses Brown's Live at the Apollo album in the storage room of his father's shop in their small North Carolina town. Meanwhile, Dwayne's forbidden black friend Larry--aspiring to play piano like Thelonius Monk--apprentices to a jazz musician called the Bleeder. His mother hopes music will allow him to escape the South.

A dancing chicken and a mutual passion for music help Dwayne and Larry as they try to achieve their dreams and maintain their friendship, even while their world says both are impossible. In THE NIGHT TRAIN, Edgerton's trademark humor reminds us of our divided national history and the way music has helped bring us together.

Giveaway Rules. Giveaway Rules. Today I am giving away THREE copies of this fascinating novel!

Entry: Comment with your email address in the body of the comment (you can list it as mary123 (at) yahoo(dot)com). If you do not list your email address your entry will not count.

Extra Entries: Sign up to follow my blog (or let me know that you are a current follower); follow me on twitter (DCMetroreader) and on Facebook (Metroreader). NOTE: These extra entries MUST be left in a separate comment or will not count.

The giveaway is open to Canadian and US residents only.
You must be 18 years of age or older.
NO P.O. Boxes for the winner’s mailing address.
Limit one winner per household regardless of the site won from.

Giveaway ends August 13th. Good Luck!

First Chapter -- First Paragraph -- Tuesday Intros

Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea has started a fun new meme, First Chapter, First Paragraph, Tuesday Intros. Below is the first paragraph/chapter of Skipping a Beat by Sarah Pekkanen:

When my husband Michael, died for the first time, I was walking across a freshly waxed marble floor in three-inch Stuart Weitzman heels, balancing a tray of cupcakes in my shaking hands.

Shaking hands because I’d overdosed on sugar—someone had to heroically step up and taste-test the cupcakes, after all – and not because I was worried about slipping and dropping the tray, even though these weren’t your run-of-the mill Betty Crockers. These were molten chocolate and cayenne-pepper masterpieces, and each one was topped with a name scripted in edible gold leaf.

Decadent cupcakes as place cards for the round tables encircling the ballroom -- it was the kind of touch that kept me in brisk business as a party planner. Tonight, we'd raise half a million for the Washington, D.C., Opera Company. Maybe more, if the waiters kept topping off those wine and champagne glasses like I'd instructed them.

Mailbox Monday -- July 18th

The reason why I love Mondays -- Mailbox Monday hosted this month by A Sea of Books. Below are the books I received this week:

1) Original Sin: A Sally Sin Adventure by Beth McMullen. Publisher's Summary. After falling in love and making a quick exit from her nine-year career in the USAWMD (United States Agency for Weapons of Mass Destruction), ex-spy Sally Sin does her best to become Lucy Hamilton, a stay-at-home mom in San Francisco. No one, not even her adoring husband Will, knows about her secret agent escapades—chasing no-good masterminds through perilous jungles, escaping evil assassins, and playing dangerous games of cat and mouse with her old nemesis, Ian Blackford, a notorious and dashing illegal arms dealer.

In her new life as Lucy Hamilton, she squeezes inside forts crafted from couch cushions by her three-year-old son Theo, makes organic applesauce, and frequents the zoo. But sometimes her well-honed spy reflexes refuse to lay low. She can’t help breaking into her own house to check on the babysitter or stop herself from tossing the yoga instructor who gets on her nerves. And when Ian Blackford, who is supposed to be dead, once again starts causing trouble for the USAWMD, the agency becomes desperate to get Sally back on the job.

How can Sally or Lucy or whatever her name is save the planet while at the same time keeping her own family’s world from spinning out of control?

Every bit as much fun as a spy-mom thriller ought to be, Original Sin is a fast-paced adventure story for mothers and spies, and anyone who has ever dreamed about being either.

Thanks to Hyperion Books!

2) Noah Barleywater Runs Away by John Boyne. Publisher's Summary. Eight-year-old Noah's problems seem easier to deal with if he doesn't think about them. So he runs away, taking an untrodden path through the forest.

Before long, he comes across a shop. But this is no ordinary shop: it's a toyshop, full of the most amazing toys, and brimming with the most wonderful magic. And here Noah meets a very unusual toymaker. The toymaker has a story to tell, and it's a story of adventure and wonder and broken promises. He takes Noah on a journey. A journey that will change his life.

Thanks to Random House!

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The Upright Piano Player Giveaway (ends 8/1)

Publisher's Summary. Henry Cage seems to have it all: a successful career, money, a beautiful home, and a reputation for being a just and principled man. But public virtues can conceal private failings, and as Henry faces retirement, his well-ordered life begins to unravel. His ex-wife is ill, his relationship with his son is strained to the point of estrangement, and on the eve of the new millennium he is the victim of a random violent act which soon escalates into a prolonged harassment.

As his ex-wife's illness becomes grave, it is apparent that there is little time to redress the mistakes of the past. But the man stalking Henry remains at large. Who is doing this? And why? David Abbott brilliantly pulls this thread of tension ever tighter until the surprising and emotionally impactful conclusion. The Upright Piano Player is a wise and acutely observed novel about the myriad ways in which life tests us—no matter how carefully we have constructed our own little fortresses.

Giveaway Rules. Giveaway Rules. Today I am giving away TWO copies of this compelling novel!

Entry: Comment with your email address in the body of the comment (you can list it as mary123 (at) yahoo(dot)com). If you do not list your email address your entry will not count.

Extra Entries: Sign up to follow my blog (or let me know that you are a current follower); follow me on twitter (DCMetroreader) and on Facebook (Metroreader). NOTE: These extra entries MUST be left in a separate comment or will not count.

The giveaway is open to Canadian and US residents only.
You must be 18 years of age or older.
NO P.O. Boxes for the winner’s mailing address.
Limit one winner per household regardless of the site won from.

Giveaway ends August 1st. Good Luck!

First Chapter -- First Paragraph -- Tuesday Intros

Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea has started a fun new meme, First Chapter, First Paragraph, Tuesday Intros. Below is the first paragraph/chapter of As Husbands Go by Susan Isaacs:

Who knew? It seemed a perfectly nice night. True, outside of the house, the wind was whoo-whooing like sound effects from a low budget horror movie. The cold was so vicious that a little past seven, a branch of the great white spruce on the front lawn that had been creaking all afternoon suddenly screamed in pain. Then a brutal CRAAACK, and it crashed to the frozen ground.

But inside our red brick Georgian in the picturesque Long Island town of Shorehaven all was warmth. I went from one bedroom to another to kiss the boys good night. Despite the sickly yellow gleam of the SpongeBob Square pants night-light in his bedroom, Mason, the third-born of our triplets, glowed pure gold. I stroked his forehead. "Happy dreams, my sweetie." He was already half asleep, thumb in mouth, but his four other fingers flapped me a good night.

Mailbox Monday -- July 11th

The reason why I love Mondays -- Mailbox Monday hosted this month by A Sea of Books. Below are the books I received this week:

1) 33 Days by Bill See. Publisher's Summary. For 33 days in the summer of 1987, Los Angeles indie rock band Divine Weeks toured in a beat up old van, sleeping on strangers’ floors, never sure they’d make enough gas money to get them to the next town. No soundman, no roadies, all they have is their music and each other’s friendship. 33 Days captures the essence of what it is to be 22 and chase a dream, back to a time in life when dreams don’t have boundaries, when everything is possible. The tour is one of those now or never experiences. Take a shot at making the band work or leave it all behind and go your separate ways. Every one of us has that moment where we have to decide to either live our dreams or give up and regret it for the rest of our lives. 33 Days touches that part of us. The road is filled with yuppies, brothels, riots, sleeping on floors, spiked drinks, DJs with no pants, and battles with racism. They set out on the road to discovery to drink in all they could and maybe sell a few records. They grew up instead.

Thanks to the author!

2) Doctor Confidential by Richard Sheff, M.D. Amazon Product Description. The unique stories in Doctor Confidential speak directly to anyone in medical training or considering a career in medicine, but also to the patient in all of us. Pulling back the veil of secrecy that too often surrounds medicine, Doctor Confidential provides compassion, humor, and ultimately hope that, when sick and most vulnerable, each of us can be heard, understood, and deeply touched by our physician..

Thanks to the Cadence Marketing Group!

3) The Source of All Things by Tracy Ross. Publisher's Summary. Tracy Ross never knew her biological father, who died after a brain aneurysm when she was still an infant. So when her mother married Donnie, a gregarious man with an all-wheel-drive jeep and a love of hiking, four-year-old Tracy was ecstatic to have a father figure in her life. A loving and devoted step-father, Donnie introduced Tracy's family to the joys of fishing, deer hunting, camping, and hiking among the most pristine mountains of rural Idaho. Donnie was everything Tracy dreamed a dad would be—protective, brave, and kind. But when his dependence on his eight-year-old daughter's companionship went too far, everything changed.

Once Donnie's nighttime visits began, Tracy's childhood became a confusing blend of normal little girl moments and the sickening, secret invasion of her safety. Tormented by this profound betrayal, Tracy struggled to reconcile deeply conflicting feelings about her stepfather: on the one hand, fear and loathing, on the other hand, the love any daughter would have for her father. It was not until she ran away from home as a teenager that her family was forced to confront the abuse—and it tore them apart.

At sixteen, realizing that she must take control of her own future, Tracy sent herself to boarding school and began the long slow process of recovery. There, in the woods of Northern Michigan, Tracy felt called back to the natural world she had loved as a child. Over the next twenty years, the mountains and rivers of North America provided Tracy with strength, confidence, comfort, and inspiration. From trekking through the glaciers of Alaska to guiding teenagers through the deserts of Utah, Tracy pushed herself to the physical limit on her way to becoming whole again. Yet, as she came into her own, found love, and even started a family, Tracy realized that in order to truly heal she had to confront her stepfather about the demons from the past haunting them both. The Source of All Things is a stunning, unforgettable story about a wounded daughter, her stepfather, and a mistake that has taken thirty years and thousands of miles of raw wilderness to reconcile. Only Tracy can know if Donnie is forgivable. But one thing is for certain: In no other story of abuse does a survivor have as much strength, compassion, bravery, and spirit as Tracy displays in The Source of All Things

Thanks to Simon and Schuster!

Share Your Love for Cereal Giveaway Ending TODAY!

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Don't Kill the Birthday Girl

Publisher's Summary. Like twelve million other Americans, Sandra Beasley suffers from food allergies. Her allergies—severe and lifelong—include dairy, egg, soy, beef, shrimp, pine nuts, cucumbers, cantaloupe, honeydew, mango, macadamias, pistachios, cashews, swordfish, and mustard. Add to that mold, dust, grass and tree pollen, cigarette smoke, dogs, rabbits, horses, and wool, and it’s no wonder Sandra felt she had to live her life as “Allergy Girl.” When butter is deadly and eggs can make your throat swell shut, cupcakes and other treats of childhood are out of the question—and so Sandra’s mother used to warn guests against a toxic, frosting-tinged kiss with “Don’t kill the birthday girl!”

It may seem that such a person is “not really designed to survive,” as one blunt nutritionist declared while visiting Sandra’s fourth-grade class. But Sandra has not only survived, she’s thrived—now an essayist, editor, and award-winning poet, she has learned to navigate a world in which danger can lurk in an unassuming corn chip. Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl is her story.

With candor, wit, and a journalist’s curiosity, Sandra draws on her own experiences while covering the scientific, cultural, and sociological terrain of allergies. She explains exactly what an allergy is, describes surviving a family reunion in heart-of-Texas beef country with her vegetarian sister, delves into how being allergic has affected her romantic relationships, exposes the dark side of Benadryl, explains how parents can work with schools to protect their allergic children, and details how people with allergies should advocate for themselves in a restaurant.

A compelling mix of memoir, cultural history, and science, Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl is mandatory reading for the millions of families navigating the world of allergies—and a not-to-be-missed literary treat for the rest of us.

Review. Peanut and butter and jelly sandwiches and children’s lunches used to be the go-to-meal for tikes everywhere. Today, however, peanut butter has become almost a contraband item. Schools are restricting where PBJ sandwiches can be eaten (as in peanut-free tables) or banning them all together because of peanut allergies. And peanuts aren’t the only culinary bad guys. The most common food allergens, known as the “Big 8”are (drum roll, please): wheat; eggs; soy; cow dairy; fish; shellfish; peanuts; and tree nuts (cashews, walnuts pecans, etc.). Over twelve million Americans suffer from food allergies and the number is rising.

Sandra Beaseley, author of Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl, suffers from severe food allergies, including some of the Big 8, plus other more unique allergens such as cucumbers, cantaloupe and mustard. Through the years, Beasley has experienced many anaphylactic shocks and many, more close calls, but Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl is no Debbie Downer read. Rather the memoir is filled with humor, candor and information, sometimes all at the same time. For instance, Beasley shares how she dealt with school birthday parties:

Twelve hazelnuts. Precisely, twelve hazelnuts . . . . I would line them up in the pencil grove at the top of my desk and ask if anyone else wanted one. No one else ever wanted one.

I’d try to match the pacing of everyone else’s treat. Three hazelnuts as people licked off the frosting; three as people took huge bites of the moist, spongy cake; three as people licked the baking sleeves clean; . . . and three final nuts . . . as the teacher went around the room with the wastebasket to collect wrappers and napkins.

Beasley, however, is surprisingly balanced concerning the rights of the allergic versus the non-allergic. I say surprisingly, because I fully expected Beaseley, as a person with severe food allergies, to preach abstinence of certain foods in public to protect the highly allergic, but her arguments are far more nuanced and, hence, more compelling. As Beasley explains, “My job is to center on staying safe in this world, but my job is never to assume the world should revolve around keeping me safe.”

Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl is a memoir that should be read by anyone who seeks a better understanding of a food allergies or just a great read!


Advance review copy provided courtesy of the publisher.

Flashback by Dan Simmons Giveaway (ends July 23rd)

Publisher's Summary. The United States is near total collapse. But 87% of the population doesn't care: they're addicted to flashback, a drug that allows its users to re-experience the best moments of their lives. After ex-detective Nick Bottom's wife died in a car accident, he went under the flash to be with her; he's lost his job, his teenage son, and his livelihood as a result.

Nick may be a lost soul but he's still a good cop, so he is hired to investigate the murder of a top governmental advisor's son. This flashback-addict becomes the one man who may be able to change the course of an entire nation turning away from the future to live in the past.

A provocative novel set in a future that seems scarily possible, FLASHBACK proves why Dan Simmons is one of our most exciting and versatile writers.

Giveaway Rules. Giveaway Rules. Today I am giving away TWO copies of this exciting novel!

Entry: Comment with your email address in the body of the comment (you can list it as mary123 (at) yahoo(dot)com). If you do not list your email address your entry will not count.

Extra Entries: Sign up to follow my blog (or let me know that you are a current follower); follow me on twitter (DCMetroreader) and on Facebook (Metroreader). NOTE: These extra entries MUST be left in a separate comment or will not count.

The giveaway is open to Canadian and US residents only.
You must be 18 years of age or older.
NO P.O. Boxes for the winner’s mailing address.
Limit one winner per household regardless of the site won from.

Giveaway ends July 23rd. Good Luck!

First Chapter -- First Paragraph -- Tuesday Intros

Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea has started a fun new meme, First Chapter, First Paragraph, Tuesday Intros. Below is the first paragraph/chapter of Doctor Confidential by Richard Sheff, M.D.:

What would you do if you knew you had six months to live?

The woman sitting next to me on the plane waited for my answer. She had learned I was a physician, and had told me she'd recently received a life-threatening diagnosis. She had earned the right to ask this question and to expect an answer, especially from a physician

I was not dying, at least that I knew of . . . . Yet ever since medical school my patients have taught me that bad things, catastrophic things, can happen at any age. I've cared for a beautiful baby girl born to young, loving expectant parents. But she was born with Down syndrome . . . . I've cared for a father who struggled to overcome alcoholism so that he could be the kind of father he'd promised his five-year-old son he'd be. But this father died of testicular cancer at the age of 35 . . . . I've cared for a seven-month-old boy who awoke from a nap just a little warm and two hours lay dying, meningococcal bacteria teeming through his bloodstream

Being a physician has taught me to cherish this fragile life we've been gifted, and not to take anything, or anyone, for granted.

Mailbox Monday -- July 4th

Happy Birthday America! Hope everyone is enjoying the three day weekend!

Ok back to our regularly scheduled programming. The reason why I love Mondays -- Mailbox Monday hosted this month by A Sea of Books. Below are the books I received this week:

1) French Lessons by Ellen Sussman. Publisher's Summary. A single day in Paris changes the lives of three Americans as they each set off to explore the city with a French tutor, learning about language, love, and loss as their lives intersect in surprising ways.

Josie, Riley, and Jeremy have come to the City of Light for different reasons: Josie, a young high school teacher, arrives in hopes of healing a broken heart. Riley, a spirited but lonely expat housewife, struggles to feel connected to her husband and her new country. And Jeremy, the reserved husband of a renowned actress, is accompanying his wife on a film shoot, yet he feels distant from her world.

As they meet with their tutors—Josie with Nico, a sensitive poet; Riley with Phillippe, a shameless flirt; and Jeremy with the consummately beautiful Chantal—each succumbs to unexpected passion and unpredictable adventures. Yet as they traverse Paris’s grand boulevards and intimate, winding streets, they uncover surprising secrets about one another—and come to understand long-buried truths about themselves.

Thanks to Random House!

2) The Little Women Letters by Gabrielle Donnelly. Publisher's Summary. Vibrant, fresh, and intelligent, The Little Women Letters explores the imagined lives of Jo March's descendants—three sisters who are both thoroughly modern and thoroughly March. As uplifting and essential as Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, Gabrielle Donnelly's novel will speak to anyone who's ever fought with a sister, fallen in love with a fabulous pair of shoes, or wondered what on earth life had in store for her.

With her older sister, Emma, planning a wedding and her younger sister, Sophie, preparing to launch a career on the London stage, Lulu can't help but feel like the failure of the Atwater family. Lulu loves her sisters dearly and wants nothing but the best for them, but she finds herself stuck in a rut, working dead-end jobs with no romantic prospects in sight. When her mother asks her to find a cache of old family recipes in the attic of her childhood home, Lulu stumbles across a collection of letters written by her great-great-grandmother Josephine March. In her letters, Jo writes in detail about every aspect of her life: her older sister, Meg's, new home and family; her younger sister Amy's many admirers; Beth's illness and the family's shared grief over losing her too soon; and the butterflies she feels when she meets a handsome young German. As Lulu delves deeper into the lives and secrets of the March sisters, she finds solace and guidance, but can the words of her great-great-grandmother help Lulu find a place for herself in a world so different from the one Jo knew?

Some things, of course, remain unchanged: the stories and jokes that form a family's history, the laughter over tea in the afternoon, the desire to do the right thing in spite of obstacles. And above all, of course, the fierce, undying, and often infuriating bond of sisterhood that links the Atwater women every bit as firmly as it did the March sisters all those years ago. Both a loving tribute to Little Women and a wonderful contemporary family story, The Little Women Letters is a heartwarming, funny, and wise novel for today.

Thanks to Simon and Schuster!

3) The Arrivals by Meg Mitchell Moore. Publisher's Summary. It's early summer when Ginny and William's peaceful life in Vermont comes to an abrupt halt.

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

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

Thanks to Hachette Book Group!

4) The Love Season by Elin Hilderbrand. Publisher's Summary.
It's a hot August Saturday on Nantucket Island. Over the course of the next 24 hours, two lives will be transformed forever.
Marguerite Beale, former chef of culinary hot spot Les Parapluies, has been out of the public eye for over a decade. This all changes with a phone call from Marguerite's goddaughter, Renata Knox. Marguerite has not seen Renata since the death of Renata's mother, Candace Harris Knox, fourteen years earlier. And now that Renata is on Nantucket visiting the family of her new fiance, she takes the opportunity, against her father's wishes, to contact Marguerite in hopes of learning the story of her mother's life--and death. But the events of the day spiral hopelessly out of control for both women, and nothing ends up as planned.

Welcome to "The Love Season"--a riveting story that takes place in one day and spans decades; a story that embraces the charming, pristine island of Nantucket, as well as Manhattan, Paris and Morocco. Elin Hilderbrand's most ambitious novel to date chronicles the famous couplings of real lives: love and friendship, food and wine, deception and betrayal--and forgiveness and healing.
Thanks to ReadingGroupGold!

Benefits of Cereal Giveaway Ends Today

Don't miss your chance to win by entering here.

Winner!

Super congrats to lesleymitchell52 who is the week 2 winner of the Share Your Love for Cereal Giveaway!