Sunday, August 28, 2011

Mailbox Monday -- August 29th


The reason why I love Mondays -- Mailbox Monday hosted this month by Life in the Thumb. Below are the books I received this week:

1) That Day in September by Artie Van Why. Amazon Product Description. We all have our stories to tell of where we were the morning of September 11, 2001. This is one of them. In "That Day In September" Artie Van Why gives an eyewitness account of that fateful morning. From the moment he heard "a loud boom" in his office across from the World Trade Center, to stepping out onto the street, Artie vividly transports the reader back to the day that changed our lives and our country forever. "That Day In September" takes you beyond the events of that morning. By sharing his thoughts, fears and hopes, Artie expresses what it was like to be in New York City in the weeks and months following. The reader comes away from "That Day In September" with not only a more intimate understanding of the events of that day but also with a personal glimpse of how one person's life was dramatically changed forever.

Thanks to the author!

2) Rick and Jane Learn to Listen & Talk by Al & Autumn Roy. Author's Summary. Rick and Jane Learn to Listen and Talk summarizes the lessons learned from our marriage coaching experiences. It is written as a story like “Who Moved My Cheese” and explains Rick and Jane’s decision to see a marriage coach couple to help them work through their issues. It then traces them through their first coaching session where they learn and apply improved communication skills. It clearly illustrates the skills while highlighting the coaching process. Rick and Jane challenge the readers to try the techniques and report back to them on their blog. The book is the first of the ‘Learn to be Married” series. It is a quick read but gives solid examples and ideas for improving a marriage.

Thanks to the author!

3) An Accidental Mother by Katherine Anne Kindred. Publisher's Summary. After her divorce, Kate Kindred decided that she would live her life without children. But then she fell in love with Jim, a handsome, caring man who had custody of his two-year-old son, Michael. And she fell in love with the boy, too. During the six years they all lived together, Kate learned the deep joys of motherhood—that was the gift that Michael gave her. But when her relationship with Jim ended, he denied her any contact with Michael.

And her heart was broken.

An Accidental Mother beautifully describes the joys of mothering a young boy through complicated times. With sweet simple anecdotes and complex emotions, Kate Kindred marks every page with tears, including those that the most loving laughter can bring to any parent.

Thanks to Unbridled Books!

4) Adrenaline by Jeff Abbott. Publisher's Summary. Sam Capra is living the life of his dreams. He's a brilliant young CIA agent, stationed in London. His wife Lucy is seven months pregnant with their first child. They have a wonderful home, and are deeply in love.
They have everything they could hope for...until they lose it all in one horrifying moment.

On a bright, sunny day, Sam receives a call from Lucy while he's at work. She tells him to leave the building immediately. He does...just before it explodes, killing everyone inside. Lucy vanishes, and Sam wakes up in a prison cell. As the lone survivor of the attack, he is branded by the CIA as a murderer and a traitor.

Escaping from the agency, Sam launches into a desperate hunt to save his kidnapped wife and child, and to reveal the unknown enemy who has set him up and stolen his family. But the destruction of Sam's life was only step on in an extraordinary plot-and now Sam must become a new kind of hero.

Thanks to Hachette Book Group!



Friday, August 26, 2011

Wither


Publisher's Summary. By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children.

When Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can't bring herself to hate him as much as she'd like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband's strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement. Her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next, and Rhine is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape--before her time runs out?

Together with one of Linden's servants, Gabriel, Rhine attempts to escape just before her seventeenth birthday. But in a world that continues to spiral into anarchy, is there any hope for freedom?

Review.
What’s the problem with starting a great new trilogy series? Waiting for the next installment! Seriously, Lauren Destefano's Wither, book one in the Chemical Garden Trilogy, is that addictive!

This dystopian novel begins about 70 or so years in the future with only the United States in existence because the rest of the world was destroyed in an apocalyptic war. The humans race isn't doing so hot either: life expectancies are 20 years for females and 25 years for males. This dire predicament is the result of genetic engineering which cured nearly all diseases and illnesses in the “First Generation” of artificially conceived children (now gracefully aging adults), but went awry with subsequent progeny who are infected with a mysterious, lethal virus and doomed to die as young adults. While the populace waits for a cure, wealthy First Generationers buy young girls, who have been kidnapped, to betroth their sons in polygamous marriages and bear new offspring.

Sixteen year old Rhine Ellery, one of these brides, has been forced to marry the “nice,” but weak willed Linden, son of the evil First Generation Housemaster Vaughan. She shares Linden with two other sister wives fourteen year old Cecily and eighteen year Jenna. Rhine, however, is determined to flee her gilded mansion-prison and reunite with her twin Rowan.

Wither is not my normal genre and I was a little reluctant to read it. My worries were unfounded, however, because Destefano's characters are engaging and the "end-of-the world-as-we-know- it" plotline was riveting. I especially enjoyed the friendships between the sister wives as they seemed genuine (or as realistic as could be imagined given the unusual circumstances). Each bride dealt with her situation differently and yet they found common ground between them. I was also drawn into Rhine's longing to be free and with her brother -- against all the odds. Each page propelled me to the next, making Wither hard to set aside.

Lastly, Wither works as a stand alone story -- with a beginning, middle and end -- but personally I can't wait for the next chapter in Rhine's quest!



Advance reading copy provided courtesy of the publisher.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Wither Giveaway (ends 9/3)


Publisher's Summary. By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children.

When Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can't bring herself to hate him as much as she'd like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband's strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement. Her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next, and Rhine is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape--before her time runs out?

Together with one of Linden's servants, Gabriel, Rhine attempts to escape just before her seventeenth birthday. But in a world that continues to spiral into anarchy, is there any hope for freedom?


Giveaway Rules. Today I am giving away ONE NEW ARC (Advance Review Copy)of this first fantastic book in the Chemical Garden Trilogy!

Entry: For this giveaway, you must be a follower of Metroreader.
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.


Giveaway ends September 3rd. Good Luck!

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

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 SUVs Suck in Combat by Kerry Kachejian.


Getting to Baghdad would be a tough, tough journey for me. And while all Americans face adversity during their lives, my family had borne far more than its share. To us adversity was a normal state of affairs, and we faced it head on. My family's collective resilience and ability to cope with tough times often amazed our friends and neighbors. Bur it was this very ability to cope that allowed me to leave my family even in a time of hardship.

My family's challenges can be traced back almost 100 years to a mass genocide that drove my grandparents, Aram Kachejian and Regina Hagopian, out of Armenia and to the United States. They were among the lucky survivors of the 'Starving Armenians.' They opened a shoe shop in Philadelphia and raised their kids during the Great Depression. I owe my grandparents the American life I know today.


Sunday, August 21, 2011

Mailbox Monday -- August 22nd


The reason why I love Mondays -- Mailbox Monday hosted this month by Life in the Thumb. Below are the books I received this week:

1) Pitch Uncertain by Maisie Houghton. Publisher's Summary. Touching and incisive, Pitch Uncertain is a beautifully drawn account of Maisie Houghton's struggle to find her own voice as the middle child of two parents whose marriage and lives she slowly decoded as she came of age in the 1950s. Growing up in the gentle ambience of Cambridge, Massachusetts, spending full summers in Dark Harbor, Maine, and regularly visiting her relatives in the socially polished reaches of greater New York, Maisie and her two sisters had the makings of an ideal childhood. But their parents were an enigma.

One of five sisters, Maisie's mother Sybil Jay was the "gentle doe" of an accomplished New York family that had morphed over the twentieth century into a resilient matriarchy. Charming and independent, Maisie's father, Frankie Kinnicutt, was the handsome, fun loving son of stolid New Yorkers whose emotional reserve and perfectly decorated residences were a stiff contrast to the liveliness of the Jay household. As parents, Sybil was diligent, caring and attentive—an anchor for the family, while Frankie was independent, playful, curious and remote—more sail than anchor.

With a novelist's sense of moment, Maisie explores her individually appealing parents and their estranged but oddly loyal relationship. Pitch Uncertain portrays an era and a genteel culture as much as it deciphers a marriage.

Thanks to FSB Associates!

2) Still Life with Brass Pole by Craig Machen. Author's Summary. I started writing Still Life With Brass Pole as my oldest son was preparing to go to college. Ironically, and totally out of the blue, he wound up going to school in Oklahoma, the very place I started formulating my grand plan to have a family in the first place.

At its heart, the book is about the things that made me want to be a dad, but the logline is, “Young love and coming of age in the strip clubs.” It’s sort of like Almost Famous in the titillation business, or maybe Running With Scissors meets On The Road at a topless bar (with A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and The Last Picture Show waiting in the car).

Thanks to the Author!

3) SUVs Suck in Combat by Kerry Kachejian. Publisher's Summary. In 2004, a special military unit, the Gulf Region Division (GRD), was created to execute a seemingly impossible mission: the rebuilding of Iraq despite a pervasive insurgency. Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Kerry C. Kachejian, a West Point engineer officer, was called back to Iraq to head operations. Comprised mostly of civilian volunteers, the inadequately equipped team was rapidly deployed into combat, bravely fighting its way each day to hundreds of project sites in high speed, unarmored SUVs to complete its strategic national mission. Some did not survive. A chilling and illuminating narrative complete with scores of action photos, SUVs Suck in Combat recounts the hard lessons learned and is a cautionary tale for future generations. This book recently received the annual Literacy Hero Award.

Thanks to Smith Publicity.

Friday, August 19, 2011

Winners!


Congrats to the winners of the following giveaways:

The Upright Piano Player:

irbratb

Flashback:

bibliophilebythesea
twoofakind12
abookishaffair

Night Train:

bermudaonion
hernandezcassandra50
cenya2



Wednesday, August 17, 2011

The Sun's Heartbeat Giveaway (ends 9/10)


Publisher's Summary. The beating heart of the sun is the very pulse of life on earth. And from the ancients who plotted its path at Stonehenge to the modern scientists who unraveled the nuclear fusion reaction that turns mass into energy, humankind has sought to solve its mysteries. In this lively biography of the sun, Bob Berman ranges from its stellar birth to its spectacular future death with a focus on the wondrous and enthralling, and on the heartbreaking sacrifice, laughable errors, egotistical battles, and brilliant inspirations of the people who have tried to understand its power.

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

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 September 10th. Good Luck!



Tuesday, August 16, 2011

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 Grand Pursuit by Sylvia Nasar:


It was the worst of times.

When Charles Dickens returned home from his triumphant American reading tour in June 1842 the specter of hunger was stalking England. The piece of bread had doubled after a string of bad harvests. The cities were mobbed by impoverished rural migrants looking for work or, failing that, charity. The cotton industry was in the fourth year of a deep slump, and unemployed factory hands were forced to rely on public relief or private soup kitchens. Thomas Carlyle, the conservative social critic, warned grimly, 'With millions no longer able to live . . . it is clear that the Nation itself is on the way to suicidal death.'

Monday, August 15, 2011

Mailbox Monday -- August 15th




The reason why I love Mondays -- Mailbox Monday hosted this month by Life in the Thumb. Below are the books I received this week:

1) My Long Trip Home by Mark Whitaker. Amazon Product Description. In a dramatic, moving work of historical reporting and personal discovery, Mark Whitaker, award-winning journalist, sets out to trace the story of what happened to his parents, a fascinating but star-crossed interracial couple, and arrives at a new understanding of the family dramas that shaped their lives—and his own.

His father, “Syl” Whitaker, was the charismatic grandson of slaves who grew up the child of black undertakers from Pittsburgh and went on to become a groundbreaking scholar of Africa. His mother, Jeanne Theis, was a shy World War II refugee from France whose father, a Huguenot pastor, helped hide thousands of Jews from the Nazis and Vichy police. They met in the mid-1950s, when he was a college student and she was his professor, and they carried on a secret romance for more than a year before marrying and having two boys. Eventually they split in a bitter divorce that was followed by decades of unhappiness as his mother coped with self-recrimination and depression while trying to raise her sons by herself, and his father spiraled into an alcoholic descent that destroyed his once meteoric career.

Based on extensive interviews and documentary research as well as his own personal recollections and insights, My Long Trip Home is a reporter’s search for the factual and emotional truth about a complicated and compelling family, a successful adult’s exploration of how he rose from a turbulent childhood to a groundbreaking career, and, ultimately, a son’s haunting meditation on the nature of love, loss, identity, and forgiveness.

2) In the Sea There Are Crocodiles by Fabio Gedo. Amazon Product Description. When ten-year-old Enaiatollah Akbari’s small village in Afghanistan falls prey to Taliban rule in early 2000, his mother shepherds the boy across the border into Pakistan but has to leave him there all alone to fend for himself. Thus begins Enaiat’s remarkable and often punish­ing five-year ordeal, which takes him through Iran, Turkey, and Greece before he seeks political asylum in Italy at the age of fifteen.

Along the way, Enaiat endures the crippling physical and emotional agony of dangerous border crossings, trekking across bitterly cold mountain pathways for days on end or being stuffed into the false bottom of a truck. But not every­one is as resourceful, resilient, or lucky as Enaiat, and there are many heart-wrenching casualties along the way.

Based on Enaiat’s close collaboration with Italian novelist Fabio Geda and expertly rendered in English by an award- winning translator, this novel reconstructs the young boy’s memories, perfectly preserving the childlike perspective and rhythms of an intimate oral history.

Told with humor and humanity, In the Sea There Are Crocodiles brilliantly captures Enaiat’s moving and engaging voice and lends urgency to an epic story of hope and survival.

3) The Things We Cherished by Pam Jenoff. Amazon Product Description. Pam Jenoff, whose first novel, The Kommandant’s Girl, was a Quill Award finalist, a Book Sense pick, and a finalist for the ALA Sophie Brody Award, joins the Doubleday list with a suspenseful story of love and betrayal set during the Holocaust.

An ambitious novel that spans decades and continents, The Things We Cherished tells the story of Charlotte Gold and Jack Harrington, two fiercely independent attor­neys who find themselves slowly falling for one another while working to defend the brother of a Holocaust hero against allegations of World War II–era war crimes.

The defendant, wealthy financier Roger Dykmans, mysteri­ously refuses to help in his own defense, revealing only that proof of his innocence lies within an intricate timepiece last seen in Nazi Germany. As the narrative moves from Philadelphia to Germany, Poland, and Italy, we are given glimpses of the lives that the anniversary clock has touched over the past century, and learn about the love affair that turned a brother into a traitor.

Rich in historical detail, Jenoff’s astonishing new work is a testament to true love under the worst of circumstances.

4) The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. Amazon Product Description. The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Skipping A Beat


Publisher's Summary. What would you do if your husband suddenly wanted to rewrite all of the rules of your relationship? This is the question at the heart of Skipping a Beat, Pekkanen's thought-provoking second book.

From the outside, Julia and Michael seem to have it all. Both products of difficult childhoods in rural West Virginia – where they were simply Julie and Mike – they become high school sweethearts and fall in love. Shortly after graduation, they flee their small town to start afresh. Now thirty-somethings, they are living a rarified life in their multi-million-dollar, Washington D.C. home. Julia is a highly sought-after party planner, while Michael has just sold his wildly successful flavored water company for $70 million.

But one day, Michael collapses in his office. Four minutes and eight seconds after his cardiac arrest, a portable defibrillator jump-starts his heart. But in those lost minutes he becomes a different man. Money is meaningless to him - and he wants to give it all away. Julia, who sees bits of her life reflected in scenes from the world's great operas, is now facing with a choice she never anticipated. Should she should walk away from the man she once adored – but who truthfully became a stranger to her long before this pronouncement - or give in to her husband's pleas for a second chance and a promise of a poorer but happier life?

As wry and engaging as her debut, but with quiet depth and newfound maturity, Skipping a Beat is an unforgettable portrait of a marriage whose glamorous surface belies the complications and betrayals beneath.

Review. Second chances are what we all crave at one time or another. In Skipping a Beat by Sarah Pekkanen, Michael Dunhill, after dying for 4:08 minutes, is given a second chance at life. But is it too little too late?

Before his near death experience Dunhill, founder and CEO of DrinkUp, a 70 million dollar beverage company, was always chasing the latest idea to expand his corporate empire and enrich his wealth. Along the way Dunhill took some questionable shortcuts. Additionally, Dunhill’s marriage to high school sweetheart Julia has moved in an inverse direction to the success of DrinkUp; to the point where the couple is more like roommates than husband and wife. As Julia reflects:

By the time my husband collapsed at work, he and I hadn’t talked – I mean really talked, one of our all-night heart-to hearts – in years, which is crazy, because talking was all we used to do . . . .

Now when I mentally trace the trajectory of our relationship – and I’ve had plenty of time to do it, lots of silent evenings alone in our home – I realize there wasn’t a sharp breaking point or single furious argument that set us on our current path.

After Dunhill’s Lazarus-like return from the dead, he decides to give away his fortune and start anew with wife Julia. She, understandably, has trouble with the new Michael and is ambivalent as to whether to remain in the marriage. Julia agrees, however, to give Michael three weeks before making a decision. The remainder of the plot details these pivotal three weeks.

Skipping a Beat, told from Julia’s point-of-view, is a thoughtful novel that sweats the details. By that I mean the author delves into a myriad of topics, including opera, Fibonacci numbers, and the beverage industry, to enrich the narrative. She has done her research and it shows! My primary criticism of the novel is that it would have benefitted from alternating the point-of-view to include Michael as I had difficulty appreciating Michael’s eleventh hour change. Another minor criticism is that the character, Noah, seems like a one dimensional plot device.

Overall, however, Skipping a Beat is a realistic depiction of a modern marriage that restores one’s faith in the power to change.


Tuesday, August 9, 2011

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 Wither by Lauren Destefano:


I wait. They keep us in the dark for so long that we lose sense of our eyelids. We sleep huddled together like rats, staring out, and dream of our bodies swaying.

I know when one of the girls reaches a wall. She begins to pound and scream -- there's metal in the sound -- but none of us help her. We've gone too long without speaking, and all we do is bury ourselves more into the dark.




Monday, August 8, 2011

Mailbox Monday -- August 8th


The reason why I love Mondays -- Mailbox Monday hosted this month by Life in the Thumb. Below are the books I received this week:

1) Strangers at the Feast by Jennifer Vanderbes. Publisher's Summary. On Thanksgiving Day 2007, as the country teeters on the brink of a recession, three generations of the Olson family gather. Eleanor and Gavin worry about their daughter, a single academic, and her newly adopted Indian child, and about their son, who has been caught in the imploding real-estate bubble. While the Olsons navigate the tensions and secrets that mark their relationships, seventeen-year-old Kijo Jackson and his best friend Spider set out from the nearby housing projects on a mysterious job. A series of tragic events bring these two worlds ever closer, exposing the dangerously thin line between suburban privilege and urban poverty, and culminating in a crime that will change everyone's life.

In her gripping new book, Jennifer Vanderbes masterfully lays bare the fraught lives of this complex cast of characters and the lengths to which they will go to protect their families. Strangers at the Feast is at once a heartbreaking portrait of a family struggling to find happiness and an exploration of the hidden costs of the American dream.

Published to international acclaim, Jennifer Vanderbes's first book, Easter Island, was hailed as "one of those rare novels that appeals equally to heart, mind, and soul," by the San Francisco Chronicle. In her second novel, this powerful writer reaches new heights of storytelling. This page-turner wrestles with the most important issues of our time—race, class, and above all else, family. Strangers at the Feast will leave readers haunted and deeply affected.

2) The Very Thought of You by Rosie Alison. Publisher's Summary. England, 31st August 1939: The world is on the brink of war. As Hitler prepares to invade Poland, thousands of children are evacuated from London to escape the impending Blitz. Torn from her mother, eight-year-old Anna Sands is relocated with other children to a large Yorkshire estate which has been opened up to evacuees by Thomas and Elizabeth Ashton, an enigmatic, childless couple. Soon Anna gets drawn into their unraveling relationship, seeing things that are not meant for her eyes and finding herself part-witness and part-accomplice to a love affair with unforeseen consequences. A story of longing, loss, and complicated loyalties, combining a sweeping narrative with subtle psychological observation, The Very Thought of You is not just a love story but a story about love.

3) The Mistress's Revenge by Tamar Cohen. Publisher's Summary. For five years, Sally and Clive have been lost in a passionate affair. Now he has dumped her to devote himself to his wife and family, and Sally is left in freefall.

It starts with a casual stroll past his house, and popping into the brasserie where his son works. Then Sally starts following Clive's wife and daughter on Facebook. But that's alright, isn't it? These are perfectly normal things to do. Aren't they?

Not since Fatal Attraction has the fallout from an illicit affair been exposed in such a sharp, darkly funny, and disturbing way: The Mistress's Revenge is a truly exciting fiction debut. After all, who doesn't know an otherwise sane woman who has gone a little crazy when her heart was broken?

4) The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais. Publisher's Summary.
"That skinny Indian teenager has that mysterious something that comes along once a generation. He is one of those rare chefs who is simply born. He is an artist."

And so begins the rise of Hassan Haji, the unlikely gourmand who recounts his life's journey in Richard Morais's charming novel, The Hundred-Foot Journey. Lively and brimming with the colors, flavors, and scents of the kitchen, The Hundred-Foot Journey is a succulent treat about family, nationality, and the mysteries of good taste.

Born above his grandfather's modest restaurant in Mumbai, Hassan first experienced life through intoxicating whiffs of spicy fish curry, trips to the local markets, and gourmet outings with his mother. But when tragedy pushes the family out of India, they console themselves by eating their way around the world, eventually settling in LumiÈre, a small village in the French Alps.

The boisterous Haji family takes LumiÈre by storm. They open an inexpensive Indian restaurant opposite an esteemed French relais—that of the famous chef Madame Mallory—and infuse the sleepy town with the spices of India, transforming the lives of its eccentric villagers and infuriating their celebrated neighbor. Only after Madame Mallory wages culinary war with the immigrant family, does she finally agree to mentor young Hassan, leading him to Paris, the launch of his own restaurant, and a slew of new adventures.

The Hundred-Foot Journey is about how the hundred-foot distance between a new Indian kitchen and a traditional French one can represent the gulf between different cultures and desires. A testament to the inevitability of destiny, this is a fable for the ages—charming, endearing, and compulsively readable.

All thanks to Simon and Schuster!

Friday, August 5, 2011

33 Days: Touring in a Van. Sleeping on Floors. Chasing a Dream.


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.

Review.
We busted out of class had to get away from those fools
We learned more from a three minute record than we ever learned in school . . . .
Well maybe we could cut someplace of our own
With these drums and these guitars.
No Surrender by Bruce Springsteen


Dreams -- nearly everyone has a few (or a bushel) -- but few take the chance to turn a dream into more than just pretty thinking. In 33 Days: Touring in a Van. Sleeping on Floors. Chasing a Dream, author/musician Bill See shares his memories from the summer of 1987 when his band, Divine Weeks, embarked on their first tour.

Divine Weeks was a critically-noted L.A. indie band that had just released its first album and was on the cusp of something more. With high hopes and little funds, See and his band mates (Raj Makwana, George Edmondson, and Dave Smerdzinski) set out on a 33 day do-it-yourself tour performing in small venues and outright dives, sleeping on floors and surviving on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

33 Days, however, is much, much, more than a nostalgic rehash of one band’s 80’s road trip. Rather it is about taking chances, triumphing over familial dysfunction, maintaining relationships under adverse circumstances, and measuring one’s life with more than just coffee spoons. In fact, 33 Days reads like a quest novel, with each band member facing a personal challenge while trying to maintain a united force as a group. Especially compelling is Raj’s story of being torn between his band family and his immigrant bio family.

See succinctly captures the memoir’s heart in this passage:

We really do believe we’re operating on a totally different plane than other bands. I know its crazy, and we’re completely full of ourselves, but we do. We know music can’t change the world, but music changed our world, and it could change theirs [the audience’s]. It’s not even like we’re trying to convince anyone our music can change their world. We’re just trying to show people we feel reborn doing what we’re meant to do. So let your dreams take hold and watch what can happen. Take that idea and pass it along to anyone else you know that’s dying out there and too scared to move their feet.

“Doing what you’re meant to do” sounds easy, but in truth is incredibly difficult. And added to this mix were the materialistic/conformist times (Personal digression: During the mid-80’s at my large university a few students erected an anti-apartheid hut on campus as a protest against the South African government which at that time was still segregationist. It lasted less than a week before being vandalized.) and the lack of family support some members experienced, then the journey seems almost Herculean!

33 Days is an incredible story that I wish I had lived, but reading it is the next best thing! Take a chance, hop in the van and enjoy the ride!





Review copy provided courtesy of the author.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Mailbox Monday -- August 1st


The reason why I love Mondays -- Mailbox Monday hosted this month by Life in the Thumb. Below are the books I received this week:

1) Healer by Carol Cassella. Publisher's Summary. From national bestselling author Carol Cassella comes the story of one doctor's struggle to hold her family together through a storm of broken trust and questioned ethics.

Claire is at the start of her medical career when she falls in love with Addison Boehning, a biochemist with blazing genius and big dreams. A complicated pregnancy deflects Claire's professional path, and she is forced to drop out of her residency. Soon thereafter Addison invents a simple blood test for ovarian cancer, and his biotech start-up lands a fortune. Overnight the Boehnings are catapulted into a financial and social tier they had never anticipated or sought: they move into a gracious Seattle home and buy an old ranch in the high desert mountains of eastern Washington, and Claire drifts away from medicine to become a full-time wife and mother.

Then Addison gambles everything on a cutting-edge cancer drug, and when the studies go awry, their comfortable life is swept away. Claire and her daughter, Jory, move to a dilapidated ranch house in rural Hallum, where Claire has to find a job until Addison can salvage his discredited lab. Her only offer for employment comes from a struggling public health clinic, but Claire gets more than a second chance at medicine when she meets Miguela, a bright Nicaraguan immigrant and orphan of the contra war who has come to the United States on a secret quest to find the family she has lost. As their friendship develops, a new mystery unfolds that threatens to destroy Claire's family and forces her to question what it truly means to heal.

Healer exposes the vulnerabilities of the American family, provoking questions of choice versus fate, desire versus need, and the duplicitous power of money.

2) Sea Escape by Lynne Griffin. Publisher's Summary. Acclaimed novelist and nationally recognized family expert Lynne Griffin returns with Sea Escape—an emotional, beautifully imagined story inspired by the author's family letters about the ties that bind mothers and daughters.

Laura Martinez is wedged in the middle place, grappling with her busy life as a nurse, wife, and devoted mom to her two young children when her estranged mother, Helen, suffers a devastating stroke. In a desperate attempt to lure her mother into choosing life, Laura goes to Sea Escape, the pristine beach home that Helen took refuge in after the death of her beloved husband, Joseph. There, Laura hunts for the legendary love letters her father wrote to her mother when he served as a reporter for the Associated Press during wartime Vietnam.

Believing the beauty and sway of her father's words will have the power to heal, Laura reads the letters bedside to her mother, a woman who once spoke the language of fabric—of Peony Sky in Jade and Paradise Garden Sage—but who can't or won't speak to her now. As Laura delves deeper into her tangled family history, she becomes increasingly determined to save her mother. As each letter reveals a patchwork detail of her parents' marriage, she discovers a common thread: a secret that mother and daughter unknowingly share.

Weaving back and forth from Laura's story to her mother's, beginning in the idyllic 1950s with Helen's love affair with Joseph through the tumultuous Vietnam War period on to the present, Sea Escape takes a gratifying look at what women face in their everyday lives—the balancing act of raising capable and happy children and being accomplished and steadfast wives while still being gracious and good daughters. It is a story that opens the door to family secrets so gripping, you won't be able to put this book down until each is revealed.

Thanks to Simon and Schuster!