Seven Giveaway (ends 1/31)

Publisher's Summary. What is it about the number seven that has such a hold on us? Why are there seven deadly sins? Seven days of the week? Seven wonders of the world, seven colors of the spectrum, seven ages of man, and seven sister colleges? Why can we hold seven numbers or words in our working memory--but no more? Author Jackie Leo explores everything about this mystical, magical, useful, and fun number in her new book.

SEVEN REASONS YOU NEED THIS BOOK

1. SEVEN is a tool to improve the quality of your life. It is a way to define time, synthesize ideas, and keep your mind performing at top speed in an era of distractions.

2. SEVEN is culturally significant. It pops up everywhere, structuring our world in ways so fundamental, we notice them only when we pause to look. Across the ages and across cultures, the number has acquired a huge scientific, psychological, and religious significance.

3. SEVEN is intriguing. Why, out of hundreds of recipes in a cookbook, do people return to the same seven, over and over? Why, when asked to choose a number between one and ten, does such a large majority of people choose seven? Why does it take seven rounds of shuffling to obtain a fully mixed deck of cards?

4. SEVEN is influential. You'll learn how the number seven shapes our thinking, our choices, and even our relationships.

5. SEVEN is practical. Throughout this book are Top Seven lists covering the best ways to get someone's attention, to build your personal brand, and to put yourself in the path of prosperity and good luck.

6. SEVEN is fun. You'll encounter surprising facts, intriguing puzzles, and hilarious anecdotes.

7. SEVEN is wise. You'll hear stories about the meaning of seven from Mehmet Oz, Sally Quinn, Liz Smith, Christina Ricci, and many others.
Artfully designed and full of enough insights to keep you engaged in conversation at the water cooler for years, SEVEN will provoke, enlighten, and amuse.



Giveaway Rules. Today I am giving away FIVE copies of this interesting 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.

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.

Giveaway ends January 31st! Good Luck!

Mailbox Monday January 11th

Thanks to host Marcia at The Printed Page I'm participating in the Mailbox Monday round up. This week I received the following advance review copies:

1) Letter to My Daughter by George Bishop. Publisher's Summary.

Dear Elizabeth,

It’s early morning and I’m sitting here wondering where you are, hoping you’re all right.

A fight, ended by a slap, sends Elizabeth out the door of her Baton Rouge home on the eve of her fifteenth birthday. Her mother, Laura, is left to fret and worry—and remember. Wracked with guilt as she awaits Liz’s return, Laura begins a letter to her daughter, hoping to convey “everything I’ve always meant to tell you but never have.”

In her painfully candid confession, Laura shares memories of her own troubled adolescence in rural Louisiana, growing up in an intensely conservative household. She recounts her relationship with a boy she loved despite her parents’ disapproval, the fateful events that led to her being sent away to a strict Catholic boarding school, the personal tragedy brought upon her by the Vietnam War, and, finally, the meaning of the enigmatic tattoo below her right hip.

Absorbing and affirming, George Bishop’s magnificent debut brilliantly captures a sense of time and place with a distinct and inviting voice. Letter to My Daughter is a heartwrenching novel of mothers, daughters, and the lessons we all learn when we come of age.

Thanks to Random House.

2) Career Comeback by Lisa Johnson Mandell. Publisher's Summary. Unfortunately, getting older can be a career killer. That's what entertainment journalist Lisa Johnson Mandell discovered when she sent out a resume that made her sound like an aged veteran. Her new career makeover guide-expanded from the Wall Street Journal article about revamping her "older" image to land her dream job-acknowledges that experience matters, but looking and acting up-to-date matter just as much. Mandell provides ten strategies for putting a youthful spin on resumes, Web pages, and personal presentation.

Thanks to Hachette Book Group.

Letter to My Daughter

Publisher's Summary.

Dear Elizabeth,

It’s early morning and I’m sitting here wondering where you are, hoping you’re all right.

A fight, ended by a slap, sends Elizabeth out the door of her Baton Rouge home on the eve of her fifteenth birthday. Her mother, Laura, is left to fret and worry—and remember. Wracked with guilt as she awaits Liz’s return, Laura begins a letter to her daughter, hoping to convey “everything I’ve always meant to tell you but never have.”

In her painfully candid confession, Laura shares memories of her own troubled adolescence in rural Louisiana, growing up in an intensely conservative household. She recounts her relationship with a boy she loved despite her parents’ disapproval, the fateful events that led to her being sent away to a strict Catholic boarding school, the personal tragedy brought upon her by the Vietnam War, and, finally, the meaning of the enigmatic tattoo below her right hip.

Absorbing and affirming, George Bishop’s magnificent debut brilliantly captures a sense of time and place with a distinct and inviting voice. Letter to My Daughter is a heartwrenching novel of mothers, daughters, and the lessons we all learn when we come of age.

Review. After a terrible family fight, Laura, the protagonist in a Letter to My Daughter by George Bishop, pens a letter to her runaway daughter Liz. While Laura awaits fifteen year old Liz’s return she decides to write her a letter. In short, to tell her daughter the things she always wanted to tell her, but never did.

Laura’s conversational letter, which spans the length of the novella, is her attempt to share her own tumultuous teenage years during the Vietnam era. As Laura confesses:

" If I could speak now to my fifteen-year–old self, I might tell her to be more forgiving of her parents. Maybe they were doing the best they could. It’s possible. If adulthood has taught me anything, it’s that even grown-ups are fallible. We’re not a whole lot smarter than we were at fifteen. We still feel the same stir of emotions, the same awkward human needs and doubts we felt when we were teenagers. Only the shell grows thicker; the inside, the more tender parts, remain surprisingly unchanged. Often – and this is a secret that not many parents will tell their children – often we don’t know what the hell we’re doing. And so we yell, we shout, we slap our children.

We still make mistakes, daughter. Oh yes, all the time."

This slender (126 pages), yet riveting novella, can easily be devoured in one sitting. The letter itself is believable as a mother writing to her young daughter. Letter to My Daughter is a compelling and candid coming of age saga of young life and love during the early seventies.




Publisher: Ballantine Books (February 16, 2010), 160 pages
Advance Review Copy Provided Courtesy of the Publisher.

Her Fearful Symmetry

Publisher's Summary. Audrey Niffenegger's spectacularly compelling second novel opens with a letter that alters the fate of every character. Julia and Valentina Poole are semi-normal American twenty-year-olds with seemingly little interest in college or finding jobs. Their attachment to one another is intense. One morning the mailman delivers a thick envelope to their house in the suburbs of Chicago. From a London solicitor, the enclosed letter informs Valentina and Julia that their English aunt Elspeth Noblin, whom they never knew, has died of cancer and left them her London apartment. There are two conditions to this inheritance: that they live in it for a year before they sell it and that their parents not enter it. Julia and Valentina are twins. So were the estranged Elspeth and Edie, their mother.

The girls move to Elspeth's flat, which borders the vast and ornate Highgate Cemetery, where Christina Rossetti, George Eliot, Radclyffe Hall, Stella Gibbons and Karl Marx are buried. Julia and Valentina come to know the living residents of their building. There is Martin, a brilliant and charming crossword-puzzle setter suffering from crippling obsessive compulsive disorder; Marijke, Martin's devoted but trapped wife; and Robert, Elspeth's elusive lover, a scholar of the cemetery. As the girls become embroiled in the fraying lives of their aunt's neighbors, they also discover that much is still alive in Highgate, including -- perhaps -- their aunt.

Author of one of the most beloved first novels in recent years, Niffenegger returns with an unnerving, unforgettable and enchanting ghost story, a novel about love and identity, secrets and sisterhood and the tenacity of life -- even after death.

Review. “Elspeth died while Robert was standing in front of a vending machine watching tea shoot into a small plastic cup.” And so begins Audrey Niffenegger’s Her Fearful Symmetry. This exquisitely written first sentence of the first chapter titled, “The End,” both shocks and attracts the reader. I cannot recall a more memorable opening line from a recent novel. And it was highly effective as it immediately drew me into the plot. And what a tale Niffenegger has crafted! The story itself is replete with unpredictable plot twists and turns. Again I cannot recall a more memorable novel!

As one who has not yet read Niffenegger’s blockbuster The Time Traveler’s Wife I was able to enjoy the novel without the raised expectations (and/or assumptions) that some readers experienced. As such I can honestly say that I loved Her Fearful Symmetry even as I also confess that I did not love the main characters (apart from the OCD neighbor Martin) or the ending. Normally, these factors would probably negate my enjoyment of the novel, but such is not the case because Niffenegger’s tale is that engaging!

This modern-gothic, character-driven novel is set in London and, more specifically, Highgate Cemetery. The famous cemetery is central to the plot and becomes an additional character in the story. In fact the novel did such a thorough job of incorporating its essence into the story that I now hope to visit it someday!

Her Fearful Symmetry is a well-written unique story that is hard to put down!




Publisher: Scribner; Simon & Schuster(September 29, 2009), 416 pages
Review Copy Provided Courtesy of the publisher.

Love is In the Air Giveaway (ends 1/22)

Publisher's Summary. Finding true love is possible in just 90 days. Renowned clinical psychologist, Dr. Diana Kirschner, uses the latest research, clinical and personal experience to show you how. Dr. Diana knows the questions single women everywhere face: "Why am I attracted to the wrong kind of guys?" "Why is he just not that into me?" "Why can't I seem to find the One?" She also knows the unconscious mistakes that women make over and over again in love-regardless of age, work success, or the type of men they are dating.

Over the years Dr. Diana has received countless inquiries from single women about writing a how-to guide on her work. Love in 90 Days: The Essential Guide to Finding Your Own True Love is that book.


Love in 90 Days is fun, savvy and based on the latest research on singles, online dating and healthy relationships. Loaded with step-by-step instructions, checklists, and weekly homework assignments, this revolutionary love book is also an intensely personal journey for each reader. Love in 90 Days guides you along your own path towards self discovery with proven and effective dating advice and tough love. Dr. Diana dispels common misconceptions about love relationships and dating, and share personal stories from women who have successfully completed the Love in 90 Days Program. There's also a chapter devoted to the special issues faced by African-American women, single mothers, and women forty-five and older.

Giveaway Rules: Today I am giving away FIVE copies of this fabulous book.

First 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 Entry: Sign up to follow my blog (or let me know that you are a current follower). NOTE: This extra entry MUST be left in a separate comment or it 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.

Giveaway ends January 22nd! Good Luck!

Rion

Publisher's Summary. Marisa Rourke is a beautiful, fearless telepath who tames dragonshapers on Earth. Rion is a tall, dark, and sexy space explorer whose home planet is a galaxy away. The attraction between them is undeniable, but Rion is hiding a desperate secret that will change Marisa's life forever.

Marisa's gift is the only way Rion can communicate with his people, enslaved by a powerful enemy. He knows that kidnapping her is wrong, but saving his planet is worth sparking the fiery clairvoyant's fury. Yet hotter-and more explosive-is the psychic bond growing between Marisa and Rion. Could their passion be the key to freeing Rion's people? Only if he and Marisa can discover how to channel their desire . . . before a vicious enemy destroys them all.

Review. by Renee A.J. Rion by Susan Kearney immerses the reader in a future Earth where the population is learning to cope with the side effects of vaccine from the planet Pendragon, which saved humanity for extinction. The vaccine cured humanity’s fertility problem while instilling a genetic shift that requires humans to periodically morph into dragons. Our heroine, Marisa, has abandoned her job as a reporter and become a ‘dragon whisperer’ since she is able to use her telepathic powers to calm the highly sexed and aggressive tendencies of humans when they take to their dragon forms. While Earth begins to cope with its’ new beginning, political leaders shut the portal that allows travel between Earth and other planets. Rion, the son of royalty from the planet Honor, came to the United Nations seeking support for the Honorians’ fight against the Unari Tribes’ who have invaded and enslaved the planet of Honor. With the closure of Earth’s portal, Rion is trapped on Earth unable to communicate with his planet and unable to convince Earth politicians that that the Unari will attack Earth once they have completely subdued Honor. Since the Honorian people are also dragonshapers, Rion kidnaps Marisa in the hopes that she will agree use her telepathic talents to help him rally and organize his people to fight against the superior forces of the Unari Tribes. Thus, begins the anger and attraction between Rion and Marisa, which will grow to passion and compassion as they are forced to protect each other in their travels.

Betrayed by the kidnapping and by Rion’s continuing secretiveness, Marisa fights her attraction for the handsome dragonshaper. Yet she is impressed by the depth of his commitment to his people and stirred by the just war. In addition, to being a dragonshaper Rion has the gift of visions. He is constantly haunted by scenes of the chaos and suffering of the Honorians under the yoke of the Unari. Ultimately Rion and Marisa are able to lead the fight for the Honorian’s freedom, while fulfilling their romantic destiny.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Rion. Although there were a few too many twists and turns in the plot, the characters were well-drawn, the growth of the romance between Rion and Marisa was intriguing, and the rebel fighters were inspiring. Rion is the perfect antidote to a cold January night!




Publisher: Forever; 1 edition (December 1, 2009), 384 pages
Advance Review Copy Provided Courtesy of the Publisher

Winners!

Here is a megapost of the confirmed winners for the following giveaways:

What the Dog Saw Winners
cenya2
laura
waitmantwillie





Hope for Animals and their World Winners
milou2ste
bibliophilebythesea
persianpickle

Ivy and Bean T Shirt Winner
Diaryofaneccentric

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men Winners
spoiledtyro6
lizzi0915
carolsnotebook

How to be Famous Winners
minsthins (alternate winner)
cherylbaryl
dftrew
rhoneygtn
kakihararocks

Cheating Death Winners
Bibliophilebythesea
Pbclark
Wandanamgreb
Msjessicamae
domino1

Congrats to the winners!