Mailbox Monday February 13, 2012

In February Mailbox Monday is being hosted by Metro Reader.




I received A Darkly Hidden Truth by Donna Fletcher Crow last week. Part of a series called The Monastery Murders the description of this novel reads:

Felicity can't possibly help Father Antony find the valuable missing icon. She's off to become a nun. And then her impossible mother turns up unexpectedly. And a good friend turns up murdered...

Breathtaking chase scenes, mystical worship services, dashes through remote water-logged landscapes, the wisdom of ancient holy women, and the arcane rites of The Knights Hospitaller keep the pages turning. Will Felicity choose the veil - or Antony?

Waiting on Wednesday: The House I Loved by Tatiana de Rosnay

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

Paris, France: 1860's. Hundreds of houses are being razed, whole neighborhoods reduced to ashes. By order of Emperor Napoleon III, Baron Haussman has set into motion a series of large-scale renovations that will permanently alter the face of old Paris, moulding it into a "modern city." The reforms will erase generations of history-but in the midst of the tumult, one woman will take a stand.

Rose Bazelet is determined to fight against the destruction of her family home until the very end; as others flee, she stakes her claim in the basement of the old house on rue Childebert, ignoring the sounds of change that come closer and closer each day. Attempting to overcome the loneliness of her daily life, she begins to write letters to Armand, her beloved late husband. And as she delves into the ritual of remembering, Rose is forced to come to terms with a secret that has been buried deep in her heart for thirty years. The House I Loved is both a poignant story of one woman's indelible strength, and an ode to Paris, where houses harbor the joys and sorrows of their inhabitants, and secrets endure in the very walls...

Tuesday Teaser:

Tuesday Teasers is hosted by Should Be Reading. The rules are as follows:


Grab your current read and let the book fall open to a random page. Share two sentences from somewhere on that page and the title of the book that you’re getting the teaser from. Please avoid spoilers! Read the official Tuesday Teaser Rules.



My teaser this week is from Dancing With Colonels. Subtitled 'A Young Woman's Adventures in Wartime Turkey' it is compiled by Sally Enstrom, who is a niece to the author of the letters, Marjorie Havreberg. From page 50:

Tonight Josie and I went down to the 14th St. shopping district and I got some shos finally. I got black patent leather strip pumps-size 7 1/2 quad so they fit-$5.50.

Mailbox Monday February 6, 2012

In February Mailbox Monday is being hosted by Metro Reader.

Last week I received two very different books. The first is The Book Club Cookbook:




The description of The Book Club Cookbook reads:

Whether it’s Roman Punch for The Age of Innocence, Sabzi ChallowGlogg
(spinach and rice) with Lamb for The Kite Runner, or Swedish Meatballs and Glögg for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, nothing spices up a book club meeting like great eats. Featuring recipes and discussion ideas from best-selling authors and book clubs across the country, this fully revised and updated edition of the classic book guides readers in selecting and preparing culinary masterpieces that blend perfectly with the literary masterpieces their club is reading. This edition includes new contributions from a host of today’s bestselling authors including:

• Kathryn Stockett, The Help (Demetrie’s Chocolate Pie and Caramel Cake)
• Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants (Oyster Brie Soup)
• Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper (Brian Fitzgerald’s Firehouse Marinara Sauce)
• Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone (Almaz’s Ethiopian Doro Wot and
• Sister Mary Joseph Praise’s Cari De Dal)
• Annie Barrows, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
• (Annie Barrows’s Potato Peel Pie and Non-Occupied Potato Peel Pie)
• Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (Lisa See’s Deep Fried Sugared Taro)

The Book Club Cookbook will add real flavor to your meetings!

The second book I received is The Darlings by Cristina Alger.




The description of The Darlings (from the author's website) says:

A sophisticated page-turner about a wealthy New York family embroiled in a financial scandal with cataclysmic consequences.

Now that he’s married to Merrill Darling, daughter of billionaire financier Carter Darling, attorney Paul Ross has grown accustomed to New York society and all of its luxuries: a Park Avenue apartment, weekends in the Hamptons, bespoke suits. When Paul loses his job, Carter offers him the chance to head the legal team at his hedge fund. Thrilled with his good fortune in the midst of the worst financial downturn since the Great Depression, Paul accepts the position.

But Paul’s luck is about to shift: a tragic event catapults the Darling family into the media spotlight, a regulatory investigation, and a red-hot scandal with enormous implications for everyone involved. Suddenly, Paul must decide where his loyalties lie—will he save himself while betraying his wife and in-laws or protect the family business at all costs?

Cristina Alger’s glittering debut novel interweaves the narratives of the Darling family, two eager SEC attorneys, and a team of journalists all racing to uncover—or cover up—the truth. With echoes of a fictional Too Big to Fail and the novels of Dominick Dunne, The Darlings offers an irresistible glimpse into the highest echelons of New York society—a world seldom seen by outsiders—and a fast-paced thriller of epic proportions.

Goose Lane Editions launches new website

[Fredericton, NB] In 1994, still in the birthing years of the Internet, Goose Lane Editions, Canada’s oldest independent book publisher, made history by becoming one of the first publishing houses in the world to launch their own website. After 18 years, the site has gone through numerous transformations, changing to suit our evolving culture as technology improved and users became more computer-savvy. Now, we are proud to announce the newest iteration of www.gooselane.com, with new features, new content, and a new promotion to kick off the launch.

In addition to a complete visual redesign, we have added new website elements such as twitter feeds and ongoing blog posts by our many employees. Sample chapters are available for many books, and an ongoing stream of events and notices is added to the main page every day.

To celebrate our launch, we’d like to extend a special offer. For every day the week of January 23, we will be offering one book a day at a special highly-discounted price. Roadsworth, YOU comma Idiot, The Famished Lover, Miller Brittain, The Black Watch, Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy, and Ganong: A Sweet History of Chocolate will each take over one day of the week with a drastically discounted price to help celebrate our new look and attitude. All this, in addition to our regular feature of free shipping on orders of $60 or more. To take advantage of these offers, simply create an account with Goose Lane. By doing so, you’ll also ensure that you are regularly updated on upcoming special offers.

We’ve been around a long time, both physically and electronically. Here’s to many more years together.

Mailbox Monday January 30, 2012

In January Mailbox Monday is being hosted by At Home With Books.



Last week I received The Bedlam Detective by Stephen Gallagher. The blurb on the book reads:

Sebastian Becker, a former Pinkerton man, lives in England and investigates wealthy eccentrics who may be too insane to care for their own affairs. He is asked to investigate rich landowner Sir Owain but arrives to discover two young girls have been murdered. It is not the first time children have come to harm in this small town. Owain's sanity is in question after a disastrous adventure that killed his family and colleagues, and Becker suspects him of the killings. A smart young suffragette and the wild daughter of a horse trainer had a frightening childhood experience that may hold some of the answers Becker seeks, but only if Becker can convince them to trust him in time.

Madmen and monsters both real and imagined abound, and Becker faces immense danger in his hunt for the truth-and in the process he will have to face murderers, tragedy, and the tempestuous depths of his own mind.

Review: The Placebo Effect and Q & A with author David Rotenberg

I love to discover authors whose writing I like, and I’m especially delighted when I discover a new series that I enjoy. The Placebo Effect fills both of those niches for me.

David Rotenberg's first book in a series called The Junction Chronicles follows Decker Roberts as he struggles to deal with his unique gift of detecting when other people are telling the truth. In other words, he’s a human lie detector. (I had visions of being able to do this all the while reading this book!) To make extra money Decker hires himself out to companies who will pay well for his services, determining for instance whether a potential employee is telling the truth about themselves. Life is going along swimmingly until Decker finds himself dealing with more than just the usual odd assortment of characters.

This book moves at lightening speed. I literally could not put it down. Every event in the plot plays out to an exciting ending. The idea of being able to detect when someone is lying is interesting in the first place. Add to that an unknown creepiness and it makes for a really fun read.

I especially enjoyed the main character. He was well fleshed out – the use of his background in the acting profession was an interesting twist. His family is not the perfect one either, dysfunction is the norm and I think it many readers will relate.

Without giving away too many details, I also really liked the role that corporations played in this novel. By their very nature, they’re large entities that seem untouchable but the author managed to give them a human face. Another aspect that I liked was the fact that the events moved around a good deal. Some of the action takes place in Toronto, some in New York City and Cincinnati. For me these are details that make a book more than just readable and The Placebo Effect was just that.


Read on for a Q & A with the author of The Placebo Effect, David Rotenberg

Q. How long did it take you to write Placebo Effect?

A. Pretty much 18 months, give or take two or three.

Q. I was struck by Placebo Effect's complex twists and turns. How did you keep track of all the details involved? Do you have a particular method that you use?

A. When I was younger I could actually recite whole swaths of my books-can’t do that anymore but I’m still able to keep track of the plotting events, and often surprise myself at my ability to recall very, very specific facts from previous drafts

-I don’t chart-my publishers wish I did, but I don’t.
-I think in the shower and very late at night-I’m not such a good sleeper.
-I know that I’m on to something when I begin to dream it.

Q. Was there a scene (or part of the book) that you enjoyed writing more than others?

A. A lot of the stuff about Seth pleased me. Also it’s fun for me to re-visit the New York City world that was mine for almost 15 years.

Q. There is something about the name of the main character that I find very appealing. How did you come up with Decker Roberts?

A. Do you know Blade Runner? Check out Blade Runner and you’ll see at least the origin of his first name.

Q. Have you started work on your next book?

A. Second book in The Junction Chronicles: A Murder of Crows is complete and with the publisher. Two other books (a sub series) called Seth’s Dream are also pretty much completed.

Tuesday Teaser: The Drop by Michael Connelly

Tuesday Teasers is hosted by Should Be Reading. The rules are as follows:


Grab your current read and let the book fall open to a random page. Share two sentences from somewhere on that page and the title of the book that you’re getting the teaser from. Please avoid spoilers! Read the official Tuesday Teaser Rules.

My teaser this week is from Michael Connelly's The Drop. From page 62:

There were no other customers about, so Bosch took the bottle of salsa with him back to the car. He knew that when it came to truck tacos it was all about the salsa.

Mailbox Monday January 16, 2012

In January Mailbox Monday is being hosted by At Home With Books.





Last week I received White Horse by Alex Adams. The description of this book reads:

Thirty-year-old Zoe leads an ordinary life until the end of the world arrives. She is cleaning cages and floors at Pope Pharmaceuticals when the President of the United States announces that human beings are no longer a viable species. When Zoe realizes that everyone she loves is disappearing, she starts running. Scared and alone in a shockingly changed world, she embarks on a remarkable journey of survival and redemption. Along the way, Zoe comes to see that humans are defined not by their genetic code, but rather by their actions and choices. White Horse offers hope for a broken world, where love can lead to the most unexpected places.

Tuesday Teaser: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Tuesday Teasers is hosted by Should Be Reading. The rules are as follows:


Grab your current read and let the book fall open to a random page. Share two sentences from somewhere on that page and the title of the book that you’re getting the teaser from. Please avoid spoilers! Read the official Tuesday Teaser Rules.




From page 150:

The publication of Origin prompted me to look for it, and if such a book existed, Elias Ashmole would have bought it. He had an uncanny ability to find bizarre manuscripts.