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 is from The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian. From page 180:

Assuming the girls - especially Garnet, whose mind was particularly interesting to Reseda - eventually fell asleep, she thought she might visit the basement. She might see for herself the door that was of such interest to the captain and try to get a sense of what might have attached itself to him.

Mailbox Monday December 12, 2011

In December Mailbox Monday is being hosted by Let Them Read Books.





Last week I received The Whisperer by Bonato Carrisi. The description (from the back of the book) reads:

Six severed arms are discovered in a clearing. Buried in a mysterious circle, each appears to belong to young girls who have been recently abducted. Alive or dead, the remainder of the girls' bodies are missing.

By-the-book Criminologist Goran Gavila is paired with Officer Mila Vasquez, whose reputation for insubordinate behavior is counterbalanced only by her ability in cases involving missing children.

Faced with the task of locating a mass murderer and recovering any of the girls who might still be alive, Gavila and Vasquez find themselves confronted with a killer who is clearly guilty but raises a new set of questions regarding the case that don't add up.

Mailbox Monday November 28, 2011

In November Mailbox Monday is being hosted by the person who originally began this meme - Marcia at Mailbox Monday.





Thanks to Hachette I received The Drop by Michael Connelly in the mail last week. From the author's website:

Harry Bosch has been given three years before he must retire from the LAPD, and he wants cases more fiercely than ever. In one morning, he gets two.

DNA from a 1989 rape and murder matches a 29-year-old convicted rapist. Was he an eight-year-old killer or has something gone terribly wrong in the new Regional Crime Lab? The latter possibility could compromise all of the lab’s DNA cases currently in court. Then Bosch and his partner are called to a death scene fraught with internal politics. Councilman Irvin Irving’s son jumped or was pushed from a window at the Chateau Marmont. Irving, Bosch’s longtime nemesis, has demanded that Harry handle the investigation. Relentlessly pursuing both cases, Bosch makes two chilling discoveries: a killer operating unknown in the city for as many as three decades, and a political conspiracy that goes back into the dark history of the police department.

Happy Thanksgiving and a guest post!

Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends!

A Different Thanksgiving Conversation: Eight Questions to Ask Your Elders

By Karl A. Pillemer, Ph.D.,

The following is dapted from 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans"


A famous picture by Norman Rockwell shows beaming grandparents serving turkey to a crowd of smiling extended family members. This idealized image represents reality in this way: Thanksgiving is one event that traditionally brings the generations together. So what’s a good way to spend this precious intergenerational time?

Here’s one you may not have thought of: How about asking your older family members to give the younger ones advice for living? I’ve spent the past six years conducting a research project in which we asked older Americans: “What are the most important lessons you’ve learned that you would like to pass on to young people?” The results were fascinating, and yes, you can try this at home! So I’m proposing that we all use Thanksgiving to ask our family’s elders to share their wisdom.

Why try it? Because it’s an interesting and enjoyable thing to do. Younger people have a lot to gain by seeking the life wisdom of older people. We can take advantage of years of lived experience, perspectives that defy contemporary “common sense,” and experiential knowledge that comes from having been tested in almost every type of stressful situation. Have they been married for 50 years? Ask them what makes a marriage work. They raised a family, so ask them their advice for raising children. And don’t forget to ask their advice about aging well!

On this holiday, we can all be thankful that our elders are so full of wisdom, and willing to share. Below are some “conversation starters” to use around the dinner table this Thanksgiving. While you’re digging into your turkey and mashed potatoes, you can profit from the valuable lessons that those around you have have learned first-hand over their lifetimes.

1. What are some of the most important lessons you feel you have learned over the course of your life?

2. Some people say that they have had difficult or stressful experiences but they have learned important lessons from them. Is that true for you? Can you give examples of what you learned?

3. As you look back over your life, do you see any “turning points”; that is, a key event or experience that changed over the course of your life or set you on a different track?

4. What are some of the important choices or decisions you made that you have learned from?

5. What would you say you know now about living a happy and successful life that you didn’t know when you were twenty?

6. What would you say are the major values or principles that you live by?

7. Have you learned any lessons regarding staying in good health?

8. What advice would you give to people about growing older?

I hope you will give these a try. We do sometimes ask older people for their life stories, but it can actually reach deeper and be more rewarding to ask them their advice for living.

This is how knowledge for living was once transferred; the experience of interlocking lives, intertwined over generations, was passed along and remained alive in the telling. This wisdom exists in people you know, right here, right now. And it’s your for the asking this Thanksgiving.

And if you learn something valuable from an elder, or your own family elders would like to share their advice, you can add it to our website at Share Lessons To Win and be entered for a chance to win $100 Amazon gift card, now through December 4th!

Mailbox Monday November 21, 2011

In November Mailbox Monday is being hosted by the person who originally began this meme - Marcia at Mailbox Monday.

Last week I picked up:

Gideon's Sword by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child



The Baker Street Letters by Michael Robertson

Mailbox Monday November 14, 2011

In November Mailbox Monday is being hosted by the person who originally began this meme - Marcia at Mailbox Monday.




Last week I received The Placebo Effect by David Rotenberg. From the back of the book:

Decker Roberts has the dangerous gift of detecting the truth. For years this talent proved to be a lucrative sideline to his acting teaching. Only his closest friends know, and he deeps his identity secret from the companies that pay him to tell them if the people they are planning to hire are truthful.

But Decker's carefully compartmentalized life starts to fall apart. His house burns down, his credit cards are cancelled, his bank loan is called and his studio is condemned. He realizes that he must have heard something in one of his 'truth telling' sessions that someone didn't want him to know.

Decker has to go on the run and figure out why he's been targeted. There's also a government agent hunting him who seems to know absolutely everything about Decker Roberts' identities, real and false-and other people of "his kind."

How will Decker find out which truth was endangering his life? Who betrayed him and revealed all his secrets? Decker needs to find answers quickly, before knowing the truth turns from a gift into a deadly curse.

Tuesday Teaser: River of Smoke

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 River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh. From page 225:

'You must know, Barry,' he said in a low voice, 'that we are facing a crisis of unprecedented magnitude. It should come as no surprise that the Grand Manchu has decided to demonstrate his omnipotence by prohibiting the entry of opium into this country.'

Mailbox Monday November 7, 2011

In November Mailbox Monday is being hosted by the person who originally began this meme - Marcia at Mailbox Monday.





Last week I received Assassin of Secrets by Q. R. Markham. From the back of the book:

Jonathan Chase, the CIA's top field agent, is sworn to protect and serve the United States at all costs. But after a brutal period of captivity during the Korean War, Chase developed an agenda of his own: to use his mastery of war to create peace.

His new target: the Zero Directorate, a cabal of rogue assassins who have embarked on a campaign to systematically interrogate and kill seasoned secret agents across the globe.

But the Directorate has set an elaborate trap, and for Chase, the world's preeminent operative, the whole mission involves and inescapable paradox: the closer he gets to the cabal, the closer the cabal gets to its primary target.

We have a winner!!!

I used random.org to determine the winner of an autographed copy of Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (read my review here). The winner is:

Debra S.!

Thank you to all who entered!

Mailbox Monday October 31, 2011

In October Mailbox Monday is being hosted by Savvy Verse & Wit.




Last week I attended the book launch for Yellow Mini by Lori Weber. The description of Yellow Mini reads:

Mark, Mr. Popularity, tools around town in the yellow mini left to him by his recently deceased father; his new girlfriend Stacey can’t believe her luck, but doesn’t understand Mark’s odd need to disappear into the woods from time to time; her former friends Mary and Annabelle try to find their place in the world – shy Mary transforms into a concert pianist and Annabelle into an world-changing activist with the idealistic and adoring Christopher by her side. In the background, the teens’ parents struggle with their desire to protect their children, yet give them room to grow into the adults they must become. Each voice tells his or her story in powerful free verse.

This book is written in verse - the first of its kind that I've read. I started reading it and it's hard to put down! It just flows. This is a great YA novel!

Mailbox Monday October 24, 2011

In October Mailbox Monday is being hosted by Savvy Verse & Wit.





Just one book came into my house last week - The Emerald Atlas by John Stephens. From the author's website:

A snowy winter's night. Three small children are chased from their home by the forces of a merciless darkness. Ten years later, Kate, Michael and Emma are no closer to the truth about what separated their family.

The answer lies with an enchanted atlas.

Brimming with action, humor, and emotion, The Emerald Atlas is the first stage of a journey that will take Kate, Michael, and Emma to strange, dangerous lands and deep within themselves. It is the story of three children who set out to save their family, and end up having to save the world.

Waiting on Wednesday: I Am Half-Sick of Shadows

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





Coming out on November 1st I Am Half-Sick Of Shadows is the fourth installment of the Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley. From the Random House website the book's description reads:

Colonel de Luce, in desperate need of funds, rents his beloved estate of Buckshaw to a film company. They will be shooting a movie over the Christmas holidays, filming scenes in the decaying manse with a reclusive star. She is widely despised, so it is to no one''s surprise when she turns up murdered, strangled by a length of film from one of her own movies! With a blizzard raging outside and Buckshaw locked in, the house is full of suspects. But Flavia de Luce is more than ready to put aside her investigations into the existence of Father Christmas to solve this yuletide country-house murder.

I love this series and can't wait to get my hands on this one!

Tuesday Teaser: What Was Lost

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 What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn. From page 91:

Every now and then, perhaps bristling at the unwavering flow of hatred directed at it, the lift would suddenly disregard all floor requests and plunge at high speed down below the ground floor into an unused subterranean extension of the shaft, where it would sulk in its hole for anything from thirty seconds to, on one occasion, two hours (inevitably, in that instance containing Unlucky Kieron from the stockroom). Most staff had experienced this petulance at some point and, as the lift had started its swift descent, all without exception had been momentarily convinced that the cable had snapped and they were racing towards a concertinaed end.

Mailbox Monday October 17, 2011

In October Mailbox Monday is being hosted by Savvy Verse & Wit.




I ordered this book a couple of weeks ago - I couldn't find it locally so ordered from Book Depository. Relic is the first book in the Pendergast series by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. If you're a fan of thrillers, I highly recommend these books.

Review: The Kitchen Counter Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn

I’m a closet foodie and I love to cook and bake, but after working all day I don’t have the energy. After reading this book I realized I’m far from alone.

For The Kitchen Counter Cooking School project, author Kathleen Flinn recruited nine volunteers who needed help. Each had something that needed improvement - they were cooking unhealthy food, buying take-out and resorting to what they thought would be the fastest and most convenient method of food preparation. All the volunteers were women and I could relate to all of them to some degree.

At the start of the book, the author introduces each volunteer by describing a visit to their homes and in particular their kitchens. There were issues with outdated food, too much food as well as content. Food labels were looked at, cooking methods discussed and even storage issues confronted. Each woman was surprised when a spotlight was pointed at their fridge and cupboards. Sometimes it takes an outsider to say, yep, storing 15 boxes of pre-made pasta dinners at this cost doesn’t make sense when you can make something yourself for a fraction of the price, is much healthier and doesn’t take nearly as much time as you’d think if you know what you’re doing. The author rented a kitchen and once a week the volunteers learned how to do exactly that.

The book is divided into parts and each describes a food product or group and how best to prepare it. The volunteers were given the tools and instructions and were encouraged to experiment. Their delight in discovering that they could produce healthy and attractive dishes was evident. I like how the self-esteem of a person can be raised just by learning a method of cooking they previously thought had been impossible to master. At the end of the book, I enjoyed seeing how each volunteer benefited from what they’d learned during the lessons.

Each chapter ends with the recipes that are taught in the class. I found the chapter on meat to be especially instructive and after reading about how many hormones and antibiotics are fed to livestock, I want to learn how to cook more vegetarian dishes!

People may dislike cooking or simply don’t cook for various reasons. Perhaps they were never taught properly, or as children they were shooed out of the kitchen. Maybe their spouses like doing it more than themselves. Whatever the reason, I recommend this book. It shows how anyone can learn to prepare nutritious and cost-effective meals even if they’ve always thought the task a daunting one. The recipes are simple and fast and there’s something for everyone in The Kitchen Counter Cooking School.

Click here to watch the book trailer and here is where you can find bios of the volunteer participants.

Tuesday Teaser: A Single Shot by Matthew F. Jones

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 is taken from A Single Shot by Mtthew F. Jones. From page 165:

Past the two-foot space between the edge of the screen door and the outer wall, he tentatively places a foot into the darkened house, which smells like the molasses earlier flavoring his fingers, varied manures, and gunpowder's pungent smoke. Though he can't see much of it, the room has the eerie sense of being alive.

Mailbox Monday October 10, 2011

In October Mailbox Monday is being hosted by Savvy Verse & Wit.






Last week I received The Orphan of Awkward Falls by Keith Grades. From the back cover:

Thirteen-year-old Josephine is not exactly thrilled to move to Awkward Falls, a town known only for its sauerkraut and its insane asylum, but she can't resist snooping around the dilapidated mansion next door. She finds more than she bargains for when she is captured by the strange characters who live there: an ancient automaton who serves as a butler, a cat patched together with a few odd parts, and a boy genius named Thaddeus. Meanwhile, Fetid Stenchley, the most feared patient in the Asylum for the Dangerously Insane, has escaped and there is only one thing on his mind...revenge. Unfortunately for Thaddeus and Josephine, he's headed their way, and his arrival will reveal more than a few secrets about Thaddeus's mysterious past. Can these unlikely friends stop Stenchley and save Thaddeus from his greatest fear - the orphanage - before it is too late?

Mailbox Monday September 26, 2011

In September Mailbox Monday is being hosted by Amused by Books.






Although I didn't receive any books in the mail last week, I was the lucky recipient of four books from my friend Tina of Bookshipper. She gave me:

The Price of Silence by Kate Wilhelm, L. A. Mental by Neil McMahon, We All Fall Down by Michael Harvey and Flash and Bones by Kathy Reichs.

Thanks, Tina!

Rules of Civility GIVEAWAY!

Not too long ago I enjoyed and reviewed Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. This book is on my top ten favorites list. Referenced throughout the novel are George Washington's rules and the entire list is printed in the back of book. The rules are bits of insightful wisdom that I know I could benefit from revisiting. Here are some examples:

Taken from George Washington’s Rules of Civility:

● (1st) Every Action done in Company, ought to be with Some Sign of Respect, to those that are Present.

● (12th) Shake not the head, Feet, or Legs rowl not the Eys lift not one eyebrow higher than the other wry not the mouth, and bedew no mans face with your Spittle, by approaching too near him when you Speak.

● (50th) Be not hasty to beleive flying Reports to the Disparagement of any.

Even though the language is a bit dated, they still resonate with me. However, another list has been provided to me from the good folks at Penguin that are more contemporary and very apropos:

New RULES to Live By Today:

● Let electronic communication not be used when discussing serious matters. Though you were to use a surfeit of emoticons, they would not aid your success. Such electronic methods include (but are not exhausted by) G-chat, IM, Twitter, e-mail, and Facebook.

● Do not neglect to send thank you notes when someone has done you a kindness.

● Upon public transportation, do not make a pretense that you are unaware of the elderly patron, the person with a cane/crutches, or the profoundly pregnant woman standing nearby. If you be of able body, it is right for you to relinquish your seat.

● In all shared partnerships each party should strive to accomplish 75% of the toil and maintenance thereof. Thus does one ensure a happy life.

● No sidewalks are to be found wide enough that three persons are able to perambulate side-by-side-by-side. Be conscious of your surroundings.

I'm very pleased to announce a giveaway of a signed copy of this book to my readers. All you need to do is leave a comment with your own 'rule of civility' as well as your email address. The winner will be chosen using random.org. Deadline is October 30th. I guarantee you won't regret spending time with this awesome book! Good luck!

Review: Fiendish Deeds by P. J. Bracegirdle

I don’t review a lot of middle grade books but if something looks particularly good and is in a genre that I would normally enjoy in adult literature then I am drawn to it. Fiendish Deeds by P. J. Bracegirdle, the first book in the The Joy of Spooking trilogy, (the others are Unearthly Asylum and Sinister Scenes) could easily pass as a younger version of the type of novel I really like.

First there’s a strong female character. She’s plucky, resilient and smart. Check, check and check. She’s not perfect. Check. She’s a bit quirky. Excellent! This means she’s not the same as every other pre-teen protagonist populating the books coveted by young readers. In fact, I was surprised to find out that the author is male since he has written the female character, Joy Wells, with great perception into the mind set of a twelve-year-old girl that is completely convincing.

Another plus for Fiendish Deeds is the story. It’s full of adventure and great action. It’s got the page-turning factor in spades. And even though this is middle grade, it’s still got over 200 pages – so the story has a chance to play out well. It’s got depth.

So, this novel for young readers has everything going for it. But for adults, there’s more. What kept me thoroughly entertained is the humour. Fiendish Deeds is imaginatively funny! It’s got whimsy (a confused bullfrog who thinks it’s a bulldog and so runs around in circles and barks), plenty of allusions to Edgar Allen Poe and the sort of quirkiness that I love to come across unexpectedly when reading.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the author of this great new series lives in my home town. Fans new and old are invited to a launch party for the final book in the Spooking trilogy, Sinister Scenes, on Saturday, September 17th from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. at Shaika Café, 5526 Sherbrooke Street West in Montreal, QC. Copies of all three books in the series will be available at the party. To find out more about the Joy of Spooking trilogy head on over to P. J. Bracegirdle’s website or facebook page.

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 is from Cold Vengeance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. From page 42:

He'd known that Pendergast and Esterhazy had hunted at Kilchurn before, of course-Esterhazy had mentioned as much in one of the interrogation sessions-but the fact that Grant had taken them out and could vouch for Esterhazy's being an excellent shot was news to him. Esterhazy had always played down his skill.

Mailbox Monday September 5, 2011

In August Mailbox Monday is being hosted by Leah at Amused by Books. Head on over to Leah's blog to add your link!




Last week I received Kitchen Counter Cooking School" by Kathleen Flinn. The description of this book reads:

THE KITCHEN COUNTER COOKING SCHOOL is essentially “What Not to Wear” meets Michael Pollan. Inspired by a supermarket encounter with a woman loading up on processed foods, Le Cordon Blue graduate, and author of The Sharper Your Knife the Less You Cry, Kathleen Flinn decided to use her recent culinary training to help a group of nine culinary novitiates find their inner cook. These students invited Kathleen into their kitchens where she took inventory of each person’s refrigerator, cabinets and eating habits. After kitchen “makeovers” and a series of basic lessons where they learned to wield knives, trust their taste and improve their food choices, the women found a common missing ingredient—confidence. In this new book, Flinn follows these women’s journeys and includes practical, healthy tips to boost readers’ culinary confidence, strategies to get the most from their grocery dollar and simple recipes to get readers cooking.

Review: Flashback by Dan Simmons

Every now and again I get the urge to pick up a science fiction novel – especially if it’s been recommended by my husband or it’s written by an author I like. I can’t say enough good things about Simmon’s previous books, Drood and The Black Hills, both of which are very different books from Flashback. Happily I was not disappointed with this new novel.

Ingesting the substance called flashback allows the user to relive personal events in their past as many times as they have enough drug for. The protagonist, Nick Bottom, is an ex-detective with a nasty flashback habit and uses the drug to revisit times spent with his now dead wife, Dara. When he’s called upon to solve the murder of a government official’s son, Nick’s main concern is how much flashback the case’s fee will buy him. It turns out that the case has much more going on than Nick is lead to believe.

When I first started reading about flashback and its affects I thought it was too unbelievable. How could a drug exist that could take someone into their past to relive their best memories? But the more I read, the more I came around to thinking it could happen. The way the author presents the drug and how it’s used started to make perfect sense. The world in the not-too-distant future as described by Dan Simmons is a changed one and I could easily see how so many people would want to escape from the present into their much happier pasts.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s one thrilling ride after another. But it’s also a chilling example of what could happen to our world if economies, politics and cultures take a huge downswing in their evolutions. There were a couple of spots that I couldn’t understand very well – an explanation of how the economy ended up as it did and parts of the political situation were a bit difficult for me to envision but overall this did not detract from my enjoyment of the story.

This is another Dan Simmons book that I highly recommend. I’d even go so far as to say that Flashback would make an excellent choice, though maybe a bit of a departure, for book clubs. Though it is set 30 or 40 years into the future, there are many issues touched on that would be relevant to today’s world.

Tuesday Teaser: The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe

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 The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe. From page 185:

After work she met Dexter at his apartment. She sat on his sofa and allowed him to put a cold drink into her hand, and the entire time she was savoring the last instant of special secrecy before she would share her news.

Mailbox Monday August 29, 2011

In August Mailbox Monday is being hosted by Staci at Life in the Thumb. Head on over to Staci's blog to add your link!

I'm having a few technical difficulties with my blog post for Monday because of a power outage due to the torrential rain and wind caused by Hurricane Irene. I'm using an iPad which I don't find all that easy to use when posting pics and other beyond-the-basic computer activity. However, I'm going to try my best to do my Mailbox Monday post despite my unease with this darn iPad.





Last week I received a book in the series The Joy of Spooking called Fiendish Deeds. Written by P.J. Bracegirdle, the synopsis of this book for kids (young and old) reads:

Joy Wells is a proud resident of Spooking, the terrible town at the top of the hideous hill. At the bottom of the hill is Darlington, a plastic "paradise" where Joy and her brother go to school. When the mayor of Darlington announces that a water park is going to be constructed over the Spooking bog, Joy is horrified. She decides that she has to save the mysterious bog and the endangered species in it-even though it seems someone is determined to stop her!

Tuesday Teaser: Cold Vengeance

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 is from Cold Vengeance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. From page 84:

After a moment I realized I wasn't sinking farther-that my feet had come to rest on something only a few feet beneath the surface. Soemthing soft and buoyant, a carcass I believe.

Waiting on Wednesday: The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay

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




The Virgin Cure by the author of The Birth House, Ami McKay, will be published in Canada on October 25th. The following description of the novel is from the author's website:

“I am Moth, a girl from the lowest part of Chrystie Street, born to a slum-house mystic and the man who broke her heart.” So begins The Virgin Cure, a novel set in the tenements of lower Manhattan in the year 1871. As a young child, Moth’s father smiled, tipped his hat and walked away from her forever. The summer she turned twelve, her mother sold her as a servant to a wealthy woman, with no intention of ever seeing her again.

These betrayals lead Moth to the wild, murky world of the Bowery, filled with house-thieves, pickpockets, beggars, sideshow freaks and prostitutes, where eventually she meets Miss Everett, the owner of a brothel simply known as “The Infant School.” Miss Everett caters to gentlemen who pay dearly for companions who are “willing and clean,” and the most desirable of them all are young virgins like Moth.

Through the friendship of Dr. Sadie, a female physician, Moth learns to question and observe the world around her, where her new friends are falling prey to the myth of the “virgin cure”–that deflowering a “fresh maid” can heal the incurable and tainted. She knows the law will not protect her, that polite society ignores her, and still she dreams of answering to no one but herself. There’s a high price for such independence, though, and no one knows that better than a girl from Chrystie Street.

Tuesday Teaser: I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore

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.




Published by Harper Collins Canada, my teaser this week is from I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore. From page 22:

'After she leaves we immediately start unpacking the truck. Depending on how quickly we leave a place, we either travel very lightly-usually Henri's extra computers and equipment, which he uses to set up a security perimeter and search the web for news and events that might be related to us.'

Mailbox Monday August 15, 2011

In August Mailbox Monday is being hosted by Staci at Life in the Thumb. Head on over to Staci's blog to add your link!




Last week I received A Single Shot by Matthew F. Jones. Originally published in 1996, this novel is being re-released by Mulholland Books (an imprint of Little, Brown and Company) on September 19th. From the publisher's website the description of this book reads:

After the loss of his family farm, John Moon is a desperate man. A master hunter, his ability to poach game in-season or out is the only thing that stands between him and the soup kitchen line. Until Moon trespasses on the wrong land, hears a rustle in the brush, and fires a single fateful shot.

Following the bloody trail, he comes upon a shocking scene: an illegal, deep woods campground filled with drugs, bundles of cash and the body of a dead young woman, killed by Moon’s stray bullet.

Faced with an ultimate dilemma, Moon has to make a choice: does he take the money and ignore his responsibility for the girl’s death? Or confess?

But before he has a chance to decide, Moon finds himself on the run, pursued by those who think the money is theirs. Men who don’t care about right and wrong and who want only one thing from John Moon: his body, face down in a ditch.

Matthew F. Jones’ A Single Shot is a rare, visionary thriller reminiscent of the work of Tom Franklin, Ron Rash, Daniel Woodrell, and Cormac McCarthy.

Mailbox Monday August 8, 2011

In August Mailbox Monday is being hosted by Staci at Life in the Thumb. Head on over to Staci's blog to add your link!





Last week I received Cold Vengeance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child courtesy of Hachette Book Group. From the authors' website the description reads:

Devastated by the discovery that his wife, Helen, was murdered, Special Agent Pendergast must have retribution. But revenge is not simple.

As he stalks his wife's betrayers-a chase that takes him from the wild moors of Scotland to the bustling streets of New York City and the darkest bayous of Louisiana-he is also forced to dig further into Helen's past. And he is stunned to learn that Helen may have been a collaborator in her own murder.

Peeling back the layers of deception, Pendergast realizes that the conspiracy is deeper, goes back generations, and is more monstrous than he could have ever imagined-and everything he's believed, everything he's trusted, everything he's understood . . . may be a horrific lie.