Tag Archives: Reader-Friendly Products

Review: Someone Else’s Love Story, by Joshilyn Jackson

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About the book, Someone Else’s Love Story Someone Else's Love Story

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; Reprint edition (August 5, 2014)

For single mom Shandi Pierce, life is a juggling act. She’s finishing college, raising precocious three-year-old Natty, and keeping the peace between her eternally warring, long-divorced parents.Then she gets caught in the middle of a stickup at a gas station and falls instantly in love with William Ashe, when he steps between the armed robber and her son.

Shandi doesn’t know that William’s act wasn’t about bravery. When he looked down the barrel of the robber’s gun he believed it was destiny: it’s been exactly one year since a tragic act of physics shattered his universe. But William doesn’t define destiny the way other people do—to him destiny is about choice.

Now William and Shandi are about to meet their so-called destinies head-on, making choices that will reveal unexpected truths about love, life, and the world they think they know.

Buy, read, & discuss Someone Else’s Love Story

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About the author, Joshilyn Jackson Joshilyn Jackson

Joshilyn Jackson is the New York Times bestselling author of six novels, including Gods in Alabama and A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty. She lives in Decatur, Georgia, with her husband and their two children.

Connect with Joshilyn

Website | Facebook | Twitter

My Thoughts

Joshilyn Jackson’s books are always stories I look forward to reading. Her work is the perfect compliment to a cup of mint tea or glass of wine, a tub full of bubbles and a long, relaxing soak. This book, Someone Else’s Love Story is no exception.

From the first page, the story is compelling. We meet Shandi, her mother, her young son Natty, and her childhood friend Walcott. In any other novel Walcott would be the gay best friend, but Jackson defies convention…he’s absolutely straight.

A bit later, we meet William, intelligent, athletic, ex-military William, who has his own tragic backstory. Then we see Shandi and William thrown together in the worst possible scenario: a convenience story robbery, and we think this book is about them.

Well, it is, and it isn’t, and to say more would spoil the story, so here’s what you need to know: in Jackson’s character’s words you can hear ever nuance of the South, you can smell the magnolia blossoms, taste the fried chicken, and you know exactly how much twang every character has in his or her voice. The women are especially vivid, but Jackson’s male characters are always dimensional as well.

One of Jackson’s other flair’s though, is that she finds parts of southern culture no one expects. This book looks at what it’s like to be the only (part) Jewish person in a sleepy Southern town, and how it feels to be the son of two lesbians in the same small-town culture. It also examines themes like motherhood, the mother-daughter relationship, and the difference between comfortable friends and the comfort of a lover.

Taken as a whole, Someone Else’s Love Story should be on everyone’s must-read list, because it’s a fast read with a deceptively deep meaning.

Goes well with chicken salad and iced sweet tea, followed by peach cobbler.

TLC Book Tours

This review is part of a blog tour sponsored by TLC Book Tours. For more information, and the complete list of tour stops click HERE.

Review: Left Turn at Paradise, a Rare Book Mystery, by Thomas Shawver

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About the book Left Turn at Paradise Left Turn at Paradise

Publisher: Alibi (August 26, 2014)
Pages: 208

The author of The Dirty Book Murder returns to the surprisingly lethal world of rare books with a second enthralling novel featuring a most unlikely hero—antiquarian bookseller Michael Bevan.

Michael Bevan is barely scraping by with his used bookstore and rare book collection when he discovers a timeworn journal that may change everything. Dating back to 1768, the tattered diary appears to be a chronicle kept during the first of legendary seafarer Captain James Cook’s three epic voyages through the Pacific islands. If it’s as valuable as Mike thinks it is, its sale may just bring enough to keep his faltering used bookstore afloat for another year.

Then he meets a pair of London dealers with startling news: Adrian Hart and Penelope Wilkes claim to possess the journal of Cook’s second voyage. Is it possible a third diary exists? One which might detail Cook’s explosive final voyage—and his death at the hands of native Hawaiians? Together, all three would be the holy grail of Pacific exploration. But before Mike can act, the two journals are stolen.

Chasing them down will sweep Michael, Adrian, and Penelope across the globe—past a dead body or two—and into a very sinister slice of paradise. High in the Southern Alps of New Zealand, in a remote and secretive Maori compound, a secret rests in the hands in of a man daring enough to rewrite history . . . and desperate enough to kill.

Buy, read, and discuss Left Turn at Paradise

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About the author, Thomas Shawver

Thomas Shawver is a former marine officer, lawyer, and journalist with American City Business Journals. An avid rugby player and international traveler, Shawver owned Bloomsday Books, an antiquarian bookstore in Kansas City. He’s at work on the third Rare Book mystery.

My Thoughts

When I read the first Rare Book Mystery, The Dirty Book Murder, earlier this year, I stayed up all night because I was so gripped by the story. The sequel, Left Turn at Paradise is similarly compelling, to the point where rather than read it IN the bath, I actually SKIPPED my bath in order to stay with the story. If you knew how seriously I take baths, you would understand that this is high praise, indeed.

In fact, bookshop owner Michael Bevan is fast becoming one of my favorite fictional detectives. I love that he’s able to hold his own in a brawl, sing in an Irish pub, and speak intelligently about all sorts of subjects, to the point where you just know that he’s the kind of guy who knows that “Iraq” is pronounced “ee-rakh” and not “eye-rack.”

This book takes us further afield than the first. We travel with Mike first to San Francisco for a rare book convention, and then to New Zealand, when the actual mystery part of the plot really becomes active. There are familiar characters – former FBI agent/current lover Josie is one of them – and there are new characters as well, such as Pillow (no, really) who is a really interesting woman.

As a fan of all things ship-y and pirate-y, I loved that the books at the center of this plot involved Captain Cook’s Pacific voyages, and the recurring images of the ocean and water in general just added to atmosphere.

Thomas Shawver spins an awfully good tale, full of believable characters in heightened situations, and manages to give us mysteries that are edgier than true cozies, and cozier than true hard-boileds, and feel slightly old-fashioned while still being completely contemporary.

Goes well with Steak au poivre and a glass of Two Paddocks wine.

TLC Book Tours

This review is part of a blog tour sponsored by TLC Book Tours. For more information, and the complete list of stops, click HERE.

Review: A Matter of Mercy by Lynne Hugo (@LynneHugo)

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About the book A Matter of Mercy A Matter of Mercy

Paperback: 278 pages
Publisher: Blank Slate Press (August 1, 2014)

Caroline Marcum thought she’d escaped the great mistake of her life by leaving Wellfleet harbor, but is forced to face it when she returns, reluctantly, to care for her dying mother. Ridley Neal put his past-and his prison term-behind him to return home to take over his father’s oyster and clam beds. Casual acquaintances long ago, when a nor’easter hits the coast, Rid and Caroline’s lives intersect once again. When Rid and two other sea farmers are sued by the wealthy owners of vacation homes who want to shut them down, and Caroline accidentally meets the person she most wronged, they each must learn to trust-and love. Inspired by a 1996 lawsuit, A Matter of Mercy is a riveting novel about treasuring the traditional way of life in the shallows of beautiful Cape Cod bay by discovering where forgiveness ends. And where it begins.

Buy, read, and discuss A Matter of Mercy

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About the author, Lynne Hugo Lynne Hugo

Lynne Hugo is a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship recipient who has also received grants from the Ohio Arts Council and the Kentucky Foundation for Women.

She has published five previous novels, one of which became a Lifetime Original Movie of the Month, two books of poetry, and a children’s book. Her memoir, Where The Trail Grows Faint, won the Riverteeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize.

Born and educated in New England, she and her husband currently live in Ohio with a yellow Lab feared by squirrels in a three state area.

Connect with Lynne

Website | Facebook | Twitter

My Thoughts

I read A Matter of Mercy during a month when I was also attempting to write an produce a podcast every day as part of the Dog Days of Podcasting Challenge, and I have to say, even though emotions run high among the characters, author Lynne Hugo captured the feeling of living on the shore so well, that the novel itself felt restful while I was reading it.

But ‘restful’ should in no way be interpreted as ‘boring.’

The two main characters, Caroline “CiCi” Marcum and Ridley “Rid” Neal are each interesting in their own right, each recovering from a somewhat tumultuous past, and each a little bit cracked around the edges, if not actually broken. Caroline has returned to Wellfleet to see her mother through the older woman’s final days with ovarian cancer. (As someone who watched a dear friend of my mother’s go through just such a disease – there is no cure – those scenes were especially poignant for me). Rid is running the family oyster business. Together, they learn to forgive, to let go, to grab onto something new, and even to find love.

What I really loved about these characters, and all the characters in the novel, is that all of them were richly layered. Even Caroline’s mother, whom we see pretty much entirely cloaked by her cancer, is a vibrant soul, and through Caroline’s rememberances we learn about both women. There’s a flash of memory, early on, where Caroline recalls her mother brushing out her hair, as a child. What mother and daughter haven’t had that same experience?

Likewise the men in the novel are really dimensional. I’m often frustrated by women who write women characters really well, and then turn all the men into cardboard cutouts, but Lynne Hugo is a master of her craft, and every person we meet, friend or foe, local or summer person, feels like a real person.

The novel was, of course, inspired by an actual summerfolk vs. locals lawsuit, as happens wherever people want the shoreline to be more about development, and less about sustainable lifestyles, but while the suit may have been a jumping-off point, it’s clear that Hugo’s work is her very own.

I want to add a note, as well about the author herself. When I received the ARC of this novel, directly from the author, she’d included a bunch of promotional bookmarks and postcards, and a really lovely note apologizing for the sending of an ARC! As well, she signed it, which makes it all the more special.

Bottom line? This is a wonderful, poignant, novel by an extremely classy woman, and you should waste no time reading it. Don’t let the shoreline setting confuse you; this is a year-round novel. It’s not just for summer reading.

Goes well with a raw oyster bar (hello, Ceviche) and a good local microbrew beer.

TLC Book Tours

This review is part of a blog tour sponsored by TLC Book Tours. For more information, and the complete list of tour stops, click HERE.

Review: Camp Utopia and the Forgiveness Diet, by Jenny Ruden

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About Camp Utopia & the Forgiveness Diet Camp Utopia & the Forgiveness Diet

Paperback: 300 pages
Publisher: Koehler Books (July 1, 2014)

Sixteen-year-old Baltimore teen Bethany Stern knows the only way out of spending her summer at Camp Utopia, a fat camp in Northern California, is weight-loss. Desperate, she tries The Forgiveness Diet, the latest fad whose infomercial promises that all she has to do is forgive her deadbeat dad, her scandalous sister, and the teenage magician next door and (unrequited) love of her life. But when the diet fails and her camp nemesis delivers the ultimate blow, Bee bids sayonara to Camp-not-Utopian-at-all to begin what she believes will be her “real” summer adventure, only to learn that running away isn’t as easy—or as healing—as it seems.

Her wry and honest voice bring humor and poignancy for anyone, fat or thin, tired of hearing “you’d be so pretty if…[insert unwelcome judgment about your appearance from loved one or perfect stranger].”

Buy, read, and discuss Camp Utopia & the Forgiveness Diet

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About the author, Jenny Ruden Jenny Ruden

Jenny Ruden has published short stories and essays in Nerve, Salon, Eclectica Magazine, Literary Mama and High Desert Journal. She won an Orlando award for creative nonfiction, was named a finalist in Glimmertrain’s short fiction contest, and has been nominated for the Pushcart prize two years in a row.

She has worked with teenagers for over ten years as a teacher of Reading, Writing and GED, and has an MFA in Fiction from the University of Oregon. She lives with her husband, two daughters, two basset hounds and cat in Albuquerque, New Mexico

Connect with Jenny

Website | Facebook | Twitter

My Thoughts

Camp Utopia & the Forgiveness Diet is everything I needed to read when I was fourteen, and sixteen, and twenty-one. It’s fresh, funny, and grounded in a heightened reality that never takes itself too seriously.

Protagonist Bethany is painfully real, depicted at the age when so many of us were battling the desire to conform to peer-defined norms with the equally strong urges to be true to ourselves. She faces the world with a combination of spunk and sadness, idealism and naivete that make her pop out from the pages and seem as if she’s recounting her story from across the kitchen table. So much did I feel for her, that I wanted to pull her into a hug, and assure her that things would eventually get better, even if she never lost an ounce.

While her sister (and her sister’s boyfriend) were also interesting characters, it is TJ, the boy-magician next door, who really captured my attention. How many of us have just such an unrequited love in our lives, even today. How many of us have done stupid things in an attempt to seem bolder, more interesting, more attractive?

Jenny Ruden has written a story that is part comedy, part drama, and wholly true, in the way that the best stories always are. Maybe you can’t lose weight by writing names on pieces of paper, but you can gain a stronger perspective of who you really are in the world by reading this novel.

Goes well with a plate of apples, strong cheddar cheese, and a handful of cashews, and a glass of peach iced tea.

TLC Book Tours

This review is part of a blog tour sponsored by TLC Book Tours. For more information, and the complete list of tour stops, click HERE.

Review: A Better Place, by Barbara Hall

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About the book A Better Place A Better Place

Print Length: 270 pages
Publisher: Open Road Media (July 1, 2014)

A Southern novel in the tradition of Anne Tyler and Anne Rivers Siddons, A Better Place marks the adult fiction debut of one of television’s most successful and creative writers

In an attempt to discover why her life hasn’t worked out the way she had hoped it would, Valerie Caldwell returns to the Southern town she left twelve years earlier to visit her old haunts and two friends from her school days, Tess and Mary Grace—much to their alarm and chagrin.

Buy, read, and discuss A Better Place
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About the author, Barbara Hall Barbara Hall

To TV audiences she may be better known as a four-time Emmy-nominated writer and producer (Joan of Arcadia, Judging Amy) and the co-Executive Producer of Homeland, but to avid readers she’s a novelist with 11 published works whose imagination has been honored by numerous institutions, including the American Library Association in both their Best Books and Notable Books categories.

An accomplished author, Hall wrote three young adult novels including: Skeeball and the Secret of the Universe, Dixie Storms and Fool’s Hill, as well as the mystery House Across the Cove. Her other novels include A Better Place, Close to Home and A Summons to New Orleans.

Connect with Barbara

Twitter

My Thoughts

From time to time, I get invitations from NetGalley to review books, and from time to time I take them up on the offer. After all, free books are never bad.

Anyway, I finished reading this book today, while fighting a migraine, completely convinced it was something I committed to for one of the blog tour sponsors I work with, only to realize it actually wasn’t, which is good, since I’m writing this review at ten pm.

I loved the book! It’s author Barbara Hall’s first foray out of YA and into contemporary adult literature (according to what I read in Publisher’s Weekly, and it’s the perfect novel for a lazy summer’s day. The characters are the kinds of southern women you expect to find in a small town, and their dialogue never felt at all unreal.

Likewise the theme of the novel – the romanticizing of home and youth – is a universal one, and one that I, at an age significantly older than the characters in this novel, am still prone to engage in.

But there’s another theme, one the main character Valerie brings up about a third of the way into the book: Everyone wants their life to have a story.

It was that thought that really made the rest of the novel sing for me, because I think it’s completely true.

Comparisons to Anne Rivers Siddons are actually pretty spot on, in tone if not in detail, and I look forward to more of Halls work in this genre, though I’ve never been opposed to reading YA even though the Y part still applies to me.

Goes well with Sweet tea and chicken salad.

Review: Sweet Water, by Christina Baker Kline

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About the book Sweet Water Sweet Water

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; Reprint edition (July 1, 2014)

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train comes a novel about buried secrets and the redemptive power of forgiveness

Cassie Simon is a struggling artist living in New York City. When she receives a call from a magistrate telling her she has inherited sixty acres of land in Sweetwater, Tennessee, from her grandfather, whom she never knew, she takes it as a sign: it’s time for a change. She moves to the small Southern town where her mother, Ellen, grew up—and where she died tragically when Cassie was three.

From the moment she arrives in Sweetwater, Cassie is overwhelmed by the indelible mark her mother’s memory left behind. As she delves into the thicket of mystery that surrounds her mother’s death, Cassie begins to discover the desperate measures of which the human heart is capable.

Buy, read, and discuss Sweet Water

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About the author, Christina Baker Kline Christina Baker Kline

Christina Baker Kline was born in England and raised in Maine. The author of five novels, including the runaway bestseller Orphan Train, Kline has taught literature and creative writing at Yale, New York University, and Fordham. She lives outside of New York City.

Connect with Christina

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My Thoughts:

This is one of those books that had me reading passages – especially the italicized parts that took place in the past – out loud, so I could feel the way the language fit in my mouth, as well as my brain. I don’t do this a lot, but when I do, it’s always with a book I want to truly savor.

Author Christina Baker Kline has woven a tapestry depicting a mother and daughter who never get to interact directly, but impact each other’s lives both directly and indirectly. Cassie, the daughter, is curious, questing, artistic. Ellen, the mother, long since deceased, feels like a living presence, despite existing only in flashback-like sequences.

The supporting characters – Cassie’s lover, her father, Ellen’s friends – are woven just as vividly as the women at the heart of the story, and even Sweetwater itself feels more like a character than a mere place.

This novel isn’t particularly long, but it also isn’t a fast read. Instead, it’s one to be absorbed slowly, like an unwinding country road through a field of wildflowers.

Goes well with Sweet tea, fried catfish, and hush puppies.

TLC Book Tours

This review is part of a blog tour sponsored by TLC Book Tours. For more information, and the complete list of tour stops, click HERE.

Review: Inamorata, by Megan Chance

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About the book, Inamorata Inamorata

Paperback: 420 pages
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing (July 8, 2014)

American artist Joseph Hannigan and his alluring sister, Sophie, have arrived in enchanting nineteenth-century Venice with a single-minded goal. The twins, who have fled scandal in New York, are determined to break into Venice’s expatriate set and find a wealthy patron to support Joseph’s work.

But the enigmatic Hannigans are not the only ones with a secret agenda. Joseph’s talent soon attracts the attention of the magnificent Odilé Leon, a celebrated courtesan and muse who has inspired many artists to greatness. But her inspiration comes with a devastatingly steep price.

As Joseph falls under the courtesan’s spell, Sophie joins forces with Nicholas Dane, the one man who knows Odilé’s dark secret, and her sworn enemy. When the seductive muse offers Joseph the path to eternal fame, the twins must decide who to believe—and just how much they are willing to sacrifice for fame.

Buy, read, and discuss Inamorata

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About the author, Megan Chance Megan Chance

Megan Chance is a critically acclaimed, award-winning author of historical fiction. Her novels have been chosen for the Borders Original Voices and IndieBound’s Booksense programs. A former television news photographer and graduate of Western Washington University, Chance lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two daughters.

Connect with Megan

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My Thoughts:

Inamorata is exactly the kind of novel I generally really love, historical, but in a period not too far from our own, lots of art and music, romance and intrigue, but for some reason I had a difficult time getting into it, re-reading the prologue several times.

Finally, things began to click and I fell into the story I’d been anticipating. Love, scandal, personal and political machinations abound, and the twins, Joseph and Sophie, are catalysts for all of it, while Odile and Nicholas give us the most compelling characters, at least in my opinion. All the characters circle around each other, though, and just as in real life, none of them are truly heroes or truly villains, though Nicholas is the primary antagonist.

I liked that author Megan Chance didn’t give us entire backstories for these people, instead letting us come to know them slowly, both in their novel-present self-assertions, and in the flashbacks that revealed their histories, slowly, the way you learn about actual people…one glimpse at a time.

I also really liked the author’s choice of Venice as a setting, rather than, Paris, London, or Rome. Venice is such a magical place all on its own, and adding these characters – especially Odile – to that city was completely inspired.

And that’s what Inamorata is really about – inspiration, where we find it, what we do with it, and who we use in the process.

Goes well with Buttery rosemary roast chicken, and a glass of chardonnay.

TLC Book Tours

This review is part of a blog tour sponsored by TLC Book Tours. For more information, and the complete list of tour stops, click HERE.

Review: East India by Colin Falconer

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About the book, East India East India

Publisher: Cool Gus Publishing (July 8, 2014)
Formats: eBook, Paperback

In any other circumstance but shipwreck, rape and murder, a man like Michiel van Texel would never have met a fine lady such as Cornelia Noorstrandt.

He was just a soldier, a sergeant in the Dutch East India company’s army, on his way from Amsterdam to the Indies to fight the Mataram. Such a woman was far above the likes of him.

But both their destinies intertwine far away from Holland, on some god-forsaken islands near the Great Southland. When their great ship, the Utrecht, founders far from home, surviving the Houtman Rocks is the least of their worries.

As they battle to survive and the bravest and the best reveal themselves for what they are, Cornelia’s only hope is a mercenary in a torn coat who shows her that a man is more than just manners and money.

He makes her one promise: ‘Even if God forsakes you, I will find you.’

But can he keep it?

Described by one critic as ‘Jack and Rose in the seventeenth century’, East India will keep you wondering until the final page.

Watch the Book Trailer

Buy, Read & Discuss East India

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About the author, Colin Falconer Colin Falconer

Born in London, Colin first trialed as a professional football player in England, and was eventually brought to Australia. He went to Sydney and worked in TV and radio and freelanced for many of Australia’s leading newspapers and magazines. He has published over twenty novels and his work has so far been translated into 23 languages.

He travels regularly to research his novels and his quest for authenticity has led him to run with the bulls in Pamplona, pursue tornadoes across Oklahoma and black witches across Mexico, go cage shark diving in South Africa and get tear gassed in a riot in La Paz.

He currently lives in Barcelona.

Connect with Colin

Website | Facebook | Twitter

My Thoughts

Both author Colin Falconer and the wreck of the real ship the Utrecht were new to me when I first began reading East India, which was provided for me to read and review, but as someone who is fascinated by ships and the sea, and who spent her first year hearing a foghorn signal her waking and sleeping hours, I was destined to find this novel captivating.

I really enjoyed the way the first chapter was set in the present day, but then we jump immediately to 1628, to see Cornelia Noorstrandt embarking on a nine-month journey to join her husband, an agent of the Dutch East India tea company. Her point of view is a blend of pragmatism and and hope; and her interactions with Michiel van Texel are always complex and compelling, the feelings between them both sweet and agonizingly sad.

But this isn’t a romance, it’s a story of survival. The ship sinks. The survivors shelter on an island, and do their best to survive, as relationships, status, and situations constantly shift.

Another author would take this tragic tale to extremes. Colin Falconer, however, tells his story with the perfect balance of vivid descriptions and nuanced details. Not only can you see the wood of the ship, the blue of the ocean, the less-than-fresh clothing, you can also taste the tang of salt on your lips, and feel the water soaking your skin.

As I’m sure many readers are doing, I’ve googled the shipwreck for more information, and am adding Colin Falconer’s work to my must-read list.

Goes well with Hot tea and a toasted English muffin with cheddar cheese melted on it.

East India Blog Tour Schedule

East India Blog Tour

Monday, July 28
Review at History & Women

Tuesday, July 29
Review at Svetlana’s Reads and Views

Wednesday, July 30
Review at Just One More Chapter

Tuesday, August 5
Review at Book Nerd

Thursday, August 7
Review at Bibliotica

Monday, August 11
Review at A Library of My Own

Friday, August 15
Review at Jorie Loves a Story

Monday, August 18
Review at The Book Binder’s Daughter

Thursday, August 21
Review at Beth’s Book Reviews

Monday, August 25
Review at Casual Readers

Saturday, August 30
Review at Book by Book

Wednesday, September 3
Review at Unshelfish

Tuesday, September 9
Review at The True Book Addict

Wednesday, September 10
Review at A Bookish Affair

Friday, September 19
Spotlight & Giveaway at Passages to the Past

Review: The Yankee Club, by Michael Murphy

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About the book, The Yankee Club The Yankee Club

Publisher: Alibi (August 12, 2014)
Pages: 280

In Michael Murphy’s action-packed Prohibition-era novel of suspense, a mystery writer returns to the bright lights and dark alleys of New York City—uncovering a criminal conspiracy of terrifying proportions.

In 1933, America is at a crossroads: Prohibition will soon be history, organized crime is rampant, and President Roosevelt promises to combat the Great Depression with a New Deal. In these uncertain times, former-Pinkerton-detective-turned-bestselling-author Jake Donovan is beckoned home to Manhattan. He has made good money as the creator of dashing gumshoe Blackie Doyle, but the price of success was Laura Wilson, the woman he left behind. Now a Broadway star, Laura is engaged to a millionaire banker—and waltzing into a dangerous trap.

Before Jake can win Laura back, he’s nearly killed—and his former partner is shot dead—after a visit to the Yankee Club, a speakeasy dive in their old Queens neighborhood. Suddenly Jake and Laura are plunged into a conspiracy that runs afoul of gangsters, sweeping from New York’s private clubs to the halls of corporate power and to the White House itself. Brushing shoulders with the likes of Dashiell Hammett, Cole Porter, and Babe Ruth, Jake struggles to expose an inconspicuous organization hidden in plain sight, one determined to undermine the president and change the country forever.

Buy, read, and discuss The Yankee Club

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About the author, Michael Murphy

Michael Murphy is a full time author and part time urban chicken rancher in Arizona. He lives in Arizona with his wife of forty-one years and the four children they adopted this past year. In August, Random House Alibi will publish his ninth novel, a historical mystery set in the prohibition era, The Yankee Club.

My Thoughts

I’ve been a mystery fan ever since I cracked open a reprint of one of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novels in a bookstore/cafe in Ashland, OR, when I was fourteen. I’ve been a noir fan almost as long, so you can imagine how eager I was to read The Yankee Club when I was offered the opportunity.

Jake Donovan, former detective, now author of a series of novels based on his own experiences, is the perfect literary detective, hard-boiled but never hard-hearted. Laura, childhood friend turned actress, is his perfect partner in (solving crime). While either could easily have become stereotypes, author Michael Murphy gave us, instead, characters that are an homage to the genre, but are still fully-realized on their own.

As well, the collection of supporting characters are well-rounded and interesting. Gino, owner of the speakeasy The Yankee Club, reminded me very strongly of some of my own family members (who ran boarding houses and diners near the Jersey shore during the prohibition years). Similarly Frankie, Mildred (whom exists mostly off-screen, but is nevertheless incredibly real, and Miss Belle Starr are people you’d expect to meet in Murphy’s version of New York, and yet each of them has their own moment, their own surprise, that makes you realize the level of crafting that went into this story.

And the story itself is fantastic. Mystery. Intrigue. Personal jeopardy and emotional drama. All of these things abound, but none of them ever threaten to overwhelm the plot. The combination of fictional and real-life events works really well, and I especially enjoyed the real people peppered amongst Murphy’s creations.

Bottom line, this is a gritty detective story, a romance, and a glimpse at a period in time not too far before our own, and woven through it all is the very real poignancy that comes from facing the knowledge that going home again is never exactly what you expect, but leaving it is never entirely possible.

The best part about this book, however, is that it’s merely the first in a series.

Goes well with a juicy steak, a perfectly baked potato with sour cream and chives, and a J&G.

TLC Book Tours

This review is part of a blog tour sponsored by TLC Book Tours. For more information and the complete list of tour stops, click HERE.

Review: 2 A.M. at The Cat’s Pajamas by Marie-Helene Bertino

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About the book, 2 A.M. at The Cat’s Pajamas 2 AM at The Cat's Pajamas

Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: Crown (August 5, 2014)

2 A.M. AT THE CAT’S PAJAMAS begins on a quiet morning in a Philadelphia apartment the day before Christmas Eve, where we meet the precocious and smart-mouthed nine-year-old Madeleine Altimari. Madeleine’s mother has recently died, and her father is still lost in his grief. Meanwhile, Madeleine finds solace in music and aspires to become a jazz singer. Just two days shy of her tenth birthday, she is about to have the most remarkable day of her life.

After facing down mean-spirited classmates and rejection at school, Madeleine decides today is the day to find Philadelphia’s legendary jazz club, The Cat’s Pajamas, and make her debut. On the same day, Madeleine’s fifth grade teacher Sarina Greene, who has moved back to Philly after a divorce, is nervously looking forward to a dinner party that will reunite her with her high school love. And across town at The Cat’s Pajamas, club owner Jack Lorca discovers that his beloved venue may close be closed due to financial woes by the end of the night. As we follow these three lost souls over the course of twenty-four hours, we also meet a cast of unique and brilliant characters who surround them – from the warm-hearted cafe owner Mrs. Santiago to Melissa, the former “snake lady” exotic dancer who might be Lorca’s last hope for love. With sharp wit and irrepressible spirit, Marie-Helene Bertino turns Philadelphia into a magical place where anything can happen.

Buy, read, and discuss 2 A.M. at The Cat’s Pajamas
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About the author, Marie-Helene Bertino Marie-Helene Bertino

Marie-Helene Bertino is the author of the story collection Safe as Houses, which won the 2012 Iowa Short Fiction Prize and The Pushcart Prize, and was long-listed for The Story Prize and The Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize.

An Emerging Writer Fellow at New York’s Center for Fiction, she has spent six years as an editor and writing instructor at One Story.

Connect with Marie-Helene

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My Thoughts

There’s an entire episode of the TV series How I Met Your Mother devoted to the concept that “nothing good happens after two am.” This novel, however, turns that concept on its ear.

Marie-Helene Bertino has created a collection of characters who could populate almost any large city. All of them are a little bit eccentric, incredibly interesting, and compelling to read about. Any one of them could have been the central character in this novel, but the author chose to make nine-year-old Madeleine the focal point, and in doing so, she’s given us the best child character ever.

She’s also proven that you can write a book about a child without it being children’s literature (not that there’s anything wrong with that), which is something a lot of contemporary authors seem to have forgotten.

In any case, nine-year-old Madeleine reminded me of, well, me at that age. Okay, I wasn’t into smoking, and I didn’t curse (much) but the very structured singing practices in my room? Check. The not having a ton of friends? Check. (I have a few very close friends, but I was never one for big crowds.) The never quite fitting in, and mostly not really caring, except maybe a little? Check and check again.

It is these very real factors that made Madeleine sing on the page even when she wasn’t actually, you know, singing.

I also liked the way the novel is set in today’s world, but had a very noir feel to it. No, it’s not a hardboiled detective novel, but it feels like it could slide into such a story for color, and be right at home.

The adult characters are just as well-defined, and well-realized. I was often annoyed with Sarina (Madeleine’s teacher) for not standing up to the principal and being more of an advocate for Madeleine, just as I wanted to slug Madeleine’s father, a lot, and then hug him after. Even the glimpses into the mind of Pedro the dog (no, really) were fascinating to me, because everything just…worked.

At times poignant and sweet, at times pathetic and sad, and at times raucously comic, this novel defies categorization, but should not be overlooked. It’s fantastic, and fresh, and if you don’t read it, you’ll be missing a treat.

(Also, you can feel smug about how you’re ahead of the cultural zeitgeist because 2 A.M. at The Cat’s Pajamas was featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition on Saturday.)

Goes well with espresso and a plate of cannoli…or a caramel apple.

TLC Book Tours

This review is part of a blog tour sponsored by TLC Book Tours. For more information, and the complete list of tour stops, click HERE.