Dear Carolina, by Kristy Woodson Harvey (@kristywharvey) #review

27 April 2015 by Melissa

About the book, Dear Carolina

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Berkley (May 5, 2015)

One baby girl.
Two strong Southern women.
And the most difficult decision they’ll ever make.

Frances “Khaki” Mason has it all: a thriving interior design career, a loving husband and son, homes in North Carolina and Manhattan—everything except the second child she has always wanted. Jodi, her husband’s nineteen-year-old cousin, is fresh out of rehab, pregnant, and alone. Although the two women couldn’t seem more different, they forge a lifelong connection as Khaki reaches out to Jodi, encouraging her to have her baby. But as Jodi struggles to be the mother she knows her daughter deserves, she will ask Khaki the ultimate favor…

Written to baby Carolina, by both her birth mother and her adoptive one, this is a story that proves that life circumstances shape us but don’t define us—and that families aren’t born, they’re made…

Buy, read, and discuss Dear Carolina

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Goodreads

About the author, Kristy Woodson Harvey:

Kristy Woodson Harvey holds a degree in journalism and mass communications from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s in English from East Carolina University. She writes about interior design and loves connecting with readers. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and three-year-old son. Dear Carolina is her first novel.

Connect with Kristy

Website | Facebook | Twitter

My Thoughts

When Kristy Woodson Harvey contacted me asking me if I’d be interested in reading her book, I jumped at the chance, because it sounded exactly like something I’d love to read.

I was not wrong. This is a fantastic novel about mothers and daughters, and what exactly constitutes family.

Written in alternating first-person accounts, letters to the title character, this book focuses on Jodi, the nineteen-year-old biological mother of Carolina, and Khaki (real name Frances) her older, married cousin, and Carolina’s adopted mother, and how the lives and stories of all concerned are intertwined, woven into a tapestry where love is ever present.

I loved the way the rhythms of southern speech infused this novel. All through it, I found myself reading bits aloud because I wanted to hear the words, not just read them, and the author did an excellent job of keeping the two main voices of the novel separate and distinct, but clearly related. It’s a tricky thing to pull off, but she did it with aplomb.

Based on this novel, I believe it’s safe to say that Harvey has a bright future ahead of her. I loved this book, but I’m also looking forward to whatever she comes up with next.

Goes well with homemade bread slathered with jam made from fresh-picked berries.

Threshold, by G.M. Ford #review @TLCBookTours

24 April 2015 by Melissa

About the book, Threshold

Paperback: 254 pages
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer (April 21, 2015)

Acclaimed for his best-selling books featuring P.I. Leo Waterman, Ford introduces readers to a new, yet equally unorthodox hero in THRESHOLD: embattled Detective Sergeant Mickey Dolan. Still smarting from the very public breakup of his marriage and facing conduct complaints for use of excessive force, Dolan is at the end of his rope – and possibly at the end of his career – when he catches a case that just might turn things around: the disappearance of the wife and daughters of a powerful city councilman. Assisted by a remarkable young woman who may know the terrible truth about the missing family, Dolan soon finds he must choose between helping his career and protecting innocent lives. A suspenseful police thriller about a not-so-good cop given the opportunity to do the right – and most difficult – thing, THRESHOLD is a new chapter for G.M. Ford that is sure to satisfy fans of his Waterman and Frank Corso stories and new readers alike.

Buy, read, and discuss Threshold

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books-A-Million | Goodreads

About the author, G. M. Ford

G.M. Ford broke onto the mystery scene with Who in Hell is Wanda Fuca?, a gin-soaked tome featuring Seattle private investigator Leo Waterman. The six-book Leo Waterman series was nominated for several awards, including the Shamus, the Anthony, and the Lefty. In 2001, Ford launched a new series featuring disgraced reporter Frank Corso and his goth assistant, Meg Dougherty. In 2011, after a twelve-year hiatus, he decided to write a new Leo Waterman novel, Thicker Than Water, which Thomas & Mercer promptly bought. His eighth Leo Waterman book, Chump Change, followed in 2014. Ford lives and works in Seattle, and is married to the beautiful and talented mystery author Skye Kathleen Moody.

My Thoughts

I love a good mystery (I’ve said that before) and Threshold is a great mystery, so I was hooked all the way through. I especially liked the way author G.M. Ford combines a retro pot-boiler sensibility with an absolutely contemporary story. Mickey Dolan, to me, seemed like he’d have been equally comfortable in a Sam Spade novel and an episode of CSI.

I also liked that the plot was fast-paced, but so well written that even when it was running at breakneck speed, I, as a reader, never felt out of the loop. I didn’t quite manage to solve the crime before Dolan had, but that’s only because I was paying more attention to character and language than details. (Sometimes I’m like that.)

I could analyze the characters, and tell you that author Ford knows his tropes well, and uses them with great success, or gush over the way every character felt gritty and real and interesting – even the bit characters who barely have dialogue.

Instead, I’ll keep things succint: if you like crime novels and are looking for a gripping new series from a writer with a ton of expertise, Threshold is the book for you. In fact, I suspect it will be a gateway book (pun absolutely intended) to more of Ford’s work, which, hopefully, will include a second (and more) adventure with Detective Sergeant Dolan, et al.

Goes well with A fully-loaded hotdog, and a beer.

G. M. Ford’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Monday, April 13th: Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Tuesday, April 14th: From the TBR Pile

Wednesday, April 15th: 5 Minutes for Books

Monday, April 20th: Life is Story

Wednesday, April 22nd: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Thursday, April 23rd: MariReads

Friday, April 24th:Bibliotica – That’s ME!

Monday, April 27th: Mystery Playground

Tuesday, April 28th: Words by Webb

Wednesday, April 29th: Built By Story

Thursday, April 30th: Bell, Book & Candle

Monday, May 4th: A Chick Who Reads

Tuesday, May 5th: Mom in Love with Fiction

Monday, May 11th: FictionZeal

Tuesday, May 12th: Kritter’s Ramblings

Thursday, May 14th: A Bookworm’s World

Smash Cut, by Brad Gooch #review @TLCBookTours

23 April 2015 by Melissa

About the book, Smash Cut

Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Harper (April 14, 2015)

Brad Gooch, the author of the acclaimed City Poet, returns with a searing memoir of life in 1980s New York City.

Brad Gooch arrived in New York in the 1970s, eager for artistic and personal freedom. Smash Cut is his bold and intimate memoir of this exhilarating time and place, complete with its cast of wild bohemians, celebrities, and budding artists, such as Robert Mapplethorpe, William Burroughs, and Madonna. At its center is his love affair with film director Howard Brookner, recreated from fragments of memory and a crosshatch of conflicting emotions, from innocent romance to bleak despair.

Gooch and Brookner’s intense relationship is challenged by sex and drugs, and by a culture of extreme experimentation. As both men try to reconcile love and fidelity with the irresistible desire to sample the legendary abandon of the era, they live together and apart. Gooch works briefly as a model in Milan, then returns to the city and discovers his vocation as a writer.

Brookner falls ill with a mysterious virus that soon has a terrifying name: AIDS. And the story, and life in the city, is suddenly overshadowed by this new plague that will ravage a generation and transform the creative world. Gooch charts the progress of Brookner through his illness, and writes unforgettably about endings: of a great talent, a passionate love affair, and an incandescent era.

Beautifully written, full of rich detail and poignant reflection, recalling a city and particular period and group of friends with affection and clarity, Smash Cut is an extraordinary memoir and an exquisite unflinching account of an epoch.

Buy, read, and discuss Smash Cut
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Goodreads

About the author, Brad Gooch

Brad Gooch is the author of the acclaimed biographies City Poet and Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor, as well as other nonfiction and three novels. The recipient of National Endowment for the Humanities and Guggenheim fellowships, he earned his Ph.D. at Columbia University and is professor of English at William Paterson University in New Jersey. He lives in New York City.

Find out more about Brad at his website.

My Thoughts

Smash Cut is subtitled, “A Memoir of Howard & Art & the ’70s & the ’80s,” and really that subtitle is both a perfect description, and a string of words that says very little, because while Brad Gooch’s book does cover all of those things, in a delightfully rambling fashion full of celebrity namedropping and lovely (and sometimes poignant) tangential anecdotes, it focuses on the author’s longterm relationship with Howard Brookner.

One could even go so far as to call it a love story.

It is, however, a love story that feels like a conversation (or several conversations), that explains place and time, lets us glimpse at the culture – general, gay, and celebrity culture – of the decades in question, and drops us into the dawn of the AIDS epidemic in a way only And the Band Played On and The Normal Heart have done before.

Gooch’s writing is engaging and honest. His comic timing is perfect, his sense of pathos equally so – as they should be, because he’s relating his own story, through a slightly misty lens.

Even though I’m a couple of decades younger than Mr. Gooch, I was familiar with a lot of people he mentioned, so it was interesting seeing them through his eyes, especially as most of them were relatively young at the time. Mentions of the artist Robert Mapplethorpe, in particular, really struck me, because I consider my 21st-birthday visit to his (posthumous) art show one of the final ‘coming of age’ moments of my own life.

If I came away from this memoir with any one grain of truth, or piece of insight, it’s the reminder that love is universal, and should be embraced, and enjoyed for as long as possible.

You don’t have to be gay or a man to enjoy Smash Cut. (I’m neither.)
You do have to be willing to treat it as though a friend of a friend is telling you their story… a story you may have heard a couple of bits of, but never from the source. A story of fame and art and two really interesting decades of the twentieth century.

It’s a love story.
Let’s leave it at that.

Goes well with an ’80’s style champagne brunch on the deck.

Brad’s Tour Stops

Tuesday, April 7th: missris

Wednesday, April 8th: Freda’s Voice

Thursday, April 9th: Sophisticated Dorkiness

Monday, April 13th: Inner Workings of the Female Mind

Thursday, April 16th: In the Garden of Eva

Tuesday, April 21st: Bell, Book and Candle

Thursday, April 23rd: Bibliotica – That’s ME!

Monday, April 27th: Reviews by Amos Lassen

Tuesday, April 28th: Conceptual Reception

Wednesday, April 29th: Queerly Seen

Thursday, April 30th: Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers

Friday, May 1st: Thoughts on This ‘n That

Thursday, May 21st: Raven Haired Girl

Date TBD: Wordsmithonia

The Hurricane Sisters, by Dorothea Benton Frank (@dorotheafrank) #review @TLCBookTours

21 April 2015 by Melissa

About the book, The Hurricane Sisters

Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (April 7, 2015)

Hurricane season begins early and rumbles all summer long, well into September. Often people’s lives reflect the weather and The Hurricane Sisters is just such a story.

Once again Dorothea Benton Frank takes us deep into the heart of her magical South Carolina Lowcountry on a tumultuous journey filled with longings, disappointments, and, finally, a road toward happiness that is hard earned. There we meet three generations of women buried in secrets. The determined matriarch, Maisie Pringle, at eighty, is a force to be reckoned with because she will have the final word on everything, especially when she’s dead wrong. Her daughter, Liz, is caught up in the classic maelstrom of being middle-age and in an emotionally demanding career that will eventually open all their eyes to a terrible truth. And Liz’s beautiful twenty-something daughter, Ashley, whose dreamy ambitions of her unlikely future keeps them all at odds.

Luckily for Ashley, her wonderful older brother, Ivy, is her fierce champion but he can only do so much from San Francisco where he resides with his partner. And Mary Beth, her dearest friend, tries to have her back but even she can’t talk headstrong Ashley out of a relationship with an ambitious politician who seems slightly too old for her.

Actually, Ashley and Mary Beth have yet to launch themselves into solvency. Their prospects seem bleak. So while they wait for the world to discover them and deliver them from a ramen-based existence, they placate themselves with a hare-brained scheme to make money but one that threatens to land them in huge trouble with the authorities.

So where is Clayton, Liz’s husband? He seems more distracted than usual. Ashley desperately needs her father’s love and attention but what kind of a parent can he be to Ashley with one foot in Manhattan and the other one planted in indiscretion? And Liz, who’s an expert in the field of troubled domestic life, refuses to acknowledge Ashley’s precarious situation. Who’s in charge of this family? The wake-up call is about to arrive.

The Lowcountry has endured its share of war and bloodshed like the rest of the South, but this storm season we watch Maisie, Liz, Ashley, and Mary Beth deal with challenges that demand they face the truth about themselves. After a terrible confrontation they are forced to rise to forgiveness, but can they establish a new order for the future of them all?

Frank, with her hallmark scintillating wit and crisp insight, captures how a complex family of disparate characters and their close friends can overcome anything through the power of love and reconciliation. This is the often hilarious, sometimes sobering, but always entertaining story of how these unforgettable women became The Hurricane Sisters.

Buy, read, and discuss The Hurricane Sisters

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Goodreads

About the author, Dorothea Benton Frank

New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank was born and raised on Sullivans Island, South Carolina. She is the author of many New York Times bestselling novels, including Lowcountry Summer and Return to Sullivans Island. She resides in the New York area with her husband.

Connect with Dorothea

Website | Facebook | Twitter

My Thoughts

There are certain authors I gravitate to whenever I want a compelling drama with strong women, complex relationships, and fabulous coastal settings. Dorothea Benton Frank is one of them, and I know that when her name is on a book cover, it’s highly unlikely that I’ll be disappointed in the story, even if I don’t always connect with the characters. (I suspect this is because of my bleeding-heart liberal, Yankee upbringing.)

When I was offered the opportunity to review The Hurricane Sisters in tandem with it’s release in paperback (it was originally published last summer), I leaped at the chance, and the book caught me in it’s pages and gave me a long, stormy afternoon’s entertainment. (There’s something eerie about reading a novel set against an impending hurricane, while tornado warnings are going on around you.)

What I love about all of Frank’s work is true of this novel: Interesting female characters, male characters who aren’t just cookie-cutter creations in pastel shirts – and a truly intergenerational story that is intertwined with Charleston and Sullivan’s Island. I felt for poor Ashley, being so betwixt and between, identified more than I care to admit with Liz, and wanted to adopt Maisie as my own grandmother (I would totally have offered her a third martini. I like mine dirty. I’m sure she wouldn’t care.) I enjoyed the juxtaposition of Clayton, slightly bewildered father, and Ivy, the gay brother who is the most functional and stable of the family.

I also liked that this book wasn’t just a coming-of-age novel for Ashley, or a coming-out novel for Ivy, and it wasn’t just a bonding story, or a family drama – it was all of these things and more, woven together the way real family issues intersect with each other, running parallel at times, and perpendicular at others.

The thread of domestic violence that runs through the tapestry of this story only made it more relevant for me. Not that I dislike Frank’s less message-laden work, but I could tell that something in her research really affected the author, and, indeed, she mentions this in the afterword.

As with any author’s work, every reader will respond to different stories in their own way. In the past, I haven’t always felt like I was ready for some of Frank’s work, enjoying it, but missing the point. Reading The Hurricane Sisters as someone fast approaching her 45th birthday, I feel like I’m finally part of her target demographic, but no matter your age, I still say, it’s highly unlikely that YOU will be disappointed by any book with Dorothea Benton Frank’s name listed as the author, and especially not this one.

Goes well with gin martini’s, dirty, followed by a steak and shrimp and a simple salad.

Dorothea’s Tour Stops

Tuesday, April 7th: The Discerning Reader

Wednesday, April 8th: The man thoughts of a reader

Thursday, April 9th: Svetlana’s Reads and Views

Friday, April 10th: Books and Bindings

Monday, April 13th: Lavish Bookshelf

Tuesday, April 14th: Peeking Between the Pages

Wednesday, April 15th: Bookshelf Fantasies

Monday, April 20th: Books in the Burbs

Tuesday, April 21st: Bibliotica – That’s ME!

Wednesday, April 22nd: Jorie Loves a Story

Thursday, April 23rd: A Novel Review

TBD: A Chick Who Reads

Imaginary Things, by Andrea Lochen #review (@astorandblue)

17 April 2015 by Melissa

About the book Imaginary Things

Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: Astor + Blue Editions (April 27, 2015)

From Andrea Lochen, award-winning author of The Repeat Year, comes an enchanting tale about family, love, and the courage it takes to face your demons and start over again.

Burned-out and completely broke, twenty-two-year-old single mother Anna Jennings moves to her grandparents’ rural Wisconsin home for the summer—her four-year-old, David, in tow. Returning to Salsburg reminds Anna of simpler times—fireflies, picnics, Neapolitan ice cream—long before she met her unstable ex and everything changed. But the sudden appearance of shadowy dinosaurs awakens Anna from this small-town spell, and forces her to believe she has either lost her mind or can somehow see her son’s active imagination. Frightened, Anna struggles to learn the rules of this bizarre phenomenon, but what she uncovers along the way is completely unexpected: revelations about what her son’s imaginary friends truly represent and hidden secrets about her own childhood.

Buy, read, and discuss Imaginary Things

Amazon | Astor + Blue | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Goodreads

About the author, Andrea Lochen

Andrea Lochen is the author of two novels, IMAGINARY THINGS and THE REPEAT YEAR. She earned her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan. She teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha and lives in Madison with her husband and daughter.

Connect with Andrea

Website | Facebook | Goodreads

My Thoughts

When the publicist from Astor + Blue contacted me about reviewing this novel, I was intrigued by the description, and immediately squeezed it into my schedule. I’m really glad I did, because this book is the perfect blend of straight up contemporary fiction and magical realism.

In Anna, author Andrea Lochen has given us a young woman who could be any young woman: a single mother who’s lost her most recent job and has had to slink back home to the grandparents who have always been the most stable influence in her life, in the tiny town where she was sent every time her own mother grew too bored/busy/distracted to be a parent herself.

As a daughter/granddaughter, Anna is still very much unfinished. She’s still at the point where she defines herself through her relationships with others, rather than having a truly mature self-identity. As a mother, Anna is fierce, protective, and loving, but also a bit permissive, partly as a reaction to her own upbringing.

While the Imaginary Things of the book’s title and description spring from Anna’s son David’s imagination, they are really there to serve as a sort of Greek chorus for Anna herself. It is through them that she learns to be stronger, more responsible, more open to love, and a better parent.

This novel isn’t about the destination, as much as it’s about the journey, and Anna’s companions on this journey include her son David, from whose imagination amazing things come, her grandparents Duffy and Winston, and her childhood friend (and so much more) Jamie, as well as the darker presence of David’s father, who is mentally unstable. Each of them is a fully-faceted character in his or her own right, and they interact so organically that at times if feels as though Lochen has drawn her characters from life.

The story is interesting and compelling, one of personal growth, maturation, the loss of innocence, and the acceptance of adulthood, but it’s never preachy, and never lectures.

If you pick up this novel expecting a traditional romantic comedy or romantic drama, you will be disappointed. If, on the other hand, you want a meaty contemporary read (almost literary really) with just enough magic to keep life interesting, you will not be disappointed. Imaginary Things is unimaginably awesome.

Goes well with Grilled cheese, tomato soup, and homemade lemonade.

Orient, by Christopher Bollen #review @TLCBookTours

14 April 2015 by Melissa

About the book, Orient

Print Length: 624 pages
Publisher: Harper (May 5, 2015)

As summer draws to a close, a small Long Island town is plagued by a series of mysterious deaths— and one young man, a loner taken in by a local, tries to piece together the crimes before his own time runs out.

Orient is an isolated hamlet on the North Fork of Long Island—a quiet, historic village that swells each summer with vacationers, Manhattan escapees, and wealthy young artists from the city with designs on local real estate. On the last day of summer, a teenage drifter named Mills Chevern arrives in town. Soon after, the village is rocked by a series of unsettling events: the local caretaker is found floating lifeless in the ocean; an elderly neighbor dies under mysterious circumstances; and a monstrous animal corpse is discovered on the beach not far from a research lab often suspected of harboring biological experiments. Before long, other more horrific events plunge the community into a spiral of paranoia.

As the village struggles to make sense of the wave of violence, anxious eyes settle on the mysterious Mills, a troubled orphan with no family, a hazy history, and unknown intentions. But he finds one friend in Beth, an Orient native in retreat from Manhattan, who is determined to unravel the mystery before the small town devours itself.

Suffused with tension, rich with character and a haunting sense of lives suspended against an uncertain future, Orient is both a galvanic thriller and a provocative portrait of the dark side of the American dream: an idyllic community where no one is safe. It marks the emergence of a novelist of enormous talent.

Buy, read, and discuss Orient

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Goodreads

About the author, Christopher Bollen

Christopher Bollen is an editor at large for Interview magazine. He is the author of the novel Lightning People, and his work has appeared in GQ, the New York Times, the Believer, and Artforum, among other publications. He lives in New York.

Find out more about Christopher at his website.

My Thoughts

I had a hard time sinking into this book, at first, in part because I’d just read two cozy, beachy novels back to back, and was still in that mindset. Once I reminded myself that this was a thriller that just happened to be set in a shore town, I went back and re-read the opening pages, and found myself much more into the novel. Who says there aren’t different reading moods?

I was expecting Mills, the young man (referred to as a ‘teen drifter’ in the blurbs, but at nineteen he’s really more a young adult) to be the POV person for the whole novel, so when author Bollen kept introducing us to more and more new characters, and letting us see inside their heads, it was a little confusing. Eventually, though, I found myself really enjoying his writing style, which blends all the best of contemporary mystery/thrillers with a truly literary penchant for description and psychodrama.

I also found that his style made me much more likely to alter my perceptions of characters as I got to know them. The central character, Beth, was one I really disliked upon first ‘meeting’ but by the end of the book, I really wanted her to solve the mystery and succeed at something. I love it when writers can do that, and Bollen has a knack for making plots twist on a dime in a way that is really quite delicious.

If you read the cover blurb for this novel and assume that because it’s set in a summer beach town it will be light on mystery and heavy on soap-y drama, you will be disappointed. If, on the other hand, you are ready to sink into a deep, dark literary thriller, you will find yourself riveted through all 600 pages of this novel.

This is the author’s debut novel, and I really hope Bollen’s agents and editors appreciate his distinct voice, because we need to hear more from this writer, and I fear that commercial success will cause him to change the way he writes, which would be a pity.

Goes well with Atlantic blue fish, fresh caught, and grilled on the beach, Jersey tomatoes marinated in salt and lemon, and a crisp summer ale. Sam Adams will do in a pinch.

Christopher’s Tour Stops

Tuesday, April 7th: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Friday, April 10th: As I turn the pages

Monday, April 13th: BoundbyWords

Tuesday, April 14th: Bibliotica – That’s ME!

Wednesday, April 15th: A Bookworm’s World

Monday, April 20th: The Discerning Reader

Tuesday, April 21st: Books and Things

Wednesday, April 22nd: From the TBR Pile

Thursday, April 23rd: A Dream Within a Dream

Monday, April 27th: Open Book Society

Tuesday, April 28th: Kissin Blue Karen

Friday, May 1st: Wordsmithonia

Monday, May 4th: Ace and Hoser Blook

Wednesday, May 6th: My Bookish Ways

Thursday, May 7th: Living in the Kitchen with Puppies

The Bookseller, by Cynthia Swanson #review (@TLCBookTours)

7 April 2015 by Melissa

About the book, The Bookseller

Print Length: 352 pages
Publisher: Harper (March 3, 2015)

A mesmerizingly powerful debut novel about the ways in which past choices can irrevocably define the present—and the bittersweet confrontation of what might have been

1962: It may be the Swinging Sixties in New York, but in Denver it’s different: being a single gal over thirty in this city is almost bohemian. Still, thirty-eight-year-old Kitty Miller has come to terms with her unconventional single life. She was involved, once—with a doctor named Kevin—but when things didn’t work out the way she had hoped, she decided to chart her own path. Now she dedicates herself to the bookstore she runs with her best friend, Frieda, returning home each evening to her cozy apartment. Without a husband expecting dinner, she can enjoy last-minute drinks after work with her friends; without children who need to get ready for school, she can stay up all night reading with her beloved cat, Aslan, by her side.

Then the dreams begin.

1963: Katharyn Andersson is married to Lars, the love of her life. They live in a picture-perfect home in a suburban area of Denver, close to their circle of friends. It’s the ideal place in which to raise their children. Katharyn’s world is exactly what Kitty once believed she wanted . . . but it exists only when she sleeps.

At first, Kitty enjoys her nighttime forays into this alternate world. Even though there is no Frieda, no bookstore, no other familiar face, Kitty becomes increasingly reluctant to open her eyes and abandon Katharyn’s alluring life.

But with each visit to her dreamworld, it grows more real. As the lines between the two worlds begin to blur, Kitty faces an uncertain future. What price must she pay to stay? What is the cost of letting go?

Buy, read, and discuss The Bookseller

Amazon | Barnes & Noble| IndieBound | Goodreads

About the author, Cynthia Swanson

Cynthia Swanson is a writer and a designer of the midcentury modern style. She has published short fiction in 13th Moon, Kalliope, Sojourner, and other periodicals; her story in 13th Moon was a Pushcart Prize nominee. She lives in Denver, Colorado, with her husband and three children. The Bookseller is her first novel.

Connect with Cynthia

Website | Facebook

My Thoughts

Because I read quickly, it’s actually pretty typical for me to pick up a book and read it straight through in a matter of a few hours. Last weekend, in fact, I read four novels that way, because it was rainy and I wasn’t feeling well, and …well, you get the idea.

When I picked up The Bookseller (well, opened the file on my Kindle) at 3 AM on Thursday night/Friday morning, I thought, oh, I’ll just read a chapter while I sit here in the bathroom (oh, come on, you all do it, too). So entranced was I, however, by Kitty/Katharyn’s story that I found myself unable (once I’d returned to bed) to actually sleep. Instead I inhaled Cynthia Swanson’s writing, while my husband snored blissfully next to me. I was bleary by dawn, but I was bleary with a completed story settled into my consciousness.

Swanson has created a set of characters that are plausible in both realities depicted. In the reality where our protagonist is called Kitty, her life seems a bit lonely, but charming, and and she has a good friend in Frieda and supportive loving parents. In the reality where she is Katharyn, she has the perfect husband and three adorable children, though one of them isn’t quite like the others.

It’s obvious from the start that one reality has to go in order for the other to stay, but until the very end, I was not entirely certain which it would be, and I love that Swanson kept me guessing that long.

As someone who spent a chunk of her childhood in suburbs (Arvada, Golden) and relative exurbs (Georgetown) of Denver, CO, I appreciated the authors level of detail. As I told a friend, “There are scenes when she shops at May D&F! I remember my mom driving there to bring home the first ‘Patty & Jimmy’ and ‘Hello Kitty’ puffy stickers, when those things were brand new to America.”

I also appreciated that each reality was not without flaws.

Swanson has a knack for writing complex, interesting, human characters, and for writing a book that is both technically a period piece, but at the same time, completely contemporary. I really hope she has another book in process, because hers is a voice I’d like to hear more from.

Goes well with Hot coffee and a Navajo-style burrito (mostly because that’s what I remember eating as a kid in Colorado).

Cynthia’s Tour Stops

Tuesday, April 7th: Bibliotica – That’s ME!

Wednesday, April 8th: The Discerning Reader

Wednesday, April 8th: Read Lately

Thursday, April 9th: A Chick Who Reads

Friday, April 10th: 5 Minutes For Books

Monday, April 13th: West Metro Mommy

Tuesday, April 14th: Reading Reality

Wednesday, April 15th: Sara’s Organized Chaos

Thursday, April 16th: Kritters Ramblings

Monday, April 20th: BoundbyWords

Tuesday, April 21st: Readers’ Oasis

Wednesday, April 22nd: Vox Libris

Thursday, April 23rd: Read. Write. Repeat.

Friday, April 24th: Always With a Book

Monday, April 27th: Patricia’s Wisdom

Tuesday, April 28th: A Bookish Way of Life

Thursday, April 30th: Bookshelf Fantasies

Friday, May 1st: Bibliophiliac

Wednesday, May 6th: Ms. Nose in a Book

The Tusk that Did the Damage, by Tania James #review @tlcbooktours #giveaway

1 April 2015 by Melissa

About The Tusk that Did the Damage

Hardcover: 240 pages
Publisher: Knopf (March 10, 2015)

From the critically acclaimed author of Atlas of Unknowns and Aerogrammes, a tour de force set in South India that plumbs the moral complexities of the ivory trade through the eyes of a poacher, a documentary filmmaker, and, in a feat of audacious imagination, an infamous elephant known as the Gravedigger.

Buy, read, and discuss The Tusk that Did the Damage

Amazon | Barnes & Noble Books-A-Million | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About the author, Tania James

TANIA JAMES is the author of the novel Atlas of Unknowns and the short-story collection Aerogrammes. Her fiction has appeared in Boston Review, Granta, Guernica, One Story, A Public Space, and The Kenyon Review. She lives in Washington, DC.

My Thoughts:

There is a meme going around Facebook – a picture of an elephant kept in solitary confinement in a zoo, and the poor creature is so lonely that she’s holding her own tail. That image was burned into my brain, and kept resurfacing while I read this book, The Tusk that Did the Damage, and it really was the perfect image.

It feels wrong to say that I enjoyed this book, because so much of it is about the awful things we do to elephants in exchange for money, but it was so well written, and well crafted, that I can’t not say it. Tania James gave us the expected POVs of the filmmakers (Emma is my favorite human in the book, though Manu is a close second) and the poachers, but then, in a bold move, she also let us see things from The Gravedigger’s point of view and I can’t imagine anyone doing a better job at getting inside an elephant’s head.

Poaching specifically, and trophy hunting in general, are activities that have never made sense to me. I mean, I understand responsible hunting when you use the entire animal – for food, for clothing, etc – but killing majestic creatures for the bragging rights or the cash is something that I, as someone who works in pet rescue, find unconscionable, so you’d better believe I was in tears for a lot of this novel.

And yet, I would still recommend it, because it’s an important story, and a well-told one. Fiction serves to entertain, yes, but it can also be a teaching tool. James teaches us about elephants, about ivory, about what we as humans are capable of – the good and the bad – and every lesson is an important one.

Read this book. It may not change your life, but it will definitely change your perspective on elephants.

Goes well with vegetable curry and African beer.

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Tania James’ TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Monday, March 9th: Books a la Mode – author guest post

Tuesday, March 10th: The Feminist Texican Reads

Wednesday, March 11th: Life is Story

Thursday, March 12th: Books on the Table

Monday, March 16th: BookNAround

Wednesday, March 18th: 100 Pages a Day

Thursday, March 19th: Conceptual Reception

Monday, March 23rd: She Treads Softly

Tuesday, March 24th: Bell, Book & Candle

Wednesday, March 25th: Julz Reads

Thursday, March 26th: Under My Apple Tree

Monday, March 30th: Read Her Like An Open Book

Tuesday, March 31st: My Bookshelf

Wednesday, April 1st: Bibliotica – That’s ME!!!

Monday, April 6th: Patricia’s Wisdom

Tuesday, April 7th: Read. Run. Breathe.

Wednesday, April 8th: Book Snob

Thursday, April 9th: Suko’s Notebook

Little Beach Street Bakery, by Jenny Colgan (@jennycolgan) – #review @tlcbooktours

31 March 2015 by Melissa

About the book, Little Beach Street Bakery

Paperback: 448 pages
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (March 31, 2015)

In the bestselling tradition of Jojo Moyes and Jennifer Weiner, Jenny Colgan’s moving, funny, and unforgettable novel tells the story of a heartbroken young woman who turns a new page in her life . . . by becoming a baker in the town of Cornwall.

A quiet seaside resort. An abandoned shop. A small flat. This is what awaits Polly Waterford when she arrives at the Cornish coast, fleeing a ruined relationship.

To keep her mind off her troubles, Polly throws herself into her favorite hobby: making bread. But her relaxing weekend diversion quickly develops into a passion. As she pours her emotions into kneading and pounding the dough, each loaf becomes better than the last. Soon, Polly is working her magic with nuts and seeds, chocolate and sugar, and the local honey—courtesy of a handsome beekeeper.

Packed with laughter and emotion, Little Beach Street Bakery is the story of how one woman discovered bright new life where she least expected—a heartwarming, mouthwatering modern-day Chocolat that has already become a massive international bestseller.

Buy, read, and discuss Little Beach Street Bakery

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Goodreads

About the author, Jenny Colgan

Jenny Colgan is Scottish born and bred, born in Ayrshire in 1972, but currently lives and works in London. After graduating from Edinburgh University, Jenny worked for six years in the health service whist moonlighting as a cartoonist and doing stand-up in the outer fringes of London’s comedy circuit.

Connect with Jenny

Website | Facebook | Twitter

My Thoughts

This cozy little novel was exactly what I needed on an overcast weekend when I was fighting poor sleep patterns and a dawning migraine. It’s funny, engaging, and really makes you wish you lived in a harbor-front flat in an old fishing village.

The protagonist, Polly, has just come through a bad breakup and a bankruptcy when we meet her, and she clearly needs a sea change in more ways than one. Taking the flat in the ramshackle building that once housed a bakery, in a once-thriving town that now barely survives on summer tourism, is her first step of a reawakening that we readers are privileged to watch.

Author Jenny Colgan has a knack for writing snappy dialogue that immediately gives us a sense of who each character is – Polly, Tarnie, Huckle – all have distinct voices. Then she throws in a dash of whimsy (an adopted rescue-puffin) and romance, and mixes it up with a sense of place that allows us to feel the chilly water rise over our feet as the causeway is flooded (a daily occurrence) by the changing tides.

At almost 450 pages, Little Beach Street Bakery is a bit meatier than the average ‘beach read,’ but there’s never a sense of having filler in the story. Every page counts, and every scene matters, and the whole novel is entertaining, engaging, and even a bit heartwarming.

What else can I say? I LOVED this book.

Goes well with A plate of fish and chips and a glass of iced sweet tea.

Jenny’s Tour Stops

Tuesday, March 31st: Bibliotica (That’s ME!!!)

Wednesday, April 1st: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Thursday, April 2nd: A Chick Who Reads

Friday, April 3rd: Kritters Ramblings

Tuesday, April 7th: Drey’s Library

Wednesday, April 8th: Kahakai Kitchen

Thursday, April 9th: For the Love of Words

Friday, April 10th: 2 Kids and Tired Book Reviews

Tuesday, April 14th: A Bookish Way of Life

Thursday, April 16th: Walking With Nora

I Regret Everything: a Love Story, by Seth Greenland #review @sethgreenland @tlcbooktours

30 March 2015 by Melissa

About the book, I Regret Everything: a Love Story

Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Europa Editions (February 3, 2015)

Life is an often-confusing mixture of heartache and hilarity, or so prove Seth Greenland’s appealing characters in this tenderly comedic story of modern love. Imbued with Greenland’s signature wit, I Regret Everything confronts the oceanic uncertainty of what it means to be young and alive.

Jeremy Best, a Manhattan-based trusts and estates lawyer, leads a second life as published poet Jinx Bell. To his boss’s daughter, Spaulding Simonson, at 33 years old, Jeremy is already halfway to dead. When Spaulding, an aspiring 19-year-old writer, discovers Mr. Best’s alter poetic ego, the two become bound by a devotion to poetry, and an awareness that time in this world is limited. Their budding relationship offers them the possibility of enduring love, or the threat of tragic loss.

A skilled satirist with a talent for biting humor, Greenland creates fully realized characters that quickly reveal themselves as complex renderings of the human condition – at its very best, and utter worst. I Regret Everything explores happiness and heartache with a healthy dose of skepticism, and an understanding that the reality of love encompasses life, death, iambic pentameter, regret, trusts and estates.

PBuy, read, and discuss I Regret Everything

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books-A-Million | Goodreads

About the author, Seth Greenland

Seth Greenland is a novelist, playwright, and a screenwriter. He was a writer-producer on the Emmy-nominated HBO series Big Love, is an award-winning playwright, and the author of the novels The Angry Buddhist, The Bones, and Shining City, which was named a Best Book of 2008 by the Washington Post.

Greenland lives in Los Angeles with his family.

My Thoughts

First, I was meant to have this review posted a week ago, and somehow it didn’t get put on my calendar, despite the fact that I’d read the book in time for the originally scheduled day. If this review seems a little disjointed, it’s only because I’ve read five other novels since the 19th, when it was originally due.

That aside, I cannot say enough about how much I loved this quirky little love story.

I confess, I had to let it flirt with me a little bit. The first chapter didn’t quite hook me, but, like a few others on this blog tour, I knew Seth Greenland’s work from binge-watching Big Love (twice), and I kept at it, finding myself thoroughly engaged, with the language singing in my head, by the middle of chapter two.

I’m glad I did, because this is a gem of a novel. The language, especially, is brilliant, which makes sense since the lead characters are a published poet (Jeremy) and an aspiring writer (Spaulding), who first bond over poetry. Both their wordplay and their tendency to drop in and out of character ‘bits’ are integral to their relationship, and I’m certain I responded to those nicely nuanced exchanges because I’m the same way.

I also liked that, with the exception of Spaulding’s father, no one seemed at all phased by the fact that there was a 14-year age gap between the Spaulding and Jeremy. Age doesn’t have to be an issue unless we make it one (and she wasn’t a child), and 14 years may seem huge when one character is nineteen, but ten years later, it’s not so big a gap.

If I had to describe Greenland’s writing style, at least for this novel, I would use words like ‘precise’ or ‘selective.’ I got the feeling that he’d carefully chosen every single word, so that we had senses of people and places without too much description, but without ever feeling like something was lacking. His prose ensnares your imagination, and his characters live very vividly on the movie screen in your mind.

The one thing that may confuse readers is the way he tags dialogue with only a dash, although that also forces you (well, it forced me – I typically read incredibly quickly) to slow down, and read the text very closely. It works within the context of this story, and only adds to the faintly otherworldly ‘living inside verse’ sense that pervades the entire book.

I haven’t read any of Greenland’s other novels, but I’m now incredibly curious about them, because if they’re anything like I Regret Everything, I’m sure I’ll regret it if I don’t read them.

Goes well with a perfectly cooked steak smothered in mushrooms, a baked potato, and a glass of red wine.