Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Review Copy Arrival: Stretch Marks by Kimberly Stuart


Stretch Marks by Kimberly Stuart

Received from Audra Jennings of B&B Media Group for the First Wild Card Tour in October.

Publisher: David C. Cook
Publish Date: September 1, 2009

An earth-conscious, yoga-practicing twenty-something is forced to face her estranged relationship with her mother in this comic yet poignant novel about moms and daughters.

Mia Rathbun is an overworked and underpaid Chicago social worker who belongs to PETA and recycles the tops of pizza boxes. Her boyfriend, Lars, is a free-spirited freelance writer (read: mooch) who disdains the conventions of marriage but is happy to build a life with Mia. That is until Mia becomes pregnant.

Left on her own, Mia just begins to accustom herself to the looming prospect of single parenthood when her mother, Babs, shows up to "help." The two have an estranged relationship but are forced to acknowledge their connection as Mia's belly grows and she has few other options. The story is told with Stuart's characteristic irreverent and authentic humour with healthy doses of poignancy and grace.

New Book Releases - September 1, 2009

A new feature on my blog will be the new releases each Tuesday. So come and see what comes out today and help support these authors and wonderful books. This is by no means a comprehensive list - it's just the ones I have heard about. If you are an author of an upcoming book (or a publicist) please contact me at my email address - crystalfulcher(at)ec(dot)rr(dot)com - and I will add your book to my post the week it releases.

So here are some of this week's releases:

Stretch Marks by Kimberly Stuart

I received this one yesterday for review and can't wait to read it.

An earth-conscious, yoga-practicing twenty-something is forced to face her estranged relationship with her mother in this comic yet poignant novel about moms and daughters.

Mia Rathbun is an overworked and underpaid Chicago social worker who belongs to PETA and recycles the tops of pizza boxes. Her boyfriend, Lars, is a free-spirited freelance writer (read: mooch) who disdains the conventions of marriage but is happy to build a life with Mia. That is until Mia becomes pregnant.

Left on her own, Mia just begins to accustom herself to the looming prospect of single parenthood when her mother, Babs, shows up to "help." The two have an estranged relationship but are forced to acknowledge their connection as Mia's belly grows and she has few other options. The story is told with Stuart's characteristic irreverent and authentic humour with healthy doses of poignancy and grace.


Secrets of a Christmas Box by Steven Hornby

DS#1 and I are currently reading and enjoying this one.

Enter the magical festive world of the Christmas 'Tree-Dwellers', as Larry, a Christmas snowman, wakes up after the long sleep in the Christmas box, to find his brother is missing.
Desperate to find him before Christmas, Larry, along with his girlfriend Debbie, a newcomer Splint, and Larry's companion Tinsel, break the laws of the 'Tree-Elders' and escape down the tree and away into the house, to look for clues.
Away from the safety of the tree and in an unfamiliar world, the Dwellers stumble upon a dark and sinister secret that threatens their entire world. Can Larry and the group make it back to the tree in time to warn the others, and finally uncover the truth behind the 'Secrets of a Christmas Box'?



Storm of Shadows by Christina Dodd (Book #2 in Chosen Ones series)

Brilliant Rosamund Hill has lived her life buried in academia, discounting the legend of the Chosen as a myth-then Aaron Eagle shows up at her door. With the promise of a love that will defy fate itself, Rosamund is forced to confront the truth about the Chosen...and the dangerous man who sweeps her into a world of dark secrets.

Excerpt here.



Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (Book #2 in Hunger Games series)

Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the annual Hunger Games with fellow district tribute Peeta Mellark. But it was a victory won by defiance of the Capitol and their harsh rules. Katniss and Peeta should be happy. After all, they have just won for themselves and their families a life of safety and plenty. But there are rumors of rebellion among the subjects, and Katniss and Peeta, to their horror, are the faces of that rebellion. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge.


A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore

As the United States begins gearing up for war in the Middle East, twenty-year-old Tassie Keltjin, the Midwestern daughter of a gentleman hill farmer—his “Keltjin potatoes” are justifiably famous—has come to a university town as a college student, her brain on fire with Chaucer, Sylvia Plath, Simone de Beauvoir.

Between semesters, she takes a job as a part-time nanny.

The family she works for seems both mysterious and glamorous to her, and although Tassie had once found children boring, she comes to care for, and to protect, their newly adopted little girl as her own.

As the year unfolds and she is drawn deeper into each of these lives, her own life back home becomes ever more alien to her: her parents are frailer; her brother, aimless and lost in high school, contemplates joining the military. Tassie finds herself becoming more and more the stranger she felt herself to be, and as life and love unravel dramatically, even shockingly, she is forever changed.


Dark Slayer by Christine Feehan

Ivory-a rare Carpathian female-has been protected by her brothers for most of her life. But onceshe frees the mage Razvan from his prison cave, they must flee together, enemies of Carpathian hunters as well as vampires. Ivory senses that Razvan is more than he appears to be, and she vows to go against the entire Carpathian race to help him, risking both their lives in order to save their love.



Heat Seeker by Lora Leigh

John Vincent has always led a life of danger, and now he has every reason to want to remain as dead as the obituary in the Australian papers had proclaimed him to be. He’d left nothing behind in the life he had once led—except for one woman, and one night of unforgettable passion. Now, both will return to haunt him…

Bailey Serborne is still tormented by a past she can’t change and a man she hasn’t been able to forget. A man who was supposed to dead.. But now, a stroke of fate has revealed that sometimes, a woman is given a second chance to heal her heart—and exact the sweetest revenge…



So tell me - are you buying or have you bought any of these? Are they on your list, did you review them? What else new is coming out?

Monday, August 31, 2009

R.I.P. IV Challenge



















Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings has announced the R.I.P. IV Challenge over on his blog. This is the first one of these I have participated in, but I hear they are extremely fun. See Carl's main post for full information about the challenge.

The main gist is to pick books from the following categories, read them, enjoy them and post reviews. The categories are:
Mystery.
Suspense.
Thriller.
Dark Fantasy.
Gothic.
Horror.
Supernatural
.

There are also different levels of the challenge - I plan on participating in:

Peril the First:

Read Four books of any length, from any subgenre of scary stories that you choose.

No official list is required, but we are encouraged to list books that we would like to read. That is what I will do here. I am thinking about reading the following:

  1. Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris - read - review
  2. Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz - read
  3. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson - read
  4. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith and Jane Austen - read - review

I'll have decide on more later when I check out my review pile and my library pile.

Review: After by Amy Efaw (1-ARC-Tour)




After by Amy Efaw





rating: 4.0/5.0






From Goodreads:
An infant left in the trash to die. A teenage mother who never knew she was pregnant . . .

Before That Morning, these were the words most often used to describe straight-A student and star soccer player Devon Davenport: responsible, hardworking, mature. But all that changes when the police find Devon home sick from school as they investigate the case of an abandoned baby. Soon the connection is made—Devon has just given birth; the baby in the trash is hers. After That Morning, there’s only one way to define Devon: attempted murderer.


As soon as I received this in the mail, I opened it up and started reading it. After starting it I just had to keep on reading it. I read it on a Sunday - Sunday is the day I spend at my parent's house with my kids and usually it means little time to concentrate and read, but this book sucked me in so well that I read most of it during the day on Sunday.

I loved that in reading the book you slowly learned about Devon and her life, really at the same time that Devon was learning things. This was a great look inside a juvenile detention center and the wide-variety of girls who are in there. Devon is not what you would expect at all to end up in jail, but she does. Nothing is clear cut in this book - you are muddling through just as Devon is and that is what makes the book outstanding. Nothing is prettied up for the book - it's raw and real, but not in a completely unpleasant way if that makes any sense. It does put you out of your comfort zone, but in a good way.

It's an eye-opening book of a real epidemic that is out there, and Ms. Efaw handles it beautifully. It makes you think, it makes you feel and most of all it held my attention and made me read.

And isn't the cover just amazing . . .

I received this through 1 ARC Tours.

Binding: Hardcover
On-sale Date: August 11, 2009
Publisher: Viking Juvenile
Pages: 352

ARC Arrival: The Christmas Clock by Kat Martin



The Christmas Clock By Kat Martin

I received this from Kim Miller at Nancy Berland Public Relations, Inc.

Vanguard
October 2009
$14.95 U.S. / $18.95 CAN.
ISBN:978-1-59315-547-6
www.katbooks.com

Bestselling author Kat Martin creates an inspiring holiday story of vows broken and love redeemed, of courage and strength, and a memorable tale that will resonate long after the book is over.

Teddy Winters was eight years old that Christmas, too young to understand all the undercurrents swirling around him in the tiny Michigan town of Dreyerville.

He wasn’t able to value that Christmas for the miracle it truly was.

Teddy only knew he wanted to buy the beautiful Victorian clock in the window of Tremont’s Antiques as a gift for his grandmother, Lottie Sparks, a woman desperate to find him a home before her rapidly progressing Alzheimer’s left him an orphan.

Teddy didn’t know that in trying to buy the clock he would meet Sylvia Winters and Joe Dixon, a couple, once in love, desperate to overcome the past. He didn’t know he would form a friendship with his neighbors, Floyd and Doris Culver, two young people struggling to revive their long-dead marriage.

He didn’t know that these people would fill his Christmas with magic and hope; that the love of his friends would change his world, and he would forever change theirs.

ARC Arrival: Spinning Forward: A Novel (Cedar Key Series, book 1) by Terri DuLong


Spinning Forward: A Novel, Cedar Key Series, Book 1 by Terri DuLong

I received this from Kim Miller at Nancy Berland Public Relations, Inc.

Kensington Trade Paperback
November 2009
$15 U.S
ISBN-10: 0-758-23204-7
ISBN-13: 978-0-7582-3204-5
www.TerriDulong.com

In a debut novel brimming with warmth and wit, Terri DuLong spins a tale of new beginnings, old friends and lives forever bound . . .

A New Englander born and bred, the last place Sydney Webster expects to find herself starting over is on an island off the coast of Florida. Yet here she is in Cedar Key, trying to pull herself together after her husband's untimely death—and the even more untimely revelation of his gambling addiction. Bereft of her comfortable suburban life, Syd takes shelter at a college pal’s bed and breakfast, where amidst the bougainvillea blossoms and the island's gentle rhythms, a plan begins to form . . .

Syd never considered the possibility of turning her passion for spinning and knitting into something more than a hobby, but when the unique composition of her wool draws attention, a door is opened—the first among many. Yet even as she ventures out of her comfort zone, Syd finds herself stepping into the embrace of a community rich with love, laughter, friendship . . . and secrets. And as long-hidden truths are revealed, Syd faces a choice: spin a safety net—or spin decidedly forward and never look back . . .
This looks so good - I can't wait to read it.

Mailbox Monday - August 31




Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page. To see this weeks list of participants go here. To find out more about my books - click on the book cover.

ARC/Review copies of:



And from Paperbackswap I received:



Another great week and a lot of reading to do!