Friday Finds 3-6-2009

A Hundred Years of Happiness by Nicole Seitz


(Go here to watch a trailer for this book.)

A beautiful young woman. An American soldier. A war-torn country. Nearly forty years of silence.

Now, two daughters search for the truth they hope will set them free and the elusive peace their parents have never found.

In the South Carolina Lowcountry, a young mother named Katherine Ann is struggling to help her tempestuous father, by plunging into a world of secrets he never talks about. A fry cook named Lisa is trying desperately to reach her grieving Vietnamese mother, who has never fully adjusted to life in the States. And somewhere far away, a lost soul named Ernest is drifting, treading water, searching for what he lost on a long-ago mountain.

They’re all longing for connection. For the war that touched them to finally end. For their hundred years of happiness at long last to begin. (overview from http://www.nicoleseitz.com/)

Out at Night by Susan Arnout Smith

All the predators come out at night. . .

It’s the dead of night, and Professor Thaddeus Bartholomew is crawling through a field to stay alive. With moments to act, he types out a text message, a name, right as his stalker takes aim.Across the country, crime scene tech Grace Descanso has gone on vacation with her daughter to put the last few weeks behind her, but the FBI tracks her down when her name turns up on the professor's phone. Authorities found him with a hole in his chest, shot with a crossbow. While Grace doesn't know how he could know her, she can either join the investigation or become a suspect, but she can't walk away. . .

The Painter From Shanghai by Jennifer Cody Epstein

Reminiscent of Memoirs of a Geisha, a re-imagining of the life of Pan Yuliang and her transformation from prostitute to post-Impressionist.

Down the muddy waters of the Yangtze River and into the seedy backrooms of “The Hall of Eternal Splendor,” through the raucous glamour of prewar Shanghai and the bohemian splendor of 1920s Paris, and back to a China ripped apart by civil war and teetering on the brink of revolution: this novel tells the story of Pan Yuliang, one of the most talented—and provocative—Chinese artists of the twentieth century.

Jennifer Cody Epstein’s epic brings to life the woman behind the lush, Cezannesque nude self-portraits, capturing with lavish detail her life in the brothel and then as a concubine to a Republican official who would ultimately help her find her way as an artist. Moving with the tide of historical events, The Painter from Shanghai celebrates a singularly daring painting style—one that led to fame, notoriety, and, ultimately, a devastating choice: between Pan’s art and the one great love of her life.


What great books did you find this week?? Stop over at Should Be Reading and share yours!