Denise Grover Swank (author of Chosen) is visiting! (Guest Post, Book Review, Giveaway)

I am thrilled to have Denise Grover Swank as a guest on Books and Needlepoint today. She is touring with her book, Chosen, which was winner of The Beacon-- 2010 Unpublished Division, Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal category.

Write What You Know?  Nah, Just Google It

by Denise Grover Swank

The computer has revolutionized writing. Hundreds of years ago people scratched their thoughts onto parchment paper using squid ink and a quill. Now we tap, tap, tap on our keyboards. Not even those little bottles of White Out for us. Make an error? That’s what the delete key is for.


But an added benefit to the computer is research. Hello, Google. Years ago if you wanted to know about the Vietnam War, you had to go to the library and do a search in periodicals and texts—and hope that the library had the publication you were interested in. Now, all it takes it the entry Vietnam War into the search bar and a click. Instant gratification. (Although I suggest you narrow down your search a bit more. Talk about information overload.)


I couldn’t have written Chosen without my bestie Google. We had already become well acquainted with my previous, unpublishable novel. But suffice it to say, when it came to writing Chosen, I was out of my element. I knew nothing about guns. Street racing. Bullet proof glass. How to blow up a truck. My Google search engine worked overtime for several months finding articles and YouTube videos, and I’m sure put me on a government watch list. I’ve said many times that if I’m ever accused of a crime, they’ll throw me in jail based on my search engine history alone.


But the advent of Google takes write what you know and throws it out the window and onto its head. (Oh, look—there it goes rolling down the street.) I can assure you that I had no idea how to make your car do a 180 degree turn or how to fire a shotgun. I had no idea if bullets could penetrate a regular, unfortified car. (They can, by the way.) If I followed the write what you know philosophy, I wouldn’t have gotten past page two. And I would have been the poorer for it.


There’s a whole big world out there just waiting for me to Google about it.

Title: Chosen
Author: Denise Grover Swank
Publisher: Create Space


About the book: Everything Emma Thompson owns fits in a suitcase she moves from one roach infested motel to another. She and Jake, her five year old son who can see the future, are running from the men intent on taking him. Emma will do anything to protect him even when it means accepting the help of a stranger named Will. Jake insists she needs Will, but Emma’s never needed help before. And even though she’s learned to trust her son, it doesn’t mean she trusts Will.


Mercenary Will Davenport lives in the moment. Hauling Emma to South Dakota should have been an easy job, but his employer neglected to tell him about Emma’s freaky son and the gunmen hot on her trail. Instinct tells him this job is trouble, but nothing can prepare him for Jake’s proclamation that Will is The Chosen One, who must protect Emma from the men hunting her power. A power she doesn't know she has.


Will protects Emma and Jake on a cross-country chase from the men pursuing them, while struggling with memories from his past, his apprehension of Jake, and his growing attraction to Emma. Will’s overwhelming urge to protect Emma surprises him, especially since it has nothing to do with his paycheck and possibly everything to do with the tattoo Jake branded on his arm. Rich and powerful men are desperate to capture Emma, and Will must discover why before it's too late.

My thoughts:  This was one of the best books that I have read in awhile.  From the very first paragraph I was hooked.  Now, is this because I have a little boy named Jake just a little older than the one in the book? - Maybe, but the resemblance ends after the name and the age. 

I love thrillers and this one grabs you and holds on - and it contains elements of the paranormal as well.  Emma and Jake have been on the run for about 3 years.  All they know is that The Bad Men are after them and that Jake can see them when they are getting close.  Emma does not know why they are after them, just that she would protect her son at all costs. 

They have always been on their own, so when Will shows up and starts trying to protect them, Emma puts up a little bit of a fight.  She does not trust anyone, and only agrees to letting him go along because of her son. Will does have another agenda that he is keeping hidden from Emma, though.  I like the way that the dynamics among the three characters start to change when Will arrives.  The author blends these changes in so that the reader becomes aware of them as the characters in the book do also. 

I don't know how much more I can say without including spoilers - so just pick this up!  It is the first in a series and you can visit Denise's blog to find out more - and to see a trailer!

~I received a complimentary ebook from Bewitching Blog Tours in exchange for my review.~

GIVEAWAY!

Bewitching Blog Tours is giving away one ebook of Chosen to one of my readers!  This contest is open internationally!  Following not necessary but is appreciated! Please fill out form to enter.  This giveaway will end on Oct 21 at Midnight, CST.  Bonus entries are available!

First Wild Card Tour: Chosen by Ginger Garrett

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!

Today's Wild Card author is:

Ginger Garrett

and the book:

Chosen

David C. Cook; New edition (March 1, 2010)

***Special thanks to Audra Jennings, Senior Media Specialist, of The B&B Media Group for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Focusing on ancient women’s history, critically acclaimed author Ginger Garrett creates novels and nonfiction resources that explore the lives of historical women. In addition to her writing, Garrett is a frequent radio and television guest. A native Texan, she now resides in Georgia with her husband and three children.


Visit the author's website.

Chosen, by Ginger Garrett from David C. Cook on Vimeo.

Product Details:

List Price: $14.99
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: David C. Cook; New edition (March 1, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1434768015
ISBN-13: 978-1434768018

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

Prologue

Fourth Day of the Month of Av

Year 3414 after Creation

If you have opened this, you are the chosen one.

For this book has been sealed in the tomb of the ancients of Persia, never to be opened, I pray, until G-d1 has put His finger on a new woman of destiny, a woman who will rise up and change her nation. But we will not talk of your circumstances, and the many reasons this book may have fallen into your hands. There are no mistakes with prayer. You have indeed been called. If this sounds too strange, if you must look around your room and question whether G-d’s finger has perhaps slipped, if you are not a woman with the means to change a nation, then join me on a journey. You must return with me now to a place without hope, a nation that had lost sight of G-d, a girl with nothing to offer, and no one to give it to.

I must introduce myself first as I truly am: an exiled Jew, and an orphan. My given name was Hadassah, but the oppression of exile has stripped that too from me: I am now called Esther,2 so that I may blend in with my captors. My people, the Hebrew nation, had been sent out of our homeland after a bitter defeat in battle. We were allowed to settle in the kingdom of Persia, but we were not allowed to truly prosper there. We blended in, our lives preserved, but our heritage and customs were forced underground. Our hearts, once set only on returning to Jerusalem, were set out to wither in the heat

of the Arabian sun. My cousin Mordecai rescued me when I was orphaned and we lived in the capital city of Susa, under the reign of King Xerxes.3 Mordecai had a small flock of sheep that I helped tend, and we sold their fleece in the market. If times were good, we would sell a lamb for someone’s celebration. It was always for others to celebrate. We merely survived. But Mordecai was kind and good, and I was not forced into dishonor like the other orphans I had once known. This is how my story begins, and I give you these details not for sympathy, but so you will know that I am a girl well acquainted with bitter reality. I am not given to the freedom in flights of fantasy. But how can I explain to you the setting of my story? It is most certainly far removed from your experience. For I suspect that in the future, women will know freedom. And freedom is not an easy thing to forget, even if only to entertain an orphan’s story.

But you must forget now. I was born into a world, and into this story, where even the bravest women were faceless specters. Once married, they could venture out of their homes only with veils and escorts. No one yet had freed our souls. Passion and pleasure, like freedom, were the domain of men, and even young girls knew the wishes of their hearts would always be subject to a man’s desire for wealth. A man named Pericles summed up my time so well in his famed oration: “The greatest glory of a woman is to be least talked about by men, whether they are praising you or criticizing you.” Our role was clear: We were to be objects of passion, to receive a man’s attention mutely, and to respond only with children for the estate. Even the most powerful woman of our time, the beautiful Queen Vashti, was powerless. That was my future as a girl and I dared not lift my eyes above its horizon. That is how I enter this story. But give me your hand and let us walk back now, past the crumbling walls of history, to this world forgotten but a time yet remembered. Let me tell you the story of a girl unspared, plunged into heartache and chaos, who would save a nation. My name is Esther, and I will be queen.

1 Out of respect for God, Jews write the name of God without the vowels, believing that the name of God is too holy to be written out completely by a human. God is referred to as either “G-d” or “YHVH.”

2 The name Esther is related to the Persian name of Ishtar, a pagan goddess of the stars.

3 Esther refers to the king by his Persian name. In the Hebrew texts of antiquity, he is also referred to as Ahasuerus.


1

Eleventh Day of Shevat

Third Year of the Reign of Xerxes

Year 3394 after Creation


Was it today that I became fully awake, or have I only now begun to dream? Today Cyrus saw me in the marketplace haggling gently with my favorite shopkeeper, Shethana, over the price of a fleece. Shethana makes the loveliest rugs—I think they are even more lovely than the ones imported from the East—and her husband is known for his skill in crafting metals of all kinds. When I turned fifteen last year, he fashioned for me a necklace with several links in the center, painted various shades of blue. He says it is an art practiced in Egypt, this inlaying of colors into metal shapes. I feel so exotic with it on and wear it almost daily. I know it is as close to adventure as Mordecai will ever allow.

But as Shethana and I haggled over the fleece, both of us smiling because she knew I would as soon give it to her, Cyrus walked by eating a flatbread he had purchased from another vendor. He grimaced when he took a bite—I think he might have gotten a very strong taste of shallot—and I laughed. He laughed back, wiping his eyes with his jacket and fanning his mouth, and then, oh then, his gaze held my eyes for a moment. Everything in my body seemed to come alive suddenly and I felt afraid, for my legs couldn’t stand as straight and steady and I couldn’t get my mouth to work. Shethana noticed right away and didn’t conceal her grin as she glanced between Cyrus and me. I should have doubled the price of her fleece right then!

Cyrus turned to walk away, and I tried to focus again on my transaction. I could not meet Shethana’s eyes now—I didn’t want to be questioned about men and marriage, for everyone knows I have no dowry. To dream of winning Cyrus would be as foolish as to run my own heart straight through. I cannot dream, for it will surely crush me. And yet I can’t stop this warm flood that sweeps over me when he is near.

I haven’t told you the best part—when Shethana bought her fleece and left, I allowed myself to close my eyes for a moment in the heat of the day, and when I opened them again, there was a little stack of flatbread in my booth. I looked in every direction but could see no one. Taking a bite, I had to spit it out and started laughing. Cyrus was right—the vendor used many bitter shallots. The flatbread was a disaster.

©2010 Cook Communications Ministries. Chosen by Ginger Garrett. Used with permission. May not be further reproduced. All rights reserved.

Tome Travelers: Second Thrift Store Bargains This Week!

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Richard Mayhew is a plain man with a good heart--and an ordinary life that is changed forever on a day he stops to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London sidewalk. From that moment forward he is propelled into a world he never dreamed existed--a dark subculture flourishing in abandoned subway stations and sewer tunnels below the city--a world far stranger and more dangerous than the only one he has ever known. . .(back cover)





Don't Tell by Karen Rose

DON'T LOOK



It was a desperate plan. But Mary Grace Winters knew the only way to save herself and her child from her abusive cop husband was to stage their own death. Now all that remains of their former life is at the bottom of a lake. . .



DON'T TRUST



Armed with a new identity in a new town, she and her son have found refuge hundreds of miles away. As Caroline Stewart, she has almost forgotten the nightmare she left behind nine years ago. She is even taking a chance on love with Max Hunter, a man with wounds of his own. But her past is about to collide with the present when her husband uncovers her trail and threatens her hard-won peace. Step by step, he's closing in on her--and everything and everyone she loves. (back cover)




Beneath a Marble Sky by John Shors

Journey to dazzling seventeenth-century Hindustan, where the reigning emperor, consumed with grief over the tragic death of his beloved wife, commissioned the building of a grand mausoleum as a testament to the marvel of their love. This monument would soon become known as the Taj Mahal--a sight famous around the world for its beauty and the emotions it symbolizes.



Princess Jahanara, the courageous daughter of the emperor and his wife, tells their mesmerizing tale, while sharing her own parallel story of forbidden love with the celebrated architect of the Taj Mahal. Set during a time of unimaginable wealth and power, murderous sibling rivalries, and cruel despotism, this impressive novel sweeps you away to a historical Hindustan brimming with action and intrigue in an era when, alongside the brutalities of war and oppression, architecture and the art of love and passion reached a pinnacle of perfection. (back cover)



Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead
(Book 1 in the Vampire Academy series)

ONLY A TRUE BEST FRIEND CAN PROTECT YOU FROM YOUR IMMORTAL ENEMIES. . .



Lissa Dragomir is a Moroi princess: a mortal vampire with an unbreakable bond to the earth's magic. She must be protected at all times from Strigoi; the fiercest and most dangerous vampires -- the ones who never die.



The powerful blend of human and vampire blood that flows through Rose Hathaway, Lissa's best friend, makes her a Dhampir. Rose is dedicated to a dangerous life of protecting Lissa from the Strigoi, who are hell-bent on making her one of them.



After two years of illicit freedom, Rose and Lissa are caught and dragged back to St. Vladimir's Academy, hidden in the deep forests of Montana. Rose will continue her Dhampir education. Lissa will go back to being Queen of the elite Moroi social scene. And both girls will resume breaking Academy hearts.



Fear made Lissa and Rose run away from St. Vladimir's -- inside the Academy's iron gates, their world is even more frought with danger. Here, the cutthroat ranks of the Moroi perform unspeakable rituals, and their secretive nature and love of the night creates an enigmatic world full of social complexities. Rose and Lissa must navigate through this dangerous world, confront the temptation of forbidden romance, and never once let their guard down, lest the Strigoi make Lissa one of them forever. . .(back cover)



Other books in the series are: Frostbite, Shadow Kiss, Blood Promise, and Spirit Bound.


Chosen by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast
(Book 3, House of Night series)

BLOODLUST AND DARK FORCES ARE AT WORK AT THE HOUSE OF NIGHT, and fledgling vampyre Zoey Redbird's adventures at the school take a mysterious turn. Those who appear to be friends are turning out to be enemies. And, oddly enough, sworn enemies are also turning into friends. So begins the gripping third installment of this "highly addictive series" (Romantic Times BOOKreviews), in which Zoey's mettle will be tested like never before. Her best friend, Stevie Rae, is undead and struggling to maintain a grip on her humanity. Zoey doesn't have a clue how to help her, but she does know that anything she and Stevie Rae discover must be kept secret from everyone else at the House of Night, where trust has become a rare commodity. Speaking of rare, Zoey finds herself in the very rare position of having three boyfriends, a situation with the potential to spell social disaster. Then vampyres start turning up dead. Really dead. But as Zoey and her friends find out, things are not always what they seem. (back cover)

Other books in this series are: Marked, Betrayed, (Chosen), Untamed, Hunted, Tempted, Burned.