Summerland by Elin Hilderbrand (Review and Giveaway)

Title: Summerland
Author: Elin Hilderbrand
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company


About the Book: A perfect summer's night ends in a deadly crash -- and four lives are changed forever.


On a warm June evening, a local tradition continues: the students of Nantucket High gather for a bonfire on the beach.  But the celebration ends in tragedy after a horrible car crash leaves the driver, Penny Alistair, dead, and her twin brother, Hobby, in a coma.  Penny's boyfriend, Jake, and her friend Demeter are unhurt but haunted by the events of that night, and by the questions that linger about what happened in the car -- and in the dunes before Penny took the wheel.


For Zoe, the twins' mother, the unthinkable awaits: life without her daughter, and an agonizing recovery for the son who had been a star athlete with infinite prospects.  Free-spirited Zoe has been as much friend as mother to her children, but now she has to face devastating truths about them, and about her own role in all that happened.


As summer unfolds, Zoe and the other parents ask whether their efforts to protect their children from life's realities have only left them more vulnerable.  The key to understanding the accident lies in what Penny learned that evening on the beach -- but will it also destroy the survivors' fragile peace?




My thoughts: This was only my second Elin Hilderbrand book and I enjoyed it even more than the first one.  Her characters are very human and easy to relate to.  The story is told by revolving around all of those involved - Hobby and his mom,  Zoe; Demeter and her parents, Al and Lynne; Jake and his parents, Jordan and Ava.  Each of their lives is touched by this tragedy and the surviving three kids each spend part of the summer wondering what set Penny off on her crash course that night, and dealing with the guilt because they each think they know what it was. Somehow they all have to learn to start living again.


For Hobby, he first must recover physically and that is a long road.  He is also more worried about his mom's acceptance of Penny's death than his own.  Jake is hauled off to Australia by his parents and while there watches his parents reverse roles.  To him it is just more of the same though and all he wants is to get back home to Nantucket.  Demeter never really felt accepted by any of them and starts to drown her loneliness and guilt more and more in the bottle. Little do they know that their parents have secrets, too.  


I would really recommend you add this book to your summer reading list!  And to help you out with that - please sign up for the giveaway below!  This giveaway is open to U.S./Canada only and will end on July 11 at midnight. 


Summerland
Publisher/Publication Date: Little, Brown and Company, June 26, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-316-09983-7
385 pages




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~I received a complimentary copy of this book from Hachette in exchange for my review.~

So Far Away by Meg Mitchell Moore (Book Review)

Title: So Far Away
Author: Meg Mitchell Moore
Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books (Little, Brown and Company)


About the book: Thirteen-year-old Natalie Gallagher is trying to escape: from her parents' ugly divorce, and from the vicious cyber-bullying of her former best friend. She discovers a dusty old diary in her family's basement and is inspired to unlock its secrets.

Kathleen Lynch, an archivist at the Massachusetts State Archives, has her own painful secrets: she's a widow estranged from her only daughter. Natalie's research brings her to Kathleen, who in Natalie sees traces of the daughter she has lost.

What could the life of an Irish immigrant domestic servant from the 1920s teach them both? In the pages of the diary, they will learn that their fears and frustrations are timeless.

So Far Away is an affecting story of mothers and daughters and how solace can be found in the most unlikely places.

My thoughts:   This book didn't really grab me in the beginning.  I remembered that when I read her debut book, The Arrivals, that I felt the same way about the beginning, but eventually really enjoyed it, so I decided to stick with So Far Away.  I am not sure when the change happened, but I suddenly found that I could not put the book down.  I had to see what happened both in the present and the past.

There was a couple of stories going on here - Kathleen and her "lost" daughter; Neil and Adam and their baby adoption saga; Natalie and her relationship with her parents and friends; and Bridget, the Irish immigrant from the 1920's.  It was almost like the author happened upon this group of people and took a snapshot of a few months of their lives.  

What I mean by this is that it could be your next door neighbor's story, or the lady in the supermarket, or maybe even yours.  You don't get a nice neat ending at the end of the story either, but just the closing of the curtains on their lives.  It is with the understanding that life will go on, with more experiences and changes, and that this was just one moment out of life. 

I don't know which story I found more compelling - Natalie and her efforts to deal (or ignore) the cyber bullying that she found herself to be the center of, or Bridget and her tragic past.  It would be very cool to stumble upon an old diary and realize that you were the keeper of some secrets from the past, and that you might be the only one still alive who knew what those were.  I did like the way that the author was able to tie the two seemingly unrelated storylines together - but you will have to read the book to see how she does that!

I will continue to read books my Meg Mitchell Moore, but I have to remember that she draws me in slowly and not to give up on her books!  This is another book that I would recommend for book clubs - there is a lot of discussion material here about the proper ways to mother, how much influence we have or should have in our children's lives, cyberbullying, and even gay couples wanting to be parents. 

About the author: Meg Mitchell Moore is the author of The Arrivals and the forthcoming So Far Away. She worked for several years as a journalist. Her work has been published in Yankee, Continental, Women’s Health, Advertising Age and many other business and consumer magazines. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and their three children.

You can find her on her website - Meg Mitchell Moore, on Facebook, or on Twitter. 

~I received a complimentary copy of this book from Book Sparks in exchange for my unbiased review.~

So Far Away

Publisher/Publication Date:Reagan Arthur Books, May 2012

ISBN: 978-0-316-09769-7

336 pages

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey - GIVEAWAY!

The Snow Child

by Eowyn Ivey

Homesteaders Jack and Mabel have carved out a quiet life of hard work and routine for themselves in the wilderness that is 1920s Alaska, both still deeply longing for the child it's now impossible for them to have.  Yet their love for each other is strong, and in a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they play together, building a child out of snow.  The next morning the snow child is gone -- but a trail of tiny footsteps remains.  For weeks following, they both catch glimpses of a blond little girl alone in the woods but neither dares mention it to the other, afraid that long-buried hopes have overruled common sense.

Then the little girl, who calls herself Faina, shows up on their doorstep.  Small and fair, she seems truly magical: she hunts with a red fox at her side, she leaves blizzards in her wake, and somehow she manages to survive alone in the harsh Alaskan wilderness.  As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand Faina, they come to love her as their own.  But in this beautiful, violent place, things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform them all.

Eowyn Ivey's enchanting, mesmerizing debut is the story of a couple whose longing for a child is so intense that they may have imagined her into existence.  As dazzling as the snowy Alaskan landscape in which it is set, The Snow Child shines with imaginative power, immersing the reader in a place both faraway and familiar, a tale both universal and brilliantly unique.


A big thanks to Little, Brown and Company for allowing me to giveaway 2 books to 2 of my awesome readers.  You can enter through the rafflecopter form below.  This giveaway is open to US/Canada and will end at midnight on 2/18/2012.

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The Arrivals by Meg Mitchell Moore (Book Review)

Title: The Arrivals
Author: Meg Mitchell Moore
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

About the book: It's the start of summer when Ginny and William Owen's quiet, peaceful life in Burlington, Vermont, comes to an abrupt halt.

First, their eldest daughter, Lillian, shows up, with her two children in tow, to escape her crumbling marriage.  Next, Lillian's  younger brother, Stephen, arrives for the weekend, accompanied by his pregnant wife, Jane, an ambitious and misunderstood Wall Street workaholic -- but their visit is extended indefinitely when Jane is put on mandatory bed rest.

And by the time Rachel, the youngest Owen sibling, appears, fleeing the difficulties of her single life in New York City, the senior Owens are once again consumed by the chaos and stress of their early parenting days -- only this time around, their house is filled with grown-up children and their adult problems.

Meg Mitchell Moore's absorbing debut offers acute observations on the workings of a modern family, the challenges of parenting, and the continual struggles of growing up.  By summer's end, the Owen family will have new ideas about loyalty, responsibility, and how you survive the people you love most.  The old adage "once a parent, always a parent" has never rung so true.

My thoughts:  This is a debut novel for Mrs. Moore and I for one, cannot wait to see what else she has in store.  I enjoyed the interaction this family shared and how they all came home one by one.  While we know why they are there, it is revealed to other members of the family slowly.  All of the children are wrapped up in their own problems, but at the same time they are able to come to realize that supporting their siblings is important as well. 

Ginny and William (parents) take it all in stride.  I cannot believe the amount of patience they showed.  If I am remembering the story correctly, I read this awhile ago, I am not sure that they had any warning that their kids were coming - and they sure weren't expecting them to stay for the summer! Looking back on my own life though, there was a couple of times that I found myself back at my mom's for an extended stay of a month or two and we got along quite well.  I hope that in the future I could extend that hospitality to my own kids (of course, they have to move out first!)

I enjoyed this book, I do remember that - that it was an easy read - one that I looked forward to getting back into.  I think it would be a good book for book clubs as there is lots of discussion material revolving around family relationships, troubles, and how to solve/deal with them.

~I received a complimentary copy of this book from Hachette in exchange for my review.~

About the author: Meg Mitchell Moore worked for several years as a journalist.  Her articles have been published in a wide variety of business and consumer magazines.  She received a master's degree in English literature from New York University.  She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and their three children.  The Arrivals is her first novel.

You can find her at her website.

The Arrivals: A Novel by Meg Mitchell Moore
Publisher/Publication Date: Little, Brown and Company, May 2011
ISBN: 978-0316097710
336 pages