Happy September!

"The breezes taste
Of apple peel.
The air is full
Of smells to feel-
Ripe fruit, old footballs,
Burning brush,
New books, erasers,
Chalk, and such.
The bee, his hive,
Well-honeyed hum,
And Mother cuts
Chrysanthemums.
Like plates washed clean
With suds, the days
Are polished with
A morning haze."
- John Updike, September

Hello - this will be my last live post for this week. I am off to the ANG (American Needlepoint Guild) Seminar in Milwaukee until Friday night. Then Saturday morning I am taking a day trip with my husband SOOO if I am lucky I will be able to catch up with emails on Sunday and start posting again next week! The rest of the posts for this week are set up and ready to go - there will be a few giveaways starting too so watch out for those!

But let's get caught up on some winners!

The Lost Dog Winners:

1. jrs0020
2. pam (already won) so then I tried Sue (already won) so the next draw was DarcyO (already won) I was feeling very sorry for this lost dog but it finally found a home with Debbie!
3. Beth (already won) so this one went to Sunnyview
4. BelindaM
5. catss99

The Husband Project:

1. Bingo

The Hope of Refuge:

1. wheresmyrain

The Blue Star:

1. Katrina
2. Marjorie (already won) so then fredamans
3. ChristyJan
4. Cindy
5. bermudaonion

I have also had 2 audiobooks end but will not be drawing the winners of those until next week - along with the other 3 giveaways that will end before I am home! Have a great week everyone!

Giveaway time! - The Blue Star by Tony Earley

Thank you Valerie and Hachette Books for allowing me to giveaway 5 copies of The Blue Star by Tony Earley!

About the book: Seven years ago, readers everywhere fell in love with Jim Glass, the precocious ten-year-old at the heart of Tony Earley's bestseller Jim the Boy. Now a teenager, Jim returns in another tender and wise story of young love on the eve of World War Two.

Jim Glass has fallen in love, as only a teenage boy can fall in love, with his classmate Chrissie Steppe. Unfortunately, Chrissie is Bucky Bucklaw's girlfriend, and Bucky has joined the Navy on the eve of war. Jim vows to win Chrissie's heart in his absence, but the war makes high school less than a safe haven, and gives a young man's emotions a grown man's gravity.

With the uncanny insight into the well-intentioned heart that made Jim the Boy a favorite novel for thousands of readers, Tony Earley has fashioned another nuanced and unforgettable portrait of America in another time--making it again even realer than our own day. (Hachette)

About the author: Tony Earley is the author of four books: Here We Are in Paradise, a collection of stories; the novel Jim the Boy; the personal essay collection Somehow Form a Family; and The Blue Star, a novel released in Spring, 2008. A winner of a National Magazine Award for fiction, he was named one of the twenty best writers of his generation by both Granta, in 1996, and The New Yorker in 1999. His fiction and/or nonfiction have appeared in Harper's, Esquire, The New Yorker, The Oxford American, The New York Times Book Review, Tin House, Best American Short Stories, New Stories from the South and many other magazines and anthologies.

He is a native of western North Carolina and a graduate of Warren Wilson College and The University of Alabama. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife and daughter, where he is the Samuel Milton Fleming Associate Professor of English at Vanderbilt University. (Hachette)

Still not convinced? Read a chapter of The Blue Star.

Rules for the giveaway:

1. Five copies to giveaway.
   
2. Open only to U.S. and Canada.
   
3. No PO Boxes
4. All entries in one comment if possible (I understand that if you are posting to a blog, etc at a later date you will need an additional comment. . .)
5. +1 Must leave email address in comment.
6. +2 if you are a new or old follower - but please let me know.
7. +3 if you post this on any social network - (limit of 6 entries for this one - so you can post it as many places as you would like, but only 2 will count).
8. +3 for referrals of NEW followers - if you already follow, you will not get entries for saying someone referred you - you can however get entries for referring new people...
9. Giveaway ends on Aug 26th.

If you can come up with an original way to get entries - let me know - would love to change it up a bit!

The Blue Star
Publisher/Publication Date: Back Bay Books, Aug 2009 (reprint)
ISBN: 9780316008051
336 pages