Wonderful Win: The End of the Alphabet

The End of the Alphabet by CS Richardson

Publisher: Broadway Books

This is book 3 of the 6 books won from Kim at Page after Page.

About the book: Ambrose Zephyr is a contented man. He shares a book laden Victorian house with his loving wife, Zipper. He owns two suits, one of which he was married in. He is a courageous eater, save brussels sprouts. His knowledge of wine is vague and best defined as Napa, good; Australian, better; French, better still. Kir royale is his drink of occasion. For an Englishman he makes a poor cup of tea. He believes women are quantifiably wiser than men, and would never give Zipper the slightest reason to mistrust him or question his love. Zipper simply describes Ambrose as the only man she has ever loved. Without adjustment.

Then, just as he is turning fifty, Ambrose is told by his doctor that he has one month to live. Reeling from the news, he and Zipper embark on a whirlwind expedition to the places he has most loved or has always longed to visit, from A to Z. Amsterdam to Zanzibar. As they travel to Italian piazzas, Turkish baths, and other romantic destinations, all beautifully evoked by the author. Zipper struggles to deal with the grand unfairness of their circumstances as she buoys Ambrose with her gentle affection and humor. Meanwhile, Ambrose reflects on his life, one well lived, and comes to understand that death, like life, will be made bearable by the strength and grace of their devotion.

Richardson's lovely prose comes alive with an honesty and intensity that will leave you breathless and inspired by the simple beauty and power of love. The End of the Alphabet is a timeless, resonant exploration of the nature of love, loss, and life. (from the book jacket)

About the author: CS Richardson has worked in publishing for more than twenty years. He has received the Alcuin Award (Canada's highest honor for excellence in book design) several times, and lectures frequently on various facets of publishing, design, and communication. He lives in Toronto, Canada. (from the book jacket)

The End of the Alphabet
Publisher/Publication Date: Broadway Books, September 2008
ISBN: 978-0-7679-2763-5
128 pages

Wonderful Win: The Birth House

The Birth House by Ami McKay

Publisher: Harper Perennial

This is book 2 from the 6 book win from Page after Page.

About the book: An Arresting portrait of the struggles that women faced for control of their own bodies, The Birth House is the story of Dora Rare - the first daughter in five generations of Rares.

As apprentice to the outspoken Acadian midwife Miss Babineau, Dora learns to assist the women of an isolated Nova Scotian village through infertility, difficult labors, breech births, unwanted pregnancies, and unfulfilling sex lives. During the turbulent World War I era, uncertainty and upheaval accompany the arrival of a brash new medical doctor and his promises of progress and fast, painless childbirth. In a clash between tradition and science, Dora finds herself fighting to protect the rights of women as well as the wisdom that has been put into her care.

About the author: Ami McKay's work has aired on various Canadian radio programs. Her documentary, Daughter of Family G, won an Excellence in Journalism Medallion at the 2003 Atlantic Journalism Awards. Originally from Indiana, she now lives with her family in a former birth house in Scots Bay, Nova Scotia.

The Birth House
Publisher/Publication Date: Harper Perennial, October 2007
ISBN: 978-0-06-113587-3
416 pages

Wonderful Win: The Wednesday Letters

The Wednesday Letters by Jason F. Wright

Publisher: Penguin Group

I picked up six - yes six books! in a win from Kim over at Page after Page. She was having a "cleaning off her shelves" giveaway - and even though I was the second winner I still got six great books. Thanks Kim!!!

About the book: Their story began with one letter on their wedding night.

I made a promise today at the church and I'm making another promise tonight. I'm going to write to you every week. . .Laurel, I will always stand by you. No matter what. . .

It ended almost forty years later, when Jack and Laurel Cooper died in each other's arms. But before he took his last breath, Jack wrote his wife one final "Wednesday letter."

When the Cooper children return home, they discover the thousands of letters left behind. As they read them, clues to a shattering family secret emerge - and they are brought face-to-face with a life-changing moment of truth. (from the back cover)

About the author: New York Times bestselling author Jason F. Wright is a consultant whose articles on vastly varied topics have appeared in nationwide publications. He is the founder and managing editor of a widely-read political website.

The Wednesday Letters
Publisher/Publication Date: Penguin, August 2008
ISBN: 978-0-425-22347-5
288 pages

Wonderful Win: Precious by Sandra Novack

Precious by Sandra Novack

Publisher: Random House

I won this book from Anna at Diary of an Eccentric - and it is autographed to me from the author~ Very cool! Anna's was one of the first blogs that I started following about 9 months ago when I started blogging - and it is still one of my favorites!

About the book: The summer of 1978, ten-year-old Vicki Anderson rides her bike to the local park and goes missing. Her tight-knit blue-collar Pennsylvania neighborhood, where children roam the streets at night playing lightning tag, above ground pools sparkle in backyards, and flowers scent the air, will never be the same.

Down the street from Vicki's house, another family is in crisis. Troubled by her past, headstrong Natalia Kisch has abandoned her husband and two daughters for another man. Frank Kisch, grappling with his anger, is left to raise their girls alone, oblivious to his daughters' struggles with both disappearances: Eva, seventeen, plunges into an affair with her married high school teacher, and nine-year-old Sissy escapes to a world of imagination and storytelling that becomes so magical it pierces the reality of the everyday.

When Natalia unexpectedly returns, the struggles and tensions that have built over the summer erupt into a series of events that change the Kisches irrevocably - forcing them to piece together their complicated pasts and commitments to one another.

In this haunting, atmospheric debut, Sandra Novack examines loss, loyalty, and a family in crisis. Lyrical and elegiac, Precious illuminates our attempts to make sense of the volatility that surrounds and consumes us, and explores our ability, even during the most trying times, to remember and hold on to those we love most. (from the book jacket)

About the author: Sandra Novack's fiction has appeared in The Iowa Review, The Gettysburg Review, Gulf Coast and Mississippi Review, among other publications. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize three times, and holds an MFA from Vermont College. Novack currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia, With her husband, Phil, and many animals.

Precious
Publisher/Publication Date: Random House, February 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6680-3
288 pages

Wonderful Win: Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos

Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos

Publisher: Harper Collins

I won this book from Mari at Bookworm with a View. You can always find great reviews and giveaways over at this blog!

About the book: Cornelia Brown surprised herself when she was gripped by the sudden, inescapable desire to move to the suburbs with her husband. Her mettle is quickly tested by her impeccably dressed, overly judgmental neighbor Piper Truitt - the embodiment of everything Cornelia feared she'd find in suburbia. With Lake, another recent arrival, Cornelia shares a love of literature and old movies - as she forms an instant bond with this warm yet elusive woman and her perceptive, brilliant young son Dev.

Acclaimed bestselling author Marisa de los Santos's literary talents shine in the complex interactions she creates between three unforgettable women, deftly entangling her characters in a web of trust, betrayal, love, and loss that challenges them in ways they never imagined. (from the back cover)

About the author: The bestselling author of Love Walked In, Marisa de los Santos is an award winning poet with a Ph.D. in literature and creative writing. She lives in Wilmington, Delaware, with her husband and children. (from the back cover)

Belong to Me
Publisher/Publication Date: Harper Collins, April 2008
ISBN: 978-0-06-14028-7
400 pages

Wonderful Win: A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal

A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy by Thomas Buergenthal

Publisher: Little, Brown & Company/Hachette

I won this book from Bingo at Booking with Bingo. Bingo always has great giveaways going on and her blog just seems full of energy!

About the book: Thomas Buergenthal, now a judge at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, was not quite six years old when he and his parents were forced into a Jewish ghetto in Poland. For the next four years they struggled there and in two labor camps, until they were placed on a train bound for Auschwitz. Separated first from his mother and then from his father, ten-year-old Thomas managed by his wits and some remarkable strokes of luck to survive Auschwitz and the infamous death march. Eventually liberated from Sachsenhausen, Thomas found himself the unlikely mascot of a Polish Army regiment, witnessed the fall of Berlin, and spent a year in an orphanage. Miraculously, he was reunited with his mother almost three years after last seeing her at Auschwitz, and in 1951 he emigrated to the United States to start a new life.

Poignant and inspiring, A Lucky Child demonstrates the sheer force of will and determination that even the youngest victims of the Holocaust evinced. Buergenthal writes his story with a simple clarity that highlights the stark details of unimaginable hardship as well as the small wonders of childhood. From teaching himself to ride a bike belonging to an SS officer, to sneaking a heavenly sip of milk, to delighting in the pony given to him by his army comrades, he demonstrates that beauty is present even in the face of the greatest adversity. Filled with the stirring and true insights of a child, this book reminds us of the power of grace and the resilience of the human spirit. (from the book jacket)

About the author: Thomas Buergenthal has devoted his life to international and human rights law. He received law degrees from New York University Law School and Harvard Law School and is currently the American judge at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. He has served on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, U.N. Human Rights Committee, U.N. Truth Commission for El Salvador, and President's Commission on the Holocaust, and has also acted as chairman for the Committee on Conscience of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. Co-recipient of the 2008 Gruber Foundation International Justice Prize, he lives in The Hague, Netherlands. (from the book jacket)

A Lucky Child
Publisher/Publication Date: Little, Brown & Company, April 2009
ISBN: 978-0-316-04340-3
256 pages

Wonderful Win: Best Intentions

Best Intentions by Emily Listfield

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

I won this book at Find Your Next Book Here. And if you ever need some ideas for a book to read - this is the blog to check out!

About the book: What happens when you think you know the person you love -- and you're dead wrong?

From the acclaimed author of Waiting to Surface comes the story of four college friends whose reunion reawakens old desires and grudges -- with fatal results.

After tossing and turning all night, thirty-nine-year-old Lisa Barkley wakes up well before her alarm sounds. With two daughters about to start another year at their elite Upper East Side private school and her own career hitting a wall, the effort of trying to stay afloat in that privileged world of six-story town houses and European jaunts has become increasingly difficult, especially as Manhattan descends into an economic free fall.

As Lisa looks over at her sleeping husband, Sam, she can't help but feel that their fifteen-year marriage is in a funk that she isn't able to place. She tries to shake it off and tells herself that the strain must be due to their mounting financial pressures. But later that morning, as her family eats breakfast in the next room, Lisa finds herself checking Sam's voicemail and hears a whispered phone call from a woman he is to meet that night. Is he having an affair?

When Lisa shares her suspicions with her best friend, Deirdre, at their weekly breakfast, Deirdre claims it can't be true. But how can Lisa fully trust her opinion when Deirdre is still single and mired in an obsessive affair with a glamorous photographer even as it hovers on the edge of danger?

When Deirdre's former college flame, Jack, comes to town and the two couples meet to celebrate his fortieth birthday, the stage is set for an explosive series of discoveries with devastating consequences.Filled with suspense and provocative questions about the relationships we value most, Best Intentions is a tightly woven drama of love, friendship and betrayal. (from Barnes and Noble website)

About the author: Emily Listfield is a former magazine editor in chief and author of five novels, including the New York Times Notable It Was Gonna Be Like Paris and Waiting to Surface. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Harper's Bazaar, Redbook, Self, Ladies' Home Journal, New York magazine, Parade, and many other publications. She lives in New York City with her daughter.

Best Intentions
Publisher/Publication Date: Simon & Schuster, May 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4165-7671-6
352 pages

Wonderful Win: The Brass Verdict audio book

The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly (read by Peter Giles)

Publisher: Hachette Audio

I won this audio book over at J.Kaye's book blog. J.Kaye had a wonderful blog - full of great reviews, giveaways, challenges and all kinds of book information. This blog has been a "must read" blog for me since I started blogging myself.

About the book: Things are finally looking up for defense attorney Mickey Haller. After two years of wrong turns, Haller is back in the courtroom. When Hollywood lawyer Jerry Vincent is murdered, Haller inherits his biggest case yet: the defense of Walter Elliott, a prominent studio executive accused of murdering his wife and her lover. But as Haller prepares for the case that could launch him into the big time, he learns that Vincent's killer may be coming for him next.

Enter Harry Bosch. Determined to find Vincent's killer, he is not opposed to using Haller as bait. But as danger mounts and the stakes rise, these two loners realize their only choice is to work together.

Bringing together Michael Connelly's two most popular characters, The Brass Verdictis sure to be his biggest book yet. (from Barnes and Noble website)

About the author: A former Los Angeles Times crime reporter, Michael Connelly's familiarity with the seamy side of L.A. adds a steamy kind of street cred to his hardboiled, gritty detective novels -- especially his bestselling series of mysteries featuring dark detective Hieronymous Harry Bosch.

The Brass Verdict audio book
Publisher/Publication Date: Hachette Audio, October 2008
ISBN: 9781600244018
5 CD's - 11.5 hours

Wonderful Win: Obama's Blackberry

Obama's Blackberry by Kasper Hauser

Publisher: Little, Brown & Company/Hachette

I won this book at Bella's Novella! Bella's Novella is hosted by Holly and Ashley - and not only are they friends, they are also sister-in-laws. They have many diverse reviews, blog tours, giveaways, you-name-it. Give them a visit and tell them I sent you!

About the book: When Obama stated that if elected, he would keep his Blackberry, debate echoed through Washington and among the ranks of the Secret Service. What would it be like to have a president who could Twitter, send text messages, and navigate the web with ease? What would it be like to receive a text message from inside the Oval Office and, most importantly, what would it say?

Now, for the first time, We The People are privy to our new leader's epistolary back-and-forths on his wily hand-held device. We're about to discover that his emails (and the replies, from his wife and daughters, Biden, Palen, Rush, Hannity, the new first puppy, and even Bush) are so tuned in to the language of electronic correspondence they come hilariously close to the brink of legibility.

This giftable, imagined glimpse into Obama's beloved Blackberry traverses the mundane and momentous contours of the Commander in Chief's life, from security briefings to spam, basketball practice to domestic bliss, and the panic of oops-I-hit-reply-all, to, of course, the trauma of dealing with the First Mother In Law.

To wit:

BidenMyTime: Hey U, whatcha doin?
BARACKO: M rly busy
BidenMyTime: Right :( Can I lv at 4:45?
(from Barnes and Noble website)

About the author: Kasper Hauser is a San Francisco-based comedy group. They are the authors of Weddings of the Times, a parody of the New York Times wedding pages, and SkyMaul, which the San Francisco Chronicle called "wicked funny," and Salon.com called "the perfect sendup." The Kasper Hauser Comedy Podcast has been called "brilliant" by New York magazine and "wonderfully realized" by The Times of London. The group's members have written for HBO and appeared on "Comedy Central" and "This American Life." (from Barnes and Noble)

Obama's Blackberry
Publisher/Publication Date: Little, Brown & Company, June 2009
ISBN: 978-0-316-07435-3
137 pages

Wonderful Win: Strange Angels

Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow

Publisher: Penguin

I won this from Crystal over at My Reading Room. I really enjoy reading Crystal's reviews - and she reviews a lot of books and a great variety! If you haven't visited her blog, you should go today!

About the book: Dru Anderson has what her grandmother called "the touch." (Comes in handy when you're traveling from town to town with your dad, hunting ghosts, suckers, wulfen, and the occasional zombie.)

Then her dad turns up dead—but still walking—and Dru knows she's next. Even worse, she's got two guys hungry for her affections, and they're not about to let the fiercely independent Dru go it alone. Will Dru discover just how special she really is before coming face-to-fang with whatever—or whoever— is hunting her? (from Barnes and Noble website)

About the author: Lili St. Crow is the author of the Dante Valentine series. She lives in Vancouver, Washington, with her husband, three children, and a houseful of cats. Strange Angels is her first YA novel.

Strange Angels
Publisher/Publication Date: Penguin, May 2009
ISBN:9781595142511
304 pages

Wonderful Win: Dad, Dog, & Fish

Dad, Dog & Fish by Charles F. Emery III

Publisher: Bunkiedog Press

I won this book from Jennie at A Bookish Mom!

About the book: "Dad, Dog and Fish" is a memoir about my life with my Dad and Bunkie, my yellow Labrador Retriever wonder dog. The story begins in 1960's Southern California and ends in a 1723 stone farmhouse in South East Pennsylvania, deep in Amish country. This memoir is the story of the life of a simple man that loved family, life, humor and animals (especially dogs). This memoir is a humorous recount of that life that confronts serious issues as well as philosphical outlooks.

Dad, Dog, & Fish
Publisher/Publication Date: Bunkiedog Press, Feb 2009
ISBN: 978-0-615-27957-2
308 pages

Wonderful Win: All We Ever Wanted Was Everything

All We Ever Wanted Was Everything by Janelle Brown

Publisher: Spiegel & Grau/Random House

I won this book at Bookworm With a View. It is for her Summer Reading Series and we will be discussing it on July 14th. This will be my first time taking part in a discussion like this and I am really looking forward to it. You should go check out her blog as she has lots of neat stuff going on!

About the book: When Paul Miller’s pharmaceutical company goes public, making his family IPO millionaires, his wife, Janice, is sure this is the windfall she’s been waiting for—until she learns that her husband is leaving her and has cut her out of the new fortune. Meanwhile, 400 miles south in Los Angeles, the Millers’ daughter, Margaret, has been dumped by her actor boyfriend and left in the lurch by an investor who promised to revive her irreverent postfeminist magazine, Snatch. Sliding toward bankruptcy and dogged by creditors, she flees for home, where her confused and lonesome teenage sister, Lizzie, is struggling with problems of her own: She’s become the school slut.

Holed up in their Georgian colonial bunker, the Miller women wage battle with divorce lawyers, debt collectors, drug-dealing pool boys, country club ladies, evangelical neighbors, and nasty social climbers—and in the process all illusions and artifice fall away and they must reckon with something far scarier and more consequential: their true selves.

About the author: Janelle Brown is a freelance journalist who writes for the New York Times, Vogue, Wired, Elle, and Self, among other publications, and was formerly a senior writer for Salon. She lives with her husband in Los Angeles. This is her first novel.

All We Ever Wanted Was Everything
Publisher/Publication Date: Spiegel & Grau, May 2009
ISBN: 978-0-385-52402-5
448 pages

Wonderful Win: Willing Spirits

Willing Spirits by Phyllis Schieber

Publisher: Penguin

I won this book from Jenn at Jenn's Bookshelf. She was lucky enough to get to go to the BEA and has some great updates posted about the trip!

About the book: Both teachers in their forties, Jane Hoffman and Gwen Baker have a friendship that has helped them endure. It was Jane who looked after Gwen when her husband left her with two young sons to raise. And when Jane comes home one day unexpectedly and finds her husband in a shameless act of betrayal, she turns to Gwen for support.

Now, tested by additional personal crises, Jane and Gwen face new challenges as mothers, as daughters, as women. And in the process, they will learn unexpected truths about their friendship and themselves.

About the author: The first great irony of Phyllis Schieber’s life was that she was born in a Catholic hospital. Her parents, survivors of the Holocaust, had settled in the South Bronx among other new immigrants. The new mother was apparently so nervous she barely slept the entire time she was in the hospital, fearing her fair-skinned, blue-eyed newborn would be switched with another baby.

When Phyllis’s paternal grandfather, an observant Jew, came to see his newest granddaughter in the hospital, he was so uncertain of how to behave around the kindly nuns that he tipped his yarmulke to them each time one passed. It was in this haze of paranoia and neuroses, as well as black humor, that the makings of a writer were launched.

In the mid-Fifties, the Schieber family moved to Washington Heights, an Upper West Side enclave for German Jews, known as “Frankfurt-on-the-Hudson.” The area offered scenic views of the Hudson River and the Palisades, as well as access to Fort Tryon Park and to the cool and serene corridors of the Cloisters. Phyllis graduated from George Washington High School. Among its famous graduates was Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State (her grandmother played cards with his mother at the YMWHA on Nagle Avenue). By the Sixties, it was also the school where an undercover reporter was sent in to see how long it would take to buy drugs. The reporter succeeded the first day.

Phyllis graduated from high school at sixteen, went on to Bronx Community College, transferred to and graduated from Herbert H. Lehman College with a B.A. in English and a New York State license to teach English. She earned her M.A. in Literature from New York University and later her M.S. as a developmental specialist from Yeshiva University. She has worked as a high school English teacher and a special education teacher. She taught freshman composition at Iona College in New Rochelle and was a learning disabilities specialist at Seton College in Yonkers and Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry.

Reading was always easy for her, both as an indulgence and as an escape. “I’m reading,” was an excuse her parents never challenged. Learning was paramount in their home. There were weekly trips to the library, and the greatly anticipated Friday afternoon story hour. Everything about words was at once mysterious and reasonable to Phyllis. She could make sense of the world if she put it on paper. She could even make the world better; people could become smarter and more attractive, and she could make them laugh and cry at her will. Writing was powerful. She thought in stories, answered questions in her head and added, “she said” at the end of the sentence. She still does.

Her first novel, Strictly Personal, for young adults, was published by Fawcett-Juniper. Willing Spirits was published by William Morrow. Her most recent novel, The Sinner’s Guide to Confession, will be published by Berkley Putnam on July 1, 2008. Shortly thereafter, Berkley Putnam will issue the first paperback publication of Willing Spirits.

Married and a mother, Phyllis Schieber lives in Hastings-on Hudson, New York. She works privately with students, teaching writing, and is currently working on a new novel. (author's information is from her website)

Willing Spirits
Publisher/Publication Date: Penguin, March 2009
ISBN-13: 978-0-425-22585-1
292 pages

Wonderful Win: One Deadly Sin

One Deadly Sin by Annie Solomon

Publisher: Hachette Book Group

I won this book over at So Many Books, So Little Time. This is a great blog with some really good reviews - she is very thorough! I love the background of her blog, also. If you haven't visited her blog, give her a little peek today.

After I had already won it - I was then offered the opportunity to host a giveaway - so I currently have a giveaway going for One Deadly Sin.

About the book: COMING HOME IS MURDER...

Revenge. Edie Swann has hungered for it since she fled her hometown as a little girl. Now she's returned, ready for payback. Armed with a list of names, she leaves each one a chilling sign that they have blood on their hands. Her father's blood. What happens next turns her own blood cold: one by one, the men she's targeted start dying.

Sheriff Holt Drennen knows Edie is hiding something. She has a haunted look in her eyes and a defiant spirit, yet he can't believe she's a murderer. As the body count rises and all evidence points to Edie, Holt is torn between the town he's sworn to protect and the woman he's come to desire. But nothing is what it seems. Long buried secrets begin to surface, and a killer won't be satisfied until the sins of the past are paid in full--this time with Edie's blood. (from Barnes and Noble)

About the author: A native New Yorker, RITA-winning author Annie Solomon has been dreaming up stories since she was ten. After a twelve-year career in advertising, where she rose to Vice President and Head Writer at a mid-size agency, she abandoned the air conditioners, furnaces, and heat pumps of her professional life for her first love--romance. An avid knitter and mother of a daughter attending college, she now lives in Nashville with her husband.

One Deadly Sin
Publisher/Publication Date: Hachette Books, May 2009
ISBN-13: 978-0-446-17844-0
416 pages

Wonderful Win: Austenland by Shannon Hale

Austenland by Shannon Hale

Publisher: Bloomsbury

I won this book and a beautiful bookmark over at Mari Reads. She had a"show us your bookmarks contest" - and as I am a firm believer that - like books, you can never have too many bookmarks, I entered the contest! She also likes to knit and as I am a lover of anything that involves needles and thread/yarn I enjoy visiting her blog. Go check her out!

About the book: Jane Hayes is a seemingly normal young New Yorker, but she has a secret. Her obsession with Mr. Darcy, as played by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, is ruining her life. No real man can compare.

When a wealthy relative bequeaths her a trip to an English resort catering to Austen-crazed women, Jane's fantasies of meeting the perfect Regency-era gentleman suddenly become realer than she ever could have imagined. Decked out in empire-waist gowns, stripped of her modern appliances, Jane throws herself into mastering Regency etiquette and flirts with gardeners and gentlemen - or maybe even, she suspects, with the actors who are playing them.

It's all a game, Jane knows. And yet the longer she stays, the more her insecurities seem to vanish. Is she about to kick the Austen obsession for good, or could all her dreams actually culminate in a Mr. Darcy of her own?

With humor, charm, and perfect sympathy, award-winning author Shannon Hale delivers a novel that will delight every reader who has ever dreamed of escaping into Austenland. (from the book jacket)

About the author: Shannon Hale is the award-winning author of the young adult novels The Goose Girl, Enna Burning, River Secrets, and Princess Academy, a New York Times bestseller and a Newbery Honor Medalist. She is an avid Austen fan and admirer of men in breeches. She lives with her husband and two small children in Salt Lake City, Utah. (from book jacket)

Austenland
Publisher/Publication Date: Bloomsbury/May 2007
ISBN-10: 1-59691-285-5
ISBN-13: 978-1-59691-285-4
194 pages

Wonderful Win: Testimony

Testimony by Anita Shreve

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company/Hachette Books

I won this book from Teddy Rose at So Many Precious Books, So Little Time. This was one of the first blogs that I started following last year - It is a great blog with a large variety of books and information about books - If you are unfamiliar with her, you should go take a look!

About the book: Enter a world upended by the repercussions of a single impulsive action. At an exclusive New England boarding school, a sex scandal unleashes a storm of shame and recrimination. The men, women, and teenagers affected - among them the headmaster, struggling to contain the scandal before it destroys the school; a well-liked scholarship student and star basketball player, grappling with the consequences of his mistakes; his mother, confronting her own forbidden temptations; and a troubled teenage girl eager to put the past behind her - speak out to relate the events of one fateful night and its aftermath.

Writing with a pace and intensity surpassing even her greatest work, Anita Shreve explores the impulses that drive ordinary people into intolerable dilemmas.

About the author: For many readers, the appeal of Anita Shreve’s novels is their ability to combine all of the escapist elements of a good beach read with the kind of thoughtful complexity not generally associated with romantic fiction. Shreve’s books are loaded with enough adultery, eroticism, and passion to make anyone keep flipping the pages, but the writer whom People magazine once dubbed a “master storyteller” is also concerned with the complexities of her characters’ motivations, relationships, and lives.

Shreve’s novels draw on her diverse experiences as a teacher and journalist: she began writing fiction while teaching high school, and was awarded an O. Henry Prize in 1975 for her story, “Past the Island, Drifting.” She then spent several years working as a journalist in Africa, and later returned to the States to raise her children. In the 1980s, she wrote about women’s issues, which resulted in two nonfiction books -- Remaking Motherhood and Women Together, Women Alone -- before breaking into mainstream fiction with Eden Close in 1989.

This interest in women’s lives -- their struggles and success, families and friendships -- informs all of Shreve’s fiction. The combination of her journalist’s eye for detail and her literary ear for the telling turn of phrase mean that Shreve can spin a story that is dense, atmospheric, and believable. Shreve incorporates the pull of the sea -- the inexorable tides, the unpredictable surf -- into her characters’ lives the way Willa Cather worked the beauty and wildness of the Midwestern plains into her fiction. In Fortune’s Rocks and The Weight of Water, the sea becomes a character itself, evocative and ultimately consuming. In Sea Glass, Shreve takes the metaphor as far as she can, where characters are tested again and again, only to emerge stronger by surviving the ravages of life.

A domestic sensualist, Shreve makes use of the emblems of household life to a high degree, letting a home tell its stories just as much as its inhabitants do, and even recycling the same house through different books and periods of time, giving it a sort of palimpsest effect, in which old stories burn through the newer ones, creating a historical montage. "A house with any kind of age will have dozens of stories to tell," she says. "I suppose if a novelist could live long enough, one could base an entire oeuvre on the lives that weave in and out of an antique house."

Shreve’s work is sometimes categorized as “women’s fiction,” because of her focus on women’s sensibilities and plights. But her evocative and precise language and imagery take her beyond category fiction, and moderate the vein of sentimentality which threads through her books. Moreover, her kaleidoscopic view of history, her iron grip on the details and detritus of 19th-century life (which she sometimes intersperses with a 20th-century story), and her uncanny ability to replicate 19th-century dialogue without sounding fusty or fussy, make for novels that that are always absorbing and often riveting. If she has a flaw, it is that her imagery is sometimes too cinematic, but one can hardly fault her for that: after all, the call of Hollywood is surely as strong as the call of the sea for a writer as talented as Shreve.(from Barnes and Noble)

Testimony
Publication Date: May 2009
ISBN-13: 9780316067348
352 pages

Wonderful Win: Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith's Death

Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith's Death by Rita Cosby

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing/Hachette

I won this book at Yvette Kelly's Blog - True Crime Book Reviews - which is exactly what you think - If you are looking for a true crime book - you must check this blog out!

About the book:This is a story about deception, secret deals, and a firestorm of trouble.

Anna Nicole Smith was famous for being famous, Americana at its Scarlet Letter-wearing best. A bodacious young girl from Texas, she remade herself into the centerfold of the world. She was a "dumb blonde," a stripper, a Playboy Playmate, a reality TV star, who boldly took her case against her billionaire husband's family all the way to the US Supreme Court. Easy to dismiss, she was nevertheless a complex character - helpless yet brazen, beautiful yet ugly, outwardly confident yet inwardly frightened. Her tragic life and untimely death evoke an odd mix of fascination, shock, and dismay. And through it all, there still exists a voracious thirst to discover more about who she actually was, what motivated her, and especially how she really died.

You probably think you know all there is to know. She lost her son. She accidentally overdosed. She was a drug addict.
You don't know a thing.

In a book that is sure to surprise even the most avid pop culture junkies, Rita Cosby blows the lid off the story of the year. After an in-depth investigation, this is the definitive journalistic account of the Anna Nicole Smith saga - with unearthed secrets and explosive, never-before-told information. (From Barnes and Noble)

About the author: An Emmy-award winning journalist, Rita Cosby hosted the top-rated show on MSNBC, "Rita Cosby: Live & Direct." She also hosted Fox New Channel's highly rated programs, "Fox News Live with Rita Cosby" and "The Big Story Weekend Edition with Rita Cosby." Some of her groundbreaking interviews include: an exclusive interview with Slobodan Milosevic while he was imprisoned at The Hague; an exclusive interview with Yasser Arafat when his compound was under siege; she was the first journalist to see the suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo and witness an actual interrogation; and a rare, private meeting with Pope John Paul II after receiving an exclusive letter from Timothy McVeigh explaining why he carried out the Oklahoma City bombing. Having interviewed more than a dozen world leaders and four US Presidents, she also made headlines for her interviews with Michael Jackson, David Berkowitz and Dr. Jack Kevorkian. She has been a featured guest on hundreds of television and radio shows worldwide and earned her two bachelors' degrees from the University of South Carolina.

Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith's Death
Publication date: September 2007
ISBN-10:0-446-40611-2
ISBN-13:978-0-446-40611-6
256 pages

Wonderful Win: Girls in Trucks

Girls in Trucks by Katie Crouch

Published by Hachette Book Group

I won this book from S. Krishna at S. Krishna's Books. There are still some great giveaways going on over there - and you can always find another good book to read from the reviews!

About the book: Sarah Walters, the narrator of GIRLS IN TRUCKS, is a reluctant Camellia Society debutante. She has always felt ill-fitted to the rococo ways of Southern womanhood and family, and is anxious to shake the bonds of her youth. Still, she follows the traditional path laid out for her. This is Charleston, and in this beautiful, dark, segregated town, established rules and manners mean everything.

But as Sarah grows older, she finds that her Camellia lessons fail her, particularly as she goes to college, moves North, and navigates love and life in New York. There, Sarah and her group of displaced deb sisters try to define themselves within the realities of modern life. Heartbreak, addiction, disappointing jobs and death fail to live up to the hazy, happy future promised to them by their Camellia mothers and sisters.

When some unexpected bumps in the road--an unplanned birth, a family death--lead Sarah back home, she's forced to take another long look at the fading empire of her youth. It takes a strange turn of events to finally ground Sarah enough to make some serious choices. And only then does she realize that as much as she tried to deny it, where she comes from will always affect where she ends up. The motto of her girlhood cotillion society, "Once a Camellia, always a Camellia," may turn out to have more wisdom and pull to it than she ever could have guessed. (from Barnes and Noble)


About the author: Katie Crouch was raised in Charleston, South Carolina, where she attended Cotillion training but was never a debutante. She studied writing at Brown and Columbia universities and now lives in San Francisco. (from book cover)

Girls in Trucks
Publication Date: April 2009
ISBN-13: 978-0-316-00212-7
272 pages

Wonderful Win: What Would Jane Austen Do?

What Would Jane Austen Do? by Laurie Brown

Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca

I won this book from Book Maniac at A Blog of Books. There are some great giveaways going on over there right now - and there are always good reviews - so if you haven't checked out this blog yet, now's the time!

About the Book:

Surely Jane Austen would know how to handle such a rake...

From the author of Hundreds of Years to Reform a Rake, a new time travel romance featuring a modern day career woman swept back in time to Regency England, where she thwarts a Napoleonic spy, chats with Jane Austen, and falls in love with a notorious rake.

Eleanor is a costume designer in England for the Jane Austen festival, where her room at the inn is haunted. In the middle of the night she encounters two ghost sisters whose brother was killed in a duel over 200 years ago. They persuade her to travel back in time with them to prevent the duel. Eleanor is swept into a country house party, presided over by the charming Lord Shermont, where she encounters and befriends Jane Austen. But there's much more to Lord Shermont than the ghosts knew, and as Eleanor dances and flirts with him, she begins to lose her heart. (from the publisher)

About the author: Laurie Brown teaches writing classes at the college level, has presented seminars at conferences all over the country, and has three published romance novels. She has been a Golden Heart finalist twice and has received the Service Award from the Chicago-North Chapter of RWA. She resides in Illinois.

What Would Jane Austen Do?
Publication Date: May 2009
ISBN-13: 9781402218316
For anyone who likes romance/historicals
352 pages

Wonderful Win: Little Pink Books (Peter Pauper Press)

I was the lucky recipient of the above three Little Pink Books from Peter Pauper Press that were being given away over at 5 Minutes for Books! If you haven't been to Peter Pauper Press you really should click over there and check them out! They have a variety of Little Pink Books and Little Black Books as well as stationary, journals, kids stuff, Christmas cards and more. They even have bookmarks! (you can never have too many bookmarks!) My favorite one is below - come on - give it up - you know you all have a book you keep in the bathroom!