Mary Carter is my guest blogger today! Please give her a big warm welcome!
My Sister’s Voice is my fourth novel with Kensington. The characters grabbed me right away, led me sometimes gently, sometimes bumping-me-into-furniture, into their lives, revealing their secrets, their dreams, and their desires to me as I brought them to life on the page. The book is about sisters, identical twins who are raised apart and only learn of each other’s existence when they are twenty-eight-years-old. One is hearing and the other is Deaf. Unlike many books or movies that portray deafness as a defect, or a handicapped to be pitied or fixed, Lacey is proud to be a Deaf woman, she doesn’t view herself as handicapped, and she doesn’t want to be “fixed”. I’ve worked the past twelve years as a sign language interpreter, so I didn’t need to spend a lot of time researching Deaf Culture, I was in familiar territory. But I didn’t want Lacey to be a stock character of any type, which is why I had to let her show me who she was, apart from her deafness, her talents, her past. Characters are unique, like us, like spools of thread.
I’ve never worked with needlepoint. But I can see the similarities to writing. Attention to details. Concentration. Working section by section. I would assume as you get into it, you ease into a meditative state that relaxes you. Then, as your work progresses and you can see the tiny details start to form a larger image, you are filled with a sense of excitement and satisfaction that drives you to the next project. I am currently working on my fifth novel for Kensington. Each book feels like starting over. Of course you learn things along the way. How to lay out a pattern, or in my case an outline, what spools of thread will you weave this time, the varieties of colors you have at your disposal, the tiny tricks of the trade you need to have on the ready. It’s the same thing whether it’s thimbles or a thesaurus. Passions are what life is all about. Anything worth doing has its own set of challenges. The thread will come out of the needle, you will prick your fingers over and over again, you might even drop your needle into a haystack and waste all day looking for it. Maybe you haven’t even finished your apple in a bowl yet, whereas your neighbor has just completed a life-size needlepoint of the Sistine Chapel. Don’t despair. The key to improving is to pour everything you have into your apple, and measure your progress without comparing yourself to anyone else. At the same time, go ahead and marvel over your neighbor’s creation, rejoice in someone else’s success, and learn something from their technique that will help you with your next project. Sometimes when I’m in the middle of a book it’s hard to remember the original vision, I might be off track, I might need to pull back and see the whole picture. I used to never finish my pieces of writing. They sat abandoned in drawers. I was afraid to keep going, I was afraid of failure, I would lose sight of what the final picture was supposed to look like. There are so many excuses not to get something done. Time. Kids. Work. Bills. Errands. Blogs. The key to success lies in the step-by-step work, the nitty-gritty, the day-by-day details. Fall in love with your picture, your project, work section by section, work a little every day. Keep the final picture in mind. In the end you’ll have something to be proud of, something worth looking at, and something you can finally take out of the drawer and hold up to the light.
MARY CARTER is a freelance writer and novelist. My Sister’s Voice is her fourth novel with Kensington. Her other works include: She’ll Take It, Accidentally Engaged, Sunnyside Blues, and The Honeymoon House in the best selling anthology Almost Home. She is a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, which is part of the Rochester Institute of Technology. She has just completed A Very Maui Christmas, a new novella for Kensington that will be included in a Christmas of 2010 anthology. She is currently working on a new novel, The Pub Across the Pond, about an American woman who swears off all Irish men only to learn she’s won a pub in Ireland. Readers are welcome to visit her at marycarterbooks.com.
Thank you Mary for guest blogging with me today. I love the correlation you make between writing and needlepoint. You were able to voice for me something I can share with my family as to why I love to needlepoint - you hit it head on! I would have never thought about it in the same vein as writing - makes me see that in a new light also!
Readers - I will be reviewing My Sister's Voice in May - so please come back and read my review!
My Sister's Voice
Publisher/Publication Date: Kensington, May 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0758229205
352 pages
Saturday is the Read-a-thon! Yippee! I am looking forward to a day of reading. It is supposed to be sunny here so I will be able to read in our new 3-season room! We were only able to use it a few times before the weather got too cold last fall, so it still has the new room feel!
Here is a list of books that I get to choose from:
As you can see I am giving myself a pretty big list to choose from. Last year I got bogged down in a book and I don't want that to happen this year! Happy reading everyone!
Last night I got to go to an author reading and meet Elizabeth Berg! She is the author of 18 books and her latest was just being released yesterday. It is called The Last Time I Saw You: A Novel. I am currently reading Home Safe: A Novel and have Joy School on audio to listen to. I purchased a copy of The Last Time I Saw You and had it autographed to give away to one of my readers! That post will come later after I get my pictures uploaded! Needless to say - I had a great night!
This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:
Sparrow Rock by Nate Kenyon Publication date: Apr 27, 2010
Prepare yourself for an unforgettable experience in fear.
They were just a group of high school kids looking for a place to party. They didn’t know the end of the world was coming. Now, alone and trapped below ground, they are being stalked—and the creatures that come to visit them through the dirt and ash are like nothing anyone has ever seen before.
There is a new ruling life form on earth, and six humans are the only remaining prey.
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!
List Price: $6.99
Reading level: Ages 9-12
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers (March 4, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1414325975
ISBN-13: 978-1414325972
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
I hung back at the doorway to the cafeteria of my new supercool British school, Wexburg Academy. Most of the lunch tables were already packed, and the room was buzzing with chatter. The populars, whom I'd secretly nicknamed the Aristocats, commanded an entire table right in the center of the room. Their good looks and posh accents made up the sun around which all other tables orbited. The normal kids were in the second circle, arranged by friends or clubs or activities. The drama table was on the outer edge of the room, and so were the geeks, the nerds, and the punk wannabes--way out there like Neptune, but still planets. Most everyone had a group. I didn't.
Okay, so there was one table with lots of room. The leftovers table. It might as well have been the dark side of the moon.
No way.
I skipped lunch--again--and headed to the library. One of the computers was available and I logged on, desperately hoping for an e-mail from Seattle.
There was an e-mail from my grandmother reminding me to floss because British dentists only cleaned adult teeth.
Spam from Teen Vogue.
An invitation to join the Prince Harry fan club--I opened it and gave it a quick scan. I'd consider it more later.
And . . . one from Jen!
I clicked open the e-mail from my best friend at home--well, it had been my home till a couple of months ago--hoping for a lunch full of juicy news served alongside tasty comments about how she missed me and was planning stuff for my next visit home. I craved something that would take me the whole lunch period to read and respond to and remind me that I did have a place somewhere in this universe.
From: Jen
To: Savannah
Hey, Fortune Cookie, so how's it going? Met the Queen yet? LOL. Sorry I haven't written too much. It's been so busy. Samantha took the position you'd been promised on the newspaper staff. She's brand new, but then again you would have been too. It seemed strange without you at first, but I think she'll do okay--maybe even better than okay. And hey, life has changed for everyone, right? Things are crazy busy at school, home, and church. We hang out a lot more now that a bunch of us are driving. Will write again in a few weeks.
Miss you!
Jen
A few weeks! My lungs filled with air, and I let it out slowly, deflating like a balloon with a slow leak. I poised my hands over the keyboard to write a response but just . . . couldn't. What would I say? It had already been weeks since we'd last e-mailed. Most of my friends texted instead of e-mailing anyway, but texting across the Atlantic Ocean cost way too much. And the truth was . . .
I'd moved, and they'd moved on.
I logged off the computer and sat there for a minute, blinking back tears. Jen hadn't meant to forget me. I was simply out of her orbit now.
I pretended to read Sugar magazine online, but mostly I was staring at the clock, passing the time till I could respectably head to my next class.
Five minutes before class I swung my book bag onto my shoulder and headed down the hall. Someone was stapling flyers to the wall. “Hi, Hazelle.”
“Hullo, Savannah.” She breezed by me, stapling another pink flyer farther down the wall. We had math class together--oh yeah, maths, as the Brits called it--first period. I'd tried to make friends with her; I'd even asked her if she'd like to sit together in lunch, but she'd crisply informed me that she sat at the table with the other members of the newspaper staff.
She didn't bother with small talk now either, but went on stapling down the hall. I glanced at one of the flyers, and one sentence caught my eye right away: Looking for one experienced journalist to join the newspaper staff.
I yanked the flyer off the wall and jammed it into my bag. I was experienced. Wasn't I?
A nub of doubt rose inside me--the kind that popped up, unwelcome, anytime I tried to rationalize something that wasn't exactly true or right.
This time I swallowed it back. I thought back to Jen's e-mail that kind of felt like a polite dismissal. I lived in London now.
Title: Asking for Trouble Author: Sandra Byrd Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
My synopsis/review: Savannah and her family have just moved outside of London. She is in high school and has to try to make new friends, new activities, and her family have to find a new church.
Savannah, or Savvy as her family calls her, was set to be a reporter for her school paper back home. This would have been her first year on the paper, but her freshman English teacher highly recommended her. Unfortunately it is not that easy to get on the paper at Wexler Academy - her new high school. It isn't even easy to make friends. Then a position opens up on the paper.
Savvy fibs a little by saying she has experience, but after Jack, the editor, gives her a shot, she fesses up that this was to be her first year. He is not willing to take the chance on her, as the paper is floundering, but because she is desperate to be a part of something she agrees to deliver the papers around school. Not really the job that she wants, but she hopes she can make it work for her.
After a little "investigative reporting" she discovers that the students are looking for something a little more on their level and not so "academic". After some brainstorming, she comes up with the idea of an advice column. She suggests it to Jack and the newspaper team decide to go for it.
Through a writing contest, Savvy wins the opportunity to be the writer of the column. This is kept a secret in case her American way of writing isn't suitable for the British students. She prays that God will give her wisdom to do a good job. She soon realizes that God is going to make her "live and learn" the questions and answers that she is expected to answer.
This book is being marketed to ages 9-12. I think that is appropriate even though Savvy is a little older than that. It has some good lessons and some good Scripture references. Savvy realizes that she has pushed God away when they moved - and that when she is at her loneliest is when she needs Him the most.
I am definitely going to recommend this one to my nieces.
~I was provided this book for review for a First Wild Card Tour by Tyndale.~
Asking for Trouble
Publisher/Publication Date: Tyndale House Publishers, Mar 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4143-2597-2
272 pages
Age recommended: 9-12 years
Beautiful, bold, and bad, Pam Grier burst onto the movie scene in the 1970s, setting the screen on fire and forever changing the country's view of African American actresses. With a killer attitude and body to match, Grier became the ultimate fantasy of men everywhere. But she quickly proved that she was more than just a desirable film goddess. She had the brains, courage, and tenacity to sustain a career that would span more than 30 years. In FOXY, she chronicles the good, bad, and steamy highlights in her life and career.
GIVEAWAY!!
I have three copies of Foxy to giveaway courtesy of Hachette Books.
For your first entry (MUST DO THIS ONE FOR ANY OTHER ENTRIES TO COUNT) tell me what you remember most from the 70's - or, if you weren't alive then - tell me anything you know about the 70's! Oh - and leave your email address.
For additional entries you can sign up to follow through google friends (old followers let me know), Twitter or post it on your blog. Each entry must have it's own comment. (Four entries total.)
This giveaway is for U.S./Canada only - no PO boxes and will end Apr 20!
TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:
Grab your current read.
Let the book fall open to a random page.
Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you have given! Please avoid spoilers!
But then I see Alex and Julie together, talking quietly, playing chess, and I know that if people had seen Matt with Jon or me, pre-Syl Matt, that is, they would have fallen in love with us the way Dad has with Alex and Julie. If it had been Matt and Jon and me and we didn't have any parents, any family except each other, and people had reached out, included us in their families, it would have meant everything to us. (This World We Live In by Susan Beth Pfeffer, p117)
This World We Live In
Publisher/Publication Date: Apr 1, 2010, Harcourt Children's Books
ISBN: 978-0547248042
256 pages
Title: The Bride Collector Author: Ted Dekker Publisher: Center Street/Hachette Books
My synopsis/thoughts: We meet Brad Raines, FBI agent, and his partner Nikki after the serial killer takes his fourth victim. All have been beautiful women, left behind with only a bridal veil - hence the serial killer has been dubbed The Bride Collector. With the fourth victim, however, comes a note that gives Brad his first glimpse of what the killer is really like. This note leads them to the Center for Wellbeing and Intelligence.
This Center is home to mentally ill patients who are also highly gifted individuals. There we meet a group of patients who Brad calls on to give him a different aspect of his killer. Paradise is a young girl - schizophrenic and agoraphobic - who appears to have the ability to see someone's last moments if she touches their dead body. Roudy has a brilliant mind that works at a much greater pace than anyone's around him. Allison is the ex-nun who facillitates the meeting up of her patients and Brad. She enables us to see the patients for their abilities and not their "illness".
We also meet the killer early on in the book. I love the fact that you don't go through the thriller trying to figure out who is doing the killing - but instead, you get to try to figure out WHY he is killing and how everyone is connected. Especially after the killer starts making it personal with Brad.
I noticed in someone else's review that they brought up that Mr. Dekker is able to write these wonderful thriller's with very graphic portrayals and yet can do so without using any profanity. Well done! I love thrillers, and sometimes feel that the use of profanity is a "lazy" effort to portray "bad" people or situations. (Ok - I feel the wrath of some authors coming on here - and no, I am not a writer so this is just MHO.) I can still remember a poster from my highschool English class (and we are going back a ways here!) that said something to the effect "Profanity is a strong effort of a weak mind to express itself forcefully." I will get off my soapbox now...
I'll just finish by saying I loved this book. Highly recommend it - and can't wait to read another my Ted Dekker. I actually have Burn smoldering in my TBR pile!
The Bride Collector is not due out until April 13 - but if you preorder - you can receive a free PDF of Ted Dekker's first unpublished novel.
What are you reading on Mondays is now being hosted bySheila at One Person's Journey - You can hook up with the Mr. Linky there with your own post - but be sure and let me know what you are reading too!
Don't forget to check out all the giveaways in my right sidebar - especially my Big Birthday Bash!
2. This World We Live In (The Last Survivors, Book 3)by Susan Beth Pfeffer - I am reading this through Net Galley and actually had forgotten about it. I saw someone else's review and knew I had to get back to it. I loved the first 2 books in this series!
1. Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1) by Stephanie Meyer- Back to the grind of driving to school tomorrow so will be able to start listening to this again!
So, even though today was a little chilly - and we ended up getting some thunderstorms tonight - earlier this week we hit an unseasonably warm 80 degrees. This is what happens to chocolate bunnies hidden in cars when that happens:
But - thankfully we had other goodies to fill the space left by these bunnies! And we ended the day with some real eggheads!
Update! Just added new books to my Birthday Bash Giveaway - If you haven't entered yet, there is still time. Enter here. There are still more books to come!
. I am currently reading 
and have 
on audio to listen to. I purchased a copy of The Last Time I Saw You and had it autographed to give away to one of my readers! That post will come later after I get my pictures uploaded! Needless to say - I had a great night!
by Anthony DeStefano
by Sandra Byrd
by Libby Malin - Watch for an interview with Libby this week also.
by Chloe Rhodes
by Lauren Oliver
by Ginger Garret
by Kristen Richburg
by Ted Dekker
